MoneyWeek

Former footballer David Beckham (pictured) has defended his role as a paid ambassador for Qatar – for which he will reportedly receive £150m over ten years – by telling fans that the World Cup there will be a platform for “progress, inclusivity and t

Human beings make poor investors. Evolution has programmed us to survive, and none of the instincts conducive to survival help us make sensible long-term decisions. Our tendency to exchange information and gossip ensured that we thrived when we crawl

Global dividend payouts hit a record $415.9bn in the third quarter, a 7% year-on-year rise, according to the Janus Henderson Global Dividend index. The rise was due to a 75.1% jump in oil producers’ dividends to $46.3bn. Without the oil sector, the g

“[Economists assume] a stable relationship between aggregate demand, aggregate supply, wages and prices... But... these relationships are anything but stable... [for example] it is unclear how [the] labour supply will evolve as pandemic-related disto

“A speculative boom in the secondhand [watch] market that took off during the pandemic is fizzling out,” says Carol Ryan in The Wall Street Journal. Collectors of sought-after models have long been willing to pay a premium to buy used items, enabling

Former Disney CEO Bob Iger is back in his old job, almost three years after stepping down. Bob Chapek, his successor, had a rocky two-year stint during which he faced the pandemic, managed to pick a “public fight with actress Scarlett Johansson, lost

In February 2000 Vodafone’s value soared to £228bn, says Alistair Osborne in The Times. Over the following two decades it has fallen back to £26.4bn. “Lacklustre half-year figures” released on 15 November sent the shares down to a 25-year low of 25p.

Tesla shares have fallen to a two-year low, says Howard Smith for The Motley Fool. The electriccarmaker’s shares have slid by 40% over the past three months as boss Elon Musk has sold some of his holdings to finance his acquisition of social-media si

Investors’ Chronicle Chilean copper miner Antofagasta remains “a good horse to pick for the energy transition”. Copper prices are likely to continue increasing owing to the metal’s key role in electric-vehicle production and renewable-energy systems.

Shares in logistics-technology group Jungheinrich, whose offerings range from forklifts to fully automated warehouses, have fallen sharply over the past year due to the discouraging macroeconomic outlook, says WirtschaftsWoche. But this looks like an

Germany’s Cantourage, which sells cannabis sourced from 40 cultivators in 15 countries, launched an initial public offering (IPO) on the Frankfurt stock exchange last week. Trading under the ticker symbol HIGH, the shares rocketed by more than 130% o

The UK Supreme Court has ruled that the Scottish government does not have the legal authority to hold an independence referendum without Westminster’s consent, “scuppering Edinburgh’s plan to hold a vote next year”, say Lukanyo Mnyanda and Jane Croft

Anyone who argued over the course of the last decade that the launch of the euro or the rise of China would bring an end to the US dollar’s reign as the world’s reserve currency would have had to revise their opinion over the last few months. The cur

Very few investments have done well in real (inflation-adjusted) terms in 2022, showing once again that high inflation and weak growth are one of the most difficult environments for protecting your capital. For example, cash has held steady in nomina

A balanced fund is a fund that tries to deliver lower-risk and steadier returns by investing in two or more different asset classes. The standard example is a fund that invests in both stocks and bonds. Stocks are more volatile, but should provide hi

● Burberry’s new CEO Jonathan Akeroyd has an opportunity to create a stronger rival to “super-luxe” groups such as France’s LVMH, says Andrea Felsted on Bloomberg. “Making more of Burberry’s Britishness – a key plank of Akeroyd’s strategy – is long o

“In ten years, Tesla will be the largest and most profitable company in the world,” reckons Ron Baron, the billionaire US fund manager known for big bets on growth stocks. Baron’s firm runs 19 funds with almost $40bn in assets and several of those ar

Gillian Tett Financial Times Research from McKinsey suggests that up to 40% of people are thinking about quitting, often to find “non-traditional work”, says Gillian Tett. The key reason for this, it seems, is a desire to control “how and where wo

“I worked at Doncaster Rovers as the guy you bought the pies off. We had a little scheme. If the pie fell on the floor, even foil side up, it couldn’t be sold. I didn’t have a lot of money at the time, so a lot went overboard, because the pies were b

capx.co Why are older UK workers quitting the labour market? Since early 2020, the number of “economically inactive” 50-64 year-olds has surged by more than 300,000. That’s a big worry for the government, says Scott Corfe. Given the fiscal squeeze,

city-journal.org The fanaticism and quasi-religious zeal of many in the cryptocurrency world has been well documented, says Malcolm Kyeyune. But it’s not just crypto. One of the “great under-explored effects” of the 2008 financial crisis is the col

spectator.co.uk Let’s hear it for Britain’s “unsung social heroes” – providing unstinting friendship, bringing people together, and saving the health service billions, says Alec Marsh. Yes, the humble pet dog provides a multitude of vital social go

Earlier this month Associated British Foods (LSE: ABF) reported that group revenue rose by 22% to £17bn and statutory profits before tax (PBT) gained 48% to £1.1bn in the year to mid-September 2022. Within that, food sales are growing 10%, whereas Pr

■ Personal Assets Trust has reduced its investment in stocks to the lowest level since the global financial crisis, says This Is Money. The capital-preservation trust now has just a quarter of its portfolio in equities, 58% in US and UK government bo

Hedge fund TCI is calling on Alphabet, the parent company of Google, to take “aggressive action” to cut costs, including laying off employees, says Bloomberg. Alphabet’s total number of employees has risen by 20% a year since 2017, which is “excessiv

We are already grappling with the soaring cost of living and the prospect of a long recession. To make matters worse, we will now have to hand over more money to the taxman. In his Autumn Statement, chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced a series of allowa

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has announced an extension to the Energy Price Guarantee (EPG), writes Kalpana Fitzpatrick, MoneyWeek’s senior digital editor. But the average household will still see its annual energy bill rise to around £3,000 from April 202

● “Drivers who buy an electric car could find themselves paying more road tax than someone who owns an old banger under the chancellor’s plans to end the exemptions currently enjoyed by zero-emission vehicles,” says Richard Evans in The Telegraph. Fr

Although Howard Schultz is seen as the founder of Starbucks, its existence predates him. In 1982, aged 29, he was employed by the group in Seattle and, after a buying trip to Italy, convinced its founders to sell espressos, which were unusual in the

The chancellor’s Autumn Statement last week contained no new restrictions on pension tax relief. But that doesn’t mean savers got away scot-free. Previously announced freezes in the annual and lifetime allowance (LTA) remain in place. They are due to

● Tens of thousands of pension savers are still being forced to claim tax refunds each year because HM Revenue & Customs’ systems can’t cope with pension freedom rules. The total tax refunded since the reforms came into effect in 2015 has now reached

Could the appointment of new pensions minister Laura Trott signal a change of policy on benefits paid by the Pension Protection Fund (PPF)? The government-backed lifeboat scheme, which pays pensions to members of defined-benefits pension schemes whos

Our investment process is orientated towards small-cap value stocks in Asia. The three key characteristics we look for while investing are as follows. First, the company should have a good product that customers want and are ready to pay for, so that

The share price of biotechnology group BSF Enterprise (LSE: BSFA), which listed in May 2022, has rocketed by 83% after the firm reported that it was making progress in creating artificial meat, says Morningstar. The firm announced the cultivation of

Shares in Australian fund manager Magellan Financial (Sydney: MFG) have slumped by 85% from their all-time highs in 2020 (and by 67% in a year), says The Motley Fool. Co-founder Hamish Douglass took a medical leave of absence from the firm in Februar

William Duer was born in Devon in 1743. After Eton he served as an aide-de-camp to Lord Robert Clive, Governor of the East India Company, before inheriting money and land in Dominica upon his father’s death. In 1768 he visited New York on business an

“The pick-up truck market has brought us some interesting wannabe-luxury options in recent years, but it doesn’t often do sporty,” says Matt Saunders in WhatCar. The Ford Ranger Raptor is one of those exceptions. This second-generation iteration sits

2020 Teusner, Avatar, Barossa Valley, South Australia (£25.50, reduced to £22.95 each by the case, greatwine.co.uk) At the recent launch of my 100 Best Australian Wines Report, a wine trade rascal asked me why there were 250 wines mentioned in thi

The Hidden Influence of the World’s Most Powerful Consulting Firm Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe Bodley Head, £20 Each industry has a top dog. For consultants, McKinsey tops the list. A job there brings a hefty salary – but, even more important

Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine Mark Galeotti Osprey, £25 Veneration of the army has “become one of the central pillars of Russian national identity in the two decades since Vladimir Putin first became president”, says Peter Conradi in The

CHF2.27bn The total value of exports of Swiss watches in October 2022. Growth has slowed due to decreased demand from China, but exports are still up by 12% in the first ten months of the year and on track for an annual record. £875 The cost of a pai

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