The rate tart's art faces extinction

Being a master at poker isn't the only way to make money playing cards these days - you can also try your hand at "the credit-card game", advised Andrew Stuart in Your Money (July/August). The rules are simple and involve constantly switching credit-card providers "in order to get the best deals and lowest rates available on plastic".

The practice, dubbed "rate tarting" by disapproving credit-card companies, costs the credit-card industry an estimated £1bn a year, Stuart wrote. It's no surprise, then, that measures are finally being taken to discourage "rate tarts". Increasing numbers of credit-card providers, for instance, have introduced a "one-off balance transfer fee" and those enticing "introductory 0% interest rates" - once a staple feature of credit cards to attract new customers - are getting harder to find, too. "The art of rate tarting is to always keep an eye on what's on offer," one practitioner explained. "Make sure you do switch cards ... Never get hung up on loyalty, and don't be lazy, as they will both end up costing you money."

Once you've switched credit cards, you could do worse than put any money you've saved into an ethical investment fund, wrote Justin Urquhart Stewart in Bloomberg Money (July). So-called "socially responsible" funds invest money outside the FTSE 100 index, because it is so "dominated by drug companies and oil giants, as well as banks and booze companies".

Ethical funds have become very popular in Britain, but investors don't choose them for their green credentials alone. The FTSE 250 index and utility companies that form the bulk of so many "ethical structures" have produced an "excellent income" recently, easily outperforming the FTSE 100 giants. The main problem with ethical investing, though, is "one of definition", Stewart conceded: "What you may think is green may turn out to be grey in someone else's eyes."

"Unusually great" invest ment opportunities also exist in the emerging markets sector, reckoned Barry Riley in Money Observer (July). "A huge shift in economic power is taking place towards China [and] India," Riley wrote, and "many investors are dabbling in the nascent stock markets of ... eastern European countries," too.

Emerging markets don't suit those with a "nervous disposition", though, Riley warned. Latin America "has lured eldorado-chasing foreign investors for at least 200 years, but it has proved persistently disappointing". Even China, which boasts one of the world's fastest-growing economies, has seen its stock market fall by 30% in the first half of the year, thus frustating even the most seasoned investor. It is probably best to give emerging markets a wide berth altogether when you overhear other people talking up a sector's merits, Riley wrote. "It is usually unprofitable to follow the crowd, because the herd nearly always gets its timing badly wrong."

With all this investing going on, Britons are "clearly better off" today than they were in the "brash 1980s", wrote Rob Griffin in Moneywise (July). The "total net worth of all UK households", for instance, has managed "an astonishing rise of 88%" since 1987. So why are so many of us worried about money?

"Tax is a major culprit, particularly the so-called stealth-tax hikes such as soaring council-tax bills and the increase in national insurance contributions," Griffin said. Utility bills, too, are going up: "Gas costs rose 11% last year and the the price of electricity increased by 8.8%." Most worrying of all, though, is that Britons' debt levels - including mortgages, loans and credit cards - reached £1 trillion for the first time last year - "the equivalent of every man, woman and child owing £17,000 each". Wealth, Griffin, wrote, isn't just about "what we own"; it depends on how we feel and "what we expect to happen in the near future".