Innehållsförteckning för Issue 1002 från MoneyWeek

“Many households will emerge from the crisis with far more resilient balance sheets” You have to dig around a bit for good news at the moment. It isn’t in fashion. But here is some. In April, UK households paid off £5bn-worth of credit card debt and £2.4bn of personal loans (see page 26 for help on how to do this yourself). That’s the most on record. At the same time UK savings rates are on the rise: according to money management app Yolt, their users put 70% more into savings accounts in April than in February. They also put 63% more into various investments. Thanks to generous furlough schemes, the ability to take mortgage holidays (and so to focus on chipping away at higher-interest debt) and, of course, the full…

Australia’s alcoholic drink producers have seen “dramatic volume declines” due to the coronavirus pandemic, says Rachel Arthur on Beverage Daily. April was the worst month on record for sales of beer, wine, and spirits, resulting in an A$8.5bn loss in business revenue. The closure of bars, clubs, and restaurants in April and May has resulted in “significant declines” for beverage producers, with home stocking-up in March not doing enough to offset overall figures. Thousands of Muscovites say they have been wrongfully fined by the smartphone app that the city requires quarantined patients to download, says Daria Litvinova in The Seattle Times. Authorities issued around 54,000 fines, adding up to $3m. The app – which pesters patients for selfies to prove they are at home – has nearly 70,000 registered users.…

The UK is heading for negative interest rates, say Morgan Stanley analysts Jacob Nell and Bruna Skarica. Economic weakness is likely to prompt the Bank of England to slash rates below zero at the end of this year. While the top priority now is propping up the Treasury’s splurge through quantitative easing, the focus will shift to interest rates once government furlough schemes end in the autumn. It wouldn’t be a temporary measure either: the experience of other countries shows that negative interest rates can “persist for years”. Talk of a world in which savers pay for someone else to take their money moves us into “Alice in Wonderland territory”, as Ruth Sunderland points out in the Daily Mail. In practice, negative interest rates are unlikely to mean interest income…

Years of supply deficits and robust demand from the car industry, where palladium is used in catalytic converters in petrol engines, drove prices to a record high above $2,800 an ounce in February. The slump has wiped 30% off the price, says Myra Saefong in Barron’s. The key to regaining the all-time high will be car sales in North America and China (diesel engines are more popular in Europe and they require platinum in converters). Chinese car sales rose by 4.4% year-on-year in April, but US ones were down 53%. Still, after the rebound there may be a longer-term shift towards cars, as they provide more protection against viruses than public transport and planes, says R. Michael Jones, CEO of mining group Platinum Group Metals.…

JDE Peet’s has given “Europe’s depressed IPO [initial public offerings] market ashot in the arm”, says Hanna Ziady on CNN. Last Friday the owner of Pete’s Coffee, whose key brands include Jacobs and Douwe Egberts, raised €2.25bn in an Amsterdam listing, valuing JDE at €15.6bn. The flotation, Europe’s biggest this year, is a “big bet that coffee is recession-proof”. The company’s sales stem mostly from coffee consumed at home, a subsector that has grown during the pandemic as millions of people have had to avoid offices and cafes. Europe, the Middle East and Africa recorded only 28 IPOs in the first three months of 2020, the lowest quarterly tally in over seven years.…

Ted Baker is sinking deeper and deeper into the mire. Founder Ray Kelvin (pictured), who had to step aside from the company last year over allegations of inappropriate behaviour, has seen his holding in the fashion company fall by more than half as part of an emergency £105m fundraising, say Jasper Jolly and Sarah Butler in The Guardian. Most of the money will come from a share placing. This comes “hot on the heels” of the sale and leaseback of Ted Baker’s London headquarters, which raised £72m to pay back lenders in March. Kelvin ispaying a “heavy price” to keep his business afloat, but something needs to be done, says Ben Marlow in The Daily Telegraph. Since Kelvin left there have been “four profit warnings”; a board “clearout”; an audit…

Donald Trump’s response to the protests in the US (see left) and a widening gap in the polls between him and his rival for the presidency in the November elections, Joe Biden, has persuaded the betting markets to move away from the president, with the odds of Trump winning lengthening to 2.26 (44.3%) on Betfair. Interestingly, while Betfair puts Biden at 2.06 (49.5%) to be the next president, punters think that the odds of a Democrat in the White House is 1.91 (52.3%), implying there are still those who think that Biden will stand down. One politician who seems to have come out of crisis in better shape, at least for now, is Nicola Sturgeon (pictured) – the net approval rating for Scotland’s first minister has gone up from negative…

I’ve been thinking a lot about the late 1960s and the parallels with today. Not because of protests in America, Hong Kong and elsewhere. Not because of the pandemic sweeping around the globe – influenza then, coronavirus now. Not because of the spectre of conflict (the Vietnam war, the looming US-China cold war). Those comparisons are valid – there are good reasons why people are starting to describe 2020 as the worst year since 1968. But it’s really the US stockmarket of 40 years ago that interests me. The 1960s were the go-go years, to quote the title of a contemporary history by the journalist John Brooks. Solid growth and a climate of optimism created a strong bull market. But by the end of the decade, a small number of…

Margrethe Vestager loves to portray herself as the European Union’s competition powerhouse. The bloc’s competition commissioner talks endlessly about how she is turning Brussels into a self-proclaimed regulatory superpower and how she’s the only person willing to stand up to the power of Big Tech, dishing out fines so huge they are now a major source of EU revenues. Vestager is the closest thing the European Commission has to a superstar. But there is a problem. It is increasingly becoming clear that she is also out of control and that her frequently illegal decisions, and her absurd faith in the power of regulation, are doing huge damage to the European economy. The courts row back Last week, the EU’s second-highest court overturned her decision of four years ago to block…

Infrastructure as an asset class is mostly accessed via specialist investment trusts, but as it has (rightly, in my view) grown more popular, we’ve seen the rise of what are in effect infrastructure funds of funds, structured as open-ended vehicles. In other words, these funds grow or shrink as investors buy in or withdraw money, unlike an investment trust which has a fixed number of shares in issue which investors trade with one another. VT Gravis UK Infrastructure and FP Foresight UK Infrastructure Income, the two biggest such funds, have between them more than £1bn in assets under management, and I remain bullish on both. Big fish, small pond But some – including a fund manager I talked to recently – have raised concerns, both about these types of funds…

“I am not broke, but tax men are awful.” Slavica Ecclestone, former wife of Formula One billionaire Bernie Ecclestone, quoted in The Sunday Times “I can name 100 things more important now than fixating on how much money I have.” US socialite and businesswoman Kylie Jenner, who was removed from Forbes magazine’s list of billionaires following claims that she had inflated her net worth, quoted in The Mail on Sunday “Getting divorced was a very costly business.” Author Peter May on his worst financial decision, quoted in The Sunday Telegraph “I would make tax laws really simple. We need a ‘this is it, do this, just pay up’ type of system. I think every complication, every exclusion is just an invitation for people to game the system and that’s not…

fastcompany.com If you’re “reeling from a recent layoff” due to the pandemic, “you’re not alone”, says Diana Shi. Many millions of people around the world have lost their jobs. Yet despite the “grim circumstances”, the “tried-and-true methods” of getting back on your feet still apply. 1. Choose how you’ll frame things. “Think strategically” about how you will “gracefully address the layoff” once you’re back in front of a potential employer. Put together a “thoughtful response that will emphasise your strengths”. 2. Share the news. Let people in your network know that you’re “on the prowl for a new position”. If approaching individuals with a pitch, however, “do this delicately” to avoid seeming self-centred amid a global crisis. 3. Exploit the Zoom boom. Business leaders, like the rest of us, are…

When we’re insecure about our incomes we’ll put up with tatty upholstery rather than buy an expensive new three-piece suite. As the economy sagged during the financial crisis of 2007-2008, so did our sofas, with sales at SCS Upholstery, a chain of soft furnishings retailers, slumping by 15% year-on-year in the six months to January 2008. Profit is the difference between revenue and costs, and because the company made relatively little money on each sofa sale before the crisis hit, and the costs of running shops and warehouses are mostly fixed in the short-term, SCS was now selling sofas at a loss. In six months it lost £8.5m. When the company reported its results in March 2008, it may not have looked as though it was in trouble, but it…

Today, the idea that “every company needs to become a software company” is almost a cliché. No matter your industry, you’re expected to reimagine your business model to make sure you’re not the next local taxi company or hotel chain caught off-guard by your equivalent of Uber or Airbnb. The playbook used to be simple – size and market power mattered – and the strategy was to create value by controlling the value chain and re-deploying capital to grow your competitive position. From retail to manufacturing, this concept is now broken, and more companies than ever are required to pivot and innovate in a digital world to keep pace with a new generation of software companies. Industry dynamics used to change at a rate that incumbents could respond to -…

It seems we’re not letting lockdown get in the way of our dreams of a summer holiday abroad. “Since the start of May millions of pounds have been spent on holidays that may not take place,” says Marianna Hunt in The Telegraph. With travel firms offering big discounts, people have rushed to grab a bargain. The problem is it may turn out to be a hellish experience rather than a holiday. The government has warned that it is unlikely Britons will be able to holiday overseas. People travelling abroad from 8 June will have to quarantine for 14 days when they return, a system that is also being enforced in several European countries. “Holidaymakers aren’t going to be able to take trips where the quarantine period at both ends totals…

With neither a cure nor a vaccine in the immediate offing, the Covid-19 crisis shows no signs of abating and there is still a great deal of uncertainty over how long and deep the resulting economic downturn will be. Our focus therefore continues to be on investing in resilient companies that stand the greatest chance of withstanding the ravages of this pandemic. Sadly, in the short term, it’s not going to be easy for businesses in any sector. Apart from a lucky few, most companies are currently focusing on survival, not growth. Investors should look to get behind those likely to prevail within their sector. Here are three businesses that we believe are well positioned to weather the storm and should offer investors a steady return over the medium term.…

I met Gerard Fox five or six years ago at a tasting. He mentioned that he and his wife Jonica had got into the wine game, back in 2004, by planting some vines, and that they were pretty happy with their early releases. I tasted their 2011 Mayfield, Essence Blanc de Blancs, back in 2016 and also their 2013 Mayfield Tradition Blanc de Noirs, in 2018, and wrote up both in my column for the Daily Mail. Each Fox & Fox release is tiny, athousand bottles here and a thousand bottles there. Since the early days, the vines are finding their feet and two new releases are worthy of extremely high praise. The 2015 Essence is sublime and it grows on the palate into a lovely crisp apple and lemon…

£7bn The total value of the refunds owed by airlines and holiday companies to travellers from cancelled bookings due to the pandemic, according to consumer group Which. 14.3 The percentage rise in year-on-year grocery sales in the 12 weeks to 17 May, the fastest rate of increase since comparable records began in 1994, market research firm Kantar has found. Sales at the Co-op rose by 30.8% and at Tesco by 12.7%, followed by Sainsbury’s (12.5%), Morrisons (9.8%) and Asda (6.5%). £3.3m The cost of a replica of the Aston Martin DB5 that was given to James Bond in the 1964 film Goldfinger. Production of the 25 pre-ordered cars started last week. Their smoke emitters, oil-slick sprayers, bullet-proof shields and (fake) headlight machine-guns mean the cars are not allowed to be…

Czech billionaire Petr Kellner’s push into China was meant to “turbo-charge” one of eastern Europe’s biggest fortunes, say Alexander Sazonov and Venus Feng on Bloomberg. Instead, Kellner’s fortune has dropped to $10bn, the steepest such drop seen this year among the richest eastern Europeans outside of Russia. In all, Kellner has seen his value drop by $2.5bn since January. It’s mostly due to a $1.5bn fall in the value of his stake in consumer lender Home Credit – he was forced to scrap a planned public listing for the company in November after investors demanded a lower valuation. Now the coronavirus outbreak has added to Kellner’s woes – China’s sluggish economy has resulted in consumer lending activity shrinking, following countrywide lockdown measures. That’s not great news for Home Credit, which…

The global stock rally has “reached a tipping point”, writes John Authers on Bloomberg. The S&P 500 has bounced by more than a third since its March nadir, with the FTSE 100 advancing by almost 25% over the same time period. Many commentators have been perplexed by the strength of the comeback. The virus is still far from under control, a vaccine looks far off and global unemployment has risen to Depression-era levels. Yet bulls argue that the economy will be able to stage a swift recovery now that lockdowns are being lifted and point to the tidal wave of central-bank liquidity juicing market returns. Cyclicals join the party The rally has been spearheaded by technology and pharmaceuticals, but in recent weeks more cyclical businesses such as carmakers, retail and…

“There is... a growing consensus across many [emerging-market] boardrooms that corporate success is not measured in the level of sales growth alone. Instead, from tech giants in Korea to the oil majors in Russia, a whole range of emerging-market firms are now committing to pay out a higher proportion of profits to shareholders. Even some of the state-run firms in China have increased their payouts to shareholders, egged on by gradual governance reform. This is very positive for emerging-market equities. Extensive and idle cash balances are all too often the source of subsequent poor investment… emerging markets now boast awide range of businesses that, due to their low valuation levels, offer investors an attractive dividend yield and plenty of prospects for income and capital growth over time.” Charles Sunnucks, Jupiter…

Three to buy Chubb Barron’s Shares in this New York-listed global insurer have fallen by 20% this year. Insurers pick up the tab when disasters such as Covid-19 strike. Yet although the insurance industry’s pandemic losses could ultimately reach $80bn-$100bn, that is less than the $150bn wiped off the sector at the lowest point of the market rout. Earnings should bounce back over the coming years, thanks in part to higher premiums as the industry reassess risks. On a little over book value, the shares look decent value. $124 Inspecs Shares This Bath-based eyewear frames specialist has a “clear growth vision”. It is a “one-stop shop” for retail chains in search of frames for sunglasses and spectacles. A focus on affordability also leaves the company well-positioned for an era of…

• Shares in TUI, Europe’s largest tour operator, have bounced by 60% after Spain announced that tourists could return from July, says Christopher Thompson on Breakingviews. TUI now hopes that a “bookings bump” from “sun-starved northern Europeans”, combined with the sale of its stake in a joint venture, will help it avoid a “cash crunch”. But quarantine rules “may keep sun-lovers at home”, while a forecast 40% year-on-year decline in revenue this year will “pile pressure” on the balance sheet; debt has already reached six times earnings. It would be “prudent” to raise capital while the “sun is shining”. • Jean-Dominique Senard, who leads the global alliance of carmakers Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi, has yet again ruled out a “full-blown merger” of the trio, says Stephen Wilmot in The Wall…

Technical analysis refers to the use of trends in market data – such as the price of securities and volume traded – to attempt to forecast the future direction of markets. It does not take account of fundamental data such as a company’s earnings. Instead it focuses solely on how individual securities and groups of securities are trading. Users of technical analysis argue that the collective actions of buyers and sellers mean that all available fundamental information should already be reflected in current prices. However, the way in which investors interact as they respond to the flow of new information creates recurring patterns of behaviour, so recognising these patterns may allow chartists to anticipate what is likely to happen next. There are a large number of technical analysis indicators, some…

• Nick Read, the boss of telecoms giant Vodafone, took home £3.7m for the year that ended in March, up from £3m for the previous 12 months, even as the firm has withheld its payout to investors, says The Daily Telegraph. Read, who was promoted to the top job in 2018, was paid a £1.1m salary, the same again as an annual bonus, £1.4m in long-term awards, and the rest in pension and benefits. Read, and other senior executives, had recently offered to give up a quarter of their salaries to charitable causes over the next three months in response to the pandemic. • Influential shareholder advisory firms ISS and Glass Lewis urged investors in Alphabet to vote against the $281m it paid its CEO, Sundar Pichai (pictured), for last…

Renewables are flooding the UK power market at an increasing rate. Wholesale prices are determined by the marginal cost of generation, which – as renewables typically have very low marginal costs – is pushing wholesale prices down. JPMorgan analysts recently warned that renewables were “cannibalising” revenues, noting that data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance suggests that UK baseload electricity prices will fall in real terms (ie, after inflation) by 4% a year to £19 per megawatt hour (Mwh) by 2040. The danger is that many UK renewable funds expect prices to rise by 0.6% a year over that time, to £52/Mwh. JPM reckons this mismatch could see the share price of such funds fall by a third on average. Moreover, many renewable funds’ direct exposure to power prices has been…

1828.org.uk I was “delighted” to hear that Hong Kong’s British national (overseas), or BNO, passport holders will be granted a path to British citizenship should China impose its new national security laws, says Matt Gillow. This, along with actions from the US, sends a “clear message” that the free world will not stand idly by while the Communist regime tramples on human rights. Still, only 300,000 of Hong Kong’s 7.5 million people are currently BNO passport holders. People born after 1997 are ineligible. The post-coronavirus world is going to see “a major struggle” between China and the US. For too long, the West has stood by as China’s rise makes its way of doing things seem valid. Britain must “choose a side” and do more. One option is to join…

There is a general presumption that the reopening of the UK housing market following the pandemic freeze must be negative for house prices. But it is too early to be sure. Lucian Cook, the head of residential research at Savills, warns against jumping to any conclusions until data on transactions is available. In March, new buyers’ enquiries and new instructions collapsed “like never before”, making it “difficult to get an indication of the impact on prices for a while”. Generally, economic downturns coincide with falling house prices. In recent years, however, house prices have been falling in inflation-adjusted terms. The absence of a run-up in house prices before the virus “should insulate the market from significant house-price falls”, reckons Cook. In the short term, sentiment will be a factor, but…

Almost 1.5 million payment holidays have been granted on credit cards and personal loans since the lockdown began. While a payment holiday can be alifeline if your income has nosedived, there are cheaper alternatives. The trouble with holidays on credit cards is that – just like mortgage holidays – they aren’t free. You may not be making any repayments, but the lender is still charging interest on your debt. “Move to an interest-free card if you are struggling with the debt load” What you owe is growing, so your monthly repayments will have to rise when the holiday is over, or it will take you longer to clear your debt. If you take a three-month payment holiday on a £4,000 credit-card debt with a 21.9%APR, you’ll owe an extra £203…

Companies with a VAT payment due between 20 March and 30 June can defer the bill until 31 March 2021 as part of the government’s support package. In practice, that means you can defer what you owe from quarterly tax returns that were filed by 29 February, 29 March and 29 April, for which tax would normally be payable by 7 April, 7 May and 7 June respectively. Payments on account, annual accounting advance payments and monthly return payments are also eligible for deferral. However, just because you can put off your bill doesn’t mean you should. This is a loan – an extension of the time you have to pay your VAT to help with short-term cash-flow problems – not a cancellation of the debt. And when the bill…

Hikma Pharmaceuticals (LSE: HIK) is a multinational pharmaceuticals group headquartered in London that produces both branded and generic treatments. By the end of the first quarter the company was confident that it was on track to fulfil its full-year revenue forecast. Hikma says it has seen increased demand across its portfolio, with hospitals eager to get their hands on anaesthetics and sedatives amid the coronavirus pandemic. Investors have also been impressed by a 16% rise in the 2019 dividend. The stock has gained 56% in a year.…

Born in New York on New Year’s Day in 1933, Arthur Nadel went on to graduate from New York University (NYU), followed by NYU Law School. His law career came to an ignominious end when he was disbarred in 1982 for misappropriating money held in an escrow account (though the money was eventually repaid). Nadel then moved to Sarasota, Florida, trying out various business ventures, interspersed with stints as a piano player. In the 1990s he and his fifth wife, Peg, founded a successful day-trading club. On the back of this success he launched a hedge fund, Scoop Management Company, which managed money for three funds run by Neil and Chris Moody. What was the scam? Nadel claimed that he would make money for investors by day-trading the Nasdaq (a…

Britain’s War A New World 1942-1947 By Daniel Todman Allen Lane, £35 The “vast battery” of literature on the Second World War makes it “nearly impossible” to write an original book on the British experience, says Simon Heffer in The Daily Telegraph. Professor Daniel  the fall of Singapore to post-war austerity in an account that brings out “usually underplayed aspects” of the war, such as the financial dimension. One of the things that really stands out in Todman’s account is the extent to which Britain became a “warfare state”, with an “economy and technology built around national strategic priorities”, says Peter Clarke in The Guardian. With the help of statistics, Todman helps the reader “appreciate the texture of people’s lives in an era when rationing constrained consumption”. He also emphasises…

• Our local ice-cream van is only taking card payments, says Lee Boyce for This is Money. “You have to go on his website, book a slot, pick your flavour and pay by card, before he jingles his way into your cul-de-sac.” What is for the moment a temporary measure due to Covid-19 might turn into something permanent. As fewer consumers use cash, “the economics supporting the provision of a cash infrastructure… [comes] under threat”. The pace of the steady march to a cashless future has been quickened by the pandemic. Yet one in five people still rely on cash, including the elderly, disabled and those on low incomes. Shops say it’s safer and quicker to use cards in the pandemic and, on the whole, they’re right. But will the…

British holidaymakers will be “most welcome” in Portugal this summer despite the Covid-19 pandemic, says Tom Burridge on the BBC. Portuguese foreign minister Augusto Santos Silva said he hoped an air bridge between the UK and Portugal could be secured by the end of June, meaning arrivals will not have to self-isolate, adding that any travel quarantine “was an enemy of tourism”. Nearly 500,000 people logged on to watch the likes of Sandi Toksvig (pictured), Tori Amos and Stephen Fry at the first online Hay Festival, says the BBC. The 33rd edition of the literary event was free and was broadcast online over the past two weeks after it received donations of £350,000 that helped it go ahead in its digital format.…

The race for a Covid-19 vaccine and the ageing of the global population is an auspicious backdrop for the biotech sector, says WirtschaftsWoche. Consider playing it with Switzerland’s BB Biotech, an investment vehicle that takes stakes in fast-growing, mostly listed, biotechs developing drugs in a wide array of fields. At present it owns shares in 35 companies, with 41% of the portfolio accounted for by firms working on rare diseases; cancer and neurological diseases comprise a respective 27% and 15%. The stock has climbed by an annual 15% since it listed in 1993, and there should be plenty more upside ahead. BB Biotech also boasts an impressive 5% yield.…

It has been a “momentous week” for social media, says Tae Kim on Bloomberg. Twitter’s shares slumped by 9% after the company decision to regulate some of President Donald Trump’s “most controversial posts” sparked a “backlash” from the president. After Twitter added a fact-check warning label to two of the president’s posts about voting by post, Trump insisted he would “strongly regulate or close” social-media platforms. He then signed an executive order that “seeks to limit some of the broad liability protection social-media companies have under federal law”. Trump is targeting Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, says Charlie Savage in The New York Times. This prevents social media being sued for libel by stating that it “will not be treated as the publisher or the speaker for making…

Violence and unrest is gripping America following the murder of an African-American man by a police officer, but the president’s inflamatory remarks about events seem calculated only to pour petrol on the fire. But his “law-and-order, tough-on-protesters” stance is part of a deliberate strategy to emulate Richard Nixon, says David Siders for Politico. Nixon used an appeal to the “silent majority” angered by widespread riots in 1968 to win the election that year; Trump is hoping that today’s voters too will “recoil” at the images of “chaos and looting” and “look to the White House for stability”. He is hoping such a message will go down well in the suburbs, which he narrowly won in 2016. But this time is different, says Tim Stanley in The Daily Telegraph. Nixon was…

Michael Cembalest, chairman of market and investment strategy, JP Morgan Asset & Wealth Management Opinion polls in swing states suggest that Joe Biden’s chances of winning the US presidential election in November are rising, says Michael Cembalest, the top investment strategist at JP Morgan’s $2trn investmentmanagment arm. And the chances of the Democrats conducting a clean sweep of the presidency, the House of Representatives and the Senate are now around 45%, according to political-betting markets. So investors need to consider the implications for US stocks if Biden (pictured below) and his party end up with full control for the next few years. While some voters see the former vice president as an establishment candidate, “I wonder if the people in question have looked at Biden’s policy positions”. On taxation and…

SpaceX founder Elon Musk achieved his boyhood dream of shuttling American astronauts to the International Space Station – the first time that has happened from US soil in nine years, says Chris Isidore on CNN Business. This week Musk also bagged options to buy almost 1.7 million shares in Tesla, the electric-car company he also runs, at $350.02 a share. That’s about half the price of what the shares cost now, which would make his windfall worth around $770m. The award came due in early May after Tesla maintained an average market value of more than $100bn over the course of six months. These options are the first of 12 possible blocks of stock achievable under the compensation plan approved two years ago, meaning Musk could be in line for…

It pays to take care of the jobless Editorial Bloomberg An effective unemployment-insurance system is vital, says Bloomberg. It “helps people get by when they lose jobs”, improves productivity by supporting workers as they find “the best match for their skills” and “mitigates recessions” by maintaining spending power. The pandemic has exposed the failings of the US system. As of 25 April, more than 25% of the 28 million who had filed claims were still waiting to be processed. Today’s system has its origins in the New Deal, which shifted management “largely to the states”. The result is a “confounding inconsistency”. Washington, for example, provides an average of 48% of wages for a maximum of 26 weeks; Florida provides 31% for 12 weeks and has such a “daunting claims process”…

bloomberg.com/opinion Coronavirus vaccines must first go to healthcare workers and others in critical jobs, rather than those who would pay the most for them, says Tyler Cowen. Still, that doesn’t mean markets should play no role. At the present time, there are many candidate vaccines, sometimes based on different scientific approaches, which means that multiple vaccines could end up circulating, offering varying degrees of protection and risk. If you had to choose, wouldn’t it make sense to seek guidance from prices? They will reflect information about the perceived value of both protection and risk – information perhaps not accessible or settled upon by health authorities. Market prices would also be useful signals when resources need to be allocated to improve particular vaccines. Selling off remaining vaccines once critical workers have…

In March, as the lockdown began, companies fell over themselves to let us know that sales and profits were set to slide – but their balance sheets were strong. No wonder. When profits are rolling in, executives and investors often pay balance sheets scant attention. But when earnings dry up, the balance sheet becomes crucial. A strong one can save a business from oblivion. A company’s balance sheet, or as it is officially known, the statement of financial position, sets out what a company owns (its assets ) and what it owes (a reflection of how the assets are financed) on a particular date. All assets must be financed, so the two sides of the balance sheet balance. A beginner’s guide A company typically publishes its balance sheet quarterly or…

■ There has been a surge in demand for short-term fixed rate bonds. “Savers may well be rushing to secure a competitive rate over the next 12 months before rates worsen,” says Rachel Springall from Moneyfacts in The Sunday Times. However, savers should not be tempted to stash their money away for the long term. The difference in interest rates for the average one-year and five-year fixed-rate bond has declined to just 0.39%, compared with 1.17% in 2016. “Savers will earn just pennies by locking their money away for five years instead of one year.” The best one-year rate is currently 1.45% from Ford Money. RCI is paying the top rate on five-year bonds: 1.8%. ■ Landlords are being warned they face fines of up to £30,000 if they are…

Good news for businesses based in shared-office buildings that have hitherto missed out on financial support. The government has added £600m to plug the gap in its small business rates relief scheme. This is the plan offering £10,000 in cash grants to businesses based in premises with a rateable value of less than £15,000 for business rates purposes. The scheme also pays £25,000 to companies in the retail, leisure and hospitality sectors where they inhabit premises with a rateable value of between £15,000 and £51,000. However, some 10,000 companies based in shared office buildings and other workspace properties were not initially eligible for support, because the Valuation Office Agency, which sets business rate valuations, has never assessed the units they rent. Businesses in premises run by companies such as WeWork…

Shares in Hunting (LSE: HTG), aBritish supplier of equipment such as drilling tools to the oil industry, have slipped by 67% over the last 12 months, acollapse that has accompanied the drop in oil prices induced by Covid-19, says Giulia Bottaro in Proactive Investors. The group said in April that it will implement cost-saving measures, including ceasing non-essential capital expenditure and a hiring freeze, though it still paid $5m in dividends. The company has been downgraded from “buy” to “neutral” by Swiss bank UBS as an upturn in oil prices is not expected any time soon.…

Getting that cinema sound The Sonos Arc is the most expensive “soundbar” the company has yet produced and it’s an impressive piece of kit, says Jeremy White in Wired. The Arc is a smart speaker with Dolby Atmos, a “pimped up surround sound” system, which can channel Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. It has no less than 11 individual speakers along its 1.1-metre length, and it automatically adjusts to provide the best-quality sound based on your home-cinema set-up and what’s playing. Using the associated app, you can play around with such “audio trickery” as enhancing the vocals or dampening the sound of explosions to avoid upsetting the neighbours. £799, sonos.com A high-quality film projector Entry-level film projectors may require screens and good curtains to keep the sun out; ultra-high definition…

We are still in Argentina. Still cut off from the rest of the world (the airports are closed). We are making the best of it by learning as much as we can from a failed economy. Consider this brief history of one of the most successful investments of all time. The story begins in 1916 when Robustiano Patrón Costas got off the train in Orán, Argentina, and became convinced that the area was suitable for a modern sugar mill. It seemed very unlikely at the time. The surrounding countryside was a wilderness, with very few people and none of the support infrastructure that a large plant would need. No towns. No skilled labourers. No roads. No electricity. “Alas, the appeal of risk-taking and hard work was already waning” Nevertheless, he…