MoneyWeek 1077

“ESG’s apparent outperformance has only happened since around 2013” Ask someone if they approve of something nice-sounding and they will almost always say “yes”. So it is with environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing. Survey after survey tells us that most people are mad for it. They want to invest in line with their values. They want to know the companies they invest in care about their staff, communities, suppliers, customers and the climate. They consider (they say) ESG whenever they choose an investment. But here’s the problem (or the problem for ESGlabelled funds anyway): investors consider ESG, but lots of other things matter too. A survey from the Association of Investment Companies shows that, given five criteria by which to judge an investment (performance, cost, ESG factors, the fund…

The popularity of Shiba Inu coin, a cryptocurrency which was launched as a joke version of Dogecoin – itself a joke cryptocurrency, or “memecoin” – is now encouraging crypto owners to buy the Japanese hunting dog breed (pictured) the coin is named after, says Insider. The coins have been endorsed by tech-billionaire Elon Musk, whose tweets regarding both the breed and the currency set off a significant run for the coin, with purchases by so-called “crypto whales” – investors who own large amounts of cryptocurrency – driving the price up by around 800% in October alone. Pennsylvanian pet business Rodel Shibas is seeing 150 to 200 inquiries a month about buying a Shiba Inu (which are apparently stubborn and not ideal family pets), says Bloomberg. One owner said he’d spent…

A Californian resident has paid off his student loan with the money saved from eating exclusively at a local amusement park for seven years, says The Times. The man paid $150 a year for an annual entrance pass to Six Flags Magic Mountain (pictured), then ate two meals a day for free. In all, he has had more than 2,000 meals there since 2014. The money he saved on food came to more than the average US student loan of $29,927. A Taiwanese maths teacher has been uploading video tutorials to adult streaming site Pornhub to reach more students, says The New York Post. Chang Hsu saw the move as a way to sidestep competition on education platforms, and has racked up over 1.9 million views. He reportedly makes almost…

PC Matthew Littlefair has been jailed for 27 months and must repay £149,764 after fraudulently claiming injury expenses and sick pay, says The Guardian. The police officer was involved in a minor car crash and pretended to suffer chronic pain afterwards, only to be found exercising and playing with his children while off work by a covert surveillance team. Executive Sharon Blades has been ordered to pay £120,000 in compensation to ex-financier and partner Chris Rowland for keeping him out of their holiday home, says The Times. Blades had banned Rowland from visiting their shared £1.6m mansion in Banbury for six years after discovering he was having an affair.…

“The Bank of England has blinked,” says Patrick Hosking in The Times. Despite its own forecasts that inflation will hit 5% next April, the Bank last week again opted to hold British interest rates at a “three-centuries low of 0.1%”. Quantitative easing (QE) will also continue. Bad communication The decision came as a shock to financial markets, which had been almost certain that a small interest-rate increase to 0.25% was coming. The pound had its worst week since August, while UK government bonds rallied as yields fell. Bank governor Andrew Bailey rejected accusations that the Bank had “bottled it”, saying that monetary policymakers are waiting for data on the impact of the end of the furlough scheme before acting. Investors should instead get used to the idea that rates are…

Central banks may have made bond markets wobble, but stocks are still going from strength to strength, says Nicholas Megaw in the Financial Times. Strong US third-quarter earnings have put worries about inflation on the back burner. Profits at S&P 500 firms rose by about 40% year-on-year between July and September. Sales increased by roughly a fifth. “Large US companies are broadly managing to weather the surge in the prices of raw materials, supply chain bottlenecks and shortages in the labour market,” say Joe Rennison and Colby Smith in the same paper. Corporate profit margins have fallen back slightly, but by much less than analysts had been expecting. Major US stock benchmarks continue to make new record highs, says Mark DeCambre on MarketWatch. The S&P 500 notched up eight straight…