January opened with the USA economy – if not the whole world – having been saved from tumbling over the Fiscal Cliff thanks to a last minute deal between Barack Obama and the US Congress.

Around 50% of us make New Year’s Resolutions and ‘sort the finances out’ must be one of the most popular: but that’s a little vague – it’s more a wish than a firm commitment to take action.

Christmas is over for another year, which means it’s not long – hopefully – before the first signs of Spring appear and we start to turn our attention to the end of the financial year. For many investors and savers this means making sure they contribute to an Individual Savings Account (or ISA, as they’re more popularly known).

When you look ahead to 2013, your glass could be half full or half empty. In the UK the lights have just gone out in the last Comet store. And yet Nissan are pumping £250m into Sunderland to build a luxury small car and create hundreds of jobs.

December’s least surprising headline duly arrived on January 1st: Deal reached on Fiscal Cliff. For the whole of December (barely pausing for Christmas) President Obama and Congress argued over the deal needed to avoid the ‘Fiscal Cliff,’ the raft of tax rises that would have been a body blow to Middle America and impacted severely on the US economy and – by implication – the wider world economy.