MoneyWeek

“Most people who now work in the market have never experienced a ‘proper’ market meltdown,” says investment strategist Albert Edwards, a veteran of the 1987 crash. Perhaps that explains the palpable sense of desperation and panic on Monday, when the

The Élysée Palace – the office of the French president – was left €8.3m in the red last year after spending €125m on diplomatic and presidential duties, administration, security and estate management, says Politico. One of the more expensive dinners

Investors have “been feasting on US stocks like there was no tomorrow, buoyed by the sweet promise of impending rate cuts”, says Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management. But last week the Federal Reserve, the US central bank, opted to hold interest rat

“Two macro forces are combining to almost guarantee” a future of higher coffee prices, says Clint Jasper for Australia’s ABC. Population growth is expanding the world’s appetite for espresso, even as climate change cuts the land suitable to grow the

“Republican vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance [argues] that ‘a million cheap, knock-off toasters aren’t worth the price of a single American manufacturing job’… If your version of the American dream is to make toasters… it’s really hard to do that

Oil prices are resilient, while gold has put in a “star” performance this year, says asset manager DWS Group. Yet the Bloomberg Commodity index, which tracks global raw-material prices, is down by 5% in 2024 and is 27% below its June 2022 highs. Gold

Running chipmaker Intel may have been a “dream job” for CEO Pat Gelsinger when he began his tenure, says Asa Fitch in The Wall Street Journal. But three years on, things look “increasingly nightmarish”. Intel’s stock slumped by 26% to a 15-year low l

Shares in Pringles and Pop-Tarts maker Kellanova surged by 16% this week after it was reported that confectionery, food and petcare conglomerate Mars is preparing to buy it. That would be “one of the year’s biggest takeovers”, says the Financial Time

A few years ago, investors would have “baulked” if you’d said Rolls-Royce “would become one of the hottest” blue chips, says City AM’s Guy Taylor. The company endured “years of turmoil” prior to the arrival of Tufan Erginbilgic in January 2023. Since

The TelegraphBritish retailers have faced poor weather and high interest rates, which have reduced household spending. Nonetheless, Sports Direct’s owner, Frasers Group, has shown “resilience” and “growth potential”, with pre-tax earnings expected to

Investors are always on the hunt for the next Nvidia, says Wirtschaftswoche. According to David Giroux, T. Rowe Price’s chief investment officer, who is in charge of $1.54trn of assets, it could be Aurora Innovation, a self-driving vehicle technology

Chinese driverless-technology start-up WeRide plans to list on New York’s Nasdaq exchange, raising as much as $500m, says Bloomberg. It could be the biggest US initial public offering (IPO) by a Chinese firm since ride-hailing group Didi Global’s lis

Acres of newsprint have been covered by speculation about the tax increases the government and the Treasury are planning. But the predictions are nearly all the same. Taxes on private education may prove hard to implement; those on North Sea hydrocar

Kamala Harris’ surge in the polls – she has now overtaken Donald Trump in the polling averages – has been mirrored by improvements in her odds in the betting markets. However, Trump remains slightly favoured ahead of her for now. With £45.2m matched

Kamala Harris’s ascension to the top of the Democratic Party’s ticket for the US presidential election underlines why the choice of running mate matters, says The Guardian. So her own pick for vice-president was always going to get more attention tha

Hannah Neeleman (pictured), 34, who goes by her brand name Ballerina Farm, is a US “Mormon dancer turned beauty-pageant winner, homesteader, mother of eight and, with about 18 million [social-media] followers… the undisputed queen of tradwives”, says

During the election campaign, Labour made some very clear promises. There was no need for tax rises and the new government would stick to the fiscal rules set down by the last one. And yet, within only a few weeks of taking office, chancellor Rachel

● “Financial forecasts raised for a second time this year; share price still becalmed. If she didn’t have last year’s bumper £12.7m pay package to cushion the blow, one could sympathise with Emma Walmsley [pictured],“ says Nils Pratley in The Guardia

The past week gave us yet another example of how central banks have taught the markets bad habits over the past three decades. We saw a sharp pullback in stocks that had been on a bull run for most of the year, a sudden rally in a currency that almos

The Sahm rule is an economic metric that has been proposed as a simple indicator of when the US economy has entered a recession. The rule is named after economist Claudia Sahm, who formerly worked at the US Federal Reserve and wrote about it in a rep

Nouriel Roubini, the economist who became known as “Dr Doom” due to his warnings about the risks of the housing bubble before the 2008 global financial crisis, has become the latest high-profile figure to launch an exchange-traded fund (ETF), says Bl

David Fickling Bloomberg China’s cement production has “collapsed” since the real-estate bubble popped in 2021, with output this year expected to be around 1.85 billion metric tonnes, says David Fickling. This is roughly 20% below the average in the

“I know my value. If I walk for you, you’ll get your press.” Supermodel Naomi Campbell (pictured), quoted in The Guardian “There’s no doubt I’ve been surprised by how much some of those podcasts make. But I’ve never been massively motivated by money

project-syndicate.org Under a new law, employers in several sectors in Greece may go back to the six-day work week, says Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg. This is surprising for many reasons: it bucks a general trend towards “fostering work-life balance”

newhumanist.org.uk There have always been introverts and extroverts, “homebodies and socialites”, says Marie Le Conte. The two groups co-existed peacefully. The Covid lockdowns, however, have changed us. “Seemingly mundane differences began to defin

thecritic.co.uk A first report from the UK’s Covid inquiry might seem to make pleasant reading for lockdown sceptics, says Max Lacour. Ideas that were once oppressed with “snarling opprobrium” now seem to be part of the accepted narrative. The repor

I recently attended the inaugural Weird Sh*t Investment Conference in London, organised by the legendary Swen Lorenz. I heard 25 presentations throughout the day, offering left-field investment ideas ranging from banks in Kazakhstan to Madagascan hot

All house builders should benefit from a positive environment for new housing, but some will do better than others. Taylor Wimpey (LSE: TW) has national coverage and a large range of house types providing it with exposure to most eventualities. Its C

The market turmoil of the past few days has undermined the performance of my long tips. While three rose and one was unchanged, the other four declined. Investment and share-trading platform IG Group went up from 861p to 886p, high-street clothing re

The technology surrounding banking and finance is changing all the time. While this has largely been good news for the technology companies and the larger banks, some smaller firms have been also able to carve out a niche for themselves. One of these

The total assets of index- and exchange-traded funds in the US recently surpassed those held in actively managed mutual funds. Passive funds’ holdings of US shares had already eclipsed those of their active counterparts in 2022. While many people bel

Winter fuel payments are designed to help older people pay to keep their homes warm in the colder months. Everyone in England and Wales aged over 66 receives £200 towards their heating bills, rising to £300 for those over 80. But that is set to chang

Savers are the obvious losers from last week’s cut in the base interest rate. They have been warned to lock in interest rates now before banks and building societies start slashing interest rates. Homeowners, meanwhile, shouldn’t get too excited, acc

● Chancellor Rachel Reeves is planning a further crackdown on non-doms, people who live in the UK but pay tax elsewhere. Most tax lawyers think the latest tweak “will kill one of the last remaining attractions of the UK tax regime to the mobile milli

If your employer were to offer you more pay in return for a reduced pension contribution, what would you say? This is the dilemma facing teachers at one of the UK’s largest chains of academies. It is offering them the chance to opt out of the Teacher

New figures show that HM Revenue & Customs paid out a record £42m of tax refunds connected to income-drawdown pension withdrawals in the first quarter of the year. The total for the 2023-2024 tax year as a whole was £198m, reigniting calls for the go

● How much do you need to save to retire early? Data from investment platform Interactive Investor attempts to answer that question. To be confident of a financially comfortable retirement, someone retiring this year at age 55 would need a pension fu

For many income funds, the consumer-staples sector has been a happy hunting ground when it comes to finding companies delivering consistent and growing income. The sector benefits from widely recognised brands that encourage regular purchases from lo

US short-seller Andrew Left (pictured) became famous as a crusader who exposed companies with feet of clay. Celebrated targets included the Canadian pharma firm Valeant and the Chinese property giant Evergrande. Now he faces a big reckoning of his ow

Parklane, situated in Limassol, on the southern coast of Cyprus, is the perfect, picturesque escape. Here, you can forget about the stress of everyday life, relax, enjoy good food and admire the Mediterranean surroundings. From the second I arrived,

2023 Ken Forrester Wines, The FMC, Stellenbosch, South Africa (£41.50, reduced to £37.35 each by the case, greatwine.co.uk) I only know one person in the wine world whose nicknames include a grape variety. Ken Forrester is rightly known as the King

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