Innehållsförteckning för Issue 1011 från MoneyWeek

“The shortage of barbecues is a great reminder of how adaptable a people-driven economy is” I’ve been trying to get a new gas cylinder for my barbecue in Edinburgh. I can’t. I’ve been to every distributor in town –no luck. I’m sure I could get one if I ventured beyond the ring road but what with work, children, cooking and housework, I can’t devote any more time to Calor chasing. We are back to cooking inside for now (please don’t write in and suggest charcoal – I’m trying to make our life easier). This is maddening. But also slightly thrilling. It isn’t just gas that is in short supply, it is barbecues too. Look around and mostly you will see “sold out” signs. Capitalism will provide, of course (they’ll be…

Farmers are enduring a rising crime wave – the cost of rural crime across the UK rose sharply last year, as organised gangs target valuable farming equipment and livestock to sell on black markets. According to NFU Mutual’s annual report, thefts totalled £54m, up 9% on 2018. The cost of thefts of Land Rover Defenders, for example, rose by 31% from £7.4m to £9.3m. A Harley Street hair surgeon had to pay £9,000 to an unhappy client after a transplant went wrong. Opera singer Ivan Luptak claimed the £5,000, 11-hour surgery, conducted in 2015, left him with an “unreasonably asymmetric” hairline. Luptak and Rejuvenate Hair Clinics agreed a settlement of £45,000: £9,000 from surgeon Dr Luca De Fazio, £6,000 from the clinic, and £30,000 in legal costs.…

The Turkish lira is “back in the firing line”, says William Jackson of Capital Economics. The Turkish tourism industry has been hit hard by the pandemic, reducing crucial foreign-currency earnings. Rising tensions with EU member states have led to talk of economic sanctions. The result is that the lira is down by 14% against the dollar this year and has been trading above the eight-to-the-euro level for the first time in two years. Turkey’s central bank is thought to have spent more than $60bn propping up the lira this year but it is fast running out of options, say Caitlin Ostroff and Anna Isaac in The Wall Street Journal. Exchange reserves are dwindling and the only remaining option – an interest rate hike – is practically ruled out because of…

Commodities lag inflation over the long term, says Jim Reid of Deutsche Bank. They are mostly used in industry “and alternatives are found if [they become] too expensive. We also become more efficient at using them.” Gold, however, is the exception. It struggled until 1971, when the world economy moved to apaper-money system, but it has flourished since then. It is now double its 1860 level in inflation-adjusted terms. Silver has only doubled in real terms since 1971 and is still worth less than half of its 1860 value. Note, however, that while gold “is a fiat money hedge”, equities have done better since 1971. The S&P has risen 22-fold in real total-return terms (including dividends). Gold has risen sevenfold.…

America’s Vital Farms started out in 2007 with 20 hens, says Chloe Sorvino in Forbes. Last week it had a successful initial public offering (IPO). The group, which specialises in “pasture-raised” eggs (laid by chickens with plenty of room to run about), raked in $200m, giving it a market value of $1.3bn. The shares soared by 60%. The company’s success proves that more ethical standards, such as“paying farmers and plant workers at a premium”, are becoming increasingly appealing to both consumers and investors. Sales of Vital Farms’ products — which include ghee, butter and egg-based snacks — reached $140m last year.…

BP has announced a record quarterly loss for the three months to the end of June – $17.7bn – and cut its dividend in half, says Graham Ruddick in the Times. BP’s shareholders also have a new strategy to get used to. This “radical” plan involves transforming BP from an “international oil company” into an “integrated energy company” by boosting investment in low-carbon energy tenfold by 2030. This is not just a dividend cut, but also a “fundamental change” away from the old “progressive dividend” mantra whereby the payouts “rise no matter what”, says Jim Armitage in the Evening Standard. Instead, cash is returned to shareholders “only when it’s been generated from the business”. This is a “jolly good thing”. After all, while paying dividends with debt might be “acceptable”…

With £53m matched on Betfair, the punters’ view of the overall outcome of the US presidential election in November is the same as it was a week ago. Joe Biden and President Trump’s odds are unchanged at 1.63 (61.3%) and 2.78 (35.9%) respectively. In terms of the Democrat “veepstakes”, Kamala Harris (pictured) remains the frontrunner to be Biden’s running mate, though her odds have lengthened slightly to 2.02 (49.5%), with Susan Rice still in second place at 4.5 (22.2%). Tammy Duckworth is now in third place at 13 (7.7%). One of the most interesting markets is on the popular vote share Trump will achieve. With £21,366 matched on Betfair, punters have Trump getting 43%- 45.99% as the most likely outcome at 3.25 (30.7%). The next most likely outcome is Trump…

There’s nothing Boris Johnson likes more than to be photographed with a hard hat breaking ground on a new building project. As mayor of London, there was rarely a skyscraper, airport or tunnel Johnson didn’t want to start work on. As he looks for ways of reviving an economy that, even as lockdown has eased, is still in the middle of its worst slump for a century or more, it was always inevitable that lots of construction would take the lead on creating new jobs and more demand. With its massive deregulation of planning rules, the government is hoping to start a building boom that will lead us out of recession. That’s all to the good. A construction boom helped us out of the Great Depression. The UK has some…

Hindsight is the most useful skill in investment. That’s why in the aftermath of the collapse in dividends and the intractable problem this poses for income investors, we can see a growing number of fund managers telling us that the real mistake was investing for income in the first place. Rather than relying on the dividends or interest that investments naturally pay, investors should instead focus on generating capital gains that can regularly be sold to provide an income. The timing of this advice is, of course, not especially helpful. But the advice itself is also suspect. Yes, regularly harvesting gains is a perfectly workable way of producing an income. Indeed, since the average retiree will not build up enough savings that they can live solely on dividends and interest,…

Brexit and the pandemic have given the EU the chance to take a significant step towards a federal Europe. The €750bn bailout of southern Europe, financed with long-term bonds issued by the EU, paves the way, according to Cedric Gemehl of Gavekal, “for an EU finance ministry able to issue debt, raise taxes and spend the proceeds in its own right”. Risk is dwindling The resultant “structural reduction of European risk... will be bullish both for eurozone risk assets and the euro”. Whether it is bullish for the EU economy is a moot point but, says Jamie Ross, manager of the £300m Henderson Eurotrust (LSE: HNE), “it follows a tough decade for Europe... The outlook for the next ten years is more attractive.” Since Ross took over as manager in…

Power down is best way to level up Editorial The Economist The slogan intended to define Boris Johnson’s premiership is “levelling up”, says The Economist. It matters, not just because having won lots of seats in the Midlands and the north of England the Tories need to hold on to them, but because regional inequality “really is a blight” and Covid-19 could “widen the gap”. The ratio between the bottom and top 10% of small regions in terms of GDP is 4.3, higher than in any other OECD country. So far, the government has “flung” some cash at small cities and towns, promised to spend more on public transport and talked of “winkling civil servants out of London”. This isn’t much of a plan. What would make a big difference…

No one likes to be considered vain. But the past six months suggest that both men and women care more about how their hair looks than they might admit. When the lockdown restrictions were first imposed everyone predicted that one of the first consequences of our enforced isolation would be less time and money spent on hair; Unilever duly reported a drop in sales of shampoo and related products. However, since the restrictions were relaxed, the pent-up demand has seen some salons booked solid for weeks, despite running extended hours. Haircare is a huge industry. The entire global beauty sector generates an estimated $500bn a year in sales, according to management consultancy McKinsey. An increasingly large proportion of this sum is spent on our hair. Grand View Research, another consultancy,…

Income drawdown, ameans of securing an income from your pension without buying an annuity, has been an option since the pension-freedom reforms were introduced in 2015. But it is not suitable for everyone. Insurer Prudential reveals that 56% of savers with drawdown plans have felt compelled to reduce the income they take from their pension plans during lockdown. The research highlights the crucial difference between a drawdown scheme, which gives savers the flexibility of being able to take money directly from their pension funds as and when they see fit, and an annuity purchase, the traditional way to convert a pension fund into retirement income. While annuities pay a guaranteed level of income for life, savers with drawdown schemes must manage their funds carefully to ensure the money lasts throughout…

My most successful recommendation in the history of MoneyWeek’s Trading page was to short Wayfair, a US online furniture and homeware retailer, at $105 last October (Issue 969) and then take profits when the stock had fallen to just $24.92 after the global stockmarket collapse in March (Issue 991). However, since then the stock has been on atear, soaring to $266 – a more than tenfold increase from the bottom and a 150% increase from its price at the start of the year. Because the price rise has been so great, Ithink that it is time to consider shorting it for a second time. You can see why investors are once again enthusiastic about Wayfair. Lockdowns and fear of the virus have encouraged Americans to desert shopping centres in favour…

India has been badly affected by Covid-19. But the virus cannot change the compelling long-term growth outlook. With manufacturers seeking to reduce their exposure to China, India is emerging as a viable alternative. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s offer of “red carpet” treatment to multinationals looking to base their operations in India bodes well, as do the country’s favourable demographics: more than 50% of the population are under the age of 25. However, it is in India’s small and mid-cap companies that we see some of the biggest opportunities, particularly as they are welcoming home young entrepreneurial talent with a strong knowledge of best practice gained from employment or education abroad. “CCLP’s Continental Coffee brand is challenging current market leader Nestlé” India’s small and mid-cap market has exciting growth potential and…

When Dame Sharon White became chair of the John Lewis Partnership at the start of the year, she signalled her determination to be radical. The onslaught of Covid-19 has turbocharged that ambition, says The Daily Telegraph. Last month, White announced plans to shut a supposedly flagship store in the centre of Birmingham – a shocking but textbook response to predictions that up to 70% of department-store sales could be conducted online, even after the threat of the virus has passed. Now we learn that her strategic review will go much further. White’s plan to save the retailer includes ramping up its financial-services business, a move into horticulture and plans to turn some stores into affordable housing. Talk about “bringing down the curtain on the golden age of the department store”.…

$25,000 The reported cost of tickets to a charity event held in the upmarket Hamptons, in New York state, at which Goldman Sachs boss David “D-Sol” Solomon was the DJ. The event was criticised by state governor Andrew Cuomo for its lack of social distancing. £29.6bn The value of lost sales at pubs, restaurants and hotels in Britain between April and June, compared with the same three months last year, according to trade body UKHospitality. Total sales during that lockdown period came to just £4.6bn. £2.2m How much a trio of Banksy paintings that were donated by the anonymous artist to a children’s hospital in Bethlehem, located in the West Bank, have fetched at auction in London. The triptych references the European refugee crisis. £2.3bn The lost spending on small…

Daisy Watt (pictured), aged just ten, has managed to raise around £50,000 for charity over the last four years, using her artistic talent, reports the Daily Mail. Daisy’s mother, Karen, spotted her daughter’s ability when Daisy, at the age of six, painted a garden scene for two of her grandparents, both of whom had been diagnosed with cancer. Mrs Watt asked Daisy if she would like to produce a second painting for a local gallery to auction off in aid of cancer charities. Daisy, who has been described as a “mini-Monet”, agreed, creating a landscape of forget-me-nots and other flowers. The painting was sold in 2017 for £9,500, attracting bidders from all over the world. Meanwhile, 100 special edition prints of the original, priced at £100 each, were snapped up…

Has the greenback reached a turning point? The US dollar index gained more than 10% between March 2018 and April 2020. The index measures the greenback’s value against a basket of six major trading partners’ currencies. Yet that trend has now gone into reverse, with the dollar falling by 4.4% in July, its worst monthly performance in nearly a decade. It is down by 9% from a mid-March high and has reached a two-year low. Debasement, debt and dodgy institutions The dollar’s reversal will have broad implications, says Amrith Ramkumar in The Wall Street Journal. The strong dollar was driven by US interest rates, which were higher than those on offer in Europe or Japan. That encouraged yield-hungry investors to park cash in dollar assets. Yet the US Federal Reserve…

“The bubble in FAANG stocks... is attributable to three reasons... First, the pandemic led the government to pump trillions of dollars into the markets, pushing asset prices high above their intrinsic value... Second, this stimulus coincided with an impressive demonstration of the power of technology to provide business continuity... Third, market structure favours large-cap companies [such as] the FAANGs. Equity markets are dominated by ETFs [exchange-traded funds] and similar passive vehicles that slice and dice the market according to various categories (indices, sectors... themes)... [this means the FAANGs] are included under multiple categories. [So] these stocks are included in hundreds of ETFs, all of which have to keep buying them as they receive additional investor inflows. This creates self-reinforcing demand... from investors who... have no idea what they are buying.”…

Three to buy Bunzl The Sunday Telegraph This distributor often flies under the radar, but its deliveries of medical equipment, cleaning kit and disposable cutlery were vital to keeping the economy going during lockdown. First-half underlying sales grew by 5%. Profit margins are expected to expand. Management “prudently cancelled” the dividend but a robust balance sheet suggests that the payout drought will be short. Bunzl will also be keen to resume its usual hunt for “bolt-on” acquisitions. 2,198p Knights Shares Lockdowns have disrupted the traditional legal partnership model, creating new opportunities for this legal and professional services business to lure high-flying lawyers into the fold. Specialising in corporate and commercial law, and boasting about 18,000 clients, Knights looks set to emerge from the downturn in a relatively strong position thanks…

• Rupert Murdoch’s youngest son, James (pictured), has quit the board of News Corp, says Anna Nicolaou in the Financial Times. The trigger for the decision was his disquiet over the editorial tone of his father’s media brands, notably what he saw as their role in promoting “false scepticism” about climate change. Even before the latest move, James Murdoch had been shifting away from the conservative politics of the brands controlled by his 89-year-old father. Family drama aside, the company will miss him, says Christopher Williams in The Daily Telegraph. Company insiders believe that he “proved adept at anticipating and embracing technological change”. Even before the pandemic “cratered advertising sales” there were concerns that Rupert Murdoch and his other son, Lachlan, were “too protective” of the firm’s business model and…

• Michael O’Leary (pictured), CEO of airline Ryanair, was paid €3.5m last year, made up of €500,000 in salary, a bonus of €458,000 (just short of the maximum €500,000), and €2.5m in share options. Some of those options will only vest if profit after tax exceeds €2bn in any financial year up to 31 March 2024, or the share price exceeds €21 for a period of 28 days over the next four financial years, says Barry O’Halloran in The Irish Times. It is currently at around €11. • Christopher Fraser, the former boss of Sirius Minerals, pocketed £1.3m in bonuses from the Yorkshire mining company shortly after agreeing to a cut-price takeover, says Jamie Nimmo in The Mail on Sunday. That takeover in January by mining giant Anglo American saved…

The Gordon growth model isa simple but powerful way of valuing shares based on the dividends that the company is expected to pay in future. It gets its name from Myron Gordon, an economist who originally published the method in the 1950s, and is the most common and straightfoward example of a class of valuation methods called dividend discount models. The theory behind these is that the value of a company is equal to the value of all the dividends that it will ever pay to investors, discounted back to their present value (so a dividend paid in five years’ time is worth less than a dividend paid tomorrow). To apply the Gordon growth model, you need an estimate for next year’s dividend per share (D), the long-run expected stable…

One of this year’s activist fights is “shaping up to be a bruiser”, says Carleton English in Barron’s. Activist investor Senator Investment Group partnered with holding company Cannae Holdings to bid for real-estate data firm CoreLogic in June. They offered $65 a share. Cannae, which would like to acquire CoreLogic, needed the pressure from a larger shareholder to persuade CoreLogic to sell. CoreLogic rebuffed the offer, insisting it “significantly undervalues” the company. This week the duo “turned up the heat”, seeking another investor to join them in order to secure collectively the 10% stake needed to call a meeting in October and replace nine of the 12 members of CoreLogic’s board with a new group that will facilitate a sale.…

“When I gave my mum money to buy a car, she was turned away from two Mercedes dealers because they didn’t think she looked like she could afford that car.” Singer and The X Factor winner Alexandra Burke (pictured) on the prejudice you face if you are black, quoted on Telegraph.co.uk “The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.” Oscar Wilde (attrib.), quoted in a Price Value Partners note “I made too much money in my 30s, and it distorted my writing and made me less hungry. Then, in my 40s, I spent all the money on daily life – and now I don’t have it.” Novelist Nicholson Baker on what he would change about his life, quoted in The Guardian “Women in that time had…

Cosmetics and personal care firm L’Oréal S.A (Paris: OR) is the world’s leading producer of luxury haircare products. Elvive is the most well-known of its brands. It derives around a fifth of its revenue from haircare products. While it trades at 35 times estimated 2021 earnings, it has grown profits and sales by around 8% a year between 2014 and 2019 and boasts an impressive return on capital expenditure, a key gauge of profitability, of 16%. A smaller company worth researching is Aim-listed Brand Architekts (Aim: BAR). It is developing a portfolio of skincare and haircare brands and attempting to bolster their value by launching them overseas. Its haircare brands include Kind Natured and MR. which has been developed by celebrity hairdresser Jamie Stevens. Even though earnings per share have…

■ The number of people retiring before the age of 65 rose by more than 55,000 as the UK went into lockdown, official data reveals, suggesting that Covid-19 may be driving an increase in early retirement. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that in the March to May period of this year, the number of under-65s describing themselves as“retired” was 55,311 up on November 2019 to January 2020. The increase is the largest jump in the numbers the ONS has ever recorded. According to pension experts, the likelihood is that some savers would have left their occupations early in any case. But many people may have been forced into early retirement unexpectedly because of problems in the labour market caused by Covid-19. For example, older workers losing their jobs…

Many traders like to pay attention to the gold/ silver ratio, which denotes the price of an ounce of gold divided by the same amount of silver. It is currently around 81 ($1,976/ $24.36). Since both gold and silver are regarded as precious metals, logic suggests that the ratio should revert to the long-term average of around 60 over time. As a result, many traders think that a temporary fall in the ratio to well below the long-run average signals that gold may be undervalued, while a rise in the gold/silver ratio may suggest that it is time to sell gold and buy silver. However, not everyone agrees that the relationship is so straightforward. Unlike gold, which is used almost exclusively as a store of value, silver has an array…

AO World (LSE: AO) is an online electrical-products retailer. Few stocks have fared as well since the lockdown, says Graeme Evans in the Evening Standard. CEO John Roberts said that the “seismic” shift in customers’ shopping habits resulting from their enforced move onto the internet has given the company a massive boost. Strong sales in the early part of lockdown helped the group secure annual revenues of £1.05bn in the year to 31 March, up by 16% from the year before. The shares have rocketed to a two-year high of 168p. They have jumped by 119% in a year.…

Alexander Fordyce was born in Aberdeen in 1729. He briefly worked in the hosiery trade before moving to London to take a position as a clerk to a banker. He eventually became a partner in a private bank, Neale, James, Fordyce, &Down. He soon acquired a reputation as a successful speculator – winning bets based on his gaining early intelligence of the Peace of Paris in 1763, and when East India Company stock soared in 1764-1765. With winnings from these and other trades he bought an estate in Roehampton, in southwest London, and spent £14,000 (£1.8m in today’s money) in an unsuccessful attempt to become the MP for Colchester. By 1770 he had risen high enough in society to marry the daughter of an earl. What was the scam? In…

Rum-based tiki cocktails, golden beaches and shaggy-haired dudes clutching longboards are what springs to mind when we think of surf culture. But there is more to it than that, says Bonhams. “Surfing is a lifestyle, comprising not just surfboards, but also the art, music, and literature that has grown up around it.” The history of surfing is “the story of innovation in the pursuit of pleasure. There is always a better wave; there is always a better board”, says Catherine Williamson, director of entertainment memorabilia at the auction house, which is hosting an online sale in partnership with  Turner Classic Movies (it runs until Wednesday). Bonhams will be hoping that sentiment still holds true among the bidders for its array of surfboards, such as the Pacific Systems Square Nose Redwood…

• Watching the ITV documentary Anne: The Princess Royal At 70, it’s clear why the princess (pictured) is often referred to as the royal family’s hardest-working member, says Karren Brady in The Sun on Sunday. Last year she had more than 500 engagements and it has been that way for half a century. “She has always been there in the background, just quietly getting on with it, with absolutely no fuss.” Her work ethic is appealing. “I loved the stories from her children, Peter Phillips and Zara Tindall, describing how she would return from royal functions in her glamorous outfits and head straight to their farm to tend to the animals. Zara said: ‘She’d come home from engagements in exactly what she was wearing, make-up on, put her welly boots…

Lockdown seems to have unlocked our collective creative streak – arts and crafts retailer Hobbycraft’s online sales have trebled during the pandemic. In the year to mid-February, online sales rose by just under 20%. But since branches were forced to close in late March, internet sales are up 200%, the group reported last week. Jadon Sancho, 20, could end up being one of the most highly valued players in football, as Manchester United close in on a deal to transfer the England international from German side Borussia Dortmund. Reportedly, the German team are asking for around £108m –£70m upfront, with the rest conditional on Sancho and United’s performances. Assuming the deal is done, Sancho will also enjoy a big increase in his current wage of £75,000 a week.…

France’s CAC 40 suffered a “black Thursday” last week, says Danièle Guinot in Le Figaro. Six of the market’s big names, including aerospace group Airbus and oil giant Total, have reported collective losses of €17.3bn in the first half. Renault’s €7.3bn loss is the biggest in its history. Revenue at Peugeot, France’s other big carmaker, slumped by 34.5% in the first half and the shares are down 36% this year. But Peugeot has proven its resilience, managing to turn a €595m first-half profit thanks to timely cost-saving measures and a move into more premium vehicles, says Lionel Garnier for Le Revenu. An ongoing merger with Fiat Chrysler will also open up new opportunities.…

An unexpectedly steep plunge in earnings, with first half pre-tax profits falling by 65% to $4.3bn, has prompted HSBC to announce that it will “accelerate” the axing of 35,000 jobs, says the BBC. The bank says bad loans linked to the coronavirus could reach $13bn (£9.8bn) as more people and businesses are now expected to default on their repayments because of the pandemic. HSBC has granted more than 700,000 payment holidays on loans, credit cards and mortgages. It has also been hit by low interest rates, which squeezes profit margins on the loans it provides. The job cuts are likely to end up going even further, says Liam Proud on Breakingviews: the investment banking business is the only part of HSBC “that’s really growing”. However, not only is investment banking…

Bill Clinton has led tributes from around the world to John Hume, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and one of the highest-profile politicians in Northern Ireland, who has died aged 83. Hume was a founding member of the Social Democrat and Labour Party (SDLP) and led the party from 1979 to 2001, becoming “widely acclaimed for his steadfast commitment to peaceful, democratic politics”, says the BBC. In the late 1980s he took the controversial decision to hold talks with Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein. At the time the IRA was “still heavily involved in violence”, but Hume’s aim was to persuade republicans to “commit to exclusively democratic means”. The talks paved the way for the 1994 IRA ceasefire and eventually, in 1998, the Good Friday Agreement. His decision…

President Donald Trump’s supporters had “scoffed” at the idea he would attempt to delay the upcoming presidential election, says Kevin Liptak and Betsy Klein on CNN. Yet last week, Trump argued that universal mail-in voting risked creating the “most inaccurate and fraudulent election in history”, making a delay desirable. Trump has “no authority” to postpone the poll, and lawmakers from both parties were quick to assert there was “no likelihood” of any delay. The tweet nevertheless stoked fears Trump might refuse to leave office. The fear that Trump would somehow “cling on” in the White House despite losing the vote is “overblown”, says The Times. He is probably just hoping that such claims will allow him to “retire with some dignity, at least in his own mind”. This isn’t the…

Directors of the company responsible for the failed Woodford Equity Income fund, Link Fund Solutions, pocketed around £2.7m in the run-up to the fund’s suspension — “a move that ultimately cost investors £1bn”, says Ali Hussain in The Sunday Times. Two of these directors, Christopher Addenbrooke and Karl Midl, were involved in two other scandals over collapsed funds in which Link, then called Capita Financial Managers, was tied up. The company was made to pay almost £100m in fines and compensation, yet the City regulator allowed the firm and its two directors to continue overseeing funds worth £85bn, including the Equity Income fund, which has now dropped the name of Woodford from its title. “Anger is growing among Woodford investors, many of whom lost tens of thousands of pounds in…

Investors normally overreact at extremes, James Montier, the value-investing guru who serves on GMO’s asset allocation team, tells Barron’s: they value stocks at “peak multiples on peak earnings and trough multiples on trough earnings”. But this time, it’s different. “Instead of following the collapse in earnings, the market is completely discounting [the risk] and operating as if there is nothing to worry about … and has priced in a V-shaped recovery.” Yet even if earnings were to rebound, valuations still seem expensive. The economic expansion that ended with the Covid-19 crisis “was the longest but also the weakest economic recovery on record” and stockmarket gains have run ahead of earnings growth. That’s especially true in America, where rising valuations and share buybacks have been responsible for virtually all the superior…

■ “The true cost of the property fund freeze has been revealed,” says Ali Hussain in The Times. Around £12bn is held in open-ended commercial property funds that have been suspended since lockdown. Withdrawals were frozen because independent valuers couldn’t assess the price of their properties as lockdown “left swathes of empty office spaces and hotel rooms”. But the freeze hasn’t stopped fund managers from earning £33m in fees. Managers at Legal & General’s £2.8bn UK Property fund have earned £7.18m since mid-March. Meanwhile, the Financial Conduct Authority, the City regulator, is considering redemption notice periods (of at least 90 days, and possibly up to 180 days) to reduce the scope for panic-selling and gating in these funds. But as the Association of Investment Companies points out, this doesn’t solve…

While many things came to a halt during lockdown, the spread of digital banking accelerated. More than one in five of us tried online banking for the first time, according to research by McKinsey & Co, a consultancy. We have also seen ashift away from cash as we all try to keep our distance with contactless payments. If you’ve familiarised yourself with bank and credit-card apps during lockdown, how about taking things a step further? Here are the best money apps to help you with everything from filing your tax return to investing your spare change. If you want personalised help cutting your bills, consider Snoop. It is “designed to identify ways in which you could save money based on what you’re already doing”, says Jayna Rana on ThisIsMoney. co.uk.…

Campaigners who say women born in the 1950s should be compensated because successive governments failed to inform them properly about arise in the state pension age for women have won an early victory in their latest court battle. The government had hoped to have a judicial review of the issue declared unlawful, but the Court of Appeal last week rejected its case. The victory for the BackTo60 campaign is significant, since the review supported their complaints about how an increase in women’s state-pension age from 60 to 65 was implemented. However, the Appeal Court’s ruling is just one element of a larger case on which judges are not expected to pronounce until the autumn. BackTo60 campaigners hope the court will overturn a High Court ruling last year that previous governments…

My five long tips have struggled in the stockmarket’s overall decline during the past fortnight, with four of them falling. International Consolidated Airlines Group declined from 223p to 173p, which triggered the stop loss at 200p. Energy giant Royal Dutch Shell slipped from 1,288p to 1,179p; television company ITV declined from 65p to 58p and pub chain JD Wetherspoon fell from 940p to 853p, which triggered the stop loss at 900p. The only tip that appreciated was United Rentals, which increased from $157 to $160. Counting the two newly closed tips, my long tips are making losses of £223. The good news is that my short tips have done much better, with two out of three going down. The most dramatic fall was eHealth, which plunged from $111 to $68.…

Mitchells & Butlers is one of the largest operators of pubs and bars in the UK. The company reported a half-year loss of £51m shortly before the “Super Saturday” reopening of English pubs on 4 July. Revenues fell by an eighth year-on-year to just over a £1bn in the 28 weeks to 11 April as lockdown severely dented footfall. The group warned that despite the reopening of most of its sites, social-distancing rules will hamper its capacity to cater for customers, undermining the outlook for sales and profits. The stock has slipped by almost 49% in the last year.…

2018 Castlewood, Devon Minnow, Block HH Clone Gf1 Bacchus, Devon £24, 75cl bottle; £50, 150cl magnum; castlewoodvineyard.co.uk Castlewood specialises in sparkling wines, but it took the decision to plant some Bacchus in 2016 and this wine is the very first release. The inspiration and the name (a Devon Minnow is a 200-year-old spinning lure) for this wine came from fishing companions Robin Hutson, the visionary hotelier, and renowned chef Mark Hix. Coming from a warm, steep, south-facing vineyard called Block HH, this wine was created to feature on Robin’s, Mark’s and other chef friends’ wine lists. The 2018 was a perfect vintage because the harvest was first class with fully ripe Bacchus fruit. The grapes were hand-selected and then whole bunch pressed into oak barrels for fermentation and a further…

Going… A bottle of the oldest Japanese whisky, a 55-year-old Yamazaki (pictured), is to be sold with Bonhams in Hong Kong on 21 August. It was released in June through a lottery system to residents in Japan. All 100 bottles were distilled in the 1960s and matured in Japanese Mizunara oak and white oak casks, giving the whisky a “deep reddish amber colour with a complex agarwood and sandalwood nose, rich in fruity scents... [and] a sweet aftertaste”. The gold-dusted bottle is housed in a black Mizunara oak box with Suruga lacquer, while the bottle mouth is wrapped in handmade Echizen Washi (a type of paper) and tied with a traditional Kyoto braided cord. It has been given an upper price estimate of HK$780,000 (£77,000). Gone … A rare bottle…

Gold has its nose in the air. Like a deer in a dry forest, it smells the smoke. It knows it’s time to get out of town… We first recommended a shift to gold 20 years ago. Our view of the money world back then was amateurish. All we knew was that gold was way down. And stocks were way up. We guessed that both would regress to the mean in time. The stockmarket represents hope for the future. Stock investors are said to “look ahead” to the flush stream of earnings that companies are likely to produce. Gold, on the other hand, is more of a reminder of the past, a souvenir of all the plans and projects that never paid out as expected. Stocks are an indicator of…