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Test cricket, someone once unkindly remarked, is the jazz of sports: it never seems to start, and it never seems to end. The same could be said of this month’s Budget, which has been analysed to death even though it will not be officially delivered for another fortnight. By then we will all be completely exhausted. So where have we got to? The big picture is that having ruled out rises in income tax, national insurance, VAT and corporation tax (these four jointly comprise around two-thirds of the tax take) the government hopes to raise revenue from other sources, but doing so will hamper investment and enterprise as well as raise less than expected, as we noted last week. At that stage the main worry was capital gains tax (see…

Preparations are at an “advanced stage” for HSBC, one of the world’s biggest lenders, to try again to bolt together its commercial banking division with its global banking and markets unit. The revamp could lead to hundreds of job losses in senior ranks, says Patrick Hosking in The Times. While HSBC attempted a partial merger of the two divisions in 2020, it had to abandon the effort because of Covid. However, as its shares have greatly lagged their peers in the past nine months, it will restart the plans in the hope of saving up to $300m. The move may help placate those who have grown frustrated with what they see as the “slow pace of cuts”, says Lex in the Financial Times. It also makes sense to focus on…

French advertising “king” Publicis has become the world’s most valuable communications and marketing firm, worth €25bn, says Stanislas Feuillebois in Le Revenu. While rivals such as Britain’s WPP struggle amid a weak economy, Publicis defied macroeconomic headwinds to register net profit of €773m in the first half of 2024, a 24% rise year on year. The group, whose brands include Saatchi & Saatchi, is reaping the rewards of early bets on digital channels, and is now putting its data expertise to work in artificial intelligence through its new CoreAI platform. The stock isn’t cheap, but those who “buy on weakness” will gain exposure to a cash-generative dividend payer with a “solid business model”.…

Politics & economics The “surprise elimination” of James Cleverly, the final moderate Tory candidate in the leadership race, leaves party members with a choice between Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick, says Lucy Fisher in the Financial Times. “Both have set out a staunchly right-wing prospectus, proposing a smaller state, a crackdown on immigration, and outlining scepticism about net-zero targets”, but Badenoch, the bookies’ favourite, has warned Tory members in an interview with The Telegraph that the Conservative party will “cease to exist” if party members choose the wrong leader in the ballot on 2 November. Badenoch has to win, says Matthew Parris in The Times. Yes, she is incautious, pugilistic and impatient (she could do with Cleverly as a running mate), but she is also “interesting, original and intellectually brave”…

There has only been a slight move in the polls for the US presidential election, with Kamala Harris still narrowly ahead, or at least neck and neck in most electoral college projections. But this hasn’t stopped punters making a sharp move towards Donald Trump in the betting markets. With £89.3m matched on Betfair, the former president is at 1.74 (58.1%) to win, compared with 2.42 (41.2%) for Harris. The best odds from the bookies are 4/6 (60%) on Trump from QuinnBet or Harris on 11/8 (42.1%) with William Hill. I think Harris is the real favourite – many punters are assuming that the polls in key states will be as wrong as they were in 2016 and 2020, and this may not be the case. And any last-minute upset, whether…

When we talk about the outlook for interest rates, my rule of thumb is simple: central banks are likely to be slower to start cutting than markets initially expect, but end up cutting deeper. This sounds like a very broad generalisation, but if you look at month-by-month charts of interest rates over the last few cycles (say 30 years) versus market expectations for where rates would go in future (taken at the same historical point – so a snapshot of what investors thought at the time), a loose pattern looks pretty clear to me. When rates are approaching a peak, markets tend to keep assuming that they will go a bit higher than they eventually do. After the central bank pauses, they tend to assume cuts are coming soon. Once…

Non-utility power’s day in the sun Jinjoo Lee The Wall Street Journal “The last time independent power producers were this excited” was during the Silicon Valley growth years of the late 1990s and early 2000s, says Jinjoo Lee. “It didn’t end well.” Stocks “fetched much higher multiples of expected earnings than regulated utility peers”, but after an “aggressive build-out” led to overcapacity, power prices fell sharply and major developers went bust. Today is a bit different. The drivers of demand are “more tangible” and tech companies are “spending real money on building out AI [artificial intelligence] infrastructure”. Demand is also shifting steadily to electricity. Having been burned by the “last gold rush”, independent power producers and their backers “aren’t likely to invest in new power plants without some kind of…

bloomberg.com In the years since it was founded in 1975, P&R Containers gradually moved out of the business of shipping containers into the more profitable one of “simply ripping people off”, say Giulia Morpurgo and Laura Malsch. At its peak in 2018, the broker claimed to control 1.6 million containers. In reality, it owned only about 600,000 of them. That year it became obvious that the firm was operating a Ponzi scheme, taking money from new investors to pay off old ones. Payments to tens of thousands of small investors started to dry up in 2017 and by the time the firm filed for insolvency in 2018 the company was “€3bn in the hole”. Six years later, the fraud is still unravelling. P&R founder Heinz Roth died in 2019 while…

“Markets are not efficient,” says Joe Bauernfreund, manager of the £1.3bn AVI Global Trust (LSE: AGT), “as many companies are overlooked by investors.” This leads to a portfolio that is very different from a conventional global fund, but with comparable returns. If market leadership changes, AGT could move into pole position. It invests in “overlooked companies trading at wide discounts to intrinsic value”. These fall into three categories: family-controlled holding companies (41% of the portfolio), closed-end funds trading on wide discounts to net asset value (NAV, 30%) and Japanese, mostly smaller, companies (23%). “People are sceptical about investing in family-controlled companies, but we take the opposite view,” says Bauernfreund. Families can think longer-term than hired management and provide a strong culture. For example, News Corporation’s 60% holding in Australian property…

You might be surprised to learn that the world’s largest fund-management house isn’t a for-profit organisation. The “Big Four” investment fund managers worldwide are Vanguard, Fidelity, BlackRock and State Street. BlackRock is the largest of the pack, but Vanguard holds the crown in passive funds. Its largest funds, the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund and the Vanguard 500 Index fund, manage around $3trn in assets compared with Fidelity’s total assets under management of around $6trn across all of its funds. However, the company is owned by its funds, which are, in turn, owned by their investors. It’s very similar to the mutual or building society model. The larger the fund manager gets, the lower it can keep fees, putting money back into investors’ pockets. Investors can’t buy a stake…

It’s been another mixed week for my long tips, with five going up and three falling. Engineering firm Rolls-Royce moved up from 523p to 536p, retailer Next rose from 9,766p to 10,220p and cruise-ship operator Royal Caribbean increased from $177 to $201. Payments firm PayPal rose from $78 to $79 and retailer Marks & Spencer advanced from 375p to 384p. However, broker Alpha Capital fell from 2,200p to 2,181p, while property developer Harworth, which specialises in regenerating brownfield sites, slipped from 190p to 183p. The worst performer was housebuilder Vistry, which plummeted from 1,318p to 972p, including a fall of 25% in one day last week, after it issued a profit warning caused by cost overruns at some of its projects. Overall, my long tips are making profits of £3,151…

● Taxpayers spent a total of around 700 years on the phone to HMRC in the past year as average wait times keep lengthening. Research by accountancy group UHY Hacker Young found that the duration of the average call to HMRC has increased by 19% over the past year to 27 minutes and two seconds. “Too frequently, when the government talks about increasing HMRC funding, it ends up being for tax investigations,” says Neela Chauhan, partner at UHY Hacker Young. But HMRC needs extra cash to improve its poor customer service. ● “Anyone who likes doing their tax return on paper has, until now, had to go through the rigmarole of getting HM Revenue & Customs to send out a form,” says George Nixon in The Sunday Times. But now…

● Small businesses in England and Wales will face water-bill hikes of 27%, substantially more than residential customers, over the next five years. The higher costs, revealed in a leak from regulator Ofwat to the Financial Times, reflect the need to encourage water companies to increase investment. But small-business groups, led by the Federation of Small Businesses, say the rises are unfair given that domestic households will see much smaller increases. ● Large companies will be required to report publicly on how promptly they settle invoices under legislation to be announced shortly by the government. Ministers are also introducing the Fair Payment Code, which will replace the previous administration’s Prompt Payment Code, and demand more rapid payments from organisations taking part in the scheme. Labour says the measures are part…

For eight years, Melania Trump, Donald’s wife, has “done a brilliant job of keeping us all guessing”, says Freddy Gray in The Spectator. Is she, as the gossips have it, secretively estranged from her husband? Does she hate politics, or is she, behind closed doors, the “real force that drives the Trump family’s remorseless ambition”? We just didn’t know. But now, at a crucial moment in the US election, Melania (pictured), 54, is promoting her autobiography. It wades into the culture wars, declaring her support for abortion, for example. Whether this is a ploy to boost her husband’s popularity or because she is genuinely passionate about it, remains unclear, but the book has “already turned her into a different kind of public figure” – “more political to some and therefore…

2022 Pormenor Branco, Douro, Portugal £25,beckfordbottleshop.com,ad-hoc.uk,corkofthenorth.co.uk,butlers-winecellar.co.uk,valhallasgoat.com,corksofbristol.com I hear the famous Douro region is in the doldrums. While a handful of prescient estates at the forefront of port production continue to evolve, making triumphant wines, admittedly for a seemingly decreasing market, many wineries are swamped with plummeting production, declining sales, confusing laws, and uncertain futures. The Portuguese authorities are flannelling around and need to get a grip before the entire industry falters, and while everyone waits for direction, a bold band of creative thinkers, armed with great palates and a will to win, is ploughing its furrow. One such person is winemaker Pedro Coelho (whose name translates rather beautifully as “Peter Rabbit”). Previously employed at Niepoort, this forensically talented fellow has created his brand, Pormenor. Meaning “the little things”, he is…

Going… In 1959, a British embargo on US-made musical instruments made buying a Fender Stratocaster guitar of the type played by Buddy Holly all but impossible in Liverpool. So, a young George Harrison settled for a Czech-made Futurama instead. It was “a dog” to play, Harrison told Guitar Player magazine in 1987. But play it he did, throughout the early years of The Beatles at The Cavern Club and in Hamburg. It can be heard on the tracks Ain’t She Sweet and Cry For A Shadow. In 1964, Harrison gave the guitar (pictured) away to Beat Instrumental magazine for a competition prize, but the winner opted for a cash prize, so the magazine’s editor hung on to the guitar. It is expected to exceed its $800,000 upper pre-sale estimate when…

Pickleball, a sport played using paddles and a wiffle ball (a plastic ball with holes), invented in the US in the 1960s, is surging in popularity on both sides of the Atlantic. This has led to growing competition with tennis for court space and a “battle for control of its future in Britain”, says Charlie Parker in The Times. The Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), the official governing body of tennis in Britain, has applied to become the sport’s official governing body, echoing its takeover of padel (a racket sport), challenging Pickleball England, the current de facto authority since 2019. Private clubs see pickleball as a way to attract new members and increase post-Covid revenue, as pickleball courts can accommodate more players. Since 2019, pickleball venues jumped nearly 600% to 637,…

The “brutal” office property crunch is ending, says Jane Croft in The Observer. London office values plunged by a fifth in the two years to the second quarter of 2024, with a 23% drop in the wider UK. London’s vacancy rates, at 10%, are still at a 20-year high, says Mark Stansfield of CoStar, although that is still better than New York’s 14% . But things are looking up as more companies push a return to the office. Falling interest rates are driving a “once-in-a-decade” trade in European property, says Alan Livsey in the Financial Times. Bond investors have been snapping up high-risk “hybrid bonds”: a type of debt that includes some equity-like features, such as the ability to skip payments without triggering a default. Hybrids plunged in 2022 as…

Global turmoil is driving rising interest in defence shares. BAE Systems has climbed a fifth over the past year alone. During the Cold War, defence shares traded at a premium to the wider market for long periods, before moving into discount territory after the fall of the USSR, notes Jon Sindreu in The Wall Street Journal. A durable rally will depend on sustained increases in government defence investment, but for all the rhetoric there is little sign that this is happening. In fact, US defence spending as a percentage of GDP is lower now than it was during the War on Terror. Investors in defence might instead look to Europe where, albeit from a low base, Russian aggression is beginning to drive “real rearmament”.…

Tesla’s widely trumpeted event last week, which unveiled plans for a robotaxi and related services, have left investors “flummoxed”, says Dan Gallagher in The Wall Street Journal. The lack of detail about either the cars or the service have prompted the market to conclude that Tesla’s “toothless” dream “isn’t going to be a problem for Uber”. Tesla’s shares slid 9%, while shares in Uber, which has been warning about the threat from autonomous taxis since its 2019 listing, jumped 11%. Still, the risk isn’t zero. Musk plans to have Tesla’s “Cybercab” in production in a couple of years and to sell it for less than $30,000. Musk is correct that autonomous vehicles for hire “are almost certainly the future”, with Google’s subsidiary Waymo already carrying passengers in San Francisco, says…

Europastry has postponed its initial public offering (IPO) for the second time in less than four months. It cited market instability caused by the geopolitical situation, says the Financial Times. The Spanish group, whose sales have more than doubled in the past seven years, produces pre-made frozen pastries that are thawed and then cooked on shop premises. Clients include Starbucks and Pret A Manger. Europastry, majority-owned by the Gallés family, was seeking a valuation of up to €1.5bn and planned to raise €210m from selling new shares and €295m from shares sold by existing shareholders. But bankers said some investors thought the price Europastry wanted was too high.…

The US courts have ruled that Google is, in effect, a monopoly. That will probably not come as a great surprise. Most of us had probably noticed that the company completely dominates search on the internet, that it has at least half the mobile market, and that from maps, to email, to media, it has an effective lock on how we all use the web. Last week, the Department of Justice in the US went a step further, arguing that the only way to fix that was for the business to be broken up. What might that look like? The most obvious division would be a three-way split into Search, Android and Media, with each one turned into a stand-alone company. Instead of one giant conglomerate, there would be three…

The Magnificent Seven is a nickname for the group of companies that has been responsible for much of the gains in the US stockmarket over the past two years. The term became popular after Bank of America analyst Michael Hartnett used it in a research note in May 2023, and has largely taken over from the FAANGs – Facebook (Meta), Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google (Alphabet) – as the preferred shorthand for the large-cap growth stocks that are dominating the market. The Magnificent Seven has several names in common with the FAANGs – Alphabet, Apple, Amazon and Meta – and also includes Microsoft, which was already being treated as a member of the FAANGs in most analyses. Unwieldy attempts to expand the acronym to include it – such as FANMAG…

“I worried that if they’d come to a TV recording, they might have thought it was a great way to earn a living – putting wigs on, everyone laughing, people asking if you want a cup of tea and a chocolate eclair. The truth is, unless you are absolutely single-minded to the detriment of virtually everything else, you won’t succeed, and I don’t think there’s anything worse than someone who’s just there because they’re someone’s kid.” Comedian Harry Hill (pictured) is loath to encourage his children to go into show business, quoted in The Times “Know your circle of competence, and stick within it. The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital.” Warren Buffett, quoted in the Harvard Business Review “Money corrupts. I’ve…

unherd.com Conservatives often complain about the books assigned in schools and universities, but there’s a “bigger issue”, says Peter Franklin – whether they read them at all. Journalist Rose Horowitch spoke to 33 professors in the US for a piece in The Atlantic and found that students today are “increasingly unable to manage entire books”. Courses are cutting reading requirements and teaching through excerpts instead. Similarly, America’s National Assessment of Educational Progress found a long-term decline in the number of 13-year-olds reading for fun. A study in the UK for the Reading Agency found that half of adults do not regularly read for pleasure – a total composed of 15% who never do. No doubt reading is still done on smartphones, but that is not the same as deep engagement…

Shares in Gerresheimer surged 6.8% after US activist investor Eminence Capital disclosed it had bought a 5.43% stake in the German manufacturer of glass and plastic containers for medicines, says Reuters. Talks between the US hedge fund and Gerresheimer’s management began in June. “This stake might pressure Gerresheimer into improving its communication and probably also its structure,” according to Christian Reindl from Union Investment, which owns a 1.3% stake in the firm. Last month the company lowered its annual outlook for the second time this year as a result of lower demand in its tubular-glass business. The announcement prompted an 18% slump in the share price.…

The US airline industry has had a terrible record of losing money. Its history of bankruptcies and bailouts has been so bad that legendary investor Warren Buffett quipped in 2007 that it might have been better for investors had someone shot the Wright Brothers before they invented the first working aeroplane. Unfortunately, even Buffett would end up learning this the hard way, when his move into airlines in 2016 resulted in having to dump his shares in American, Delta, Southwest, and United four years later at a loss weeks after the start of the Covid pandemic. However, things are finally beginning to look up for the sector. Three years after restrictions started to be lifted, passenger figures have now fully recovered. The monthly total number of passengers (both domestic and…

Capital gains tax (CGT) is levied on profits made when you sell assets. It covers most assets, including shares, property (if it isn’t your main home) and cryptocurrency. It is also due on personal possessions such as jewellery, paintings or antiques if you sell an item for more than £6,000. A notable exception is your car. We all have a CGT allowance – £3,000 – but if your profits from the sale of one or more assets exceeds that in a tax year you must pay CGT. How much you’ll pay depends on your income-tax band and what you sold to make the gain. Basic-rate taxpayers pay CGT at 10%, except on residential property, when the rate rises to 18%. If you are a higher-rate or additional-rate taxpayer, you’ll owe…

Something strange is going on with small businesses. Data published last week by the Office for National Statistics shows that the number of sole traders in the UK fell 4% last year – and has now declined 11% since 2019; by contrast, the number of small-business owners operating through companies rose 1% in 2023 and is up 4% on five years ago. The data feels counter-intuitive because tax changes have made it progressively less attractive to run your business through a company structure in recent years. In other words, some small-business owners may be paying more tax than they need to – possibly, say small-business experts, because the rules are poorly understood. Certainly, there are advantages to incorporating your business rather than operating as a sole trader. In particular, company…

The Russell 2000 is known as the world’s “biggest small index”. It offers investors the chance to invest in the heart of America. These small and mid-cap stocks are diverse and offer more domestic focus than the multinational giants at the top of the S&P 500. In addition to providing important portfolio diversification, smaller companies typically outperform in the long run owing to their greater scope for long-term growth. Excluding the “Magnificent Seven” from the S&P 500’s return in 2023 reveals that the remaining 493 stocks actually lagged the Russell 2000. Small caps have recently traded on historically wide discounts to large caps. However, 37% of the Russell 2000 index is unprofitable and small caps have an average leverage ratio of 4.3 times. Disparities between market averages and individual stocks…

We may be just a couple of months into the 2024-2025 football season, but already Chelsea has scored a resounding victory – in the auction room. Last week, the signed shirt that Chelsea midfielder Cole Palmer (pictured) was wearing when he slotted in four goals – the first player in Premier League history to score four times in the first half of a match – during his side’s 4-2 win against Brighton at the end of September, sold with MatchWornShirt, says Lawrence Ostlere in The Independent. The auction was won by a bidder in Singapore, who paid £34,000 for the shirt, with the proceeds going to the club’s charity, the Chelsea Foundation. Palmer had played a part in scoring 11 goals in seven league games this season for the west…

“The French economy has been getting away with fiscal murder for a very long time,” Raphael Gallardo of Carmignac Gestion tells Bloomberg. For much of Emmanuel Macron’s pro-business presidency, France has been something of a market darling. But with a debt-to-GDP ratio of 111% and an annual budget deficit worth 6.1% of GDP, the country faces a stunning fall from grace. French government bonds have spent the past 15 years in a sweet spot, says The Economist. Global investors are keen on European debt. But the continent’s troubled southern economies were perceived as too risky, while tight-fisted northern states such as Germany and the Netherlands don’t issue many bonds. French debt fitted the bill. No more pain in Spain Things have changed. Southern Europe has been benefitting from a tourism-led…

“Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) obesity drugs get a lot of attention... But almost no one seems to be wondering if there is a GLP bubble... Eli Lilly has a price/earnings ratio almost as high as Nvidia’s... The GLP-1 drug market [may] be worth $200bn by 2031... Are expectations set too high?... Competition is fierce. Profitable drugs invite competitors with slightly different formulations... Pfizer and Roche will [want some of the action]... Novo Nordisk is set to lose its US patent in 2032... [and] its Chinese patents in 2026, potentially opening the US and European markets to trafficked generics... Weight-loss drugs have a rocky history... There have been [worries over] muscle loss... [and] with GLP-1 drugs... new issues may emerge... [Worryingly] no one in the market seems to be taking the bearish…

Six to buy Alphabet The Telegraph Google has long been the dominant force in internet search. Despite Alphabet’s share price faltering this summer amid regulatory concerns and slowing integration of artificial intelligence (AI), the world’s top fund managers are sticking with the US tech giant. If the deal to have Google as the default on Apple’s browser ends, users would use Google anyway, and other products and services should keep revenues growing. Even regulatory break-up threats may not be disastrous, as the standalone value of Alphabet’s businesses could be worth more than its current valuation. $167 Pearson The Times Pearson, the world’s largest textbook publisher, has improved customer service, cut costs, streamlined operations, and is using AI to expand further into the global learning market. Despite a drop in profits…

Relations between India and Canada hit “rock bottom” when both countries expelled their top diplomats, says Soutik Biswas on the BBC. Tensions have been “escalating” since the assassination of a Sikh separatist on Canadian soil. Canada claims there is a link between agents of India’s government and the killing of a Canadian citizen, and that they have also been responsible for “criminal activity” in Canada, including “credible and imminent threats” against several Sikh Canadians. India has denied the allegations, claiming they are an attempt to win votes for the unpopular Justin Trudeau administration and that Canada has been “sheltering and sponsoring anti-India terrorists”. Last year, US agencies said that they had stopped an attempted hit by an Indian agent on a Sikh activist, says Jawad Iqbal in The Spectator. No…

At £40,000 a week, Clinic Les Alpes is one of the world’s most expensive rehab centres for drug and alcohol addiction and eating disorders. The wooden chalet clinic nestled in the Swiss mountains now also treats more niche behavioural addictions, such as shopping, work and even screen time, says Georgina Roberts in The Times, who checked in to treat her smartphone addiction. A stay of 28 days comes to £160,000, so only elite clientele can afford the services of Clinic Les Alpes, which has hidden entrances reserved for the very famous and the very unwell. It offers a range of personalised and intensive therapies. There is a growing unease about digital addiction, particularly its impact on the young, say Tom Calver and Sharin Hussain in The Sunday Times. According to…

● “Zantac may have been a heartburn medicine, but it caused one almighty headache for GSK CEO Emma Walmsley [pictured],” says Lex in the Financial Times. An agreement to pay up to $2.2bn to settle 93% of legal cases linked to the drug will help the pharma group look more investable. Yet GSK “has more than one source of pain”, as shown by the relatively modest rally (up 5%) in its shares, even though the settlement is far lower than analysts’ worst-case scenarios. ”Longstanding concerns about its pipeline have not gone away.” The market is sceptical that GSK can meet its target of £38bn sales in 2031 (from £30.3bn last year). A key patent for HIV medicines is expiring in 2028, and there is some scepticism about its ability to…

US stocks are likely to underperform markets outside the US over the next 10 years, says Jeremy Grantham, the co-founder and chief investment strategist of asset manager GMO. The US has had an exceptionally strong run in recent years, but historically, spells of outperformance and underperformance have tended to rotate and we should expect to see that pattern return over the next decade, he tells Morningstar. “There’s never been a period, never been a window like we’ve seen in the last... almost 15 years now, where the US outperformed in earnings by such a wide margin.” Typically, the US would beat the rest of the world by 15% or 20%, and then the rest of the world would do better in the following decade. However, this time, US earnings have…

snowdon.substack.com Plans for a new fish and chip shop in the small tourist town of Morfa Bychan in Wales have come up against opposition from the local health board, says Christopher Snowdon. Acting public-health director Jane Moore is worried about the implications for locals’ health – she wants the chippy to offer a “good selection” of fruit and vegetables too – and about “overdevelopment” – after all, the town already has one chippy and a gift shop. Yet “my understanding is that no one will be forced to buy the fish and chips. All transactions will be strictly voluntary”. You’d think officials would have bigger fish to fry. Meanwhile, in Conwy County Council, councillor David Carr “blew a fuse” when he read through the council’s statutory self-assessment for 2023/2024, and…

■ Home Reit has released its long-delayed 2022 results, revealing a 57.5% drop in net asset value (NAV) per share to 43.7p, says Investment Week. This was due largely to a £452.9m devaluation of the trust’s properties and related charges based on the poor condition of properties and a reassessment of tenant agreements. The trust, which invested in social housing, made a pre-tax loss of £474.8m, compared with a £16.1m profit in 2021. Home Reit’s shares were suspended in January 2023 after it failed to publish its 2022 results by the regulatory deadline: an enhanced audit was needed following a short-sellers’ report that raised doubts about its tenants’ ability to pay rent, the prices Home Reit paid for some houses, and the structure that determines how much the fund managers…

Between March 2020 and June 2022, the price of Brent crude oil nearly quadrupled, to a peak of over $112 per barrel. Since then, prices have drifted downwards, falling below $70, but they recently ticked up again due to the current tensions in the Middle East. The conventional view is that rising oil prices are bad for shares. Increased energy costs push up expenses for most companies, cutting into margins and reducing profits. Higher energy costs also reduce the amount that consumers have left to spend on other things. They may also be associated with higher inflation, which could prompt central banks to increase interest rates. Yet things are not so simple. First, the major stockmarket indices contain many energy firms, accounting for 4.5% of the S&P 500 and 9.5%…

Forget downsizing: Barclays wants us all to consider a “right-size” move to a more suitable property. If we were all encouraged to right size, around 3.8 million homes in England and Wales would “help free up extra housing capacity”, says Vicky Shaw in The Independent. Around 85% of owner-occupied homes in England and Wales have one or more spare bedrooms and could be considered under-occupied, reports Barclays. But “the cohort of under-occupiers were not just later-life homeowners – 36%... are aged 45-64 years old, highlighting that right-sizing is potentially applicable to a wider demographic”, says Kelly Newlands on MortgageSolutions. Barclays says the government should use financial incentives such as vouchers and grants, and should also allow people to offset moving costs against stamp duty if moving to a more size-appropriate…

Small businesses don’t benefit from the same support on energy bills as consumers. There is no comparable price cap on costs, for example. But there is still help available that can help you save money and reduce the carbon footprint of your business at the same time. There are a range of grants available to small firms keen to improve their environmental performance. Finding out what’s available takes work, because some grant schemes operate at a national level while others are more local. Your council, for example, may have a pot of cash available to help you make improvements. National projects include the boiler-upgrade scheme, providing a grant to cover some of the costs of replacing fossil fuel-based heating systems with a heat pump or biomass boiler. The workplace charging…