Looking for certainty in an uncertain world? Try a 10-year fixed-rate mortgage

Although a few uncertainties have been removed from the political landscape in recent days – hail Empress Regnant Theresa May – it would be a mistake to think that normality has now returned to the financial world. Far from it. Uncertainty rules.

Sterling still treads the low – rather than the high – paths while the outlook for the economy remains at best fragile. The UK stock market may have risen like a phoenix and soared – eagle like – to an eleven month high with May’s imminent arrival at Number 10 but it still remains prone to ‘shocks’. Don’t rule out further short sharp corrections before the summer is out (did it ever start?) to send our pensions and ISAs into temporary freefall.

Thursday may see a little electric ‘shock’ treatment administered by Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, with the base rate cut in half to 0.25 per cent in order to stimulate the economy.