MoneyWeek

Demand for weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy has raised Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk’s market capitalisation by a third so far this year, to around $419bn – a figure higher than Denmark’s gross domestic product, says The Wall Street

Russia’s failed Luna-25 space probe, which crashed into the moon at the weekend, isn’t the only Russian state asset to have endured a hard landing recently. On 14 August the rouble fell to a 16-month low against the US dollar at 100 to the greenback.

“Growth will be… harder to achieve in the future… [Ageing populations are driving a]… shortage of workers… and thus [higher] real wages… Over the past 20 years… geopolitics have [taken a back seat, but today] globalisation… has stalled… the world has

It has been ten years since the government allowed Aim shares to be held in an individual savings account (Isa), but there’s not much to celebrate, says Laith Khalaf of AJ Bell. Investments in many Aim firms are also exempt from inheritance tax (IHT)

Arm, the Cambridge-based semiconductor group, is preparing “for what is likely to be the biggest stockmarket listing this year”, say Katherine Prescott and Isabella Fish in The Times, as it confirmed plans to float on New York’s Nasdaq exchange. Arm

Homebuilder Crest Nicholson’s profit warning, coming at the same time as data showing a continued drop in both asking prices and sales volumes, shook the housebuilding sector this week, says Jasper Jolly in The Guardian. It now expects to make a prof

US Steel is “a cautionary tale to the current global titans about how quickly the world can change”, says Chris Isidore on CNN. Formed in 1901 as a merger of America’s top steel makers, it became the world’s first corporation to be worth more than $1

Shares AG Barr, the Scottish group behind the fizzy soft drink Irn-Bru and Rubicon juice, has defied inflation to deliver positive sales momentum in recent months. That is testament to the firm’s savvy management, “world-class manufacturing sites” an

Glass may be fragile, but the glass market is highly resilient, says WirtschaftsWoche. Italy’s Zignago Vetro has been producing glass bottles and jars since 1950. The food and drinks industry accounts for about half its revenue, while the cosmetics a

Could Selina become the next WeWork? asks Israel’s Calcalist. The Israeli group, set up in 2015, is a hotel brand for millennial and Gen-Z digital nomads; it hopes to benefit from the trend towards remote working. It floated in New York via a special

In what is being hailed as a breakthrough by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, the Netherlands and Denmark have agreed to donate dozens of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, a move that has received the blessing of the US, say Enjoli Liston and Mat

Thailand’s populist former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra arrived in Bangkok after more than 15 years in exile as his party returns to government “in a controversial pact with its military rivals that keeps reformists out of power”, say Rebecca Ra

The race for the White House is still more than a year away, but the end of the August before election year is usually seen as the start of the US presidential cycle. By then, most serious candidates have already declared, and started hitting the cam

● “BAE Systems’ blockbuster bid for Ball Aerospace is a scorcher,” says Maggie Pagano in the Daily Mail. The defence group is launching the biggest takeover in its history, with a $5.6bn offer for the US maker of satellite equipment. BAE is paying a

In Sandton, the financial district of Johannesberg, the leaders of the so-called Brics nations, made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, gathered for their annual conference this week. China’s president, Xi Jinping, perhaps relieved

The temptation to do too much that Andrew talks about in his letter this week isn’t just limited to trading. It’s very easy to try to forecast too much in situations where it adds no value. Take the flap we’ve seen in recent days over soft economic d

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) is a measure of profit that can make it easier to compare the valuation of two companies, or to give a clearer view of a firm’s underlying profitability. It looks at earnings befor

“There were a number of surprises in the year’s first half, from [US regional] bank failures to the poor performance of China’s economy after its post-Covid reopening,” says Sonal Desai, who oversees bond investments at US investment giant. “The seco

Editorial The Economist Fast-developing artificial-intelligence (AI) tools rely on “oodles” of data, says The Economist. Having “already helped themselves to much of the internet”, often without permission from copyright holders, AI firms are now “s

“Central banks are divided in four categories: the bad ones, like the Federal Reserve, the very bad ones, like the ones in Latin America, the horribly bad ones, and the Central Bank of Argentina.” Argentine presidential candidate Javier Milei (pictur

aier.org Competition in a market economy can clearly be beneficial, says Kimberlee Josephson. It challenges incumbent firms and incentivises improvements. But competition for competition’s sake is not always necessary. If you are wearing an item of

spectator.co.uk My home city of Brighton is an “increasingly unpleasant” place to live, says Julie Burchill. Thank the Green Party, which until recently ruled the local council. They seem to have been intent on destroying the place, and almost succe

billemmott.substack.com The big trend in government in the world today is industrial policy, says Bill Emmott. Public subsidies and investment has poured into favoured industries. President Biden in the US has led the way. What it means is that the

Starboard Value has built a 9.9% stake in US restaurant operator Bloomin’ Brands, making it one of the firm’s five largest investors, says The Wall Street Journal. Bloomin’ – which owns 1,450 casual-dining restaurants around the world under brands su

■ UK investors are investing – just not in Britain, says the Financial Times. British retail investors have poured over £50bn into global equity funds since 2015, according to data from funds network Calastone. But at the same time, they’ve been dump

The broadest way to invest in the recovery of the travel industry is through HANetf’s The Travel ETF (LSE: TRYP). This exchange-traded fund (ETF) invests in a range of shares, including airlines, cruise ships, hotels and even travel agencies (which a

Most cashback credit and debit cards pay at most 0.25% because the interchange fee – the fee charged by card networks such as Mastercard and Visa and shared with your bank – is capped at 0.3% for credit cards and 0.2% for debit cards. To pay more cas

● Banks are lining up some attractive offers for new student customers ahead of the academic year. Santander has one of the best student bank accounts on the market, offering a guaranteed overdraft of £1,500 at 0% for three years, providing users pay

Savers hoping for a comfortable standard of living in retirement now need to find £4,200 of extra income each year, according to new research. Pensions industry guidelines last year suggested it would cost £43,500 for a single pensioner to lead a com

● Nest, the UK’s biggest private pension scheme, is to start moving up to 20% of some savers money into privately owned companies. The shift is part of an agreement between pension providers and the government, which will see many schemes shift money

McDonald’s is one of those world-class companies in a stable sector that gives steady capital growth with a growing dividend. Over the past five years, the shares are up by 77%, while the dividend has almost doubled in the past ten years. The company

Barbie is now among the top-20 US domestic movies of all time by gross ticket sales. But there is still plenty to do. No-one has yet cracked the secret sauce to make streaming a sustainable growth business; old-fashioned TV is in secular decline and

Sometimes a company in an obscure market can prove to be a great investment. One such company is Howden Joinery Group (LSE: HWDN). Because Howden makes kitchens for small builders, rather than selling directly to consumers or large homebuilders, rela

This year saw the 25th anniversary of the introduction of “circuit breakers” in the US stockmarket. This followed the “Black Monday” crash on 19 October 1987, when $1.7trn was wiped off global markets, and there were fears that the entire US financia

The past four weeks have been disappointing for my long tips, with eight of the nine falling. Builder DR Horton slipped from $128 to $115, IT-services firm Computacenter dropped from 2,258p to 2,052p, and brick-and-tile manufacturer Ibstock dipped fr

The threat to our climate and biodiversity is severe, yet the world has never been in a stronger position to address it. Renewable-energy costs have fallen for solar, wind, and batteries. Funding for climate technology has grown. Engineers are suppor

The collapse of discount retailer Wilko is bad news for staff, customers and Britain’s high streets, says The Telegraph. But it marks “a symbolic changing of the guard”. For the billionaire brothers behind rival B&M Value Retail, the travails of 93-y

T Rowe Price was born in 1898 near Baltimore, Maryland, and after graduating from Swarthmore College worked as an industrial chemist at DuPont. He switched to work as a stockbroker soon afterwards. He came to dislike being paid a commission based on

The Porsche 718 Spyder RS 2023 is “the last combustion-engined Boxster” – just let that sink in for a moment, says Richard Meaden in Evo. Porsche’s next entry-level sports car will be powered on batteries. So, it follows that this era-ending send-off

2021 Dunleavy Sparkling White, Extra Brut, Somerset £31.95, dunleavyvineyards.co.uk I tasted Ingrid Bates’s new Dunleavy sparkler a couple of months ago and had it queued in my list of forthcoming MoneyWeek candidates when a second encounter with th

Going… Elon Musk’s X (Twitter rebranded) is selling “a bunch of stuff… in what feels like a comically unhinged estate sale”, says Jess Weatherbed on The Verge. A barn from Montana, repurposed as a seating booth, is among the odder lots at the HGP onl

The value of digital artworks known as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) collapsed last year after attaining their peaks in late 2021. As the prices have fallen, so the number of lawsuits have risen, says Lily Russell-Jones in The Times. Sotheby’s, a string

Editor: Andrew Van Sickle Markets editor: Alexander Rankine Comment editor: Stuart Watkins Politics editor: Emily Hohler Wealth editor: Chris Carter Shares editor: Matthew Partridge Senior digital editor:Kalpana Fitzpatrick Deputy digital editor:Rupe