Innehållsförteckning för 1085 från MoneyWeek

“Your core financial priority should be to protect the value of assets you already have” January is a time for resolutions – and most of us can think of very necessary financial resolutions aplenty. But rather than focus on any one quick fix, this might be the year to remember the actual point of saving and investing. It is not the accumulation for the sake of accumulation. It is to buy choice: choice over when and how you work, choice over how you live, and choice over when you retire – to buy you flexibility and freedom. You build wealth now so you can use it later. That’s all. This means that your core financial priority should usually be protecting the “real” value of the assets (and hence the financial…

Indian perfume tycoon Piyush Jain was arrested on charges of tax evasion by police in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, after a stash of $24m in cash and 23kg of gold were found on his premises, says India Today. Jain’s fortune is the largest ever seized by an Indian enforcement agency. Despite his wealth, Jain avoided “swanky cars and used to drive in old vehicles to evade attention”, according to India Today. High street bank Santander is desperately trying to recall £130m of accidental payments made to customers this Christmas following a “technical error”, says Fortune. On Christmas Day, over 75,000 clients of Santander and many other banks received the unexpected payments, with the company having to reach out to rivals in an attempt to recoup the money.…

The FTSE 100 has had its best year since 2016, but it continues to underperform globally. The British blue-chip index finished 2021 up 14.3%, the second weakest showing of any major European market (only Spain did worse). Global markets gained an average of 17% last year, as measured by the MSCI ACWI index. Still, the outlook for 2022 is more positive, says Jim Armitage in The Sunday Times. The FTSE started 2022 at 7,385 points, “a whisker below” its pre-pandemic level, yet many think it remains cheap. London has “the highest dividend yields in the developed world”, say analysts at JPMorgan, while those at Morgan Stanley argue that British shares trade on a huge 30% discount to those on the continent. Stronger commodity prices could be a catalyst for the…

Last year was one to forget for Chinese stocks, says The Times. A crackdown on technology firms and turmoil in the property market sent the MSCI China index down more than 20%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index finished the year down 14%, its worst performance in a decade. Emerging-market investors have instead turned to India, where a young population and growing middle class make for an auspicious outlook. The MSCI India index returned 23%, making it the year’s best-performing emerging market, amid a boom in initial public offerings. New listings raised Rs1.2trn (£12bn) last year, 70% more than the previous record set in 2017, says Mint, as investors piled into stocks such as Paytm (online payments) and Zomato (food delivery).…

Kazakhstan declared a state of emergency in its capital, main city and provinces this week when demonstrators stormed and torched public buildings in protests over rising fuel prices, says Olzhas Auyezov for Reuters. The Cabinet resigned in response, but that “failed to quell the anger of the demonstrators”. Videos posted online showed fires blazing in the offices of officials of the main city, Almaty, with apparent gunshots audible nearby. Kazakhstan, like Russia and other countries in the region, has been “struggling with rising prices for basic commodities amid the economic strain of the pandemic”, say Nastassia Astrasheuskaya and Polina Ivanova in the Financial Times. But although the first protests were by people unhappy with a doubling of the price of liquefied petroleum gas, widely used as cheap fuel in cars,…

The number of executives in Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) earning at least £250,000 has risen by a little more than half in the past year to 36, from 23 in 2020, says The Sunday Telegraph. A further 114 executives earn between £200,000 and £249,999, and 1,071 between £130,000 and £199,999. The ranks of the highest paid are set to swell further once the health service has recruited 42 chief executives for new integrated care boards in England, on an average salary of £223,000. Meanwhile, the number of “very senior managers” (VSMs), defined as executives sitting on trust boards or who report to CEOs, rose from 944 in September 2009 to 2,788 in 2020, according to the most recent figures. They could be in for a pay rise this year…

Expect a roller-coaster ride in 2022, says retired hedge-fund manager Felix Zulauf. The S&P 500 will soar to 6,000, he tells Barron’s, but only after first crashing to 3,000. “It will be exciting for traders, but bad for the passive buy-and-hold investor” if the latter doesn’t have the stomach to sit tight. Markets will be upended by the partial reversal of the extraordinary fiscal and monetary stimulus applied to fight the pandemic, reckons Zulauf. Yes, policies remain loose at present, but they will shift from “extreme ease to merely easy” and that will be enough to spark a correction at a time when investors are heavily positioned in volatile risk assets and not prepared to deal with liquidity becoming tighter. Holdings of stocks by US households are at record highs…

blogs.imf.org The pandemic triggered the biggest annual surge in global debt since 1945, says the International Monetary Fund. The world’s (public, household and non-financial corporate) debt-to-GDP ratio surged from 227% in 2019 to 256% in 2020, the equivalent of $226trn. The global surge has been especially big in developed countries – emerging markets often struggle to borrow affordably – where, following the financial crisis and the virus, government debt almost doubled, from 70% of GDP to 124%, between 2007 and 2020. Private debt in advanced economies rose by 14% in the pandemic, almost twice as much as in the financial crisis, when the aim was “to contain the damage from [an] excessively leveraged private sector”. With debt so high, there is scant scope for states to support the recovery further…

■ “Gyrating” investment conditions over the last year have “derailed” even high-flying fund managers, says Jamie Colvin on Citywire. Only 6% of the 212 funds in the UK All Companies sector beat the FTSE All-Share index in each of the last five years. However, 57% of funds have still beaten the market over the five years as a whole. The figures, compiled by wealth manager Quilter Cheviot, show that investors who concentrate on calendar-year returns will miss the bigger picture. Underperformance in 2021 does not mean investors should abandon a fund if they have recognised a fund manager’s strong stock-picking skills. The Lindsell Train UK Equity fund, managed by Nick Train, lagged 7.9% behind the FTSE All-Share, but has still delivered annual returns 3.2% greater than the index over the…

For many people, January is the month to get their personal finances organised, particularly if the have to file their self-assessment tax returns by the end of the month. However, one job that often gets overlooked – even though it could lead to a future tax headache – is a review of whether you have a problem with the lifetime allowance (LTA) on pension savings. The LTA sets a limit on the amount of tax-free savings you may build up across all your private pension schemes, including both work-based plans and any individual arrangements you may have. Currently, this limit is set at £1,073,100. There are no rules to prevent you building up more than this amount, but if you do, you’ll have to pay an income tax charge on…

“Investors are increasingly beginning to focus on life beyond the pandemic” Biotechnology investors are increasingly beginning to focus on life beyond the pandemic. There are many innovative companies in the biotech sector addressing long-term challenges, such as cancer and various neurological conditions. As we look forward to the eventual endemic stage of the pandemic, these companies will benefit from the resumption of standard medical activities. We could also see the development of groundbreaking new drugs to treat conditions with considerable unmet need. We highlight three portfolio holdings well placed to outperform. A niche with few competitors Antipsychotic drugs are life-changing for patients, but the side effects can be severe. In certain cases patients develop treatment-induced tardive dyskinesia – involuntary movements similar to those experienced by patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease.…

Just before Christmas, we came to France. We had hoped to take the ferry, but the ferries between France and Ireland are all booked up. “Brexit” was the one-word explanation at Irish Ferries. But this is not a good time to make the sea crossing, anyway. The waves can be rough. So, we took a plane from Dublin to Paris, and then a car down to Poitou. One son was already there; he had prepared a jolly, warm fire in the kitchen. The morning was freezing cold and white as the tree-tops glistened with frost. Later in the day, temperatures rose and we enjoyed the soft, melancholy stillness of midwinter. Panic and farce “Life goes on, full of nonsense, illusions, claptrap, fraud and debt” Here in France, half the people…

US space agency NASA launched its new James Webb Space Telescope last week, but the project’s exorbitant costs have scientists fretting over the mission’s success, says Bloomberg. The state-of-the-art orbiting telescope is the most sensitive such device ever constructed, and promises astronomers the ability to view the most distant objects in the universe, giving a deeper insight into the formation of the first stars, for example. However, the budget has ballooned by more than 1,000% since the 1990s and the new technology has come at acost of $11bn, so the stakes are high. The telescope is made up of hundreds of delicate parts that must all work perfectly together, which means that if everything doesn’t go to plan, it could become NASA’s priciest failure in years. The agency has no…

Last year was 12 months of “insurrection, infections and inflation”, says Randall Forsyth in Barron’s. But you wouldn’t think it from looking at the markets. America’s S&P 500 index finished the year up nearly 27%. The rally has been a testament to the “power of money, conjured and created by central banks”. That money has funded government borrowing “on a scale never experienced in peacetime” and sent assets to record highs. Time and again, investors “brushed off” news that would have “derailed” previous bull markets, say Anna-Louise Jackson and John Schmidt on Forbes. A contested US election, historically high inflation, broken supply chains and a “still-raging” pandemic all failed to upend stocks. The S&P 500 recorded “70 all-time highs in 2021”, the highest number since 1995. The frenzy spilled beyond…

• Microsoft’s Satya Nadella (pictured) is “poised to deliver again”, says Richard Beales on Breakingviews. The software giant is a “Big Tech standout”: its market value has grown by $2.2trn since Nadella took over the top job in 2014. Back then, the firm was worth $300bn. True, Apple’s Tim Cook has presided over a slightly larger increase in value since taking over from Steve Jobs in 2011. “But Nadella, who started from a smaller base and has had less time, is breathing down Cook’s neck”, and Microsoft’s strength in “powerful, global digital trends” such as cloud computing could see him take top spot this year. • Apple has now become the first company to reach a market value of $3trn, says Dan Gallagher in The Wall Street Journal. The tech…

Siemens, the multinational technology conglomerate with divisions focused on industry, transport and healthcare, is one of the best bets in the German blue-chip DAX index, says WirtschaftsWoche. It has a presence in several major growth markets. Around 40 cities worldwide already use its TrainGuard MT digital train-control product, which has just been chosen to operate Frankfurt’s tram and metro network. Siemens is also helping companies digitalise and automate their operations, including opportunities in the internet of things (IoT). In the year to the end of September, Siemens earned €6.7bn; this year the bottom line should rise to around €7bn. Orders are eclipsing sales by 15%, while margins in automation can exceed 20%. Siemens spun off its medical-technology business, Siemens Healthineers, in 2018, but still owns the majority of the shares,…

The city of Yuzhou (population 1.2 million) joined Xi’an (13 million) in lockdown this week after the discovery of three asymptomatic Covid-19 cases, says Emma Graham-Harrison in The Guardian. Though draconian, Beijing’s Covid-19 policy has been “astonishingly effective”. Total cases in China stand at around 100,000. Over the past month, there have been 3,400 cases and no deaths. In the same period in the US, there have been 5.6 million cases and 36,000 deaths. Beijing is unlikely to want to change course soon. China hosts the winter Olympics in March; in the autumn, the Communist leadership holds its 20th party congress, which is expected to secure a precedent-breaking third term for president Xi Jinping. A surge of infections could trigger a crisis that would open the government to criticism and…

In the quiet week leading up to Christmas, the Irish government said it plans to start selling off part of its 71% share of Allied Irish Banks (AIB). Over the course of the next month, slightly over 3% of the equity will be placed on the market, and, if it goes well, we can expect to see the rest of the shares steadily sold off over the next few years. This raises a question: why don’t the British banks make a move and buy it up? The go-go years AIB has had a mixed history, to put it politely. In the wake of the 2008 crash, and the eurozone crisis that followed it, and with fresh capital impossible to raise, the bank was bailed out by the government for an…

Last year was a record-breaking one for initial public offerings (IPOs, when a company sells its shares on the stock market for the first time), with activity particularly vigorous in the US (see page 9). As Luisa Beltran notes in US financial newspaper Barron’s, 2021’s “new issues market will go down in the record books as the busiest ever, outpacing even the go-go days of the 1990s dotcom boom”. More than 1,000 companies listed, raising $315.6bn, the most on record, according to data provider Dealogic. Even if you ignore the vast number of Spacs – special purpose acquisition companies, or cash shells – in that number, “traditional” IPOs still hit record levels, with nearly 400 companies raising over $150bn in total, beating the record of $108bn set in 1999. “Record…

It’s time to bring back price controls Isabella Weber The Guardian Inflation is nearing a 40-year high and central banks are promising to intervene, says Isabella Weber. “However, a critical factor that is driving up prices remains largely overlooked: an explosion in profits.” In 2021, as during the World War II, big corporations “have used supply problems as an opportunity to increase prices and scoop windfall profits”. Now, as then, we need to consider “strategic price controls”. Doing nothing, or applying fiscal restraint and higher interest rates, risks recession. If your house is on fire, you extinguish the fire at source rather than allow it to destroy or flood the entire house. The arguments deployed in the 1940s are relevant today: that as long as bottlenecks make it impossible for…

commentcentral.co.uk Talk of the metaverse, a network of 3D virtual worlds “that can be accessed through virtual and augmented reality” has been met with derision in some quarters, says Leon Hardy. Some think Facebook is simply trumpeting “the next chapter of the internet” to deflect attention from its lousy reputation. But the metaverse could be “revolutionary for education systems, and students” as it “will allow anything to become a learning opportunity”, effectively creating a global “digital university”. Imagine showing students a racing car and then displaying how it was constructed and the speed and temperature the tires can withstand. Ask students to examine the night sky and then conjure up US astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson explaining the structure of the galaxy. Similarly, instead of a written exam, apprentices or students…

Investment trusts trade on an average discount to net asset value (NAV) of just 1.5%, but there are many trusts on much higher discounts. Most of these are small, specialised funds focusing on niches that were once popular but are now being ignored as a result of disappointing performance, poor management or the sector becoming unfashionable. Some of these will perform well and return to favour, thereby giving investors the double-whammy of strong investment returns and a rerating of the trust. Others will languish, with investors fruitlessly hoping that something will turn up. How should you distinguish between the winners and the duds? Ditching the duds You don’t have to. The £100m Miton Global Opportunities Trust (LSE: MIGO), managed by Nick Greenwood and Charlotte Cuthbertson, will do it for you.…

“It is very easy to dramatically slash your credit card debt” In the run up to Christmas many of us flex our credit cards to pay for everything from presents to festive food. As a result, consumer debt soars. But interest-free credit card deals are booming, making it a great time to take control of what you owe. The average UK household had around £2,085 sitting in credit cards in October, according to The Money Charity. That is likely to have risen substantially over the past month thanks to Christmas shopping. MoneyFacts puts the average interest rate on a credit card at 26.2% APR, meaning your credit card could be prove to be a very expensive drain on your finances. The good news is it is very easy to dramatically…

Thousands of members of small final salary pension schemes could see their pension rights transferred to new arrangements in the years ahead, after regulators finally gave the green light to a new type of consolidated pensions “superfund”. The Pensions Regulator cleared the launch of Clara-Pensions, the first such fund, just before Christmas following a long period of discussions with pension providers about how best to protect savers’ interests. The aim of the superfund will be to take on the defined benefit promises made by employers over many years, bringing together large numbers of small schemes. In theory, the superfund should benefit from economies of scale that ensure members’ benefits can be funded more efficiently, while leaving a profit margin for the fund provider. The government has backed the idea of…

Kape Technologies (LSE: KAPE) is a security software provider. The group acquired ExpressVPN, a large virtual private network (VPN) firm, for nearly $1bn last year, meaning it now owns three of the largest and most well-known VPN providers in the world alongside CyberGhost and Private Internet Access. (VPNs allow users to establish a secure connection to the internet.) The cybersecurity market is expected to grow from $156.2bn in 2020 to $352.5bn by 2026. Kape has forecast revenues of about $200m for the year just ended, up from $66m in 2019. The shares are up 115% in the last 12 months.…

One reason for Hu Xijin’s ubiquity over the past decade is that he has “unparalleled license to speak bluntly about politics”, says Han Zhang in The Guardian. Indeed, opponents have described him as “the only person with freedom of speech” in mainland China, although that freedom is partly a reflection of his adherence to the Communist Party line. “He’s willing to be quoted…when huge numbers of others – especially liberal commentators – have grown too nervous to go on the record,” says Evan Osnos of The New Yorker: ameasure of the steady repression of the Chinese media in the era of president Xi Jinping. The aim is twofold: to quash internal dissent and counter the perceived “Western-dominated narrative” about China elsewhere in the world. “Tell the China story well and…

Italian conservationists cheered a ruling by an Italian court, backing Rome City Council’s decision to deny fast food giant McDonald’s permission to build a €1.3m drive-through branch near the city’s historic Caracalla baths, says The Sunday Times. More than 2,000 female employees of Californian videogame producer Riot Games will share in an $80m payout from the company, following a protracted gender discrimination lawsuit, says The New York Times. Female staff first took the company to court in 2018, complaining of pay inequality and a sexist work environment. Riot will also pay $20m in legal fees and expenses.…

“Today capital is abundant. A middle-aged global workforce has lots of savings to put to work. Low long-term interest rates… point to a scarcity of worthwhile ways to deploy those savings… It can be hard to imagine this state of affairs ending. But over time capital is bound to become less abundant… Fiscal stimulus is back in favour… over time deficit-financed spending will start to absorb excess savings… [Another] reason to expect capital scarcity is climate change. The transition to greener energy… requires junking the assets underpinning the carbon economy – oil rigs, coal-fired power stations, petrol forecourts – and building a new infrastructure based on electric vehicles, wind and solar power and battery storage. A lot of capital has to be deployed to create these assets... today’s capital abundance…

As the initial pandemic panic wound down, 2021 became a record-shattering year for US initial public offerings (IPOs), says The Wall Street Journal. Over 400 IPOs debuted in the US equity market last year, raising a total of $133bn, according to data from accountants EY. Technology and healthcare led the way, with Amazon-backed electric-vehicle company Rivian raising $12bn in capital and briefly being valued at over $100bn. There are doubts that the excitement around many of these firms will last – the average 2022 IPO now trades 9% below its starting price – yet this hasn’t dampened optimism for 2022, with plenty of firms set to list this year. Automobile technology may continue to lead the way, with Vietnamese electric-car firm VinFast potentially valued at $60bn and self-driving systems company…

Hong Kong’s free press is “on the brink of extinction” following the closure of the two largest remaining independent news outlets in the Chinese territory, say Chan Ho-him and Primrose Riordan in the Financial Times. Last week Citizen News, an online news site founded in 2017, announced it would close, citing concerns over safety for its reporters following a police raid on Stand News, a pro-democracy publication, which has also ceased operations. Apple Daily, the city’s biggest pro-democracy paper, shut down in June last year – its assets were frozen by authorities and senior management arrested. The closures are part of a wider crackdown on civil society following the introduction of a national security law in 2020 – more than 50 groups have closed down and opposition figures been arrested.…

• Fashion designer Stella McCartney (pictured) took nearly £2.7m in salary from her eponymous company in the year to the end of 2020, arise of £220,000 on the previous year, despite the business taking almost £850,000 in furlough money, says The Guardian. Sales at Stella McCartney Ltd fell 26% to £28.4m during those 12 months, with the company recording a pre-tax loss of £31.4m. French luxury-goods conglomerate LVMH, which bought a minority stake in 2019, also provided McCartney’s label with loans worth £26.3m in 2020, taking its total lent to the business to around £66m. • Former England footballer David Beckham could receive around £200m from the sale of a 55% stake in his management business, DB Ventures, to Authentic Brands Group, which owns clothing brands Reebok and Juicy Couture,…

A put option gives the holder the right (but not the obligation) to sell an asset, such as a share, for an agreed price, on or before a certain date. When you buy a put option, you pay a fee (known as a premium) to the seller of the option (also known as the writer of the option). If you exercise the option, the seller must buy the underlying asset from you at the agreed price. Otherwise the option expires worthless and the seller has no further liabilities. Let’s assume that Acme Widgets is trading at 100p per share and a put option to sell at 90p costs 5p. You buy a block of 1,000 options at a cost of £50 (5p × 1,000). If the shares fall to 70p,…

“All my experiences with capitalism, I’m afraid, have indicated that it encourages some of the worst features in people. Eat or be eaten. It is underlined by the survival of the fittest. I can’t buy that. I mean, maybe it’s the awful face of capitalism, but I haven’t seen the other face.” Human-rights activist and priest Desmond Tutu (pictured), who died last month, speaking in a 1986 interview in The Washington Post, quoted on Twitter “I think money is important to a certain point. We all need money to buy food and to pay our bills. But I don’t let it get to my head where it takes me over. Forty years ago I drove an Aston Martin and I thought I was a playboy. I think as you get…

awealthofcommonsense.com The latest central-bank data shows that the top 1% of Americans have seen their net worth surge by 29.8% in the pandemic, says Ben Carlson. But the holdings of the bottom 50% have soared by 74%. No wonder the rich got richer; they hold most financial assets, and markets have soared. As for the bottom 50%, “it turns out giving people money and paying them more is good for their wealth”. Meanwhile, the share of wealth accounted for by the middle class (the 50%-99% segment) has dwindled from around 35% in 1990 to below 29%, while the top 1%’s piece of the pie has risen from 25% in 2003 to 32.1%. Both groups’ wealth has risen in absolute terms but that of the top 1% has quadrupled, while the…

Billionaire US hedge-fund manager Daniel Loeb and his company Third Point are “prominent and aggressive” activist investors, says The Guardian. But Loeb’s own London-listed fund, Third Point Investors (TPI), is now the subject of a campaign by activists including Asset Value Investors (AVI), which holds a 10% stake. AVI claims poor management has left the £680m fund undervalued compared with its holdings. Loeb called the campaign “juvenile” and “underhanded”, following the resignation of TPI’s chair, Steve Bates, after alleged threats from an unnamed shareholder to “attack him in other business areas”. Loeb and TPI, which has been in talks with AVI and other investors, did not identify the shareholder who allegedly made the threat.…

■ Get set for “the year of the squeeze”, says David Byers in The Sunday Times. The UK is facing “a cost-of-living catastrophe” by April, according to the Resolution Foundation, athink tank that focuses on living standards. By that point alone, “inflation is expected to hit 6%, the social care levy will kick in, the energy price cap will rise, income tax bands will be frozen and council taxes will go up – welcome to April, truly the cruellest month”. All these factors mean that average household costs could rise by £1,200 over the next 12 months, making it more important than ever to keep an eye on your personal finances in 2022. ■ New rules from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) designed to stop home and car insurers from…

• Millions of savers who are potentially affected by plans to increase the minimum age at which they can access their pensions have no idea the change is coming, new research warns. In April 2028, the earliest age at which pension savers will be able to take benefits from their private pension plans will increase from 55 to 57. However, the Pensions Management Institute’s research suggests that 82% of people in their mid- to late forties – the cohort most directly affected by the change – are not aware of the increase. • The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is studying plans to launch a compensation scheme for thousands of workers at British Steel who may have been wrongly advised to transfer their pension savings out of the company’s gold-plated occupational…

Shares in cinema company Cineworld (LSE: CINE) fell sharply last month after a Canadian court ruled it must pay C$1.23bn in damages over its abandoned takeover of rival Cineplex. The Canadian chain accused UK-based Cineworld of breaching its obligations by pulling out of the deal in June 2020 under pressure from investors and lenders. The group has struggled during the pandemic, after entering it with $7.68bn in debt due to rapid expansion in recent years. It avoided bankruptcy in November 2020 by securing $750m in emergency funding. The shares are down 55% over the last 12 months.…

I am not one for New Year’s resolutions, and I certainly do not want you thinking that I have turned over a new leaf and now embrace the subject of orange wines, but this inexpensive wine is indeed a rather wonderful way to welcome in 2022. Orange wines are white wines made in the same manner as red wines. They are fermented on their skins instead of crushing the grapes, discarding the skins and just carrying on with the juice. This technique of “skin contact” colours the wine, lending it an orange hue, hence the name. My problem with orange wines is that they often have a cidery, funky feel about them. There is a distinct lack of freshness coupled with raucous acidity. None of these traits excites me, but…

Will the auction world have an even better year than in 2021? It has its work cut out. The previous 12 months have seen a tidal wave of released pent-up demand stemming from the first year of the pandemic. According to art market research firm ArtTactic, auction sales at the big three auction houses – Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips – reached an all-time high of $12.5bn in 2021 up to 10 December, a rise of 69% on the same period in 2020, and 1.6% higher than the previous high, set in 2018. Sotheby’s accounted for almost half of that figure, with its sales figure for the year to mid-December the strongest in its 277-year history. Its auction sales, at $6bn, were 71% higher than last year, and even 26% higher…

• ”What is it with celebrities who make millions and think they’ve cracked the key to what it is the public really need?” wonders Mercy Muroki in The Sun. Pop singer Dua Lipa (pictured) is the latest celebrity-turned-lifestyle guru. The 26-year-old is launching a venture, called Service95, which she describes as“a style, culture and society concierge service”. Cue the rolling of eyes. Celebrity gurus Gwyneth Paltrow, Kourtney Kardashian and Reese Witherspoon already advise their fans on music and what to wear and read. “Do we really need… [another] star telling usif we buy those £100 candles, £500 face creams and go on a vegan diet of seaweed, hemp milk and chia seeds, we’ll be happy?” Most people would be happy with cheaper bills and the odd bargain in the sales.…

£11,000 The price per square foot an anonymous billionaire has paid for a four-bedroom, 3,442 sq ft duplex in the former War Office on Whitehall, London, for a combined £40m, beating the record £7,400 paid for a flat at One Hyde Park in 2017. The building has doubled as the headquarters of MI6 in three James Bond films, most recently in 1989’s Licence to Kill. 6.5trn The value of bribes in Russian roubles (£67bn) paid by companies in Russia to public procurement officials every year; more than is spent on education and healthcare, according to Russia’s RBC Media, citing research by the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. €132,680 How much, including fees, an NFT (non-fungible token) of the world’s first text message fetched at Paris auction house Aguttes. The…