Innehållsförteckning för Issue 1245 från MoneyWeek

What do the following events have in common? The global financial crisis of 2008. The advent of Covid in 2020. The surge in inflation in 2021. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. DeepSeek’s apparent threat to US AI. The answer is that absolutely none of these episodes was foreseen by mainstream economic or market forecasters. It is always worth remembering the immortal words of screenwriter William Goldman, as strategist Barry Ritholtz reminds us on his blog Ritholtz.com: “Nobody knows anything.” Stockmarkets shuddered (see page 4), giving leveraged investors an especially nasty shock (see page 14) as it emerged that China’s DeepSeek is giving US AI models a serious run for their money at a fraction of the cost. It uses far fewer of Nvidia’s sophisticated chips, to which China’s…

“London’s capital market needs a kick in the pants… The assault by the New York hedge funder Boaz Weinstein on seven UK investment trusts – demanding shareholder votes to replace directors with his own people and take the management of the trusts into his own firm, Saba Capital – looks like the kind of intervention that might bring positive change to the UK’s… investment-trust sector, which… offers lacklustre returns, with share prices too often stuck at discounts to the underlying value of trusts’ asset portfolios… The trusts have fought back, accusing Weinstein of lack of UK investment expertise and a poor track record (which he disputes) in his own fund… My advice?… If you’re a holder of the trusts he’s stalking, register your vote, listen to Weinstein on YouTube, and…

WH Smith has hoisted the for-sale sign over its 232-year-old retail business, says Kalyeena Makortoff in The Guardian. Selling its 500 British high-street stores will allow WH Smith “to focus on its more successful travel arm”, which has outlets in train stations, airports and hospitals in 32 countries, and generated 75% of the group’s sales of £1.9bn in the year to 31 August 2024. A previous attempt by WH Smith to sell the entire business in 2004 was eventually “scuppered” by the £250m “black hole” in its pension fund, but these pension liabilities have since been sold off to Standard Life. The “pack of suitors” in discussions with WH Smith reportedly includes Modella Capital, says Mark Kleinman on Sky News. Its executives have been involved in retailers including Paperchase. However,…

Thermo Fisher Scientific “seems unperturbed by the changes in the political landscape”, says Barron’s. The US medical-equipment giant’s shares have risen 3% since early November. Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Donald Trump’s pick for US health secretary, is a vaccine sceptic and has prompted concern over a possible slowdown in drug development, but he is unlikely to bring medical research to a halt. Thermo, whose offerings include fluorescent dyes, cell counters and beakers, is less dependent on US government funding and makes a wide array of products. Moreover, tariffs against China won’t hurt because the country accounts for only 8% of revenue.…

Rachel Reeves’ speech on Wednesday on economic growth presented “an inherent contradiction”, say Steven Swinford and Oliver Wright in The Times. For all her talk about the need to grow the economy, not only will many of her growth measures take years to bear fruit, but her October Budget, which included a “£25bn national insurance raid” on employers, is forecast to result in lower growth over the next five years. A “raft” of other government plans, including the “biggest overhaul of workers’ rights in a generation” and ending new licences for North Sea oil and gas exploration, could also “inhibit growth”. Reeves may respond by saying she has to balance the books, but it “does create a contradiction”. The other issue is that she “needs money now”. The Office…

“We love the UK,” insisted Santander’s CEO Ana Botín at Davos last week, only a few hours after reports surfaced that the bank was considering an exit from the UK market. It is not hard to see why she was so quick to squash the rumours. The Spanish financial giant has been a major force in the UK banking industry since it acquired Abbey National back in 2004, and if it was thinking about leaving the market the last thing it would want to do would be to frighten off depositors by threatening to close down. That would risk triggering a run on the bank. Even so, it is hard to believe that the story would have emerged if it was not at least under consideration. Santander won’t be the…

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are bought and sold on a stock exchange in the same way as you would trade normal shares. Unlike investment trusts, which are also traded on exchanges, ETFs are mostly (though by no means all) passively managed. This means their aim is to track the performance of a particular market, rather than beat it, as an active fund attempts to do. Also unlike investment trusts, the net asset value of an ETF should not diverge from its share price, barring extreme circumstances. ETFs are available on a range of indices, sectors, themes and commodities, and index providers constantly launch new indices for them to track. Given their largely passive structure, ETFs tend to have lower fees than active funds, and rampant competition between providers has driven prices…

US Steel is under pressure from an activist investor to abandon its attempts to sell itself to Japan’s Nippon Steel and to fire CEO David Burritt, says The Wall Street Journal. Ancora – which has built a stake of less than 1% in US Steel – claims the firm let investors down by trying to sell to a foreign buyer rather than a US one, and by challenging the Biden administration’s decision to block the deal instead of prioritising “financial and operational fixes”. Ancora has nominated nine candidates to US Steel’s board, including the former CEO of Stelco, a Canadian steel firm that was bought last year by Cleveland-Cliffs , the second-largest American steelmaker. Cleveland-Cliffs and rival Nucor are reportedly in talks about making a joint bid for US Steel.…

“[By] definition, my work is a business. I’m not going to shy away from saying that. I think, sometimes, when women earn money people see it as a greedy, ambitious thing, but when men earn money? ‘Oh, he’s incredible, I want to be like him!’ I don’t have any shame in saying it’s my business, it’s my work. It’s also all I have known. It’s what I do.” TV presenter Holly Willoughby (pictured), quoted in The Sunday Times “I totally agree with Prince Harry that ruthless intrusion into the private lives of the royal family for financial gain is utterly reprehensible… and I hope he stops doing it.” Broadcaster and journalist Piers Morgan, quoted in The Knowledge “You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is…

gatewayhispanic.com The Vietnamese Communist Party has embarked upon a “bold new path”, says Mamela Fiallo Flower. The new plan has been inspired by the radical reforms implemented in Argentina by Javier Milei, which seek to “drastically reduce the size of the state and ease the bureaucratic burden”. Under the banner of “administrative reform”, the government has announced its intention to reduce by 20% the number of government ministries and agencies, as well as the number of public employees. Critical areas such as finance and planning and investment will be merged to create more efficient administration. Four state agencies are expected to be abolished entirely. State media outlets too are to be slashed. The plans are the boldest in Vietnam since the Doi Moi reforms of the 1980s. Nearly 70% of…

The business of recruitment can be brutal. The desire for fees is paramount and recruiters are the first to feel the brunt of an economic downturn. Trading is highly cyclical as businesses usually put hiring plans on ice as soon as trading begins to deteriorate. Recruitment companies generally don’t hang around to see if the market will improve. The second demand dries up, they start slashing jobs. However, recruiters are inherently asset-light, cash-rich and cash-generative businesses. They don’t need to make big investments in infrastructure as their key assets are people – the consultants responsible for chasing leads and cultivating relationships. These consultants are usually given an incentive by means of a commission based on the value and number of employees placed in roles. Candidates placed on long-term, permanent contracts…

● Interest rates on easy-access savings accounts have begun to fall but the fixed rates available on bonds are holding steady or increasing. So it’s time to move some money out of instant-access accounts and into fixed bonds – so long as you won’t need it in a hurry. “The market is changing rapidly,” says Sylvia Morris in the Daily Mail. Last month’s drop in inflation “has led to a cut in easy-access rates – and more falls are likely”. As a result, we’re seeing longer-term bonds offering better rates than short-term accounts. Smart Save is paying 4.78% on its one-year bond, while Birmingham Bank pays 4.55% for five years. ● “A former minister who helped to create the state pension triple lock has warned it will not exist in…

● Small businesses are increasing the value of employees’ benefits they offer as competition for staff heats up. A report from Howden Employee Benefits suggests that 77% of SMEs are considering overhauling their benefits package this year, with a particular focus on health and wellbeing. SMEs are particularly likely to be considering offering additional private medical insurance and critical illness insurance benefits. ● The average small business is now writing off bad debts of £40,000 a year, with bad debt increasing by 127% during the first half of the 2024-2025 financial year. The data, from Bibby Financial Services, supports recent warnings that growing numbers of small businesses are in financial distress, with bad debts having knock-on effects throughout supply chains. That may require SMEs to limit their exposures to individual…

Love it or loathe it, AI is the key investment theme in the spotlight at present, and even if it has caused a stockmarket bubble, the fact that companies and venture capitalists are pouring not just billions, but hundreds of billions, into the sector means it will endure. But just as the dotcom era in the late 1990s saw companies that were not really technology firms rebrand themselves as internet outfits in an attempt to cash in on the boom, several companies have tried to use AI to boost their share price. A prime example is Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN). As short-seller Kerrisdale Capital points out, Lumen is essentially a traditional telecommunications company providing telephone and internet services to various small companies. This core business has been in decline over…

Despite all the pre-election promises, the Budget introduced a whopping £40bn of tax rises by 2029-2030, the largest hike in a generation. Within three years, the tax burden will hit levels not seen since 1948, when the UK was grappling with the impact of World War II. Much of that burden is falling on “those with the broadest shoulders”: the ever-growing number of higher- and top-rate taxpayers. Meanwhile, pensions – traditionally a bastion of tax-efficiency – may not be as attractive, or even viable, for many (not when what you can put in and take out are restricted, with death taxes of up to 67% looming at the end thanks to the changes in the Budget). Against this backdrop, venture-capital trusts (VCTs) look startlingly attractive. When you support young British…

2023 Rully Blanc, David Moret, Burgundy, France £47.99, reduced to £42.99 each as part of a mixed case, thewinereserve.co.uk The Wine Reserve has kindly extended its “mixed case price” of £42.99 to single bottle sales until 7 February. I hope everyone in this terrific merchant’s orbit and beyond takes them up on this deal. This is the only wine I found during Burgundy en primeur week a fortnight ago that sums up the qualities of the vintage at the highest level and has already made it to our shores. In 2023, we saw a massive vintage in Burgundy in terms of yield. Many wines are dilute, lacking in drive, depth and detail; they seem stretched without length, which is slightly baffling. Some whites enjoyed the sunny weather so much their…

This year’s Sunday Times Tax List of the 100 people who pay the most tax to the Treasury is “unlikely to improve the mood in Downing Street”, which is under pressure from the recent upheaval in bond markets that has raised the cost of “servicing the government’s £2.8trn debt”, says the paper’s Robert Watts. The total tax haul from those on the list for this year was just shy of £5bn, down 6.8% from last year due to sluggish economic growth dampening company profits and corporation tax bills. Hedge fund manager Chris Hohn (pictured) topped the list, paying £339.5m into government coffers. He was followed by Fred and Peter Done (as one entry), the brothers behind gambling giant Betfred, with £273.4m, while Britain’s richest self-made woman, Denise Coates, who co-launched…

The Bank of Japan (BoJ) has raised interest rates to the highest level in 17 years, suggesting the long battle against deflation may finally be over. The 25-basis-point hike to about 0.5% may look modest, but it lifts borrowing costs to the highest level since 2008. Annual core consumer-price inflation hit 3% in December. The global inflation spike of 2021-2022 has been difficult for many countries, but in Japan it offered an opportunity for central bankers to banish decades of disinflation, says The Economist. (Very low inflation can help sap economic dynamism by discouraging household spending.) Soaring import costs forced companies to raise prices and wages, breaking a longstanding economic “taboo”. That came at the cost of a plummeting yen and lower living standards, but some pain today may be…

Shares in sportswear company Puma slumped 20% to a six-year low last week after its fourth-quarter results “went down like a sprained ankle”, says Yawen Chan on Breakingviews. While sales grew 10% year on year, this was still short of analysts’ expectations of 12%, suggesting that Puma’s new “Speedcat” sneakers, intended to challenge those of its rival Adidas, have “under-delivered”. Worse, the group’s operating profit margin was flat, with the goal of increasing margins to 8.5% now pushed back to 2027. Investors also seem to have been irritated by the “silence” from Puma’s management over this “mysterious rise in costs”. The setback is particularly “painful” as it comes at a time when rival Adidas has reported “surprisingly robust” fourth-quarter earnings, says Bloomberg’s Tim Loh. This isn’t a one-off. Adidas’s shares…

Venture Global has reduced the valuation it is seeking in its initial public offering (IPO) from $110bn to $65bn. The move came days after the Trump administration issued an order to resume processing applications for new permits to export US liquefied natural gas (LNG), paving the way for competing developers to seek customers, says The Wall Street Journal. The US LNG exporter will now sell 70 million shares priced between $23 and $27 each. It had previously sought to sell 50 million shares at $40 to $46. The company had benefitted from rapid growth in US LNG exports and production in recent years, but demand has waned.…

● Diageo owns 34% of Moët Hennessy and has “long coveted” taking the rest back from LVMH, says Andrea Felsted on Bloomberg. “If LVMH is considering a divestment” – as some analysts have suggested – “this could be Diageo’s moment”. Yet a deal could cost around $22bn and would come at a time when the drinks giant is struggling with weak demand in China and the US, investors are nervous, and it has little room to borrow more. Selling its Guinness division, which might fetch $10bn, is the logical move. But while the brewery is an odd fit with the rest of Diageo’s business, it’s a “gateway to selling premium spirits in Africa” and has also cracked the growing market for non-alcoholic beer. Diageo might be able to make a…

“I can say forcefully that there’s too much pessimism in Europe, from someone who has been pessimistic on Europe for ten years,” says Larry Fink, the chief executive and co-founder of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager. “I believe it’s probably time to be investing back into Europe and focusing on it. I see the problems, but believe the pessimism is too large.” Europe is certainly not without its problems, Fink told a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The region is looking backwards too much and struggling to compete with the US’s innovation. “Europe is a myth. It’s a beautiful myth, but it’s not working. It is not working.” The EU needs a banking union and a capital markets union to help provide investment for start-ups…

■ Hedge fund Saba Capital has lost the first vote in its campaign to seize control of seven investment trusts. Shareholders in Herald Investment Trust voted 65.1% to 34.9% against proposals to remove all the fund’s directors and replace them with two representatives of Saba. The turnout was 80.6%, and just 0.15% of non-Saba investors voted for the proposals. Separately, four BlackRock-managed funds have reached a deal with Saba for it not to take any activist action against them before 2027. This includes neither attempting to influence the boards nor calling for general meetings at BlackRock American Income, BlackRock Energy and Resources Income, BlackRock Smaller Companies, and BlackRock World Mining. ■ Battery-storage investor Gore Street Energy Storage Fund has brought its Big Rock facility in California online and expects to…

cityam.com Argentina’s president Javier Milei, Canada’s opposition leader and probable next PM Pierre Poilievre and Donald Trump are in the vanguard of a movement for a new type of “free-market populism”, says Fred de Fossard –and it’s gaining support across the Western world. The shape it takes varies, but common themes are radical deregulation, public-spending and tax cuts, and scrapping green policies holding back growth. All combine a love of freedom with a “populist touch”. Could such free-market populism come to Britain? At present, the political class seems “too wedded to the established way of doing things”. But there are signs we’re reaching “the end of the road for bureaucratic fiddling” and there is now a “desperate need for a radical agenda to repeal the bureaucratic and constitutional strictures which…

Over half of us now have a smart meter for our gas and electricity supplies. Smart meters measure how much gas and electricity you use and automatically send the readings to your energy supplier. The main benefit is that you get accurate bills without having to worry about sending meter readings. No more scrabbling around in cupboards with a torch and hoping you are reading the numbers correctly. You can also use your in-home display to see how you are utilising energy and reduce the amount you consume. There’s nothing like seeing the pounds you are spending to make you go round switching off lights and devices. In recent years smart meters have also enabled people to slash their energy bills with time-of-use tariffs. With these deals, the amount you…

Good news for troubled small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs): the cost of borrowing is set to fall in the coming months, with some lenders already reducing commercial finance rates ahead of expected cuts in the base rate by the Bank of England. However, to get the best deals SMEs may need to look beyond mainstream lenders, many of which are still restricting finance to the sector. Data from the EY Item Club suggests that this year most business lending will go to larger firms. Happily, competition in the SME-lending sector has increased considerably in recent years, providing firms with plenty of options. Moreover, the range of debt available has also widened. New lenders offer much more imaginative products that may better suit SMEs’ needs than conventional finance. Secured loans, for…

Gap, the worldwide clothes retailer with headquarters in the US, has been in poor shape over recent years, but its turnaround strategy is starting to bear fruit. As the recovery gains momentum, the shares (NYSE: GAP), which trade at a discount to the market and its peers, are looking cheap. The retailer has been struggling to recapture the vision and growth that marked its 1990s heyday as it popularised affordable and casual street style based on denim, shirts and khaki. A succession of CEOs over recent years failed to impress investors, and the shares today trade not far from where they were 20 years ago. The stockmarket saw Gap as being stuck in a deep rut of falling sales; it often carried too much merchandise, which had to be sold…

Things seem to be getting better and better for the Reform Party. Despite Elon Musk’s rift with Nigel Farage casting doubt on the tycoon’s rumoured donation of $100m, the party continues to rise in the polls. Research group Find Out Now puts Reform at 26%, ahead of the Conservatives on 23% and Labour on 22%, the first time that any poll has had them taking first place in a share of the national vote. No wonder, then, that punters are increasingly bullish about their electoral chances. With £151,338 matched on Betfair over which party will get the most seats at the next election, Reform are now at 3.15 (31.7%), breathing down the necks of the Conservatives on 2.92 (34.2%) and close to Labour at 2.8 (35.7%). However, I think this…

The US is facing a new “Sputnik moment”. In 1957 the Soviet Union shattered US complacency by becoming the first country to launch an artificial satellite into space. In 2025, DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) start-up, has again upended illusions of US tech leadership, wiping the “smug grin” off the faces of Silicon Valley billionaires in the process, says Tom Leonard in the Daily Mail. DeepSeek has launched a model that matches the performance of the best US chatbots, but at much lower cost. America’s OpenAI, led by Sam Altman, has spent $1bn training various versions of ChatGPT, but DeepSeek says it paid less than $5.6m to build a comparably good chatbot. A $1trn wipeout The DeepSeek fallout wiped $1trn off US tech shares on Monday, with Nvidia especially…

The Italian banking sector is being shaken up, says Elena Vardon in The Wall Street Journal. State-backed Monte dei Paschi di Siena, or MPS, has launched a surprise all-stock bid for Mediobanca. The Italian government, which owns 12% of MPS, is keen to create a “new national champion”, combining Mediobanca’s “investment-banking heft and wealth-management business” with MPS’s focus on retail banking to create Italy’s third-largest financial institution by assets. But Mediobanca’s board has rejected the offer, calling it “destructive” and lacking an “industrial and financial rationale”. Mediobanca’s management is correct, says Chris Hughes on Bloomberg: the only real benefit is in enabling MPS, which has a “checkered trading history”, to use its tax losses to cut Mediobanca’s tax bills. Of course, this benefit would come at the cost of chaining…

Five to buy LBG Media Investors’ Chronicle LADbible owner LBG Media’s nine-month results beat forecasts, with adjusted cash profit up 16%. The media group’s global audience has grown 19% year-on-year to 503 million, with the US audience at 143 million thanks to high client retention and acquisition rates. The integration of US-based Betches is “progressing well” and is central to LBG’s US expansion. There are “high hopes” for LBG’s indirect channels, where revenue is shared with social-media platforms that place adverts next to LBG’s content. Despite “white noise” over TikTok in the US, LBG is “becoming embedded in the US”. 121p Vistry Shares Vistry warned on profits three times last quarter. However, shares recently rallied 10% after the housebuilder confirmed reduced profit guidance and said it would set out new…

Spare a thought for investors who were caught out trying to maximise returns from Nvidia’s historic run. As AI stocks fell on Monday, holders of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that provide leveraged exposure to Nvidia suffered obscene one-day losses. Take Leverage Shares 3x Nvidia (LSE: NVD3), which provides three times the daily change in Nvidia’s share price. The chipmaker fell as much as 16% on the day. Three times -16% is almost 50%, so NVD3 holders would have lost nearly half their investment. Yet at least this risk should have been obvious. What many leveraged ETF users don’t understand is that these products’ structure means long-term returns are highly likely to disappoint. Consider the chart above. Despite Monday’s sell off, Nvidia has risen 105% over the past year. Yet the return…

Investors in renewable infrastructure trusts have had a dismal few months. Share prices have kept falling, pushing up discounts to net asset value (NAV) and dividend yields from tempting to alarming. The £2.2bn Renewables Infrastructure Group (LSE: TRIG) now trades on a 26% discount and yields 8.3%, the £2.9bn Greencoat UK Wind (LSE: UKW) trades on a 21% discount and yields 8.7% and the £580m Bluefield Solar (LSE: BSIF) trades on a 24% discount and yields 9.2%. Elsewhere, some discounts are over 30% and some yields in double digits. Explanations for this have followed rather than led the share prices. In September, David Bird, manager of Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust, warned of the increasing prevalence of negative power prices across Europe as a result of the roll-out of wind and…

Let’s make Europe great again Martin SandbuFinancial Times Instead of panicking at Donald Trump’s reversal of Joe Biden’s green policies and embrace of AI and fossil fuels, Europe should seize the day, says Martin Sandbu. His wish to shrink the trade deficit with the EU and the EU’s desire to increase domestic investment “amount to the same thing”. The EU’s trade surplus equates to a savings surplus used to finance investments abroad; “redirecting these savings… means leaving behind a growth model driven by export surpluses”. As for defence, the EU needs to spend more, not because Trump says so, but to counter Russian “belligerence”. Weapons purchases from the US can be traded for “other favours”; in the medium-term, the European arms sector could benefit. Next, energy. To achieve unanimous EU…

newstatesman.com Every Labour chancellor has a “primal fear of falling foul of the financial markets”, says Larry Elliott. And for good reason – “the party’s history is studded by run-ins with the massed forces of capital in which capital has invariably emerged victorious”. Rachel Reeves has already had reason to be nervous and her “brief love affair with bond traders” has cooled. She has, no doubt, made some bad decisions. But she “deserves some sympathy”. Labour’s inheritance was poor. The economy has “moved sideways” for the past decade and a half, with “flatlining productivity and nugatory growth in real wages”. And the UK is not alone in feeling the heat from the markets. The main reason for the sharp increase in bond yields is that stronger-than-expected growth in the US…

Today is deadline day for filing your self-assessment tax return and paying any taxes due for the 2023-2024 tax year. If you don’t do it before midnight on 31 January, you’ll face a fine. Over three million people registered for self-assessment still hadn’t done it a week ago, says HMRC. You must file a self-assessment form if, for example, you are self-employed; earn more than £150,000 a year; need to pay the high-income child benefit charge; or receive foreign income or any other income that isn’t taxed through PAYE, such as dividends or rent. If you don’t think you need to fill out a tax return anymore, inform HMRC via the online form at Gov.uk or by phone. If it agrees, you’ll get a letter confirming you needn’t file. But…

Has your business taken out cyber insurance? With growing evidence that hackers are increasingly targeting SMEs, this cover could provide valuable protection and peace of mind. Sales of cyber-insurance policies have been growing by more than 30% a year over the past five years. Importantly, cyber insurance can support small businesses even before an attack, with insurers giving advice on how to reduce risk, and sometimes access to software and other tools that provide defence. But take care. Some insurers may require you to follow their advice and use their tools or risk invalidating your cover. In addition, cyber insurance should cover your costs in the event that you do succumb to an attack – both the costs of recovering from the attack itself and expenses associated with the breach,…

Despite the recent market turmoil, it has been a relatively quiet fortnight for most of my six long tips, with four rising and two falling. Property developer Harworth rose from 159p to 169p, while United Airlines climbed from $104 to $107. Hilton Food Group advanced from 860p to 866p and Domino’s Pizza appreciated from 273p to 293p. However, retailer Marks & Spencer declined from 334p to 327p and ticketing firm Trainline slipped from 391p to 367p. Overall, the net profits on my long tips increased slightly, from £948 to £1,059. My three short tips did a bit better, with two out of the three moving in my favour. Trump Media & Technology Group, a firm mostly owned by the incoming president and which runs the social-media platform Truth Social, was…

Jilly Cooper (pictured) is on the verge of “national treasure status”, says Tim Lewis in The Guardian. For decades now her books, which have sold more than 11 million copies in the UK alone, were dismissed as “smutty bonkbusters”. But over the past few years, she has been rediscovered by new readers. “I’m a genuine fan,” said then prime minister Rishi Sunak in 2023. The journalist Caitlin Moran, who changed her first name as a teenager in honour of a character from Cooper’s books, has called her the “Jane Austen of our times”. Then, late last year, Disney released a faithful adaptation of Cooper’s 1988 novel, Rivals. It has been a huge hit. “The literary world is divided into two sets,” Cooper once said. “People like me who long for…