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It’s just as well Dry January is over. Not only have those who put themselves through it finally started talking about something else, but US investors now also have all the more reason to resort to a stiff drink. They were looking forward to reductions in interest rates this spring. But unexpectedly sticky US inflation in January suggests that it could be a lot longer before the US Federal Reserve can reduce the price of money; if February’s figures point the same way, expectations of a further interest-rate hike may spread. Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, ticked up by 0.4% in January, the biggest jump since last May. On an annual basis it is climbing at 3.9%, the same pace as in December. The downtrend of…

“Hong Kong’s Hang Seng stock index now trades around the same levels it did in 1997... Chinese equities [are deemed] “uninvestable”... [That] sounds like an opportunity. A value trade requires enough gloom to drive market prices below intrinsic value... According to Deutsche Bank, the Hang Seng index trades at a forward price-to-earnings multiple of about eight... Global equity valuations [are] more than double that... Nor are these failing companies. The largest, such as Tencent and Alibaba, are... still growing... If [they traded] in line with their US peers, investors would... double their money... Beijing... will provide more fiscal support for the economy...[while the] regulator is pushing for dividends [and] buybacks... A market revival based on returning cash to investors...would bring the value trade to fruition... giving foreign investors a final…

Shares in packaging firm DS Smith, known for its cardboard boxes, have jumped by 11% after it confirmed “whispers” that it could be taken over by its competitor Mondi, says Jack Mendel in City AM. DS Smith, which has been listed on the London Stock Exchange since the 1950s, released a statement that it had received “a highly preliminary expression of interest” from several firms. At the same time, Mondi also confirmed that it was in the “early stages” of considering a possible all-share combination with DS Smith. If the merger between the two companies comes off, it would result in one of the world’s top producers of packaging supplies. This isn’t the first time that the two firms have proposed combining. Mondi made a merger overture to its rival…

Cincinnati-based Chemed Corporation is a former conglomerate that has ditched various divisions over the years, leaving it with its two best ones, says WirtschaftsWoche. It owns Vitas Healthcare, one of America’s top providers of hospice care, and Roto-Rooter, the largest plumbing and drain-cleaning group. The prospects for both companies are promising. The plumbing outfit is recession-resistant, while the ageing population and growing acceptance of assisted dying augur well for Vitas. It helps that the federal health-insurance system, Medicare, finances 92% of Vitas’s services. Chemed has no debt and frequently buys back its own shares.…

At the end of last year, the Scottish government, led by first minister Humza Yousaf (pictured), hiked income tax again, raising the top rate to 48% for the highest earners, with a new 45% band for those earning more than £75,000, say Jonathan Brocklebank and Mark Howarth for the Daily Mail. Now “everyone in Scotland earning more than £28,850 pays more tax than if they lived elsewhere in the UK”. Higher earners have clearly “sat down and done their sums” as there is evidence of a “tartan tax exodus” in the form of “a surge in Scots’ interest in properties in Northumberland” over the border. Scotland may, in other words, have passed the fiscal tipping point where tax hikes fail to bring in more money as they instead bring about…

Ten years ago, Microsoft was deeply out of favour. The tech giant was struggling to grow under Steve Ballmer, who had been CEO since 2000. It was earning solid profits from its near-monopolies in Windows and Office, but had failed to take advantage of new markets such as smartphones. Only value investors were talking up its prospects, and they were mostly drawn to steady cash flows from a boring business. At the end of 2013, the shares were trading on about $37. Earnings per share that year were $2.58, putting it on a price/earnings (p/e) ratio of 14. A dividend of $0.92 meant a yield of about 2.5% – not exciting, but it had doubled in five years and could go higher if Microsoft accepted that it was ex-growth, stopped…

Britain’s corrupt elites Simon Kuper Financial Times Britain is more free of corruption than most countries, says Simon Kuper. Yet we might be sliding backwards. Stefan Dercon, author of Gambling on Development, argues that a country develops when its elites strike a bargain and agree to go for development rather than dividing the spoils. Examples include China from 1979 and India from 1991. Britain’s development bargain, however, has broken down. A string of election victories led the Tories to suspect voters will back them no matter what, and they lost their common project in the Brexit wars. “When a common project dies, what remains is self-advancement.” This is what we saw during Covid, when well-connected Tories such as Michelle Mone and David Cameron used the crisis as an…

project-syndicate.org Three mid-sized US banks collapsed in 2023, the most prominent of which was Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), the second-largest bank failure in US history, say Raghuram Rajan and Viral Acharya. Yet the episode was quickly forgotten. It shouldn’t be. Historically, smaller US banks financed themselves conservatively. Yet the Federal Reserve’s pandemic-era quantitative-easing (QE) programme flooded the banks with “uninsured demandable deposits”. At the same time, instead of holding liquid reserves, by early 2023 smaller banks were more weighted to long-term securities and lending, the market value of which fell as interest rates rose. SVB’s sudden demise caused investors to scrutinise banks. They didn’t like what they saw, so the risk of contagious bank runs was very real. This is why the authorities came to the rescue, lending money on…

If 2023 was the year of artificial intelligence (AI), then 2024 will be the year of the bond – or that’s what the Pacific Investment Management Co. (Pimco) seems to believe. Pimco is best known for its Total Return Fund, a bond-based mutual fund that has achieved equity-like returns without the risk inherent in stocks. The asset-management giant produces an annual report on the global economy and the outlook for markets over the next year. Dearer money takes a toll This year, Pimco said that it expects higher interest rates to start taking their toll on the US economy. However, it will perform better than other developed economies such as the UK, Australia and the eurozone. As economic conditions deteriorate, Pimco expects central banks to start cutting interest rates, which…

The conventional tool for assessing the valuation of stockmarkets is the price/earnings (p/e) ratio, calculated by dividing the level of the index by its aggregate earnings. If these profits are in the past, you have a historic p/e ratio; if they represent analysts’ forecasts for the year ahead, it is a prospective p/e ratio. Earnings normally rise in a period of economic growth and fall in a recession, often sharply. Markets decline, but not as far as earnings, as investors discount a rebound in the future. Similarly, investors should be sceptical about an economic upswing going on forever and therefore ascribe a lower p/e ratio to their holdings. At the top of a market, equities often appear to be reasonable value judging by their p/e, and they seem expensive at…

More than one million Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPA) were registered in 2023, according to probate broker Final Duties. That’s the first time the number has ever hit six figures. An LPA is a legal document that allows you to name one or two people who can make decisions for you if you are unable to in the future. They are known as your attorneys. They can either handle any medical decisions concerning your long-term health and care, or they can deal with financial matters such as banking and bills. If you lose the ability to make decisions for yourself and don’t have a power of attorney in place, your friends and family face an uphill battle. They would have to apply to the Court of Protection to be named…

There are five million self-employed people without the option of automatic enrolment into an occupational pension scheme. As a result, three-quarters of the self-employed are not making any pension provision. And half these workers have never saved anything for old age. Yet there is no shortage of good-value, tax-efficient retirement savings vehicles available to self-employed workers. You won’t benefit from an employers’ contribution to boost your savings, but you should open some sort of pension plan, not least because you will still be entitled to tax relief on pension contributions – effectively a free top-up from the state. The relief is payable at your highest marginal rate of income tax, so paying £1,000 into a pension costs basic-rate, higher-rate and additional-rate taxpayers only £800, £600 or £550 respectively. The simplest…

We employ a bottom-up, research-driven approach focused on identifying long-term sustainable earnings power at a discount to intrinsic value. Market and sector weightings are a result of our bottom-up stock selection process, and we always seek to ensure the portfolio is appropriately diversified. Our portfolio construction process aims to build a research-driven, high-conviction portfolio primarily powered by company-specific factors and focused on the long term. In addition, we focus on being responsible and practising effective stewardship. Stewardship is not just about making responsible investment choices. It also involves engaging with investee companies and other key stakeholders who can help us solve corporate-governance problems, as well as the pressing social and environmental challenges of our time. An extensive ecosystem Tencent Holdings (Hong Kong: 700) is the largest gaming, entertainment and communication…

It’s not every morning that you’re in the departure lounge at Farnborough Airport in Hampshire, chatting to one of the two pilots who are going to fly you to St Moritz in a private jet. At least not for me. Sipping my cappuccino as the first rays of sun crested the control tower, I asked Gavin Scott, the captain, casually, “So, how long does it take to learn to fly one of these things?” By “things”, I was referring to Flexjet’s swish Gulfstream G650 that would be whisking me to the Swiss Alps late last month for the 39th Snow Polo World Cup, where Flexjet was fielding a team. “About a month,” said Gavin cheerfully. But the airstrip at Samedan, the closest to the uber-glamorous Swiss resort, is (he said…

Rich AF The Money Mindset That Will Change Your Life Vivian Tu Michael Joseph, £18.99 This reviewer is a millennial, but after reading the first chapter of bond-trader-turned-influencer Vivian Tu’s Rich AF: The Money Mindset, I felt my age. It’s not just the gimmicky title, or the blizzard of acronyms and slang (several of which I had to look up), nor that it opens with the author boasting about how many followers she has on TikTok – certainly not something you see in most books about investing and personal finance. It’s the whole tone. By the time she started talking about the importance of having an “abundance mindset”, my eyes were already sore from rolling. Yet shameless pandering to her Generation-Z audience aside, it’s hard to deny that some elements…

Super Bowl LVIII, the finale to the American football season won by the Kansas City Chiefs last Sunday, was expected to be the most lucrative yet in terms of attracting advertising revenue, say Daniel Thomas and Sara Germano in the Financial Times. Brands in the US, including Microsoft and Uber Eats, were estimated to have handed Super Bowl broadcaster Paramount $650m to show their advertisements, featuring stars such as Jennifer Aniston and Lionel Messi, during breaks – 10% more than last year, says Dentsu, an advertising agency. A 30-second slot cost around $7m, reaching some 123.4 million people in the US, making the game the most-watched television event since the first moon landing in 1969. The presence of singer Taylor Swift cheering on her boyfriend Travis Kelce (pictured together) in…

Dividends are back, says Katie Martin in the Financial Times. Facebook-owner Meta has announced its first-ever dividend. The payout itself is “piddling”, equivalent to an annual yield of just 0.42%, but the symbolism is important. Technology firms have long sworn off dividends, arguing that their excess funds are better invested in the next growth opportunity. Yet after infuriating investors with fruitless bets on the “metaverse”, Mark Zuckerberg wants to show he can be a “staid, sensible” steward of investors’ capital. US investors have “sneered at dividends” in recent years, says Jon Sindreu in The Wall Street Journal. Since the end of 2008, US stocks with yields above 5% have returned 450%, compared with 1,200% for firms that didn’t pay dividends. Dividends only comprised 30% of total US stock returns in…

Mexico has eclipsed China as the top exporter of goods to the US, says Paul Wiseman for the AP. In the 1980s and 1990s Canada and Mexico were the leading sources of US goods, but China’s industrialisation saw it surpass Mexico in 2002 and Canada in the 2010s. That trend is now reversing as geopolitical tensions rise and Washington promotes “friend-shoring” (production in friendly countries). Last year, Mexican goods imports to the US rose by nearly 5% by value to $475bn, surpassing China’s $427bn, itself down by 20% in a year. The Chinese reduction was driven by big falls in “politically sensitive categories” such as electronics, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, says Derek Scissors of the American Enterprise Institute.…

Six months ago, Hein Schumacher was appointed CEO of Unilever with a plan to revamp the group’s performance, “drive growth and focus on the company’s 30 strongest brands”, says Madeleine Speed in the Financial Times. But so far he has struggled to deal with problems including “tensions with its ice-cream brand Ben & Jerry’s” and “scrutiny over its continued operations in Russia”. Last week, Schumacher said the firm’s competitiveness “remains disappointing”. While sales volumes rose for the first time in two years in 2023, with underlying sales growth increasing to 7%, the proportion of the business that won market share last year slipped to 37%. Consumers have traded down to white-label products, especially in Europe. The declining market share certainly calls into question Unilever’s “guff” about its “unmissable brand superiority”,…

The first initial public offering (IPO) of the year on Aim, the London Stock Exchange’s junior market, has proved a success, says UK Investor Magazine. Shares in MicroSalt, a company that has developed a technology to reduce sodium in salt by up to 50%, have more than doubled since they made their debut at 43p a fortnight ago. The outlook for MicroSalt is auspicious, given the key role sodium plays in causing cardiovascular diseases. The World Health Organisation estimates that 1.8 million people die from eating too much of it every year. The group has secured several deals with a major food company, and also boasts orders from one of the world’s top snack-food makers.…

The controversy over US president Joe Biden’s age – a federal prosector’s report described him as an “elderly man with a poor memory”, raising doubts about his fitness for office – has drastically shortened the odds on former first lady Michelle Obama becoming the Democrat nominee. With £10.65m matched on Betfair, she is now at 9.2 (10.8%), in front of both California governor Gavin Newsom at 11 (9.1%) and vice-president Kamala Harris at 14.5 (6.8%). Indeed, only Biden himself is ahead of her at 1.48 (67.5%). The idea isn’t completely insane. Michelle Obama has name recognition and could be seen as a unifying figure if there were a fight at the Democratic convention – especially if she agreed to serve only one term. Polling on her is relatively scarce, but…

Investors have been burned so many times by the “Japanese recovery” story that they have learned to ignore it. Ever since the epic Tokyo bull market of the 1980s crashed, there have been plenty of false dawns. They have always ended badly. Still, there is no mistaking the strength of Japanese equities over the last year. Over the last 12 months, the Nikkei 225, made up of Japan’s largest companies, is up by 35%, and over the last five years it is up by 74%. It is hitting highs that have not been seen in more than 30 years, an entire career for most investors. The epic bear market that started with the bursting of the Japanese bubble of the 1980s finally looks to be over. More stuff for fewer…

The simplest way to measure the value of a company is to use its stockmarket capitalisation – the value of all its outstanding shares. However, this may not always provide a useful reflection of all the claims that different groups of investors have on a business. For example, a company may be heavily funded with debt rather than equity. Conversely, it may have a lot of unused cash on its balance sheet offsetting some of that debt. It might also have preferred stock in issue (securities that rank above ordinary shares, but below debt), or some of its subsidiaries may be partly owned by other investors (known as minority interests). These last two factors are usually less significant compared with debt and cash, but could be important in some situations.…

“All of these men who are in charge of things, they just keep moving these cards around to make money… The way men do business is a Ponzi scheme… The percentage of women in the 1% who made their own money is about 3.5%, and that’s shocking.” Candace Bushnell (above), author of Sex and the City, the basis for the 1990s TV series, on not getting royalties from the new Netflix deal to stream the show, quoted in The Times “The painful reality is I am leaving a subsidised sector where 13 years of standstill funding is taking its toll. For decades the theatre industry has fuelled the UK’s world-renowned creative industries, providing vital pathways for artists to flourish, going from subsidised theatre into the West End and into TV…

economist.com Giorgio Armani refuses to quit as chief executive at the age of 89. Warren Buffett is still going strong at 93. Such people are exceptional, but in staying active into their old age, they’re not unique, says The Economist’s Bartleby columnist. One poll this year found that almost one in three Americans say they may never retire. Most said that was because they couldn’t afford it. But even if you have the money, should you do it? Not if you don’t want to contend with “potentially painful losses – of income, purpose or, more poignantly, relevance”. Things have changed from when people would step aside at the earliest possible date to make way for the younger generation and time for the grandchildren or crossword puzzles. Lifespans are getting longer,…

Oil giant BP is under pressure from activist investor Bluebell Capital Partners to ditch its plan to cut oil and gas output by a quarter compared with 2019 by 2030, says The Guardian. Bluebell argues that BP is worth 50% more than its share price suggests, and that it is “unrealistic” about the decline in demand for oil and gas. It called for BP to increase production, pledge to cut emissions only “in line with society”, and reduce investment in bioenergy, hydrogen, and renewables by $28bn by 2030. Bluebell, which manages about $150m, will face opposition from BP’s new CEO, Murray Auchincloss, who intends to follow his predecessor’s strategy to invest in clean energy to make money when demand for oil eventually falls.…

The cost of home insurance is soaring. The average buildings-only policy reached £262 at the end of 2023, up by 15% on the previous year, according to the Association of British Insurers (ABI). Policies covering buildings and contents have risen by 13%. Insurance firms are blaming the weather. Winter storms have been costly, leading to £352m in claims. Meanwhile, a cold snap led to “a wave of claims for burst water pipes, which insurers are still working out”, says Sam Barker in the Daily Mail. So, how can you keep your home-insurance costs down? Firstly, pay your premiums annually rather than monthly. When you pay monthly the insurer is effectively lending you the money and it will charge a hefty interest rate. It can cost as much as 40% more…

Are you now retired and drawing on final-salary pension rights partly built up prior to 1997? If so, you may have noticed that your pension income appears to be struggling to keep pace with inflation. That’s because, while the law changed in 1997 to require these pension schemes to increase pensions payment each year in line with the cost of living, the right only applies to benefit entitlements accrued from 1997 onwards. Employers are under no legal obligation to raise final-salary pensions related to savings made before 1997. This discrepancy has prompted retired employees of a growing number of companies to complain. Pensioners receiving benefits from employers including KPMG, Goldman Sachs and Hewlett-Packard, for example, have all raised this issue with their former employers in recent months. Pensioners point out…

2022 Barbera d’Alba, Massolino, Piemonte, Italy For a mighty wine region famous for its long-lived red wines, Piemonte has another style of wine that cannot wait to leap into your glass to be downed with gusto. No, not the Barolos or Barbarescos, made from the regal nebbiolo grape variety, but the “non-neb” reds made from grapes such as freisa, pelaverga, grignolino, dolcetto and barbera. While the first three are rare, dolcetto and barbera are widely available and, in the right hands, can be forward-drinking and stunning value. My three recommendations today come from some of the most highly respected estates in the entire region. My headliner barbera is hedonistically appointed with layers of juicy blackberry and plum tones and a hint of dark chocolate and espresso bean on the finish.…

Miners’ Strike 1984: The Battle for Britain Directed by Tom BarrowWatch at channel4.com This year sees the 40th anniversary of the miners’ strike, the industrial action that began in March 1984 to prevent colliery closures, and which is now seen as a watershed moment in British postwar history. The strike marked the beginning of a process that would see what had been one of Britain’s key industries all but disappear within a decade, with devastating effects on the communities that relied on the mines for their livelihood. The failure of the action to halt the closures was also a turning point for the trade unions. In the 1970s, they were a dominant political and economic force. The miners’ strike was the key battle between that force and the prime…

The mood of the global elite gathered in Davos often serves as a contrarian indicator, says James Mackintosh in The Wall Street Journal. When they’re “depressed, buy. When they’re positive, sell”. At last month’s annual gathering in the Swiss resort you could barely move “without having artificial intelligence pushed at you” as a universal balm – so is it time to sell? AI hype helped drive “stunning gains” for the “magnificent seven” stocks (Microsoft, Apple, Google-owner Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Facebookowner Meta and Tesla) last year. The grouping is a dominant force on Wall Street, together accounting for 29.5% of America’s S&P 500 index. Boosted by Big Tech, at the end of last week the S&P closed above the symbolic 5,000-point level for the first time. The rally of this narrow…

Five to buy Beeks Financial Cloud Interactive Investor This technology firm provides financial-services companies with the digital infrastructure (such as cloud-computing and analytics) they need to run their operations. News of major progress on contracts has seen the shares surge by 50% this month and may herald an “inflection point”. Switching providers is a headache, so in this industry, clients tend to stick with their contracts and earnings are reliable. That could eventually open the way to a rerating or a takeover by a bigger industry player. 140p Burberry Shares This luxury brand is “firmly out of fashion” with investors after two recent profit warnings. Faltering global demand remains a headwind, but on 15.9 times 2024 earnings the shares trade at a huge discount to the level of 40 they…

Atlanta Coke keeps its fizz: Coca-Cola reported better than expected revenue in the fourth quarter as higher prices for its products helped the drinks giant overcome a lower volume of sales in North America, says Amelia Lucas for CNBC. Net sales by value rose 7% to $10.8bn, beating estimates of $10.7bn, although net income fell slightly to almost $2bn, or 46 cents per share. Demand for Coca-Cola’s bottled water, sports drinks, coffee and tea all fell as household budgets continue to be squeezed. The decline was not as severe in rival PepsiCo’s beverage business, which saw volume sales fall 6% in the fourth quarter from a year earlier. More globally, the Israel-Hamas war has caused supply-chain issues and depressed demand. For 2024, Coca-Cola expects 6% to 7% organic sales growth…

● Barratt’s £2.5bn takeover of Redrow is good news for the two housebuilders, says Nils Pratley in The Guardian. They can make cost savings, merge supply chains, and grow their land portfolios. But this just looks like two firms “coming together to get through a slow trading period by reaping some savings and waiting to see whether sales pick up”. Any potential “wider benefits are hard to spot”. The real test is whether the deal increases the supply of new homes. And in this respect Barratt’s promise that it will create the potential to quicken the pace of building to more than 22,000 homes a year in the medium term seems “gloriously loose”. The Competition and Markets Authority should have a “poke around the rafters” of this deal. ● Struggling…

America could be headed for another “roaring twenties”, says Ed Yardeni, the veteran Wall Street strategist known for his generally bullish views on stocks. Technological innovation, together with loose monetary policy in the wake of the Covid pandemic, have sparked a “productivity growth boom” in the US. “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme,” Yardeni tells Bloomberg. He see strong parallels with the 1920s, when the US economy grew rapidly and living standards rose amid rapid progress after the end of World War I and the Spanish flu pandemic. “It must have been pretty depressing to think about the outlook for the 1920s at the beginning of the decade. And yet it turned out to be the roaring 1920s because of technological innovations,” he says. “Auto manufacturing adapted more…

bloomberg.com/opinion The phrase “nanny state” used to be an automatic argument-winner, just as “you sound like Hitler” is, says Adrian Wooldridge. It is losing its power. Rishi Sunak is banning disposable vapes and outlawing smoking. Keir Starmer wants to make sure children brush their teeth. Other nannying measures that would involve taking on the food and supermarket lobby have been shied away from, but they shouldn’t be. It’s time to embrace and celebrate the nanny state – and welcome bans on fast-food advertisements, taxes on sugary drinks and prods to do more exercise. The idea that the nanny state is a bad thing rests on the assumption that individuals are “isolated, rational entities who are the best judges of their long-term interests”. The truth is that we are “social creatures…

■ A High Court judge has approved a £230m redress scheme for 300,000 investors trapped in Neil Woodford’s collapsed fund, says This Is Money. In December, nearly 94% of the investors voted in favour of the compensation plan, which is also backed by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the City regulator. The redress scheme incurred the wrath of some investors, who say the collapse cost them more than £1bn. The judge dismissed calls to force the FCA to demand that Woodford Investment, the fund’s manager, top up the amount. The Woodford Equity Income Fund was suspended in June 2019 after more than £500m was withdrawn in four weeks by investors rattled by the fund’s poor performance. It was later closed and wound down. Approval of the scheme effectively pre-empts lawsuits…

Only a handful of companies in the world boast a product so unique that they can afford to pick and choose their customers. It’s not easy to get to this position. It takes time and money, and even then, there’s no guarantee a business will be able to cultivate the cult following required. High-end Swiss watch brands are the perfect example. Rolex only makes a million watches a year, and the waiting lists for its top models are over a decade. But it’s not the most exclusive brand in the watch sector. Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet are far more upmarket, with the latter producing around 40,000 watches a year and some commanding prices of over £700,000. You can’t just walk into a store and buy these watches, even if…

● A new style of mortgage has arrived in Britain. Dutch-style mortgages have interest rates that fall as you pay off your loan. Dutch lender April will launch mortgages for first-time buyers with 5% deposits in the spring, having launched them for those with 15% deposits in November, says Ruby Hinchliffe in The Daily Telegraph. April offers fixed-rate mortgages of five to 15 years and “homeowners can switch to a lower loan-to-value band, and therefore pay a reduced rate of interest, as their loan decreases. Normally homeowners can only do this when they remortgage”. ● If you’ve got a Land Rover or Range Rover, brace yourself when you renew your car insurance. Premiums have “soared amid a surge in thefts”, says George Nixon in The Times. Cover for a Range…

● “Investment pathways,” introduced by regulators to help pension savers manage income-drawdown arrangements, could cost you dearly, says consumers’ group Which. Since 2021, the Financial Conduct Authority, the City regulator, has set out a range of these pathways, offering four supposedly simple and good-value investment arrangements to suit people with different goals as they move into income-drawdown plans in retirement. But Which says the cost of opting for one of these pathways varies hugely from one provider to another, potentially costing savers tens of thousands of pounds extra and depleting their pension savings more quickly. ● Pensioners who have shared part of their personal allowance with their spouse under the marriage-allowance tax perk could find themselves hit with an unexpected tax bill in the 2023-2024 tax year. The perk enables…

Twenty years after “TheFacebook” was launched on 4 February 2004, “the world still doesn’t know what to make of Mark Zuckerberg, its very peculiar co-founder”, says Andrew Orlowski for Spiked. Zuckerberg (pictured) has spent most of the past decade “trying so very hard to be liked”. Now, he seems to have stopped worrying about that and got back to business. Meta Platforms, Facebook’s parent company, is worth more than $1trn. Its share price hit an all-time high at the end of January and was the best-performing Big Tech stock in 2023. Rumours of Meta’s demise have long circulated, but it remains one half of the “global advertising duopoly” alongside Google, is better at bringing together buyers and sellers, has survived various political storms, and made some savvy acquisitions. Zuckerberg is…