In the early summer weeks before endless football comes along to distract us, at least we have had the prospect of the world economy collapsing amidst a trade war over steel tariffs to keep us occupied.
And the bad news is we can’t even console ourselves on bourbon because the European Union has imposed huge tariffs on it. So as consolation, here is our round-up of the headlines that grabbed your attention in the last seven days.
1) What is a financial adviser?
Rather than being an existential question about the very nature of being, this is something the Financial Conduct Authority has enlightened us on this week.
The regulator published a data bulletin with an array of fun facts about advisers, based on their submissions in the Retail Mediation Activities Return.
For example, restricted advice only accounts for 14 per cent of firms but restricted firms are generating 40 per cent of adviser charges, which indicates that while restricted firms are few and far between, they are disproportionately large.
Meanwhile advice firms saw their total earnings increase by 22 per cent to £4.5bn in 2017 and most firm charge as a percentage of the investment.
On average, across all financial advice firms, professional indemnity insurance premiums were £17,540 - or 1.9 per cent of their revenue.
2) Manager takes issue with his Old Firm
Football manager Walter Smith is suing his former financial advisers for £320,000 over investments made during his time as an English Premier League boss.
The ex-Scotland and Rangers manager launched legal action against Neil Caisley and Gareth Alexander, both of Hertfordshire.
They are former directors at ProVision Financial Consultants, which was dissolved in April 2014.
It is understood the Ibrox legend is suing the pair over a pension fund set up while he was in charge of Everton in the 1990s.
Mr Smith, 70, of Helensburgh, Dunbartonshire, claims the men agreed to return £600,000 they received in commission on "financial products" but only paid him £280,000 of the sum owed.
3) Ae-gonna need a bigger boat
Whatever Aegon is doing to address the problems facing its platform, it needs to do more of it (or maybe consider trying something completely different).
This week Aegon confirmed advisers face significant delays in performing some key transactions for their clients on the provider's platform.
A month ago, on the May Day Bank Holiday weekend, more than 400,000 Cofunds users and £37bn of assets were moved across to the Aegon Platform.
But a month since advisers using Cofunds were shifted across to Aegon's platform, a spokesman for the provider admitted due to significant demand for the fund supermarket there has been an impact on internal processing times that meant timescales detailed in service agreements were not being met.
4) Transfers give consolidator the DB jeebees
It wouldn’t be a week in news without some reference to defined benefit pension transfers, but this week advice firm consolidator AFH said it has seen an increasing number of firms which derive most of their new business from defined benefit transfers, and warned this would act as a "significant flag" against it buying the business.
The company's chief executive, Alan Hudson, said that while there was no set policy against buying firms which had this business model, it would be a concern.
This week AFH also said it would be absorbing the cost associated with its advisers using platforms because Mr Hudson felt it was unreasonable to expect clients to pay for a service which primarily benefits advisers and predicted this would happen across the industry sooner or later.
5) The Magical Disappearing Property Deal
A struck-off financial adviser who conned an investor out of £35,000 in non-existent property deals has been given a suspended jail sentence.
Hasmukh Thakor falsely promised the money would go towards holiday flats in Cyprus and a buy-to-let scheme in Birmingham.
The defendant, who impressed the victim with boasts of wealth and success, merely frittered the cash away – before being made bankrupt the following year with debts of nearly £400,000.
Thakor, 65, of Pennine Close, Oadby, pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud by false representation, in August 2008.
He was given a two-year jail sentence, suspended for two years, and was ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work.
damian.fantato@ft.com
