Indholdsfortegnelse for 1193 i MoneyWeek

“I’m sure Britain will look lovely once it’s finished,” remarked a German friend as I drove her to the airport after she had spent several months working here. I opened my mouth to protest that it wasn’t as bad as all that, and look at Berlin airport for heaven’s sake, but then the car hit a pothole, and I lost my train of thought. Two minutes later, confronted with a new temporary traffic light, I decided not to say anything. The country has undeniably become one big pothole with work proceeding at a glacial pace and costs spiralling upwards (Scotland is suffering too; Merryn keeps us updated on her Twitter feed). We build more slowly and expensively than almost anywhere else, and this is the main reason our productivity is…

“After 2022-2023’s extraordinary surge in inflation, caution among central bankers [about cutting rates] is understandable... [They] don’t want to be remembered as the next Arthur Burns, the Federal Reserve chair who was widely... blamed for letting inflation get out of hand in the 1970s... US inflation... surged into double-digits in 1973-1974... and then [soared] again back over 12% by 1979... The roller-coaster of price levels over the 1970s [suggests] that inflation takes years... to get under control... But the inflation surges of the 1970s were caused by the Arab oil embargo of 1973... Today’s disruptions to shipping in the Red Sea [pale in comparison]... Shipping costs make up... a small fraction of the sale prices of final consumer goods... [and] even if costs doubled and all of this was passed…

BP is under pressure to stop going green. Hedge fund Bluebell Capital Partners wants it “to ditch a strategy that will see it cut its oil and gas output in favour of investing in clean energy”, says Jasper Jolly in The Guardian. Bluebell blames the strategy, which it calls “utterly unrealistic”, for keeping a lid on the stock, and argues that BP should reverse course by increasing production in the next few years. Any future cuts in emissions should be “in line with society”. Bluebell believes that its advice could boost BP’s valuation by up to 50%. The fund has a track record of being “influential”. Bluebell is right to ask BP to “rethink its pursuit of net-zero nirvana in the face of growing scepticism” from investors, says Ben Marlow…

French manufacturing giant Alstom, which makes rail carriages that are used worldwide, continues to enjoy strong trading, says Jacques Violet-Secondi for Investir. Production of new models was up by 14% in the nine months to 31 December and there were new maintenance contract wins in both the UK and Australia. Investors remain preoccupied by elevated debt levels; while management plans disposals and cost-savings, the pace of restructuring is not as fast as some analysts would like. Yet with expectations now so low and the firm’s markets buoyant as governments invest in rail infrastructure worldwide, there’s room for surprises on the upside. It’s a “highly speculative” buy.…

Politics & economics Germany has seen more than two weeks of protests against the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and others on the far right after investigative journalists at Correctiv reported that extremists, including AfD members, had met to discuss the “mass deportation of millions of foreigners and Germans from migrant families”, says Anna Sauerbrey in The New York Times. More than two million people have taken to the streets from liberal cities such as Berlin and many in eastern Germany, where the far right is “particularly strong”. The problem is not just the rise of AfD, which is now strong enough in some regions to “aspire to positions of power”, but antipathy towards the “whole political system”. Even though immigration is rising, Germany still lacks skilled labour and…

There’s a lot of speculation over the date of the next general election. Despite rumours of a snap post-Budget election, punters still believe that it will take place this autumn. With £166,582 matched on Betfair, October-December 2024 is the favourite at 1.38 (72.5%), April-June is at seven (14.3%), July-September is at 15.5 (6.5%) 2025 or later is at 16 (6.3%) and January-March is at 120 (0.08%). Bookmakers agree, although Paddy Power offers slightly better odds of 16/1 (5.9%) on a 2025 election. Betfair is also offering a market on the exact month. With £1.499 matched, the favourite is November at two (50%), October at four (25%) and 2025 (or later) at seven(14.3%). Other dates include May at 7.6 (13.2%), February at 10.5 (9.5%) and March at 11 (9.1%). If you…

It was probably the first positive news out of Israel in the months since Hamas launched its brutal terrorist attack on the country. Bill Ackman, the founder of the giant Pershing Square hedge fund, bought a 5% stake in the Tel Aviv stock exchange as part of a wider $95m issue of fresh capital. It was the biggest vote of confidence in the Israeli economy since the war began. True, Ackman may have been voting with his heart as much as his wallet. He has been an outspoken supporter of the Israeli government, and helped lead the campaign against Harvard and other elite universities in the US over their perceived tolerance of growing anti-semitism among their staff and students. That said, Ackman is also one of the smartest money managers…

A zombie company is one that earns enough money to keep running, and to pay the interest on its debts, but not enough to expand, invest or to pay down its debts. In other words, it’s neither alive nor dead – it’s just shambling along, dependent on the ongoing indulgence of its lenders, and highly vulnerable to the slightest business shock. A zombie company is usually reasonably mature. Young firms are often loss-making, but that’s because they are at the “invest and build” stage of development. Equally, its losses shouldn’t simply be the result of temporary issues, such as restructuring and associated write-downs. The crucial point is that the company shows little sign of being able to turn a meaningful profit in the foreseeable future. Research by analysts at the…

“I don’t have money to splash around. I never got paid like the men got paid. [People] think that all those stories in magazines that I have 17 cars and three houses are true. No. I have one house and a 15-year-old Bentley Continental that I bought myself for my 50th birthday.” Actor Sharon Stone (pictured), quoted in The Times “Because my mortgage rises this month from £800 a month to £2,000, which I simply couldn’t afford to pay on a ministerial salary… [we’re] in danger of making politics something only hedge-fund donors, young spin doctors and failed trade unionists can afford to do.” Tory MP George Freeman on why he quit his £118,300-a-year ministerial job, quoted on BBC News “The secret to success is to own nothing, but control…

newstatesman.com When General Sir Patrick Sanders, chief of the general staff, suggested that a mass draft of teenagers into the British army might one day soon be necessary, our youth woke up to a new world where they could be “pulled from the safe edges of global conflict and forced to dance in the bloody, geopolitical school disco”, says Clive Martin. Cue much hand-wringing about whether the younger generation of “snowflakes” had a hope in hell in a war against Johnny Foreigner. How would the social-justice warriors who profess to care deeply about protecting others stand up to the Russians, or the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, or the bold Houthis? They’d probably do better than you might think. Those “lost young people” who spend their lives in the gym and…

Exxon Mobil is suing activist investors Arjuna Capital and Follow This, says CNBC. It intends to prevent them from submitting a proposal at the shareholders meeting on 29 May for the US oil giant to accelerate cuts to greenhouse-gas emissions. The company, which filed the lawsuit at a district court in Texas, says the proposal violates the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) investor-petition rules. This is the first time Exxon has gone to court to prevent a shareholders’ vote, and the move will be closely followed by other oil firms. A win for Exxon could hamper future shareholders’ petitions. Exxon’s stakeholders voted overwhelmingly to reject stronger climate measures last year.…

The venture-capital trust (VCT) industry is hoping to pull off a hat-trick. In each of the past two tax years, it has raised more than £1bn from investors. VCTs offer a range of generous tax benefits to mitigate some of the risks of putting money into the small, early-stage companies that they back. If all the funds currently raising money eventually hit their targets, VCTs will repeat the trick in the 2023-2024 tax year. Still, there are no guarantees. Some of the other tax-efficient savings routes open to investors now look more generous than in the past; the annual allowance for private pension savings has increased to £60,000, and the lifetime allowance (LTA) limiting the size of pensions is in the process of being scrapped. As a result, savers forced…

One app that is listed in the UK, which does seem to be both helping people while also growing into profitability, is Aimlisted mental health app, Kooth (Aim: KOO). The shares have enjoyed a very strong 15 months, trebling in value from October 2022. The company pre-dates the rise of smartphones, being founded in 2001 by Elaine Bousfield, who at the time was a counsellor working with adolescents and young adults. Bousfield wanted to expand access to mental-health services to people who would not typically seek help, as early intervention tends to result in better outcomes. The idea was to eliminate obstacles such as waiting lists, referrals and general bureaucracy. Kooth’s technology offers anonymous professional counselling, peer-to-peer support and self-help tools. No personal information is needed to use the service,…

Insurer Sun Life has revealed that the cost of a basic funeral has risen by 4.7% to £4,141 over the past year. In 2004 the same funeral would have cost £1,836. “That is far higher than the rate of inflation over the same period,” says Mark Screeton, CEO at Sun Life. The total cost of dying – including burial or cremation fees, paying the funeral director, an average coffin and other funeral fees – has reached £9,658. While 70% of us set money aside to pay for our own funerals, according to the Sun Life report, only 54% of us leave a sum that will cover the full cost. “This lack of provision is leaving those left behind with an average bill of £1,872.” There is plenty you can do…

Time is almost up for the copper network that has enabled Britons to make and receive telephone calls for more than a century. Next year, Openreach will switch off the UK’s analogue network. That means both businesses and homes will need to switch to a digital service before then if they haven’t already done so. For small businesses, this represents an opportunity. Making the leap to digital could give you access to a range of new services, as well as improved pricing. Digital telephone services, known as voice over internet protocol (Voip) in telecoms industry jargon, are provided through broadband connections. Most businesses will already have access to broadband, but if yours doesn’t, your Voip provider should be able to supply one specifically to support its phone service. The good…

Most companies are, by definition, mediocre. Some are good. Fewer still are great. And a tiny minority are truly exceptional. These are the ones I want to own. I’m looking to invest in durable, adaptable and – above all – resilient businesses: those selling critical goods and services, with high levels of recurring income from loyal customers. I believe the three companies below pass these tests with flying colours. Resilience and rapid growth at RELX You would struggle to find a higher-quality UK-listed firm than RELX (LSE: REL). It is one of the world’s top data experts. Its data, tools and analytics help insurers price risks, nations combat fraud and banks comply with anti-money laundering rules. These aren’t things you stop doing in an economic downturn. Along with RELX’s long-term…

Billionaires’ Row Tycoons, High Rollers, and the Epic Race to Build the World’s Most Exclusive Skyscrapers Katherine Clarke Currency, £25 When the collapse of Lehman Brothers caused global financial markets to plunge in 2008, many expected the curtain to fall on an age of excess. Instead, the next decade saw a boom in services and goods catering to the ultra-wealthy, even as the rest of the world was forced to tighten its belt. Nowhere was this more obvious than in property – the price of luxury apartments and mansions in super-prime locations spiralled ever upwards, propelled by the increasing globalisation of wealth. Katherine Clarke’s book looks at several New York real-estate tycoons, most notably Harry Macklowe, Gary Barnett, Steve Roth and Michael Stern, who tried to cash in on this…

Alex Gerko, the Moscow-born founder of trading firm XTX Markets, paid £664.5m to the Exchequer last year, topping The Sunday Times Tax List. He is followed, reluctantly, by former F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone, who had pleaded guilty to tax fraud and paid £652.6m, including a £330m fine. He claimed the discrepancy had been “an honest mistake”. Singer Ed Sheeran is the youngest person on the list in 32nd place, and, just above him, author J.K. Rowling (pictured) paid far more than in the prior year. They paid £39.6m and £40m respectively. The list lays bare the disparity between the super wealthy, who paid less this year, compared with the majority, who have been lumbered with the highest tax burden since World War II, says the paper’s Robert Watts. Excluding Gerko’s…

French stocks have hit a new all-time high, surpassing last year’s record. Powered by strong results from LVMH, the world’s biggest luxury conglomerate (see page 6), the country’s CAC-40 index jumped by 2.3% last Friday to a record close, says Stephanie Stacey in the Financial Times. The pan-European Stoxx Europe 600 index closed at its highest level since January 2022. LVMH reported €86bn in turnover and record €15bn profits last year, sending the shares vaulting by 12.8% in a single trading session, says Bastien Bouchaud in Les Echos. That added €40bn of market value and represented LVMH’s best day on the stockmarket since 2008. The firm’s market capitalisation has risen by a factor of 20 since then. Europe’s second-largest company (behind Denmark’s Novo Nordisk), LVMH alone has grown to account…

The US economy “just keeps going”, says Justin Lahart in The Wall Street Journal. US GDP expanded by 3.1% year on year in the fourth quarter of 2023. On an annualised basis (annual growth if quarterly performance lasted for a year) the economy grew by 3.3%, a slowdown from the blistering 4.9% of the third quarter, but still strong. That’s some turnaround given most economists expected a recession in 2023. With inflation cooling and workers feeling better off, consumption looks unlikely to “buckle”. Strong US growth is seeing it increase its lead over China, the world’s second-biggest economy, says Hal Brands on Bloomberg. US GDP was $9.25trn bigger than China’s last year, the largest gap since 2010.…

The market has been “nervous about a potential unravelling of the luxury thread”, says Lex in the Financial Times. But the results from LVMH “have reassured investors that, for megabrands at least, a luxury crunch is not on the horizon”. News of a 10% increase in LVMH’s sales in the final quarter of 2023, with its key fashion and leather goods division continuing to show strength and its margins holding steady, prompted a 12% jump in the stock. So even though 2024 is still likely to be “a year of slowing luxury spend”, the “much feared contraction is nowhere to be seen”. Instead, a “soft landing” after the “Covid-induced spending bonanza”, followed by a quick return to return to reasonable sales growth of between 5% and 7% is likely. Investors…

London’s stockmarket has been snubbed again. Life-sciences group Nuclera, which was spun out of Cambridge University, has declared that it is considering an initial public offering in New York in the next five years, says City AM. The group specialises in identifying the proteins required to create new vaccines or treatments. Co-founder and CEO Michael Chen said he wanted to achieve unicorn status (a private firm valued at more than $1bn) before listing or selling to a larger company. The Nasdaq has established itself as the key biotechnology market in recent years, Chen notes, but “perhaps the London Stock Exchange will look incredibly attractive in three to five years”.…

● Struggling clothing brand Superdry has “confirmed the inevitable”, says Simon English in The Standard. The firm is set for a restructuring that is likely to include store closures and job cuts. Founder and CEO Julian Dunkerton (pictured) isn’t to blame – the period when Superdry over-expanded happened after he left and before he returned to try to salvage it. “The company he re-inherited was a total mess. It still is, but he’s doing his best.” The flagship Oxford Street store has been revamped, the range of clothes is “wider and less garish”, and new deals in Asia offer hope. Still, the finances are tough and the obvious step would be to de-list while trying to turn it around. “If Dunkerton can’t save the business, no one can.” ● Abrdn…

“The short-term cyclical outlook is incredibly uncertain, more uncertain than normal,” says Albert Edwards, the famously bearish strategist known for his “Ice Age” thesis that most Western markets are headed for Japanese-style deflationary stagnation. “But in the medium term, think of the maddest thing you could think of, and actually you might not be so wrong.” For now, investors should brace for recession, Edwards tells the Financial Times. “This has been the most predicted recession in history, and people have got it wrong, so they tend to give up.” But when the downturn finally arrives, it is likely to be deeper than expected, made worse by the long-delayed reckoning for zombie companies. Inflation will head to zero, which should be a good environment for bonds and interest-rate-sensitive stocks, such as…

theguardian.com Go to a hipster cafe for coffee anywhere in the world and you’ll be struck by the fact that they all look the same, says Kyle Chayka – all industrial-sized wood tables, large storefront windows, bright interior walls, fashionable coffees with your choice of milk and “elaborate latte art”, all while somehow giving the impression that they have emerged organically and authentically from their location. Yet these independent cafes don’t all look the same because they have been forced to by a corporate parent, as with Starbucks, say. It’s because they are all connected to the “new network of digital geography”. Cafe owners soon learn what appeals to hipsters and how to attract them via social media. Word spreads. The result is a creeping homogenisation. Expect the trend to…

■ Passive US mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) eclipsed their active counterparts for the first time in 2023, when their assets swelled to £13.3trn, says the Financial Times. Actively managed funds held only $13.2trn, according to data by investment platform Morningstar. Active funds shed roughly $450bn in 2023, while passive funds took in $529bn. This is due to decades of steady growth in index-linked investment products and the growing popularity of ETFs, which invest in securities in the same manner as funds but trade on exchanges in the same way as equities. Cerulli’s Matt Apkarian says the milestone is not primarily about retail investors jettisoning active funds because they have proved disappointing or expensive – asset managers and advisers are “changing how they’re doing their job and being more…

VCTs offer generous tax breaks, but there are traps to watch out for, so read the small print. Firstly, new VCT shares offer 30% upfront income-tax relief: you can put up to £200,000 into a fund each year and reduce your income tax bill by 30% of your total investment. This only applies on newly issued VCT shares, as opposed to shares you might buy on the secondary market. And if you sell your shares after less than five years, you will have to repay the relief. In addition, all dividends from VCT shares are tax-free. They don’t count towards your tax-free dividend allowance, which is becoming steadily less valuable. And while you might not expect the early-stage investments that VCTs make to generate much income, most funds are structured…

If you are married, or in a civil partnership, you can save up to £250 a year on your tax bill. The marriage allowance is a woefully underused tax benefit. Of the 4.2 million couples eligible for the tax break, only 1.8 million are claiming it, says accountancy firm Pro Taxman. The idea is that if one of you is a lower earner or does not work, and is not using all of their tax-free personal allowance, they can transfer some of their allowance to their partner. So if one partner earns less than £12,570 and the other between £12,571 and £50,270, you may be eligible for the marriage allowance. It can’t be used if one of you is a higher- or additional-rate taxpayer. When calculating your income, include any…

One in three small firms plans to take on new staff this year, new data shows, but many of them are concerned about how much they will have to pay. With wage inflation soaring in 2023, managers are worried about their ability to offer salaries that are competitive enough to attract and retain staff. Pay increases have slowed in recent months, in line with the easing in inflation. However, salaries are still rising at an average rate of 6.6%. And the picture varies greatly by sector. In some areas of the economy – notably retail and leisure – wages have continued to rise at rates above 7%. Small-business owners therefore have to be prepared to do their homework when it comes to setting pay scales. Researching what rival employers are…

The thing that doomed the American empire more than any other was its currency. When the US substituted a fake, paper-only, dollar in 1971, it set in motion a financial doomsday machine. For a long time, it seemed to Americans and foreigners alike to be a blessing, an “exorbitant privilege”. We didn’t have to make things; we could just print money. Since the dollar was the world’s “reserve currency”, other nations took it willingly and even lent it back to us by buying more of our bonds. But now, the great weakness of paper money is (once again) becoming apparent. Since it can be produced at will, it can also be lent out at will – but in a crunch, it gives way. When the US switched from an asset-backed…

Will 2024 mark a return to form for commodities? Raw materials were the best-performing asset class in 2021 and 2022, say Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey of ING. Yet they suffered a sharp reversal in 2023, with the S&P GSCI index, which tracks 24 major raw materials, tumbling by 12%. Markets “underestimated the ability of trade flows to adjust to sanctions” on Russia, while central-bank monetary tightening and Chinese stagnation hampered global demand last year. Weakness in some materials is likely to persist. The nickel market, for example, remains in a supply glut because of a huge jump in Indonesian production. But for most commodities, 2024 is shaping up to be a better year. Interest-rate cuts should boost demand, providing a tailwind for prices. The bubble is still bursting Not…

Tesla has warned that sales growth will be hit by “flagging demand, intensifying competition and persistent high interest rates [dampening] the effect of a series of price cuts”, says Tabby Kinder in the Financial Times. CEO Elon Musk, however, insists that the company is simply “between two major growth waves”. A “new lower-cost car in the second half of 2025” is set to transform Tesla’s fortunes. But there are concerns that stalling worldwide demand for electric vehicles means that the world’s most valuable carmaker “has entered a new era of lower sales growth and margins”. This latest fall is just part of a poor start to 2024 that has seen Tesla’s market value slide by $94bn in the first two weeks of January after doubling last year, says Johana Bhuiyan…

Five to buy Datadog Shares This US-based cloud-software service should be one of the big winners from the artificial-intelligence (AI) boom. Its tools monitor clients’ servers and databases to troubleshoot problems on behalf of 25,000 firms worldwide. AI requires vast quantities of data, thus greatly expanding Datadog’s potential market. This is a competitive area, requiring heavy research and development spending that has led to losses, but 2023 is likely to have seen a “profits breakthrough”. $133 Spectris The Telegraph This FTSE-250 precision instruments, technology equipment and software business is precisely the sort of excellent British company that gets overlooked because it is listed on the unfashionable London market. Yet operations are globally diversified, with just 4% of revenue coming from Britain. A strong order book adds stability, while a “solid…

France’s newly appointed prime minister, Gabriel Attal (pictured), is facing his “first major test” as protests by farmer block roads nationwide, say Aurelien Breeden and Catherine Porter in The New York Times. The government has tried to head them off with promises of aid and changes to regulation, but these haven’t calmed the situation, not least because protestors’ grievances are so varied, ranging from low wages to cheap imports undercutting their livelihoods. The situation “defies easy solutions” and, far from backing down, the farmers, who currently enjoy support from more than 80% of the public, are planning a “siege” of the French capital. Little wonder the government is worried about a repeat of the 18-month gilets jaunes popular rebellion in 2018, which “scarred the fabric of politics for far longer…

The MoneyWeek exchange-traded fund (ETF) portfolio holds most of its equity allocation in broad funds: US, Europe, Japan and emerging markets. However, there are many other ways to slice up markets, such as sector, size, factor (stocks with specific characteristics such as high yields or low price/earning ratios), thematic and more. Given that many companies – especially larger ones – depend on the state of the global economy more than the country where they have their main listing, this may seem like a more sophisticated approach. So why not ignore geography and build a portfolio using sector trackers to reflect which sectors offer the best value? Telcos and tech Before considering this, it’s important to note that not all sector funds offer exactly what an investor would expect from their…

Customers say no to electric cars Todd Buchholz Project Syndicate Electric vehicles (EVs) are being promoted by governments and tech wizards, but the public isn’t listening, says Todd Buchholz. People still prefer to stop at a garage to fill up than “retrofit their garage” and suffer “range anxiety”. In any case, 21% of public chargers don’t work and longer, more frequent blackouts mean that people are “reluctant to tie their mobility to a wall plug”. This behaviour will affect “not just the car industry”, but also “US-China relations, state budgets and commodity prices”. It already is. Hertz, which purchased 100,000 Teslas in 2021, is “dumping” a third of its EV fleet, “taking a $245m charge against its earnings”. Even though Ford, Tesla and GM have slashed EV prices by an…

capx.co “Britain is in a wealth crisis,” says Thomas Nurcombe. Since 2008, incomes have been stagnant and the cost-of-living crisis has seen real pay fall by 4% for those from the poorest 10% of households. A third of the population has less than £1,000 saved. Rents eat up 30% of young people’s income. All this “flies in the face of conservative values and indeed a functioning market economy”, which relies on the rewards from work providing stability and long-term rewards. An overlooked solution is to promote employee ownership. Employee-owned businesses tend to pay better – those in the UK pay an average of £3,000 more annually than other kinds of businesses, and are 22 percentage points more likely to pay the living wage. Annual bonuses and share ownership boost financial…

It’s been a roller coaster ride for shareholders of the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust (LSE: SMT), the £11bn giant of the investment-trust sector. The share price trebled to £15 in the two years to late 2021, then fell by 60% to a low of £6 in the next 18 months. It then climbed back to more than £8 at the end of 2023, before slipping to 750p in January. The price went from a premium to net asset value (NAV) to a 20% discount, but now trades at an 11% discount. Investors swung from adulation of its focused portfolio of high-growth listed and unlisted stocks (the top-ten holdings account for 45% of the portfolio, 30% of which is unlisted) to deep scepticism. But they now appear to be shifting back…

The money pages of the weekend papers are often pretty miserable. But one of this week’s pieces was even more miserable than usual. In the Financial Times, Claer Barrett told us about Martin, a 59-year-old forced into early retirement after developing a disability. He checked up on the value of his pension in June 2021 and found it was worth £200,000. He checked again in October 2023 and that number was £134,000. A third was gone. What on earth, you might ask, went wrong? The answer, says Barrett, is “lifestyling”, a system used by pension-fund managers to cut the risk in portfolios as their beneficiaries age. When you are young, your manager invests your money in equities – after all, if things go wrong, you have plenty of time to…

Marks & Spencer’s (LSE: MKS) Christmas trading performance has confirmed that the company is back in business. Investors with a long memory, however, are going to take more convincing. M&S has been in turnaround mode since 2005, and along the way it has suffered several false starts. Investors who have stuck with the business have been sorely disappointed, seeing a total return of just 4.4% per annum over the past 15 years, roughly half the FTSE All-Share’s total yearly return of 8%. Furthermore, over the past five and ten years the shares’ total annual return has been 1% and -1.9% respectively. However, the company has come a long way from the depths of the pandemic, when it cut its coveted dividend and had to renegotiate its overdraft facility with banks…

● If you pay monthly for your car insurance you could be paying interest charges of 30%, says Hilary Osborne in The Guardian. When you buy car insurance, you can pay with an annual lump sum or monthly. In the latter case, “the total cost is typically higher because the premiums are treated as a loan, and insurers add an interest rate to the payment”. Research by consumers’ group Which has found that the interest charged ranges between 20.5% and 36.33%. ● Around 13,000 people who had overpaid tax when first accessing their pension were repaid £38m late last year, says Josephine Cumbo in the Financial Times. Usually when you start accessing your pension you can take 25% of the money tax-free. After that withdrawals are subject to income tax.…

● As more companies file tax returns for their most recent trading periods, the impact of last April’s corporation tax rises may come as a shock. The main rate of tax has risen from 19% to 25%, with only small firms with profits below £50,000 escaping the hike altogether. Businesses with profits of £250,000 or more now pay the 25% rate, with a sliding scale for those with earnings of more than £50,000 but below this level. A small business with an annual profit of £300,000, for example, will now have to stump up £18,000 of extra corporation tax. ● An apparent backlash against remote working appears to be easing among small businesses, with new research suggesting many firms hope they can reduce costs by promoting increased work from home.…

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is “once again raising tensions”, says Sue Mi Terry in Foreign Affairs. Every week brings news of missiles tests and an expansion of the country’s capacity for mass destruction. The rhetoric has also got more fiery and the symbolism concerning – Kim recently tore down the Arch of Reunification, a monument that symbolised the hope that North and South would one day reunite, a goal held by three generations of the Kim family. Some analysts say Kim has already decided to go to war. The likelihood is that he hasn’t – there is nothing new about North Korean leaders issuing threats, partly to shore up their political standing at home and abroad, and war would surely mark the end of Kim’s regime. But one…

2022 Flowers, Sonoma Coast Chardonnay, California £51, emilewines.co.uk I spent much of January tasting upmarket chardonnays and pinots noirs, ranging from £25-£500 per bottle, from the 2022 Burgundy vintage and have picked out the best bottles from this bountiful but relatively anodyne vintage in various posts on my website. It is interesting to note that 2022 was the warmest vintage in Burgundy since 1947. We do not need to be reminded of the perils of climate change. Still, with harvests occurring in late August/early September instead of late September/early October, grapes ripen earlier and faster than ever. Acid profiles and inbuilt complexity derived from long “hang-times” are in danger of becoming a thing of the past. While I don’t deny that after a run of challenging years, it is a…