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The devil has all the best tunes – and he’s a pretty good investor too. In 2002, two fund managers in Texas set up the Vice Fund to profit from so-called “sin stocks”: companies that derived most of their revenue from the alcohol, tobacco, gambling and defence industries. Since its inception it has managed an annual total return of 7.82%, just behind the 8.3% produced by its benchmark index, the MSCI All Country World index. What’s more, for most of the Vice Fund’s existence it has eclipsed virtuous stocks, excluding dividends. By 2015, it was miles ahead of the Vanguard Social Index fund (launched around the same time to find socially responsible stocks), having risen by 207% while the Social Index fund had gained just 167% (they have since converged…

“The Exchequer is now starting to pay the Bank of England for the QE [quantitative easing] scheme... the [public sector] pays base rate on the government debt held by the Bank of England, and for the first time since the scheme was launched in 2009, that is now higher than the interest coupons on that debt... the Bank of England will also require payment [from the Treasury] for the losses it sustains as it winds down its QE scheme, selling gilts below the price it bought them at. This resulted in a net payment from the Treasury to the Bank of England of £0.8bn in October... the OBR [Office for Budget Responsibility] estimates there will be cash transfers of £133bn from the Treasury to the Bank of England to cover…

Dr. Martens’ £220 boots are proving a “hard sell”, says Aimee Donnellan on BreakingViews. The footwear group’s stock dropped by 20% after the firm said sales grew by an annual 7% in the six months to 30 September, below analysts’ forecasts. The shares listed last year but have since lost 40%. The share price plunge might appear “an overreaction”, says Nils Pratley in The Guardian. A 6% fall in pre-tax profits to £57.9m was due to currency movements and new investments in stores and IT. Yet the market has decided to “stick the boot in” because “it is now obvious that Dr. Martens was overpriced when it came to market with a £3.7bn valuation”. In these inflationary times production costs are rising, but “the classic 1460 boot” costs £159, making…

The value of Switzerland’s Bucher Industries has fallen by 25% over the past year, says WirtschaftsWoche, but the sell-off looks unjustified. The group designs and manufactures machinery and equipment used for industries ranging from harvesting crops and packaging foods to hydraulic systems and road cleaning; it is also the world leader in machines used to make glass containers. Bucher’s policy of establishing a leading position in various niches is paying off. The order backlog has reached a new record and the group has been able to absorb rising costs. There is net cash on the balance sheet and the stock looks reasonably valued on 14 times 2022 earnings and a dividend yield of 2.5%.…

Politics & economics The opening sentence of the Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail, published in May 2021, set a “modest aspiration”, says Helen Thomas in the Financial Times. “We want our trains to run on time.” They still aren’t. Often, they “aren’t running at all”. Keith Williams’ plan to establish Great British Railways, a “guiding mind” encompassing services and infrastructure to oversee new operator contracts, coordinate simplified fares, timetables, capacity and maintenance, has been delayed. Nor do the imminent new rounds of strikes look set to deliver the pay wanted by workers or the “modernisation of working practices” required. Eighteen months on from the 2021 review, its criticism still stands. The railways lack a “guiding focus on customers, coherent leadership and strategic direction. They are too fragmented, too complicated and…

British prime minister Rishi Sunak has been in 10 Downing Street for only just over a month, but if the betting markets are anything to go by, punters don’t rate his chances of winning the next general election, which is due by January 2025 at the latest, very highly. Indeed, with £59,942 matched on Smarkets, punters have Sunak at 4.4 (22.7%) to be prime minister after the next election, far behind Labour leader Keir Starmer, who is a firm favourite to get the keys to Number 10, at 1.28 (78.1%). The rest of the election-related betting doesn’t look that great for the Conservatives either. With £736,094 matched on Betfair, Labour is nearly even to get an overall majority at 2.18 (45.9%), with no overall majority at 2.48 (40.3%) and a…

You need to have been following Budget speeches for a long time to remember when the 40% top rate of tax was introduced. It made its debut on 15 March 1988, when Margaret Thatcher’s chancellor Nigel Lawson embarked on a far-reaching reform of the tax system. The basic rate of tax was reduced from 27% to 25%, corporation and inheritance taxes were reformed and, most radically, not to say controversially, the top rate was sliced from 60% to just 40%. It was designed to be a top rate of tax that would only be paid by a small fraction of the workforce and even then would not take such a high share of their income as to deter them from working. By 1990, only 1.7 million people were paying the…

“I don’t consider myself a lavish spender, but I don’t hesitate to spend on the people I love. I have a weakness for fabulous dresses and shoes. They kind of go with the territory as an opera singer, but luckily I am often glammed out by the totally one-of-a-kind Dame Vivienne Westwood who dresses me for lots of events and concerts.” Opera singer Danielle de Niese (pictured), quoted in The Sunday Times “I was in Europe with [rock band] Deep Purple in the 1970s and we did four or five shows on the trot. Since it was easier to collect the cash than wait weeks for the money to be transferred, we arrived in England with a load of cash in a bag. Customs took one look and said: ‘Close…

fee.org The tie was once a fairly common formal accessory for men, says Bruce Rottman. Its decline has coincided with the decline of the institutions upon which liberal society is built – including those traditions, social conventions and taboos that help each person understand their place in the social hierarchy. As “faiths and families have faltered”, we have created “a society of atoms”, with “civility torn asunder” and traditions upended. No one wants to return to the strict hierarchies of yore, but we do need a world in which we “respect and emulate those who know more than we do or are wiser than we are or who practice amazing generosity, humility, or self-sacrifice”. When a teacher wears a tie, for example, he is signalling a certain seriousness and respect…

■ Political turmoil, lockdowns and “last year’s regulatory blitz” have prompted investors in China to rethink their positions, says the Investors’ Chronicle. The Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust has cut back on its Chinese holdings and asset manager BlackRock has indefinitely postponed the launch of a Chinese bond ETF. Several emerging market ex-China ETFs have also been launched. But investors still keen to invest in China have several options, among them the T Rowe Price Asian Opportunities Equity fund – Chinese investments account for 35.4% of its portfolio. There is also the Federated Hermes Asia ex Japan Equity fund, Baillie Gifford Pacific, Abrdn’s Asia Dragon Trust, and Aubrey Global Emerging Markets Opportunities. “Avoiding China remains a pretty big call, and contrarians might take note of the portfolios still invested heavily in…

Since hitting a low of 3,577 on 12 October, down 25% since 1 January, the S&P 500 index has rallied by 12% to just over 4,000. The FTSE 100 index has rallied by 11%. It is barely down this year, but still 4% below its May 2018 peak. The yield on the US ten-year Treasury bond has fallen from 4.3% to 3.7% (reflecting a rebound in bond prices); the ten-year gilt yield has slipped from 4.5% to 3%. Yet plenty of pundits are pessimistic, arguing that the bear market isn’t over yet. Charles Gave of Gavekal says that US inflation has not peaked yet. “Every significant peak in the US rate of inflation has occurred during a recession or just after,” he writes. The real (inflation-adjusted) yield on the ten-year…

● “Two million workers could be paying 62% tax on some of their income in five years because of frozen thresholds,” says David Byers in The Sunday Times. For every £2 earned over £100,000 you lose £1 of your personal allowance. The upshot is that every pound you earn between £100,000 and £125,140 “is effectively taxed at 62%”. According to insurer NFU Mutual, frozen tax thresholds mean that by 2028 two million workers will be affected by this problem, up from 1.3 million in the last tax year and just 808,000 five years ago. ● Brits have cut their energy use by more than 10% since October, according to two of the biggest suppliers. E.ON and Telecom Plus have registered double-digit declines in demand over recent weeks. “Energy industry executives…

● Small Business Saturday, a nationwide campaign to persuade people to support small businesses, takes place on 3 December. The initiative, now celebrating its tenth year in the UK, aims to encourage both individuals and businesses to spend more in independent high-street stores and other small enterprises. This year’s event comes amid growing concern about the plight of small firms: 28% feeling anxious about their prospects for the next six months, according to research from American Express. ● More businesses will face higher business rates from next April, as the government pushes ahead with plans to implement bills based on updated valuations of the properties they occupy. However, ministers insist a series of interventions will mitigate the cost of increases for those businesses whose properties are valued more highly. These…

Five of my seven long tips rose in the past fortnight. Industrial and construction-rental company Ashtead climbed from 5,000p to 5,120p, Hays Recruitment increased from 117p to 119p, retailer Dunelm jumped from 992p to 993p and fashion group Burberry increased from 2,041p to 2,118p. US homebuilder DR Horton advanced from $81.49 to $83.71 and telecoms group Gamma Communications increased from 1,136p to 1,237p. But Pets at Home fell from 306p to 270p and streaming service Netflix dipped from $299 to $283. Overall, six out of eight of my long tips are in the black, with net profits of £1,624. All of the four short tips moved in my favour. Digital-currency exchange Coinbase fell from $52.22 to $42.89, while electric-charging firm EVgo declined from $7.23 to $6.05. AST SpaceMobile also went…

Lyft (Nasdaq: LYFT), the US ride-sharing app, has seen its share price fall further following its latest earnings report, says Forbes. Over the past few months it has been struggling with the rising price of petrol, which has dented drivers’ earnings and reduced the number of trips on offer. Its third-quarter results last week revealed revenue growth of 22% year-on-year but a loss of $422m, which was slightly higher than expected and unnerved investors. Rival Uber, meanwhile, exceeded expectations with annual sales growth of 72% in the same quarter. Lyft’s share price has slumped by 73% in 12 months.…

2016 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva, Collosorbo, Tuscany, Italy (£78, waitrosecellar.com) I have allowed myself one “no-upper-limit wine” in this sextet, and it comes from the Waitrose inner sanctum. I have not tasted a finer Brunello in 2022 and, dare I say it, the price tag is competitive, considering the number of Super-Tuscans I have tasted this year with nosebleed price tags and a fraction of the panache and swagger that this mighty wine possesses. This Riserva spent 42 months in French oak and then a further 12 in the bottle, and the result is one of the grandest and most layered red wines of the year. It also happens to be drinking, which is handy, too! Pull the cork, decant it and then lower yourself into an awesome Tuscan experience.…

Not for this year the scenes of bountiful buffets. Retailers are taking a more muted approach to their Christmas TV adverts, say Noor Nanji and Charlotte McDonald on BBC News. The cost-of-living crisis was “front of mind” when John Lewis produced this year’s campaign, The Beginner. It features a foster family welcoming Ellie, a young teenager clutching her skateboard. “This advert is not about ‘go and buy things’... it is about how you... can show kindness to someone else who may need it,” says John Lewis’s customer director Claire Pointon. “I think that’s quite an important message at Christmas.” Not everyone agrees. Some viewers have complained it isn’t “Christmassy” enough. Still, John Lewis’s lack of festive spirit could be due to children’s author Fay Evans suing the retailer over what…

“A new era of deglobalisation, inflation and rising interest rates” is hurting the US mega-caps that have led the stock market for a decade, says James Crux in Shares magazine. Yet America’s “relative energy independence” and still-robust domestic economy make it an appealing market. The solution is to focus on small caps. While the blue chips of the S&P 500 derive 40% of their sales from overseas, the equivalent figure is just 20% for the small-cap Russell 2000. Smaller firms usually outperform during periods of rising interest rates, Nicolas Janvier of Columbia Threadneedle tells Laura Miller on FTAdviser. Since 1962 “in months when interest rates rose, the S&P 500 returned 6.1% and smaller companies returned 14%”. That said, interest rates usually rise during periods of economic strength. “It is harder…

The Hong Kong dollar is pegged to its US counterpart within a narrow band between 7.75 and 7.85. Tighter US monetary policy has seen the Hong Kong dollar spend much of the year butting up against the weak end of that range, says Richard Cookson on Bloomberg. The pressure has eased of late as US interest-rate expectations have declined. The peg forces the city to import US monetary policy, but it needs looser money: GDP fell by 4.5% year-on-year in the third quarter. Tighter money is painful for Hong Kong’s “massively leveraged economy”, where “foreign debt is almost $500,000” per working person thanks to expensive property. As the costs mount, the political will to maintain the peg may wear thin.…

Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele is stepping down after seven years in the job. Under his leadership the brand, which is owned by listed French group Kering, saw revenue nearly treble to €9.6bn between 2014 and 2019. “It’s hard to overstate Michele’s influence on Gucci, as well as on the broader fashion industry”, says Andrea Felsted on Bloomberg. He “ushered in a bold maximalism” marked by colourful “clashing prints” and a style that was “quirky, yet commercial”. Parent Kering’s shares “generated a total return equivalent to 20% a year during Michele’s rein”, twice that of the industry average. Yet it has been tougher going since the pandemic. Gucci’s “ostentation” has clashed with the increasingly “sombre mood” of the times, while the brand’s young Chinese fans have grown tired of it,…

Most initial public offerings (IPOs) in the United Arab Emirates involve state-owned companies. So the impending market debut of Taaleem Holdings, a private-school operator in Dubai, has hit the local headlines. It is set to raise 750 million dirhams (£170m) from the sale of 250 million shares, implying a market value of around three billion dirhams (£682m). The shares were 18 times oversubscribed when they went on sale. Taaleem is one of the largest K-12 education (kindergarten to 12th grade) providers in Dubai, and has the backing of the local government. The Middle East has been a rare bright spot for flotations this year as high oil prices have drummed up interest in the region.…

● “Oatly has lost its froth,” says Karen Kwok on Breakingviews. The stock has plummeted 80% in 2022. “A sour mixture of manufacturing hiccups, Chinese Covid-19 lockdowns and other issues have watered down Oatly’s once heady growth rates” and raised costs. While sales are expected to rise by 20% this year, down from an annual 76% between 2018 and 2021, the company is likely to have burnt through its cash pile by early next year. CEO Toni Petersson could sell it, but the likes of Nestlé won’t be keen on an unprofitable firm struggling with its manufacturing. He will have to raise more than 50% of Oatly’s market value to keep going. That’s a “tall order”, but Nativus, a group of investors with a 46% stake, can either cough up…

iea.org.uk Until about the middle of the last decade, a commonly heard complaint was that the British public had lost interest in politics, says Kristian Niemietz. Membership of political parties slumped, people switched off political programmes in growing numbers and surveys indicated low levels of trust in politics. Everyone agreed this was “self-evidently A Bad Thing” and that Britain would be a better place if people were more engaged. Now look at us. The Brexit referendum forced us all to have an opinion and join rival tribes. Jeremy Corbyn energised the youth and further polarised debate. Eco-militants have taken mass engagement to a new level. Culture wars rage. It might seem outrageous to suggest we’d be better off if these young people “just stopped caring and went back home”, but…

US companies are expecting an onslaught of activist campaigns following a change in proxy-voting rules, says The Wall Street Journal. Under the new regulations, company-nominated directors must be on the same ballot as activist-nominated ones, “enabling investors to pick and choose, rather than voting entirely with either the company or the activist”. This means the odds of activists gaining at least one board seat will “increase significantly”. Activist activity had been on the rise even before this change. Last year Engine No 1, an obscure hedge fund, managed to gain three seats on the board of oil giant Exxon Mobile, galvanising a “raft of other rookie activists”.…

Thousands more sole traders and small businesses will move into the value-added tax (VAT) system over the next three years following the government’s decision to freeze the VAT threshold at £85,000 until at least March 2026. Analysis from the Chartered Institute of Taxation suggests there are almost 100,000 businesses with turnover just below the £85,000 mark; many of them will now have to register for VAT for the first time as their sales increase naturally over the coming years. This is not a new trick from the Treasury. It first froze the VAT threshold in 2017. Previously, the threshold rose broadly in line with inflation each year and would now stand at around £103,000 had that practice continued. But the VAT system has become more complex over the past five…

The past few years have seen a surge in UK residential property prices owing to rock-bottom interest rates and changes to pandemic work patterns. Nationwide estimates that they have increased by around a quarter since the start of 2020. However, this seems to be going into reverse due to rising interest rates and the squeeze on real incomes, with some analysts predicting that house prices will crash. No wonder, then, that shares in Savills (LSE: SVS), the estate agent, have been feeling the pain. At one point they were down by more than 40% from their price on 1 January 2022. However, there are some reasons to feel optimistic. House-price valuations aren’t as extreme as they were in the late 1980s and in the run-up to the global financial crisis…

Emerging markets are a key part of investment strategies that aim to generate a positive environmental or social impact alongside financial returns. In areas such as renewable energy and clean mobility, emerging-market firms have become global leaders and facilitated the fall in costs that makes renewable power and clean mobility options competitive even without subsidies. For example, China’s share in all the main stages of manufacturing solar panels exceeds 80% today, and for crucial elements, including polysilicon and wafers, this is set to rise to more than 95% in the coming years. Companies such as LG Energy Solution in Korea and CATL in China have become key battery suppliers to leading electric-vehicle (EV) original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), including Tesla. Emerging markets also offer unique investment opportunities that do not exist…

“A lot has been made of Twitter’s shrinking workforce,” says TechCrunch. More interesting by far is who new boss Elon Musk is hiring. “Today, I’m a Tweep!” posted George Hotz as he accepted a 12-week “internship” to reboot the platform’s search engine last week. The 33-year-old programming wunderkind is so enthused about his new role that he proclaims “the internet seems full of possibility again”. For his part, Musk can congratulate himself on signing “a comparatively glitzy hire” – even if he might be termed a “frenemy”. Hotz came to prominence at 17 when he became the first person to hack the iPhone, later repeating the trick with Sony’s PlayStation. Yet he first appeared on Musk’s radar as a potential rival, says The Telegraph. As the youthful founder of self-driving…

Any time a company advertises itself as doing good,rather than merely trying to make a buck, watch your wallet. The collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which we looked at last week, is a case in point – its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, claimed to be interested in making money only so it could all be given away to charities. Beyond Meat offers another cautionary tale. The company makes plant-based food that looks like meat. For people who like meat but don’t want to eat dead animals, it offered a solution. And for investors who worry about the flatulence of bovines, or the energy required to raise animals, or the cruelty of slaughtering them, Beyond Meat offered an opportunity. They could put their money where their mouths were. In May 2019, Beyond Meat…

There is “a sense of tentative optimism” in Germany’s “Glühwein-spiced air”, says Jenny Hill on the BBC. Fears of a winter energy crisis have subsided amid mild temperatures and gas stores full to the brim. On the North Sea coast, engineers have just completed the country’s “very first import terminal for liquefied natural gas (LNG)”. A project that would usually take years was completed in less than 200 days. Russian pipelines now comprise just 9% of EU gas supply, down from 40% before the February invasion of Ukraine. European wholesale gas prices, measured by the Dutch TTF hub, have fallen by 63% since their August peak to €130 a megawatt hour (MWh). Yet that is still six times higher than the typical level prior to 2021. British wholesale gas prices,…

Manchester United is exploring “new investment into the club, a sale, or other transactions”. The club has been owned by the American Glazer family since 2005. The 17-year Glazer tenure has been “dominated by fan protests and declining on-pitch performance”, says Mark Kleinman for Sky News. The team hasn’t won the Premier League since 2013 and this year failed to qualify for the lucrative UEFA Champions League. Supporters complain that the Glazers have continued to extract revenue while failing to invest in the future, leaving the club’s Old Trafford stadium creaking at the seams. Footballing failure, financial success In purely financial terms the Glazers’ Utd gambit has proved a triumph, says Nils Pratley in The Guardian. Back in 2005 many thought that “penny-pinching patriarch” Malcolm Glazer had overpaid when he…

Five to buy Ingersoll Rand Barron’s Compressor and pump maker Ingersoll Rand looks a solid long-term bet “despite the ups and downs of the broader economy”. Its operations are “well targeted, well executed and likely to deliver above-normal returns”. Compressors “don’t sound that sexy” but they are essential to manufacturing facilities worldwide. The mid-cap has a market value of $22bn; sales are set to reach $5.81bn this year, 13% higher than in 2021, and the balance sheet is “in good shape”. The company should generate $1bn in free cash flow every year and will use it to make strategic acquisitions. $53 iShares UK Dividend UCITS ETF Shares Inflation is eating away at investors’ cash. However, the “danger” with picking individual stocks for income is that “high yields are…

An Iranian general has officially acknowledged that more than 300 people have been killed in the nationwide protests that have swept the country since September, says Melanie Swan in The Times. Humanrights groups believe the true figure is higher, but the admission shows the power of the uprising, which “has garnered the support of prominent figures”. The uprising started as a protest against the mandatory wearing of the hijab, but “quickly escalated into calls for the overthrow of Iran’s Islamic theocracy”. It poses “one of the most serious challenges to the ruling clerics since the 1979 revolution that brought them to power”. The Iranian government seems divided over what to do, says The Economist. Some within it appear willing to make concessions and there has been talk of including reformists…

COP27 – it’s all about the money Holman Jenkins The Wall Street Journal The word “reparations” – used to describe an in-principle agreement at the COP27 climate summit to compensate poorer countries affected by climate change – was “inflammatory”, says Holman Jenkins. But by the end of the conference, it was Donald Trump’s assessment of the global climate lobby that prevailed: “It’s a money-making industry, OK?”. The focus has now “shifted” from a goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5˚C above pre-industrial levels, which leading nations are “clearly failing at”, to one at which they are “past masters: distributing foreign aid to advance their political interests and recycle money to domestic constituencies”. We should not “feel guilty” about the developing world. Most of our lives would “not be…

dailysceptic.org The principle behind Test and Trace – determining whether people infected with a virus are contagious, and if so tracking down who they have been in contact with to stop it spreading – is a sound one, say Dr Carl Heneghan, Oxford Professor of Evidence Based Medicine, and Dr Tom Jefferson, an epidemiologist based in Rome. But it is time-consuming and, in the explosive phase of an acute respiratory viral epidemic, the spread will quickly overwhelm public-health resources, as happened in Lombardy in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. Enter mass PCR tests, which rapidly transformed from being a niche laboratory testing procedure to “people waving swabs at motorists in drive-ins”. Yet PCR tests on their own, without recourse to clinical history, cannot distinguish between people who are…

There have been no successful initial public offerings (IPOs) of funds on the stockmarket this year. Normally, even bad years see several new arrivals, but 2022 has been an annus horribilis. However, we might now finally see a new fund launch in the next few weeks. It is in the biotechnology sector, a niche that has been in the doldrums since 2021. The Conviction Life Sciences Company (CLSC) is targeting a 20% annualised return by investing in a portfolio of life-sciences companies – with a twist. Unlike the existing, popular listed biotech funds, CLSC will concentrate on a portfolio of small-cap UK and Australian listed biotech funds, with a smattering of private businesses. To say this is brave move in a depressed market is an understatement. The bigger picture CLSC…

The government collected £6.1bn in inheritance tax (IHT) bills for the 2021-2022 financial year, a 14% increase from the year before. The figure for this year already looks set to breach that, and the Office for Budget Responsibility thinks the bill could reach £8.3bn by 2026. The most hated tax in Britain is set to become even more unpopular. Already, one in 25 deaths results in an IHT liability, according to investment platform and online broker AJ Bell. Last month chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced that IHT, which is charged at 40% of a person’s estate above the tax-free allowance (also known as the nil-rate band) of £325,000, will be frozen until 2028. IHT had already been frozen until April 2026 by Rishi Sunak when he was chancellor. Hunt’s announcement means…

Business owners and company directors who pay themselves through dividends may need to rethink such arrangements following the Autumn Statement, accountants warn. The chancellor announced that from next April, the amount of dividends UK taxpayers can receive before tax becomes payable will fall from £2,000 to £1,000; it will then fall to £500 in April 2024. Many business owners choose to take money out of their companies via dividend payments, rather than as a salary, because the tax rates on the former are lower. Tax on dividends is due at 8.75%, 33.75% and 39.35% for basic-, higher- and additional-rate taxpayers respectively, compared with 20%, 40% and 45% under income tax. In addition, there are no national insurance contributions to pay on dividends. However, the tax-free allowance on income, at £12,570,…

Stock splits are when a company splits its shares into multiple shares, all still adding up to the same total value. So in a two-for-one split of a share worth 200p, a company will replace each share in circulation with two new shares worth 100p. In theory, nothing should change (except the price of the individual share) as shareholders will not be diluted and the ownership structure of the company remains the same. However, stock splits are seen as a bullish sign as they are usually carried out by the management of a company whose shares are rising in order to stop individual shares from becoming too expensive (and therefore too illiquid). Newly split shares certainly tend to outperform the market. For example, a 2001 study found that for US…

Australian miner Pilbara Minerals (Sydney: PLS) has seen its share price soar after announcing a joint venture with minerals refiner Calix to process its lithium ore, says The Motley Fool. The ore will be converted into lithium salt near the firm’s Pilgangoora Project in Western Australia. The authorities are trying to bolster the country’s onshore lithium-refining industry as demand for the metal rises thanks to its use in batteries for electric vehicles; China currently accounts for 60% of the global capacity for processing raw lithium products into battery-grade chemicals. The stock has gained 77% in a year.…

The shine has come off the man once dubbed “Golden Balls” by his wife. The “national labrador”, as one journalist has called him, is in the dog house. This summer, football star and celebrity David Beckham, 47, took part in a promotional film for Visit Qatar, reports Daniel Boffey in The Guardian. Then he became the official ambassador for this year’s World Cup, currently playing out in the tiny theocratic petrostate, reportedly trousering £150m for the privilege. The fact that same-sex sexual activity is punishable by up to seven years in prison in the country did not deter the man who once posed on the cover of gay magazine Attitude and said he was “honoured to have the tag of gay icon”. The social-media backlash over this “arguably represents the…

$9.1bn The sum US consumers spent on Black Friday, a shopping bonanza to mark the start of the Christmas season. Online sales were up 2.3% year over year. Customers using buy now pay later (BNPL) credit arrangements rose by 78% compared with the past week. £1.38 How much the price of a dozen eggs needs to rise by so that UK farmers can return to profit and reinvest in their business as inflation drives up costs. The price of chicken feed soared from £3,825 to £6,030 after wheat and barley imports from Ukraine were cut off; energy bills and pay increases for staff have also eaten into profits. £29m The amount by which Amazon’s UK tax bill will rise due to changes to business rates announced by chancellor Jeremy Hunt…