MoneyWeek

What goes around comes around (and can knock you off your feet if you’re not careful). Life and finance are full of cycles. But the recurring theme of the past two decades is that economies have not been allowed to complete them. Recessions are neces

US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell says there is “a narrow path to a soft landing”, according to Michael Feroli of JPMorgan. A soft landing describes a scenario where inflation moderates without upending the wider economy. That path seems “a litt

Bets on looser US monetary policy ahead have resulted in the US dollar’s worst week since November 2022. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of major trading partners’ currencies, is at a 15-month low. The index has droppe

Australia’s property market “has proved shockingly resilient”, says Jim Malo in The Sydney Morning Herald. The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), the central bank, has raised interest rates by four percentage points since May last year, the fastest ser

The government unveiled a “welcome” plan this week to cap the number of students studying for “low-value” degrees that are less likely to lead to well-paid jobs or further study, says Miriam Cates in The Telegraph. Rishi Sunak pointed out that many y

Goldman Sachs gloom: Profits at Goldman Sachs “plunged” in the April-to-June period “as the Wall Street giant notched up one if its weakest quarters under CEO David Solomon (pictured)”, says Sridhar Natarajan on Bloomberg. Earnings fell 58% from a ye

What’s the issue? The energy transition means that the question of road pricing can no longer be ducked. According to calculations by the Office for Budgetary Responsibility (OBR), published last week, the government is set to lose £13bn a year in re

worksinprogress.co Housing in Britain has become “increasingly expensive and scarce”, says Samuel Watling. More houses were built in the 1930s than ever before or since. But after World War II, disaffection with urban sprawl led the Labour governmen

The accepted wisdom of fund managers is to avoid most new issues when they are plentiful, but invest when they are few and far between. On that basis, Ashoka WhiteOak Emerging Markets (LSE: AWEM), which raised just £31m in its April flotation, is a s

Every July I revisit my share tips from January. As I often point out, investing over a time frame as short as six months is akin to flipping a coin, especially in a market where stock prices are falling across the board (as is the case in my stompin

The US S&P 500 index has gained 18% this year. Many money managers have been caught out. Their defensive focus on rising inflation and interest rates left them blindsided by big gains in Artificial Intelligence (AI) stocks. There’s no question that l

We set up the MoneyWeek investment trust portfolio in 2012 after readers suggested putting our money where our mouth was. We picked a portfolio of six London-listed investment trusts to give investors a global, all-weather portfolio with a wide array

Interest rates on savings accounts are rising as banks pass the Bank of England’s rate hikes on. But while this is a welcome change for savers after 15 years of near-zero savings rates, there’s one pitfall: tax. The combination of higher interest rat

As prehistoric man hunted and gathered his way through the Stone Age, he might have come across six native metals (those that occur in nature in a relatively pure state): silver, tin, lead, iron, copper and gold. Gold appeared in river beds. Nuggets,

Cautious small businesses are reluctant to borrow in this economic environment, but demand for one type of credit is still robust. Data from UK Finance, the body that represents the UK’s banking and financing industry, suggests that while there has b

Finsbury Growth & Income Trust invests primarily in British companies, focusing on four core themes: luxury and premium products; beloved, mass-market consumer brands; data and software companies; and providers of wealth-management services in the UK

When Taylor Swift released her third rerecorded album – Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) – this month, there was no doubt it would debut at No. 1. The only question, says The New York Times, is “how forcefully it would smash records”. Here are two for st

“Over there!,” came the cry from our guide, Gina, a marine biologist. Our eyes had become accustomed to the hypnotic undulations of the waves and the slow, steady rocking of the Zodiac we were on. Up until this point, we had seen plenty of Portuguese

The laid-back “surfer-dude” lifestyle is even more relaxed with the advent of electric surfboards. These travel across the water’s surface, powered by an electric battery. That makes them a little easier to master than electric hydrofoils, “because t

Andrew Stein Finsbury Park Theatre, London, last performance 5 August It’s been barely more than six months since the release of the artificial-intelligence program ChatGPT, which first appeared at the end of last year, but some people are already ar

If West had led the Queen of Spades versus Six Hearts, declarer would have had an easy time, winning the King, cashing the Ace-King of Trumps, then running Clubs, and restricting the defence to their Trump trick. However, West’s partner had not doubl

“I don’t think there’s ever been a moment when the trajectory looks nearly as ominous as it does now.” So says economist Larry Summers, speaking about federal finances. The feds have got into the habit of spending money they don’t have and never will