You will not be surprised to find an article on ISAs (Individual Savings Accounts) from AUTIF, the trade body of the Unit Trust Industry. ISAs are to replace PEPs in April 1999.

For a Government that prides itself in being a listening Government, they really have shot themselves firmly in the foot. They have succeeded in alienating the 'middle England' voters on whom they relied so much for their election victory in May. We can therefore expect concessions when the Chancellor stands up to deliver his Budget speech in April the most important of which will likely be an increase in the £50,000 limit which savers will be allowed to put into an ISA.

We are also pleased to welcome Peter Temple as one of our new contributors to Tr@cker Magazine. Having spent nearly 20 years as a fund manager and investment analyst, he is now a full time writer and journalist. He believes that the Internet empowers private investors with access to more, better and faster information. No longer are they reliant as they have been in the past on stockbrokers since everyone has instantaneous access to the same market information via the internet.

We are also pleased to continue the series of articles from Forsyth Partners on asset allocation modelling. Professional investors who manage money on an international basis (such as managers of pension funds, life assurance funds, unit and investment trusts) are virtually unanimous in their belief that asset allocation adds more value to returns than does stock picking. This means getting the right mix and balance of equities, bonds and cash rather than picking the star performing companies whose share prices may sky rocket in the short term. Forsyth Partners are well placed to write on this topic through their research and analysis of the world's leading fund groups

We would like to take this opportunity of wishing all our readers and investors in netPEP a Happy Christmas and a very Prosperous New Year.

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