Markets

The FTSE 100 broke the 5,500 barrier this week, hitting a new low since July 2012. But the price of gold surged past the $1,200 mark, up from the six-year lows recorded in December 2015.

While the markets continued to yo-yo this week, the message from Tilney BestInvest is to ‘Keep calm and carry on’ with five tips for nervous investors, while Axa Wealth explains to readers why we’re not heading for another 2008.

Neil Woodford, one of the best known and best performing fund managers in the UK this week updated investors to let them know he’s sold the remainder of his shares in Royal Mail while adding holdings in the US biotechnology sector. It seems investors may be seeing gold in Japan over its new found willingness to pay dividend income.

ISAs

RateSetter became the first peer-to-peer lender to release details of its Innovative Finance ISA which will be available in April and this was closely followed by Zopa.

However, peer-to-peer lenders made the headlines for other reasons as the industry hit out over a warning by ex-regulator chief Lord Adair Turner who said that the sector faces “losses”.

We took a look at sheltering your savings from the taxman, focusing on the pros and cons of ISAs and pensions while listing six funds picks for your ISA. ISAs provide savers with a tax-free wrapper, but with research showing that  900,000 higher and additional rate taxpayers are missing out on more than £200m a year by failing to claim pension tax relief, a new website – Tax Reliefs has launched to help people reclaim their money.

We also feature seven ISA mistakes and how to avoid them, plus seven reasons to use your ISA allowance.

Utilities

It’s been a week of ups and downs as Npower announced it would cut gas bills by an average of 5.2% (£32) and this was closely followed by British Gas and EDF Energy that announced £32/year savings for customer gas bills too.

However, water bills will increase by just less than 1% (£2) in England and Wales from 1 April to an average of £389/year.

Housing

The average mortgage fee has crept up to £956 and lending’s rocketed as buy-to-let boosts the market. For those who are yet to get on the property ladder, the lifetime cost of renting tops £50k.