Freetrade

Finland is the happiest country in the world. Again. Bravo, Finns. Iceland and Denmark round out the top three, while Costa Rica has climbed to fourth, the highest position ever achieved by a Latin American country. Sweden and Norway make five Nordic countries in the top six, with the Netherlands, Israel, Luxembourg, and Switzerland completing the top ten in the 2026 World Happiness Report.

Pete lives in London after spending several years in Serbia and Switzerland. He first started investing more than 20 years ago while studying, when buying shares meant visiting a bank branch, filling out paperwork, and paying a sizeable commission. After trying several traditional platforms, he discovered Freetrade during Covid. ‍ Q: How did your investing journey begin? A: I bought my first shares while I was at Cardiff University.

Mashood lives in West London, and works in enterprise sales. He started investing with Freetrade during the pandemic. Having invested through more traditional, telephone-based brokers in the past, today he uses Freetrade across several accounts and sees investing as a practical way to build greater financial security. ‍ Q: What first attracted you to Freetrade? A: I have always invested because I want my money to be working for me, but there has never been an easier way to do it.

Ricardo lives in London and works in market research, specialising in pricing studies. With a background in economics and business administration, he was familiar with the theory of investing but remained cautious about putting his own money at risk. Rising inflation encouraged him to reconsider that approach. Today, he invests regularly through Freetrade and sees it as a way to protect the value of his money and build greater financial security. ‍ Q: What first prompted you to start investing?

Daniel lives in Manchester and works for the city council. He first experimented with investing many years ago but, during Covid, he decided he wanted to build up more financial security and discovered Freetrade. ‍ Q: What prompted you to start investing again? A: During Covid, I decided I needed to try to get some money behind me. I read about Freetrade, downloaded the app, and started with one share in British American Tobacco after my father suggested it.

In 431 BC, Athens and Sparta went to war. Sparta dominated the Greek world, but feared its reign would soon end. Athens was richer and increasingly powerful. Athenian historian Thucydides later claimed “the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta” made war inevitable. Nearly two-and-a-half-thousand years later, that same dynamic may now be playing out between our world’s two most powerful nations, China and the United States.

For decades, property was the path to wealth creation for Korean households. But after rapid urbanisation pushed up the value of homes, younger Koreans began to look elsewhere for financial security. Armed with cheap trading apps, a generation of Koreans turned to shares instead. South Korea has a nickname for its army of retail investors: the Ants (Gaemi). Individually, their holdings may be small. Collectively, they can move markets.

This tool gives you an idea of the return you could earn over the lifetime of a gilt, assuming you hold it to maturity. Here’s how to use the Gilts return calculator: Select the gilt you’re considering investing in from the dropdown list. Enter the current market price. You check this in your Freetrade app or by clicking 'Check live price'. Enter the amount of cash you’re thinking of investing in the gilt.

Over the past decade, metro mayors have taken control of transport, housing, skills, and regeneration across some of England’s largest urban economies. Yet more regional powers may be on the way. Prime Minister Andy Burnham wants to wrest more power from Whitehall, with the biggest economic powers sitting at the city region level. But without the ability to tax ‘n’ spend, mayors will remain wedded to Westminster.

Money isn’t wealth. Money measures wealth. It’s a social technology, a shared belief. For your labour, you are paid in ‘claim checks’ (currency) that you can exchange for someone else's labour or goods. What changes is the value of the claim check. If the supply of money rises much faster than the pool of goods, services, and labour, each unit of currency can represent a smaller slice of what’s actually produced.