Innehållsförteckning för 1091 från MoneyWeek

“We worry about the loss of the financial control that digital cash offers the state” When things change they often change very fast. Look at your portfolio and you will see what I mean. The growth stocks and funds that have been making you money for years have tanked: shares in Scottish Mortgage are down 28% in three months. Value stocks are soaring: BP is up 40% in six months. And the fact that the UK offers a degree of inexpensive safety is beginning to be recognised. The MSCI World index has fallen around 6% so far this year. Thanks to its cash-producing, dividend-paying miners, energy producers and banks, the MSCI UK index is up 3.6%. If this carries on, 2022 could be the first year the UK has outperformed…

Chitra Ramkrishna, the former head of India’s National Stock Exchange (NSE) has been fined 30 million rupees (£295,000) for disclosing confidential information to a spiritual guru, says BBC News. Ramkrishna, who left the NSE in 2016, consulted the unnamed Himalayan yogi on key decisions. The Securities and Exchange Board of India, the markets regulator, said the yogi was effectively running the NSE and Ramkrishna was “merely a puppet in his hands”. A geomagnetic storm has destroyed 40 satellites launched by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, says Fortune. The firm launched 49 satellites on 3 February at an estimated cost of $50m as part of its Starlink internet infrastructure project, but the storm prevented most from reaching a stable orbit.…

“Corporate America is flush with cash,” says Bob Pisani on CNBC. Most American firms have now reported their fourth-quarter earnings results, and profits are strong. Total sales could be on course to hit $3.5trn for the quarter for the first time. Profit margins have fallen back a touch due to higher commodity prices and soaring wage costs, but on 12.7% operating profit margins are still healthy. Companies have managed that by passing on price rises to customers instead of absorbing them in lower profits. However, as people start to feel the bite of higher prices, there are doubts about whether margins can remain so plump. Three-quarters of S&P 500 firms have now reported fourth-quarter earnings results, says Julia Horowitz for CNN. These show that 77% of reporting firms have beaten…

Two years after the pandemic began, consumer spending patterns remain far from normal. The first Covid-19 wave in March 2020 initially saw US consumer spending on goods and services plummet. Demand for goods quickly rebounded as households spent heavily on everything from computers to home decor to make lockdown more bearable. By May 2020 consumer spending on durable goods had returned to pre-pandemic levels; by March 2021 it was more than a third higher. Global supply chains struggled to keep up with demand. But services such as travel, haircuts and restaurants have had a slow recovery, with spending still not back at February 2020 levels. Services account for about three-quarters of US GDP, so a stronger rebound is vital.…

India’s initial public offerings (IPO) boom risks petering out as several of its highest-profile start-ups postpone listings, says Bloomberg. OYO Hotels, which provides booking and support services for the hospitality sector, and logistics firm Delhivery have delayed their debuts and are reconsidering their target valuations after a sell-off late last year burned investors. Fintech firm One97 Communications – which owns payments provider Paytm – raised a record Rs183trn (£1.8bn) in November, but its shares have since fallen 60%, “infuriating investors and fuelling concerns among regulators”. Hotly tipped e-commerce operators Zomato and Nykaa have also taken a battering.…

After a “bruising few weeks” Unilever’s CEO Alan Jope (pictured) attempted to placate shareholders last week with a series of “red meat” offerings, says Oscar Williams-Grut in the Evening Standard. These include a new €3bn share buyback, a 3% increase to the dividend, and a promise to rule out major deals, such as the botched bid for GSK’s consumer division. Yet Unilever has some “serious questions to answer” that “won’t be magicked away” by a share buyback, says Ben Marlow in The Daily Telegraph. These include “how one of the FTSE 100’s biggest names keeps blindsiding its shareholder base”. Another is “what exactly is the strategy now that large-scale deals are off the table”. A third question that the board needs to tackle is whether “the obsession with social purpose…

• Lyssa McGowan (pictured) is set to join FTSE 250 retailer Pets at Home as chief executive on 25 April, ending a period of uncertainty over who would replace Peter Pritchard, says The Times. Her annual salary of £580,000 will be a 5.5% increase on Pritchard’s; she will also be eligible for a maximum annual bonus worth 170% of her salary and a pension contribution worth 6.5% of base salary. McGowan was formerly a non-executive director at supermarket Wm Morrison. • Mark Hartigan, boss of insurer LV, is under pressure to give up his £740,000 bonus for 2021, following his and chairman Alan Cook’s “botched attempt” to sell the mutual to private-equity firm Bain Capital, says the Daily Mail. LV members voted against the £530m sale in December, but not…

Put simply, liquidity refers to how easy it is to buy or sell an asset without moving the price against you. For example, property – both residential and commercial – is an illiquid asset. It takes a long time to buy or sell, trading costs (from stamp duty to surveys) are high, you can never be quite sure of the price you’ll get (or pay) until the deal has closed, and if you want to sell in a hurry, you’ll have to cut your price to well below the theoretical “market value”. On the other hand, shares in big, listed companies (“blue chips”) on the FTSE 100, for example, are very liquid. They are also “fungible” – ie, one share is the same as another, whereas each property is unique…

“I’m nearly 50, I want to have good times, not s*** times. I’d love to get off my t*ts all the time, but I can’t handle it. And bills have to be paid.” Former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher (pictured) on why he’s had to give up wild parties, quoted in The Sunday Times “In finance I earned low to mid six figures, but it’s a grind and you’re selling part of your soul. It doesn’t compare with being in a nightclub, playing music you love for other people, and to be the centre of attention and paid to be drunk.” Olympic snowboarder Benjamin Alexander on why he gave up his job in finance to become a DJ when young, quoted in The Daily Telegraph “When Jackass got on TV, there…

London-based hedge fund Bluebell Capital is pressuring mining company Glencore to spin-off its coal-mining business, says the Financial Times. Bluebell’s plan would demerge Glencore’s coal arm into a separate business and have the new company adopt a dual-class share structure. Glencore would retain the A shares to allow it to retain control and would keep the marketing rights to its coal. The B shares – which would carry rights to 90% of the new firm’s profits – would be distributed to Glencore shareholders. Bluebell claims that owning a large coal-mining division makes Glencore less attractive as a merger or takeover candidate. “Coal is effectively a ‘poison pill’ in an industry where further consolidation is needed,” says the fund.…

The bigger players dominate luxury-goods sales. Revenue at LVMH (Paris: MC) rose by 44% year-on-year to €64.2bn in 2021, and by 20% compared to 2019, before the pandemic (excluding the impact of its acquisition of Tiffany, sales were up 36%). LVMH has around 75 individual brands (“maisons”) covering a wide range of businesses and is the all-in-one way to invest in the luxury boom through a single stock. Its share-price performance (see chart) is testament to that. Sales at the smaller Swiss group Richemont (Zürich: CFR) – which is also diversified among brands, but more concentrated in watches and jewellery including Cartier – fell from €14.2bn to €13.1bn, but a 30% rise in fourth-quarter sales showed a recovery was underway. The third of the conglomerate-style businesses is Kering (Paris: KER),…

• Savers got a small boost this week with the news that National Savings & Investments (NS&I) was increasing the interest rate on two of its most popular accounts. The rate on its Direct Saver and Income Bonds has risen from 0.35% to 0.5%. It is a step in the right direction, but not a table-topping rate. Ford Money is offering the best rate on instant access savings at 0.73%. Money held with NS&I is 100% guaranteed because it is backed by the Treasury, making it a popular home for the nation’s savings – it currently holds £205bn. “The amount of cash NS&I can raise in a year is limited to between £3bn and £9bn because it is not supposed to be competing with commercial banks,” says George Nixon in…

• The standard advice to savers with lots of small pension plans is that consolidating them with one provider is often a good idea. However, financial advisers are concerned that many savers don’t realise that older pensions often come with perks no longer available or allowed. For example, some pensions used to offer the option of taking larger sums in tax-free cash on retirement, while others offered built-in inflation protection. Always check you’re not giving up such perks when considering consolidation. • Older people feeling the squeeze as the cost of living continues to rise may be missing out on valuable benefits, new research reveals. The average home-owning pensioner fails to claim almost £1,200 of benefits for which they’re eligible, according to Just Group. It also warns too many pension…

Innovation is not necessarily dependent on the latest tech. Rather, an innovative business is one that creates genuine value for customers by delivering a product at a lower price or a higher quality-to-price ratio than what was available before. In terms of lower price, think of Costco, which beats Walmart and even the mighty Amazon by welcoming its members directly into its warehouse premises. In terms of quality-to-price think of the ever-growing value proposition of the Apple iPhone, now a 15-year-old invention. “If an innovative product is easy to replicate, nobody makes any money” But not every great innovation is a good investment. A successful innovative business must capture an adequate share of the value it creates. If an innovative product is easy to replicate, then everybody does it and…

• This Morning TV presenter Holly Willoughby (pictured) has unveiled The Wild, her new £41 bespoke perfume for her lifestyle brand Wylde Moon, says Amanda Platell in the Daily Mail. Willoughby launched Wylde Moon last October, selling a range of jewellery designed by Kirstie Le Marque, including a £450 diamond crescent moon and stars pendant and £495 diamond and moonstone earrings. The scent is her latest offering. Willoughby describes it as “a wild country garden after rainfall”. The English National Opera was to be in attendance during the official launch because Willoughby, she says, loves the “powerful voices [that] help me reconnect with my inner voice and not be afraid to express it”. “Such navel-gazing drivel over a pong which by her own admission smells like soggy manure!” • The…

Australia will spend A$50m (£26.4m) on trying to preserve its koala population, after the iconic creature joined the list of endangered species following a sharp population decline, says The Sydney Morning Herald. The koala population on the east coast of Australia has seen a rapid decline in many areas due to habitat damage from land-clearing, drought, dog attacks and wildfires. The 2019-2020 “Black Summer” bushfires are thought to have killed 10,000 animals alone. The government’s new funding package includes A$20m in grants to state governments, environmental groups and industry for habitat restoration, A$10m for community initiatives and A$10m for a “koala census” to keep an accurate track of population figures. However, environmental groups are calling for more work to prevent habitat destruction, since 43,113 hectares of koala habitat were cleared…

Oil prices are racing towards $100 a barrel. Brent crude futures hit $96 a barrel early this week, the highest level in more than seven years. That reflected fears of an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine, a risk that traders had largely ignored until now. “Russia produces ten million barrels of oil a day, roughly 10% of global demand,” says Clifford Krauss in The New York Times. A war, and resulting Western sanctions, could remove some of that supply from global markets. This week’s jump shows traders starting to “price in a sizeable geopolitical risk premium” into oil prices, say Christopher Matthews and Collin Eaton in The Wall Street Journal. While Western governments are reluctant to sanction Russian energy, they may ultimately be forced to do so. Demand exceeds supply…

“Hong Kong’s draconian pursuit of Covid-19 elimination… has left the city cut off from the rest of the world… [and] led to real concerns about the city’s survival as a financial centre. But… the future of the Chinese territory… is more secure than any global rival except for New York. That is because China has capital controls… There is enormous pent-up appetite both from mainland Chinese wanting to diversify their savings into international markets, and foreign investors wanting to buy assets [in China]… A series of so-called Connect schemes in the city allow foreigners to access Chinese markets and Chinese investors to place money abroad… It is a phenomenal, structural source of financial business, with few parallels anywhere in the world… All this could change if China dropped its capital…

Three to buy Dunelm Investors’ Chronicle Homeware retailer Dunelm thrived in the pandemic and the boom has continued. The firm’s market share has grown thanks to the collapse of “indebted high-street rivals” such as Debenhams, and it has “far outstripped the overall market”. Management is now expecting pre-tax profits for the full year to be nearly a third higher than they were in 2021. The challenge for the coming year will be how it deals with inflationary pressures and a slowdown in consumer growth due to increasing costs of living, but “as a retailer with a focus on value” it could continue to benefit. 1,285p Pets at Home Shares Shares in the UK’s leading pet equipment and veterinary services group have dropped 13% from late December, “which means they look…

• ”A minor miracle is about to happen,” says Nils Pratley in The Guardian. After 14 years, the state’s stake in the former RBS (now NatWest) will soon fall below 50%. The public purse is never going to recoup the full £46bn that the UK pumped into RBS in the financial crisis, but a strategy of selling shares off bit-by-bit has worked well lately. The price is now 253p, up from 95p in September 2020, and “there is every reason… to keep dribbling shares into the market”. Still, the outlook for the economy is getting cloudier and investors will want to see if CEO Alison Rose still sounds as positive in the upcoming results as she did back in October. “The mood may be shifting.” • US defence firm Lockheed…

US president Joe Biden has set off a “firestorm of controversy” for his decision to seize $7bn in Afghanistan’s US foreign-currency reserves, says Jack Detsch in Foreign Policy. The idea is to evenly split the money, which has been frozen since the Taliban came to power, between a trust fund for the Afghan people and for compensation for those killed or injured during the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. The White House argues that its plan will prevent the cash being “tied up in the courts for years”, noting that “as much as 80%” of the reserves “came from foreign-aid donations”. None of that justifies the action, says The Guardian. It goes against the principle in US law that central-bank funds are supposed to enjoy diplomatic immunities. And a large…

The Commons gravy train never stops rolling, says the Daily Mail. A decade on from the expenses scandal, one in seven MPs still has a spouse or child on the public payroll. Relatives of 88 politicians, including cabinet ministers, help to run offices, at a cost to the taxpayer of at least £2.7m. Christine Chope, wife of Tory MP Christopher Chope, earns the most at up to £60,000 for secretarial work; Jennifer Dorries, daughter of the culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, is paid up to £50,000 as a senior parliamentary assistant; and Clare Coffey, the sister of the work and pensions minister, Thérèse Coffey, earns up to £30,000 as a part-time caseworker. Meanwhile, 20 MPs let out their London properties while claiming over £400,000 for second homes and hotel expenses. All…

Emerging-market stocks are “highly out of favour, misunderstood, and mispriced”, Rupal Bhansali of Ariel Investments – “a committed contrarian” – tells Barron’s. Most emerging markets have been hard-hit by Covid-19 while political risks have made the outlook even worse in many cases. Brazil and Peru have both “taken it on the chin”: Credicorp, Peru’s largest financial services group, and BB Seguridade, the insurance arm of Brazil’s top bank, have both seen their share prices plummet. However, “the bad news has been priced in”. Credicorp has a 30% market share across many areas of Peruvian finance including investment banking and insurance, while Peru’s status as a top copper exporter should boost the overall economy. Meanwhile BB Seguridade is set to post record earnings in 2022 as the Brazilian central bank raises…

■ Savers have £45bn invested in funds that have failed consistently to beat their benchmarks, says The Daily Telegraph. The number of funds that have underperformed every year for the last three years – and by at least 5% in total – had risen from 77 in summer 2021 to 86 by the year’s end, according to the latest half-yearly Spot the Dog report from broker Bestinvest. St James’s Place, the UK’s largest wealth manager, and fund managers Abrdn and Jupiter each had six funds on the list. St James’s Place’s underperforming funds, which had £5.7bn in assets, ”accounted for six out of the top 10 most expensive poor performers”. Schroders had no laggards under its own name, but runs £8.6bn in seven funds marketed by Halifax and Scottish Widows,…

As end of the tax year draws closer, the financial services industry is eager to tell people to use their tax-free savings allowances before they lose them. But when it comes to pension contributions, don’t fall for the marketing hype. In fact, the rules on private pension savings are much more relaxed when it comes to the annual allowance than people often realise. While there is an annual allowance on private pension contributions – £40,000 for most people – it is also possible to carry forward unused allowances over several years. If you did not use your annual allowance in full in any of the three tax years prior to the current one, you may be able to take advantage this tax year. For example, imagine a saver with the…

With interest rates and inflation rising, many growth stocks – particularly those not yet making profits – have seen their share prices sink. However, this pullback has also hit the prices of several high-growth, highly profitable software companies with wide moats that protect them against competition. This has created buying opportunities. Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE), a substantial company with a market cap of $234bn, is one such opportunity. Most people have used Adobe PDF files at one time or another. PDF (or portable document format) is used to present electronic documents in exactly the format that the creator wants. Almost everyone has Adobe Reader on their computer to read these files. The firm also produces Photoshop, a very popular image-editing tool that has become the industry standard for digital arts. But…

Shares in aviation services firm John Menzies (LSE: MNZS) soared after a takeover bid from Kuwait’s National Aviation Services (NAS) last Wednesday, says The Independent. NAS’s offer of 510p per share, which values the company at £469m, was 52% higher than the previous closing price of 335p. Menzies has rejected the bid – which is the second approach from NAS – saying it “fundamentally undervalue Menzies and its future prospects”. The firm has struggled in the pandemic and has had to slash costs by £25m, but the shares are now up by 86% over the past year.…

Charles II was born in 1630 to King Charles I and his wife Henrietta Maria, and he went on to fight in the Civil War before spending several years in exile. He was crowned king in 1660 when Oliver Cromwell’s commonwealth collapsed, leading to the restoration of the monarchy. Charles’s reign, which lasted until 1685, was characterised by his involvement in various wars against the Spanish, French and Dutch, and his poor relations with Parliament, which he prorogued several times. He was also a spendthrift, lavishing large sums on his court. What was the trade? The cost of the wars and the king’s lifestyle, as well as difficulties raising taxes and the large debts inherited from his father, left the Exchequer in financial dire straits. Not even the sale of…

One Party After Another The Disruptive Life of Nigel Farage Michael Crick Simon & Schuster, £25 Nigel Farage is arguably “one of the most significant figures in modern British politics”, says Robert Shrimsley in the Financial Times. He forced David Cameron to grant a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, ultimately leading to Britain’s departure from the bloc; his dramatic political comeback in 2019, just in time for the European elections, effectively destroyed both Theresa May and her Brexit deal. Still, there is a sense that his impact hasn’t properly been acknowledged “by the political establishment he despises”, with Boris Johnson, and even Dominic Cummings, now seen by many as the decisive factor in Leave’s success. Michael Crick’s book seeks to make the case for his more central role.…

A gold cube worth $11.7m popped up in New York’s Central Park at the start of this month. It is made of 186kg of pure 24-karat gold and was the creation of 43-year-old German artist Niclas Castello, who has branded it the “Castello Cube”. The work is not for sale, we learn, but was a publicity stunt for the launch of an accompanying cryptocurrency, the Castello Coin. The Castello Coin is being traded as $CAST and is trading at an initial price of $0.44. “Thousands of new currencies have been born. Most are now dead” It costs almost nothing to launch a crypto coin and nothing to add more of them. So, whenever people buy the coin, it’s almost pure profit to the creator. Cool. But… but… the Germans must…

Olympic skier Eileen Gu (pictured), who won the big air event last week, earned at least ¥200m (£23m) from brand endorsements in 2021, says Yahoo News. Gu, who was born in the US but competes for China, has become the face of at least 23 Chinese brands, according to market-research firm CBN Data, including sports, fashion, banking and food companies. Musician Sting has sold the songwriting rights for his entire catalogue to Universal Music for an undisclosed price estimated to be around $300m, says The New York Times. The deal, which includes both his work with The Police and his solo output, is the latest in a spate of sales by older artists, who are cashing in as music firms and other investors rush to buy up rights.…

Food prices are a “decisive factor for the emergence of inflation”, says WirtschaftWoche. Central banks can’t control the price of wheat and corn through monetary policy – these are “largely determined by crop yields, inventories and transport costs” and are now marching higher. Fertiliser companies such as Norway’s Yara International are an obvious way to benefit. The firm is one of the world’s biggest producers of nitrogen fertilisers, a market that has also been disrupted by the rising price of natural gas, its key input. The shares offer a “very attractive” dividend – a forecast yield of 6.75%, according to Morningstar – although investors should note that Norway levies a 25% dividend withholding tax on that.…

London was dealt a “huge blow” after Japanese tech conglomerate SoftBank “quashed hopes” that one of Britain’s most successful technology firms would return to its home market, say Louisa Clarence-Smith and Patrick Hosking in The Times. SoftBank’s CEO Masayoshi Son said Cambridge-based chip designer ARM – which his firm bought in 2016 – will most likely be listed on the Nasdaq exchange in the US by March 2023. The announcement follows the cancellation of a planned $66bn sale of ARM to US chip firm Nvidia “due to intense international scrutiny from regulators due to competition concerns”. SoftBank’s decision to list ARM in New York is “the best option left for the Japanese group”, say Paul Sandle and John McCrank on Reuters. US investors remain much more willing to “pay top…

Chinese president Xi Jinping has told Hong Kong to “take all necessary steps” to contain the city’s fifth and biggest Covid-19 wave, “sparking fears of more stringent measures”, say Chan Ho-him and Primrose Riordan in the Financial Times. In a “rare directive”, Xi said Hong Kong should “mobilise all possible forces and resources” to protect public health and maintain social stability. The city, which has a relatively low double vaccination rate of 64%, is one of the few remaining places to be pursuing a “dynamic zero” policy and so far it has been highly effective, says Didi Tang in The Times. Since the start of the pandemic in 2020, there have been a reported 26,000 infections and 223 deaths. The latest crisis, which has so far claimed 14 lives, is…

Joe Biden may have only been in office as US president for just over one year, but already the betting markets are heavily discounting his chances of being re-elected. With £794,668 matched on Betfair, Donald Trump (pictured) is currently the favourite to be the next president at 5 (20%) with Biden in second place at 6.4 (15.6%). Florida governor Ron DeSantis is at 8.2 (12.1%), while the vice-president, Kamala Harris, is at 11.5 (8.7%). Mike Pence at 22 (4.5%) and Nikki Haley at 25 (4%) are the next in a long list of presidential contenders. Biden isn’t even odds on to become the Democrat’s candidate. With £260,201 matched on Betfair, he is at 3.55 (28.2%) to be the nominee, though this is better than Harris at 5 (20%), Pete Buttigieg…

It was not the kind of warning you see very often in company statements. In its annual report filed with regulators in New York earlier this month, Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, stated bluntly that it may be forced to pull its operations from the EU. The reason? That planned rules for transferring data between America and the EU were so onerous it would be impossible for the company to operate anymore. Leaving would be the only responsible option. You might think that would be of concern to the EU’s leaders. Meta is, after all, one of the world’s biggest, most innovative, and fastest-growing businesses with a market value of close on $600bn and more than two billion users, and which is investing huge sums in new products.…

As MoneyWeek goes to press it looks as though concerns about an imminent invasion of Ukraine by Russia are dimming (see page 8). But at the end of last week, when the US warned that Russia might be just days from acting, markets unsurprisingly took the news badly. Stockmarkets fell and both oil and gold (the classic geopolitical assets) jumped. As an investor, when you see these sorts of headlines and watch these panicky market reactions, it’s easy to feel you should be doing something, or at least taking the story into account when you look at your portfolio. “You never know how the market will react to a crisis” But the honest answer is that when it comes to geopolitics, the best option for most investors is just to…

Sunak’s poisoned chalice Jeremy Warner The Daily Telegraph Rising inflation and interest rates have resulted in “big losses” in government bond markets, says Jeremy Warner. This greatly increases both the costs of financing the deficit and the losses sustained on the Bank of England’s £895bn stockpile of government debt, built up over more than a decade of “quantitative easing”. QE is a form of interest-rate swap. The Treasury pays the promised coupon on the debt to the Bank’s asset purchase facility (APF), but the Bank “shells out only Bank Rate on the reserves held by commercial banks”. Any resulting surplus in the APF is then paid back to the government. These transfers to the exchequer total nearly £120bn. But as interest rates rise, the benefit the government derives from…

It’s easy to assume that a trust with the word “income” in its title is very much in the “value” camp, investing in companies with high dividends but that are mature, declining or mis-managed businesses. Charles Luke, the manager of the £1bn Murray Income Trust (LSE: MUT) has different ideas, emphasising the importance of “quality” companies. This means those with high returns on invested capital based on the durability of the business model, the attractiveness of the industry, the strength of its financials, the capability of its management and a good environmental, social and governance (ESG) profile. “The academic evidence is very clear,” he says. “Good quality companies outperform because the market systematically underestimates the sustainability of their returns. Quality is the key to long-term success.” The price of this…

“Without basic bitches like me, you wouldn’t be fashionable,” Emily Cooper, the trendy young American marketer, tells stuffy French fashion designer Pierre Cadault in the popular Netflix series Emily in Paris. The exchange illustrates the tensions in the luxury goods sector, because – as Emily suggests – it is “basic bitches” like her that are now driving the market. The world of luxury is changing, whether Cadault likes it or not, and investors should take note. To understand how and why, we first need to thumb through our millennial dictionary to discover just what is a “basic bitch”. One definition comes from a 2014 New York magazine article as “a terminally boring Sex and the City viewer and consumer of pumpkin-spice lattes”. (Screenwriter Darren Star created both Sex and the…

The spike in oil and gas prices will see the average household energy bill rise by £700 this year. Fuel costs have also risen. Inflation is expected to top 7% by the spring as supply-chain problems and staff shortages push up the cost of many everyday items. National Insurance contributions are rising in April with employees, employers and the self-employed all paying 1.25p more per pound. Anybody living on dividends will also see a commensurate 1.25 percentage point increase in the tax rates they pay. All these factors have contributed to a cost of living crisis that is leaving many household budgets under strain. If you are in this position, there are frankly no easy answers, but it’s important to look at anything you can do to offset rising bills.…

Private pensions are unique among government-backed tax efficient savings vehicles in imposing a cap on how much people can build up in their pots and not just how much they can pay in each year. The lifetime allowance imposes stiff tax charges on pension funds that grow to become worth more than a certain amount. At the moment, the limit stands at £1,073,100, except for a limited number of savers who enjoy one of several types of protection for larger amounts that they built up before the current level of the allowance was set. The number of people being caught out by this cap continues to increase. The government has increased the tax revenue it earns from lifetime allowance breaches by 1,068% over the past decade, reckons accountancy firm Mazars.…

Joules (LSE: JOUL) is a mid-market clothing retailer. Shares in the company fell by 40% at the beginning of February after a second profit warning in two months. Forecast pre-tax profits for this financial year are expected to be “not less than” £5m, down from a worst-case scenario of £9m in December. Sales in the nine weeks to 30 January were 31% higher than in 2021, but visits to its stores last month were still down 36% from before Covid-19. Supply chain delays and higher warehouse costs will further dent profits. The share price is down by 66% over the last year.…

2017 Quinta da Leda, Casa Ferreirinha, Douro, Portugal £59.10, hedonism.co.uk; £49, vintagewineand port.co.uk I enjoyed an epiphanic tasting the other day at the brilliant Corrigan’s Mayfair. The restaurant formed a perfect backdrop for a simply spectacular line-up of Casa Ferreirinha wines. The Vinha Grande white, rosé and red from this historic Portuguese estate are three of the country’s most highly specced wines. The focus of the tasting was the 2011 Barca-Velha (£545, hedonism.co.uk), Ferreirinha’s iconic red. I tasted the 1982, 1991, 1999 and the new 2011, and every wine was revelatory. The 2011 is the finest young Portuguese red wine I have ever tasted and awarded it a score of 19.5+/20 in my notes – this is a first for a Portuguese red. I have written up my full tasting…

€253.3m The cost to British taxpayers in the form of non-refundable payments made to French vaccine-maker Valneva after the government pulled out of a €1.4bn deal to buy 100 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine in September last year. £20m The amount since 2014 that has been spent on transforming Newquay airport into a satellite launch hub dubbed “Spaceport Cornwall”, says The Sunday Times. Funding has come from the local council, the UK Space Agency and Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit. $1trn The amount of new debt US households took on in 2021 to fund more expensive car and home purchases, says the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It is the largest increase since 2007. Total consumer debt has risen to $15.6trn, from $14.6trn a year earlier. £467,325.60 How much…