Innehållsförteckning för Issue 1248 från MoneyWeek

“There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” economists like to say. When it comes to defence spending, Europe, including Britain, has tested the adage to destruction. Graciously allowing America to cover the bill for decades is the geopolitical equivalent of coming for lunch and taking up residence in the spare room. And they say house guests and fish start to stink after three days. The bill always arrives eventually, of course (see page 8), and always at the most inopportune time. Europe will now have to pay more for its own defence, and if no more US money is forthcoming, Ukraine will need financial assistance too; another reminder that free lunches, and freedom itself, are not free. “Trade across EU countries is less than half the level of trade…

“As a lender, would you prefer the US government as your debtor or Microsoft? At first glance, the government might seem the safer bet. After all, Washington can print money and collect taxes. But there are serious concerns about the creditworthiness of Uncle Sam. Microsoft is expected to generate around $48bn in free cash flow in 2025. In contrast, the federal government has negative cash flow, as it has been running a budget deficit since 2002. Microsoft’s interest coverage ratio was 53.5x last year – meaning core annual earnings are enough to pay its yearly interest expense 53.5 times over. Uncle Sam’s receipts-to-interest expense was just 5.2x in 2023, meaning that 20% of all gross receipts go to pay interest on debt. In a world where Treasuries aren’t as rock…

Shares in pharmaceuticals giant GSK have been stuck in a “yo-yo pattern” for eight years, says Nils Pratley in The Guardian. However, investors now have good reason to feel optimistic, especially after earlier this month it delivered “a syringe of crowd-pleasers”, including a higher dividend, a revenue upgrade and a £2bn share buyback. Debt has fallen “rapidly” following the demerger of Haleon, the consumer-products business, while settling US lawsuits relating to the stomach-acid drug Zantac has dealt with its legal problems. The latest results, as well as the dividends and buybacks, show that GSK is “clearly healing from its multiple comorbidities”, says Lex in the Financial Times. However, investors still don’t believe it. Not only are brokers’ estimates of future earnings far below that of GSK’s management, but GSK also…

Franco-Italian eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica is a stunning vision, says Le Revenu. Revenue hit €26.5bn in 2024, a 6% rise, with net profit up 9.8%. Three-quarters of sales stem from glasses and optics, with most of the rest derived from fashionable sunglasses. Essilor’s global leadership in a growing market has always made it attractive, but on 34 times 2025 forecast profits the shares aren’t cheap. Yet the premium rating is justified in part by growing exposure to technology. The group’s Ray-Ban brand has sold two million smart glasses after partnering with Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, and concepts such as glasses incorporating discreet hearing aids are also in the pipeline.…

Last Thursday, six words disappeared from the US State Department’s fact sheet on US relations with Taiwan: “we do not support Taiwan independence”. Taiwan was delighted; Beijing was infuriated. But the big question is whether this signifies a change in policy, says Richard Lloyd Parry in The Times. The State Department says it doesn’t and insists that the US remains “committed to its one China policy”, which has acknowledged the communist administration of Beijing as the sole government of China for more than 50 years. Although the US has pursued a policy of “strategic ambiguity” over a possible invasion, by law it is committed to supply Taiwan with weapons to defend itself. It’s difficult to make sense of Trump’s position on Taiwan, says Ian Williams in The Spectator. He…

When Unilever confirmed the widely expected decision to spin off its ice-cream unit last week, the consumer-goods giant also decided the new company would have its primary listing in Amsterdam instead of the City. It was yet another sign that the UK is hardly the best place to trade a company’s shares anymore, and yet another blow for the British government. In this case, however, it may not have been a disaster. Spinning off the unit is a key part of Hein Schumacher’s plan to improve the performance of Unilever after years of drift. The unit’s brands take in five of the world’s top-ten brands in the industry, and include Magnum, Ben & Jerry’s, and Wall’s. By the end of the year, it will be separated from the rest of…

In finance, a tail risk is an event that might cause an asset to perform far below or far above its typical past performance. In practice, tail risk is almost always used to refer to the chances of suffering a very large unexpected loss. While the same principles may apply to the chances of receiving an unexpected gain, nobody worries about that kind of risk in quite the same way. The term arises from the theory that returns on most asset follow some kind of mathematical probability distribution. The model that is typically used is called the normal distribution, which is essentially a bell-shaped curve. The most frequent outcomes are small gains or losses and these cluster tightly around the average return when plotted on a chart, creating the bell…

“Keep streaming! I’ll be out of debt in no time.” US singer Bruno Mars (pictured) on becoming the first artist to reach 150 million monthly listeners on Spotify, quoted on NME “I told myself if I ever won a Grammy and I got to stand up here in front of the most powerful people in music, I’d demand that labels and the industry profiting [from] millions of dollars off... artists would offer a liveable wage and healthcare, especially to developing artists… Record labels need to treat their artists as valuable employees with a liveable wage and health insurance and protection. Labels, we got you, but [have] you got us?” US singer-songwriter Chappell Roan, quoted on Pitchfork “Why are you crying? It’s not your government! He has no reason to give you…

thecritic.co.uk “Public-health quackademics” have gambling in their sights in a bid to get their hands on the proceeds from the new gambling levy, says Christopher Snowdon. Some are proposing that gambling advertising be phased out to address “the harms of gambling”. But this is simply not a public-health issue. Pollution, contagious diseases and sewage are public-health issues because they present risks individuals cannot easily avoid through their own actions. Gambling, obesity and smoking are not in the same category, and the attempt over the past two decades to insist they are is, as legal professor Richard Epstein pointed out, “designed to signal that state coercion is appropriate when it is not”. This matters, as resources for genuine public-health problems are limited and infectious diseases may flourish if money is diverted…

Hedge fund Saba Capital lost the final vote in its campaign to take control of seven investment trusts when shareholders in Edinburgh Worldwide rejected its proposals last week, but the US activist is not giving up. Saba is now attempting to force two of the seven trusts (CQS Natural Resources Growth & Income and European Smaller Companies), plus two others (Middlefield Canadian Income and Schroder UK Mid Cap), to switch to an open-ended fund, claiming this will provide investors with better liquidity. Meanwhile, Henderson Opportunities and Keystone Positive Change – two of the other trusts Saba targeted – have revived plans to wind up and return cash to shareholders. These proposals had been put on hold while investors voted on Saba’s campaign.…

Since their introduction in 1999, cash Isas have been an integral savings product, offering a tax-free way to grow your money. By the end of the 2022-2023 tax year, more than 18 million of us had a cash Isa, collectively holding £300bn. However, there are now concerns about their future following comments from Emma Reynolds, economic secretary to the Treasury at a House of Lords committee meeting: “Why do we have hundreds of billions of pounds in cash Isas?… What can we do… about trying to drive an investment culture that realises cash is not a good investment?”. This has fuelled speculation that the government may limit or even scrap cash Isas to drive more people towards stocks-and-shares Isas. Use the allowance While there is no reason to panic, there…

Labour says it remains committed to its Employment Rights Bill, but as the legislation moves into its next phase of parliamentary scrutiny over the next few weeks, business groups continue to push for changes. The Institute of Directors (IoD), for example, has just published research suggesting 41% of business leaders think scaling back the legislation could boost business confidence. Changes to an overhaul of the unfair dismissal rules are at the top of the IoD’s wish list. Labour proposes to abolish laws that currently mean employees sacked after less than two years’ service cannot bring a claim for unfair dismissal. This right should apply from day one of employment, the government says. The IoD, however, thinks retaining a threshold of at least six months would reassure employers that hiring mistakes…

One of the key developments in military technology in recent years has been the rapid rise of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones. Their major advantage is that they allow military forces to carry out attacks and survey the battlefield without either directly risking soldiers’ lives or expensive aircraft. While drones are not a new technology, they used to be so large and expensive that their use was limited. Over the years they have become much cheaper and smaller, a development that has made them a major part of any modern army’s equipment. However, as with any form of technology, the rise of drones has led to the creation of a large number of companies trying to cash in on the boom in demand. Inevitably some of these lack the financial…

“Private hospital group Max Healthcare boasts the highest revenue-per-bed in the sector” India is often considered the most attractive long-term investment opportunity within emerging markets, and arguably among all global markets. With a powerful demographic story, strong institutions, a vibrant democracy, market-friendly policies and an entrepreneurial business culture, India presents immense growth potential. We seek to capture this by investing in “emerging leaders”: companies well-positioned to thrive in a world of rapid change and disruption –disruption that is especially evident in emerging markets. These emerging leaders are firms with the resources, capabilities and industry positioning to generate outsized economic returns amid rapid transformation within their sectors. They can be either dominant industry leaders adapting to change, or challengers disrupting their industries. They operate in attractive industry structures with strong competitive…

Sometime around 1860, a French geologist named Henri Coquand teamed up with a local wine buff to examine the terroir in the cognac-making region. Coquand identified six distinct areas (crus) and these became officially recognised in 1938 (see map above). Depending on how the cognac is blended, they may be stated on the bottle label as having come from: Grande Champagne: Considered the crème de la crème of the crus, the hills and crumbly chalk soil of the Grande Champagne area are excellent for producing the acidic white wine used in making cognac. The eau de vie is said to have a “predominately floral bouquet”, according to the Bureau National Interprofessionnel du Cognac (BNIC), the industry trade body. But it also needs to spend a longer time in the oak…

£138 in bond per six bottles, crsfw.com; £144 in bond per six bottles, vinquinn.com Every year around this time, the good people of Saint-Émilion head over to the UK to show us their wares. This time, it was a tricky 2021 vintage under the microscope, and while most wines looked a little raw and undernourished, two shone out. If you look back a year, these two stellar estates popped up in this column when their 2020 vintage offerings wowed me. Well, if you couldn’t make wine in 2020, then there was a problem, but if you can make a beautiful 2020 and a fabulous 2021, you have rare skills! Even more remarkable is that these two wines are drinking now. While you must forget about the 2020s for five to…

The US Copyright Office (CO) has made a landmark decision in granting copyright protection for an image created using an AI model, says Adam Schrader on Artnet. The CO had ruled last month that artwork made from AI text prompts could not be copyrighted, but it did allow for a threshold where an AI-assisted artwork could be considered human-made. Invoke, a US generative AI platform, was the first to receive the copyright protection after the CO issued its new guidelines. The initial request to copyright A Single Piece of American Cheese (pictured), created by Invoke’s CEO Kent Keirsey, had been denied. But with the help of a law firm, Keirsay demonstrated how it had been composed using, in his words, Invoke’s “AI-first Photoshop-esque tool where you can... select regions and…

It has been a “testing winter” for the European gas market, says Priscila Azevedo Rocha on Bloomberg. Cold weather has drained gas reserves. Now only 45% full, the tanks will require an expensive refilling operation over the summer. Prices spiked to a two-year high earlier this month; the UK gas market, highly dependent on continental imports, registered a similar surge. Large increases in import capacity for seaborne liquefied natural gas (LNG) are expected to come online in 2026, finally drawing a line under the energy crisis. But that still leaves “one more winter” of strained supplies to navigate. This week saw prices ease from the recent peak. Traders are speculating that a peace deal in Ukraine could open the way to some Russian gas supply returning to Europe. Russian gas…

Chinese tech is coming “in from the cold”, says John Liu for CNN. President Xi Jinping publicly hosted top tech leaders, including Alibaba’s co-founder Jack Ma, at a meeting in Beijing on Monday. After several years of regulatory pressure, the gathering signals that the country’s tech giants have finally regained official favour. The success of an AI model created by Chinese start-up DeepSeek – which matched leading US models for a fraction of the cost – has left the country’s tech investors in an ebullient mood. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Tech index has entered a bull market, having surged 25% already this year. This performance has comfortably beaten the gains of US tech giants over the same period.…

Chinese fast-fashion group Shein will have to delay its “blockbuster London listing”, previously expected to take place before Easter, until the second half of this year, says Emily Hawkins in This is Money. Blame Donald Trump. The president says he wants to close a duty loophole that allows retailers such as Shein to avoid US tariffs on parcels worth $800 (£645) or less by shipping them directly to consumers. If this goes ahead, Shein will be forced to increase prices in the US, denting profits in its largest market. What’s more, high-street retailers, such as Primark, who are “furious” with Shein’s use of a similar rule in the UK, are pressuring Westminster to do the same. Changes to Shein’s liability for customs duties aren’t the only difficulty that could delay…

SailPoint was valued at $12.6bn in its recent initial public offering (IPO) in New York, raising $1.38bn, two years after the US cybersecurity specialist went private, says Reuters. Proceeds will be used to repay SailPoint’s debt. The firm priced its listing at the top end of its marketed range of $21-$23. SailPoint and its parent company Thoma Bravo sold 60 million shares at $23 each. The US private-equity firm first bought SailPoint in 2014 and took it public three years later. It reacquired it in 2022 for $6.9bn. SailPoint’s “strong reception” could establish the tone for the IPO market in the coming months. It is typically quiet in February as companies finalise their full-year earnings reports.…

● “A mighty £7bn of subsidies since 2012 have not been enough to get Drax to stand on its own feet,” says Nils Pratley in The Guardian. Now the government is going to hand over a further £1.8bn between 2027 and 2031 “to keep the wood fires burning” at the giant Yorkshire power plant. While Drax is supposed to have a much more limited role in Britain’s energy mix from 2027, the new arrangements “still look splendid”: it essentially gets a guaranteed price of £155 per MWh in today’s money – more than the Hinkley Point C nuclear-power station – and should make £100m-£200m a year of top-line operating profits from the deal. No wonder the shares rose 4%. Drax has had a “charmed life”. Its switch from coal to…

The big sell-off in Nvidia at the start of the year is a taste of what is to come when the artificial-intelligence (AI) bubble bursts, says Nassim Taleb, the author and statistician who advises Universa Investments, a US fund that specialises in hedging against tail risks (often described as “black swans”). Declines could be “two, three times bigger” than the 17% plunge the US chipmaker experienced last month, he tells Bloomberg. “This is the beginning… of an adjustment of people to reality. Because now they realise… it’s no longer flawless. You have a small little chip on the glass… and now they realise it’s not infallible,” says Taleb, referring to the news that Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek had developed AI models that require much less processing power. “You’re building everything…

capx.co Rural areas in Britain, after years of suffering from a “sluggish internet”, are to get a broadband boost, says Tristan Ringmo. Project Kuiper, Amazon’s plan to boost broadband access, using thousands of satellites in low-Earth orbit, has been approved by the UK regulator. No more waiting for fibre-optic cables or digging up roads to connect them. This is a “game-changer”. And a much-needed one. Britain ranks 46th for download speeds out of 56 developed economies and the worst for mobile service in the rich world. This was a “digital disaster” in the age of remote working. Kuiper will now offer internet speeds ranging from 100Mbps for the budget option up to 1Gbps for the top model designed for business. And by shaking up the UK broadband oligopoly, we should…

■ Shares in BBGI Global Infrastructure have risen more than 20% after a takeover bid from a Canadian pension fund. The 147.5p per share offer is a 21% premium to its three-month average share price and – more significantly – a 3.4% premium to the latest reported NAV. Like many infrastructure funds, BBGI has traded on a double-digit discount, despite a 7% yield and solid long-term returns. ■ The £3.1bn JPMorgan Global Growth & Income (JGGI) is set for its fourth takeover of another trust since 2022 via a proposed merger with the £370m Henderson International Income Trust (HINT). Shareholders in HINT, who will receive new JGGI shares with no cash option, will benefit from lower costs (an ongoing charge of 0.42% versus 0.77% for HINT), the elimination of HINT’s…

The easiest way to invest in Africa is through a broad-based exchange-traded fund (ETF), such as the Xtrackers MSCI Africa Top 50 Swap UCITS ETF (LSE: XMAF). This covers the 50 largest African companies, accounting for 85% of total available shares on the continent. It includes North African companies and many from Sub-Saharan Africa as well, such as the South African technology firm Naspers, as well as the bank First Rand (also from South Africa). The total all-in fee is 0.65%. Since South Africa is by far Sub-Saharan Africa’s largest and most liquid stockmarket you might want to invest in it directly, through the iShares MSCI South Africa UCITS ETF (LSE: SRSA). This tracks the MSCI South Africa 20/35 index, which focuses on large- and mid-cap shares. The amount that…

While many savers may be fretting about the future of cash Isas, there is a much bigger problem with our savings – an astonishing £276bn was sitting in accounts that pay no interest last December. “This total was down from the record £282bn held in 0% accounts in November… but it’s an enormous jump from the £24.8bn that was stuck in zero-interest accounts in January 2008,” says Jack Simpson in The Sunday Times. A large proportion of this cash is sitting in current accounts rather than being shifted into higher-paying savings accounts. People with money held in these zero-interest accounts aren’t just missing out on the cash they could be earning elsewhere – they are also losing money in real terms. Inflation is currently 2.5% and is likely to rise…

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) should stand a better chance of winning lucrative public-sector contracts under new rules. The Procurement Act takes effect on Monday, with ministers aiming greatly to increase SMEs’ share of £400bn of contracts awarded each year. At the centre of the new system is a central digital platform (see www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/search) where SMEs should have less difficulty finding and bidding for contracts. The platform also streamlines the procurement process and enables firms to track what stage their bids have reached. Ministers have promised that SMEs will get more feedback on unsuccessful bids, enabling them to compete more effectively in future. One area for SMEs to explore is bidding on the basis that they can drive social or community value. Under the new rules, public-sector bodies no longer…

Donald Trump’s threats of tariffs and the declaration that he wants to turn Canada into the 51st State, in addition to the resignation of unpopular prime minister Justin Trudeau, seem to have upended the polls for the Canadian federal election. The huge lead that the Conservatives previously enjoyed over the Liberals has narrowed to three percentage points. While the Conservatives are still the favourites, the odds on them have drifted out a bit to 2/7 (77.8%) with Ladbrokes. While I think that the Conservatives will still end up winning, I reckon it’s going to be a much closer election than it was, and the odds now offer little value either way. In any case you shouldn’t bet any more money if you have already taken my advice to bet on…

“Europe has been the standout trade of 2025,” says Katie Martin in the Financial Times. The Stoxx Europe 600 index is up 9% year to date, with Germany’s DAX soaring 14% to easily outstrip Wall Street (see page 5). The continent’s stocks have been “deeply” out of favour since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but now a “peace premium” is creeping into valuations. Germany votes German voters, who head to the polls on Sunday, are another reason for the market cheer. Olaf Scholz’s dysfunctional coalition has been put out of its misery, with the conservative Christian Democrats, led by Friedrich Merz, all but certain to lead the next government, says John Plassard of Mirabaud Group. The exact composition of a future coalition is difficult to predict. Germany has a “notoriously…

Investment bankers are keen to engineer a merger between BP and Shell to create a “national champion [to] compete with international rivals such as France’s TotalEnergies and US giants Exxon Mobil and Chevron”, says Mark Shapland in The Mail on Sunday. The combined entity would be a “behemoth” with 180,000 employees; it would have enough scale to keep costs low. What’s more, Shell, which has “gone from strength to strength” under Wael Sawan, could help turn around BP, whose CEO Murray Auchincloss is now in the “last-chance saloon” after a string of poor results. Merging BP and Shell isn’t a completely mad idea, says Yawen Chen in Breakingviews. Even modest savings from eliminating duplication could add $33bn to the value of the combined group. But there are some big “drawbacks”.…

Five to buy Auto Trader The Telegraph Auto Trader is worthy of a premium valuation because it is a “very high-quality company” with a record of earnings growth. The online marketplace for vehicles is more than ten times the size of its nearest competitor, and expected falls in inflation and interest rates bode well. The company has a “strong” balance sheet and can deliver further attractive returns. 778p Experian The Times Experian is a “high-quality stock with [a] consistent record of growth”. The credit-data and analytics company benefits from an extremely high barrier to entry for rivals and boasts Nick Train as an investor. Experian is targeting organic growth of 6%-8% in 2025 and has raised its operating-margin growth forecast too. The company trades at a discount to rivals Relx…

I am not as much a goldbug as many MoneyWeek contributors (see page 38). I sympathise with many of the criticisms. It is not a productive asset. It does not generate an income. It incurs storage costs, so you can even say that it has a negative yield. We are not returning to a gold standard, so the idea that it represents sound money is wishful thinking. These arguments are all very logical. Yet gold also has a long history as a trusted store of wealth and there are logical reasons for that as well. It’s rare and expensive to mine. It looks the part – this is a social judgement, but one that has lasted for thousands of years. It does not tarnish, rust or corrode. It is dense.…

The Asian Tigers lose their roar Henny SenderNikkei Asia After the 2008 global financial crisis, China’s “aggressive fiscal and monetary policies” helped Asia to recover, says Henny Sender. Today, China is more likely to compete with economies in the Asean trade bloc than support them. Domestic demand is no longer “robust enough” to absorb all the goods it makes, so growth depends on overseas demand. China’s trajectory has had a huge effect on the Southeast Asian tigers. Take Thailand. Last year, its car industry – which historically accounted for 12% of Thai GDP and employed 16% of its labour force – took a nosedive, with sales falling to a 14-year low. The challenge posed by China coincides with the US push to “dismantle” supply chains and reshore production, so Asia…

marginalrevolution.com Donald Trump’s “blizzard of executive orders” – on everything from renaming airports to cancelling diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives to imposing tariffs on the US’s closest allies – has left critics confused, says Tyler Cowen. But it all makes sense. Trumpian policy is, first and foremost, about culture, not economics. You don’t have to be a “diehard Trumper” to have concerns about the culture of the American people generally, or the state of its government and levels of public service. Why is it in decline? Look to China and you see lots of “screwed-up policies”, but nevertheless a country that is growing thanks to a pro-business, pro-work culture. Latin America, on the other hand, has all the “right” policies, but is stagnant. How, then, to “fix” America? Tell everyone…

When the directors of the ailing, family-controlled Majedie Investments (LSE: MAJE) were looking for a new manager, they looked for something different from the mainstream. They found it in Marylebone Partners, a small boutique founded in 2013. “As an investment trust, you need to give investors something they couldn’t get elsewhere,” says Dan Higgins, Majedie’s lead manager. That is achieved through what Marylebone calls its “liquid endowment model” – a mix of niche funds in selected areas, direct investments and special situations, but no private equity or property. The success so far is shown by net asset value (NAV) growth of 18% from 1 March 2023 to the end of 2024. The discount to net asset value – once more than 30% – has fallen to less than 5%, giving…

The continual drip, drip of companies being taken over or delisted from the London Stock Exchange, and the lack of a pipeline to replace them, is making it increasingly challenging to find exciting, undervalued opportunities there. That means it’s even more critical for investors to act quickly and with conviction when opportunities arise. Filtronic (Aim: FTC) is one such opportunity. It is a UK-based designer and manufacturer of high-performance radio-frequency microwave and millimetre-wave components and subsystems for the aerospace industry. Over the past decade, it has carved out a world-leading niche in this corner of the market, and today it’s reaping the benefits. A change in fortune Historically, Filtronic’s three main areas of activity have been mobile telecommunications infrastructure, defence and aerospace, and public safety. Orders from these sectors provided…

● “Those who have ever asked how much money is enough may be interested to learn that £213,000 could be the answer,” says Ali Hussain in The Sunday Times. According to research by HSBC, that is the annual salary that would make most people feel wealthy. The figure varies by location. “Londoners said it would take more than £289,000 a year to make them feel rich, while those in the north-east said that £80,000 a year would do.” ● “Britain’s big energy providers have paid more than £20m in compensation to customers for billing mistakes over the past five years,” says Frederick O’Brien in The Guardian. The huge amounts being paid out are not to rectify bills incorrectly paid, they are “time and trouble” awards – “compensation for the inconvenience…

● Could using an energy broker help your business get a better deal on gas and electricity? Data from Ofgem shows that while a third of businesses use a broker to find the best energy deals, larger ones are more likely to use a third party than their smaller counterparties. Brokers don’t guarantee energy-bill savings, but they do make it easier to compare all the deals available in the market – and provide specialist advice on the likely direction of prices. They can also make sure small businesses don’t automatically roll over contracts. ● Small Business Britain, the group that promotes small businesses in the UK, will launch a six-week online programme next week aimed at helping firms to get more out of marketing activity such as social-media campaigns and…

It has been a mixed fortnight for my six long tips, with two rising and four falling. Highstreet stalwart Marks & Spencer jumped from 327p to 358p and Hilton Food Group increased from 866p to 889p. Property developer Harworth slipped from 169p to 164p, United Airlines depreciated from $107 to $104 and Domino’s Pizza Group decreased from 293p to 291p. Ticketing firm Trainline also went down, from 367p to 358p. Nevertheless, my gains from the tips that went up outweighed the losses from those that moved in the opposite direction, with my net profit increasing from £1,059 to £1,297. The same couldn’t be said for my four short tips. While telecoms company Lumen Technologies went down from $5.92 to $4.60, the other three picks moved against me. In two of…

Corruption in politics can be clear-cut, says The Economist – “wads of cash” change hands for nefarious purposes. But more often, the picture is “blurry”. New Yorkers are being “treated to an unsolicited lesson in the squishy concepts of quid and quo courtesy of their mayor and president”. Eric Adams (pictured), New York’s mayor, was indicted in September, charged with accepting business-class flights and luxury hotel stays from Turkish businessmen without disclosing them, as required by law, and paying back the gifts with political favours. He denies all wrongdoing. Since the charge, Adams has been “currying favour” with Donald Trump, says The Economist, paying tribute at Mar-a-Lago. That’s paid off. The Justice Department (DoJ) has now dismissed the indictment against him, citing political reasons. As corruption allegations go, those against…

The eighth annual Cognac Show will be held at Glaziers Hall in London on Friday 7 and Saturday 8 March. There will be over 300 cognacs to sample along with a schedule of masterclasses and the chance to meet the owners and representatives from 29 brands, including Courvoisier, Rémy Martin and Hine, and some of the smaller family-run makers, such as Jean-Luc Pasquet and A.E. Dor. Whisky.Auction – sister company to the show’s partner, The Whisky Exchange – is bringing along 20 bottles sourced from the secondary market and auction experts to talk about cognac collecting. “Cognac is pound for pound the most expensive spirit in the world to make, but at the same time it offers fantastic value, especially at the top end where old liquid is still affordable,”…