Innehållsförteckning för 1043 från MoneyWeek

French bank BNP Paribas is being sued for £3.4m in damages by a banker who claims her victory in a 2019 gender discrimination case against the bank has “tarnished her reputation”, harming her career, says Jamie Fullerton in The Daily Telegraph. Stacey Macken originally sued BNP for £4m, claiming that over four years she was paid far less than male peers. An employment tribunal at the time ruled in her favour. Lockdown has driven a boom in demand for “the humble cactus”, but now retailers are warning of a “looming cactus crisis” due to Brexit, says Shanti Das in The Times. The British Cactus & Succulent Society warned that bureaucracy and border checks are making it difficult for garden centres to get their hands on the plant. Many European nurseries…

Bitcoin has broken through the $60,000 mark for the first time. The cryptocurrency reached $61,600 at the weekend before falling back sharply. It was trading around $55,000 as of the middle of this week. Despite the pullback, bitcoin has gained more than 85% since the start of the year and its total market capitalisation recently surpassed the $1trn mark, making it bigger than social media giant Facebook. The rally has been powered by growing acceptance from institutional investors and payment providers such as PayPal. Many asset managers are looking to diversify their portfolios for fear of “the existing financial system failing them”, Sergey Nazarov of blockchain network Chainlink told Jack Denton in Barron’s. “If a small portion of them go on to place even 5% of their portfolio into Bitcoin,…

Central banks have massively increased the money supply in response to Covid-19, says John Authers on Bloomberg. The growth in US “M2” money, which gauges the amount of cash and many types of bank deposits in the economy, “is without parallel outside times of war”, as the chart (left) from Longview Economics shows. So why is inflation “supine”? Prices depend not only on how much money there is but also on how quickly that money is being spent (its “velocity”). Lockdowns mean that alot of cash is lying dormant in savings accounts. Yet the recent rise in bond yields is a “clear signal” that the market expects things to change. The “vast new quantities of money in the system” will eventually pick up velocity, driving inflation higher.…

Sweden’s vegan food and drink maker Oatly, backed by celebrity entrepreneurs Oprah Winfrey and Jay-Z, has filed for an initial public offering (IPO) in New York, say Judith Evans and Emiko Terazono in the Financial Times. The group, which produces milk, ice cream and yoghurt from oats, hopes to reach a valuation of up to $10bn. The IPO comes a year after a funding round led by Blackstone brought in celebrity investors and valued Oatly at $2bn. The company notched up sales of around $200m in 2019, double 2018’s total. Proceeds from the IPO, which would tap into the “growing thirst for plant-based alternatives to animal products”, will fund Oatly’s expansion.…

Rupert Murdoch (pictured) has joined the “tiny ranks of nonagenarians running global empires”, says Mark Sweeney in The Guardian. But he“shows no sign of slowing down”. As executive chairman of News Corp, home to papers including The Wall Street Journal and The Times, as well as co-chairman of Fox Corporation, broadcaster of Fox News and NFL games, Murdoch “remains firmly in control”. Still, with Fox having to grapple with much larger competitors, such as Disney and AT&T, many experts think that he might try to reverse the 2013 decision to split his empire in two and re-merge Fox and News Corp. Something must be done, since investors seem to have lost confidence in both Fox and News Corp, says The Economist. The former is trading at a 30% discount to…

The equity markets have dramatically changed the script from last year. The technology and growth stocks that were flying all through 2020 have stalled, while the “value” companies that no one was interested in are seeing a dramatic revival. Tesla dropped from $880 a share to below $650. Spotify dropped from $350 to $270. Overall, the tech-heavy Nasdaq index dropped by 10%, taking it into correction territory. And yet, at the same time, the wider market was hardly impacted. The more broadly based, industrial Dow index marched steadily on, hitting record highs. The two indices have not diverged so significantly since 1993. What analysts refer to as a “great rotation” is underway: investors are taking their money out of growth companies, and putting it into value on a scale not…

Food delivery group Deliveroo is set to list on the stock exchange in the next few weeks in what could be the biggest initial public offering (IPO) in London since the Royal Mail’s stockmarket listing in 2013. The company aims to raise £1bn by selling a mixture of new shares, and shares owned by existing investors. And in this case, it’s not just institutions who can get involved – some of the shares will be available to private investors too (as long as you’re a Deliveroo customer – see box below). But should you take the opportunity? “Deliveroo’s big issue is that anyone can deliver takeaway” Let’s start with some general bad news. We tend to be wary of IPOs, and we’re warier still when they come in clusters as…

Medics are in Big Pharma’s pockets Jawad Iqbal The Times How is it legal or ethically permissible for pharmaceutical companies to “pay doctors to promote their drugs”? asks Jawad Iqbal. If adoctor recommends a treatment, patients should be confident they don’t have a “financial interest in doing so”. Yet GlaxoSmithKline doubled its payments to doctors from £9.9m to £19.3m from 2017 to 2019 across the US and Europe. In Britain, payments rose from £520,000 to £1.6m. Similar payments are made by the likes of AstraZeneca and Pfizer. Firms say all they’re doing is making doctors aware of their products. However, the dangers were made clear in last year’s report by the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, which found that some doctors who recommended pelvic mesh –which resulted in…

bloomberg.com Airlines have so reliably lost money for their shareholders that Warren Buffett has quipped that the best thing a far-sighted capitalist could have done would have been to shoot down the Wright brothers’ maiden flight, says Peter Coy. If that had happened, though, society as a whole would have been denied a technology the modern world now relies upon. This is illustrative of a general point – that although bubbles may hurt individual investors when they burst, the results can nevertheless be good for the rest of us. Consider the electric-car boom. Some investors are warning that valuations in the sector, not least in the lead innovator Tesla, are “simply not sustainable over the long term”. They’re surely right that investors might save money by avoiding such investments. Yet…

Anyone who has ever organised a funeral can tell you it usually costs more than you would expect. The average funeral costs £9,263 according to SunLife, a life insurer, but the total outlay varies depending on your choices. Coffins don’t usually come cheap, while fancy flowers and a burial plot can all rapidly increase the price. To avoid spiralling costs and save relatives the hassle of deciding the details, more and more of us are opting for a pre-paid funeral plan. You design and buy your funeral in advance, locking in today’s prices. But many people may not be getting the funeral they think they have paid for. “This is a strange scenario: the purchaser is not around when the plan comes into effect, to assess whether it meets promised…

There is good news and bad for self-employed workers whose businesses are still being damaged by the Covid-19 pandemic. On the positive front, Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Budget announced another round of the self-employment income support scheme (SEISS); it will also now potentially cover hundreds of thousands of people previously excluded. Less happily, many self-employed people will continue to miss out. Roughly 200,000 newly self-employed will, for the first time, be able to claim help from the SEISS from April. These are people who became self-employed in the 2019-2020 tax year and therefore had not filed a tax return that could be used as a basis for making a claim. This group should all have filed returns for 2019-2020 by 31 January, so the chancellor is admitting them to the scheme.…

Evraz (LSE: EVR) is a miner and steelmaker based in Russia that boasts “solid fundamentals”, says Simon Mugo on AskTraders. Its profits for 2020 surged to $848m, up from $326m the year before, and it started 2021 “in high gear”, signing a two-year contract with pipe-producer TMK to supply rolled pipe billets. Shares in the company have been in a “sustained rally” from March 2020 despite the market turbulence last year. Steel demand is expected to surge as global economies begin to recover. The stock has gained 133% over the past 12 months.…

Wang Fengyou was born into poverty in China, but developed an entrepreneurial streak selling potatoes before turning to running a bottling plant, a slaughterhouse and a taxi business. In 1999 he founded Yilishen Tianxi Group, which manufactured traditional Chinese remedies, including an aphrodisiac, made from ants. These products were heavily advertised on Chinese television with endorsements from Chinese comedian Zhao Benshan, and Bao Xishun, China’s tallest man. The apparent success of the company won him a stream of awards, including a “model entrepreneur” award from the government, and he was photographed with many prominent officials, including the now disgraced Bo Xilai. What was the scam? From 2001 Wang offered “investors”, mainly peasants who had received compensation for losing their land to development, the chance to earn large returns from ant…

The Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) offers an opportunity to invest in similar companies toVCTs but in a different way. Companies raising money often apply for EIS status to increase their appeal to investors who might consider putting money directly into them, rather than through a fund, though there are also several professional managers that offer EIS funds. The maximum EIS investment each year is £1m, with investors getting 30% upfront income-tax relief, aswith VCTs, as well as tax-free capital gains. EIS dividends are taxable, but one additional advantage is that any losses from the scheme can be offset against your tax bill, a perk not available with VCTs. Nor do EIS investments count towards your estate for inheritance-tax purposes. For investors happy to accept even more risk, the seed EIS…

With the government seeking to squeeze money out of us over the next few years, individual savings accounts (Isas) look especially appealing. Not only do you not have to pay any tax on any capital gains, dividends or interest, but there are also no taxes on withdrawals, unlike with pensions. Raj Mody, global head of pensions at accountancy giant PwC, estimates that if the recently announced freeze to the pension lifetime allowance (LTA) stays in place “someone aged 50 now could be £85,000 worse off in tax by the time they reach retirement”. This is why we recommend Isas for investors of all ages, including those over 65. However, Isas aren’t normally exempt from all taxes. Unless you pass an Isa on to your spouse when you die, “those who…

Lifetime individual savings accounts (Lisas) are seen as a halfway house between conventional Isas and private pension plans. They offer some of the upfront tax advantages of pensions but with some of the flexibility that is a feature of other types of Isa. The government’s hope when Lisas were first launched four years ago was that they would prove useful both to people saving for a first home and to those thinking about retirement. In practice, many advisers feel the plans have fallen between these two stools. Nevertheless, you shouldn’t overlook them entirely. Lisas are only available to savers aged between 18 and 39. You can pay in up to £4,000 a year, with each pound contributed coming off your normal £20,000 Isa allowance. But unlike other Isas, the government…

Just months before the uprising that would ultimately remove him from power and result in his death, the Libyan despot Muammar Gaddafi sent pallets of $12.5bn in cash to South Africa for safekeeping. Today the money, rumoured by some to be in the possession of former South African president Jacob Zuma, is the centre of a global treasure hunt. Various figures, including intelligence agents, mercenaries and even senior figures in South Africa’s ANC, are trying to get their hands on the cash, attracted by a share of the 10% finders’ fee offered by Libya’s transitional government. The documentary follows the two teams trying to locate the cash, but the underlying theme of the film isn’t the money, which is but a fragment of Gaddafi’s $150bn fortune, but the chaos engulfing…

The Sicilian sculptor best known for the 3.5-tonne bronze statue of a bull he “illegally deposited” outside the New York Stock Exchange has died aged 80, says Clay Risen in The New York Times. It took Arturo Di Modica two years and $325,000 of his own money to craft the “Charging Bull” (pictured), which he was inspired to make as a morale-boosting gift to the American people following the 1987 “Black Monday” stockmarket crash. He illegally placed the sculpture outside the New York Stock Exchange in 1989, after scouting the location for police officers for weeks. It was swiftly removed and taken to a warehouse, where he paid a $500 fine to get it back. The sculpture ended up on a traffic island in Bowling Green, not far from his…

“Stock punters [in India] are awed by... a budget deficit [of 9.5%] this year... The benchmark Sensex index is up 58% over the last 12 months... Bonds had the opposite 2020 experience, suffering about $14bn in foreign outflows... debt punters are not falling for India’s optimistic macro narrative... they fear the underlying cracks in the [economy, especially]... festering bad-loan troubles at banks... Yields across the maturity spectrum are edging higher... [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi’s leadership since 2014 gives debt-market sceptics ample ammunition. Soaring rhetoric about opening protected sectors of the economy to foreign competition, reforming land, tax and legal systems, levelling playing fields, and narrowing the rich-poor divide was not followed by strong action... Modi is finally confronting a gang of detractors who will not be intimidated: bond traders.” William…

Three to buy Biffa Shares Waste-management group Biffa hit the ground running this year, making “bolt-on” acquisitions that have bolstered growth. The group has spent £198m on 45 purchases since 2014, “actively consolidating a fragmented market”. It has increased efficiency on the routes on which it collects waste by 20% since 2002 while reducing carbon emissions by 65%. Shareholders have benefited from growing profits, which have increased 18% every year for the past six years. Biffa also operates a leading plastic-recycling business. Consistent, sustainable growth and “strong green credentials” make the group an “attractive long-term investment”. 270p Sainsbury’s The Daily Telegraph Sainsbury’s has come a long way from its failed merger with Asda in 2019. The grocer is Britain’s fourth-largest online food retailer and it has a solid online presence,…

• Marks & Spencer is converting its flagship Marble Arch store into offices, says Nils Pratley in The Guardian. But this isn’t the only “heresy” it is committing. It will now sell other firms’ clothing brands, including in lingerie, “the one part of the non-food operation where market share has remained strong over the years”. While this move is online-only, the introduction of ten outside brands in one go is billed as the “first of many waves”. It comes with some drawbacks, including “lower profit margins”, especially since in some cases M&S will merely be providing a “souped-up delivery plus click-and-collect service”. Still, M&S has little choice. The trend in the online clothing market is “firmly away from solo offers and towards platform-style structures”. • After rising to almost $500…

US president Joe Biden last week signed into law a$1.9trn stimulus package, taking total spending to around $6trn more than the country spent fighting World War II, says The Observer. The main part of the stimulus gifts $1,400 to workers and their families, extends a wide range of welfare payments into the autumn, boosts parental tax credits, and maintains special unemployment reliefs and healthcare subsidies. Polls suggest this is popular with voters, with 70% in favour; even 41% of Republicans support it. The package marks a leftward shift in US politics and a big change in thinking, says Paul Krugman in The New York Times. Indeed, the decision to devote a large part of the money to tax credits and benefits for most families is a “turn away from the…

• Shares in South Korean online retailer Coupang surged on their first day of trading in New York on Thursday of last week, says Bloomberg. The company, dubbed “Korea’s Amazon”, is now valued at around $84bn, giving 42-year-old South Korean-American founder and chief executive Bom Kim (pictured) a $8.6bn stake. Coupang is South Korea’s largest-ever listing and the biggest by an Asian company on a US exchange since Alibaba Group in September 2014. • Swiss-based mining giant and commodities trader Glencore is to pay its incoming chief executive, Gary Nagle, a starting salary of $1.8m, plus $50,000 of assumed benefits, says the Financial Times. Nagle, who currently runs the group’s coal business, could be awarded up to $10.4m a year with a target-related bonus, although the maximum he will be…

Deliveroo might not look like the most promising long-term bet (see above). And we note that rival DoorDash, which listed in the US in December, has fallen hard in the last month or so (although it’s still well above its $102 IPO price). But all the same, you might be forgiven for fancying a short-term punt on the stock, in case it gets swept up in a wave of enthusiasm. So if you want to invest, how do you go about it? Deliveroo plans to make £50m-worth of shares available to private investors. However, you have to have a Deliveroo account and to have ordered at least one takeaway to be eligible to apply. You will be invited to register your interest in taking part in the IPO. Potential investors…

“Candidly, I’d gone from Canada to Harvard, had a lot of student loans, and the most effective way to pay that off was to become a banker.” Former Bank of England governor Mark Carney (pictured) on why he went into finance, quoted in The Guardian “Trollope captures a truth repeated across history: there is no resentment quite as inflammatory as that of a wealthy person spurned.” Sunday Times columnist Matthew Syed on novelist Anthony Trollope’s insights “I stopped reading reviews years ago. They are so reductive. I do what I do for myself. No one else put me through art college, no one else built my business.” Fashion designer Christopher Kane, quoted in The Observer “Oh my god, ambition by far. Talent is very, very secondary. When I was a…

fs.blog A big part of success is just avoiding failure, says Shane Parrish. Here are five reasons why we make bad decisions. 1. We’re stupid. We like to think of ourselves as rational, but really we’re prey to cognitive biases. Never make important decisions while you’re tired, emotional, distracted, or in a rush; or while working in groups or with authority figures. 2. Identify the real problem. Our minds get busy with problems as they are presented; we’d do better to consider what the true problem really is. 3. Get better data. Don’t rely on third-hand information, or indeed the news. Seek out information from someone as close to the source as possible because they’ve earned their knowledge and have an understanding you don’t. 4. Don’t stop learning. We all…

Phoenix Asset Management Partners has launched an attack on funeral provider Dignity’s executive chairman, says Graeme Evans in the Evening Standard. It has put forward its own chief investment officer, Gary Channon, to replace Clive Whiley. Dignity has been hit by an investigation into the sector by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) that began in 2018. The CMA concluded that funerals had become too pricey. Phoenix owns 29.9% of Dignity, whose shares have slumped by 80% since 2016. Despite the rise in demand brought on by Covid-19, Dignity’s annual results next week are unlikely to impress. The average cost of funerals has slipped in the past year as services have been pared back thanks to social distancing.…

■ High street banks “are braced for a spike in so-called payment redirection fraud” thanks to a surge in property transactions caused by the stamp-duty holiday, says Howard Mustoe in The Daily Telegraph. Santander has reported a 47% increase in this type of fraud in 2020, with average losses of £35,000. Scammers pretend to be solicitors or another service provider in order to trick you into changing the bank account you pay your money into. Or they may convince you that your account has been compromised and you need to move the money into a safe account. In any case you end up transferring your cash to the criminals. Double-check any payment details and contact your solicitor to confirm any changes before you move your money. ■ The state pension…

While the chancellor’s Budget promise to raise corporation tax to 25% in 2023 made all the headlines, many small businesses will be unaffected by this hike. Chancellor Rishi Sunak promised that any business making a profit of less than £50,000 in the 2023-2024 tax year will continue to pay corporation tax at the current rate of 19%. The Treasury subsequently claimed this would mean 70% of actively-trading businesses would pay no more tax. The Budget also introduced measures to avoid a cliff edge for businesses exceeding the £50,000 threshold. Their corporation tax rate will rise in steps, rather than in one go, only reaching the full 25% on profits above £250,000. There is other good news for small businesses on corporation tax. Any firm making a trading loss in the…

Perhaps the most well-known British gambling company is Entain (LSE: ENT), part of the FTSE 100 index. Entain owns Bwin, Coral, Ladbrokes, PartyPoker, and Sportingbet. It also runs an online-betting venture in the US with MGM Resorts, which attempted to buy it earlier this year. While Coral and Ladbrokes have physical betting shops, Entain makes most of its money online. Over the last three years revenue has grown by just under 10% a year. Despite the group’s impressive record and prospects the stock still trades on a reasonable 17 times 2022 earnings, with a solid dividend yield of 2.4%. Entain’s big rival is Flutter Entertainment (LSE: FLTR), also part of the blue-chip index. Formed from the merger of bookmakers Paddy Power and betting exchange Betfair in 2015, Flutter has further…

Aerospace and defence group Rolls-Royce Holdings (LSE: RR) posted a “mammoth” £4bn loss for 2020 as the pandemic grounded planes and decimated demand for its engines, says Ben Chapman in The Independent. The group may not bounce back rapidly: the outlook remains uncertain for the aviation industry as countries continue to grapple with the coronavirus. The company has also secured £7.3bn of funding from shareholders and emergency loans from the Bank of England. The shares have slipped by 38.2% in the past year.…

An extraordinary year is culminating in an unusual individual savings account (Isa) season. Months of lockdown mean many of us have saved more than we would normally manage. Unfortunately interest rates are at record lows, so cash Isas don’t appear especially appealing. But don’t let low rates put you off protecting your money from the taxman. In future you’ll be glad you did. Savings held within a cash Isa can grow without the taxman taking a cut as no income tax or capital gains tax is due. You can place up to £20,000 into an Isa this tax year. You have to use that or lose it by midnight on 5 April 2021. This is the big difference between an Isa and an ordinary savings account. With the latter, the…

Research by the price-comparison service Money to the Masses suggests that two Sipp providers are likely to work out cheapest. AJ Bell’s annual charge for Sipps worth up to £250,000 is just 0.25% and its fund and share-dealing charges are competitive too. Vanguard has an annual charge of only 0.15% a year, capped at £375, though its investment options are quite limited compared to most other Sipp providers; it also makes no charge for income drawdown. Other good options include Interactive Investor’s Sipp, particularly if you have savings worth more than £50,000 and you only intend to make a handful of changes to your investments from time to time. AllianceTrust and Savings charges flat fees, with an annual charge of £252. Another option is a managed Sipp from a“robo adviser”.…

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, people didn’t trust banks. They were only lending to the safest of customers, while plummeting interest rates left savers without a decent return. Then new technology appeared, which “democratised” finance: so-called peer-to-peer, or P2P, platforms. The likes of Zopa and Ratesetter sprung up to connect people who needed to borrow money, but had been shunned by banks, with others with spare cash who wanted to earn a decent rate of interest in return for taking more risk. The idea caught on, and the sector flourished. It was particularly popular with property investors, while small business lending and film finance were other thriving subsectors. In 2016, the Innovative Finance Isa (IFIsa) was introduced to shelter any returns from tax. IFIsas have hardly set…

Since 2012 we have been suggesting a small group of investment trusts for those of you who want to hold a diversified portfolio of funds run by active managers. I promised when we first wrote about it that I would update you on it occasionally (with the help of a panel made up of investment trust experts Sandy Cross, Alan Brierley and Simon Elliott) and change it even more occasionally. I have mostly stuck to my guns on that. There are six trusts in the portfolio at present: Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust (LSE: SMT), Mid Wynd International Investment Trust (LSE: MWY), Caledonia Investments (LSE: CLDN), Personal Assets Trust (LSE: PNL), RIT Capital Partners(LSE: RCP) and Law Debenture Corporation (LSE: LWDB). So how are they doing? As a group, pretty well.…

The word “lifetime” is a signal of the government’s intent with Lisas.While they can prove useful to first-time buyers, ministers really saw them as a vehicle for long-term savings.That puts Lisas in direct competition with private pension plans. At first sight, there is not much of a contest. Certainly, if you have the option of joining a pension scheme at work, it will almost always make sense to do so, since you will then benefit from a top-up contribution from your employer. But even if you do not have access to a workplace pension, a private pension plan will often be a better option than a Lisa. One reason for this is that the £4,000 annual contribution cap on Lisas is pretty modest. In a private pension, you can usually…

Alpine has been busy, says Richard Lane on AutoCar. The arrival of its new A110 Légende GT might seem like a small event compared with its joining Formula 1 and committing to becoming an electric-only brand. Yet, at £59,410, the limited-edition A110 Légende GT, of which only 400 will be made, is the most expensive Alpine to date – and “that makes it worth discussing”. Billed as the A110 you’d choose for touring duties, the Légende GT features a 1.8-litre turbo engine that delivers 249bhp and atop speed of 155mph. “It remains a thoroughbred sports car and a brilliant one at that” This latest iteration of the A110 has been enhanced throughout, says Sean Carson on AutoExpress. The upholstery feels more luxurious, the trim has been tweaked, and it looks…

Jerome Powell, chief of the Federal Reserve, has let the cat out of the bag. US stocks tumbled when he predicted in an interview an increase in consumer prices this summer. The ten-year US government bond yield jumped on the news. So is inflation on the way? “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon,” said Milton Friedman. But he was wrong. Too literal. Too numerical. The world is an infinitely complex place. But we can’t produce infinitely complex models. So models are always simplified. That’s why the modellers are almost always wrong, whether they’re modelling inflation or the climate or Covid-19. The Fed’s 2,000 economists prepare models to predict GDP growth, for example. Inevitably, the models constantly need to be revised so that the line on the chart reflects…

Swimmers rejoice – the UK is embracing a “lido revival”, says Helen Pidd in The Guardian. Albert Avenue pool in Hull is the latest venue to benefit – Hull City Council plans to invest £4.6m in upgrading and reopening the venue. It is one of a string of lidos set to reopen as outdoor swimming soars in popularity. An executive who caught her “millionaire lover” in bed with another woman won a legal fight over their £2.5m Cotswolds home, says Jonathan A Ames in The Times. Sharon Blades, 63, and her husband Chris Rowland, 65, were described as“very much in love” before Blades discovered the affair. The judge ruled she was entitled to an equal share of the property, leaving Rowland with legal fees of more than £200,000.…

Finland’s Valmet, asupplier of equipment and automation systems for the pulp, paper and energy sectors, is among the few companies to post a healthy rise in profits last year, says WirtchaftsWoche. Net income rose by 14% as sales climbed by 5% to €3.7m. China’s rapid recovery was key: it accounted for a quarter of the group’s new orders. The company stands to benefit from several long-term trends, notably the rising demand for cartons and other packaging as online shopping grows; the spread of automation and digitalisation; and the drive to use wood more efficiently. The stock looks reasonably valued and yields almost 3%.…

The AstraZeneca vaccine has suffered a setback in the past few days as France, Germany and Italy have joined a “growing list” of European countries, now more than a dozen in total, to halt its use “temporarily”, says The Economist. A few countries in the rest of the world, including Indonesia, have followed suit. This “wave of suspensions” has been set in motion by data from a Norwegian medical regulator reporting four cases of blood clotting in adults given the vaccine. Similar scattered reports of blood clots “have come from Denmark, Italy and Austria”. Those countries suspending the vaccine are behaving irrationally, says David Spiegelhalter in The Guardian. While suspected reactions “should be investigated”, moving too fast may lead to regulators “drawing causal links between events where none may exist”.…

On Tuesday, Boris Johnson unveiled his ten-year plan to “boost international trade and deploy soft power”, says William Booth in The Washington Post. The “sweeping” 100-page review, to the surprise of many, included a declaration that the UK would increase its arsenal of nuclear warheads, “not only to deter traditional threats but also to confront biological, chemical and perhaps even cyber assaults”. Keir Starmer accused the PM of breaking a post-Cold War policy to reduce our nuclear stockpile. Tobias Ellwood, the defence committee chair, described talk of the UK being prepared to use nuclear weapons as “dangerous” and argued for greater emphasis on “boots on the ground”, expanding British influence by helping with global aid and emergency response, says Gus Carter in The Spectator. The UK’s greatest global challenges were…

Given that US president Joe Biden was sworn into office only two months ago, it seems premature to be discussing what is going to happen in the midterm elections. Still, some markets are already starting to emerge. Ladbrokes, for example, is offering a market on the 2022 Texas gubernatorial election. Incumbent governor Greg Abbott is currently the favourite at 1/2 (66%), with former congressman Beto O’Rourke (pictured) at 7/2 (22.2%), former secretary of housing and urban development Julián Castro at 8/1 (11.1%), and actor Matthew McConaughey at 50/1 (1.9%). Until recently Texas was regarded as a consistently Republican state – the last time it voted for a Democrat in a presidential election was back in 1976. However, over recent years the gap  between the two parties has been narrowing. Predictions…

Deutsche Bank increased bonuses for its investment bankers by 46% last year after a pandemic-driven trading boom propelled its fixed-income trading division and drove the lender to its first annual profit in six years, says Olaf Storbeck in the Financial Times. But not everybody ishappy about the €1.9bn bonus pool, which is 16 times bigger than the Frankfurt-based bank’s net profit in 2020. (Half of that is allocated to its investment bankers.) Union Investment, the third-largest asset manager in Germany, and one of the 15 biggest investors in Deutsche, is “highly critical” of the pay decision. That the bank has racked up a €14.6bn cumulative loss since 2015, is in the middle of a costly turnaround plan and has suspended dividend payments, is especially galling. Deutsche has promised to resume…

“The economics of investing in bonds – and most financial assets – has become stupid,” says Ray Dalio, founder and co-chief investment officer of hedge fund giant Bridgewater Associates. Anyone who invests in developed world government bonds right now is locking in a guaranteed loss after inflation, he writes in his latest post on social media website LinkedIn. “Rather than get paid less than inflation why not instead buy stuff – any stuff – that will equal inflation or better?” When bond investors finally decide that enough is enough and sell out of bonds en masse, central banks will be forced to step in and buy them with printed money in order to stop interest rates from surging to ruinous levels. That will keep bond prices and yields steady, and…

cato.org/blog US president Jo Biden’s new commerce secretary has spoken highly of the tariffs that Donald Trump slapped on steel and aluminium imports, purportedly for national security reasons. Yet there is little evidence to support the idea that they have been effective, even by tariff supporters’ own benchmarks, says Scott Lincicome. Numerous studies have documented the tariffs’ high economic costs for US consumers of steel, particularly manufacturing firms. In particular, the tariffs caused higher steel prices, which in turn hurt other US manufacturers in terms of higher input costs, lower exports and lost competitiveness at home and abroad. At the same time, the tariffs had minimal impact on US steelworkers’ jobs and did nothing to address global steel overcapacity. As a result, sector stocks have tanked, companies have laid off…

■ The shift from high-growth to value stocks shows “no signs of abating”, says Jonathan Jones in The Telegraph. Growth funds have come under pressure as US technology stocks have fallen out of fashion. Look to London to play the rotation. Businesses that have struggled during the pandemic, such as pubs, retailers and leisure stocks, should perform well in the recovery. The £1.1bn Schroder Recovery fund is an attractive option. There has been a shift towards value in 12 months of the past five years, and the fund has beaten its average rival in each of those months. The same goes for the £53m Schroder Responsible Value UK Equity fund, which uses ethical screens to avoid companies involved in military services, pornography, tobacco, gambling and alcohol. The River & Mercantile…

Virgin Media has come under fire for its slow internet speed at busy times and poor customer service in recent weeks. It has “the worst service in Britain”, says James Coney in The Sunday Times. There is “something catastrophically inept about [its] customer service that issues drag on and on, going unresolved for weeks”. Ofcom records Virgin Media as being the worst communication provider when it comes to complaints about mobile and television service. It doesn’t fare much better for its landline service, ranking second worst and third from the bottom for broadband. Despite the terrible service Virgin Media – alongside other broadband providers including Sky and BT – has announced price rises in April. “Price hikes are coming at the end of this month,” Martin Lewis, founder of MoneySavingExpert,…

• Freelancers and contractors got a last-minute reprieve from the IR35 reforms a year ago, when the government opted to delay introducing them on 5 April 2020 amid the Covid-19 chaos. But the reprieve was only temporary, and for many businesses, concern is now growing about the potential impact of the changes when they come into effect early next month. The reforms make businesses that use freelancers and contractors responsible for determining their tax status –whether they really are self-employed contractors, or whether they are effectively employees that should be paid through the PAYE tax system. Many freelancers and contractors have received lengthy questionnaires from clients in recent weeks, and fear they could face a loss of income or higher tax bills following the changes. Research published by the Association…

The biotechnology sector has been instrumental in bringing Covid-19 under control. It was not the traditional large pharmaceutical vaccine specialists that led the way, but the innovative biotech firms such as BioNTech and Moderna. These companies have turned a much-discussed idea – vaccines based on RNA, a new approach – into a product and have manufactured millions of doses. That has led to valuations of some of the innovative small-cap companies accelerating to eye-wateringly high levels. “One of Horizon’s drugs targets a rare condition called thyroid eye disease” It is easy to get caught up in the hype of investing in stocks with rapidly rising share prices. However, we rely on fundamental analysis in making our investment decisions and look out for companies that boast a compelling roster of innovative…

With the blistering market recovery that followed the initial Covid-19 panic, we might expect stocks and shares individual savings accounts (Isas) to be more popular than ever. After all, any capital gains you make are sheltered from the taxman, along with income from shares and bonds. But if so, it will mark a turnaround. The number of stocks and shares Isas, or investment Isas, actually fell to 22.6 million in 2018-2019 (the tax year for which we have the most recent data) from 27.8 million in 2017-2018, according to HMRC. The popularity of cash Isas, meanwhile, has nearly always outstripped that of their investment counterparts. In 2018-2019 there were almost twice as many cash Isas as stocks and shares Isas. No wonder. With cash Isas, all you have to do…

Venture-capital trusts (VCTs) investing in fledgling companies proved resilient during 2020, with the average fund delivering a return of 4%, according to the Association of Investment Companies (AIC), compared with a 10% loss from the UK stockmarket amid the Covid-19 crisis. In an AIC survey of VCT managers, 40% said trading prospects for the businesses in their portfolios had actually improved during the pandemic, while a further 27% said conditions were unchanged. Such strength might come as a surprise given the reputation of VCTs as risky investments. These funds, after all, invest in small, early-stage companies where failure rates are often higher; very small companies are also often more vulnerable to crises than their larger counterparts. But VCT managers point out that they frequently focus on sectors with the most…

“Ethical investing” as a term was never going to cut it. Any trend worth its salt in 2021 needs an acronym – just think of all the wasted Twitter characters! But that is what environmental, social and governance (ESG) is. It is ethical investing 2.0, rebooted for the 21st century. And like virtue signallers on Twitter, boasting of how virtuous they are, investors, fund managers and even chief executives are falling over each other to brag about their ESG credentials. By the end of 2020, total assets in ESG funds had grown to almost $1.7trn, up 50% over the year. That is serious money. Larry Fink, CEO of the world’s biggest asset manager, BlackRock, described the flow of money as a “tectonic shift”. Patrick Pouyanné, boss of French oil giant…

Interest rates may be low on traditional savings accounts, but banks are still keen to attract young customers. The best-buy junior individual savings accounts (Jisas) are offering almost the same rates as they were a year ago, whereas adult Isa rates have plummeted. So this could be a good time to set aside some cash for your kids. Jisas work much like adult ones. Money deposited into a Jisa can grow free from income tax, capital gains tax (CGT) and dividend tax. You can choose between a cash Jisa or an investment Jisa. However, there are two key differences with Jisas compared with their adult counterparts. Firstly, the annual allowance is much lower. You can deposit a maximum of £9,000 into a Jisa every tax year. Secondly, the money is…

Greece and Cyprus last week offered British holidaymakers a glint of sunlight at the end of what has been a long and wintery lockdown tunnel. Both countries said they would open up to tourists as soon as possible, which looks to be from mid-May. It’s a tempting proposition. Last October, as the days were growing shorter, I took advantage of the travel corridor between Britain and Greece to escape what had been confinement in London for a few sunny days in “Prospero’s Cell”, to borrow the title from Lawrence Durrell’s 1945 memoir/guide book to Corfu. Durrell writes that he was motivated by “piety and overwhelming nostalgia… to set down what I knew about the island which had for several years been my home, and which in those dark winters of…

2019 Bolgheri Rosso, Grattamacco, Tuscany, Italy £26.95, bbr.com; £24.50, decvin.com The great red wines of Bolgheri, situated around the village of Castagneto Carducci on the Livorno coast, qualify as rare but wholly indulgent guilty pleasures. Absurdly expensive, ridiculously hedonistic and uncommonly luxurious, iconic labels Ornellaia and Sassicaia bounce around the £200-mark and noted vintages skyrocket from there. There are two properties in this region that allow you to side-step the fiscal stress afforded by the aforementioned superstars – Tenuta Sette Cieli (from swig.co.uk), which is standing on the brink of stardom, as its name suggests, and my featured Grattamacco. Sette Cieli’s wines are high-altitude, chiselled, age-worthy and mesmerising, made with uncompromising standards, and I am a huge fan. They are also stunning value, in particular Indaco. Grattamacco’s releases come from…

The Gun, the Ship & the Pen Warfare, Constitutions and the Making of the Modern World Linda Colley Profile Books, £25 Brexit and the rise of Scottish nationalism have put constitutional issues “high on the political agenda” in the UK, says John Lloyd in the Financial Times. Linda Colley’s The Gun, the Ship and the Pen is, then, particularly timely. Beginning with the political changes that took place in the middle of the 18th century, Colley looks at the “shaping of the modern world” as told through “the documents that seek to encapsulate a common purpose and define, or redefine, power and the rights and responsibilities of states and citizens”. Sometimes the range of the book “seems rather random”, says Lincoln Allison in Times Higher Education. She begins her account…

• Domino’s Pizza, it turns out, made a fortune during lockdown, selling up to 14 pizzas a second over the past year, says Jane Atkinson in The Sun. The other major lockdown winner was “the nation’s PE teacher”, Joe Wicks (pictured). The workout sessions, which the celebrity fitness trainer and self-styled “Body Coach” streamed live online, were watched by over amillion fitness fans at the peak of enforced quarantine and he banked a massive £1.6m last year. Of his two companies, The Body Coach Online Nutrition Limited saw cash fly up from £2.3m to £3.6m to the end of March this year; Joe Wicks Limited saw retained earnings rise by £300,000 to nearly £3.5m over the same period. It makes you realise that, “while half the nation was getting fat,…

$69.3m How much Everydays: The First 5000 Days, adigital art work known as a non-fungible token (NFT), by artist Mike Winkelmann, known as Beeple, sold for with Christie’s last week, a record for an NFT. The piece had been “minted” on 16 February 2021. $25 How much people were asked to donate to the US Republican Party by the party’s campaign arm in the House of Representatives in order to receive a free copy of The Cat in the Hat after the 1957 children’s book became the subject of a row over racism. £2.5m How much the Royal Family spends on energy bills every year at ten residences, according to price comparison site Uswitch. Buckingham Palace is the most costly at an annual £1.1m, followed by Windsor Castle (£393,523) and…