MoneyWeek

Mick Jagger (pictured) and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones are set to get around £50m for the use of their songs in an upcoming TV series, says the Daily Mail. The 16-part series, which will be made by the team behind The Crown, will cover the s

Australian lettuce lovers are facing a supply shortage so severe that it has forced fast-food giant KFC to swap the vegetable for cabbage in its burgers, says Bloomberg. Heavy floods wiped out many crops on the east coast, sending prices soaring. Som

“Since the Bank of England [BoE] was founded in 1694, its Bank Rate… has been 2.5% or below for only about a sixth of the time… Most of that was due to the emergency rate of 2% that began with World War II and ended more than a decade later. Almost a

US regulators have unveiled plans to curb the practice of payment for order flow (PFOF), used by brokerages such as the popular trading app Robinhood. These firms do not charge commission, but send the order to a market maker (such as Citadel Securit

Refining is normally “a low-margin, low-drama adjunct to the geopolitically charged upstream business of oil production”, says The Economist. Yet a triple whammy of shrinking capacity in the West, Chinese pollution controls on refiners and sanctions

Residents of Lake Como, Italy, are used to displays of “excessive wealth “ from billionaires and celebrities, but the upcoming wedding celebration of hedge-fund tycoon Alan Howard “has proved one party too far”, says The Times. Howard has paid €1.3m

Shares in digital currency exchange Coinbase fell 25% in five days and the firm said that it will sack 18% of its staff amid growing fears of a “crypto winter”, says Andrew Griffin in The Independent. Coinbase’s CEO and co-founder Brian Armstrong (pi

• IAG’s chief executive Luis Gallego (pictured below) “blames Brexit and Covid-19 for everything that has gone wrong at British Airways”, but he needs to look in the mirror, says Alex Brummer in the Daily Mail. BA’s former CEO Willie Walsh had outlin

Cavotec is a manufacturer of specialist electrical products, such as self-coiling cables for cranes, especially in the maritime sector. It’s headquartered in Switzerland, manufactures in Italy, does research and development in the Netherlands and is

Australian oil and gas producer Woodside Energy has joined the London stock exchange through a dual listing, says Sky News. Woodside, which was already listed in Australia and has a market capitalisation of around £36bn, decided to add a London listi

On Wednesday, Nato allies and partners met in Brussels to discuss ways to help Ukrainian forces “survive a brutal Russian pummelling in the eastern Donbas region”, says Amy Cheng in The Washington Post. Russian forces destroyed the last main bridge o

Prime minister Boris Johnson’s plans to “rip up” the key provision of his 2020 Brexit deal with the EU over Northern Ireland have prompted Brussels to retaliate with legal action, say Valentina Pop and Sam Fleming in the Financial Times. The EU has r

The televised hearings of the 6 January committee (see bottom left) don’t seem to have scared punters away from betting on Donald Trump (pictured) to be elected president in 2024. With £1.6m matched on Betfair, Trump is still the favourite at four (2

In what they hope will be a “summer blockbuster” that will “blow the roof off the House”, the US House of Representatives began televised hearings on the US Capitol Riots of January 2020 at the end of last week, says Hugh Tomlinson in The Times. The

There is no question that households are feeling the worst squeeze on their budgets for the last 30 years. Inflation has already hit 9%, and may well climb to 10% by next month. An average car costs £100 to fill up with petrol and groceries are more

As worker shortages are felt across the hospitality sector, Big Table Group, the owners of the Bella Italia restaurant chain, are turning to robots to provide table service to customers, says Sarah Butler in The Guardian. BellaBot, by Chinese robotic

The top three executives at high-street retailer Marks & Spencer could earn just over £15m between them for the current financial year, says Jonathan Eley in the Financial Times. For that to happen, a variety of personal and corporate performance tar

• National Grid’s CEO, John Pettigrew (pictured), has been criticised by pay campaigners for receiving a £1.1m increase in total pay for last year, while families “battle rising energy bills”, says The Guardian. His package rose to £6.5m for the year

It can no longer be denied. US stocks are firmly in bear market territory. The Nasdaq, weighted towards technology stocks, got there a while ago (it’s down more than 30%), but it took until this week for the S&P 500 to finally shed the requisite 20%

“I’ve called this the golden age of fraud,” Jim Chanos tells the Crypto Critics’ Corner podcast. The short seller, who is probably best known for predicting the collapse of fraudulent US utility Enron, also teaches a course on the history of financia

An initial public offering (IPO) represents the first time that a company sells shares in itself to institutional investors (such as pension funds) and often also to individuals (retail investors). This process is also known as “floating” or “going p

“I’ve been hard up so many times. My dad lost all his money when I was 18, so I couldn’t go to university. When I went into recovery [for cocaine and alcohol addiction] at 28, I started with no money again. After What Not to Wear, I was suddenly in a

The labour market is tighter than it has been for 50 years, largely because of an exodus of workers, says Ian King. According to the Office for National Statistics, of the additional 522,000 who left the workforce in the last quarter of 2021 compared

qz.com When psychologist Mary-Clare Race studied personality disorders in the workplace, she came to a “surprising conclusion”, says Cassie Werber: often “toxic leaders” do not get ahead despite their problematic behaviour, but succeed because of i

theconversation.com “The world’s biggest nation is about to shrink,” says Xiujian Peng. China accounts for more than a sixth of the world’s population – its numbers “swelled” from 660 million to 1.4 billion over the past four decades – yet it’s on

ft.com/alphaville Central bankers like to think they are in control of inflation, and their opponents generally agree, berating them for not acting swiftly enough to put a lid on it, says Nick Peterson. A new paper – “Who killed the Phillips Curve”

Toy manufacturing giant Hasbro has fended off activist investor Alta Fox Capital Management and seen all 13 of its board members re-elected during its annual shareholders’ meeting last week, says Reuters. Alta Fox, which had accrued a 2.5% stake in H

■ “Little has changed in the fund universe over the past month,” says Morningstar. Growth strategies and US equities have continued to struggle, while energy and natural resource funds continue to top the table of the best-performing UK funds. BlackR

In recent times, whenever the West and its financial markets have been in trouble its central banks have come to the rescue with more cheap money. This is no longer an option. As a result, we are in a structural bear market for most asset prices. The

After the oil price soared in the 1970s, it was almost universally assumed that it would continue to rise relentlessly. BP’s annual review of the market in 1970 had stated that the world had just 25 years of reserves left so rising demand and limited

The rules of the child benefit scheme have been declared “unclear” by a study commissioned by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), says The Sunday Times. Until 2013, there was no means testing for child benefit: the same amount was paid to anyone with childr

• If you are feeling the pinch of rising energy bills “it may be time to cover up the hot tub, drain that heated swimming pool and unplug your wine fridge”, says The Sunday Times. Turning off energy-guzzling luxuries can make a big difference. Agas a

How will your staff get to work if next week’s nationwide rail strikes go ahead? If your business has a policy detailing your expectations of the efforts staff should make to get to the office amid travel disruption, now is the time to make sure ever

The world of work has been turned upside down over the past few years. From millions of people being put on furlough, through the shift to homeworking and to the “great resignation”, the job market has been in constant turmoil. So it’s not surprising

The Big Mac Index is an idea developed by The Economist to judge whether currencies are overvalued or undervalued by comparing the price of a Big Mac in two countries with the official exchange rate. So if a Big Mac costs $6 in the US and £4 in the U

• Small businesses looking for equity finance should not overlook the potential of the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS), which offers generous tax benefits to investors prepared to fund growing companies. Data from HMRC shows 3,755 companies raised

Given the ongoing market turbulence, it’s no surprise that all three of my open long tips fell. Supermarket group J Sainsbury fell from 234p to 204p. Coach operator National Express also declined from 270p to 224p. Airtel Africa also fell from 150p t

At Troy Income & Growth Trust, we seek to invest in high-quality, resilient companies that can grow their dividends. This should allow the trust to produce a balanced total return made up of a growing income stream along with capital growth. The core

Bus and train operator FirstGroup (LSE: FGP) has seen its share price climb after a £1.2bn takeover bid by a US buyout business, says Bloomberg (see also page 6). FirstGroup has received and rejected several offers in the past, but investors seem to

Shares in online mattress retailer Eve Sleep (Aim: EVE) have plunged 99% since listing in 2017, following profit warnings and years of continuous losses, says The Times. The firm was valued at £140m when it listed, despite just £12m in sales the prev

Irving Fisher (born 1867) was an economist who made a number of important contributions, especially in the field of monetary policy. He was also an inventor and profited handsomely when he sold the patent to a rotary filing system. Fisher invested th

Summer is finally here. And as we turn our thoughts to holiday reading, a group of acclaimed authors have been rereading their most celebrated novels in support of English PEN, an organisation that champions the right to read and write freely around

Every winemaking country in the world has its icon wines and superstar winemakers, and South Africa is no exception. Over the last couple of decades, Eben Sadie (Sadie Family Wines), Marc Kent (Boekenhoutskloof), Chris and Andrea Mullineux (Mullineux

Never mind the signed and annotated first edition of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale that’s for sale with Christie’s next month (see left). The Canadian author left her mark – or rather, she tried to – on an altogether different edition of her

Going… A one-off LeBron James Triple Logoman trading card, featuring three NBA patches worn by the basketball great while playing, could break the record for the most expensive sports card on 26 June, says CNN. The current record was set last August,

• Not everyone was happy in Falkirk last week when US rock band The Killers, fronted by “my favourite rock god” Brandon Flowers (pictured), came to play, says Jan Moir in the Daily Mail. Several residents of the Scottish town moaned about the noise.

£20,000 The cost of fuelling a lorry for a year, Lesley O’Brien, director of Freightlink Europe, tells BBC News. Last week, the cost of filling up a typical family car exceeded £100 for the first time due to the rising price of oil. £2.4bn The cost

Editor-in-chief: Merryn Somerset Webb Executive editor: John Stepek Editor: Andrew Van Sickle Acting editor: Cris Sholto Heaton Markets editor: Alexander Rankine Comment editor: Stuart Watkins Politics editor: Emily Hohler Wealth editor: Chris

Switching to a better deal hasn’t really been an option ever since energy prices began to soar last autumn. The advice has been to remain on your provider’s standard tariff, since it is protected by the price cap set by regulator Ofgem. However, ther

Online auctions still make up less than a third of global auction sales, but they are much more cost-effective and generate higher sales. Auction Technology Group is “an undisputed leader in the field”. The company handles between 60 and 100 auctions