Indholdsfortegnelse for 1173 i MoneyWeek

If someone asks you how many people work in your company, the correct answer is probably “about half”. In any group endeavour, there are a few individuals doing most of the heavy lifting. The stockmarket is no different. Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid noted this week that “there has rarely been a period in history when so few stocks have driven the whole market higher”. The “Magnificent Seven” stocks seen as key beneficiaries of artificial intelligence (AI) – Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla – have propelled America’s S&P 500 index to a 17% gain in 2023, having almost doubled this year. The market’s skew towards technology is also clear from the fact that an equal-weight version of the S&P (giving every firm the same slice of the overall…

“Malaise can be [a] worse fate [than] crises [that]... force change... It is clear that Britain would be richer if it loosened its planning laws, rejoined the European single market and moved some of the weight of taxation from workers to asset-rich retirees. It is also clear that things aren’t bad enough to make such divisive reforms saleable. Britain is stagnant precisely because it is doing alright-ish... [Similarly, Germany’s] best customer (China) is on bad terms with its most important friend (the US)... its once-feted economic model is invoked as a warning... [But] how does a nation make painful reforms when it is still richer, safer and freer than most?... there is no guarantee that a place will submit to change if its troubles go from chronic to acute (see…

J.M. Smucker is “paying a hefty price for some cheap sweets”, says Aaron Black in The Wall Street Journal. It is spending $5.6bn on Hostess Brands, the maker of Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Ho Hos. Smucker’s interest is “understandable” given that “snacking is among the fastest-growing areas of the consumer food business”. Still, the enterprise value represents the very large multiple of 17.2 times expected adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation. Rival snack companies Mondelez International and PepsiCo, both global firms with strong long-term track records, trade at 16.4 and 16.8 times respectively. Investors are unimpressed: Smucker’s shares slid by 6% on the news. “Hostess is hardly a high-growth business,” says Lex in the Financial Times. While revenue rose 19% last year, “the bulk of that was driven…

Air travel is rebounding rapidly, says Al Root in Barron’s, but there is still scope for growth: international air travel remains 11% below its level of July 2019. Buy AAR to capitalise on the rebound. The $2bn firm provides second-hand and repaired engine and airframe parts that airlines need to keep their planes aloft. It also offers repair and maintenance services. The used-parts business should expand as the deliveries of the latest models from Boeing and Airbus gradually eclipse older planes; AAR can stock up on parts from decommissioned planes. Growth and profits are set to grow by a respective 10% and 16% a year between 2023 and 2025, but this forecast is not reflected in the stock’s valuation.…

Politics & economics Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced on Tuesday that the House is to open a formal impeachment into president Joe Biden, says Anthony Zurcher for the BBC. Republicans have been investigating Biden over his alleged involvement in the business dealings of his son, Hunter, since the beginning of the year. This inquiry will “give congressional investigators greater legal authority to investigate the president”. McCarthy is acting out of self-interest, says Carl Hulse in The New York Times. The move is an attempt “to appease far-right lawmakers” who have threatened to oust him from the top job if he “fails to accede to their demands for deep spending cuts that would force a government shutdown at the end of the month”. The apparent decision not to…

This year has been little short of a disaster for Greek’s Syriza party. The leftist party ran Greece between 2015 and 2019, then saw its share of the vote collapse from 32% to 20% at this May’s election. It then fell again to 18% a few weeks later. The gap between Syriza and the formerly dominant centre-left party Pasok has shrunk to just 6%. Little surprise, then, that Alexis Tsipras has decided to stand down as leader. Party members are due to vote on Sunday to nominate his successor. The current frontrunner is Eftychia Achtsioglou, who was minister for labour between 2016 and 2019. This is reflected in the fact that she is at 1/4 (80%) with Bet 365 to win. Businessman Stefanos Kasselakis is in second place at 11/4…

Hardly a week goes by without the government offering subsidies to one of the major car makers. This week it was the news that BMW is investing £600m to convert the factories that make the Mini to electric production, with around £70m of that coming from the UK government. Only a few weeks ago the Indian conglomerate Tata chose Somerset as the site of its first major battery plant to power Jaguar Land Rover vehicles, with up to £500m of the estimated cost coming from the Treasury. Stellantis, the company formed out of the merger of the Peugeot group with Fiat, has been retooling its Ellesmere Port factory for electric vehicles, and although we don’t know what the UK chipped in, for much of last year the firm was lobbying…

Asset allocation is the process of dividing your portfolio between different asset classes such as shares, bonds, property, cash and gold. Each of these asset classes should behave in different ways in different scenarios, and have different potential risks and returns. The aim of asset allocation is to blend these together in a way that produces a combined level of risk and return that best suits an investor’s needs. To take some extreme examples, a young investor saving for retirement a long way in the future and prioritising maximum growth above everything else might have 100% in shares, while a retiree who only cares about achieving a steady income might have 100% in bonds. More commonly, somebody who wants to achieve a combination of income and growth while also protecting…

“It doesn’t bother me… I’m knocking on 63. I’ve made my money. I’ve been through it all. What’s the worst that can happen? That I’ll lose some jobs? Fine by me. Bring it on.” Media personality Carol Vorderman (pictured) on the abuse she has received for criticising the Tories, quoted in The Times “A lot of people equate money with happiness and it’s not, it’s more freedom… What people don’t understand is that once your basic needs are met, you don’t get incremental happiness from more money.” US professional poker player and businessman Dan Bilzerian, quoted in LadBible “A police officer would come to our school and give us a talk [about] how to react properly when you’re being mugged… He said: ‘Always bring money with you. Don’t go out…

bloomberg.com/opinion The excitement and hype about artificial intelligence that followed the launch of ChatGPT has died down, says Tyler Cowen. But don’t be fooled. “The AI revolution is marching on. And it will be just as transformative as advertised.” Every revolutionary technology goes through a period when people wonder whether it is all that exciting after all. In 1998, economist Paul Krugman wondered whether the internet was overrated. The full potential of electricity and the printing press was only realised in “fits and starts”. Similarly, few people now see AI as more than a “fascinating novelty”. And yet, “the reality is undeniable”: the technology “continues to advance by leaps and bounds”. OpenAI is rolling out new commercial services enabling companies and other institutions to put AI to work on their…

The Restaurant Group (TRG) is in “advanced discussions” to sell its Frankie & Benny’s and Chiquito chains as it tries to pacify activist investors who are unhappy with its performance, says the Financial Times. Around 20% of TRG is owned by activist funds, including Oasis Management, Icenic Capital Management and Coltrane Asset Management, all of whom have criticised the casual-dining group’s “languishing share price” and called for a shake up in its strategy. Investors said that the sale may make the rest of TRG – which includes the Wagamama chain – more attractive to a buyer, but that it would be unlikely to raise enough money to make significant progress on management’s promise to reduce net debt from five times earnings to 1.8 times by 2026.…

In 2022, as the global economy recovered from the pandemic, copper reached a record price of almost $5 per pound. It’s now back at $3.77, having dragged the share prices of miners back down with it. That correction is driven by fears over the Chinese economy – in particular its construction sector. Yet given the looming shortfall in the global copper supply, it seems a fair bet that the price of the red metal will recover. One of the safest bets in the sector is Antofagasta (LSE: ANTO), a London-listed copper giant operating in Chile, the top-ranked mining jurisdiction in Latin America. Half of its output comes from the Los Pelambres mine, where production costs are in the bottom quartile of copper mines globally. It offers a dividend yield of…

What if everyone were thin? As thin as people tended to be before the 1970s? It sounds ridiculous, of course – today 26% of the UK population is obese and another 38% are overweight; 40% of the US population is obese. But it isn’t ridiculous. Hungersuppressing weight-loss drugs look as if they might soon transform our world: it seems that those taking the drug Wegovy lose on average around 15% of their body weight in the first year. Morgan Stanley estimates that around 24 million people (7% of the US population) will be taking these drugs in the US by 2035. I’d say this is a huge underestimate. If you are overweight and there is a drug that you can take to make you slim with no particularly unpleasant side-effects…

● Thousands of savers hold significant amounts of cash in their self-invested personal pensions (Sipps). But many are missing out on top rates of interest because of anti-fraud regulation. Rules introduced in 2016 to crack down on Sipp fraud made it difficult for people to hold “non-standard investments” in their Sipps, a category containing cash savings accounts that require you to tie up your money for more than 30 days. These include fixed-rate savings bonds, such as National Savings & Investment’s generous new guaranteed growth bond, paying 6.2% over a 12-month term. Advisers want the rules to be revised so that they protect savers without forcing them to miss out. ● Savers with multiple small pensions built up while working for several employers may soon be able to consolidate their…

The last three weeks have been good for my long tips, with six of the eight appreciating. Builder DR Horton rose from $115 to $118, IT-services group Computacenter increased from 2,052p to 2,472p and outsourcing specialist Mitie went up from 91p to 103p. Ship broker Clarkson advanced from 2,705p to 2,745p, while B&M climbed from 574p to 578p. Kicthen supplier Howdon Joinery also moved up slightly from 718p to 735p. The only two exceptions were brick-and-tile manufacturer Ibstock, which dipped from 147p to 145p, and luxury brand Watches of Switzerland, which dropped from 706p to 617p. My long tips are making a net profit of £898. Three of my short tips moved in my favour and two rose. Space-based broadband network builder AST SpaceMobile dipped from $3.90 to $3.89 and…

For some people the Cotswolds is a place to visit during a family outing. Others admire it for its solitude, and the sense that it is a part of the country that has been passed by in the sprawl and bustle of modern life. Bourton-on-the-Water and Lower Slaughter are two villages within walking distance of each other, but while the former is a favourite with coach parties and day-trippers, the latter is altogether quieter and more tranquil. As the name suggests, Bourton-on-the-Water is located on a river, the River Windrush. Every year a game of medieval football is played in the river, which runs right through the centre of the village, cutting it in two. However, these halves have been united by five charming little bridges. This has given rise…

Going… A collection of Beatles memorabilia relating to John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1969 “bed-in” peace protest, among other things, is heading for online auction with GottaHaveRockandRoll in New York on 22 September, says The Guardian. One “curious” lot is the birthday card from George Harrison to the caretaker of his estate in Hawaii, which he signed “from Adolf Schinkengruber, George, Olivia and Dhani” (Hitler’s father’s surname at birth was Schicklgruber), along with a crudely drawn sketch of the Third Reich leader. The entire archive of material is expected to fetch up to $8m. Gone… Freddie Mercury’s Yamaha baby grand piano (pictured) has sold for £1.7m with Sotheby’s in London – slightly below estimates, but a record for a composer’s piano, says BBC News. The late Queen singer used the…

Alan Sugar (pictured) tried to declare himself a non-UK resident to avoid a £186m tax payment, say Gabriel Pogrund and Ed Siddons in The Sunday Times, following a joint investigation by the paper and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. But he was apparently unaware that his membership of the House of Lords precludes him from claiming the tax status. The tax bill is due on the £390m dividend he paid himself in the 2021-2022 tax year – one of the biggest in corporate history – as sole owner of his holding company Amshold Group. Sugar was elevated to the Lords in 2009, one year before the law was changed following the outcry over former Conservative Party treasurer Michael Ashcroft’s non-dom status. Peers were given three months to leave the chamber.…

Poland’s central bank has cut interest rates by three quarters of a percentage point to 6%, even though inflation remains above 10%. The National Bank of Poland says that inflation is on the slide after peaking at 18% early this year, but the size of the cut surprised markets. “The size of the cut is NOT in line with macro conditions,” says ING Economics Poland. Core inflation (which strips out volatile food and energy costs) is still above 10%. Poland’s zloty suffered its “biggest two-day drop since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine” following the cut, say Piotr Skolimowski and Selcuk Gokoluk on Bloomberg. Central bank boss Adam Glapinski is “a long-time political ally” of Law and Justice leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Some think he is trying to serve up a “sugar hit…

Covid has had a lasting impact on global working patterns, says Matthew Boyle on Bloomberg. Office occupancy rates in the US (shown by the “Americas” line on the chart) “have plateaued” at just half of the pre-pandemic level. The UK has seen a similar pattern. Yet across much of Europe and Asia office occupancy has returned to more than 75% of the pre-pandemic level. Many US companies are adept at tracking employees’ performance remotely, while other places tend to “have cultures that value being present in the office”. European and Asian cities also have better public transport and smaller homes than the US, while many Americans prefer spacious suburban home offices to long daily commutes.…

Last week NatWest tried to move on from a “period of leadership turmoil”, say Lucy Fisher and Siddharth Venkataramakrishnan in the Financial Times. It appointed former Mastercard boss Rick Haythornthwaite as its new chairman. Haythornthwaite, who will take over in April, will arrive at a critical time for NatWest, after a “summer of discontent” triggered by the decision of its private bank Coutts to close the bank accounts of Nigel Farage. The episode led to the resignation of not only Coutts’ CEO Peter Flavel but also of NatWest’s overall CEO Alison Rose. His first job will be to lead the search for Rose’s replacement. Haythornthwaite is a “surprise pick to be chairman of NatWest”, says Nils Pratley in the Guardian . ”In a business career of 40-plus years, he has…

The build-up to this week’s initial public offering (IPO) of Arm, the British chip designer, has encouraged smaller technology outfits to dip a toe in the water after the listings market slumped in 2022. Analysts have been especially interested to see how a series of venture capital (VC)-backed outfits will perform, as rich valuations for these firms were a hallmark of the tech boom in 2021, says the Financial Times. Instacart, a San Francisco-based online grocery delivery company, has just priced an impending listing at $26-$28 a share, implying a valuation of $7.17bn-$7.73bn. This is “bruising” for VC groups who bought $265m of shares based on a valuation of $39bn in 2021.…

● “Private equity has plenty of black marks against its name… but mercilessly squeezing people and their beloved pets is a new low,” says Ben Marlow in The Telegraph. So we should welcome the Competition and Markets Authority’s probe into the UK’s £2bn veterinary sector – news that sent shares in Pets at Home and CVS slumping last week. The regulator thinks that pet owners are not getting value for money, perhaps due to rapid consolidation. Ten years ago, 90% of veterinary practices were independent. By 2021, more than half were owned by six groups, three of which are backed by private equity. Costs of pet care have since soared faster than inflation. Practice owners says this is due to a shortage of vets, advances in medicine and owners’ rising…

“Is AI and the narrative surrounding AI a breakthrough, a bubble, or both? It’s both,” says Rob Arnott, the founder of value-focused asset management group Research Affiliates. The prospects for artificial intelligence (AI) technology are enormous, he tells Institutional Investor: it has the promise to revolutionise the economy and our lives. And Nvidia stands to benefit immensely: the firm is the key designer of the high-powered chips used in AI systems. However, all this potential is already priced into Nvidia’s shares, as it is for many large-cap tech companies today. In some respects, the market closely resembles the dotcom boom and bust and the outcome for then-hot stocks such as Cisco and Qualcomm. “In 2000, we had a new paradigm… In this new paradigm, the leaders in the dotcom revolution…

conservativehome.com Many on the right believe the state is “too big, expensive and burdensome”, says Michael Ashcroft. Recent polling, however, shows that voters, including a significant number of Tories, think differently. British voters overall have a more positive view of government than of capitalism and big business, for example. Regulations on business are seen more positively than free markets. More than two-thirds of respondents agreed that “people have a right to things like decent housing, healthcare, education and enough to live on, and the government has a responsibility to make sure everyone has them”. To that end, they would like to see more spending in nearly all areas – while at the same time agreeing that taxes are too high. All this might have small-state advocates “shaking their heads in…

■ RM Infrastructure Income trust is set for a managed wind down after ending discussions to merge with GCP Infrastructure Investments, says Investment Week. The board launched a strategic review in May after receiving a merger approach, noting that the £81m trust’s small scale, large discount and liquidity limited its ability to grow. However, merging with another trust would be “a much more complex process than initially envisaged”, the board said. A circular detailing the proposals will be published by the end of October. ■ The third-largest tenant of Home Reit, the struggling homeless-housing trust, has gone into liquidation, says Citywire. Supportive Homes CIC represented 11.3% of the trust’s rent roll. Its demise follows the collapse last month of two tenants accounting for 12% of rent, while two other tenants…

A key issue for investors is whether the UK economy will go into recession and, if so, how deep it is going to be. With interest rates at levels not seen for 15 years, and fears that they might go even higher, there are already some indications that firms are starting to cut back on hiring. No wonder, then, that shares in recruitment specialists have tumbled in recent months. One company badly hit is SThree (LSE: STEM), which has seen its stock fall from a peak of 495p in the spring to a low of 325p a few weeks ago. However, I think this decline is overdone. Admittedly, things haven’t been all plain sailing for SThree, which specialises in scientists and engineers. When it reported its half-yearly results in late…

“We are witnessing the beginning of the end of the fossil-fuel era,” Fatih Birol of the International Energy Agency (IEA) tells David Sheppard in the Financial Times. New IEA projections show that worldwide demand for oil, natural gas and coal will all peak before 2030 owing to an unexpectedly fast rollout of renewable technologies and improvements in energy efficiency. Yet while fossil fuels will soon be in structural decline, the fall “won’t be linear... there can still be spikes... on the way down”. The world is currently living through one such spike. Brent crude oil prices have risen by more than 25% since June to top $91 a barrel this week, a ten-month high. Last week Saudi Arabia and Russia, the leaders of the Opec+ producers’ cartel, confirmed that they…

Apple’s launch of the iPhone 15 has been overshadowed by the news that the Chinese government has “ordered central government agency officials not to bring iPhones into the office or use them for work”, say Mariko Oi and Chris Vallance on the BBC. Beijing is also reportedly considering extending the ban to workers at state-owned companies and government-backed agencies. The news caused Apple’s shares to drop by 6%. Even Apple’s suppliers were hit, with Qualcomm, the world’s biggest maker of smartphone chips, dropping by more than 7% on Thursday. Apple has found itself “the latest tech industry victim of geopolitical tensions between the US and China”, says The Guardian. The iPhone clampdown is among Beijing’s retaliatory measures after China’s Huawei was banned by the US and others from national 5G-mobile…

Three to buy Atome Energy The Mail on Sunday This green hydrogen and fertiliser business listed on Aim in 2021. There is a growing push to cut farming emissions, and Atome has found a way to produce “zero-carbon fertiliser at scale”, using hydroelectricity in Paraguay. The Brazilian market is a big opportunity next door, and there are also plans to ship the fertiliser further afield when commercial production is achieved around 2026. There may be bumps in the road ahead, but the “technology is proven” and the shares have plenty of upside potential. 83p IG Design The Sunday Times This stationery-to-greetings-cards business makes more than a billion metres of wrapping paper a year. The shares have slid by 75% in five years. Covid hit the party industry, while some “questionable…

North Korean leader Kim Jongun (pictured) has travelled to Russia by armoured train for talks with president Vladimir Putin on “unspecified topics”, says The Telegraph. These are expected to focus on supplying the Kremlin with ammunition for its war in Ukraine; Kim Jong-un for his part hopes to gain access to Russian ballistic missile expertise for his nuclear weapons programme. That is bad news for Ukraine and the West, and dangerous for Asia too as Russian technology and expertise could enable North Korea to overcome the technical hurdles that have plagued its submarine and satellite programmes, says Bloomberg. Even if Russia only gave cash or cheap energy, this would free up resources that Kim Jong-Un could devote to his nuclear ambitions. China, too, will have mixed feelings – “the closer…

About ten years ago, MoneyWeek’s editorial team put together a simple asset-allocation portfolio, implemented solely with index trackers – either exchange-traded funds or unit trusts/open-ended investment companies. The aim of this portfolio was to strike a balance between growth and protection. It didn’t attempt to forecast the future or time the market – instead, it aimed to cope well across a range of likely scenarios. When the portfolio was first put together, the major concerns for investors were centred on monetary and fiscal policy. To quote from the very first update: “Central banks across the world are printing money. The banking system is still at death’s door. Interest rates have never been this low. Global stockmarkets have seen two vicious crashes since the start of the millennium. It feels as…

Tiptoeing away from Brexit Will Hutton The Guardian The “universal and enthusiastic welcome” given to the news that Britain is to rejoin the £81bn EU Horizon programme for scientific collaboration is part of a “pattern” of Brexit climbdowns, says Will Hutton. “The first step back was the Windsor accords over Northern Ireland.” Additionally, Britain will no longer scrap 4,000 EU laws by Christmas, we are “abandoning” the costly and pointless attempt to create a UK-branded standards kitemark (the EU safety kitemark, the CE, is the one that “matters internationally”), and the new border regime checking on EU imports for food and plants has been “postponed for the fifth time”. To “lower business costs, get growth and contain inflation, we have to conform to what our large and powerful EU neighbour…

noahpinion.blog In politics, generals are always fighting the last war, says Noah Smith. Donald Trump’s outlook on the issues facing the nation are stuck in 1990. The debate about climate change, similarly, is stuck at around 2010, when solar power and electric vehicles were prohibitively expensive. All the talk about how decarbonising the economy would lead to big cutbacks in living standards made sense then. Now, not so much. The price of electricity from solar, expressed in units that account for the costs of building the plant, and the ongoing costs of fuel and running the plant, has fallen by 89% over the ten years from 2009, making it cheaper than almost all alternatives, even when you factor in energy storage. Natural gas and wind are the only real competitors.…

Trying to hedge yourself against tail risks such as geopolitical tensions is often a waste of time and money. However, there is one strategy that has been very profitable: investing in defence and aerospace businesses. For example, the US-focused S&P Aerospace and Defence Select index has produced ten-year annualised total returns of 13.29%, compared with 12.81% for the S&P 500. The tailwinds behind this sector today don’t need too much restating: the Nato commitment to re-arm, the Ukraine war, the shortage of armaments, but also the new space race and the massive rebound in air travel. Aerospace and defence firms have been in a business sweet spot, at a time when environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria had led to many falling out of favour. That meant they were under-owned…

Wasteland The Dirty Truth About What We Throw Away, Where It Goes, and Why It Matters Oliver Franklin-Wallis Simon & Schuster UK, £20 Every day, we throw our rubbish away. But as Rachel Salvidge notes in the Literary Review, there is no such thing as “away”. Our rubbish is moved from one spot on Earth to another, where it is either buried or transformed, whether through burning or recycling. “One person’s ‘away’ is another’s ‘here’.” And where does it go? In his book Wasteland, Oliver Franklin-Wallis lets us in on “the dirty truth”. He “journeys to some of humanity’s least fragrant locations to literally wade among our rubbish, discovering how it got there and exploring its effects on the lives of the people charged with dealing with it”. His book…

Seven in ten people want the age at which they can claim the state pension to be reduced, new research shows. But they are almost certain to be disappointed. Ministers plan further increases in the state pension age in the years ahead, from 66 today to 67 and beyond. Does that mean early retirement is out of reach for most people? Not necessarily. Even if you’re not ready to embrace the “financial independence retire early” (FIRE) movement, which preaches extreme savings strategies to enable followers to give up work at a young age, there are practical steps you can take with the aim of bringing your retirement date forward. The key is to be organised and systematic with your financial planning. Once you’ve paid down debts, including your mortgage (or…

Virtually all major stockmarkets have official trading times. In the case of the London Stock Exchange this is from 8am in the morning to 4.30pm in the evening, with a two-minute break after noon. While this may seem short, the New York Stock Exchange runs for only seven hours (from 9.30pm to 4.30pm), while the Tokyo Stock Exchange open for a mere five hours a day, 9am to 3pm, with an hour-long break between 11.30am and 12.30am. This is partly a legacy of the need to process trades with pen and paper, but also because concentrating the trading hours increases the number of buyers and sellers, bolstering liquidity. Some trading does take place outside these times, with both the NYSE, Nasdaq, as well as the London Stock Exchange permitting some…

Alexander Fordyce was born in Belhelvie, Scotland, in 1729, and worked as a hosier before moving down to London in 1757. There he took a job as a clerk to a banker in the City, eventually becoming a partner in the banking house Neale, James, Fordyce and Down. Over the next 15 years the firm profited from Fordyce’s talent for speculation – one episode saw him trade on advance knowledge of the Treaty of Paris in 1763. He became known as the Macaroni (ie, flash) Gambler. What was the trade? Shares in the East India Company soared in the 1760s, as did the dividend, after the firm won the right to tax its subjects directly. Fordyce believed the company’s finances were more precarious than many believed, and that the dividend…

2022 Nosiola, Lavis, Trentino, Vigneti delle Dolomiti, Italy £13.49, houseoftownend.com It has taken me 17 years to feature a nosiola in this column, and I am delighted that this day has come, because this is a stunning version of this ultra-rare white grape, and it is also mind-blowing value for money. Cantina Lavis was founded in 1850 by the Cembran family. It has operated as an elite cooperative since 1948, so they know about crafting sensual, memorable and accurate wines. With outstanding freshness, a haunting, silky texture, and hints of hazelnut, apple skin, celery, and lemon pith, this is a white wine that shape-shifts in the glass, parading brightness and crispness as well as intrigue, uniqueness and beguiling complexity. The folks at House of Townend brought this wine to my…

Ever since the world’s first postage stamp, the Penny Black, was introduced in 1840, officials have worried that people would try to cheat by reusing them. So, a year later, the Penny Black became the Penny Red, because, according to London’s Postal Museum, the black ink used to “cancel” the stamps was the hardest to remove, but it didn’t show up against the background. And so on down to the present day. All stamps bearing the profile of King Charles III come with a barcode – a security innovation that has divided opinion in collecting circles. Traditionalists hate the intrusion of the barcode on the traditional stamp format, but Victoria Lajer of Stanley Gibbons’ auction house thinks the innovation will in fact appeal to collectors . “Stamp collectors like new…