Indice dei contenuti per Issue 1307 in MoneyWeek

Military operations in the Middle East have never been straightforward. Legend has it that the ancient Lydian king Croesus sent delegates to the oracle at Delphi to ask what would happen if he waged war against the Persians. The oracle said that if he sent an army it would destroy a great empire. Croesus inferred that the empire to be destroyed was the Persian one and duly launched an attack. In fact, the oracle was referring to his empire. Lesson one: always ask an oracle follow-up questions if its answer is ambiguous. Lesson two: beware the Persian empire. This story springs to mind when you consider the extent to which the US empire is overstretched and ripe for a decline mirroring the fall of the British one (see page 42).…

SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket maker, has confidentially filed for a blockbuster initial public offering (IPO) by July, says The Wall Street Journal. The firm, which owns the Starlink satellite network, is thought to be targeting a $1.5trn valuation, with plans to sell $75bn in stock to investors, says Russ Mould of AJ Bell. “That would slingshot SpaceX into the list of the world’s ten most valuable public companies.” With AI chatbot makers Anthropic and OpenAI also considering $1trn-plus flotations, a forthcoming listings frenzy beckons – a “classic sign of a market top”. Musk is keen for SpaceX to be included in indexes such as the Nasdaq 100, where it can benefit from huge flows of capital via access to the more than $600bn in funds that track the index, says…

Are US technology shares suddenly a bargain? They have dropped 13% since last October’s highs, with names such as Microsoft falling more than 30%. Despite the sell-off, tech profits remain robust, which has caused valuations to drop sharply. They trade on a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 21 (down from 32 times last year), converging with those of the wider US stockmarket for the first time in years. Some argue that the tech sector has “de-bubbled”, says Albert Edwards of Société Générale. But these attractive valuations will prove a mirage if profits growth slows from here. Earnings estimates tend to lag behind real economic news that is becoming increasingly dire as high oil prices drain the lifeblood from the world economy.…

Donald Trump dispatched vice-president J.D. Vance to Budapest this week to “meddle” in Hungary’s election on Sunday, says The Wall Street Journal. His “junket” is of a piece with the belief among some US conservatives that Europe is ripe for a “culturally conservative revolution”. In this context, Hungarian PM Viktor Orban has, for the past 16 years, been viewed as a trailblazer. During this time, he has undermined democracy, stripping power from the courts and snatching control over state media, says Roger Boyes in The Times. Orban swiftly learned how small EU member states could stall “big-ticket EU policy decisions by using the unanimity rule”, often to extract “compensatory payoffs”. In the 2010s, annual EU funds amounted to 4% of GDP, with the EU effectively subsidising “its own subversion”.…

Amid the fog of war, it would have been easy to overlook the latest deficit number coming out of Washington. According to figures from the Treasury Department, the US national debt is now more than $39trn. It is only five months since it went past $38trn. The debt has doubled from only $19trn when Donald Trump was sworn in for his first term as president. The overall debt-to-GDP ratio is now more than 124%, and by the end of 2026 interest payments will be more than $1trn a year. The deficit is rising at a relentless pace and the Treasury is issuing more and more debt to stay afloat. It is going to get a lot worse over the next few years. Firstly, the Iran war is going to prove…

A “real” interest rate is simply an interest rate that has been adjusted to take inflation into account. (A “nominal” interest rate is one that has not been adjusted for inflation.) Real rates matter because inflation reduces the value of any future stream of income. Take a bank account into which you plan to place £1,000. If inflation is running at 1% then a 2% nominal interest rate looks respectable – your savings will have more purchasing power a year from now. However, if inflation is running at 3%, your savings will have less purchasing power when you withdraw them in a year’s time, even though the £1,000 will have grown (in nominal terms) to £1,020. Of course, the advertised rate on a savings account will be the nominal one,…

“The government is stark raving mad. Their tax regimes are destroying great swathes of wealth-creating activity and forcing a large number of entrepreneurs and investors out of the country. That’s the most appalling misjudgment.” Michael Heseltine (pictured), quoted in The Times “Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your rest home.” American comedian Phyllis Diller, quoted in The Christian Science Monitor “An economist is a man who states the obvious in terms of the incomprehensible.” Alfred A. Knopf, quoted in the Chicago Tribune “After recording the show in the afternoon we didn’t have a party. We watched the broadcast through the window of a TV repair shop near Freddie Mercury’s Kensington flat. None of us could afford a telly.” Queen’s Brian May on…

unherd.com It may seem strange to “dignify the spectacle of the travelling fairground with the seal of heritage”, says Wessie du Toit. But the thumping loud music and the rush of “sugar-crazed kids” among the dodgems and other hair-raising rides has been a feature of British life for generations. The industry has essentially consisted of the same families for 150 years and employs about 20,000 people. In Britain, some 2,300 fairs are staged each year, following time-honoured routes. Yet the hereditary trades are becoming “curiosities” in a more individualistic age and the fair may be reaching the end of the road. Many showmen’s children don’t want to stay in the business. The number of fairs is in decline. High fuel prices are squeezing those that remain. People are finding their…

● “More than a fifth of high earners say that the £100,000 tax trap is killing their careers,” reports Zachariah Sharif in The Telegraph. Research by wealth manager Killik & Co found that one in ten workers have thought about dropping the number of days they worked to reduce their income. Meanwhile, 17% “would reject a pay rise or promotion”. Families who exceed the £100,000 threshold face a double whammy as the personal allowance tapers off and government-funded childcare is lost. This can mean workers pay an effective marginal rate of 62% on every pound they earn between £100,000 and £125,140. ● The cost of flying has rocketed because of the Iran war, says Lucy Evans in the Daily Mail. The average price of a barrel of jet fuel has…

● Millions of older savers who took out Pensioner Bonds with National Savings & Investments (NS&I) should check on their accounts, financial experts warn, amid growing alarm at administrative problems at the national savings bank. Pensioner Bonds were launched in 2015 and offered high fixed rates of interest over several different terms; all the original accounts have now matured, but many savers have not withdrawn their money or checked in on their accounts for some time. With many accounts at NS&I hit by the bank’s administrative issues, it’s now vital to verify the status of your holdings. ● Do you have a pension plan or an individual savings account (Isa) with Royal London? If so, you’re entitled to a share of £199m that the insurer plans to distribute over the…

Surprisingly, given the stockmarket’s gyrations in recent weeks amid Israel and America’s air strikes on Iran, it has been a good month for my long tips, with four rising and only one falling. Telecoms firm Airtel Africa rose from 333p to 351p, Barclays advanced from 397p to 405p and pest-control firm Rentokil appreciated from 458p to 488p. Energy provider SSE increased from 2,590p to 2,728p. The only exception was construction group Galliford Try, which dipped from 538p to 498p. The net profits on my long positions increased from £2,565 to £2,699p, which is better than it looks as I am no longer counting the earnings from First Solar. What’s more, my short-selling recommendations didn’t do too badly either, with three out of four moving in my favour. Selfdriving freight outfit…

Simon Nixon, now a billionaire, made his fortune by inventing, from scratch, the concept of a price-comparison website, says Jim Armitage in The Sunday Times. Since he founded MoneySuperMarket, the market has become crowded with such names as Compare the Market and Go.Compare. But Nixon (pictured) sold up more than a decade ago, stepping down as CEO in 2008 and exiting entirely in 2015. Following the firm’s initial IPO in 2007, he pocketed more than £100m; subsequent sales achieved similar sums. Since then Nixon has become a prolific angel investor, with stakes in financial apps Revolut and Monzo, and a supporter of modern artists. Not bad for a “working-class lad from Wales who dropped out of university”. The lack of financial security and fear he experienced then is what drove…

2025 Pagliatura, Vermentino Toscana, Fattoria di Magliano, Italy £20.95, reduced to £18.50 each by the case, leaandsandeman.co.uk I have found six stunning Italian whites from Lea & Sandeman (L&S) this week, and next Wednesday I will publish notes on nine more wines on my website. The L&S team is adept at sniffing out great-value Italian superstars. So, apologies for the shopping-list nature of this column, but I must squeeze in as many finds as I can! My headliner is a gorgeous, effortlessly classy vermentino with a zesty, sea-spray palate. It is the ultimate aperitif white. The 2024 Friulano Visintini (£19.50 to £17.25, each by the case) is a bold, juicy, white-pepper-spiked wine with more balance than I have seen in this variety. The 2024 Zuani Bianco (£27.25 to £23.95) is…

Are you familiar with Pikachu or Charizard? If not, the Pokémon phenomenon may have passed you by, but these names are certainly exciting many specialist investors. They’re now paying hundreds of thousands of pounds – or even millions – for the rarest Pokémon assets. Pokémon is a Japanese media franchise, launched in 1996, featuring more than 1,000 fictional characters with special powers and features. Their human owners can train these creatures and send them into battle against other game players. Pokémon began as a video-games series, but has rapidly expanded with the launch of TV shows, films, toys and trading cards. Today, it’s the cards that are really attracting attention, partly from Pokémon players who compete in national and international tournaments and want the most powerful characters, but also from…

On Tuesday morning, US president Donald Trump said menacingly that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again”. A little over ten hours later, he announced a two-week ceasefire. The switch from genocidal threats to talk of deals was classic Trump, says David Sanger in The New York Times. But it resolves none of the underlying issues. While Tehran has agreed temporarily to reopen the vital Hormuz shipping lane, it remains under Iranian military control. The world is unlikely to “accept a situation in which Iran remains in control of a key energy checkpoint indefinitely”, says Richard Fontaine of the Centre for a New American Security. After the ceasefire Investors breathed a huge sigh of relief. Oil plunged 15%, with Brent crude falling to $93 a…

● There was “real fizz” behind AG Barr’s latest results, says Russ Mould from AJ Bell. The maker of Irn-Bru and other soft drinks reported “solid” revenue growth, but its wider margins were what “really impressed”. The firm has exited the less profitable water segment and expanded in energy and wellness drinks via acquisitions. A double-digit hike in the dividend shows that management is confident about the outlook despite uncertain consumer demand. “A favourite drink is the kind of affordable treat which people can continue to justify even when their capacity to spend on bigger ticket items is constrained.” ● “European fast fashion is entering its sensible era,” says Gaia Freydefont in the Financial Times. Former “disrupters” such as Asos and Boohoo have seen revenue hit by competition from China’s…

Jamie Dimon, chief executive, JPMorgan Chase “When we have a credit cycle… losses on all leveraged lending in general will be higher than expected, relative to the environment,” says Jamie Dimon, chief executive of megabank JPMorgan Chase. “This is because credit standards have been modestly weakening pretty much across the board.” These include more optimistic assumptions about performance, weaker covenants, increased use of payment-in-kind, and more aggressive private ratings, writes Dimon in his annual letter to shareholders. Meanwhile, the lack of transparency and rigorous valuations in private credit increases the likelihood of selling in a downturn. “Actual losses right now are already a little higher than they should be, relative to the environment,” says Dimon. “If rates or credit spreads ever go up, the companies that borrowed will have to…

conservativehome.com Britain is in a “mess”, says Andrew Gilligan. But is it really doing as badly as we think? Probably not. Much of the political debate on the left and the right is based on official statistics – “which are wrong”. And the “wrongness” seems to tend towards ”the gloomy, the pessimistic and the negative”. Our lacklustre GDP figures, for example, are often used to bash governments, but the figures are estimates that are usually and more quietly revised upwards. Figures for the state of the labour market and producer price inflation have become so unreliable that they are no longer produced. Child-poverty figures rely on a definition of poverty that few would recognise as sensible and much of the “poverty” disappears once benefits are taken into account. Such bad…

Derwent London (LSE: DLN) is the largest London office-focused real estate investment trust (Reit) with 61 principal properties distributed across what the company calls 13 central London “villages”. These include 88-94 Tottenham Court Road in Fitzrovia and 50 Oxford Street, which comprises 6,100 sq ft of office and retail space. The group also owns an extensive property pipeline, including 50 Baker Street W1, which consolidates three properties acquired over the past few years into a single office and retail building, scheduled for completion in the second half of 2029. Put together, Derwent’s existing portfolio and its pipeline are worth around 3,322p per share based on EPRA net tangible assets, an industry-standard performance measure. But the stock is trading at just 1,600p. According to analysts at Berenberg, this discount is deeper…

Happy new tax year! The 2026-2027 financial year, which began on 6 April, brings with it a host of new tax reliefs and allowances – and for pension savers in particular, it makes sense to get off to the best possible start. For most people, the support on offer is so generous that they need to take advantage of it over the course of the year, rather than in one go. This year, most people are entitled to tax relief on up to £60,000 of private-pension savings, either made as a single one-off contribution, or through regular payments. First, check your annual allowance, which tells you how much you can pay into your pension scheme this tax year while qualifying for tax relief. For most people, this will be the…

A decade ago, advertisements for spread betting firms were ubiquitous. The industry promised simple, tax-free access to financial markets, with a large amount of leverage. However, it quickly became clear that for many people, spread betting is unwise. After several cases of ordinary investors on the hook for hundreds of thousands of pounds, regulators cracked down, increasing the amount of cash that customers had to pay up front. Shares in spread betting firms plummeted, and took a long time to recover. However, recently the industry has enjoyed a revival. One big winner from the upswing is IG Group (LSE: IGG). At the start of 2025, the shares were still trading below levels seen in August 2016, but over the past few months they have surged by 50%. The company has…

“The key to spotting the best small caps is to identify those with the right foundations” Smaller companies in the UK haven’t had an easy ride in recent years. With shifting interest rates and the outlook for the economy looking uncertain, many investors have gravitated towards the perceived safety of larger, more global companies instead. Look a little closer and a different picture emerges. Across the UK’s small-cap market there are businesses continuing to grow steadily, strengthen their financial positions and build momentum. In many cases, this progress is being driven by long-term trends that are less dependent on the ups and downs of the wider economy. From infrastructure to healthcare and specialist services, these companies are benefiting from structural sources of demand that can support growth even in more…

In the second series of the television series Mad Men, set in the early 1960s, advertising maven Don Draper and his wife, Betty, are taken to Rome by Conrad Hilton, the founder of the Hilton Hotels group, to promote the latter’s new hotel – the Cavalieri Hilton. Admittedly, the series was shot on a Hollywood set, but it is worth visiting the real-life Cavalieri Hilton – today the Rome Cavalieri, A Waldorf Astoria Hotel – to find out for yourself why it is regarded as the company’s flagship hotel. Rome Cavalieri is situated on Rome’s highest hilltop, from which you can enjoy panoramic views of the city. Rome is, of course, famous for its many galleries and museums. But you don’t even have to step outside the hotel to enjoys…

“The… energy shock caused by the… war against Iran should be exactly when gold comes into its own… Yet since the war began on 28 February, gold has plunged by about 15%, more than global equities. Some hedge. [Gold is behaving like bitcoin] – trading in line with the market’s basest, speculative animal spirits. Its rise, by some 60% between last summer and late February, coincided with a boom in gold exchange-traded funds… Its fall is being accelerated by some of those speculative bets being rapidly unwound. Still, gold’s chief historic appeal is… against the debasement of money. This is a giant risk amid mounting public debts, which governments may seek to inflate away… In time, the momentum-chasers will inevitably find another asset to take them ‘to the moon’. The…

The MoneyWeek exchange-traded fund (ETF) model portfolio – which we have been running in one form or another since 2013 – is designed to be a very simple way to invest. It doesn’t try to time the market, forecast the economy or pick specific stocks. It simply holds a diversified set of ETFs that complement each other, tilted towards the areas that we think offer the best value. In any given year, some holdings are likely to do much better than others. Over time, the portfolio will drift away from its target weights. So once a year, we rebalance the holdings back to their target. For simplicity we usually do this at the start of a new tax year: this means that an investor could use the new tax year’s…

Norway is getting too rich EditorialThe Economist Thanks to its oil, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is now worth $2.2trn, $400,000 for each of its 5.6 million citizens, says The Economist. GDP per person is $90,000. Yet the country’s riches may be “warping” behaviour. By 2025, a fifth of public spending came courtesy of the oil fund. This has “perverse consequences”. Politicians can put off hard decisions, lawmakers don’t bother to factor in costs, voters are more demanding and there is less incentive to work. Norwegians can study for unlimited free degrees (more than 70% of baristas have an MA) and citizens are profligate, with average household debt at 250% of annual income, the highest in Europe. In the face of high borrowing, the central bank refuses to raise interest rates,…

quillette.com While the wars in Iran and Gaza dominate the headlines, the “bloody power struggle among Sudanese warlords grinds on”, says Brian Stewart. The civil war there, between the government controlled by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and a paramilitary force known as the RSF, started in 2023. The UN Security Council has expressed “deep concern” over the conflict. By one estimate, 75% of the population is in need of humanitarian aid. Millions have been internally displaced or fled as refugees. As of early 2025, it was estimated that 150,000 people had died in the conflict. The death toll may be much higher. Much of the capital city has been reduced to ruins. Yet international aid flows have been “sparse”, in part because the world’s politicians are “focused on other crises”. But…

High earners could receive up to £500 by swapping to a premier current account. You will need to meet eligibility criteria and move your current account via the current account switch service (CASS). This is a free, independent service whereby your bank switches incoming and outgoing payments, including direct debits, standing orders and salary payments, and transfers your balance. Your old bank will then close your account. You will be covered for any charges or interest that may be incurred should anything go wrong during the process. It should take seven working days. Between October and December 2025, the CASS averaged a seven-day switch completion rate of 99.2%. But only switch if the new deal offers better value. And always check the full eligibility criteria for bank-switching deals before you…

Good news for those turning 55 in the next couple of years. Ministers are understood to be drawing up last-minute protections for those who start drawing their private pensions before April 2028, amid fears they could otherwise lose access to their savings for up to two years. New legislation is required because the age at which you can start accessing your private pension savings is set to rise from 55 to 57 in April 2028, in line with the state-pension age, which will rise to 67 by March 2028. Pension experts had been worried that anyone younger than 57 who starts drawing their pension before April 2028 might then have to stop doing so until their 57th birthday. In theory, for example, someone turning 55 in March 2028 and taking…

British local elections for 136 local authorities are less than a month away, so more markets on these contests are starting to appear. Ladbrokes is offering markets on the mayoral elections in Newham, Watford and Croydon. The election in Newham looks most interesting. Labour is the strong favourite at 4/11 (73.3%). In second place are the Newham Independents at 7/2 (22.2%), followed by the Green Party at 8/1 (11.1%), Reform UK at 12/1 (7.7%) and the Conservatives at 66/1 (1.5%). Labour is currently doing far worse in the polls than two years ago. However, the fact remains that Newham is one of the safest Labour areas in Britain, with the Labour councillors winning 61.5% of the vote at the last council elections in 2022. The same elections also saw the…