Innehållsförteckning för Issue 996 från MoneyWeek

Clothing giant Primark has gone from making £650m in sales a month to nothing as the coronavirus has forced it to close in Europe and the US, says the BBC. The chain has no online or click-and-collect services, making store closures all the more damaging. Primark usually contributes about two-thirds of the profits of its parent company Associated British Foods. The US distributor of Corona beer has reduced production at its Mexican breweries in order to avoid an “irreversible impact” to its operations, says Reuters. Brewing was suspended due to the Covid-19 lockdown, but parent company Ab Inbev had already scrapped its 2020 outlook and reported a first quarter revenue loss of $285m. Distributor Constellation Brands said that the “unfortunate name” of the beer had not dampened sales, says Phoebe…

Three to buy Amazon The Times The company that can “deliver just about anything” has reinvented itself as an essential service during lockdowns. From e-commerce and subscription music to e-readers and the Alexa voice assistant, Amazon’s reach is vast. Most promising is its market-leading cloud-computing arm, Amazon Web Services, which delivers big profits and should enjoy another boost as companies switch to distance working. The stock may be on 91 times earnings, but it looks “unstoppable”. $2,408 Yew Grove The Mail on Sunday Ireland is a hub for multinational businesses, with many based outside Dublin. Yew Grove’s founder Jonathan Laredo noticed that the provincial market was being underserved by Dublin-centric property firms. Today his Irish real-estate investment trust has a 27-property portfolio worth £100m. Many tenants work in pharmaceuticals or…

The “asset rich and cash poor” Richard Branson has written an “extraordinary” public letter to the British government, says Chris Bryant on Bloomberg. He is begging for a bailout for Virgin Atlantic, which he jointly owns with Delta Air Lines. Branson has even offered to use his private retreat, Necker Island, to underwrite any loans. While it is true that most of Branson’s $5.9bn net worth “isn’t sitting as cash in a bank account ready to withdraw”, he has only himself to blame for being so illiquid. In any case, “failure is part of being an entrepreneur”. So if he can’t persuade commercial backers to provide loans, then governments too must drive a “hard bargain” in exchange for assistance. One step could be to force him to put up Virgin…

Polls in the UK and the US reveal that a majority of people are blaming China for the spread of Covid-19. A class action involving claimants from 40 countries has already been filed in Florida, accusing China of negligence. Meanwhile, Washington hawks fear that China will exploit the crisis to replace the US as global leader and Tory MPs in Britain are calling for a reset of relations. The pandemic is a “wake-up call”, says Nick Timothy in The Daily Telegraph. David Cameron’s government, despite the concerns of intelligence agencies, struck a “cynical bargain” with China, he writes. In return for Chinese investment, we have increased security risks and allied ourselves with an “autocratic state, with wildly different values and interests to our own”. Reversing the decision to involve Huawei…

“Bear markets have three phases,” Richard Bernstein, the founder of the $9.5bn asset manager that bears his name and former chief investment strategist at Merrill Lynch, tells Barron’s. “The first is that investors view it as temporary, the second is that it’s worse than anyone could have expected, and finally, that it will never end.” It’s clear that investors are still trying to guess whether the bottom has arrived and whether there are already opportunities. That suggests we are still in the first phase of this crisis. The US is already in a deep recession that will get worse. “Unemployment is going to be a lot higher than people could ever imagine. Whether it’s 15% or 20% – who knows?”. So he still favours government bonds, defensive stocks such as…

• The FTSE 100’s longest-serving chief executive, Next’s Simon Wolfson, was paid £2.8m for the year to January 2020, more than double the £1.3m he took home the previous year due to the vesting of a long-term incentive plan. Wolfson (pictured) had been on course to earn £3.2m in total last year, but all of the fashion retailer’s directors have waived their bonuses due to Covid-19. • AstraZeneca faces a “humiliating shareholder revolt” over the pay of its CEO, Pascal Soriot, says Sky News. Anger was ignited by the drugs giant’s refusal to cut his pension contribution to the average applied to its vast British-based workforce. Soriot’s pension will be cut from 30% of his £1.3m salary to 20%, but this is still well above the average awarded to workers.…

■ Two funds run by Crispin Odey’s investment business delivered “eye-catching” results in March despite financial markets’ poor performance as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, says Chris Flood in the Financial Times. The £294m Odey Swan fund, a long-short equity strategy vehicle, posted a 19.8% return in March, taking its performance over the first quarter of 2020 to 8.3%. Odey’s £73m Odyssey fund, which bets on broad market trends, delivered a 15.8% return last month, raising its first quarter performance to 27.4%. The Swan and Odyssey funds were “overwhelmingly bearish” on equities during the bull market that began after the financial crisis and suffered significant drops between 2016 and 2018. However, they have been boosted by crashing stockmarkets this year. Both funds outperformed the Odey European fund, which was…

city-journal.org The Covid-19 pandemic shines a light on the debate over “stakeholder capitalism”, says Oliver Wiseman. Pre-crisis, it became fashionable to argue that businesses had a social role beyond creating profits for their owners. But as economies have “powered down” in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus, no one is worrying much about “corporate social responsibility”, but about jobs and profits. Can firms remain viable? Can they satisfy their customers and continue to employ workers? These are the questions that matter. What counts is the ability of businesses to “carry out their core functions at a very high level”: the efficiency of Amazon deliveries, for example, the ability of telecoms firms to facilitate working from home, the ingenuity of pharmaceutical firms searching for treatments, and so on.…

“Mosquitoes are the most dangerous creatures on earth for humans, killing more than a million people each year” Many will have heard Bill Gates’s 2015 call to arms urging world leaders to prepare for a major pandemic. But scientists and epidemiologists have been making similar, more detailed warnings for years. These include Dr. Jonathan Quick, who wrote The End of Epidemics, subtitled The looming threat to humanity and how to stop it (Scribe UK, £19), in 2018. It is a clear, concise and compelling analysis of the danger. The fear that drove Dr. Quick to write the book was Bill Gates’s prediction that a global outbreak like the 1918 influenza pandemic that killed 50-100 million people would happen again and that in the first 200 days it could kill 33…

■ Calls to remove the triple-lock guarantee on the state pension mean “retired people could be forced to foot the bill for the government’s coronavirus support schemes”, says Jessica Beard in The Sunday Telegraph. At present the state pension rises by the highest of wage growth, inflation, or 2.5% every year in a system known as the triple-lock. But there are now calls to remove the 2.5% element of the lock “to ensure the economic recovery from the coronavirus crisis is fair to working-age households”. Reducing the system to a double lock without the guarantee of at least a 2.5% increase each year would save the government £20bn over five years, according to think tank the Social Market Foundation. “If we are ‘all in it together’ there is a strong…

The government this week unveiled financial assistance for startups that have effectively been excluded from other efforts to support small and medium-sized enterprises through the Covid-19 crisis. Under the Future Fund, ministers have pledged a total of up to £250m of funding for such companies but, to qualify, they will have to raise an equal amount of finance from private investors. They must also have raised at least £250,000 in funding from private sector investors over the past five years. The Future Fund will offer finance of £125,000 to £5m, with funding made in the form of convertible loans. In most cases, these loans will convert into equity at a 20% discount to the issue price when the business next raises funding from investors. In addition, the loans will carry…

Centamin (LSE: CEY) is a miner of precious metals. Its main asset is the Sukari gold mine in Egypt. Money is being printed furiously by central banks all over the world – the ideal backdrop for gold and gold miners, says Russ Mould in The Daily Telegraph. Centamin’s cost of production will be between $870 and $920 an ounce this year, so with gold trading at about $1,500 profits and cash flow should soar. Investors have also been encouraged by net cash on the balance sheet and a revamp of the board. The share price has gained 67% in the past year.…

Allen Chan was born in Hong Kong and graduated with a degree in sociology from Hong Kong Baptist College in 1978. He started working life in Hong Kong’s town development and planning department, and went on to take a job in 1984 as a project consultant in the “special economic zone” of Shenzhen, taking advantage of China’s early wave of economic reforms. After attending the 1992 United Nations’ Earth Summit in Rio, Chan become interested in forestry and went on to found Sino-Wood in 1993, which would be merged into Sino-Forest Corporation a year later, with Chan as its chief executive. What was the scam? Sino-Forest, which was listed on the Canadian stock exchange in Toronto from 1995 onwards, promised investors that it would make money from a forestry portfolio…

No Filter The inside story of how Instagram transformed business, celebrity and our culture By Sarah Frier Simon & Schuster (£20) In 2012, Facebook acquired a “little-known” photography app called Instagram, founded by Kevin Systrom, for $1bn, says Hannah Murphy in the Financial Times. The “seemingly ad-hoc acquisition” has  since proved to be one of Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg’s “most prudent business decisions”. Instagram has since “garnered more than one billion users” and become a “modern cultural phenomenon”. No Filter takes a look behind the scenes of the tech firm’s early days and follows the drama that ensues when the perfectionist culture of Instagram clashes with Zuckerberg’s “growth-at-all-costs” mentality. It is a “deeply researched” and “highly entertaining” book, says Tom Knowles in The Times, packed with anecdotes and insider accounts…

New confirmed cases and deaths due to coronavirus are continuing to fall across western Europe, says Ian Shepherdson from Pantheon Macroeconomics. Cases in Spain have levelled off in recent days, which “bears watching because Spain has eased its lockdown more than other countries”. Deaths in the UK seem to be declining and confirmed case growth is no longer rising. In China, employees are getting back to work and hotels are back in operation. Alex Xu, CEO of GreenTree Hospitality, said 93% of its hotels are back in operation and occupancy exceeds 50%, up substantially from the low of 21.9% on 31 January. A “flattening and stabilisation” can be seen across several markets, suggesting the rate of spread of the virus is a little bit more controlled, said Robert Ford from…

American oil magnate John D. Rockefeller once said that “we are refining oil for the poor man and he must have it cheap and good”. But as the “Ghost of John D. Rockefeller” twitter account quipped this week, “I didn’t mean this” cheap. The plunge is due mostly to the technicalities of how oil is traded: using futures contracts. These are deals to buy and take delivery of oil, or sell it, at a certain point in the future. Futures cover various periods of time, from one month to several years. The price typically quoted is for the front-month, or current one, and this is where the collapse occurred. The price of US oil benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) plunged by more than 300% on Monday, taking prices for delivery…

Some investors used to complain that US food giant General Mills offered too little fresh food and too many ready-meals, cereals and snacks. But this has stood it in good stead during the crisis, says WirtschaftsWoche: prepared food lasts longer. The group expects to grow sales by 2% to $16.8bn in the year to June 2020. It should earn around £2bn and pay a dividend yet again – it hasn’t missed a payout in 120 years. The company’s recent entry into the pet-food market, moreover, looks shrewd given that it is a highly profitable, fast-growing sector. General Mills is a fifth cheaper than rivals such as Unilever or Nestlé in price/earnings terms, and it currently yields 3.2%.…

It has “barely been a week” since President Donald Trump sealed what seemed a “rare diplomatic victory” by getting major oil producers to cut as much as 15 million barrels a day of global output, says Spencer Jakab in The Wall Street Journal. But the effort has failed to boost long-term prices, while the spot price of US crude has turned negative on fears that storage capacity will soon be exhausted. As the shares of oil producers plummet there are now concerns that this “systemic failure” in the oil market will force American producers to turn off the taps for good. Oil-field services behemoth Halliburton and producers Marathon Oil and Occidental Petroleum have already “lost more than two-thirds of their value”, says Dino Grandoni in The Washington Post. Many more…

By refusing to follow other countries into lockdown, Sweden is running a “real-life” experiment into the correct approach to take to the current crisis, says Ross Clark in The Spectator. Instead of enforcing a lockdown, it has followed a policy of “social distancing-lite”, keeping schools, shops and restaurants open and only banning gatherings of more than 50 people. The approach has polarised opinion. Its supporters argue it is a “measured approach” that allows Sweden to “fight Covid-19 without ruining its economy”. Critics say it is a “dangerous gamble”. Sweden’s approach may seem laissez-faire, but in reality it’s closer to what other countries are doing than you might think, say Lars Trägårdh and Umut Özkırımlı in The Guardian. Most Swedes are trying to strike a balance between distancing and enjoying the…

“Unprecedented” is a word that we hear a lot these days. Yet this week’s collapse in oil prices, which saw US crude fall by 321% from $18.27 on Friday to as low as -$40.32 on Monday, then rise by -106% to $2.54 by Tuesday (yes, those minus signs are mathematically in the correct places) before going negative again doesn’t just feel unprecedented – it’s almost inconceivable. There is a solid fundamental reason for rock-bottom oil prices: the destruction of demand resulting from the coronavirus crisis. But the bizarre idea that a economically vital physical asset such as oil can have a negative price is harder to justify . A chief villain and potential victim may even be one and the same: exchange-traded funds (ETFs) such as the $3bn US Oil…

Dividends are being scrapped. Buybacks have been cancelled. Companies that paid out to their shareholders like clockwork have suddenly decided it is no longer possible and income funds are searching desperately for anything they can invest in. Amid an epidemic and with economies in lockdown around the world, most investors are assuming this is an emergency measure. Once the world gets back to normal, the tap will be turned back on and the dividends will start to flow. But will they? Unprecedented generosity According to Link Group’s dividend monitor, more than half of all the UK’s quoted companies have scrapped their dividends, cancelling £28bn of payments. The few that keep them are likely to face an avalanche of criticism if they have also furloughed staff, cut back on suppliers, or…

As markets plummeted in mid-March, investment trusts sold off en masse. Discounts to net asset value (NAV) widened from an average of a few percentage points to double digits. According to the Association of Investment Companies the average discount to NAV was 25% on 19 March, wider than 18% witnessed at the height of the financial crisis in late 2008. The giant rally we have experienced in recent weeks has seen discounts narrow quickly, however. Now the mean is around 10%, still slightly above the long-term average. A buy for the brave Investment trusts in general may no longer be in the bargain basement, but there are still some isolated pockets of value that I think warrant some further attention. Let’s start with UK mid and small caps. This market…

How about a clap for shopkeepers? Matt Kilcoyne The Daily Telegraph Why are the Tories, who so proudly describe Britain as a “nation of shopkeepers”, turning their backs on the private sector? asks Matt Kilcoyne. Health Secretary Matt Hancock and his “departmental lackeys” have apparently decided “who matters and who, by omission, matters less” by issuing a new list of who will be prioritised in Covid-19 testing. These are civil servants working in the Department for Work and Pensions, the judiciary, the police, some unspecified council workers and firemen. All very deserving. All public-sector workers. What about the truck drivers, delivery men, supermarket workers, shopkeepers and millions of other people who are keeping trade flowing and food on our tables? Not everyone “heroically struggling on” is in the public sector.…

conservativehome.com Given the scale of the current crisis, some are questioning whether it’s possible to meet the December deadline for a free-trade agreement between the EU and UK and are arguing for an extension, says Shanker Singham. “If the UK were to ask for such an extension, it would be falling into a trap from which it might never escape.” The UK cannot afford to remain a rule-taker under the terms of the transition agreement for a moment longer than necessary and the coronavirus crisis has only made our escape more urgent. We will need freedom from EU rules to conclude trade agreements with the US and other countries, which will be crucial to boosting growth to help pay for the consequences of Covid-19. If we want to go our…

In the past low interest rates have driven many savers to try peer-to-peer (P2P) investing in order to boost their returns. With interest rates of anywhere from 3% to 15% a year, P2P looked attractive. But now the increased risk that went with that supercharged return is coming to the fore. To get the big returns, you had to lend your money to people or small firms looking for loans. The risk was always that your borrower wouldn’t be able to repay the loan, leaving you out of pocket. If a lender defaults you could at best see a dent in your returns, but at worst lose some of the capital you invested. Now the downturn could wreak serious damage on P2P investors’ savings. Many borrowers won’t be able to…

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has promised to take a tough line on insurers that fail to pay out on valid business interruption policies during the Covid-19 crisis. Insurers that don’t pay up quickly will be ordered to explain themselves. The intervention follows mounting concern that even those insurers whose policies appear explicitly to include cover for businesses forced to close because of public health issues are turning away claims. Hiscox is facing legal action after claiming its policies were not meant to cover pandemic risks, despite covering losses incurred by firms after “an occurrence of any human infectious or human contagious disease”. In other cases, insurers have argued that business interruption insurance is only valid for Covid-19-related losses where policies are written in the most specific language possible. The…

Investec (LSE: INVP) is a South African asset manager listed in London and Johannesburg. It was recently downgraded by credit-ratings agencies Fitch and Moody’s owing to the impact the coronavirus is having on South Africa, which has just seen its lockdown extended by two more weeks. The economy, which was heading for a recession before the outbreak, is now expected to contract by 6% this year. In March the group warned that its profits would fall by 14% for the 12 months to March due to Covid-19. The stock has dropped by 63% in the last year.…

Secure your own supply of eggs The coronavirus pandemic has radically altered consumers’ behaviour, which has given rise to shortages of toilet paper, groceries, alcohol and, perhaps most surprisingly, of hens, says Alyx Gorman in The Guardian. The appeal of having your own supply of eggs is driving the demand, but hens are “not just something you can put in your backyard and leave”, says the RSPCA’s scientific officer, Dr Sarah Babington. “A backyard chicken coop is not an easy egg fix if the supermarket runs low.” But if you’re up for the challenge, you’ll need to keep at least three as hens are social creatures. They’ll also need space to explore (around ten square metres for a flock of five), a nutritious diet, nests, perches, dust baths, and “Fort…

People won’t go without their French Fancies, especially not during lockdown. Premier Foods, the company behind Mr Kipling and Bisto, has revealed a surge in sales as shoppers scramble for cupboard essentials, says James Sillars in Sky News. Sales rose 15% during March and its manufacturing facilities are working at “maximum capacity” to meet demand. Clear skies and cool temperatures have helped UK solar energy to break its all-time peak generation record, says the Solar Trade Association. Apeak of 9.68GW was recorded by Sheffield Solar live PV generation tracker, surpassing the previous record of 9.55GW set on 13 May 2019. As the lockdown (which has led to reduced pollution levels) and good weather continue, more such records are expected to be broken.…

Shares in Polish video-games group Games Operators rose further early this week after doubling on their debut last Friday, say Agnieszka Barteczko and Anna Koper on Reuters. Investors expect higher demand for games during lockdowns. The shares, listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, were priced at 22 zloty (£4.25) and the initial public offering (IPO) earned 24.2m zloty (£4.6m). Poland has emerged as a key video-game exporter thanks to low labour costs, ayoung, educated workforce and a gaming tradition rooted in the communist era. The IPO is a rare success at atime when Warsaw has struggled to entice new listings. Not a single European firm floated in March.…

In the latest twist in the debate over whether the tech giants are “unfairly benefiting from news articles that they link to”, the Australian government will force Google and Facebook to pay local media organisations for their content, says Mike Cherney in The Wall Street Journal. While publishers have “long sought” compensation from Google and Facebook, which boost their own traffic by including news links, the tech giants have resisted paying for news content. They insist that publishers benefit by getting large amounts of traffic directed to them. Australia’s treasurer Josh Frydenberg (pictured) said the amount that the tech giants would be told to pay to local media organisations would be in the “millions of dollars”. No wonder Australia has acted, says Jeffrey Goldfarb, for Breakingviews. After all, Google and…

The number of betting markets available on the upcoming US elections continues to rise. Online exchange Smarkets is offering no less than 151 individual markets, ranging from the outcome of individual congressional contests to who Joe Biden’s running mate will be. Sadly, most of the markets on offer aren’t yet liquid enough for us to recommend, with only a small amount of money matched. Ladbrokes, however, has raised the number of individual Senate contests you can bet on to eight. The best opportunity is Kansas. Ladbrokes is offering 1/3 (75%) on the Republicans winning the Senate contest and 9/4 (30.7%) on the Democratic candidate. Many Republicans are worried by the fact that they have struggled to find a strong candidate to replace incumbent  senator Pat Roberts. Indeed, some polls suggest…

“Lockdown shaming” has become the latest ammunition in neighbourhood feuds. Police are urging the public to stop exploiting the coronavirus lockdown to settle neighbourhood vendettas after forces reported being “inundated” with thousands of daily allegations of people breaching coronavirus restrictions, say Mark Townsend and Nosheen Iqbal in The Observer. The West Midlands police, the second largest force in England and Wales, revealed it had been receiving 1,000 Covid-19 related calls a day. The majority of reports “were for low-level incidents, such as neighbours reporting someone they had seen walking the dog twice in a day”. “Some are ongoing neighbour disputes and nothing to do with coronavirus,” said a senior police source. The police have asked the public to curb “deliberate false reporting” to punish nuisance neighbours or settle long-running feuds.…

A futures contract is an agreement to buy or sell an asset – such as oil, gold, currency or shares – at a prearranged price on a prearranged date (known as the delivery date). Futures may be physically delivered (which means that the seller must deliver the asset to the buyer) or cash settled (which means they exchange a payment based on the difference between the initial price and the price when the contract expires). Futures contracts for any asset are usually available with a range of delivery dates – this may be monthly, quarterly or less regular (for example, some delivery dates for crops may be aligned with harvest months). Each futures contract trades independently, with the price reflecting expected supply and demand on a given delivery date. For…

Members of the House of Lords are demanding their daily £323 daily allowance, worth up to £48,450 a year tax-free, while attending virtual parliamentary proceedings via Zoom, a video-conferencing tool, says Camilla Tominey in The Daily Telegraph. As the average age of peers is 70, many are having to self-isolate in accordance with official guidance. The House has announced that some non-legislative debates would be conducted remotely and that the proceedings will only be broadcast from May. Debates will continue with the “expectation of limited participation”. The rules on payment state that the allowance is payable only for physical “sittings”, and not for “proceedings”. That, say some peers, amounts to age discrimination. We don’t want frail peers turning up saying they couldn’t stay at home because they need the pay,…

Xerox’s $33bn unsolicited bid for HP this winter called to mind two rubbish lorries in a demolition derby, says The Economist. Egging them on was 84-year-old activist investor Carl Icahn, who held stakes in both firms and reaped big rewards in the first quarter as their shares rose. But on 31 March, Xerox withdrew its bid, blaming the disruption caused by Covid-19. Icahn’s stakes have slumped and he has gone unusually quiet –as have many other activist investors. Activism has not been so subdued since the financial crisis of 2008. But bosses shouldn’t cheer the retreat of “boardroom scourges” for too long. “The activists will be back, and so they should be. As the pandemic eases, businesses will need more investor scrutiny than ever.”…

“Gloria Steinem said… that she never heard a man ask her advice on how to combine marriage and a career. Here we are in 2020, and we are still asked those same questions that our male counterparts just do not get asked.” Actress Cate Blanchett (pictured), quoted in the Financial Times “There are three types of economist: those who can count and those who can’t.” Old joke quoted in The Sunday Times “I do like spending a few quid. I mean, what’s nicer? If you’ve had agood job and then suddenly you’ve got a little bit of extra money sitting there… It’s the nicest feeling in the world. My dad used to say: ‘There’s nothing a couple of grand can’t cure.’” English actor Jamie Foreman, quoted in The Sunday Times…

worthwhile.typepad.com Marie Kondo (pictured) is the guru behind abestselling book that claims that tidying up can “change your life and spark joy”. As unlikely as that might sound, her method works because they are based on some sound behavioural economics, says Frances Woolley. When sorting out your clothes, for example, she recommends taking them all out of the cupboards and drawers and putting them in a big pile on the floor. This is an effective “nudge” –the decision you now have to make is not whether to leave something where it is, but a deliberate choice about whether to put it b k. That makes it easier topa k stuff off to the charity shop. To make that decision, she recommends holding an old T-shirt, say, and seeing if it…

Pfizer: (NYSE: PFE) is a drug giant that owns the rights to Prevnar, which it acquired when it bought Wyeth in 2009. Prevnar, which is used to protect infants, young children, and adults against pneumonia, was the first “premium-priced” vaccine marketed by a drug company, says Geoffrey Hsu of the Biotech Growth Trust. Prevnar has proved to be incredibly lucrative for Pfizer, generating nearly $6bn a year, just under 15% of Pfizer’s current sales. Pfizer is working on a third-generation version of Prevnar. Pfizer trades at 12 times 2021 earnings with a solid dividend yield of 4%. The British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (LSE: GSK) has been producing vaccines since 1882. Last year it made around £7.2bn in revenue from vaccines, over 20% of its total revenue, selling 701 million doses…

The Bank of England’s decision to cut the base rate to 0.1% has meant that interest rates on savings accounts have plummeted. There are now more than 100 savings accounts paying just 0.01% interest. “Based on the average cash Isa [individual savings account] balance of £5,144, it would take a saver 20 years to earn £10 from an account that paid 0.01% interest,” says Adam Williams in The Sunday Telegraph. Rates have been slashed on more than 600 savings accounts. But while many accounts are paying just 0.01%, there are still some worth considering. For example, Investec Bank’s E-asy Access Account pays 1.2%, but you do need to deposit at least £10,000. For smaller amounts Marcus pays 1.2% too. Both those accounts have to be opened and managed online. If…

The government’s flagship loans scheme for small and medium-sized businesses, the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS), has not had an auspicious beginning. Data from UK Finance, the group that represents the banking sector, shows that lenders have so far received a relatively meagre 28,460 loan applications – and approved just 6,020 advances. Interest does appear to have picked up since the first few days, when only a handful of loans were agreed. Changes to the scheme, under which the government guarantees 80% of loans made by banks and lenders, seem to have had a positive effect. “Around 800,000 small firms won’t last more than a month” In particular, businesses no longer have to be considered for conventional banking products before being granted access to the CBILS, and directors of…

Healthcare is typically immune to a global economic downturn as demand for medications remains relatively consistent. The Covid-19 pandemic, moreover, could give the biotechnology sector a long-term fillip. Biotech will be central to developing both treatments and vaccines to control the disease. The stocks that help society navigate the challenge posed by the virus are likely to perform well; the same will apply to those that manage to maintain their existing drug sales. Some companies will, however, see their business models come under threat. In particular, contract-research organisations will struggle because many clinical trials will be paused or abandoned. Those with limited cash reserves will also be hit hard as it will be difficult to raise more money. “Acadia’s Nuplazid treats delusions caused by Parkinson’s disease” Firms specialising in inessential…

Billecart-Salmon’s elite blanc de blancs is named after Louis, the brother of Elisabeth Salmon, who co-founded this illustrious Champagne house more than two centuries ago with her husband Nicolas François Billecart. The 2007 vintage is only the second release of this cuvée and it is even more sophisticated than the 2006, to which I gave a mighty 19/20 score in my notes! This wine gains a fulsome 19.5/20 score. It is made from a blend of three grands crus: Cramant, which brings pin-sharp acidity to the mix; Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, which loads structure and longevity into its frame; and Chouilly, which anchors this stunning creation into the Côtes des Blancs soil with its devastating minerality. This is a sensational wine. Billecart has augmented its oak imprint from 15% in 2006 to…

The Equity Edge A Complete Guide to Building Wealth through the Stock Market By Mark Jeavons Harriman House, £24.99 Most books on investing teach their readers certain key principles, which readers can then apply in the hope of improving the returns they get from their portfolio. The Equity Edge, by respected investment adviser Mark Jeavons, takes a more direct approach, outlining for investors the specific steps they should take to find shares that can outperform the market. As the author says at the start of the second chapter, the average investor is just not going to have time to look in detail at every listed company. Instead, he encourages the reader to use stock-screening tools to cut the number of potential investments down, providing a long list of criteria, which…

• Robots have taken over the asylum at NatWest, says Jeff Prestridge in The Mail on Sunday. “Helpful staff employed in the ever-shrinking branch network are rapidly being replaced by automated ‘contact’ – usually in the form of texts.” It’s the way all personal banking is going. And that’s fine, but only if the robots know what they’re doing. NatWest is not like Starling Bank or First Direct, banks that “pride themselves on… online banking par excellence. It’s more the banking equivalent of R2-D2 on steroids”. (The lovable robot from Star Wars is pictured.) One 81-year-old customer, Carole from London, was repeatedly locked out of her account after her husband died. Dealing with “insensitive robots… left her angry, frustrated and occasionally in tears”. She deserves so much better from robot…

The current death toll from Covid-19 is over 160,000 worldwide. But that is still only a fraction of the 650,000 who die each year from the flu. The Washington Post insists that this comparison is a “zombie claim”: the reason the numbers are levelling off in certain areas of the country “is because of the severe measures taken”, it claims. But if that is so, why do we not use the same severe measures against the flu? If saving lives is such apriority, why not save the lives of flu victims too? Or those who die in car accidents? What makes the coronavirus so special? “The mob is always ready to give up its dignity in exchange for ‘security’” Whether the virus is all that it’s cracked up to be…

99 The percentage of seasonal farm labourers in Britain who are foreign workers, says The Times. Many farms have taken to “panic flying” in labour from Romania as a shortfall of up to 80,000 farmhands “threatens this season’s harvest”. €500,000 The cost per week to a typical zoo in lost turnover during lockdown, says Germany’s national zoo association. Neumünster Zoo, in northern Germany, told Die Welt that it may have to feed some animals to others asa last resort if the zoo is to survive. $5.6m How much the All In Challenge fund had raised after three days, with donors being entered into a draw to win a walk-on part in a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. The fund hopes to raise $100m for children, the elderly…