A rise in capital gains tax would cause "unfair financial hardship" for prudent long-term savers, one of the world's biggest investment firms has warned. The Government confirmed in the Queen's Speech on Tuesday that it planned to increase CGT on non-business assets from its present rate of 18 per cent to "closer to income tax" levels, possibly to 40 or even 50 per cent.

My wife was trying to sleep and she's waking up and saying "What's wrong with you?" What could I tell her, that I was cracking up over a financial book? ---I've got to tell you, there were times when I had some of the best laughs I can remember in recent memory, like when you're telling the accountant you can save him taxes by not paying his fees.

Today's obsession with short-term blinks of the investment eye is Wall Street's attempt to take the market cycle out of the performance picture. Similarly, total return hocus-pocus places artificial significance on bond market values while it obscures the importance of the income produced. WCM users will have none of it; the investment gods are angry.