Innehållsförteckning för 1112 från MoneyWeek

Rishi Sunak says that if he becomes prime minster he will cut taxes as soon as he “has gripped” inflation. That would be nice. Over the past 12 years of Conservative government, middle- and high-income-earning households have become “significantly worse off”, says The Times. In 2010, tax freedom day (the day when you have earned enough to pay all your taxes) came on 30 May. This year it came on 8 June. You can thank the government for nine extra days working for the state (with, as far as I can see, no obvious improvement in the public services the state provides in return). This is mostly about fiscal drag: if the threshold for paying the 40% rate of tax had risen in line with inflation since 2010, it would…

“Twitter is a toxic environment for impressionable investors. The people taking the biggest losses [on cryptocurrencies] today are among the most extremely online people in our society. Stay out of rabbit holes. Most of them do not contain a treasure chest at the bottom. The more time you spend exposed to the firehose of opinion, misinformation, promotion and grift on Twitter, the more susceptible you become. Stick around long enough and you can become convinced of anything. The algorithm is designed that way. I know people whose brains have become scrambled or rewired by it. Can’t even have a conversation with them anymore. When you ask: ‘How could an otherwise normal middle-aged man who works a 40-hour week and raises a family end up on the steps of the [US]…

Having raised $4bn in July 2020, investor and hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman (pictured) is now “winding up the largest-ever special-purpose acquisition company [Spac] after failing to find a target”, says Julie Steinberg in the Wall Street Journal. Regulations state that Spacs, listed shell firms that raise money from outside investors with the aim of merging with a private company, need to do a deal within two years or return their money to investors. With the deadline close, Ackman decided that Pershing Square Tontine Holdings (PSTH) “couldn’t find a target that met its investment criteria”. PSTH was dealt a major blow last year when its attempts to pull off a “complex and novel transaction with Universal Music Group” fell through, says Ortenca Aliaj in the Financial Times. The deal would have…

Vossloh is on the right track, says Börse Online. The rail infrastructure group, whose products range from tracks and concrete sleepers to fastening and signalling systems, is set to benefit from a local and global effort to improve rail infrastructure. Germany recently announced a multibillion-euro revamp of the country’s tracks and points, while the latest G7 meeting produced a $600bn worldwide infrastructure investment programme, a significant proportion of which will be devoted to railways. Vossloh recently raised its forecasts for 2022, with sales now expected to reach up to €1.5bn; orders are pouring in. A recent dip in the share price and a yield of 3% are further reasons to buy.…

Kemi Badenoch as Tory party leader would be Labour’s “worst nightmare”, says Madeleine Grant in The Daily Telegraph. “Intelligent, straight-talking, young, black, female, a first-generation immigrant”, she has the potential to “disarm the Opposition” and rob them of their “most potent lines of attack”. She has “properly conservative instincts” and has “ruled out unfunded tax cuts, insisting that any reductions be accompanied by institutional reform and a permanent shrinking of the state”. She has a “coherent philosophy” which the Tories “sorely need”. Rishi Sunak is a much more likely choice and Labour will be “praying for the Tories” not to vote for him, says Simon Jenkins in The Guardian. His final days at the Treasury and fight against Johnson’s “plea for tax cuts” saw him strong in his resolve to…

The Conservatives are voting this week in successive rounds each day to narrow the list of candidates down to a final two who will then face the party membership (see previous page). This means the prices available will have changed considerably by the time you read this column, so it makes sense to wait until next week before I make a recommendation. Instead, I’ll focus on the various markets on the US mid-term elections, which are now less than four months away. Bookmakers and betting exchanges have added additional markets over the past few weeks. One contest worth betting on is the gubernatorial race in Michigan, where the Democrat incumbent Gretchen Whitmer (pictured) is facing re-election. The Republican candidate will be decided by a primary at the start…

With the unfortunate exception of Rishi Sunak, who is boxed in by his record as chancellor, every candidate to take over from Boris Johnson as prime minister is promising spectacular cuts in tax. It is a little hard to work out what they have all been doing for the last couple of years while taxes were being raised to peacetime records, given how much they dislike them. But still, cynicism aside, it is refreshing to see that the Conservative Party still has some interest in lower taxes. The trouble is, with an economy heading into recession and with huge demand for better public services, it does not sound very credible. We can’t cut national insurance, corporation tax, VAT, fuel duty or inheritance tax at the same time as spending record…

The price/earnings (p/e) ratio is a popular measure for assessing whether a share is cheap. It’s simple to calculate – you just divide the share price by earnings per share. A low number (eg, below ten) suggests that you aren’t paying much for each £1 of earnings, while a high number indicates a stock may be expensive (unless it’s growing rapidly). The p/e ratio has one obvious weakness. Using just one year of profits means a stock – particularly one in a cyclical business, such as mining – can look cheap because profits happen to be peaking at that point and are set to plunge when the business turns back down in line with the economic cycle. An analyst looking at a single company may be able to assess whether…

“My true understanding of whether I love tennis would be: if I love tennis, I would go out there and play tennis, whether I got paid for it or not… I have not gotten to that point where I haven’t been paid for it. So I don’t know the answer.” John McEnroe (pictured) reflects on what motivates him to play tennis in a new documentary film about his life, quoted in The Guardian “Unlike some of my girlfriends, I came out worse from my marriages than I went in.” Former Conservative MP Anna Soubry says that the worst investment she ever made was getting married, quoted in The Sunday Times “To pay my rent and keep a roof over my head and [schnauzer-poodle] Ruby’s head, so she is comfortable and…

bbc.com/worklife A school outing might have been fun when you were a child, says Kate Morgan. As an adult, the equivalent team-building exercises and morale-boosting parties and so on feel more like “forced fun”. The pandemic-induced shake-up of office culture has, thankfully, largely put an end to such things as more people work from home, at least part of the time, and have learnt to value time at home with their families more than after-hours laser tag. Companies have for years been trying to make the office more “fun”, largely by turning them into nurseries, with bean bags and arcade games and ping-pong tables. But this was always more about getting people to not mind staying in the office longer. And if you objected to hanging out for the extra…

Paul Pindar, chairman of online estate agency Purplebricks, has been urged to resign. Lecram Holdings, a vehicle run by investor Adam Smith, built a 4% stake in the firm in the last month, and wants Pindar to step down after overseeing an 85% crash in the group’s share price since it floated on Aim in 2015. That reduced the firm’s market value from £240m to £45m. The drop in the stock was caused by profit warnings and operational blunders. Mistakes dealing with tenants in its lettings business cost it £3.6m, for instance. In a letter to the CEO, Lecram outlined the need to address “continuing cash burn” and operating performance under new leadership. An investor with a 5% stake can ask the board to call an extraordinary general meeting.…

● Paying your car insurance annually rather than monthly could save you nearly £60 a year, says The Sunday Times. Research by Compare the Market found that the average car insurance policy quote between January and April was £752 if you paid monthly and £693 if you paid upfront. Monthly payments are higher as most insurers require a 20% deposit, and the interest of 15% to 35% gets added to the remaining 11 payments. ● A record-breaking 8.6 million parking tickets were issued by private car parks over the last year, according to the DVLA. There has been a 50% rise in tickets over the past four years. The government has announced a private parking code of practice to crack down on overcharging, misleading signs and aggressive tactics but the…

● Loss-making companies claiming tax credits for their investment in research and development (R&D) could lose out as the government tries to crack down on fraud. Ministers have imposed new caps on the value of tax credits available for R&D, which could see some firms missing out on benefits worth tens of thousands of pounds. The measures apply only to loss-making firms – profitable firms are entitled to R&D relief through reduced corporation tax bills – but will hit some hard. ● A sharp increase in the number of company directors struck off by the Insolvency Service is closely linked to concerns about abuse of Covid-19 support schemes, new data shows. More than a third of all directors struck off during April and May were cases where the Insolvency Service…

In the past month my open long tips have put in a mixed performance, with three out of the four rising. Supermarket J Sainsbury rose from 204p to 214p, telecommunications firm Airtel Africa climbed from 142p to 146p and fast food chain Domino’s Pizza increased from 375p to 398p. However, coach operator National Express fell from 224p to 174p. Pending tips ASOS, JD Sports, Pets at Home and Hays Recruitment all remain below the price at which you should start going long. Overall, my long tips are making combined profits of £1,042, down from £1,102. Five of my six short tips rose. Cinema chain AMC increased from $11.48 to $14.95, remote-medicine firm Teladoc advanced from $29.20 to $39.59, online-marketing firm HubSpot went up from $291 to $295 and KE Holdings…

Shares in Supreme (Aim: SUP), which makes and distributes batteries, lighting, vaping and sports-nutrition products, fell sharply last week after it warned that sales and profits would dip in 2023, says Shares magazine. The company enjoyed a 25% jump in pre-tax profits last year and a 7% increase in sales, but the cost of raw materials has been rising, while consumers overstocked during the pandemic. The warning sent the shares down 28% in a single day, leaving them trading 30% below their February 2021 flotation price. The stock has lost 55% over the last 12 months.…

It’s not only classic cars that may have peaked (see left), second-hand luxury watches may have too. “After reaching record highs earlier this year, prices for the most desirable watches on the secondary market, including the coveted Rolex, have now fallen,” says Andrea Felsted on Bloomberg. A heady mixture of crypto-asset appreciation, stockmarket gains, stimulus cash and speculation helped fuel the market bubble in 2021. And when financial markets began to “whipsaw earlier this year, some investors were keen to put their money into more tangible stores of value”, such as collectable timepieces. Younger traders joined long-time collectors. Together, they chased “the holy trinity of the most-hyped watches” – the Rolex Daytona (pictured), the Patek Philippe Nautilus and the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak. All were trading for several…

Investors are in trouble. The last six months were the worst in the stockmarket since 1970. As for the bond market, they were the worst since George Washington was president. The seas are looking stormy. Almost everywhere you look, sailors cling to wreckage. One is buoyed by a busted up tech stock. Another grabs a cracked-up crypto and holds on for dear life. The high winds and monster waves have come from three different directions. First, the stockmarket itself. A bear market takes on a life of its own. As investors’ boats sink, they need to jettison other things to stay afloat. The good, the bad, the ugly – all end up as flotsam and jetsam. A real bear market typically takes stock prices down about 35%. This one has…

Boris Johnson’s departure from Downing Street should help him put his “chaotic finances” in order, says The Times. Being in government has famously been tough on Johnson: in 2019, he made £624,000, thanks to speaking gigs and newspaper columns, but as prime minister he earns £164,080. That’s “well below the £300,000 a year he tells friends that he needs to keep his head above water” – hence Tory donors being asked to help pay for renovating his flat, subsidising his food bill and even a nanny for his son. After leaving office, his pay as MP will drop to just £84,144 – but that’s unlikely to last long. “If previous prime ministers are anything to go by, Johnson has little to worry about.” All since John Major have become multi-millionaires,…

As global central banks start to hike interest rates, New Zealand is “the canary in the coal mine”, says Sharon Zollner of ANZ Bank. Spared the worst of the pandemic, New Zealand was one of the first developed countries to start tightening monetary policy. Since October last year the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ), the central bank, has raised rates from 0.25% to 2%. This week it announced a further hike to 2.5%, with rates forecast to peak at 4% next year. That makes the RBNZ “the first of its peers to lift its benchmark rate above a neutral level”, which it reckons is 2%, say Matthew Brockett and Enda Curran on Bloomberg. That means that rather than stimulating demand, monetary policy should now start to weaken it. Concern…

The global food crisis is starting to ease. Prices of key crops soared after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, says Michelle Cheng for Quartz. “The two countries together export about 30% of the world’s wheat”, and the war has also disrupted fertiliser supplies. However, those post-invasion gains have since been undone, with soy and corn prices flat since the start of the year and US wheat futures down 35% since their 7 March peak. That partly reflects hopes for favourable weather for US corn and soybean harvests. Demand has also slid as higher prices cause consumers to eat less meat (which reduces the demand for animal feed) and use less fuel (corn is a key source of biofuel). As ever, the best cure for high prices is high prices.…

Not content with buying Acceleron Pharma for $11bn last year, drug giant Merck is now eyeing up biotech firm Seagen, which develops novel cancer therapies, says Michelle F Davis on Bloomberg. There could be an agreement within weeks. If the deal does go ahead, Merck is likely to end up paying as much as $200 a share for Seagen, a roughly 14% premium to its price before the rumours emerged, bringing the total bill to about $37bn. There are certainly good reasons for Merck to buy Seagen, says the Wall Street Journal. It would “help broaden its line-up of cancer drugs”, which are currently led by the blockbuster immunotherapy Keytruda. While Keytruda generated $17.2bn in sales last year, and is expected to account for 40% of Merck’s revenue in the…

Italian manufacturer De Nora has launched the first major initial public offering (IPO) in Europe since the start of the Ukraine war, says CNBC. It floated in Milan last week. De Nora specialises in electrode and water-treatment technology, but is expanding into the production of “green hydrogen” through electrolysis, which it hopes will become increasingly competitive as the price of natural gas rises. The group’s confidence in its longer-term strategy helps explain why it made its debut in a volatile market, with the pan-European Eurostoxx 600 down by 14% in the first half of 2022. The shares were priced at €13.50, valuing the group at €2.7bn.…

London GSK heads for break up: Shareholders have overwhelmingly voted to break up pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) through the demerger and listing of its consumer healthcare business, Haleon, later this month, says Alex Ralph in The Times. At the general meeting last week, 99.8% of investors approved the plans. Glaxo Wellcome merged with Smith Kline Beecham in 2000 to form GSK, today one of Britain’s two leading drug companies, producing vaccines, pharmaceuticals and consumer healthcare products. It will continue to focus its investment on the pipeline of its remaining biopharma business under a strategy begun in 2018 to turn around GSK’s long-running underperformance, according to chief executive Emma Walmsley (pictured). She took over as CEO the previous year. Haleon is expected to be the largest listing in Europe in over…

● ”Another outing for the Heathrow hot-air balloon,” says Alistair Osborne in The Times. CEO John Holland-Kaye’s “latest excuse for the chaos at the airport” is an uptick in passengers, with apparently an extra 20 million since February. Holland-Kaye claims the airport has experienced “the equivalent of 40 years of growth in just four months” and that the increase in passengers is ‘exponential’. Yet these numbers are still well below pre-pandemic levels, and far from “unprecedented”. Perhaps the real reason why it’s having to axe flights is due to 600 of its 4,000 security staff being newbies who can’t clear passengers on time, or other issues under its control, such as problems with the baggage system. “Maybe things would be better, too, if the airport had a boss less focused…

“Recessions are usually created – they don’t happen naturally,” Rob Arnott, founder and chairman of asset management group Research Affiliates, tells Bloomberg. “Economic expansions don’t die of old age – they’re murdered by the [Federal Reserve]. And we’re seeing that happen again now.” In a paper written with colleague Campbell Harvey, Arnott notes that the US central bank ignored inflation for too long, and is now “late to the game”. That means there is a greater risk that it will overreact by raising interest rates too far and too fast now. Many of the drivers of inflation today – such as disrupted supply chains – cannot be fixed by the Fed. And yet, “to a person with a hammer, everything looks like a nail”. Given the risks, it makes sense…

bloomberg.com/opinion Why has inflation-adjusted wage growth in the US been so disappointing in the past year? The rise of “working from home” may explain it, says Jonathan Levin. New research from economists Jose Maria Barrero and Nicholas Bloom shows that part of the 3% decline in real average hourly earnings in the past year may reflect “the hidden cost of flexibility”. Workers spend less time commuting and grooming themselves for the office, and benefit from more time to spend with the kids, and so on, and this is being counted as a benefit in lieu of a pay rise, much like a company car or office gym. This is welcome news for policymakers concerned with keeping a lid on inflation. But workers missing out on wage rises now may yet…

■ “Abrdn is bringing index investing to the $5trn hedge-fund universe,” says The Wall Street Journal. Eclipse, the asset manager’s new platform, will be the first to give institutional investors passive exposure to hedge-fund strategies by tracking indices, the firm claims. The Hedge Fund Research Inc (HFRI) 500 includes an equal-weighted tracker of 500 hedge funds with different strategies. The platform will invest in the funds in HFR’s indices and will be run by abrdn’s alternative investment strategies team, which currently oversees roughly $14bn in assets. Hedge funds are supposed to thrive when stocks and bonds tumble, but their performance can vary widely. In the first six months of the year there was a 67% difference between the best- and worst-performing funds in the HFRI. The average hedge fund charges…

Summer is here and many of us are about to embark on our first post-pandemic foreign trip. If this applies to you, follow these steps to make sure you don’t get stung by any unexpected costs. Let’s start with where to pick up your holiday money. Opt to get it at the airport and you could pay more than you need to. Airport currency stands know they have a captive audience, so they charge over the odds for converting your pounds into foreign cash. This can be easily avoided, however. Use MoneySavingExpert’s Travel Money Max in advance to find the best price for your currency and you can get it delivered to your door. We found the best rate we could get for €1,000 was £855.43 from TravelFX. By contrast,…

Demands for pay rises may be the last thing small businesses feeling the squeeze want to grapple with. But just as their own costs are soaring – research from the Federation of Small Businesses shows that 82% are worried about inflation – so too are those of their staff. Employees facing a cost-of-living crisis will naturally hope that their employers will be generous. The danger of a confrontation is very real, as the growing number of wage disputes across the public sector underlines. And while many employers may not need to think about pay rises until later in the year – if salaries work on a calendar-year basis, say – they should be prepared; inflation is forecast to remain high for the foreseeable future. So you will need to consider…

In the immediate aftermath of the first wave of the pandemic there was much talk about the need to “build back better” by spending more on infrastructure. The idea was that this would not only jumpstart the major economies by putting people to work, but also make up for decades of underinvestment that had led to severe deficiencies, something that was increasingly acknowledged as a problem even before 2020. Throw in a housing boom, and it’s no surprise that the shares of firms involved in the manufacture and rental of construction and industrial equipment surged for most of last year. However, over the last nine months this boom has started to unravel. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, central banks have started to raise interest rates in order to…

The Securities Trust of Scotland invests in a portfolio of high-quality and resilient businesses that we expect to compound free cash flow reliably over the long term. This should provide a growing income stream that forms part of the balance of income and capital growth. The aim is to produce an above-average return with below-average volatility. With this approach we hope to establish the trust as the high-quality, conservatively managed global equity income trust in the sector. In a further effort to protect investors from undue volatility, especially those who have irreplaceable capital and a need for income, we have a discount-control mechanism in place. This keeps the share price close to net asset value (NAV) and provides liquidity for shareholders. At Troy Asset Management we concentrate our portfolios in…

£2.4bn The drop in the value of UK food exports to the EU in the first 15 months following Brexit. Data tracking of exports to the continent since the Brexit transition ended in January 2021 shows a 19% decline to £10.4bn, a fall driven primarily by fewer perishable foods, from British strawberries to cheese, being sent abroad. €60m The cost of a rust-preventative paint job on France’s Eiffel Tower. The Parisian landmark has been at risk of serious corrosive damage since before 2014, when a report revealed 884 defects, 68 of which were structural. The painting won’t fix these pre-existing issues, however, and suggestions of a complete overhaul have been made. HK$9m How much (£896,000) Hong Kong’s new leader John Lee spent on political campaigning, despite being the city’s only…

“Recession in the eurozone is priced in,” say analysts at Japanese banking giant Mizuho. On Tuesday the euro slumped to parity with the US dollar – the lowest the euro has traded against the US currency since 2002. The sell-off followed growing concern that the shutdown of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline to Germany for annual maintenance could turn into a more permanent closure. “The ECB [European Central Bank] is fiddling while the currency burns,” Neil Wilson of Markets.com told Julia Kollewe and Graeme Wearden in The Guardian. “Inflation above 8% and interest rates remain negative … it’s madness.” The euro’s slump could be a foretaste of what is to come if a Russian gas cut does materialise, say Lynn Thomasson and Farah Elbahrawy on Bloomberg. Economists at UBS…

After a “dramatic few weeks of speculation that his deal to take over the company was falling apart”, Elon Musk decided last week to withdraw his $44bn bid for Twitter, says The Guardian. After he agreed to buy the group for $54.20 a share in April, the deal took a “sour turn” when Musk “accused Twitter of withholding information about the number of “spam” accounts on the platform. He now alleges that Twitter is in “material breach of multiple provisions” of their agreement, and has made “false and misleading representations”. Musk’s move leaves Twitter with three options – “none of them good”, says Danny Fortson in the Sunday Times. While Twitter could use the law to force him to complete the deal, “the awkwardness of forcing a billionaire with buyer’s…

Three to buy On The Beach Shares Suggesting investors buy shares in holidays group On The Beach in the midst of all the travel chaos “might sound mad”. But the business is “fundamentally sound” and its long-term prospects look solid. The stock is trading at its lowest valuation in seven years and demand is rising: UK holidaymakers will spend around £7.3bn on package holidays this year, and that will jump to £9bn by 2026. The shares are at 129p, but analysts believe they could jump to between 400p and 500p within 12 to 18 months, making now the time to buy. 129p Rio Tinto The Sunday Telegraph Volatile markets provide an opportunity to buy companies such as miner Rio Tinto. Over the last year the stock has dropped by 18%,…

Russia closed the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, the major source of gas to the EU, on Monday, raising fears in European capitals of a “supply crunch that could freeze whole sectors of the bloc’s economy”, says Politico. The stoppage was part of a planned ten-day outage for maintenance, with production expected to resume, but there are mounting fears that Russia could shut it down for good as part of president Vladimir Putin’s plan to divide Europe over policy on his war in Ukraine. Putin has reassured Berlin that Russia is “ready to fulfil its obligations” by resuming transport as soon as possible, says Oliver Moody in The Times. But Berlin is taking the threat of disruption so seriously that it has persuaded Canada to override sanctions and return an impounded…

At MoneyWeek, we’re always telling you to buy assets when they’re cheap. Over the past six months or so, the majority of markets have fallen a great deal, with plenty sitting in bear-market territory (down 20% or more). So the obvious question now is: are there any bargains? Clearly, a fall in price alone does not mean a market is cheap. If a fast-growing stock suddenly warns that its growth has fallen off a cliff, it’s share price will fall. But that doesn’t mean it has become cheaper – it merely reflects the company’s diminished prospects. So you need to look at valuations. Conveniently enough, fund manager Meb Faber of Cambria Investment Management has just put out his latest update on cyclically adjusted price/earnings ratios (CAPE) for global equity markets.…

Europe’s thriving unicorns Editorial The Economist European tech firms suffered more than their US counterparts after the 2008 financial crisis, but there’s a chance that the continent’s 150-odd unicorns (private firms worth more than $1bn) will “weather the storm” better this time around, says The Economist. Last year was a “smasher” in Europe, with venture-capital (VC) investments exceeding €100bn. Success breeds success. The structure of the European tech ecosystem is “more robust”, European entrepreneurs are more experienced, and capital is being accumulated. If the crisis “drags on”, European funds are sitting on nearly €50bn of VC cash that has yet to be deployed. Meanwhile, the number of “angels” (successful entrepreneurs who invest in other start-ups) is growing and executives “lower down the food chain” increasingly have skin in the game…

project-syndicate.org You know a new economic paradigm has taken hold when even purported opponents start to see the world through its lense, says Dani Rodrik. At its height, the Keynesian welfare state received as much support from conservative politicians as from those on the left, for example. Thatcher and Reagan’s neoliberalism was internalised by the centre-left leaders who came after them. Now, we might be in the midst of another transition. A “new bipartisan consensus” is starting to form around the idea of “productivism”. This emphasises the spread of productive economic opportunities through all regions and segments of the labour force, puts less faith in markets, envisions a large role for governments and civil society, is suspicious of large corporations, and emphasises production and investment over finance, revitalising local communities…

Over the next few months I plan to highlight several defensive funds that should escape the worst the markets have to throw at them. Let’s start with BioPharma Credit (LSE: BPCR). With a few exceptions, the listed lending funds that have emerged over the past few years have not proved very successful. BioPharma provides credit through loans or royalty payments to cash-strapped biotech and pharmaceutical companies. You’d be forgiven for having a few heart palpations as the biotech and healthcare sector has crashed over the last year, slashing the share price of some of the companies it invested in. Nevertheless, the BioPharma team is experienced and interested in life-science businesses that have actual revenues from real-life drugs but lack the cash to boost production, scale up sales and achieve critical…

Airport travel chaos means many people are being separated from their hold luggage when they travel. Earlier this month photos of the entire arrivals hall at Heathrow Airport full of lost luggage unnerved even seasoned travellers. The airport has received 2,000 complaints relating to luggage since problems first began in March. You may eventually be reunited with your lost luggage but think twice about what you pack in it. Medication is best packed into your hand luggage. Take your prescription with you in case there are any questions at airport security. Also consider the value of your luggage. Most travel insurance has lost-baggage cover, but it doesn’t always apply to luggage in transit that has been checked in with an airline. The airline should compensate you, but this is limited…

It’s not just households struggling with high energy bills. Many smaller companies are also facing cost increases they can’t manage, and they’re not entitled to the government support announced for hard-pressed families. Still, there are some things you can do if your business is finding it difficult to pay its energy bills. Talk to your energy supplier as quickly as possible about your options. It may be able to offer a more realistic payment plan, payment breaks and reductions, and an extended period over which to settle your debt. Most suppliers also offer hardship schemes, which small businesses may be able to access. Reducing your bills for the long term should also be a priority now, which makes it sensible to explore energy-efficiency measures. Here too there is help available.…

After last week’s resignation, Boris Johnson’s days in office as prime minister are numbered. The question is what (if any) impact the change of leader will have on the stockmarket. One view is that the entry of a new prime minister into Downing Street is usually bad for the market, as it usually coincides with political and economic turmoil; alternatively, it can be viewed as an opportunity for a fresh start. Analysis by Russ Mould, investment director of online broker AJ Bell, suggests that the market is more likely to react negatively to a new PM. In the last 50 years, five prime ministers have entered office between elections (James Callaghan in 1976, John Major in 1990, Gordon Brown in 2007, Theresa May in 2016 and Johnson himself in 2019).…

The energy crisis has boosted Telecom Plus’ (LSE: TEP) earnings, says the Financial Times. The British FTSE 250 group expects adjusted profits to rise by a fifth to £75m in 2023, with similar growth in customer numbers. Telecom Plus owns Utility Warehouse, which offers discounts of up to 5% on the national energy-price cap if customers purchase bundles, whereby electricity and gas are combined with mobile, broadband or insurance services. Bundling is booming as consumers increasingly try to save as much money as possible. The stock is up 78% over the last year.…

Andy Krieger was born in 1956 and grew up in Wilmington, Delaware, before going on to study Sanskrit and Vedanta philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. He then did an MBA at Wharton Business School before getting a job at Salomon Brothers in 1984. Two years later he would move to rival investment bank Bankers Trust. There he won a reputation as a successful and aggressive currency trader and the bank allowed him to risk sums of up to $700m, roughly a quarter of its capital. What was the trade? Krieger (pictured) specialised in trading short-term currency options, which give you the right (but not the obligation) to buy at some point in the future. In the aftermath of the 1987 stockmarket crash, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling…

2020 Saramusa, Pateiro, Ribeiro, Spain £21.95, themodestmerchant.com I enjoyed a couple of hours at the Wines from Spain annual tasting and focused on wines and wineries I’d never seen before. Alex Percy’s table of beauties captured my attention and, as it turns out, this “modest merchant” has a veritable cornucopia of delights in his Spanish collection. All seem to be made by singularly dedicated souls who focus on indigenous varieties, organic viticulture and discreet production levels. I have found five wines for you that impressed me greatly, starting with my featured Saramusa, or Sara the Muse. This beautiful white is a lees-aged treixadura with the most hauntingly beautiful jasmine and green tea flavours I have ever encountered. The same estate is also responsible for 2020 El Patito Feo Treixadura (£26.95),…

Going… An original Stormtrooper helmet used in the 1977 film retroactively titled Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope is up for sale with California-based Julien’s Auctions on Monday. It is believed to be one of the original six surviving “Sandtrooper” helmets made for the first instalment of the Star Wars series, in which the imperial shock troops are introduced in a scene that takes place on the desert planet of Tatooine. The helmet for sale is thought to have been worn by one of the stormtroopers escorting Princess Leia to meet Darth Vader aboard the captured Rebel Blockade Runner spacecraft. Each of the helmets, designed by Andrew Ainsworth, is unique because the method of manufacture required them to be hand-finished. It is expected to fetch up to $300,000.…