Innehållsförteckning för Issue 1014 från MoneyWeek

“Solid investment themes, like Chanel suits, always come back into fashion” We have been gold bugs since 2001 (and still are – see page 5). Another longtime favourite of ours is Vietnam. In 2005 we noted that it was Asia’s “other communist dynamo” (it still is). In 2007 the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) chief economist referred to it as an “emerging China”. The IMF may have failed to forecast the global financial crisis in 2008, but that time it was on the money. Vietnam piqued our interest because it seemed to be following in China’s footsteps with a ten-year delay. It embraced the free market in the mid-1980s, and since then has attracted attention as a cheap manufacturing base: wages are around a third of Chinese levels. It has also…

The Iga-ryu Ninja Museum in Japan has been pillaged by thieves. The museum showcases ninja tools and trains clients from around the world in the art of stealth. Its admissions-fee safe, containing more than ¥3,000,000 (£21,240), was stealthily removed in the early hours last Thursday and has yet to be retrieved. A father from North Tyneside has been saddled with £19,000 of debt after his six-year-old son inadvertently purchased a monster truck using his eBay account, says Nicole Conner in the Daily Mail. Mohammad Faraji had left his laptop open and his monster-truck obsessed son decided to purchase an early birthday present. The seller has refused his requests to refund the money.…

It is starting to feel “a lot like” 2009-2010 again in the metals market, says Andy Home on Reuters. Few expected a repeat of China’s post-financial crisis “shock and awe” stimulus in 2020, but it is increasingly clear that that is what we are getting. The country’s leadership has defied market expectations of a more socially orientated stimulus programme, instead unveiling plans for new railways, power lines and electric car charging points. Metals prices have reacted by going on a “supercharged rally”. The S&P GSCI Iron Ore index has returned more than 28% so far this year. Seaborne prices for the steel-making ingredient have hit a six-year high. Copper has also been breaking new ground, says Amrith Ramkumar in The Wall Street Journal. The metal briefly rose through $3 a…

This is the third major gold bull market in the past 50 years, during which the price in US dollars has risen from around $35 to over $2,000, again of 5,319%. The latest run looks far from over. Money has been printed worldwide at an unprecedented rate while debt is soaring, both of which presage a jump in inflation as governments whittle the real value of their borrowings away. What’s more, says Cazenove Capital, there is scant sign of exuberance, let alone irrational exuberance, in the market. For instance, in 2011 gold held in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) represented 10% of all ETF holdings worldwide. Today the figure is 2.5%. Similarly, above-ground gold stocks are worth 2.7% of total global financial assets, compared with 10% in 1981.…

“This has been a booming year for biotech IPOs [initial public offerings]”, says Max Gelman on Endpoints News. “Not even a global pandemic could slow this train down.” There were 47 flotations in the US by 20 August, matching the 2019 total. At this rate there will be over 70 biotech IPOs by the end of the year. These companies have raised approximately $11.4bn altogether. CureVac, a potential developer of a Covid-19 treatment, tops the performance table with a 300% rise since it debuted last week at $16. Seven other biotechs have seen their stock more than double: Schrödinger, Vaxcyte, Keros Therapeutics, Berkeley Lights, Alx Oncology, I-Mab Biopharma and ADC Therapeutics.…

Shares in AstraZeneca bounced this week after the US government signalled that it is considering fast-track approval for the group’s Covid-19 vaccine. In April AstraZeneca agreed a deal with Oxford University, which originally discovered the vaccine, to develop and distribute it. The government could ask the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to grant an “emergency use authorisation” (EUA) based on data from the final-stage UK trial, rather than wait for the more extended study normally required by US regulators. Such a move, possible as early as September, would allow President Donald Trump to claim he has “turned the tide” on the virus. Not so fast, say Rhys Blakely and Henry Zeffman in The Times. AstraZeneca says it is “too early” to begin talks with US regulators about an EUA.…

It’s a good time for a rundown of the most popular markets on Betfair. With £63m now matched on the winner of the upcoming presidential election in the US, Joe Biden remains the favourite at 1.86 (54.6%), though the odds on Donald Trump being re-elected have narrowed to 2.24 (44.6%). In second place, £2.49m has been matched on the winning party, though the odds are nearly identical to the above market with Democrats on 1.78 (56.1%) and Republicans on 2.26 (44.2%). In third position is the £2.43m matched on whether Trump will quit before the end of his first term. You can get 10.5 (9.5%) on him leaving and 1.1 (90.9%) on him seeing his term out. In fourth place is the £1.62m on a US recession before the end…

MPs have voiced concerns over the £24.7m of public money paid to a pro-China business group since April 2011, says Ross Kempsell in The Times. The China-Britain Business Council (CBBC) is a private company that is partly funded by the Department for International Trade. The latest payment was for £380,367.77 in April. When Boris Johnson blocked Chinese telecoms group Huawei from Britain’s 5G network, the CBBC expressed its “disappointment” that “British homes and businesses will not benefit from Huawei’s market-leading and competitive products”. “CBBC believes that this decision is first and foremost a response to assertive US trade policy,” it said. The body insists the money has bought “something like £2.35bn of export wins” over three years. Others caution against using taxpayers’ money to fund a body that “seems to…

“I was wrong to turn bearish,” says Anatole Kaletsky, the self-proclaimed “permabull” commentator who became unusually downbeat when the Covid-19 crisis hit. In March, as the sell-off in most assets reached the bottom, he argued that it was “too early to buy equities”. And just a couple of months ago, he was dismissing the rapid rally as “market madness” driven by a flood of bored gamblers who had turned to stocks when they couldn’t bet on sports during lockdown. But more recently his optimism has been restored: there are now “three clear reasons” why “equity markets are more likely to continue moving higher than to retest their lows, even if the world is hit by another wave of Covid”. One is that “the scale and speed of fiscal stimulus and…

■ Global dividends have suffered their worst quarterly drop since 2009, plunging by $108.1bn – an annual decline of 22% – in the second quarter of 2020 as firms scrambled to conserve cash, says Angharad Carrick in City AM. Over half of the members of the Janus Henderson Global Dividend Index cancelled them outright; 27% made major cuts. Payouts fell in every region except North America, bolstered by the resilience of Canadian payouts. Europe and the UK were hit hard, with payouts falling by two fifths as the continent’s largest dividend payer, France, saw payouts sink to their lowest level in at least a decade. Janus Henderson expects global dividends to fall by 19% this year, or 25% in the worst case scenario, says Attracta Mooney in the Financial Times.…

aier.org Widespread fears – of overpopulation, terrorism, inequality – are usually wildly overblown, says Donald Boudreaux. But my “natural state of optimism” is taking a battering in the face of Covid-19 “hysteria”. The image that arises is of a sledgehammer. The blunt and heavy instrument of lockdown has been swung down on society by the state. While it presses down on the rubble, there islittle scope for human creativity and markets to work their magic. When the hammer is finally lifted, will we “rise, dust ourselves off and climb back onto the happy track that we were on prior to March 2020”? It’s possible, of course. But the hammer itself is now a new part of reality. We now know that it is there, “looming overhead”. We have good reason…

One of the more interesting books on my reading list at university was S. B. Saul’s The Myth of the Great Depression. By “Great Depression”, Saul meant not 1929-1933, but 1873-1896, a period of sustained price deflation that caused real hardship in the UK. Positive supply shocks and revolutionary technologies drove down prices. For instance, the opening up of the prairies, the pampas and Australia to farming, combined with falling freight rates by land and sea, lowered the cost of food. In Black Diamonds, Catherine Bailey points out that in 1870, Britain produced half the world’s coal. But by the mid-1920s, it produced barely a fifth as new producers in Africa, China and India dug coal at one-third of the British cost. The distress among coal miners, agricultural workers and…

Could revenue-based finance help your business grow? Many small businesses are reluctant to take on debt, even where it could power valuable investment, because they worry about their ability to remain on top of repayments if their trading deteriorates. But what if your loan cost less in that case? This is the pitch being made by a number of innovative new business lenders such as Uncapped, which has just launched in the UK. It offers loans of between £10,000 and £2m with a flat fee of 6% of the sum borrowed and repayments that flex from month to month until the loan is repaid. In good months for the business the borrower pays more, but when revenues go down, so does the loan repayment. Uncapped is one of several lenders…

ASOS (LSE: ASC) is a UK retailer of online fashion and cosmetics to young adults. It sells over 850 brands as well as its own range of clothing and accessories. Shares in the company jumped by 10% last week on unexpectedly good news, says Paul Summers in The Motley Fool. ASOS said that sales growth for its full financial year (ending 31 August) is likely to reach between 17% and 19%. The stock has been one of the market’s best performers since the crisis began, says IG, thanks to the public’s affinity for affordable clothing. The shares have gained 118% in 12 months.…

Jacob Franklin Butcher was born in Maynardville, Tennessee, in 1936. He worked in his father’s store, which operated as an informal local bank, before graduating from the University of Tennessee and serving in the US Marines. In 1968 Jacob and his brother, C.H. Butcher Jnr, bought a small bank in Lake City. Over the next 15 years they would build a banking empire. By 1982 the brothers controlled a consumer finance company, as well as 27 banks, though a combination of equity stakes and management contracts, with total reported assets of $3bn ($7.95bn in today’s money). What was the scam? To finance the buying spree, they would loan money from one of the banks to another, which was then used to purchase shares in a third institution, leaving the banks…

China The Bubble that Never Pops By Thomas Orlik OUP USA, £22.88, from 17 September People have been predicting that China will face a “reckoning day” for many years, says Zhou Xin the South China Morning Post. Its “mountain of debt, economic slowdown and lack of new growth drivers” all point towards a “perfect storm in the making”, they say. The expected crisis has, however, yet to materialise. Thomas Orlik, an economist at Bloomberg, agrees that a crisis is possible, but argues that those expecting one have downplayed other “institutional factors” that could keep China on track, not least its “stable” financial system, “determinedly developmental” state and “creative” policymakers. One of the strengths of the book is that it resists “stridently ideological” interpretations of the Chinese model, says Thomas Hale…

My fellow Americans, I speak to you tonight about a grave matter of urgent importance. Our nation has faced many challenges in the 244 years since the Declaration of Independence. And we’ve made many mistakes. We are only human. And we get carried away from time to time and do stupid things. “Government has two options. Take your money or tell you what to do” We see a problem. Naturally, we want to fix it. Or we see a threat. Naturally, we want to protect ourselves from it. But not every problem can be fixed by the federal government. Nor can it protect you from every risk. Remember, we only have two kinds of power. We can take your money. Or we can tell you what to do. Every penny…

Ride-hailing app Uber is once again in the news for the wrong reasons. Joseph Sullivan, the group’s former chief security officer, has been charged with covering up a data breach, says Edvard Pettersson on Bloomberg. The breach, which occurred in 2016, compromised the personal data of over 57 million employees and users, and was resolved only when Sullivan authorised the payment of $100,000 in bitcoin to the perpetrators. The hacking incident was initially classed under Uber’s “bug bounty” programme, whereby companies pay people to identify flaws in their security networks. But prosecutors say this was a huge breach that shouldn’t have been passed off as a bug bounty episode; the programme normally caps payments at $10,000.…

Onwards and upwards. America’s S&P 500 surpassed February’s highs last week, wiping out its pandemic losses. It is now up 5% for the year. The MSCI World index came within 1% of its February record early this week. Yet the new peaks obscure a market where the winning stocks and sectors have soared while many others remain under water, creating a “K-shaped” recovery chart. More losers than winners Surging US technology valuations have been the cornerstone of the stockmarket’s unlikely recovery. The collective valuation of just five companies (Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet – Google’s parent company – and Facebook) now eclipses Japan’s entire Topix index, say Richard Henderson and Eric Platt in the Financial Times. Yet the average S&P 500 stock is still 28.4% below the pre-pandemic peaks. The gaping…

“You can see why governments might want to have zero, near-zero, or even negative interest rates, which tend to stoke inflation… It is in the self-interest of governments both to hold down the costs of servicing their national debts and to whittle down the real value of those debts by allowing a little more inflation year by year. Of course, no one in officialdom will admit that. They will do it quietly and surreptitiously, asserting that they are ‘supporting the economy’ by printing yet more money…. For a while it works. But eventually inflation will come through, interest rates will shoot up – and bond investors lose a packet. We don’t need to go back to the 1970s and 1980s to see what inflation does to savings over time. The…

Three to buy Anexo Group Shares This credit-hire and legal services firm could be an “Aim star in the making”. After motoring accidents, Anexo steps in to provide replacement-hire vehicles. Bond Turner, its legal side, deals with personal injury and negligence claims, among others, and is currently involved in a class-action case against Volkswagen over vehicle emissions. Cashflow remained resilient during lockdown, enabling Anexo to continue paying a dividend. Analyst Andrew Simms of Arden thinks the shares could more than double from here thanks to a growing market share and more investment in the legal division. 132p Angling Direct Interactive Investor This fishing-tackle supplier seems to be enjoying a pandemic boost as Britons turn to solitary, staycationfriendly sports. Revenue rose by 21% in the six months to 31 July despite…

• A bidding war for Asda has begun, says Laura Onita in The Daily Telegraph, with the supermarket looking set to fetch as much as £6.5bn. The main contenders are Apollo Global Management, with its bid led by former Debenhams boss Rob Templeman, and rival private-equity firm Lone Star Funds. Asda’s owner, Walmart, wants to offload its British operations to free up cash to focus on “more lucrative” markets, such as India. But it will retain a minority stake to “share in the profits from any future stockmarket float”. • The biggest initial public offering (IPO) in history is looming, say Ryan McMorrow and Mercedes Ruehl in the Financial Times. Chinese finance and payments company Ant Group has filed to list in both Hong Kong and Shanghai. It is likely…

For BT’s long-suffering shareholders, it was the first sliver of good news in a long time. On Monday the share price suddenly spiked following reports that the telecoms giant had started asking its advisers to prepare a defence against a bid from a consortium of private-equity investors. It might happen and it might not. But what is clear is that BT is ripe for a takeover. BT’s dismal conjuring act Over the last five years, BT’s shares have fallen from around 500p to 100p. Even the bid speculation clawed back only a few percentage points of the losses. For a firm that is meant to be both a technology play, through its broadband network, and a media play, through its sports channels, it is a dismal performance. From two of…

One of the headaches of buying out-of-favour assets is that the more out of favour they become, the harder it gets to invest in them. Take cheap emerging market shares. Ever since the rally began in April, emerging markets have polarised between a small number of hot stocks, mostly in the tech sector, and a large pack of also-rans. The same is true in developed markets, of course; Alphabet, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and their peers have soared ahead since April. Yet the gulf in emerging markets is even wider. The MSCI Emerging Markets Growth Index now trades on a price/earnings ratio of 24 times forecast earnings, while the MSCI Emerging Markets Value Index is on 10.5. These way these indexes are constructed isn’t perfect (somehow Samsung Electronics – which…

Affordable and social housing has been moving up the political agenda. There is widespread concern about a shortage and there have been calls for a state spending spree to build more, but the government appears more inclined to rely on private housebuilders and housing associations to fill the gap. In that case, private-sector funding of social housing will need to increase – good news for investment trusts in the sector. Why share prices have rallied The biggest fund in this area, Civitas Social Housing (LSE: CSH), has seen its share price rally by 25% this year, with the Triple Point Social Housing Reit (LSE: SOHO) not far behind. The social-housing policy backdrop hasn’t been the key driver; investors realise that government backing for (subsidised) rent rolls is a better bet…

Britain’s boom in rent-seeking Ed Conway The Times Not too long ago, the technology sector’s key aim was “to make the best hardware or software”, says Ed Conway. These days, though, “taxing other bits of the supply chain is increasingly what passes for good business in Silicon Valley”. Consider the row between Epic Games, the creator of the wildly successful Fortnite video game, and Apple and Google. The two tech giants have set up their own stores, the App and the Play Stores respectively, where other software developers can sell their apps but must give the giants 30% commission. Epic is understandably irritated by this – but instead of insisting on these taxes being scrapped, it wants to emulate the tech giants, establishing its own platform to sell its own…

voxeu.org It is well known that US manufacturing has been in decline since 1979, say Teresa Fort, Justin Pierce and Peter Schott. Some blame globalisation or the introduction of new machinery for the job losses. But a closer look reveals a different picture. Our study of the US Census Bureau’s Longitudinal Business Database, which tracks the employment of private, non-farm US employers from 1977 to 2012, highlights three trends that help explain what has happened. First, the decline in manufacturing firms’ manufacturing jobs since the peak in 1979 is more than offset by a rise in their non-manufacturing employment, particularly in retail and business services. Over the period, manufacturing firms shed 6.7 million manufacturing jobs but gained 10.6 million non-manufacturing workers. Second, most of the jobs lost were due to…

“The MSCI Asean index is down more than 17% this year” It was just over ten years ago that investors began rediscovering their enthusiasm for Southeast Asia. After shunning the region in favour of China, India and other countries, such as Brazil, many suddenly became aware that it had just as many points in its favour as more fashionable emerging markets. A young workforce, especially in countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. The promise of soaring foreign direct investment as companies shifted manufacturing away from China. An expanding middle class and rising consumer spending. A huge opportunity to reach new customers in sectors such as financial services. Steady progress in cutting trade barriers and improving the flow of goods and services via the Association of Southeast East Asian…

With the first child trust funds set to mature in September teenagers are going to get their hands on a total of around £6bn. So what should they do with it? Children born between 1 September 2002 and 1 January 2011 were given achild trust fund (CTF), the precursor to junior individual savings accounts (Jisas). The government deposited £250 (or £500 for low-income families) into the account; then parents, family and friends could add to it. If the child turned seven before 31 July 2010, they got another £250 or £500 from the government. So, even if no-one else ever paid any money into the account there could be as much as £1,000 plus interest waiting for the child when they turn 18. “Lucky teenagers will be able to celebrate…

• Entrepreneurs who launch fast-growing companies are not necessarily equipped with the management and leadership skills they need to run their organisations as they expand. If that sounds familiar, afree government scheme launched as part of its attempt to support small businesses in the wake of the pandemic could prove valuable. Ministers have committed £20m to the Small Business Leadership Programme, which offers online coaching designed to help decision-makers in small and medium-sized firms develop strategic leadership skills. The scheme runs over ten weeks and will be delivered by a consortium of business schools with government backing. To apply, you must be a decision-maker or member of the management team at a business with between five and 249 employees. • Small business advisers are warning that many directors of limited…

Equiniti (LSE: EQN) is a technology-focused financial and administrative services provider. Even before the pandemic the outlook was “clouded” by market volatility, weakening interest rates and the worsening trade relations between the US and China, says Mark Robinson in the Investors Chronicle. But the withdrawal of over £38bn of dividend payments by UK-listed businesses “nearly wiped out” earnings for the company, which helps many firms with payout-related administration, while Covid-19 hit software deals. The stock has slipped by 43% in the last year.…

The latest release of the legendary Vin de Constance is sensational. And it is the only wine, in more than 14 years as your wine scribe, for which I cannot include a guaranteed price or indeed a stockist. It is being “shipped” from 3 September, and will be available from the “usual great merchants” at a “stable” price. I guess this means it will be sold for around the £60-mark and your search engine will provide the rest of the information you require. I trust you will forgive this lack of clarity, but I wanted the timing of this piece to be spot on, not least because this is the most remarkable young Constance I have ever tasted (and I have seen a few!). This epic sweetie, fashioned from super-sweet…

2.25m How much in Chinese yuan (£250,000) a phone number ending in five eights sold for in an online auction. The number eight is considered lucky in Chinese culture as its pronunciation is similar to the Mandarin word for “prosperity”. £500m How much the government has set aside to fund the Eat Out To Help Out scheme, which offers half off the price of meals, up to £10 per person in August. In the first two weeks, 35 million discounted meals were bought, “equivalent to over half of the UK taking part”, according to the chancellor, Rishi Sunak. $2trn The average “realised” pay (which includes cashed-in stock options and vested awards) of CEOs running the 350 biggest companies in the US last year. The CEO-to-average-worker pay ratio reached 320 to…

Online booking company Airbnb announced on Wednesday that it has filed for an initial public offering (IPO), says Levi Sumagaysay in MarketWatch. The group had long been expected to go public this year, but the Covid-19-induced downturn in the global travel and hospitality sectors cast doubt on the move. However, it makes sense, reckon analysts. “People have been cooped up, and the virus-safe option is renting a house,” says Tom White of broker D.A. Davidson. Mike Ashley, the owner of Sports Direct, has bought long-time competitor DW Sports Fitness out of administration, says BBC News. Ashley’s Frasers Group offered £37m to merge the leisure and retail company with his own, taking ownership of its clubs and stores. This means he has won a 20-year feud with rival businessman and former…

Sweden’s Getinge, founded 116 years ago in a small town of the same name, has since become one of the world’s leading medical-technology companies, with 10,000 employees and a presence in over 40 countries, says Der Aktionaer. It produces a wide range of sophisticated equipment used in intensive-care units and operating theatres – ranging from anaesthesia machines to patient monitors. Ventilators have been key to the battle against Covid-19, and here Getinge accounts for 25% of the global market. Overall orders jumped by 17.5% year-on-year in the second quarter while earnings per share almost tripled. Margins are on the rise. The shares are a solid long-term bet.…

It took Apple almost 40 years to reach a market value of $1trn. But it took it just two more to hit $2trn, says Jack Nicas in The New York Times. Last Wednesday its shares climbed 1.4% to $468.65, making it the first US corporation to push through the $2trn barrier and cementing its title as the world’s most valuable public company. This is a “new milestone” for the group, which was established in 1976 and floated in 1980. It has been responsible for “world-changing products”, such as the Macintosh computer, the iPod and the iPhone. The most important of these products was the iPhone, says Ben Martin in The Times. Launched in 2007, it created a brand “so strong and so consistent” that people “just got locked in”. It…

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced that all schools will be open “full-time”, with failure “not an option”, says Katie Russell in The Daily Telegraph. However, signs of problems are already emerging. The government was forced to change its mind on face masks, which will now be mandatory in schools that are in local lockdown areas and left to the discretion of head teachers in the rest of the country. Unions are threatening to strike if their safety demands are not met. The unions may have won the battle against fully reopening schools in the late spring and early summer, but this time it should be very different, says Ross Clark in The Spectator. Unlike then, we now have “real-world evidence” about the spread of Covid-19 in schools, with a…

• Publishing company Pearson has hired Andy Bird (pictured), the former chairman of Walt Disney’s international operations, to be its chief executive. He will receive contributions towards the rental costs of a flat in New York “for business purposes”, shares worth $9.3m, for which he is paying $3.75m, and an annual salary of $1.25m. • The outcry over Rio Tinto’s destruction of an ancient Aboriginal site in Pilbara, Western Australia, in May is set to cost CEO Jean-Sebastien Jacques £2.7m in bonuses. Two other executives at the world’s biggest iron-ore miner are also to have their bonuses cut. The sacred Juukan Gorge rock shelters, which had been inhabited 46,000 years ago, sat on eight million tonnes of high-grade iron, valued at £75m. Rio Tinto did have authorisation for the blasts,…

The price/sales (p/s) ratio is a method for valuing a company, similar to other metrics such as the price/earnings (p/e) ratio and the price/book (p/b) ratio. A firm’s p/s ratio is usually calculated by dividing its market capitalisation by its revenues. So a company with a market cap of £25bn and sales of £10bn has a p/s ratio of 2.5. You’d get exactly the same result if you divided the share price by revenues per share. But unlike earnings or book value, revenues aren’t usually reported on a per share basis, so using total sales means one less step in the calculation. Just like a p/e ratio, a low p/s ratio may imply a cheap stock. However, sales aren’t the same as profits, so the p/s ratio requires even more…

Impala Asset Management, the activist investor that has had Harley-Davidson in its sights this year, says it has been impressed with the changes implemented by CEO Jochen Zeitz to turn the 117-year-old motorcycle company around, says Rajesh Kumar Singh on Reuters. The $2.4bn hedge fund pushed for the removal of Zeitz’s predecessor, Matt Levatich, in January 2020 and subsequently attempted to install two directors on Harley’s board. It also called for “operational fixes” to help the group recover market share. Bob Bishop, founder and investment officer at Impala, reckons that Harley is “on the right track” for the first time in five years: Zeitz has “rebooted” the business by shifting the focus back to big bikes, traditional markets such as the US and Europe, and older and wealthier customers.…

“I love to work when ultimately I don’t have to work any more, not just because I have a [rich] husband, but because I’m OK anyway financially. But work is fun. It helps me meet interesting people, it allows me to empower people who are looking to make this world just a little bit better.” Russian supermodel Natalia Vodianova (pictured), who is currently engaged to Antoine Arnault, heir to luxury group LVMH, quoted in The Times “Trying not to be depressed that while the BBC don’t want to make any more Stargazing Live, they will pay Scarlett Moffatt to make a podcast about how she doesn’t believe in the Moon landings.” Comedian Dara O’Briain’s astronomy show is being axed while reality television star Moffatt keeps her podcast on conspiracy theories,…

theconversation.com When the cruise industry was put on hold due to coronavirus, it wasn’t just bad news for tourists, say Liz Sharples and Kokho Jason Sit. The CLIA trade body says the hiatus would also cost the UK economy £888m and lead to the loss of more than 5,000 jobs. The industry supports more than 40,000 direct jobs in the UK and generates £10bn. So a lot is riding on the MSC Grandiosa, the first major cruise ship to take to the Mediterranean in almost five months. A range of measures have been brought in to “limit the spread of the virus”, such as regular testing and cuts in passenger numbers, which the cruise industry hopes will help restore consumers’ confidence. Slashed prices might also help lure them back. There…

The best way to invest in Southeast Asia now is through an investment trust. Investing in an out-of-favour region requires patient, permanent capital. Otherwise the impact of fellow investors giving up and pulling out their money can be too hard to manage. Just this month, Waverton said that it is closing its Southeast Asia fund after assets shrunk too far. This is an unfortunate loss: I wrote about this fund several times in MoneyWeek and still think it had the right long-term strategy for markets like these. It demonstrates only too well the difficulty of running open-end funds in situations like these and also shows the extent to which investors have turned against the region. As far as I know, there are no dedicated regional funds left for UK investors,…

Self-employed people adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic have just over six weeks to claim support from the government’s Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS). The second round of the scheme, which offers grants of up to £6,750, opened last week and applications will be accepted until 19 October. The SEISS aims to fill some of the gap into which many self-employed workers have fallen because they are not eligible for other types of business support. Assuming you meet the qualifying criteria, it will pay 70% of your average monthly trading profits over the past three tax years. The non-repayable grant is paid in a single instalment and covers three months’ profits, up to a maximum of £6,750 (the equivalent of £2,190 a month). “If you claimed help in the first…

Early in the Covid-19 crisis our focus on companies with accelerating and sustainable earnings growth prompted investments in companies that were beneficiaries of stay-at-home measures. Examples included online education, video-gaming and data-centre companies. We are now observing the recovery in markets that have been hit bythe virus. Signs of improvement or stabilisation are being buttressed by substantial fiscal stimulus measures. As aresult, our investment strategy is now also highlighting companies that may have suffered during the crisis but are likely beneficiaries as economies begin to reopen. A gym operator in solid shape Take Basic-Fit (Amsterdam: BFIT) a low-cost gym operator in Benelux, France and Spain. It operates in markets that are underpenetrated and not very competitive. While the company’s revenues were severely affected in the short-term due to lockdowns and…

A new trend is emerging among wealthy Americans who have been forbidden to travel due to the pandemic, says Natalie Compton in The Washington Post-buying a second passport. “We’ve had Americans contacting us and saying, ‘Listen, I cannot believe that my American super-passport cannot get me into as many countries as it used to before. What can I do?’” Armand Arton, the president of financial firm Arton Capital, which specialises in citizenship through investment, tells the paper.The answer, says Kate Springer for CNN Travel, is shell out for a second passport. Investing aslittle as $100,000 in Dominica or St Lucia will get you the passports of these Caribbean islands. A US passport will set you back $900,000. A British passport, if you were wondering, will cost you $2.6m.…

Very Important People Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit By Ashley Mears Princeton University Press, £25 Have you ever wondered how you get an invitation to go behind the velvet rope in exclusive nightclubs so you too can enjoy hobnobbing with VIPs and celebrities and indulge in the expensive champagne? If so Ashley Mears’s Very Important People: Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit will prove enlightening. It examines the business relationships that underpin the whole party scene. Mears shows that the entire nightclub economy is based on an implicit exchange between wealthy men who spend large sums of money tobe around attractive women and the women (mostly models) who give up their time to indulge them and at the same time experience a level of luxury…

• Marks & Spencer paid £65.4m in corporation tax last year, despite “fighting for its life”, says Tony Parsons in The Sun on Sunday. “High-flying” Amazon, on the other hand, has paid only £61.7m in Britain over the last 20 years. Folks, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos (pictured), who has around £145bn to his name, “is just not getting his round in”. This autumn, the chancellor should ask why Amazon is “paying loose change” in a country where it is “raking in” billions. “Don’t soak the working man and woman, Rishi. Don’t tax the grafters who are doing their best to support their families and the country. Make Amazon finally pay its fair share of tax.” It is “practically printing money” over here, and unless it starts paying its way, it…