Indholdsfortegnelse for Issue 1255 i MoneyWeek

“That’s all very well in practice, but what about the theory?” Investors have been grappling with this question for some time. They can see that America is serious about tariffs, prompting a slump in equities and widespread fears of a global recession (see page 4). World trade, the value of which rose 4,500% between 1950 and 2022, is going into reverse, and there has been a sea change in America’s economic outlook on a par with the shift from the Keynesian consensus to market liberalism in the 1980s. But what is the endgame? As Stuart explains on page 22, the US intends to tackle a problem that has built up over decades: the extent to which other counties hoard US Treasuries has driven up the greenback’s value, hollowed out manufacturing,…

“In February, Bain Capital… from Boston offered £1.1bn for the [UK] listed Chemring, which makes missile defence systems in Hampshire… In a world of new uncertainties, we can’t afford to let the brightest of our smaller defence companies fall… into unreliable foreign hands… In drone technology… we have dozens of promising start-ups… But [they] will suffer from the chronic British shortage of available risk-capital, compounded by lingering ‘ESG’… considerations… So here’s my suggestion. The chancellor says she’s looking at reforms to… individual savings accounts [Isas]… The idea of pushing Isa money towards UK equities generally has so far fallen on stony ground, but how about an additional £5,000-a-year allowance to be invested in… funds holding stakes in public and private UK defence companies: the patriotic Rearmament Isa.” Martin Vander Weyer,…

Raspberry Pi has offered a “glimmer of hope” to investors that it can “regain momentum” after last June’s “blockbuster listing”, says Emily Hawkins in This is Money. It has issued a “bullish update” in which it said sales picked up at the end of last year. CEO Eben Upton did admit that the firm, which designs products to make computer servers or games consoles, had “struggled” with sales in recent months after the semiconductor industry was affected by supply shortages. However, he is now “confident” that there will be “gradual improvements” in the supply chain in 2025. Raspberry Pi’s maiden full-year results as a public company were certainly “respectable enough”, says AJ Bell’s Russ Mould. That it has “consistently hit the goals it set out” when it listed has helped…

Gold producers are in clover, says WirtschaftsWoche. With the yellow metal trading at $3,000 an ounce, the ten biggest miners make, on average, $1,000 of pre-tax profit on every ounce they produce. The world’s eighth-biggest gold miner is Kinross Gold, which runs six mines in North and South America as well as east Africa. In its latest business year the group achieved a free cash-flow margin of more than 26% and a free cash-flow yield of 8.4%. That is a record for the group, but it also shows that the stock remains a bargain despite doubling since early 2024. The group has paid down much of its debt and should have spare cash on the balance sheet this year. Kinross is a Canadian cash machine.…

Is it possible? In 1964, Nasa’s uncrewed Mariner 4 spacecraft made its first successful fly-by of Mars. Then, in July 1976, a craft (Viking 1) made the first successful landing on its surface. In the half century since, many similar missions have been accomplished and some have failed. But as yet, no crewed mission has been attempted. Various visionaries have long wanted to change that. The late Stephen Hawking is one. SpaceX’s Elon Musk famously has Mars in his sights. But plenty of sceptics – including eminent astrophysicists such as Martin Rees – believe that, while sending humans to Mars might well be possible, actually living there will be a far bigger challenge. What’s Mars like? Mars is the most similar planet to Earth, but there are no seas and…

“Bull markets don’t die of old age – they’re murdered by the Fed,” is a lazy adage, but it sums up the cheap-money junkie mindset that takes hold in the final stages of a bubble. It may now deserve a prominent footnote: “except for 2020-2025, bludgeoned to death by Donald Trump in the Oval Office with an (unread) copy of The World in Depression”. I do not pretend to have any useful forecasts for how this will end. Everything is unpredictable given the geopolitical back and forth, the huge volatility in stocks and the way that supposedly safe assets like long-term government bonds are now wobbling, much sooner than I thought could possibly happen when we tilted the MoneyWeek portfolio to short-term bonds a few weeks ago. Within the most…

We first added Mid Wynd International (LSE: MWY) to the MoneyWeek investment trust portfolio in May 2020, almost five years ago. We liked its exposure to international stocks in the form of quality-growth compounders and we felt this complemented the riskier, high-growth approach preferred by Scottish Mortgage (LSE: SMT). However, over the past few years Mid Wynd has started to struggle, as Max discussed in issue 1252. Towards the end of 2023 veteran manager Simon Edelstein retired from Artemis, which then had the mandate, and the board decided to transfer responsibilities for the trust to Lazard. The Lazard team quickly replaced all but two holdings in the portfolio. We have been watching progress closely since then and while we were initially optimistic, it’s clear that these decisions have not delivered…

China spies an opportunity Martin WolfFinancial Times Donald Trump’s upending of decades of US policy consensus rings a bell in Beijing, says Martin Wolf. China’s leadership is reminded of Mao Zedong’s 1966-1976 cultural revolution. Much like Mao, Trump is using his personal charisma to “wage war” on his country’s “bureaucratic and cultural elites”. The chaos of the cultural revolution damaged China’s global position. Similarly, Beijing’s policy elite thinks that China has much to gain from Trump’s “onslaught”, which is “destroying” global perceptions of US “credibility” and “competence”. A man who wants to “demolish the Canadian economy” cannot be trusted as a reliable friend to anyone, so America’s global alliances are fragile. From East Asia to Europe, erstwhile US partners will seek better relations with China to counterbalance Trump. True, China…

conservativehome.com Fiona Bruce, the presenter of BBC’s Question Time, came under fire recently for asking a simple question, says Alexander Bowen. If a wealth tax, proposed by activists concerned about inequality, is such a good idea, why hasn’t it worked anywhere it’s been tried? (See also page 20.) “Cue interminable reiterations of essentially the same point” in reply: Switzerland has one, and it’s “super successful”. Why wouldn’t we want to emulate Switzerland? But Bruce had it right. Switzerland is unique in taking a substantial share of revenue (4%) in the form of a wealth tax. But this ignores the context. First, Switzerland is simply a much nicer place for a wealthy person to live than pretty much anywhere else. And second, it has much less in the way of other…

The UK isn’t a great place to have a high income. Or even a highish income. Our tax system is firmly progressive – and from pretty low levels. If you’ve been to university and have a student loan you can find yourself paying an effective marginal tax rate of 37% by the time you earn more than £25,000. And even if you don’t, you pay 28% tax from just £12,584 (including national insurance, an income tax by any other name). Then there are the horrors of the £100,000 milestone. Once you pass that income threshold you start to lose your measly personal allowance, whereby you normally pay no income tax below earnings of £12,500. Worse, if you have children, you start to lose your childcare allowance, too. For high-earning families…

Most of the attention on the SEIS focuses on the investment opportunity, but it is also important for entrepreneurs to recognise the potential to use the scheme to fund their growth plans. “The SEIS has become a vital engine for the UK’s start-up economy,” says Matt Cooper of Crowdcube, which has helped SEIS-eligible businesses raise £68m in recent years. “For founders, it unlocks much-needed capital in the earliest and most critical stages – helping them to grow, attract talent and to build great products.” Eligible companies can raise up to £250,000 from the SEIS – and may then be able to raise additional funding from the EIS. Funding must be spent within three years of raising it and is meant to be used for business growth and development. The rules…

The annual cost of childcare has fallen for the first time in 15 years. A part-time nursery place for an under-two in England now costs 56% less than it did a year ago, Coram Family & Childcare’s annual childcare report shows. Since September 2024, parents have been able to access 15 hours of government-funded childcare once their child turns nine months old. As a result, they are now shelling out £70.51 per week on average for a part-time place, down from £159.61 a year ago. However, families in Scotland and Wales are not enjoying the same savings. The policy was only rolled out in England. An equivalent place now costs £122.38 per week in Scotland and £155.04 per week in Wales; Scots are paying 7% more than a year ago…

Should your pension scheme’s investment managers be allowed to consider climate-change issues when investing your savings, or should they focus only on financial returns? The legal position on this question remains unclear, with different advisers taking varying views on how the “fiduciary duty” responsibilities of pension-scheme trustees should be interpreted. That has prompted ShareAction, a group that advocates for pension schemes to use their investment power to influence corporate behaviour, to urge the government to set out the law more explicitly. It believes many schemes are still being told that fiduciary duty means focusing on short-term financial returns, rather than taking long-term factors into account. In the short term, for example, an investment in the oil sector might produce strong returns. In the long term, funding the oil sector could…

How Not to Invest The Ideas, Numbers and Behaviours that Destroy Wealth – And How to Avoid Them Barry RitholtzHarriman House, £14.99 Private investors get consistently lower returns than they could have had by buying a simple index-tracking fund. This isn’t because the financial system is “rigged”, or the professionals are particularly clever, but simply because individuals are far more prone to making unnecessary errors that eat into their returns, such as paying too much in fees. Over time these errors can dramatically erode your performance in a way that would be impossible for even a brilliant stock-picker or market-timer to overcome. Wealth manager Barry Ritholtz argues that just as the best way for amateur sportspeople to improve their game is to cut down the number of unforced errors, the…

We write from onboard the Queen Mary II. The ship left Brooklyn and made its way up to the northeast, following the coast of North America, up past Maine, past Nova Scotia, and then past Newfoundland towards Greenland. A friend sent us a map showing just how busy these shipping lanes are. Even with the latest meteorological and safety technology, things still go wrong. Imagine what would happen if the authorities responsible were replaced with teams of amateurs led by ambitious incompetents and loudmouth show-offs! Last week saw the arrival of Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day”. Since World War II, more people have been rescued from poverty than in any other period in human history. The doctrine of free trade helped make it possible. But now we have a policy of…

High demand and low availability of festival tickets, triggered by FOMO (fear of missing out), have created a “perfect storm” for scammers, says Rupert Jones in The Guardian. One in four Britons has fallen victim to a ticket scam involving a coveted event and lost £82 on average, according to Nationwide Building Society’s analysis. Taylor Swift’s British fans lost over £1m before her tour even started, while fans of Oasis lost an average of £346 each. When offered tickets that are in high demand, and are “cheap, or even just available, fans can easily lose control of their senses as their hearts rule their heads”, says Jim Winters, Nationwide’s director of economic crime. Potentially millions of fans are preparing for a resale of cancelled or returned tickets for Glastonbury, which…

Southeast Asia is poised to be the “hardest-hit region” from Trump’s trade war, with Vietnam “the biggest loser”, says Trinh Nguyen in Nikkei Asia. The imposition of a 46% tariff on the country, which runs a $123bn trade surplus with the US, is especially severe. Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Indonesia were all hit with duties of more than 30%. Trump’s core grievance is with trade deficits, leaving developing Asia with little leverage for talks. Their consumers are too poor to buy lots more US goods. Nations also can’t offer to cut off China in return for a better deal with Washington, as they are deeply embedded in Chinese supply chains. Vietnamese stocks dropped 7% after the tariffs, their biggest daily fall in over 20 years, says The Economist. Vietnam had…

Oil prices have fallen to a four-year low as traders price in weaker global growth and the Opec+ cartel raises output. Brent crude was trading at around $61 a barrel early this week, down by 33% over the past year, including a near-20% plunge since Donald Trump’s tariff announcement last week. A surprise Opec+ move to raise output by 411,000 barrels a day from next month reflects a Saudi desire to punish alleged quota “cheaters” such as Kazakhstan and Iraq, says Javier Blas on Bloomberg. From the 1997 Asian crisis to the 2020 lockdowns, history shows that the combination of “extra production” and “slowing economies” hurts crude. “We are far from the oil market’s bottom.”…

The “business Vikings” Lýdur and Ágúst Gudmundsson have agreed to merge their company, ready-meals maker Bakkavor, with sandwich group and rival Greencore, says Joanna Partridge in The Guardian. Greencore will control 56% of the new company, a “£4bn food-to-go giant”. The tie-up will see Bakkavor’s shareholders receive 85p in cash for each share, as well as 0.6 Greencore shares. It values Bakkavor, which makes 85% of its revenues from British supermarkets, at £1.2bn, a premium of 32.5% to the share price in mid-March. This deal has been “yonks in the making”, says Alistair Osborne in The Times. In 2008 the duo acquired an 11% stake in Greencore, which has headquarters in Dublin, only to be forced to sell amid the “turmoil” of the financial crisis. Since then, a “tie-up between…

Tata Capital is planning to list on Mumbai’s National Stock Exchange in what could be India’s biggest initial public offering (IPO) this year, says The Times of India. The financial services unit of Tata Group, India’s largest conglomerate, could raise up to $2bn from the listing. Tata Capital will issue up to 230 million shares, comprising both new ones and stock sold by existing shareholders. The last public debut by a Tata Group company was Tata Technologies in 2023. Tata Capital has over 900 branches across India, providing personal and home loans, business finance, microfinance, private equity, and credit-card services.…

Even by the standards of corporate announcements, BP’s latest update was remarkably vague. The long-suffering shareholders in one of the UK’s biggest global companies might think it matters quite a bit who will be chairing their firm, yet the oil major does not seem to believe that the details are a big deal. While Helge Lund is going to be stepping down, the exact time of his exit will simply be “in due course” and “most likely during 2026”, according to a statement last week. Still, activist investors led by the hyper-aggressive Elliott Management – which has built up a stake of nearly 5% in BP – will be relieved to hear that Lund is on the way out. Along with others, they have been pushing for far-reaching changes at…

In weightlifting, a barbell is a long and relatively light metal bar to which heavy weights are attached at both ends. Similarly, a barbell investment strategy means weighting a portfolio towards the two extreme ends of an asset class with nothing in the middle. This generally means the investor ends up with a combination of lower-risk, lower-return and high-risk, higher-return holdings. Unlike a real barbell, the amount invested at each end of the portfolio isn’t necessarily the same. For example, you might have 80% in safer assets and 20% in riskier assets, depending on what will produce the best balance of risk and return. The traditional use of the barbell approach is in bond investing. A bond barbell consists of very short-term bonds (which offer lower yields, but will mature…

Elliott Management is ramping up its campaign against Phillips 66 as it pushes the US oil firm to improve performance, sell assets and overhaul corporate governance. The activist hedge fund has nominated four candidates for the board, including two former executives from ConocoPhillips – from which Phillips 66 spun out in 2012 – ahead of a vote on 21 May. Elliott, which holds a $2.5bn stake (about 5.7%), argues that “sweeping changes” are needed following a 38% decline in the share price over the past year. It wants the firm to sell its midstream arm (transport, storage and processing), its European retail operations and its chemicals joint venture, and to ditch its staggered board elections, so all directors face re-election each year.…

“Growing up poor gave me a great respect for people. I know what it’s like to have hard times. I’ve been there… I would like to see other wealthy people try to treat people a little better. If I see a need and I feel like I can fill it, I try to do that. A lot of people just do it [donate money] for tax write-offs. I will always be guided by my heart and put my money where my heart is.” Dolly Parton (pictured), quoted in The Times “Turns out Le Pen is not mightier than the fraud.” Comedian Paul Sinha, quoted on X “It’s interesting when you’re in the public eye, people think you earn loads and loads of money – they really do think you have…

theconversation.com Younger generations today have been lambasted for being lazy, says Katrien Devolder. But what is behind the claim? The judgement seems to be that “you could achieve more if you tried harder”. But that’s true of almost all of us most of the time. Doing less than your role requires because you can’t be bothered is one thing. But spending the weekend doing little so you’re ready for the week ahead, or limiting how hard you try to manage a chronic health condition, is another. Only the first deserves an accusation of laziness. What’s important is not how hard we try, but “whether our efforts efficiently achieve what’s important to us”. If you resist pointless tasks to create time for deep thinking, for example, that’s hardly laziness, just a…

The consensus among mainstream economists and policymakers is that tariffs are bad for the economy and ultimately self-defeating. Slapping charges on imports to make them more expensive and thus protect industries at home leads to economic inefficiencies, reduced competition and hence innovation, a higher cost for imported goods, which leads to price rises for consumers, and sparks retaliatory tariffs from other countries that harm exporters and fuel counterproductive trade wars. But if that is all so obvious to everyone, then why is Donald Trump’s administration in the US so determinedly beating a path in the opposite direction? What is Trump thinking? A profound shift It is to be hoped that he is in fact thinking for there is a lot at stake, as that bastion of right-thinking, The Economist, explains.…

● The revamped British Airways loyalty scheme hasn’t gone down well with customers, writes Ruth Jackson-Kirby. It launched last week, but without BA “publishing full details of how travellers can earn points, confusing and irritating customers”, says Jamie John in the Financial Times. In December when the changes were announced the airline promised customers they would be able to earn 2,500 tier points by using their BA Premium Plus American Express cards. More details were promised closer to the launch date. Now the launch has happened “without any further information on how to earn tier points from Amex spending, sparking confusion among frequent flyers”. Tier points allow frequent flyers to move up through the loyalty-scheme levels, securing more perks as they progress towards “Gold status”. The revamp means earning tier…

● Could pension savers become victims of the government’s drive for economic growth? Chancellor Rachel Reeves has asked regulators to consider whether red tape is preventing firms such as pension providers investing more aggressively, prompting reviews of redress schemes such as the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). Now, firms appear to be lobbying for the FOS to take a less aggressive line – by pulling back from automatically regarding advice to leave a final-salary pension scheme as poor, for instance. Consumers’ groups say less scrutiny of the sector could bode ill. ● Almost one in five Britons will have to depend on state-pension benefits in retirement because they have no private savings. That includes many older people. Wealth manager St. James’s Place has found 28% of 65- to 75-year-olds have only…

Two decades ago, “swaggering hedge-fund managers, leveraged buy-out kings and corporate raiders” were the “masters of the Wall Street universe”, says Bloomberg. Today, “another corner of finance has become a billionaire factory” – private credit. This “decidedly less glamorous” business of making loans directly to companies, often to the small and medium-sized ones that have been squeezed out of bond markets and are deemed too risky for banks, has been booming. In just a decade, its assets have tripled to $1.6trn. The world’s biggest investment firms, including BlackRock, have been snapping up such “credit shops”, in the process creating “unimaginable wealth” for their founders. Bloomberg says the 18 top beneficiaries are together worth $61bn. Tony Ressler (pictured) of Ares is the No. 1 spot, with a net worth of $13.8bn.…

2021 Langhe Nebbiolo, Curto Marco di Nadia Curto, Piemonte, Italy £32.95, robertrolls.com – Curto wines distributor I have published an annual “Piemonte Report” for a decade, and my latest edition runs to 175,000 words of tasting notes. It’s fair to say I take this region very seriously. Over the last few weeks, you will have seen dozens of 2021 Barolo and 2022 Barbaresco offers plopping into your inbox, and it’s hard to know where to start. The other day, I met Nadia Curto, a new name to me and an estate that will join my Report later this year. Her wines are mesmerising, balanced and uncommonly harmonious. They are also superb value, a critical component of any serious wine purchase. My featured nebbiolo is made using half stainless steel and…

Who is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service Michael Lewis Allen Lane, £25 It’s not exactly a great time to be working in the public sector. Javier Milei has taken his “chainsaw” to government departments in Argentina. Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) is gutting entire US agencies. In this country, prime minister Keir Starmer and chancellor Rachel Reeves are talking about getting rid of large numbers of civil servants. This is all probably a necessary correction – there are surely some parts of the bloated state that could do with being put on a diet. Yet “state capacity”, the ability of the state to get things done, is an essential ingredient in economic success and there are plenty of public servants who do an excellent job. In…

“The post-World War II… world economic order” is finished, says Reshma Kapadia in Barron’s. On Wednesday sweeping US import charges on most countries in the world came into effect, including tariffs of 20% on the EU and 104% in the case of China. As during the pandemic, ultra-efficient global supply chains are being disrupted, raising inflationary pressure. The latest tariffs, which Donald Trump unveiled last week in an event dubbed “Liberation Day”, take the average US tariff rate from 2.5% last year to 22% now, according to calculations by Fitch Ratings. That is the highest level since 1910. Wall Street blew it Investors have gone into tariff shock. The US S&P 500 dropped 12% in the four trading days following last week’s tariff announcement. Down 18% since Trump’s inauguration, American…

Online payments provider and buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) lender Klarna has become “the latest... casualty” in the initial public offering (IPO) market following the announcement on tariffs, say Ben Dummett and Joe Wallace in The Wall Street Journal. It has decided to postpone its flotation. It was due to launch a marketing campaign for the listing on the New York Stock Exchange, where it has been targeting a valuation of $15bn – over double the $6.7bn it was worth in 2022. Rival Affirm’s market valuation dropped 15% on Friday. It has almost halved to $12bn this year. The dismal performance of Affirm and its other rivals may have played a big role in Klarna having “second thoughts” about entering the stockmarket, says Pymnts. However, there are also some “larger concerns”. The trade…

Five to buy Fever-Tree The Telegraph Fever-Tree’s shares have risen 16% this year. Sales rose 3% in the latest financial year and gross profit margins improved. Although earnings growth is not anticipated this year owing to the recent tie-up with Molson Coors in the US, the beverage company’s long-term prospects are “sound”. With its growing market share, Fever-Tree is well placed to take advantage of the industry’s improving outlook and expected lower inflation. The stock is worthy of a “premium” valuation thanks to Fever-Tree’s solid fundamentals and upbeat earnings outlook. 778p Avon Technologies The Times Avon Technologies makes respirators, thermal imaging equipment and protective gear for the military. It secured higher orders last year, while sales and profits this year could benefit from members of Keir Starmer’s “coalition of the…

● “Buying shares for a ‘hobby’ reason is a mistake,” says Alex Brummer in the Daily Mail. Anybody who invested in Brighton Pier based on fond memories of the seaside will have discovered that. The group – which also owns bars and indoor mini-golf courses as well as the pier – wants to delist from Aim. “Disproportionate” costs and low liquidity mean that life as a private company would be in the best interests of investors, says the board, chaired by the entrepreneur Luke Johnson, who owns a 29% stake. The “already eroded share price”, which stood at 160p when it listed, crumbled a further 60% on the news, to as low as 6.75p on Monday. “Shareholders should show steel and vote against de-listing on 22 April.” ● Shares in…

The recent stockmarket sell-off is a “great buying opportunity” for US equities, says Ed Yardeni, the veteran Wall Street strategist. “The US still stands out in the realms of technology, communication services,” he tells Bloomberg. “The Magnificent Seven are quite unique to the United States. I know that people have been talking about the Magnificent Four in China, but the United States does extremely well in technology… financials… [and] our industrial sector is improving.” It is understandable why markets have been rattled by Donald Trump’s tariffs for now. While there are legitimate national security concerns around the hollowing-out of US manufacturing in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and steel, the Trump government’s initial approach has been too “sweeping”. “I hope that the message that the stockmarket is sending to the…

■ AVI Japan Opportunity (AJOT) has made a hostile proposal to merge with Fidelity Japan (FJV), shortly after the latter’s lead manager Nicholas Price said he was retiring. A tie-up between the £230m AJOT and the £260m FJV would create a market-leading activist Japanese investment trust, say the AJOT board and its manager Asset Value Investors. FJV said it had already rejected the proposal when it was privately put forward privately in August last year, but it may face an “uphill battle” to resist, say analysts at Deutsche Numis. The proposal is backed by City of London Investment Management, the largest investor in FJV with a 23% stake, based on AJOT’s record (a 93.3% NAV gain over five years, versus 28.1%) and discount control. ■ Healthcare investor Assura has rejected…

unherd.com “Well, that didn’t take long,” says Katja Hoyer on Unherd. Peace negotiations over Ukraine were barely under way when senior German politicians began calling for a resumption of ties to Russia. Michael Kretschmer, deputy chair of the CDU party, is just the latest to moot the idea of an end to sanctions. Other CDU MPs have floated the idea of restoring energy flows from Russia. Party leader and incoming chancellor Friedrich Merz has made little attempt to silence the pro-Russia wing of his party, and the SPD, currently in coalition talks with the CDU, also has many supporters of resuming ties with Russia. Russian energy has been so central to the German economic model that it has also “seeped into the country’s political DNA”. Germany desperately needs to diversify…

The SEIS scheme is only 13 years old, but it has already supported several start-up businesses that have made stellar progress. Cognism, for example, is a sales-intelligence platform (it uses data to optimise sales strategies) that was founded in London in 2015. It raised £380,000 in 2017, including money from SFC Capital’s Startup Funding Club SEIS Fund, and has subsequently paid out to investors several times, delivering a sixfold return on their money. The company is now valued at around £460m. Onfido, the digital-security specialist, is another Startup Funding Club SEIS Fund alumnus, having raised £120,000 through the scheme in 2013. Last year, the company was sold to Entrust, a US-based secure-payments group, reportedly for more than £500m. At Fuel Ventures, meanwhile, James Steel points to Hotel Manager, a technology…

Have you written a will? According to life assurance company Canada Life, more than two-fifths of UK adults (44%) have not. But not having one is risky – whether you have complex affairs or not. Your family could face higher legal costs when dealing with your estate; if you are not married or are in a civil partnership, your partner may not inherit your estate, no matter how long you have been cohabiting for. Liz Hardie, estate-planning specialist at Canada Life, notes that “unmarried partners and stepchildren have no automatic right to inherit, and the process can lead to costly delays and longer probate, family disputes, and potentially higher inheritance-tax bills. Without a will, even the guardianship of your children is left to the courts to decide”. You can write…

Don’t panic. That’s the message from financial advisers to savers unnerved by falls in the value of their pensions over the past week. The losses you have suffered are purely hypothetical, for now at least. They are paper losses. Your pension is now valued at less than it was previously. You’ll only turn these paper losses into real shortfalls if you sell your pension investments. The temptation may be to move pension savings out of riskier assets into safer holdings, but that will mean crystallising your losses. It could also see you miss out on any recovery as and when the markets bounce back. Instead, remind yourself that pensions are the ultimate long-term investment. If you have no plans to cash in any of your pension savings in, say, the…

“Investment companies should continue to serve investors well for decades” Unicorn Mastertrust invests exclusively in investment trusts, aiming to deliver an attractive total return primarily in the form of capital growth. Trusts have a long and proud history dating back more than 150 years and have survived every conceivable geopolitical and economic disaster. Donald Trump’s Liberation Day shenanigans will cause some headaches in the short term, but I am sure that investment companies will continue to serve investors well for decades to come. My confidence stems from a belief that an investment trust offers the best structure for successful investment in the long term. This is quite an assertion given that most fund assets around the world are in open-ended structures rather than closed-ended trusts. The portfolio has a structural…