The £800,000 cost of a decent retirement

In this week’s episode, Charlene Young is joined by new co-host Sarah Coles alongside Tom Sieber to unpack a busy week across markets, tech and personal finance. With geopolitical tensions continuing to weigh on sentiment, the team looks at whether investors are stuck in a holding pattern or if there are more subtle shifts happening beneath the surface. There’s also a deep dive into the latest surge in AI excitement, from a major potential Anthropic IPO to huge fundraising moves by Google parent Alphabet, with takeover chatter in sectors like aviation and renewables. The new Retirement Living Standards are out, showing how inflation is upping the cost of even a modest lifestyle in retirement. Sarah and Charlene also talk about fresh savings and lending data from the Bank of England, and what’s really happening in the UK housing market. The episode concludes with Dan Coatsworth sitting down with Richard Jeffery, executive chair of Reading based firm ActiveOps to find out how AI is central to what they do. In this episode: Market update: geopolitics, oil and investor sentiment [01:46] AI boom: Anthropic IPO and Alphabet’s $80bn raise [04:06] Company news: EasyJet, Drax and defensive stocks that have disappointed [09:15] Retirement Living Standards: how much you really need [13:56] Savings & borrowing: latest Bank of England data [29:29] Housing market outlook and mortgage trends [31:46] Interview: Richard Jeffery, executive chair of ActiveOps [38:25]