MoneyWeek

US cannabis firms just can’t “catch a break”, says Carol Ryan in The Wall Street Journal. Hopes for more tolerance of the drug at the federal level, where it remains illegal, were dashed last month after Congress rejected an initiative to give pot su

With Putin turning off the taps and the EU racing to build new capacity to import liquefied natural gas (LNG), imports from the US eclipsed Russian ones last year, the first time this has happened, says economics analyst Joey Politano on Twitter. In

Last week, Netflix’s Reed Hastings said that he would step down as CEO of the streaming giant after 25 years in charge, says Matthew Field in The Telegraph. Hastings, who founded the company in 1997, will move away from day-to-day management to becom

“[Investors] are desperate to see stocks rise. The thought of further losses is unbearable to them as well as their Wall Street and media enablers. But the facts on Planet Earth are conspiring to make life very difficult for [equity bulls]... Decembe

Dignity, the UK’s largest listed funeral provider, will be taken private by a consortium led by entrepreneur Peter Wood (pictured), the founder of Direct Line, and Gary Channon, Dignity’s former CEO, for £281m, says James Sillars on Sky News. The ter

Barron’s This Milan-listed supercar maker enjoys profit margins and growth that make it more akin to luxury handbag group Louis Vuitton than General Motors. The rich rating of 36 times earnings is justified by an impressive growth outlook – 2023 will

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, owner of Google, announced at the end of last week that it will “axe 12,000 jobs” say Katie Prescott and Martin Strydom in The Times. Alphabet is sacking about 6% of the 187,000-strong global workforce. While Pichai

Some investors worry that Brazil’s new president Lula will be inclined to intervene in the economy, says WirtschaftsWoche. But one company that should be safe from political interference is Telefonica Brasil. The telecomunications sector’s products a

Ivory Coast has listed part of its stake in Orange (formerly France Télécom) on the West African stock exchange, says Bloomberg. The $228m flotation was the regional bourse’s second initial public offering (IPO) in three years, with a stake of 10% in

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that Turkey will not back Sweden’s bid for Nato membership, following the burning of a copy of the Qur’an near the Turkish embassy in Stockholm by a far-right politician, says Nicolas Camut in Politico.

Following “weeks of pressure”, and a warning from Poland that it would transfer tanks with or without Berlin’s approval, German chancellor Olaf Scholz has finally approved the delivery of Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine, say Oliver Moody and Alista

The Australian Labor Party, led by Anthony Albanese, won the national election last May, displacing Scott Morrison and his Liberal/ National coalition. In a few weeks Labor faces one of its first major tests at the state level, with elections in New

Jacinda Ardern resigned as New Zealand’s prime minister last week, claiming she “no longer had the energy” to continue in the job. That brought to a close a five-year term that “brought her international acclaim but left her increasingly politically

To listen to the lectures from Tony Danker, the director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, the UK needs to get its act together if it is to stay in the race to develop the green industries that will dominate the 2030s. “While our comp

● Boot-maker Dr Martens “was supposed to be a beacon of solidity” among “the flaky crop of post-lockdown flotations in London”, says Nils Pratley in The Guardian. CEO Kenny Wilson promised “organisational and operational excellence” and the market “l

A factor is a characteristic of a share (or other asset) that has been shown to contribute to market outperformance. Research into factors was largely driven by academics trying to figure out why certain stocks tended to generate higher returns than

“Ordinary people don’t change the world,” says Tom Slater, who has been lead manager of Baillie Gifford’s innovation-focused Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust since his co-manager James Anderson stepped down in April 2022. “Corporate bureaucracy and

Like Scottish Mortgage (see right), I’m intrigued by the research of Hendrik Bessembinder, a finance professor who found that the vast majority of stockmarket returns have come from just a small proportion of stocks. Of the roughly 26,000 stocks list

Editorial The Wall Street Journal California’s political leaders are climate-obsessed, so why have they allowed the water from this winter’s storms to go to waste? asks The Wall Street Journal. One issue is the state’s lack of investment in infras

“That old-fashioned rule: if you don’t have the money, don’t buy it.” TV’s “Queen of Clean” Lynsey Crombie (pictured) on what her parents taught her about money, quoted in The Mail on Sunday “Davos is just Question Time for FT readers.” Kristian N

project-syndicate.org Vladimir Putin’s stated ambition of restoring the Soviet empire will almost certainly fail, says Michael Marder. But he may succeed in restoring one of the USSR’s worst features: its “centralised, sclerotic economic system”. W

bigthink.com The lifestyles of the filthy rich, such as tech tycoon Elon Musk (pictured), are not solely a modern-day phenomenon, says Tim Brinkhof. The patterns of economic development that allow individuals to build private fortunes are cyclical

tedgioia.substack.com Sales of vinyl albums grew by 4% last year, and some saw in this the continued growth of the old format favoured by many music lovers, says Ted Gioia. But the reality is that those numbers are a “huge disappointment”. Just a y

Many AI-related firms are either unlisted or not making any money. One blue-chip putting a great deal of money into AI is Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT). An early stage investor in OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, it has now agreed to invest a further $10

Meme-stock investor Ryan Cohen is set to find that “China is no country for bold activists”, says the Financial Times. Cohen, an e-commerce entrepreneur who sparked a huge rally in retailer GameStop when he took a 13% stake in 2020, has built a posit

■ With inflation running at 10.5%, “there are few ways to safely preserve your wealth, let alone grow it”, says The Telegraph. Still, a few sectors are worth considering. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent oil “into a frenzy”. Consider a fund that pro

Early last year, I tipped Asos (LSE:ASOS) – with the proviso that you should wait until the shares in the online clothing retailer had risen a bit before buying them. That proved fortunate: far from rising, the stock was caught in the bear market tha

Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), whereby a country sets aside a pool of money to generate a long-term income stream that can be used to bolster public finances, are increasingly popular, especially in countries with plentiful natural resources. Norway’

If you’re completing a 2021/2022 self-assessment tax return by 31 January, don’t forget to declare your pension contributions to help reduce your overall tax bill, writes David Prosser. Higher-rate taxpayers are most at risk of missing out. If you ma

Six of my seven long tips have risen in the past fortnight. Retailer Dunelm Group increased from 1,020p to 1,097p and luxury-clothing retailer Burberry advanced from 2,216p to 2,362p. Builder DR Horton also went up, from $93.33 to $95.73, while telec

Challenger banks, also known as digital or app-based banks, have been disrupting the banking industry for years. Unlike traditional banks, digital banks do not have physical branches; you interact with them exclusively through your mobile phone. Many

● Around 48% of car insurance policies now have a set-up fee added to the premium in the first year, says Ali Hussain in The Times, ostensibly to cover the expense of drawing up a new policy. Yet only 21% of policies applied this charge five years ag

Italy has shut down a failed streaming platform dubbed the “Netflix of Italian culture” after investing €19m in the project, says The Times. The ITsART platform was set up in 2021 to showcase Italian arts, music and history, with content (pictured) f

Are you turning 66 in 2023? If so, your state pension won’t be paid automatically. You need to claim the money in order to start receiving your weekly payments. Alternatively, you can defer your claim in return for receiving more pension when you do

India is perceived to be one of the most attractive consumer markets, underpinned by favourable macroeconomic drivers such as growing incomes, rising urbanisation, and a young population. The consumer-discretionary segment, with its diverse range of

● While nobody wants to see average life expectancies fall, the impact of Covid-19 and related healthcare issues could do pension savers a favour. Actuaries at pension advisers and life insurers use a standard model to decide what it will cost to pay

Lithium-ion batteries maker Enovix (Nasdaq: ENVX) has seen its share price slump after announcing disappointing production figures for its next-generation batteries. They will initially be designed for smartphones, but the group hopes to expand into

Shares in specialist pharmaceuticals group Indivior (LSE: INDV) have soared after the group raised its sales projections for its opioid-addiction relief drug Sublocade, says Proactive Investors. Sublocade is now expected to generate sales of $1.5bn i

Leon Levy was born in New York in 1925 and later, after graduating with a degree in psychology from the City College of New York, served in the US army. He then took a job as research analyst at Hirsch & Company, before leaving in 1951 to join a brok

2017 Roda I Reserva, Rioja, Spain (£48, petershamcellar.com; £44.95 each, sold by the case of six bottles, wimbledonwinecellar.com) You have to go back to the dawn of time, when Oddbins was in its heyday in the 1990s, to remember when this now-lege

The first month of the year usually sees all things American head to the auction block and this week both Sotheby’s and Christie’s held their Americana series of sales. Among the colonial-era chairs, tables and paintings was a rare map from 1795, dep

Going… American singer Taylor Swift has signed and handed over her Epiphone acoustic guitar displaying the cover art to her 2020 album Evermore, says the Robb Report. It is valued at between $5,000 and $10,000 as part of a sale on 5 February with Cal

In time, the path that Lewis and Clark had blazed west (see left), from the Missouri to the Pacific coast, became one of iron. The Union Pacific railroad company began laying down track from Omaha on the banks of the river westwards in 1865, while th

Editor: Andrew Van Sickle Markets editor: Alexander Rankine Comment editor: Stuart Watkins Politics editor: Emily Hohler Wealth editor: Chris Carter Shares editor: Matthew Partridge Staff writer: Jasper Spires Deputy digital editor:Rupert Hargreaves

£867 The average price per person for a week’s holiday in Greece this summer, up 30% on last year, says consumer watchdog Which. The destination has seen the steepest price rises as Britons have rushed to book holidays this month. $385,000 The upper