The utilities and infrastructure sector has seen new structural growth drivers in the last few years. And the Ecofin Global Utilities & Infrastructure Trust (LSE: EGL), launched just ten years ago, gives exposure to the sector's long-term trends, solid protection from inflation and high degrees of predictability of future cash flows.

The bulk of our infrastructure was built in the era following World War II and now significant capital expenditure is required to renovate it after decades of under-investment. The US's Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and Germany's €500 billion infrastructure programme aim to address the issue.

Furthermore, demand for electricity is accelerating after 25 years of decline and is expected to rise by about 50% in the next decade. Energy-intensive AI data centres are securing their power supplies through multi-decade procurement contracts, which are proving highly profitable for utilities. Such fundamental drivers are yet fully to be appreciated by equity markets and there are attractive entry points for undervalued companies with solid earnings outlooks. Three shares stand out to me as particularly compelling.

Three utilities and infrastructure stocks to consider

One of the most unfairly hit infrastructure stocks is Canadian developer Brookfield Renewable Partners (NYSE: BEP), down more than 20% since its highs at the end of May. The group operates a portfolio of high-quality renewable assets in North America and across the world and its strategy is to gather assets essential to energy security to meet growing demand worldwide. This includes nuclear assets in the US through Westinghouse, acquired in 2023. The group has developed a major franchise in batteries, with an 80GW development pipeline, reinforced by the 2024 acquisition of Neoen, and is well positioned to supply data centres. The firm also has one of the strongest balance sheets in the sector and we expect it to deliver earnings growth of about 15% a year over the next three years, with 90% generated from long-term contracts and with 70% of revenues inflation-linked. The stock offers a 5.5% dividend yield.

Greece's power transmission operator ADMIE (Athens: ADMIE) provides exposure to one of the fastest-growing markets in Europe. Its subsidiary, IPTO, Greece's sole transmission system operator, plans to double its regulated asset base by 2029. A $530 million equity issuance earlier this year provided the finance for this ambitious capital-expenditure programme. The regulatory framework provides a pre-tax return on equity of 9.8%, at the top end of the range of its European peers. The stock, down by more than 10% since late June, trades on a price/earnings ratio (P/E) of 14 times, with a 2.7% dividend yield. This looks attractive and growth in earnings per share (EPS) over the medium-term is expected to be 25%-30% a year.

Through its combination of flexible renewable-power generation and transmission assets, SSE (LSE: SSE), the UK-listed energy group, is well positioned to benefit from the energy transition. By 2030, 80% of group revenues are bound to be either regulated or fully contracted. SSE expects 25% annual growth in its regulated asset base over the 2025-2030 period via a fully funded £33 billion capital-expenditure programme. The stock trades on a p/e of less than 12 times and annual growth in EPS solidly in the double digits. Annual dividend growth is expected to be 5%-10% over the medium term. SSE looks like one of the cheapest stocks in the pan-European utilities sector.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

British engineering firm Tek4 is joining London's junior market, Aim. It’s particularly welcome, as the London stock market has spent much of the past decade shrinking. British companies have been taken private or, in some cases, tempted to list in New York instead. Too few new arrivals have replaced them, leaving investors with a dwindling choice of growing domestic businesses.

Tek4 is a small engineering company based in Leicestershire. It makes highly specialised equipment for some of the world's biggest manufacturers of jet engines and power-generating turbines. Its shares will begin trading on 26 October. But is Tek4 worth buying?

Tek4 helps solve tough engineering problems

Modern jet engines operate at extraordinary temperatures. The gases flowing through their turbines can be hotter than the melting point of the metal blades inside them. Nonetheless, those blades must survive thousands of hours of service without failure. The solution is ingenious. Engineers pump relatively cool air through hollow passages inside each blade. Thousands of tiny holes allow that air to escape across the blade's surface, forming a protective film between the metal and the scorching gases. This lets engines run hotter, improving efficiency and reducing fuel consumption. Making those holes is extremely difficult. Turbine blades are made from exceptionally tough alloys and protected by ceramic coatings. The holes must be drilled at precise angles, sometimes through walls barely a millimetre thick. Drill too far and the tool can damage the opposite wall inside the hollow blade, ruining an expensive component.

This is where Tek4 comes in. Its equipment uses electrical sparks to remove tiny amounts of metal with extraordinary precision, a technique known as electrical discharge machining (EDM). Sophisticated controls detect when the tool breaks through the blade wall and stop it before it causes damage. Other systems combine lasers with EDM, allowing manufacturers to drill through ceramic-coated blades without moving them between machines. For an engine manufacturer, the purchase price of such equipment is less important than its ability to produce thousands of accurate holes without damaging valuable components.

Tek4 was founded in 2002 by Jason Duffin, an engineer who had already spent years developing machinery for the turbine industry. He previously helped establish MJ Technologies, another specialist engineering business. Drawing on that experience, Duffin concentrated on solving the difficult manufacturing problems faced by turbine makers rather than competing in the crowded market for general-purpose machine tools.

That focus has given Tek4 an international customer base. Its customers include aerospace and power-generation companies such as Rolls-Royce, GE Vernova and Siemens Energy. Although based in Leicestershire, much of its sales go overseas, principally to America and Europe.

Customers also have good reasons to stay. Manufacturing processes for critical engine components must meet exacting standards. Once equipment and its operating procedures have been approved, switching suppliers can require expensive testing and disrupt production.

Tek4 also supplies maintenance, upgrades and specialist tooling. These relationships give it more durable earnings than investors might expect from a small machinery manufacturer.

Tek4 still has room to grow

Tek4 generated about £16 million in revenue in 2025, almost twice the previous year's figure, while reported profit more than tripled to around £4.2 million. It sold more than 40 machines during the year, with individual systems typically costing between £300,000 and £750,000. Such expensive equipment makes annual results inherently uneven. A handful of additional sales can transform revenue and profit, particularly given the fixed costs of running a factory. Equally, delays to a few orders can have a disproportionate impact on earnings.

New equipment accounts for most of the business, but servicing, maintenance and upgrades contribute a meaningful amount of revenue. This provides a more dependable income stream, as customers need to maintain their machines throughout their working lives. It also strengthens Tek4's relationships with customers and creates opportunities to sell additional equipment as their requirements evolve.

Demand is supported by rising aircraft production and investment in electricity generation. Modern engines require increasingly sophisticated cooling systems, while manufacturers are seeking ways to improve productivity and reduce waste. Tek4 plans to add a second assembly line at its Leicestershire factory, increasing production capacity substantially.

The company is also broadening its capabilities. In April it acquired Rugby-based InnoLas, a British specialist in advanced laser technology. This could strengthen its existing equipment and eventually open opportunities in other precision industries, including medical devices and semiconductors. But for now, its prospects rest chiefly on turbine manufacturing.

Why investors should buy Tek4

The listing will also give existing investors an opportunity to sell shares. Robin Womersley, a corporate financier and early investor, currently owns 56% of the business, while Duffin holds 34.5%. Duffin is expected to retain a substantial stake after the listing. His interests will therefore remain closely aligned with those of other shareholders.

Once trading on Aim, investors will need to assess the valuation alongside the company's earnings, growth prospects and the amount of capital, if any, raised for the business itself. There are risks. Tek4 operates in a narrow market, depends on a relatively small number of major customers and sells expensive equipment that buyers can postpone ordering. Its recent results have been impressive, but investors should not assume sales and profits will keep rising at the same pace.

Nevertheless, Tek4 has built a profitable international business around a difficult engineering problem, supported by specialist expertise that competitors cannot easily reproduce.

One flotation will not reverse years of decline in London's equity market. But Tek4 is a reminder that Britain still produces successful engineering businesses capable of competing internationally. The company looks a promising addition to the Aim market. Whether it becomes an attractive investment will depend on the price shareholders are asked to pay.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

The Budget is one of the biggest days in politics, with the policies announced affecting everyone in the country.

Depending on the priorities of the current chancellor, some people may find they will start paying higher taxes, while others may enjoy a tax cut.

But how much do you know about the Budget? Test your knowledge in our crossword.

Did you manage to finish the crossword? Share your results on social media.

What would you like to see in the 2026 Autumn Budget? Get in touch by emailing editor@moneyweek.com and you may feature in our Budget coverage.

• How much do you know about the UK’s chancellors of the exchequer?
• How much do you know about the Autumn Budget?
• Income tax quiz: How much do you know about Britain’s biggest tax?

For the latest Budget news, analysis, and commentary, sign up to MoneyWeek’s free newsletters.

JCDecaux (Paris: DEC) has become an unexpected winner of the global AI boom. The company, which owns thousands of billboards and other advertising assets worldwide, isn't the most obvious AI play. But thanks to its vast real-world estate, it's reaping the benefits of a shift in spending by advertisers. As the market has woken up to this potential, the shares have charged higher, rising more than 70% this year alone.

Why JCDecaux's advertising strategy is a success

JCDecaux operates in the so-called out-of-home (OOH) advertising market. As I mentioned in a recent feature, this is one of the few traditional advertising mediums that have seen demand from advertisers rise over the past decade. According to WPP, one of the world's leading advertising companies, OOH advertising revenue is expected to grow 5% to $57.5 billion globally in 2026, then grow another 5.3% in 2027. By 2031, the group has pencilled in a total market size of $73.7 billion. WPP calls this growth a “structural anomaly”: while other traditional advertising mediums, such as radio, TV and print, are shrinking as a percentage of global spending, OOH is holding its own.

In the $720 billion-a-year global advertising market, digital platforms get the largest share of spending. Platforms such as Facebook and Google account for half the market. These are designed to get users to click through to websites and buy products or services. Alongside these are AI platforms, such as ChatGPT and Gemini, that have started embedding advertisements into responses, a market expected to exceed $100 billion by 2031, up from only $5 billion today.

The thing is, no one really knows whether people are seeing the advertisements displayed on these platforms. Fraud is rife and more than half of all online traffic is now just AI bots. Estimates vary, but on average, figures suggest that as much as $1 of every $3 advertisers spend online is lost to fraud or non-human engagement. In some cases, that rises to $1.5 of every $3.

Advertising has always had some level of such “leakage”, but this level is unprecedented. OOH fills in this gap nicely. Advertisers can pick one location, say Bank Underground station in the City of London, and know they're in one place, with tens of thousands of people passing through every day. It's straightforward to target a particular audience in a given place with digital advertising, but there's never a guarantee that that person or digital device is where it says it is. It's hard to move a station, airport, or shopping centre, where the most lucrative OOH billboards tend to be located. Stadiums are another top play.

That's not to say OOH is winning at digital's expense. It's part of a toolkit. OOH is mainly used for visibility and brand building and helps drive awareness of the brand, increasing the likelihood you'll click a similar advertisement the next time you see it online. As analysts at Berenberg note, OOH enables the “critical need for brand differentiation as AI rapidly commoditises content”.

JCDecaux is a family success story

JCDecaux effectively created the market for outdoor advertising. In 1964, Jean-Claude Decaux invented the concept of “street furniture”, with bus shelters financed by advertising in Lyon (France). Two years later, it started rolling out the same concept across Europe. Since then, the business has grown alongside the advertising industry. It has worked with local governments, advertising agencies, clients, and world-leading designers, such as Norman Foster, to create street furniture and OOH advertisement placements that fit the environment, using space that would otherwise go unused.

Today, the founding Decaux family still owns a majority of the business (66% via JCDecaux Holding SAS) and it holds a 12% share of the global OOH market, making it the largest single player. France is still its largest single market with 17% of revenue generated in the country, followed by the UK (11%) and US (8%). The rest of Europe accounts for 30% of revenue, Asia-Pacific for 21% and the rest of the world 14%. Street furniture is the group's biggest revenue segment, making up just over 50% of sales and 66% of earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda).

Should you invest in JCDecaux?

Operating OOH assets is not particularly capital- or resource-intensive. The company has reported near 20% Ebitda margins for the past few years and Berenberg has pencilled in margin growth to 22.2% by 2028. While the group has some debt, it's manageable at 1.1x Ebitda. What's more, with free cash flow of €336 million in 2025, rising to €354 million by 2028, analysts believe the company is on track to wipe out its debt within the next three years.

However, that's unlikely as the group is hunting for deals in multiple markets, in the range of around €100 million – or around 50% of annual free cash flow after dividends. Even without these deals, Berenberg believes the group can grow its top line in line with the market over the coming years, with adjusted Ebitda rising faster – 6%-9% thanks to margin growth.

Even after running 70% higher this year, the shares trade at a relatively undemanding valuation of 17.1 times forward earnings and a free cash-flow yield of 6.6%. That does not appear to give any account for its growth or possible bolt-on deals. On Berenberg's 2028 estimates, JCDecaux is selling at 14.4 times earnings and a free cash-flow yield of 7.2%. The shares also yield 3%.

JCDecaux stands out for its rock-solid balance sheet, free cash flow and presence in a market that is full of AI-related risk, and seems to be holding its own against the digital onslaught.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

Our ETF portfolio has become a little over-exposed to tech, so it's time to introduce a new fund.

“Unprecedented” is a word that gets thrown around too easily, but make no mistake: the AI infrastructure boom that many investors are betting on would be unprecedented in scale – if it materialises.

Total spending based on the announced data-centre pipeline could amount to $10 trillion in the US between 2025 and 2032, according to a paper by Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh of Columbia Business School, which would be 3.6% of GDP. The previous record was the 2.2% of GDP spent on railways between 1870-1890.

This doesn't mean that it's impossible, but if expectations are not met, makers of chips and other hardware – who are earning huge profits from an incredibly tight market – may not enjoy as many years of limitless demand as forecasts currently suggest. And the recent jitters in data-centre and memory stocks are a sign that the cost of disappointment could be severe.

The most unexpected downside could be in emerging markets; almost 45% of the MSCI Emerging Markets is now in tech, mostly in hardware suppliers. At present, we have 10% of our MoneyWeek ETF portfolio in the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (LSE: EMIM). We also have 5% in WisdomTree True Emerging Markets ETF (LSE: WEMP) to tilt to traditional emerging markets (there's no China, Korea or Taiwan in that fund).

I have often said that if we start to worry more about the sustainability of the AI cycle, we need to keep an eye on our ETF portfolio's tech exposure via EMIM. Increasingly, we feel the urge to act on that, so we are going to cut the 10% in EMIM to 5%. This brings our headline emerging-markets exposure to 10%, but the real effect is to bring down the total tech exposure that is hidden in our overall emerging-markets position.

We can still have higher tech exposure if we want, but do so in a way that becomes explicit – eg, hold something like iShares MSCI Global Semiconductors (LSE: SEMI). Or we can dial it down altogether. Either are valid – the key is that we can see more clearly what we have chosen to do.

When we look at how different sectors are performing, it is clear the market's top anti-AI or risk-off trade is healthcare. You can see in the chart how it has moved broadly inversely to the tech-influenced markets indemerging-ex over the past year.

A change to the MoneyWeek ETF portfolio

This makes sense. Other defensives such as consumer staples are battling a number of problems, including changing tastes and weaker pricing power. Of course, healthcare is not risk-free either. Medical costs are a political issue. The patent cliff never goes away. Concentration is not low: Eli Lilly is 11% of the sector index. It is not cheap: on a forecast price/earnings ratio of 17.5, the MSCI World Health Care is at the same valuation as the overall MSCI World. However, demographics bode well for demand and earnings should be steady. It is attractive in its own way, as well as diversifying us from AI. So we will add 5% in Xtrackers MSCI World Health Care ETF (LSE: XWHS) to our portfolio.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

Italian arch dealmaker Stefano Pessina has finally found “the right shopkeeper” for Boots, four years after The Economist predicted there might be a long wait.

The Canadian branch of the Weston family, which once owned Selfridges, has bought the 177-year-old pharmacy and beauty chain for $8.9 billion.

After 20 years of steering what Pessina called “an iconic brand and a British institution” through various ownership structures and makeovers, with mixed success, he can finally close his medicine cabinet. “We are delighted to be passing on a thriving Boots,” he said.

It's been a “tortuous” process for Stefano Pessina and his wife Ornella Barra, who “through more than a thousand deals” once sought to dominate global pharmacy, says the Financial Times.

Pessina, who took Boots private with the backing of investment firm KKR in 2007, kept a stake under different private-equity owners, and merged and de-merged the business with a US peer, Walgreens. A plan to re-float Boots was dropped in 2024.

But at least the Nottingham-based chain's future now seems secure. Pessina, 85, said he's now working “just 12” hours a day instead of the usual 18 he used to clock up. Yet clearly, “he hasn't lost his touch”, says Bloomberg. The entrepreneur and his latest private-equity partner, Sycamore, won't get the $10 billion they hoped for. But with sales driven up by a resurgence in beauty and the wild popularity of weight-loss jabs, the price fetched isn't “too far off”.

The Monaco-based power couple have been entwined romantically and commercially since the 1980s, when they combined their pharmaceutical businesses in their native Italy. They proved a winning double act: “Pessina as the methodical empire builder and Barra the hard-driving operator”. One former colleague recalls how “it was not uncommon for Barra to juggle closing a deal while packing Pessina's suitcase for their next trip”. He may be the strategist, but she is the engine room.

Stefano Pessina's life-changing decision

Stefano Pessina was born in 1941 in Pescara, and is a graduate of Milan's Polytechnic university. He started out in academia but, reportedly turned off by its left-wing politics, quit to join the market-research firm ACNielsen, says the Monaco Tribune.

In the mid-1970s, as Italy was struggling through a lengthy period of political and economic turmoil known as “the years of lead”, Pessina made the life-changing decision of attempting to salvage his family's failing wholesale pharmaceutical business. His “ability with numbers” came up trumps, says The Times. He repeated the trick for some of his father's business associates “in return for small stakes in their companies” and his deal-making career began.

There followed a whirlwind of takeover activity as Pessina's Alleanza Farmaceutica (shortly renamed Alleanza Salute Italia) became the country's undisputed leader in pharmaceutical distribution. France, Greece and Portugal followed. In 1997, Pessina broke new ground in Britain by acquiring Unichem, which had retail as well as wholesale and distribution operations. That gave him the scale to rise still higher, says The Guardian. Having “stalked” Boots for six years, Pessina flamboyantly invited its management for merger talks on his yacht off Sardinia in 2006. A year later, he teamed up with private-equity firm KKR to take the combined Alliance Boots private for around £11bn in what was then Europe's largest leveraged buyout.

The deal cast Pessina as an international predator. Yet from an investment standpoint it was hugely successful, says the FT. While most of the cheap credit-fuelled “mega-buyouts” of 2006-2007 crashed in flames, Boots was “a rare example of the alchemy coming good”. By 2012, when merger plans with the US drugstore giant Walgreens were announced, Pessina and his KKR partners had “almost tripled” their 2007 investment. That historic deal resulted in a truly global behemoth, with turnover close to $140bn by 2023.

Pessina, who is known for his “long, meditative periods of silence”, bestrode the world, says the Monaco Tribune. Times have changed. “Globalisation as we have known it is over,” he told the Italian daily La Stampa in 2024. It seems timely that he is now handing over the baton. Still, he will go down in business history as the “Italian alchemist” who turned deals into gold.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

So-called frontier markets account for about a quarter of the world's population today, but only 5% of global GDP. A little over half of the world's eight billion people are in emerging economies and about 12% of the world's population lives in developed countries.

The US and North America as a whole account for only about 4.7% of the world's population. But the US stock market makes up around 73% of the MSCI World index. And, while the World Federation of Exchanges tracks about 58,200 listed companies worldwide, the Magnificent Seven technology stocks (Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta and Tesla) account for about 22% of global equity benchmarks.

Those figures speak volumes about the global influence of the US economy and financial system, but it also reminds us that there are other options out there for investors. Many frontier markets are chalking up growth rates in the mid- to high single digits and economies are opening up. Investors generally overlook these countries. But they really shouldn't.

One of the biggest success stories recently has been Vietnam. Its economy has been on a tear over the past five years as the trade war between China and the US has drawn in producers attracted by the country's low-cost labour and healthy infrastructure investment. GDP growth in the first nine months of the year hit 9%. To sustain growth, the government aims to invest $1.5 trillion in infrastructure by the end of the decade. Index providers didn't allow it to join emerging-market indices until the country pushed through major trade-settlement reforms and opened its markets to foreign investors. But on 21 September 2026, Vietnam officially became an emerging market when 27 Vietnamese stocks entered the FTSE Global All Cap index, with full integration phased in over 12 months.

Vietnam's growth and graduation underline one of the key trends that is set to shape the global economy over the next decade. As the Western world ages, emerging and frontier markets will play a crucial role in global economic expansion, contributing about 65% of global economic growth by 2035, according to S&P Global. Notably, frontier markets, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa, will play a prominent role in this growth due to their favourable demographics.

What is a frontier market?

The term “frontier markets” was coined by the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank Group's private-sector arm, in the early 1990s, to serve as shorthand for the next generation of emerging markets. What constitutes a frontier market varies by the bank or NGO conducting the research, but generally, markets in this category have meaningful but still limited access to international financial markets and GDP per capita around one-third of the median level of emerging markets. That's not to say all frontier markets are low-income countries. Barbados and Bahrain are both classed as frontier markets by rating agency S&P Global and have estimated GDP per capita figures of around $30,000 (about 15% below Spain and Japan).

At the end of 2025, there were 56 frontier markets, up from 39 in 2012. The list has added previously unclassified countries as they've issued debt or made efforts to unlock capital markets. Four frontier markets (Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Panama and Romania) have become emerging markets since 2012 by attaining high-income status, but as the World Bank notes, only Vietnam has actually graduated from frontier market to developing market in the eyes of equity-index providers.

Around a third of frontier markets are located in Africa, which has long drawn investors seeking exciting, underdeveloped growth markets. But its reliance on the volatile commodity industry, along with limited internal investment and unsustainable growth, has often left investors disappointed. Now, it could be about to turn a corner, thanks to one man's vision.

One person lifts Africa's prospects as a frontier market

Africa holds about 30% of the world's mineral reserves, 8% of its natural gas and 12% of its oil reserves. It holds 40% of the world's gold and the largest reserves of cobalt, platinum and uranium, all key to the global energy transition, not to mention 60% of the world's uncultivated arable land. However, the continent has never really controlled its own resources. Money has flowed in to develop mines, then flowed right back out to shareholders in London and New York. Nigeria is a great case study. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) notes that the country was one of Africa's top crude-oil producers in the 2000s, producing two million barrels a day. However, it lacked the refining capacity to turn this into usable fuel. Nigeria exported oil and then imported it back at market rates, losing wealth and exposing consumers to global oil-market volatility.

Africa's richest person, Aliko Dangote, has changed all that with his 700,000-barrel-a-day oil refinery in Nigeria. The $20 billion project keeps oil in Nigeria and lets it export refined products to other countries (its jet-fuel exports helped ease a global crisis following the closure of the Strait of Hormuz). The continent's largest oil refinery is listing its shares across Africa (on exchanges in Nigeria and Botswana), seeking to raise $1.6 billion from investors, with demand exceeding the offer by three or four times.

Dangote is looking to replicate this with a new refinery in Lamu, a coastal town in southeastern Kenya. Construction on the $16 billion refinery began in September. Tanzanian billionaire Mohammed Dewji has said he intends to invest $100 million in the project. Others are also moving into the region. Canada's Zimar Group signed a deal in August with Niger to build a $1.9 billion oil refinery and a petrochemical complex. France's TotalEnergies SE and its partners say they plan to invest $10 billion in Angola's oil sector over the next five years. China alone committed $33.5 billion to the region in the first half of 2026 under its Belt and Road Initiative.

Another example is fertiliser. It's no help having 60% of the world's uncultivated arable land if you don't have fertiliser to grow crops on it. The African Development Bank (AfDB) estimates that 80% of the fertiliser used on the continent is imported. Despite $15 billion invested in recent years to boost production, it's still not enough. Governments have now committed to tripling domestic fertiliser production and distribution by 2034.

This internal investment, driven partly by supply chains reconfiguring away from China, is fuelling the growth of the middle class in these countries. Rami Sidani, head of Frontier Investments at Schroders, notes that many companies “are benefiting from this expansion in the middle class, from this wealth effect that's trickling down and fuelling this domestic-consumption story”.

“Financial inclusion” is also a big part of the story. In many frontier markets, the vast majority of the population has historically been excluded from the banking system. That's changing rapidly with the adoption of financial technologies (fintech). Sidani cites the example of GCash in the Philippines. The company, which recently floated on the stock exchange with a $7 billion valuation, has become the country's go-to banking app. “Around 70% of the population in the Philippines has an e-wallet compared with around 40% who have deposits with banks,” he explains.

In Africa, the trend is even more pronounced. It used to take 18-24 months to open a branch in a rural area, says Sidani, but now consumers can access their money from their beds anywhere in the country.

Ahmed Awny, head of investments and portfolio manager of the Templeton Frontier Market Strategy, points to Safaricom and Vodafone, which launched M-Pesa, a mobile-phone-based financial services and money-transfer platform, in 2007 to piggyback on text-message technology for sending money. Nearly 20 years later, the technology has revolutionised financial services in Africa, and peers have sprung up all over the world: dLocal in Latin America; GCash in the Philippines; M-Pesa in Kenya; MoMo in Vietnam; Kaspi in Kazakhstan; and Airtel across Africa. The adoption of this technology has been as fast in frontier as in emerging and developed markets, if not even faster, because it has been taken up by younger generations, who are more aspirational, quick to adapt and to learn, says Awny.

How frontier markets are leapfrogging developed peers

Consumers in frontier markets are also leapfrogging their developed- and emerging-market peers in the rollout of AI. Cavan Osborne, a portfolio manager for Old Mutual in South Africa, notes that for this reason one of the most interesting sectors in Africa right now is telecoms. Five years ago, consumers sent messages and searched online using only a few bits of information per request; now, with AI search and AI tools, each request requires many more bits of data.

Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to see the fastest global 5G subscription growth, rising from roughly 30 million in 2025 to 370 million by 2031, according to the Ericsson Mobility Report. Mobile devices account for the vast majority of web traffic across African networks, driven by lower costs and a lack of fixed-line desktop infrastructure. In Nigeria, which has the most mobile users on the continent at more than 100 million, monthly mobile-data consumption surged from about 518,000 terabytes in early 2023 to more than 1.23 million terabytes by November 2025, an increase of roughly 140% in less than three years.

Airtel Money (LSE: AMC), the largest London initial public offering (IPO) since 2021, is one success story, says Osborne. The fintech was spun off from FTSE 100 firm Airtel Africa (LSE: AAF), one of the larger telecoms groups operating in Africa (others are South Africa's MTN, Vodafone, Orange and Dubai Etisalat). Osborne says it is growing by around 30% per year and most of the growth comes from “fees on payments, driven by new users as people switch to smartphones”. The mobile money business is “very capital light” and, despite growing at about 25%, pays out around 80%-90% of its earnings as dividends.

Osborne also highlights the opportunity in Africa's banking sector. “The [African] banks generally are quite simple,” he explains. “A lot of them just gather deposits and put them into government treasuries…where you could be getting 10%, 15%, 20% yields.” With a low cost base thanks to the rollout of technology and a lack of a need for a vast branch network, most lenders are quite profitable. From the bank's perspective, risk is also limited because the currency is hedged and default risk is generally low. That has helped make the banking sector one of Africa's best performers.

Such embedded structural hedges are vital for managing risk, says Awny. Take Vietnamese exporters. Vietnam's currency has been mildly depreciating over time, but for exporters, with a Vietnamese Dong-denominated cost base and exporting into a US dollar market, this has been a structural tailwind; or take Bank of Georgia, a subsidiary of Lion Finance (LSE: BGEO), which, like its peers in Africa, can adjust loan pricing to offset political and economic uncertainty.

Other markets are growing up too

Africa is seeing the most notable economic shift, but investors shouldn't overlook other regions. Awny points to central Asia, to Georgia, which is “now offering Eastern European governance, but at frontier valuations”, and Kazakhstan, home to world-class fintech platform Kaspi (Nasdaq: KSPI). Kaspi has 13 million active users in Kazakhstan out of a total population of around 18 million-19 million. The UAE is another example. It is technically an emerging market, but Sidani believes it's being “disregarded by the big global funds” and offers exposure to “multiple themes on the liberalisation and transformation of the economy”, including data centres and AI infrastructure.

Ten to 20 years ago, investing in frontier markets required a lot of legwork. Investors had to be on the ground, speak the language and be willing to do the work to find the best opportunities. That's no longer the case. Awny notes that many of these businesses are operated by managers of comparable quality to peers in New York or London. CEOs and their teams have also “cracked the manual on how to bring the equity story up to the level of the emerging markets”. “Today, if I take you to a company meeting in Ho Chi Minh City or in Hanoi in Vietnam, you will have the same level of spoken English, same level of detailed PDF presentation, as the one that you would have from Alibaba or from any company that you sit in front of in India or some of the developed markets,” says Awny. “The same is the case with Kenyan banks, Peru and Colombia, Morocco and Oman.”

Because operating in less efficient, less financialised economies adds friction, these companies also tend to have stronger balance sheets and higher returns, Awny notes. “Credit is not that easy; credit is costly,” he says, meaning most businesses must rely on internally generated cash flows. As a result, returns on equity and capital employed can be 300 or 400 basis points higher than the typical emerging-market company.

Much of the opportunity in frontier markets stems from their inefficiency and under-reporting compared with developed or emerging markets. But that opportunity also adds risk. Stocks in frontier markets are typically much less liquid than those in developed or even emerging markets. And while it has become easier to find information on businesses listed in these markets, transparency for the average investor is still poor. That's without considering trading restrictions. Hargreaves Lansdown and Interactive Investor, two of the UK's biggest trading platforms, don't offer direct share trading on any frontier markets, and only offer two or three emerging markets. Many of these countries themselves also place restrictions on international investors.

How to invest in frontier markets

For investors who want to invest directly, London offers a handful of names previously mentioned, such as Lion Finance and Airtel. Dangote Oil Refinery is pursuing a secondary listing in London, while Dangote Cement (the billionaire's first business) has appointed Goldman Sachs and UBS to offer about 10% of its shares in London via a secondary listing. Data from the LSE shows there are 110 African companies listed in London with a combined market value of $200 billion, but these include the likes of Old Mutual and Investec, both of which are based in South Africa. They offer frontier exposure, but you're also taking on extra risk. The National Investment Fund of the Republic of Uzbekistan (UzNIF) also listed in London this year.

Closed-ended vehicles are well suited to navigating the challenges of investing in frontier markets because managers don't face the risk of having to sell illiquid holdings at short notice to meet withdrawals. Jean-Baptiste Andrieux, an analyst at Kepler Trust Intelligence & Expert Investor, highlights BlackRock Frontiers (LSE: BRFI), which specialises in frontier markets and smaller emerging markets, excluding the largest markets by capitalisation (that is, Taiwan, South Korea, China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa). Managers Sam Vecht and Emily Fletcher analyse macroeconomic cycles across the countries, then position the portfolio according to where they see the best stock opportunities.

Andrieux recommends combining frontier with smaller emerging markets, which are often underrepresented in emerging-market indices and funds. Redwheel Next Generation Emerging Markets, managed by James Johnstone and Victor Erch, is one option. There's also the Templeton Frontier Markets Fund, managed by Ahmed Awny and Bassel Khatoun, and the Schroder International Selection Fund Frontier Markets Equity, managed by Rami Sidani.

Neither the quality of management nor the quality of these companies' balance sheets is reflected in valuations. At the end of September, the MSCI World index traded at a trailing 12-month price/earnings ratio of 22.7, a price-to-book-value ratio of 4.1 and a yield of 1.5%. By comparison, the Templon Frontier's portfolio is trading at a book ratio of 2.1, and a 12-month trailing P/E of 10.2. Schroder Frontiers has a valuation of 9.9 times earnings. According to Morningstar, Redwheel's fund has the cheapest portfolio, trading at just 8.3 times historic earnings.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

Shareholders of Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust (LSE: SMT) have been on an extraordinary roller coaster. In the five years to November 2021, the share price almost quintupled before falling nearly 60% in the next 18 months. Since then, they have risen 150% to a new all-time high, putting them easily at the top of the performance table of global funds over three years.

Recent attention has focused on SpaceX, in which Scottish Mortgage invested in 2018 at a valuation of $31 billion. Following an initial public offering (IPO) in June, its market value is over $2 trillion and Scottish Mortgage has sold it down from more than 25% of the portfolio to 15%. Still, “we have no intention of selling out and expect to hold the shares for ten years”, says Lawrence Burns, who manages the trust with Tom Slater.

AI firm Anthropic is also heading for an IPO. It was 3.9% of the portfolio at 22 September but likely to rise to over 5% at the target valuation. TikTok owner ByteDance, which accounts for 4.4%, is likely to stay private, while payments firm Stripe, which also has no plans to float, is 2.9%. Overall, Scottish Mortgage’s decision in 2012 to invest in private companies has been amply vindicated. (The unlisted limit was later set at 30% of the portfolio, but the actual proportion is currently 22%.)

Why Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust cut exposure to Tesla

Scottish Mortgage also has a strong record in listed companies, including Nvidia and TSMC. It did well from Tesla, but sold out this year. “Tesla paved the way for decarbonisation in a key sector, forcing incumbents to keep up in the EV race,” says Slater.

“However, the competitive environment for Tesla has intensified significantly, particularly in China. There are long-term opportunities in Tesla's autonomous driving software and robotics businesses, but though these areas have the potential to be very large and profitable in the future, we believe we are being asked to pay too much for them.”

Moderna, which soared 22-fold between the end of 2019 and September 2021, was once Scottish Mortgage’s largest investment before it collapsed by 94% in the next four years. The company had developed a novel technology for the discovery of vaccines against a variety of conditions, including cancer. But it was the success of its Covid vaccine that sent revenues rocketing from $60 million in 2019 to $18.5 billion in 2021. However, sales collapsed as Covid demand fell away. Profits of $12 billion in 2021 turned into losses, while the company also became embroiled in a series of patent disputes.

Investors stampeded for the exit, but Slater and Burns held their nerve. The shares started to recover as progress in its respiratory vaccines gained momentum. Then in August this year, a phase III trial for a vaccine for late-stage skin cancer in combination with Merck's Keytruda drug produced very promising results, though experts advise caution. Moderna doubled on the news and is now nearly 4% of the portfolio.

Scottish Mortgage Trust embraces AI

The managers are optimistic about AI. “The companies leaning into AI are seeing greater and greater value,” says Burns. “The demand drivers will only get stronger; hyper-scalers (builders of data centres) can't afford to miss out. Companies are thinking about redirecting their entire processes around AI. The returns on hardware are fantastic and the technology keeps getting better. We are going to need a lot more compute if the potential continues to grow.”

At the cutting edge, the trust also has a small holding in PsiQuantum. But “we invest in growth, not pure technology so will have a small holding till our conviction in quantum computing increases”, says Burns. However, “there are lots of natural phenomena that are very hard to model with conventional computing”, so this area has huge potential.

After a strong run, holders of Scottish Mortgage Trust may want to trim their holdings, but the shares could have much further to go.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

In 2000, the UK stock market was the second largest in the world, accounting for 10% of the global total. Now, it constitutes just 3% and is either the sixth or ninth largest, depending on the source of measurement.

With an absence of growth stocks (technology accounts for just 1% of the All-Share index), an absence of issuance either from existing companies or new flotations, and a relentless stream of takeovers and emigrations, there is no doubt that the UK's position will drop further.

Floatations on North America's stock markets raised $138 billion in the first half of 2026, including $86 billion from SpaceX. A total of $30 billion was raised in the Asia-Pacific region and €7.6 billion in Europe, but just £577 million in the UK. This was treble the total for the first half of 2025, but three-quarters of it came from the National Investment Fund of the Republic of Uzbekistan. The imminent flotation of Airtel Money will raise more, but this is a spin-off from FTSE 100 constituent Airtel Africa.

Meanwhile, six FTSE 100 firms (Schroders, Intertek, Beazley, DCC, easyJet and Segro) have disappeared through takeovers this year, as have numerous FTSE 250 companies, including Tate & Lyle, Bodycote and Senior. Flutter Entertainment has moved its listing to New York as have Carnival and AstraZeneca, although the latter maintains a secondary listing in London. There have been persistent rumours that Shell will follow.

The UK stock market's cultural aversion to risk

The causes of the decline of the UK stock market go back to the late 1990s and the relentless programme of taxation, regulation and intimidation initiated by the Blair government, but continued by its successors. Gordon Brown's first Budget removed the tax credit on dividends from UK companies, then worth £5 billion a year, while privatised utilities were chased into ownership by private equity, foreign companies or both. Pension regulators pushed pension funds into reducing equity exposure and solvency rules introduced after the 2008 crisis removed insurance firms from equity markets.

At the same time, globalisation encouraged investors to invest overseas while the UK had much less to offer overseas investors. The long bull market in bonds provided investors with an attractive alternative to equities and many larger UK companies, following the mega-mergers of the late 1990s, became complacent.

For a while, London's stock market shrugged off these problems. Flotations continued. In the fall out from the bust in the technology, media and telecoms sectors and the subsequent commodities boom, Britain's “old-economy” companies prospered. The prospect of a more market-friendly government in 2010 appeared to promise better times after a decade in which the UK had suffered two of its worst four bear markets in a century.

Unfortunately, while the technology sector in the US started to recover with the flotation of Google in 2004, it continued to decline in the UK. DeepMind chose to sell out to Google in 2014 rather than float and UK investors rushed to cash out of ARM in 2016 and of Imagination Technologies in 2017. With pension funds and insurance companies “de-risking”, the pool of long-term capital available for backing new companies or supporting established ones disappeared.

Yet as Julia Hoggett, CEO of the London Stock Exchange, points out, Britain has no shortage of capital – the fourth-largest source in the world – of which £2 trillion is in cash deposits. The problem is that it is not allocated to generate growth. “We don't have an innovation problem,” she says, “we have a capital-allocation problem.” The UK has developed a cultural aversion to risk-taking and a persistent scepticism about technology, innovation and the market economy.

There are other problems, as Tim Campbell, CEO of Baillie Gifford, points out. More than 50% of UK-listed company shares are owned by passive funds, which take no interest in the companies in which they are invested. A further block is held by traders and hedge funds focused on short-term results. The lack of long-term shareholders makes a stock market listing unattractive. Companies prefer private equity, which offers more flexible financing, gives better incentives for management, lower taxation and lower corporate costs. Hence the UK is not the only market in which the number of companies is shrinking; the Wilshire 5000 index in the US has shrunk to around 3,500 companies from a peak of around 7,500 in the late 1990s.

The UK is waking up to the problem

The UK has at last recognised the issue. Listing regulations have been relaxed, pension funds have committed to invest more in the UK and the Treasury has made some minor tax concessions. However, this is tinkering and there is neither the appetite nor the funding from the government to go further.

The global bull market in equities rolls on, with the UK market keeping pace, thanks to takeovers, share buybacks and sharper management, yet UK investors continue to sell out. The Investment Association reports only one month of inflows into UK equity funds since July 2021, with outflows of £561 million in June, £1.6 billion in July and £615 million in August. Flows to the rest of the world, where investors see opportunities, are positive.

It's taken a generation to wreck the UK stock market and it will take a generation to rebuild it. Tax and regulatory concessions will help, but changing the anti-equity investment culture in the UK is a monumental task, not helped by the lack of growth-orientated listed companies. Average house prices peaked in real terms 20 years ago, while even the underperforming FTSE 100 has doubled relative to housing, but the UK public is in denial. Maybe with inflation and taxation eroding the value of bank deposits and the relentless hostility of governments towards the private rental markets the pendulum, in the absence of another bear market, will swing back towards equity investment in the UK. But there is no quick fix.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

The Autumn Budget is days away, with chancellor John Healey due to set out the Burnham government's fiscal plans on 28 October.

While the upcoming Budget will be Labour’s third since they won the 2024 general election, it will be the first fiscal test of prime minister Andy Burnham’s new government which has promised to help those struggling with the cost of living and devolve power out of Westminster.

It will also be the first time new chancellor John Healey delivers the fiscal statement after he replaced Rachel Reeves in the summer.

Although Burnham and Healey have indicated that they want to increase public spending, the Budget comes at a time when the public purse is under pressure, meaning many are worried that taxes will need to rise.

What do you think? Are you dreading the Budget and its potential tax rises, or are you excited to see what the new government will do to help with the cost of living?

Tell us what you think in the poll below.

What would you like to see in the 2026 Autumn Budget? Get in touch by emailing editor@moneyweek.com and you may be featured in our Budget coverage.

• Why you shouldn’t act on Budget rumours
• Recap: What was announced in the 2025 Budget?
• Quiz: How much do you know about the UK’s chancellors of the exchequer?
• Quiz: How much do you know about the Autumn Budget?

For the latest Budget news, analysis, and commentary, sign up to MoneyWeek’s free newsletters.

What was the Big Bang?

The “Big Bang” was the sweeping deregulatory overhaul of the London Stock Exchange that took effect 40 years ago this coming week, on Monday, 27 October 1986. The Big Bang reforms were part of a programme of financial liberalisation pushed through by the Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher. They led to the transformation of the City over subsequent years and decades, making it more open, more competitive, more international and much richer. The reforms were driven by the realisation that the City had to change and modernise in order to survive and prosper – and they resulted in a radical and permanent cultural shift.

What did Margaret Thatcher change?

First, fixed commissions were abolished, meaning brokers were allowed to compete on price when it came to fees. Second, the centuries-old “single capacity” distinction between brokers and “jobbers” (market-making intermediaries) disappeared, allowing brokerage firms to become “dual capacity” stockbrokers and “stockjobbing” market makers, licensed to act both for clients and as dealers trading on their own account. Third, foreign ownership rules were relaxed, opening the way for major international banks to enter the market and/or buy existing British brokers. And fourth, the trading floor itself was transformed, with the old system of face-to-face dealing and “open outcry” trading (shouted prices) replaced by electronic systems. That allowed more business to be conducted more quickly, with greater volumes and across a wider range of markets. And all these big changes took place over a single weekend.

Did the Big Bang work?

Yes. In the short term the changes led to a surge in the volume of trading in UK equities and an influx of international banks into London. Traditional British stockbroking and market-making firms, often organised as partnerships, were bought up by much larger American, European and Japanese banks – a takeover boom that paved the way for London's growth into a financial centre to rival New York. Competition increased, transaction costs fell and market liquidity improved. At the same time, salaries for traders and investment bankers soared as institutions competed for scarce talent. In the longer term, the reforms drove a broader expansion far beyond stock trading, as the internationalisation of the City strengthened its position as a major centre for foreign exchange, international banking, bonds, derivatives, asset management and specialist insurance.

Was the Big Bang a success?

Broadly, yes. The UK's expanded financial sector generated well-paid finance jobs, vast pipelines of business for lawyers, accountants and consultants, and substantial tax revenues. It attracted overseas investment and enhanced Britain's international influence. The Big Bang reforms threw out old rules that meant bank bosses had to work from offices within ten minutes' walk of the Bank of England, paving the way for the City's eastern outpost at Canary Wharf. The regulatory revolution also boosted the democratisation and demystification that made it far easier for ordinary punters to access investment for a sensible cost. No Big Bang, no MoneyWeek. At the same time, the Big Bang undoubtedly helped entrench a model of British economic success, and uneven economic geography, that has always had its critics – that of a world-class financial centre sitting awkwardly alongside a broader economy characterised by persistently low levels of investment and productivity. Others argue that the deregulation and internationalisation of finance in the 1980s and 1990s sowed the seeds for the global financial crisis of 2007-2009.

How is the City of London doing now?

Pretty well. Famously, London has suffered a slump in initial public offerings on the stock exchange since the last flotation boom in 2021. By market capitalisation, the London stock market is now, at best, sixth in the world – though on some calculations, it's not even in the top ten. But doom-mongers should remember that stock trading is far from being the City's only suit, says David Smith in The Sunday Times. London leads in other financial sectors – notably foreign-exchange trading, interest-rate derivatives and speciality insurance – where no other centre comes close. Across a range of metrics and specialisms, it comes a very close second to New York and remains – post-Brexit – the “undisputed financial capital of Europe, with no other continental financial centre in the top ten”.

Is there any need to panic?

The City retains many core strengths that mean its pre-eminence is likely to persist: language, legal system, depth in accounting and consulting services, communication facilities and handy time zone (between Asia and America), diversity of markets and their infrastructures, diversity of counterparties, and institutional tradition, combined with continuing regulatory evolution. Important, too, is the diverse talent pool of people who would rather live in London than in Frankfurt or Amsterdam. Brexit knocked London's appeal as a place to float businesses, but in lots of other ways the City looks like “it's getting its mojo back” after a few years of uncertainty, says The Economist. Overall, the UK has the same number of people working in financial services now – about 1.1 million – as it did in 2017, accounting for a slightly bigger chunk of GDP (8% rather than 7%). As for the City (where the “EU decided not to take an axe to Europe's financial plumbing after all”), some 225,000 people worked in finance in 2024 – 36,000 more than in 2019. Another 181,000 worked in related fields such as law and accountancy, up by 51,000 over the same period. If that's what decline looks like, it's a decline worth celebrating.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

A bond crisis is heading France’s way, adding to Emmanuel Macron’s troubles as rioting sweeps through the country. However, if you're feeling particularly brave, French bonds do look like a bargain.

The French bond crisis has been simmering for years. The country has not run a primary budget surplus since the mid-1970s, it has been spending way more than it collects in tax revenues and a stagnating economy can no longer sustain the debt burden. Even from the UK, where the debt load is also hard to afford, the numbers are sobering. The deficit is expected to run at 5.4% of GDP this year even though there is no immediate crisis for the government to deal with.

The debt-to-GDP ratio has hit 121% and it would be higher if its share of all the money owed by the EU were added in. It will have to issue more than €300 billion of bonds in the coming year simply to keep the show on the road. The state already accounts for 57% of GDP, one of the highest levels of spending in the world, and there is little prospect of that coming down any time soon. The government already squeezes 45% of GDP out of its long-suffering taxpayers, again one of the highest rates in the developed world, meaning there is very little scope to push taxes any higher.

Meanwhile, the country is politically paralysed, with a divided parliament unlikely to pass a Budget, and with a presidential election due next year in which all the leading candidates are committed to yet more spending. It is a mess. So it is hardly surprising that the yield on French bonds has risen sharply. The ten-year yield is close to 5% and the spread with Germany, the key measure of country risk, has risen to levels not seen since the height of the eurozone crisis in 2011-2012.

Against that backdrop, the important question is whether the European Central Bank (ECB) will intervene. The treaties suggest it won't be able to. The ECB has mechanisms in place to calm “disorderly markets”, but before they can be implemented, a country needs to commit to a credible deficit-reduction plan. There is little sign of that, and it is hard to see a country like France putting up with the humiliation of using tools designed to rescue Greece and Portugal. ECB officials insist their hands are tied. France will have to sort itself out.

The ECB will intervene if the bond crisis escalates

They have to say that. In reality, in the midst of a serious crisis, the ECB will intervene. France is too important to the eurozone to be allowed to fail. It is still the second-largest economy within the zone, it is home to two of its largest banks and Paris is a major financial centre. If France were forced to restructure its debts, then the credit of the entire zone would collapse, plunging the whole of Europe into financial turmoil. It would be far too damaging to all the other countries inside the single currency to be allowed to happen. The ECB's own survival would also be at stake. If France fails, the euro fails, and the independent national central banks would reassert their authority.

So what will the ECB do? A “whatever it takes” speech from the bank's president is not likely to work a second time. Instead, the bank will probably come up with a new “support mechanism”. My best guess is that it will be in the form of loans to the French banks, which in turn buy government bonds. If the market senses the French banks are buying junk because they have been told to, they will sell them off instead and a bond crisis will have been turned into a banking crisis. There are no guarantees of success. But it may well be the best of a whole series of bad options.

That doesn't make French bonds a good investment. There is too much uncertainty and the economic outlook is bleak. But at some point the ECB will step into the market to start buying and bring yields back down again. It won't have any choice – it is just a question of when and how it happens.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

What do Charles Darwin, Elizabeth Gaskell and the Mitford sisters have in common? At some point in their lives, they all spent time at the lavish Dumbleton Hall, located on the border of Worcestershire and Gloucestershire.

Built in 1830 on the wealth of the Cotswolds wool trade, this Grade II-listed hotel was constructed as an elegant country house that became a refuge for some of the Victorian era's most notable thinkers, writers and artists. Now, after an extensive two-year restoration, it has opened its doors to a new generation of discerning guests.

As I arrived to check in, what caught my eye was how much of the original estate remained intact. Ancient cedars line the driveway, and water lilies thrive in a pond beneath a canopy of mature trees. On a sunny day, the hall's honey-coloured facade is illuminated against the foliage of the grounds that are spread across 16 acres of woodland and open countryside.

It is tempting to spend an entire afternoon doing little more than wandering around. Before long, it becomes clear why Dumbleton Hall attracted generations of intellectuals. The mood is tranquil and idyllic.

Dumbleton Hall is an antiques haven

The sense of calm extends into the bedrooms. My suite had olive and khaki tones that complemented a beautiful Queen Anne secrétaire chest in walnut and mahogany. It looked less like hotel furniture than an heirloom treasure. William Morris's prints nodded to the designer's strong connections to the Cotswolds and brought vibrancy to the rooms' antiques, which sit alongside all the contemporary comforts you would expect from a luxury hotel.

Dumbleton Hall was built on the wealth from the wool trade comforts you would expect from a luxury hotel in this day and age.

However, the property's history isn't just evident in the decor. Guests receive an autographed copy of Dumbleton Hall: The Story of a Victorian Country House by John Hodges, which chronicles the many families and visitors who have passed through the estate since the 19th century. It is the sort of book that is just asking to be read outside, beneath one of the ancient trees in the estate's gardens.

A culinary highlight at Cedar 1905

Dinner at restaurant Cedar 1905 is another highlight. The menu is distinctly English, but there is enough imagination to keep things interesting. Chalk-stream trout gravlax was paired with melon gazpacho, lime and lovage (£16), and the Cornish crab came with a crumpet, cucumber and watercress (£26). For something more substantial, the nine-ounce ribeye steak is served with pickled shallots, “Dumbleton butter” and fries (£44).

Dessert was no afterthought either. There is a peach and lemon-thyme pavlova, served with peach-nectarine sorbet and vanilla chantilly – a light yet decadent way to end an evening (£15). Breakfast is a similarly sumptuous affair, comprising a full English and a selection of English cheeses and Cobble Lane cured meats.

Enjoy country walks and pretty villages in the Cotswolds

Dumbleton Hall is well situated for exploring the Cotswolds. It is located between the village of Broadway, the towns of Winchcombe and Stratford-upon-Avon, which makes it ideally placed for embarking on long country walks and visiting the pretty nearby villages and historic towns. That said, there is little need to venture far from your room to find the landscape that draws so many visitors to this part of the country. Wonderful views of the surrounding countryside can be enjoyed from Dumbleton Hall.

For a change of pace, Broadway is close enough for an afternoon of visiting independent shops, galleries and cafes, while the market town of Winchcombe offers a more traditional feel, with its medieval streets and stone cottages. If Dumbleton Hall's history and literary connections inspires you, Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare, is within easy reach. The beauty of the hall is that you can spend the morning exploring, return for some quiet time, enjoy a drink or two at the Library Bar, and then take a walk around the lake before dinner.

Perhaps the best indication of what Dumbleton Hall embodies came from another guest I met during my stay. She mentioned, almost in passing, that she had got married here more than 20 years ago and still finds reasons to return. That feels fitting for a grand house that is curating new experiences for guests, who themselves may return decades from now.

Oojal was a guest at Dumbleton Hall. From £380 per night, dumbletonhall.co.uk/.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

The Autumn Budget is one of the most important dates in the political calendar, and is certainly the most important day for fiscal policy.

On the day, the chancellor lays out the government’s plans for the economy in the House of Commons.

But how much do you know about the history and traditions of the Budget? Test yourself in our quiz.

How well did you do in our Budget quiz? Share your results on social media.

Do you have a question about the Budget which you’d like to put to our financial experts? Email editor@moneyweek.com and your question may feature in our Budget coverage.

• When is the Autumn Budget?
• Will taxes rise in the Autumn Budget?
• Why you shouldn't act on Budget rumours

For all the latest news and analysis, subscribe to MoneyWeek’s newsletters.

UK firms delivered over £28 billion in dividends in the third quarter of 2026, marking the highest payout since 2019.

The dividend total in Q3 2026 was up 14.1%, compared to the same time last year, providing larger payments for income investors, according to new data from financial administration firm Computershare.

Its dividend monitor report shows profit distributions were led by banks and mining firms – the sectors returned more than £8.3 billion to investors.

Underlying dividend growth in Q3 2026, which excludes volatile special dividends and exchange-rate movement, was better than expected, reaching 8.4%, the best third-quarter performance since 2019.

This quarter’s strong performance follows a record Q2 for UK dividends, during which UK companies paid out their all-time highest levels of dividends.

With two thirds of all dividends paid between April and September, strong growth during the second and third quarters will make up for a sluggish first quarter and an expected weaker final quarter.

Mark Cleland, CEO of issuer services at Computershare, said: “The pronounced strength of the third quarter has significantly boosted what is turning out to be a very positive overall picture for UK dividends in 2026.

“Resilient economic growth supported company revenues and profits, while higher-for-longer interest rates and the upswing in commodity markets have provided an additional boost to two of the UK market’s biggest dividend-paying sectors.”

Cleland warned that the fourth quarter of 2026 could see lower distributions, partially driven by drink giant Diageo’s announcement in February that it would slash dividends.

“However, with so much of the year’s dividend income already paid, we now anticipate dividends to finish comfortably ahead of 2025 and headline payouts to deliver their strongest annual growth since 2019,” he added.

What are the best sectors for dividends?

Mining was the best-performing sector for dividend growth, as payments soared nearly 90% – up from £2 billion in Q3 2025 to £3.9 billion in Q3 2026.

Higher commodity prices and stronger cash generation fuelled dividend growth from miners such as Rio Tinto, Glencore, Antofagasta and Fresnillo.

Meanwhile, the banking sector returned £4.4 billion to investors through dividends in Q3 2026 – marking a 24.5% increase from £3.6 billion in the same quarter last year.

Computershare said the strong dividend performance came after major banks increased ordinary payouts alongside ongoing share buybacks amid strong profitability and capital generation.

The top sectors for dividends are:

Source: Computershare

The top dividend stocks

The top five dividend stocks in the UK collectively delivered £8 billion to shareholders in Q3 2026, accounting for 28% of payouts in the quarter.

Rio Tinto led the way, followed by Shell, National Grid, Glencore, and British American Tobacco.

The top dividend stocks in Q3 can be found below:

Source: Computershare

What’s the outlook for income investors?

Strong dividend performance in Q3 has led Computershare to improve its outlook for 2026, which is set to be the best year for dividends since 2019.

Total dividends are expected to reach £93 billion, up 7.3% on 2025’s figure, while regular payouts (which exclude one-off payments) are forecast to reach £8.8 billion, up 4.8% on the year.

Computershare said the outlook has been improved due to stronger than expected UK economic growth and favourable stock market conditions.

Computershare said earnings across the wider market have remained robust and that it expects regular dividend payouts to finish the year comfortably higher than in 2025.

In times of rising inflation and interest rates, commodities can provide essential protection for investors’ portfolios.

“If you’re listening to the bond market today, it’s telling you ‘diversify,’” Evy Hambro, global head of thematic and sector investing at asset manager BlackRock, tells MoneyWeek Talks, which is available on all podcast platforms and YouTube.

Bond yields have soared over recent weeks, a classic sign that all is not well. Government deficits are rising higher and higher, but spending shows no signs of abating.

Interest rates are rising, and yet the stock market is trading at unprecedented heights.

“There’s an alarm going off, and people aren’t listening”

“It’s very clear to me that government bonds are telling you things aren’t healthy,” he said. “The annual deficits that governments are having to fund are growing, and that’s putting a lot of pressure on the financial system.”

Higher bond yields are the natural response to this pressure, as investors seek higher rewards for the higher risk perceived in lending to governments.

Governments are much less likely to default on their debts than businesses or other private borrowers. But what they often do instead, is reduce the real value of their debt through inflationary policies.

“How do you have some protection against that?” asks Hambro. “To me, it’s real assets. Real assets can be infrastructure, it can be commodities, it can be gold. Those are the kind of things that through time have protected purchasing power.”

Are commodities set to thrive?

Hambro believes that the current market setup sees us on the verge of a new commodity ‘supercycle’ – following previous iterations that have seen prices of the assets initially rise as demand ran away from supply, then fall after the investments to capture this opportunity meant supply caught up.

Infrastructure in the developing world is in increasing need of replacement, which strengthens demand for industrial metals. This dynamic is being further fuelled by the rise of artificial intelligence (AI).

“We’ve now gone into this period of very, very strong demand growth, driven by this incredible scale of investment around technology, AI, electrification and so on,” says Hambro. This has, he says, “exposed the fragility and the maturity of existing infrastructure in the developed world”.

Copper is one of the commodities most impacted by this trend, given its central role in electrification; the price of copper has risen nearly 17% so far this year.

Competition for these resources is intense, given their strategic importance. Nations are now viewing access to them as a national security concern.

“There’s a bit of a war going on for access to commodities as a result,” says Hambro.

China’s effective monopolisation of rare earth minerals – critical components in most modern technologies – is a case in point.

“There was a story from last year when president Trump went to China to discuss tariffs, and had to come back saying he’ll be unable to put tariffs on China because they’re going to turn off the rare earth supply,” says Hambro. “All the automotive companies in the US said, ‘whatever you do, don’t lose that supply, because there’s no production without it.’”

How much gold to hold, and why

As well as other real assets, in Hambro’s view, portfolios should contain an allocation of approximately 10% to gold.

He compares this allocation to insurance. Every year gold underperforms, you’ll top it up by selling off some of your other assets that have outperformed.

This feels like a waste of money in the same way that buying insurance you don’t use can.

“But if you don’t have insurance, when something goes wrong it’s very painful,” says Hambro.

Gold has a track record of holding its purchasing power: it’s often said that an ounce of gold has bought a men’s suit for 2,000 years.

So during periods when inflation is high and other assets are falling, gold can act as an insurance policy for your portfolio.

About the podcast

MoneyWeek Talks is a podcast that helps you unlock the secrets to financial success. Editors Kalpana Fitzpatrick, Andrew Van Sickle and Cris Sholto Heaton are joined by influential guests – from CEOs and entrepreneurs to economists and fund managers – to share their top tips on managing money, investing wisely and building wealth.

Follow the MoneyWeek Talks podcast and get ready to make it, keep it and spend it with confidence. You can also watch the episodes on our YouTube channel.

Nearly a quarter of people who started claiming the state pension in the 2024/25 tax year didn’t get the full amount, according to new figures obtained by MoneyWeek.

Of the 776,330 people who began getting the new state pension that financial year, 76% (591,530) were entitled to the maximum weekly rate at the time of £221.20, according to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request submitted to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). This suggests around 24% (184,800) qualified for less.

Some 16% (124,860) of the people who started claiming the new state pension in 2024/25 received less than £200 a week. Just over 26,400 received less than £100 a week – equating to around 3% of people who began getting the payment that tax year.

Full figures for the 2025/26 year are not yet available, but the most recent data provided by the DWP via the FOI showed 489,730 people claimed the new state pension between April 2025 and November 2025.

Of this amount, 71% (349,490) received the full new state pension, which was £230.25 per week in 2025/26. This suggests 140,240 (29%) did not.

Sarah Pennells, consumer finance specialist at retirement firm Royal London, said: “We often talk about the full state pension amount, but as these figures show, approximately one in four pensioners claiming last year got less."

Steve Webb, partner at pension consultants LCP and former pensions minister, added: “There will always be people short of the full rate.

“In some cases this will be because of years when they were paying a lower, contracted out, rate of NI contributions, or because they simply have gaps in their record when they were not working or getting NI credits.”

How to top up your state pension

Your state pension entitlement is based on your NI record.

You need at least 10 qualifying years to receive the minimum new state pension amount, currently £68.90 a week, and 35 to get the full amount, which is £241.30 a week in 2026/27.

The number of qualifying years and the weekly rate is different for people getting the old state pension.

You can get a state pension forecast to see if there are any gaps in your National Insurance (NI) record.

If you’re not receiving the full amount, or want to top up what you’re currently getting, you may be able to fill gaps in your National Insurance record through credits or voluntary contributions.

Claim credits

Before paying for National Insurance contributions (NICs), it’s worth seeing if you’re eligible for free credits first.

You might be eligible for Specific Adult Childcare Credits if you have previously taken on childcare responsibilities.

You can claim these credits both before and after claiming your state pension.

The credits are available to grandparents or other family members who have cared for a child under the age of 12 if the parents are working and receiving Child Benefit.

If the parent makes National Insurance contributions through their work, they will get qualifying years on their National Insurance record. They therefore wouldn’t need the credits from the Child Benefit so can transfer them.

You can apply for the credits if you’ve taken on caring responsibilities since April 2011, were aged 16 and over but under state pension age when you provided care for the child, and were a UK resident.

To apply, you need to fill in a CA9176 form online via gov.uk, then print it and post it to HMRC using the address shown on the form.

Buy missing National Insurance years

If you want to fill gaps in your National Insurance record and can’t claim credits, you could buy Class 3 National Insurance contributions (NICs). You can do this before or after you begin claiming the state pension.

For the 2026/27 tax year, Class 3 contributions cost £18.40 a week, or £956.80 a year.

You can backdate filling in gaps in your NI record by six tax years and the deadline is 5 April each year. For example, if you wanted to make up gaps for the 2025/26 tax year, you would have until 5 April 2032 to do so. The deadline to top up 2020/21 is 5 April 2027.

You can buy Class 3 contributions a number of ways including through the gov.uk state pension forecast tool if you’re below state pension age, through your Personal Tax Account or over the phone. You can find out more via gov.uk.

Some people will have gaps in their NI record because they weren’t working or weren’t earning enough in a given year, however others may have gaps because they were ‘contracted out’ under the old state pension system in place pre-2016.

Those who were contracted out would have seen more of their NI contribution go towards a private pension instead of the state pension.

If being contracted out has left you with a less than full new state pension, you can top it up by filling in missing NI years from the previous six tax years.

Charlene Young, head of technical at investment platform AJ Bell, said: “Although it was abolished in 2016, three quarters of people reaching state pension age between 2016 and 2036 would have been members of contracted out schemes at some point in their working lives, particularly those in a final salary or career average scheme.”

Is it always worth topping up your state pension?

It’s not always worth topping up your state pension.

Topping up can push you over a threshold making you ineligible for benefits, while those not likely to live long won’t get much value out of filling gaps in their NI record.

If you have reached state pension age, you should contact the Pension Service to see whether it makes sense to buy voluntary contributions.

Webb, from LCP, said the main groups of people who should be “careful” about filling missing National Insurance years are “those who think they are at risk of being on benefits in retirement, because a higher pension could simply mean less benefit, and those who sadly have a short life expectancy”.

“For those who reached pension age before 2016 it will be hard to boost their pension because the deadline for voluntary contributions has passed,” he added.

It could be worth speaking to a financial advisor to assess whether increasing your state pension entitlement is worth it.

Separately, you could increase the amount of state pension you get by deferring it, meaning you don’t claim it when you reach state pension age.

What to do if you have a low state pension and are on a low income

If your state pension entitlement is low, you may be able to claim Pension Credit. Hundreds of thousands of pensioners are believed to be eligible but missing out on the benefit.

There are two parts to Pension Credit, but essentially it tops up your income if you're on a low amount.

The average claim is worth £4,500 a year and entitlement to the benefit also gives you access to a host of other benefits such as Cold Weather Payments and the Warm Home Discount.

You can claim Pension Credit up to four months before reaching state pension age. You can apply any time after reaching state pension age, but your application can only be backdated by three months.

For investors in healthcare stocks, the Worldwide Healthcare Trust is a one-stop shop. It is run by experienced academic and industry professionals, all with scientific and healthcare backgrounds. We take a bottom-up approach to stock selection, focusing on innovation and growth, resulting in a portfolio of “best ideas”.

Three healthcare stocks to consider

Nothing has been more innovative or had a greater impact on human health recently than the 20-year-old class of drugs known as the GLP-1s. Years of pioneering work by Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) has resulted in a metabolic medicine that is better, stronger and safer than ever before. The weight loss and blood-sugar control offered by tirzepatide (brand names Mounjaro and Zepbound) are best in class, but that is not what we are excited about. It is the multitude of other health benefits that is likely to drive future growth. These include relieving cardiovascular, kidney and liver disease, sleep apnea and arthritic pain, and perhaps will extend to cognitive benefits, mood disorders, addiction, cancer, inflammatory disorders and even disease prevention.

Eli Lilly remains at the forefront of this innovation and its offerings include recently launched oral versions, next-generation injectables that should increase efficacy (retatrutide) and tolerability (eloralintide). We are at the dawn of an era of new “super medicines” that will treat and prevent disease, ease ageing and promote longevity.

Bayer (Frankfurt: BAYN) may be best known for aspirin, but for investors the company has become synonymous with the long-running legal issues hanging over it due to its Roundup (glyphosate) product. This may be obscuring a significant transformation in Bayer's underlying businesses. In pharmaceuticals, Bayer is entering a new period of growth. Demand for newer products for prostate cancer (Nubeqa – darolutamide) and kidney disease (Kerendia – finerenone) continues to grow strongly. The lead asset in its pipeline of new drugs, asundexian, has been shown to reduce the risk of recurrent stroke by 26% in patients who are at risk and is now under regulatory review. Bayer also operates one of the world's largest agricultural businesses and has a pipeline of innovative new products. Importantly, the Roundup saga may finally be approaching a resolution and a proposed settlement could remove much of the uncertainty that has weighed on the shares for years.

CareDx (Nasdaq: CDNA) is evolving from a transplant-focused diagnostics company into a broader, high-growth precision-medicine platform. Its core “AlloSure” franchise is the leader in donor-derived, cell-free DNA testing for organ-transplant surveillance and is benefiting from increasing clinical adoption and expanding testing volumes. Growth momentum is already visible, with second-quarter revenues up by more than 50% and earnings by over 500%.

Importantly, CareDx is now leveraging its expertise in highly sensitive molecular diagnostics. The acquisition of Naveris brings “NavDx”, a blood-based test for viral-mediated cancers, opening a speciality oncology opportunity that management estimates represents a $5 billion addressable market. With accelerating organic growth, expanding margins, new opportunities in oncology and cell therapy, and a streamlined portfolio following the divestiture of its Lab Products business, we believe CareDx is at a turning point and has the potential to compound revenue and earnings at attractive rates for years to come.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

US insurance company Lemonade (NYSE: LMND) was founded just over a decade ago. It uses AI at every stage of the insurance process, from selling policies to dealing with claims, though it still employs human staff, arguing that this helps cut administrative costs.

While it is true that AI is undoubtedly going to change the world, not every AI-related share is a compelling investment. To make a success of AI, a company must pass several tests.

First, it has to come up with a way of doing something more efficiently. Next, it must find a way to make money. It will need to fend off competition, both from incumbents and new entrants into the sector. Finally, even firms that meet all these criteria can become poor investments if the shares rise so far that they become overvalued.

Lemonade is still losing money

Lemonade says it spends approximately 5% of the money it earns from premiums on handling claims, as opposed to the 9% figure typical for the industry as a whole in the US.

Lemonade also believes that AI can significantly accelerate operations, with over half of claims paid out instantly and most policies sold in under 90 seconds. Lemonade is undergoing a period of rapid growth, with sales increasing from $94 million in 2020 to $738 million in 2025. Revenue is expected to keep expanding at around 30% a year.

But the company continues to lose money, with estimates suggesting that – at the very least – it will be in the red both this year and in 2027 (though management believes that the firm may start to achieve positive earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation – Ebitda – in 2027).

The competition is catching up to Lemonade

Another difficulty is that while Lemonade may be ahead of the technology curve today, other companies are catching up by pouring large sums into AI. For example, rival Allstate announced this summer that it is launching ALLIE (Allstate's large language intelligent ecosystem), while other major competitors such as State Farm plan to use AI too.

And while Lemonade argues that its status as an AI-driven company will always give it an advantage over companies built around legacy systems, it also has to compete with other AI-driven companies, notably Root.

Lemonade could begin to turn a consistent profit and fend off competition from both new and old rivals. But investors still have to acknowledge that its valuation is relatively expensive.

It trades at 3.7 times sales, more than four times the 0.83 times sales that Allstate, a profitable and fast-growing company, sells for. Moreover, Root, which operates a similar tech-driven model but manages to turn a profit, only trades at 0.48 times sales. Furthermore, Lemonade's recent share-price performance suggests that investors are starting to sour on it. The stock has fallen by more than 50% from its 52-week high and has lagged the wider market over one, three, six and 12 months.

It is also below both its 50- and 200- day moving average. I would therefore go short at the current price of $46.46 at $45 a share. Put the stop-loss at $67.46, which gives you a total downside of £945.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

Coupang (NYSE: CPNG) was founded by South Korean-born, US-raised entrepreneur Bom Kim. Having experienced America's customer-focused retail culture, he believed South Korea's dense cities and digitally connected population made it an ideal market for a modern logistics network.

South Korea may be a technological powerhouse, yet for a long time its retail sector lagged behind. The blame lay with the chaebols, the family-controlled conglomerates such as Hyundai that emerged after the Korean War and came to dominate the economy. Protected from foreign competition for years, they faced little pressure to improve service or convenience. That left a gap for Coupang.

Kim initially founded a Groupon-style business in 2010, but in 2012 he abandoned the online-coupon model in favour of logistics. The company began building warehouses and acquiring its own delivery fleet. At the time, venture-capital investors preferred asset-light software companies to capital-intensive infrastructure projects, leaving Kim struggling to secure funding.

The strategy required immense scale to become viable, resulting in years of heavy losses. Rather than relying on third-party couriers, Coupang adopted a direct-inventory model. It buys inventory outright and stores it within its own network. To make this work, Coupang developed proprietary software to predict localised demand, positioning inventory close to consumers before orders had even been placed. That reduced delivery times, improved efficiency and made rapid delivery economical in densely populated cities.

How Coupang went global

For the first few years, Coupang burned through cash and at times looked as though it might not survive. But in 2015, the investment firm SoftBank invested $1 billion, giving it the breathing space to keep operating for several years despite its mounting losses. The funding allowed Coupang to continue building fulfilment centres and refining its software. SoftBank's investment encouraged further backers before Coupang listed in New York in 2021. By then, the logistics network had reached sufficient scale for revenues to outgrow costs. Annual losses became progressively more manageable before the business turned profitable in 2023. This demonstrated that an automated infrastructure platform could generate attractive returns once the investment phase was complete.

Coupang now has more than 100 fulfilment facilities supported by proprietary software. Management has shifted its focus from building the network to increasing its utilisation by layering new services on top of the existing infrastructure. With the warehouses, software and delivery fleet already in place, additional transactions carry relatively little incremental cost. Every extra order offers the potential for higher profitability.

The first major extension was the WOW membership programme. Similar to Amazon Prime, it offers unlimited deliveries and free returns for a modest monthly fee. Members also receive Coupang Play, including live sport. The combination encourages customers to concentrate a greater share of their spending on the Coupang app, strengthening loyalty and encouraging repeat purchases.

Other expansions include Coupang Eats, launched in 2019, using the group's logistics for restaurant delivery. Fulfilment and Logistics by Coupang, introduced in 2022, allows third-party merchants to use the company's distribution network. Rather than simply selling goods, Coupang increasingly earns service revenues from businesses that depend on its infrastructure. In 2024 it acquired luxury marketplace Farfetch. The deal gives Coupang access to affluent consumers and the high-margin luxury segment, while extending its reach beyond South Korea and its core mass-market retail business.

Coupang faces headwinds – can it bounce back?

Building infrastructure on this scale also creates vulnerabilities. When millions of households depend on a single platform, failures can become costly. In 2021, a fire destroyed Coupang's Deokpyeong fulfilment centre, wiping out 16 million items. Regulatory problems have also emerged. In 2024, the Korea Fair Trade Commission imposed a 162.8 billion won (£92.4 million) fine after finding Coupang had manipulated search algorithms to favour its private-label products over third-party merchants.

The most damaging blow came in 2025 with South Korea's largest data breaches. A former employee gained unauthorised access to personal data affecting more than 33 million customers. The incident prompted management changes and a 1.7 trillion won (£1.2 billion) customer-compensation programme through platform credits and vouchers, rather than cash payments. In June, regulators imposed fines totalling £300 million over the breach and separate data-handling violations. The penalties were lower than feared.

The fallout extends beyond cybersecurity. In April, South Korea designated Bom Kim as Coupang's controlling shareholder, potentially subjecting it to stricter rules applied to conglomerates such as Samsung. The financial impact is now evident. Second-quarter sales rose 4%, but the firm fell to a loss of $160 million even excluding fines. Its shares have lost more than 60% since last year's highs. Political tension and weaker profitability have overshadowed a sophisticated e-commerce business. Coupang trades on an enterprise value-to-sales ratio of just 0.7, reflecting legitimate concerns over corporate governance, regulatory uncertainty and profitability, but placing little value on a logistics network that would be extremely difficult to replicate. If management can restore trust and recover margins, today's valuation could prove unduly pessimistic.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

US market analyst Harry Browne developed a simple portfolio strategy in the 1980s that he believed would generate returns in all market conditions. The strategy – which he called the Permanent Portfolio – allocates equal portions to stocks, long-dated bonds, gold and cash. Holdings are rebalanced back to their target weights annually.

Browne developed this idea at a time when inflation was running hot and yields on Treasuries were hitting all-time highs. Gold was hovering near record levels and US stocks were also setting records. There are obviously some similarities to the world we're in today.

The assets were designed to add protection in all possible economic scenarios. Cash provides the liquidity buffer for the portfolio and reacts quickly to rising interest rates. Long bonds will underperform when rates rise, but should provide a hedge against recession scenarios, deflation and falling rates. Gold is the traditional chaos hedge, while equities provide exposure to economic growth and, alongside gold, act as an inflation hedge.

Browne's thesis for his portfolio was relatively simple. By combining four uncorrelated assets into a simple portfolio structure, everyday investors should find it easy to manage without paying for outside help or racking up additional fees. Automatic rebalancing also means investors buy more exposure to assets when they become cheaper and then benefit from the recovery. At the same time, expensive assets are sold, top-slicing to remove exposure and take profit.

Does the Permanent Portfolio strategy work?

Exchange-traded fund (ETF) research firm JustETF has a back-test of Browne's strategy on its website, with some tweaks to the holdings to adapt it for European investors. The stock component is any MSCI World ETF (the index is over 70% US stocks these days anyway). The long bond component is in the iShares Euro Government Bond 15-30yr ETF (Amsterdam: IBGL). Cash is the short-term euro cash rate, via the Xtrackers II EUR Overnight Rate Swap ETF (Frankfurt: XEON), while gold is the Gold Bullion Securities (LSE: GBSS).

From January 2007 to June 2026, the portfolio produced a cumulative return of 234% compared with 434% for a 100% equity portfolio and 279% for a traditional 60% stocks and 40% bonds portfolio. That's around 6.4% annualised versus 9% and 7.1% respectively. However, the Permanent Portfolio achieved this return with volatility of just 6.3% compared to 8.6% for the 60/40 portfolio and 13.5% for the equity portfolio.

In 2008, when equity markets lost nearly 50%, the portfolio's drawdown barely touched 5%. The worst performance came in 2022, as inflation rocketed. During the year, the portfolio had its worst drawdown in two decades, falling just over 10% as central banks belatedly began to raise interest rates and long bonds sold off. In short, the portfolio has protected holders from short-term losses quite well, although with lower long-term returns than from stocks (as financial theory would dictate).

A UK spin on the Permanent Portfolio strategy

A UK version of the portfolio has also fairly well, particularly during the market- regime shift we've seen over the past five years. Using the Royal London Short-Term Money Market Fund as a proxy for cash, the Vanguard UK Long Duration Gilt Index Fund for long bonds, Vanguard FTSE All Share Index for shares and GBSS for gold, the portfolio has returned a compound annual growth rate of 5.8% over the period. Long gilts have declined around 48%, but a 132% jump in gold prices has offset that. Cash has added a nice buffer due to rising interest rates and the FTSE All Share has added around 70% including dividends. The portfolio's weighted average cost is 0.17%. Both those returns and fees compare quite favourably to many ready-made and actively-managed wealth-preservation funds on the market.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

TikTok is full of chartists performing technical analysis. Investment banks used to employ them. Robert Edwards's and John Magee's Technical Analysis of Stock Trends, a book first released in 1948, is still going strong with its eleventh edition. It is considered by some to be the Bible of the discipline, yet today, an aspiring graduate interview candidate would be advised not to mention having read it.

Institutional certification numbers tell a similar story. The Chartered Market Technician Association, a body dedicated to the art of chart reading, counts about 2,500 active charterholders. Meanwhile, the CFA Institute is a global organisation setting standards for investment professionals; it runs the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) programme.

The group's syllabus has become the de facto industry standard and it has 200,000 charterholders. It dropped technical analysis as a standalone chapter, although not for lack of space; the famously extensive curriculum spans thousands of pages.

Nevertheless, millions of individuals, amateurs and professionals alike, continue to rely on charts. Here we ask what led the finance industry to fall out of love with them and whether old-school technical analysis still has anything to offer.

Why technical analysis fell out of favour

Technical analysis in its purest form means making buy and sell decisions based on the trading behaviour of others. The guiding premise is that the market for anything is like a shoal of fish. Price ticks and volume bars are clues around the edges that, when used wisely, can give valuable insights into the probable direction of the next move.

The received wisdom on why the practice gradually lost relevance is that computers took over. Nobody had to look at charts any longer because flicking through screens and printouts had become obsolete. Desktop computers proliferated. The Python programming language appeared in 1991 and began to make data science widely accessible.

Charts are limited to two, or possibly three, dimensions of data. Statistical techniques were able to cope with as many as the available computing power supported. People now had a choice when it came to seeking alpha (a return on investment on top of the performance of a benchmark index); they could hire a chartist to hand-draw lines, or they could have a “codesmith” mix and match a bewildering number of factors in near-infinite combinations across thousands of instruments through innumerable time periods.

The first serious limitation of this theory is oversimplification. Horses and the car coexisted for decades until World War I reshaped logistics. E-mails and self-service have similarly not done away with legions of white-collar relationship managers. Why only the chartists?

Second, it is of limited value. Not every investor has access to data pipelines, computer models and a team of statisticians. If technical analysis is better than a placebo, many people would still have a use for that information because in getting from A to B, someone else's Ferrari does not make it pointless to own a Ford Fiesta.

History supports this principle. Jesse Livermore, the thinly veiled subject of Edwin Lefevre's best-selling fiction Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, made (and lost) his fortune several times over between the 1890s and the 1920s. His final winning streak came during the Wall Street Crash of 1929, when, as millions lost their shirts, he made enormous profits from correctly calling the top.

So envious were some that Livermore became a hate figure with a need for bodyguards. More importantly, he was often able to trade successfully using little more than ticker tape – the same price and volume information that forms the bedrock of contemporary technical analysis.

Academics versus the chart

Wisconsin is the world's single-largest source of cranberries. Illinois is home to 85% of American canned-pumpkin production. It was decades after Livermore's time, from these agricultural heartlands of the American Midwest, that peer-reviewed validation of chart-based trading strategies would arrive. In 1992, William Brock, Josef Lakonishok, and Blake LeBaron published a paper with a troubling conclusion for the efficient-market hypothesis.

The price history of the Dow Jones index from 1897 to 1986 provided surprising support for some very simple technical-analysis strategies based on moving averages and trading-range breakouts. Predictive chart reading was supposed to be one notch above newspaper horoscopes. Their analysis of just under a century's worth of data begged to differ.

A year later, a separate and now landmark study by Narasimhan Jegadeesh and Sheridan Titman of UCLA determined that momentum also matters. Financial disclaimers were wrong. The idea spread and the citations piled up. Past performance was a direct predictor of future returns, or so it seemed.

The main reason the argument was never fully settled to everyone's satisfaction was data dredging. Try enough infinitely configurable combinations of useless moving averages, trend patterns, Bollinger bands, or breakout windows, and something will eventually back-test to perfection.

Academics grappled with this issue until, in September 2000, the economist Halbert White invented a measure of data-mining bias which he called the Reality Check method. The drawback was that it relied on an accurate record of all the failed attempts to find a profitable strategy.

It went against self-interest to do this, however, because each dead end documented would make any final breakthroughs seem less profound, and therein lay the problem. Computing had become cheap and the maths was solid. The incentives for honesty remained unchanged.

More fundamentally, it was quickly becoming apparent that if so many different studies were possible, then there was clearly no unified concept of “technical analysis” to begin with. How long was a moving average, a holding period, or a piece of string? Some technical indicators are in fact subjective to the point that even committed proponents lovingly mock their likeness to psychiatric Rorschach ink-blot tests. The classic head-and-shoulders pattern is a case in point.

It appears everywhere and nowhere; sometimes the right way up, other times upside down. The researchers of the 1990s were using rigid models to assess the inherently flexible, inconsistent and at times contradictory behaviour of chartists. It was the parable of the blind men and the elephant, only with trades.

Time horizons also remained a topic of disagreement. Where the shoal of fish might be ten seconds from now seemed more predictable than where it may end up in a year, but some proponents argued the contrary. They cited long-term trends as being far less random and more powerful than short-term volatility.

In practice, forecasters tend to play it safe by wording their prophecies loosely. Gold, for instance, formed a triple top between 2011 and early 2022. The monthly MACD indicator was in negative divergence. In chart speak, this means a sell-off was imminent. The reports were circulated. The big calls were made. They were correct over six months, pointless after a year and horrendous beyond.

After counting the votes and correcting for data-mining biases, mainstream finance did reach a tentative consensus. With the requisite ifs and buts, technical analysis, used well and in the short term can outperform buy-and-hold in the pockets of the market that are immature and inefficient. A simple near-term momentum capture strategy in niche small-caps might do something useful. Calling the top of the market based on Elliott Waves covering a forty-year plot of the S&P 500 is impossible to test against an apples-to-apples sample of similarly long time periods throughout history.

Enter the quants

The computational forces that enabled the analysis of large datasets in academia throughout the 1990s had another, more ostentatious effect. They triggered a golden age for hedge funds. Before its spectacular collapse became the subject of several books, Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) commenced operations with what, in today's money, was seed funding of around $2.2 billion.

The elevator pitch was that Myron Scholes and Robert Merton were involved. These soon-to-be Nobel laureates were two out of the three names who both literally and figuratively wrote the book on the hitherto intractable challenge of how mathematically to model the value of convoluted financial derivatives. Charts were out. Parabolic partial differential equations and elaborate arbitrage trades were in. The first three years together delivered annualised returns of around 35%.

Finance did not, however, divide neatly into econometric wizardry on one side and dusty charting on the other. The prestigious likes of LTCM were risky products that remained restricted to an exclusive set of institutional and ultra-high-net-worth clients. For everyone else, the rapid spread of internet connectivity made public participation in financial markets easier than ever. Gone were large minimum account sizes and unaffordable commission rates.

Online brokerage platforms had arrived and with them mass-market access both to charts and questionable dotcom stocks alike. Now investors could make their own decisions about trading ranges and breakouts. Financial-services firms had to find new ways to demonstrate value and justify their existence, let alone their fees. Fate was on standby, about to lend them a hand.

The revenge of the analysts

First came the Asian financial crisis of 1997. It was bundled with the hallmarks of crony capitalism, specifically eye-watering leverage, absurd cross-holdings and wafer-thin bank capital reserves. Its economic fallout was a key driver of the Russian sovereign-debt crisis one year later, which in turn blew up LTCM.

There followed the dotcom crash of 2000, then catastrophic accounting scandals at Enron in 2001, WorldCom in 2002 and Parmalat in 2003. Each episode meant the unravelling of a popular blind belief, whether in the Asian Tigers, automatic post-communism prosperity, visionary CEOs, or the vast riches that would flow from anything being put online.

This short calamity-rich period highlighted the importance of both financial analysis and due diligence – something neither lines on a chart nor a catchy jingle could ever be a substitute for. Quality-oriented fund managers talked about how their portfolios had weathered the storm through resilient and well-proven business models. Value-focused ones were proud of not having bought things at any price.

There was a macabre parallel with the academic debate on data trawling; put all of finance through a series of crises and there will always, by definition, be survivors. In his 2001 bestseller Fooled by Randomness, Nassim Nicholas Taleb was at pains to point out that they may not necessarily all be geniuses.

A strange new afterlife for technical analysis

Much of what technical analysis was invented to do lives on today under different umbrellas. Testable momentum signals, for example, are integral to quantitative finance and factor investing. The more discretionary aspects of chart reading, however, were never rebranded. They are today to finance what Reddit has become to cutting-edge AI – full of nonsense, inappropriate to quote in the boardroom, but nevertheless a source of knowledge too valuable to discard. Were such charting tools truly redundant, they might long since have been retired as a feature of the expensive Bloomberg terminals that power the industry.

A glossary of key terms in technical analysis

Basic chart mechanics

Volume Bars

Vertical bars showing how many shares or contracts were traded during a given period. Chartists use volume to gauge the market's conviction behind a price change or a specific trading level.

Trading Range

Over time, a financial instrument might fluctuate in price between relatively consistent upper and lower boundaries. The lower boundary is support, where increased buying tends to emerge; the upper is resistance, where additional selling tends to appear. A move beyond either boundary is called a breakout or a breakdown.

Mathematical indicators

Moving Average

The rolling average price of a security over a specified number of periods. This smooths short-term fluctuations, making trends easier to identify. Crossovers between moving averages of different lengths are often treated as trading signals.

Bollinger Bands

A moving average with upper and lower bands, all calculated from recent prices and overlaid onto a chart. The bands widen when price volatility increases and narrow when trading is calm. This helps to identify prices that are unusually high or low relative to prevailing levels of volatility.

Momentum

The tendency of prices to keep moving in their existing direction. Momentum indicators measure the strength or rate of price changes. This helps to distinguish persistent trends from those losing force.

MACD Indicator

Short for Moving Average Convergence Divergence. This indicator, typically shown in a separate but aligned panel below the price chart, consists of two fluctuating lines. The MACD line represents the difference between short- and long-term moving averages of the price. The signal line is a moving average of the MACD line itself, smoothing out its fluctuations. Crossings between the lines are read as signs of strengthening or weakening momentum.

Chart patterns and theories

Triple Top

When prices reach approximately the same high three times without breaking through. Traditionally, this is interpreted as a bearish reversal, especially if the price then breaks down through recent support levels.

Divergence

A pattern in which price and a technical indicator move in conflicting directions. Bearish divergence occurs when prices make higher highs while a momentum indicator makes lower highs, suggesting that the upward trend may be weakening.

Head and Shoulders

A reversal pattern featuring three successive peaks, with the middle peak higher than the other two. A fall below the line joining the intervening troughs, known as the neckline, is traditionally seen as bearish. Turned upside down, the pattern is an inverse head and shoulders. A break above its neckline is deemed bullish.

Elliott Waves

A theory proposing that market prices move in recurring sequences driven by investors' collective psychology. Its classic formulation identifies five waves in the direction of the prevailing trend followed by three corrective waves. Identifying and counting them involves considerable interpretation.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

Demand among Star Wars memorabilia collectors for the franchise's screen-matched lightsabres has gone galactic.

In September of last year, the lightsabre from the original Star Wars film from 1977 broke the record for a prop from the franchise, when it sold for $3.6 million with Propstore in Los Angeles. Fittingly, that record was in turn broken by (spoiler alert) his son Luke Skywalker's lightsabre, still held in the (prosthetic) hand Darth Vader cut off in The Empire Strikes Back, the sequel from 1980. It sold for almost $3.8 million earlier this summer with Dallas-based Heritage Auctions.

The auction duel of the lightsabres isn't over yet. Now, it's the turn of Darth Vader's weapon from The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). The prop used in the making of both films is headlining Heritage Auctions' The Ultimate Star Wars Auction sale on 12 November, where the starting bid, including the 25% buyer's premium, is $1 million. In fact, the prop leads a whole line of lightsabres spanning the various sequels and spin-offs that followed over the years since the early 1980s – along with Boba Fett's carbine blaster (starting bid $125,000) and various other props, scripts, drawings, toys and posters.

A museum of Star Wars memorabilia

The spate of Star Wars sales is hardly surprising. Collecting film memorabilia has morphed from being a slightly nerdy fan obsession to becoming serious business. The broader market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.6% to 2030 – from $3.1 billion in 2024 to $4.4 billion, according to a report last year from Strategic Market Research. At the end of August, Propstore featured several Star Wars items as part of its Entertainment Memorabilia sale and, last spring, the auction house sold C-3PO's head from The Empire Strikes Back for just over $1 million, including the buyer's premium.

Perhaps the real question ought to be, where do you put it all? George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, has come up with the answer – at least as far as his collection goes. Last month, the sprawling, futuristic-looking Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opened in Los Angeles. It cost a reported $1 billion and took 15 years to build “one of the most conspicuous and intriguing museums to launch this decade anywhere in the galaxy”, says The Economist. The way the market is going, should Lucas ever find he needs to build a new wing, he could simply sell a few more items from his Star Wars collection to fund the expansion.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

South Frederick Street, Glasgow

A duplex penthouse in a sought-after city-centre development with two large terraces overlooking the city. It has floor-to-ceiling windows, a large open-plan living area and a bespoke kitchen with tiled floors and underfloor heating. 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, reception.
Price: £550,000+ Savills 0141-222 5875

Apartment 51, The Cooperage, Dorchester, Dorset

A contemporary penthouse in a circular development in Brewery Square. It has floor-to-ceiling windows, an open-plan kitchen and a living room leading onto a wraparound terrace with far-reaching views. 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms.
Price: £1.1m Strutt & Parker 01392-914200

Prince Albert Road, Regent’s Park, London NW1

A penthouse in an outstanding location opposite both Primrose Hill and Regent’s Park, with an outdoor kitchen on a landscaped roof terrace offering 360-degree views over London. It has stone and wood-clad walls, a spiral staircase, an open fireplace and six balconies. 3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 2 receptions, open-plan kitchen, gym, garage, lift.
Price: £9.75m+ Savills 0203 043 3600

Shenley Tower, Blenheim Mews, Shenley, Hertfordshire

A duplex penthouse in a converted Italianate water tower with panoramic views across the Hertfordshire countryside. The flat has wood floors, double-height ceilings with floor-to-ceiling arched windows and three balconies. The contemporary interiors include a fitted kitchen with Smeg appliances and a wine fridge. 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, breakfast kitchen, study, reception, underground parking.
Price: £775,000 Fine & Country 01727-229799

Fitzroy Avenue, Broadstairs, Kent

A penthouse in a new development with panoramic views across Botany Bay. It has an open-plan kitchen and living area with patio doors leading onto a covered balcony. 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, roof terrace, lift, 2 allocated parking spaces.
Price: £750,000 Fine & Country 01227-479317

East Wing Penthouse, Heytesbury Park, Warminster, Wiltshire

A penthouse in a Grade II-listed Georgian house built in 1782 set in communal parkland gardens. The flat is accessed via a communal entrance hall with a glazed dome, tiled floor and a grand staircase. It has a sitting room with a semi-circular bow wall and an open fireplace. 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, reception, dining kitchen, 2 garages, communal gardens.
Price: £695,000 Strutt & Parker 01722-344010

Netley Castle, Netley, Southampton

A duplex penthouse in a Grade II-listed, 16th-century castle beside Southampton Water with direct access to the beach. It has contemporary interiors, a bedroom in an octagonal turret, two balconies and a roof terrace. 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 2 receptions, kitchen, sun room, mezzanine library area, garage, 3 acres of communal gardens, use of the castle’s great hall.
Price: £1.1m Hamptons 01962-842030

Ratcliffe Wharf, Narrow Street, London E14

This penthouse apartment is situated in a converted warehouse beside the River Thames and has a balcony and access to three roof terraces that command views towards Tower Bridge and Canary Wharf. The flat has exposed brick walls, floor-to-ceiling windows, contemporary interiors and a modern wood-burning stove. 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, open-plan dining kitchen/living area, lift, communal entry.
Price: £2.9m Knight Frank 020-3823 9944

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

In September 2008, just days after Lehman Brothers collapsed, Abu Dhabi finalised its purchase of Manchester City Football Club in a deal that came “to define the use of sport as a platform for projecting soft power”, says the Financial Times. The club, chaired by Khaldoon Al Mubarak, went on to win eight Premier League titles.

Yet it now faces “an existential crisis”, having been found guilty by an independent panel of artificially inflating its financial position by more than £900 million, in breach of financial fair play rules, via “sham” commercial deals that overstated its income. The club's proud Abu Dhabi royal owners find themselves in the dishonourable position of presiding over “one of the biggest scandals in Premier League history”.

The debacle, and City's initial “aggressive, confrontational stance” against the football authorities, is a “rare mis-step” for Khaldoon Al Mubarak – a smooth operator with a reputation for tightrope-walking his way through tricky politics, says The Guardian. He appears to have broken the “cardinal law” of ambassadors: “don't embarrass the boss”.

Khaldoon Al Mubarak, 50, is one of Abu Dhabi's most powerful non-royals. He more usually “straddles global finance, diplomacy and football with a polished assurance that mirrors the emirate's meticulously managed image”, notes an FT profile. That has made him a leading power broker in the emirate's international relations. He is “diplomatically in charge of the UK file as well as the China file… and the main liaison with the US administration”.

As group CEO of Mubadala, he is also “the world's longest-serving head of a sovereign investment fund” – a key figure overseeing oil-rich Abu Dhabi's $1.5 trillion in wealth.

Who is Khaldoon Al Mubarak?

Khaldoon Al Mubarak learned the tough realities of politics the hard way, says Sky News. In 1984, when he was eight, his father Khalifa Al Mubarak – a diplomat serving as the UAE's ambassador to France – was gunned down in Paris by the Abu Nidal terrorist group, a forerunner to Hamas. Their justification was that the UAE had become too seduced by “American imperialism”. The young Khaldoon was “mentored” by the Abu Dhabi royal family in the wake of the killing. Indeed, he became a “quasi-adopted son”, says The Guardian.

The royal family hired Al Mubarak when he graduated from Tufts University in Massachusetts. In 2002, he was selected to lead the newly founded Mubadala Development Company, which was “charged with helping diversify Abu Dhabi's oil-dependent economy and investing its hydrocarbon wealth in new industries and infrastructure”, says the FT.

He enjoyed such success – including negotiating an annual Formula One Grand Prix in 2007 – that he was the shoo-in to lead the revival of Manchester City. There are plenty of people with good things to say about him – including “suave” and “incredibly capable”. One Dubai business associate goes further. “He's a good human being… he's funny, he's probably the best friend you can get if you are lucky. And he's clean.” Certainly, Al Mubarak has avoided personal association with controversies that have dogged the emirate. Until now.

The saga is far from over. Manchester City has rejected the ruling and lodged an appeal. Meanwhile, the UK government is fretting over the possible fallout if sanctions imposed on the club prompt Abu Dhabi to turn off its massive investment spigots. Ultimately, the Emiratis may be forced to sell Manchester City.

Al Mubarak, who has UK diplomatic immunity, “could well emerge from this fiasco largely untarnished”, says The Guardian, because City is such “a tiny part of his portfolio”. Still, these are uncomfortable times.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

When did we start changing the clocks?

We started changing the clocks during the First World War, as a way of conserving energy. The original idea for British Summer Time (BST) had come from a politically connected Edwardian builder, William Willett. He argued – in a 1907 pamphlet called The Waste of Daylight – that moving daylight hours from morning to evening in summer by putting the clocks forward would improve health, happiness and productivity. The idea made it as far as parliament, where a Daylight Saving Bill was defeated in 1909.

But the idea of daylight saving time was taken up by Germany in the spring of 1916, with the aim of cutting the use of electric lights in the evenings and thus reducing energy consumption during wartime. Britain followed within a month, as did several more European countries. Two years later, so did the US.

Which countries change the clocks now?

About 70 countries lie far enough away from the equator to make it worth the hassle. Most of Europe, the whole of North America, and New Zealand all spring forward and fall back. But hardly any countries in Africa, Asia or South America bother, while Australia is split; different states go their own way.

The reason days are longer in the summer and shorter in winter is that the Earth spins on a tilted axis, which sits at a relatively constant 23.4 degree angle to the planet's path around the sun. For that reason, the further you go from the equator, the greater the difference – in terms of daylight hours – between winter and summer.

In Britain, the longest day falls on 21 June with 16 hours and 38 minutes of daylight in London (and about 19 hours in Shetland). The shortest day, 21 December, lasts just seven hours and 49 minutes in the capital (and less than six hours in Shetland). In Ecuador, Uganda or Singapore, by contrast, days and nights are of equal length year-round, so there's no point in changing the clocks.

Why is changing the clocks in the news again?

Firstly, because proponents of changing the clocks argue that the case for scrapping the change and instead moving to permanent Daylight Saving Time, or Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) +1, has been boosted by the energy crisis. And secondly, because the case for permanent summer time has a powerful and committed advocate in president Donald Trump.

In terms of energy, the extra daylight in the afternoon and evening would mean people put their lights and heating on later. In the UK, daily demand for energy peaks between 5pm and 7pm, with demand in winter starting to rise sharply just before 4pm. So the extra hour would make a big difference. By contrast, the darker mornings would have a negligible impact on energy, since households tend to use lights and heating on winter mornings anyway.

According to 2022 research from Aoife Foley of Queen's University Belfast, sticking to BST could save households between £1.2 billion and £2.3 billion a year, while the Republic of Ireland could cut its carbon emissions by 3.5% due to the decrease in residential usage. The shift to permanent daylight saving time is an easy way of helping ease the energy crisis, proponents say.

Didn't we shift to permanent daylight saving time before?

Yes. During the Second World War, the UK moved the clocks forward by an hour all year-round in a drive to save energy – so using GMT+1 in the winter and even moving to GMT+2 (or “British Double Summer Time”) in the summer.

The experiment was repeated in 1947 because of severe fuel shortages. Then in the late 1960s the UK adopted permanent BST for three years, before returning to the spring-forward fall-back system. Part of the reason for switching back was the effect in Scotland, where year-round BST means horribly dark mornings in winter. Even on GMT, the sun won't rise until 8.42am in Edinburgh on 21 December. A shift to permanent daylight saving time looks unlikely. But other countries may take the plunge.

Which countries could shift to permanent daylight saving time?

Most prominently the US. In July the House of Representatives passed the Sunshine Protection Act, which – if passed by the Senate – would move the whole of the US to permanent Daylight Year-round summer time. President Trump strongly backs the legislation.

Why does Trump back the Sunshine Protection Act?

The strong suspicion, said Matt Vizer in The Atlantic, is that Trump's motivation is not national well-being, but golf. PGA Tour chief executive Brian Rolapp met Trump and discussed daylight saving a few weeks ago. He calculates that switching to year-round daylight saving time would generate 23 million additional rounds of golf each year and pump $1 billion into the golf industry. Trump, the owner of multiple golf clubs, has clearly taken note. In fact, in terms of well-being, there's a far stronger case for making standard time permanent, rather than daylight saving,

What's the rationale for permanent standard time?

Because standard time – ie, GMT – more closely aligns with the natural light-dark cycles of day and night and the human body's circadian rhythms. Choosing to shift an hour of natural light from the start to the end of the day makes light summer evenings longer – but the price of dark mornings in winter is too high, says Beth Ann Malow on The Conversation. “Morning light is essential for helping to set the body's natural rhythms. It wakes us up, and improves alertness and boosts mood.”

Meanwhile, extending evening light delays the brain's release of melatonin, the hormone that promotes drowsiness, thus interfering with sleep. This goes far beyond mere inconvenience – “springing forward” each March is connected to serious negative effects, including an uptick in heart attacks and cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome and poorer academic performance owing to less sleep. The question, said The Economist, is not whether we should be putting the clocks back next weekend. We should. The question is rather whether we should put them forward again next spring.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

“The gambling known as business looks down on the business known as gambling”, said the American author and journalist, Ambrose Bierce. Yet gambling is a big business: the gambling sector could achieve global annual sales of $700 billion by 2028, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). At the same time, it is undergoing unprecedented disruption.

A key positive change is the rapid liberalisation of gambling laws in the US. But while demand may be growing, “the problem is who keeps the money, as more of every dollar goes to the state, and the most profitable bets are moving to prediction markets”, says Joao Mourato, former professional gambler and now head of iGaming Product at VIP-Grinders, a poker and iGaming affiliate. However, investors should not overlook the industry.

The gambling industry is booming in the US

There are several pockets of strong growth in the gambling industry around the world, such as in Turkey and Eastern Europe. But “by far and away the biggest story in the global gambling industry has been the decade-long boom in the United States”, says Dan Wasiolek, a senior equity analyst for investment platform Morningstar. Ashley Akin, senior contributor at proprietary trading group Prop Firm App, says US commercial gambling revenue reached $78.7 billion in 2025, with sports betting up 22.8% to $17 billion and online casinos 27.6% to $10.7 billion.

Jamie Gold, who won the 2006 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, argues that while there “has always been a massive interest in gambling” in the US, it was restrained by the fact that “there were just not that many legal or seemingly legal opportunities for betting, especially online”. Yet when the US Supreme Court effectively struck down the federal ban on sports betting in 2018, leaving the matter up to individual states, a large number of them quickly bowed to public pressure and legalised betting. The upshot? People “now have instant access on devices and unlimited markets to place a wager on”.

Adam Small, founder of digital media group Third Planet Media, thinks the explosion in demand was also driven by the fact that once gambling became legal, the mainstream media, “particularly sports media, felt empowered to put gambling content into broadcasts at an unprecedented level”. So, now when “you watch a baseball game, you can track your bets on screen and are regularly shown betting odds on not just the game outcomes, but also what will happen [when the next player bats]”. This has created a cycle where more betting means more coverage, leading to more betting.

How long can this boom continue and how far can it go? Gold argues that “we're not even close to the peak”. While the vast majority of states now allow some form of gambling, far fewer have no restrictions at all. At the same time, a few major holdouts, notably California and Texas (which together account for 20% of the US population), still also ban most betting, including sports betting. If those two states changed their mind, however, “it would mean major growth for the industry”.

Overall, Wasiolek is moderately bullish, although he admits that there is considerable uncertainty about how the industry will grow. However, even in the US states where gambling is now legal, you would expect “good, or even single-digit, growth”. So, if you then add to this the “handful of additional states that are expected to allow online casinos or sports betting in the near future”, the industry's medium-term prospects in North America look very encouraging.

Competition from prediction markets

One big reason investors have soured on many gambling stocks, especially those related to US online bookmakers, is down to the uncertainty generated by competition from prediction markets. Prediction markets are essentially a new form of betting exchange, which match punters on either side of the bet.

However, unlike British betting exchanges such as Betfair, they are regulated as financial products by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). This allows them to bypass state regulations and “gain direct access to America's financial infrastructure, including integration with every broker, every trading platform, every fintech app”, says Edwin Dorsey, founder of investment newsletter The Bear Cave.

While this designation is being contested, with a coalition of 39 states supporting a legal challenge arguing that prediction markets should be regulated at the state level, Dorsey argues that they have the potential to bring genuine economic benefits. For example, instead of insuring your property against hurricanes, which can be “very expensive and very inefficient and lead to disputes involving adjusters, lawyers, and potentially litigation”, residents in a state such as Florida could simply bet on whether a hurricane will occur in their own area.

J. Christopher Giancarlo, the Chair of the CFTC between 2017 and 2019, argues that prediction markets can also bring other benefits. For example, he thinks that the incentive it gives those taking part to be right “gives [these markets] the potential to be more accurate in predicting the outcome of events like elections than polling” does. While he acknowledges that while they aren't infallible, and will need to be regulated properly, they are so accurate that “once prediction markets catch on, we'll be using them to judge the probability of events, just as we use weather forecasts to predict the weather”.

Of course, the big question is how prediction markets will affect more conventional betting companies. Some people are pessimistic about the latter. “If running a sports-betting operator means paying high ‘sin' taxes and dealing with heavy regulatory burdens, while running a prediction market means relatively little oversight and being taxed as a financial-services provider, it's hard to see how the former can compete with the latter,” says Small. Mourato says prediction markets offer a better experience, including not limiting successful gamblers' bets (something bookies in general are notorious for).

There is increasing evidence that prediction markets are already starting to steal customers from betting outlets (known as sportsbooks in the US), says Mourato. Betting consultancy H2 Gambling Capital estimated that prediction markets took about 27% of legal US sports-betting volume in the first month of the World Cup, up from 9% at the start of the year. Worse, they are also starting to make inroads into the more profitable areas, such as parlay bets (bets that only pay out if two or more events happen), “which typically yield sportsbooks 22 cents on each dollar wagered, compared with only six cents for straight bets”.

However, others are more optimistic that prediction markets and traditional betting firms can coexist. Russ Mould of investment platform AJ Bell thinks that most of the people attracted by prediction markets “tend to be those who were more used to spread betting on CFDs or financial markets”, and is less convinced that they can attract people “more interested in a wager on a three-mile horse race”. Wasiolek notes that while the major US sports-betting companies briefly saw their revenue fall at the start of the year, possibly due to competition from prediction markets, revenue has managed to bounce back. He also notes that some, such as DraftKings, are even launching their own prediction markets. Overall, he expects them to keep growing, but at a slower rate than previously.

Leo Barker, VP Commercial-EMEA of OpticOdds, one of America's leading sports-data providers, thinks “it's too simplistic to view prediction markets purely as a threat to sportsbooks, as [they] are also introducing an entirely new audience to the idea of trading on real-world outcomes”. He thinks the bigger story is convergence, whereby “consumers increasingly expect to move seamlessly between sports, financial markets, entertainment and other real-world events”. So, the question “is less whether prediction markets replace sportsbooks and more how the two categories evolve alongside each other, particularly as regulators determine where the lines between them ultimately sit”.

Regulation is on the rise

Another factor weighing on gambling shares has been a sense that while the US may be loosening regulation, elsewhere the regulatory tide is shifting against the sector. Darragh McGee, an associate professor in the Department for Health at the University of Bath, thinks this is long overdue. In his view, the gambling industry has been able to rebrand itself “as just another leisure activity”, while aggressively promoting products that encourage addiction. This doesn't just affect the increasing number of problem gamblers, but also those around them. McGee cites research claiming that every gambling addict has a negative effect on up to eight people around them, and that the total costs to society far outweigh the tax revenue generated by the sector.

Rather than an outright ban, McGee hopes for an approach “that would permit gambling, but not rapaciously promote it in the manner that we currently see”. However, whether you agree with him or not – Mould thinks “it is easy to see why the industry's behaviour has upset some people” – McGee believes that the mood has definitely changed. So investors need to be aware that “ineffective disclaimers” on bookies' websites won't be enough to satisfy public opinion and the amount of tax and regulation will only increase. Government action isn't the only risk. Several Facebook-style class-action suits against the leading US gambling companies are in the pipeline.

“[Heavy] regulation doesn't stop people gambling, but just moves them to unlicensed sites that offer worse value and fewer protections,” according to Mourato. Still, he agrees about the overall direction of travel in the regulatory backdrop. He notes that the UK increased the rate of remote-gaming duty from 21% to 40% in April 2026, while online-betting duty will rise from 15% to 25% in April 2027. In 2023, Australia introduced a National Self-Exclusion Register, whereby people concerned about their gambling can block themselves from online-betting outlets for at least three months. Online gambling with credit cards was banned a year later.

Mourato even thinks that outright bans of certain betting products aren't off the cards. For example, European regulators have launched action against prediction markets (which remain banned in the UK), while Brazil banned gambling by presidential order a few weeks ago. Overall, he thinks that regulation represents the biggest threat to the industry outside the US. He is so worried about further changes “that I don't own any gambling shares myself”.

However, others think the risk of regulatory crackdowns has been overstated. Sergio Paulino, founder and CEO of All Bettors, a prediction platform, says that Brazilian president Lula's decision to ban gambling was a “political stunt” that didn't prevent (and might well have caused) his poor showing in the first round of the presidential election, demonstrating that such moves have limited electoral appeal. Wasiolek suggests that while both additional regulations and tax rises “may hit revenue for a few quarters”, their long-term impact will be limited. Gambling companies are increasingly geographically diversified, allowing them to shift investment towards expanding operations in more friendly jurisdictions.

Regulation could even create opportunities for systems that can help companies and platforms detect problem-gambling behaviours, says Marc Fernandez, chief strategy officer of Neurologyca, a neuroscience and AI firm. For example, since technology “can now pick up on signs that someone's stressed or not thinking clearly, a platform could step in at the right moment, maybe with a quick ‘take a breather' prompt or a temporary limit, just for the person who needs it, and leave everyone else alone”. The same signals can “also help spot people trying to game or manipulate the markets, which is another big worry for regulators”.

Casinos will continue to cash in

Whatever happens to online gambling, there is a general agreement among experts that physical casinos won't disappear any time soon. It's “been proved that online availability of gaming does not take away from the profitability of live gaming”, says Jamie Gold. As an avid poker player, sports bettor and casual casino player, Gold still enjoys “all ways of playing” and his trips to live casinos “have not gone down because of online” casinos.

Christina Lindley, a former professional poker player and founder of VPRG Consulting, similarly “does not see online gambling eliminating physical casinos”. She was recently at G2E (the global gaming expo) in Las Vegas “and the floor was full of technology designed to improve casino operations, retention, and customers' experience”. At the very least, this suggests casinos are optimistic enough about their future to keep investing in new equipment.

Casinos will remain attractive, even in a digital age, because “many people go to casinos for entirely different reasons than they gamble online”, says Adam Small of Third Planet Media. Modern casinos are not just about gambling, “you can get a meal, have some drinks, see a show and, at the nicer casinos, you can even go shopping and go to the spa”. Las Vegas's casinos have shifted their business model from gambling towards general entertainment. They now make so much money from the latter and convention activity “that gambling now only accounts for a third of revenue” – a model that regional casinos are also looking to emulate. While this doesn't make them recession-proof, as there is evidence that higher fuel prices are leading people to cut back on trips, he thinks the casino industry “should roughly follow the growth of the US economy”.

Gambling investments to buy now

One of the big winners from the US gambling boom has been DraftKings (Nasdaq: DKNG). Originally, it focused on fantasy sports leagues (where people would predict which players would do best in return for cash prizes). However, after the regulatory changes in the US, the group pivoted to online betting, running digital sportsbooks and online casinos.

Sales grew nearly tenfold between 2020 and 2025. While the share price has recently taken a beating owing to fears about prediction markets, it now offers its own, and Wasiolek thinks the stock is underpriced at 22 times expected 2027 earnings.

While Wasiolek prefers DraftKings, he also thinks that there is value in Flutter Entertainment (NYSE: FLUT), which has seen its share price fall by 66% in a year. Like DraftKings, Flutter has also experienced strong growth, with revenue nearly tripling since 2020.

While Flutter admits that it sees prediction markets as a net negative, it has engaged with the sector by acting as a market maker (it also owns the UK betting exchange Betfair). Even though both its revenue and earnings are expected to continue growing strongly in the short term, Flutter trades at a bargain-basement level of 10.5 times 2027 earnings.

Value investors may also like Entain (LSE: ENT). Sports betting makes up around 75% of sales, with the rest from online casinos. Entain's share price has fallen by half in the last year, pushing the company out of the FTSE 100, owing to concerns about tax rises and regulatory changes in the UK.

However, while AJ Bell's Russ Mould doesn't have an overall view on the company, he thinks that it “certainly has [the] potential to be a cash-generative business”. It currently trades on a 2027 price/ earnings (P/E) ratio of seven and offers a dividend yield of 5%.

When it comes to physical casinos, Wasiolek is very positive about Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS). Contrary to what its name implies, Las Vegas Sands does not in fact operate any casinos in the US, instead focusing on the Chinese region of Macao and on Singapore.

Wasiolek acknowledges that both areas can be very volatile, but their relatively high rates of medium-term growth, as well as restrictions on the numbers of overall licences (and therefore potential competitors), should ensure healthy long-term prospects. Even though revenue is still growing strongly, Las Vegas Sands trades on a 2027 P/E of 11 with a yield of 3.5%.

MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM) owns at least 17 gambling resorts in the US and elsewhere, including properties in Brazil, the UK, China and Japan. But unlike Las Vegas Sands it also has exposure to the sports-betting and online-gaming markets through BetMGM and MGM Digital.

Revenue continues to grow strongly, while there is still a chance that it could become an acquisition target again. MGM also looks promising from a value perspective, as it trades as just under 15 times 2027 earnings.

Many of the operators of prediction markets, such as Kalshi, are currently unlisted. However, online-trading platform RobinHood (Nasdaq: HOOD) recently branched out into prediction markets. Although these account for only a small portion of revenue, they are growing at a rapid pace.

Sales grew tenfold year on year in the second quarter. While RobinHood is priced aggressively at 38 time 2027 earnings, revenue has grown fourfold since 2020 and is expected to keep expanding by double-digits.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

Greece is bouncing back from its crippling sovereign debt crisis of 2009-2018. The Greek economy is starting to perform a lot better and the government has just upgraded its growth forecast for this year from 2% to 2.3%. Unemployment fell from 7.9% last month to 7.4%; it reached 27% at the peak of the debt crisis in 2013. Investment is starting to flow into the country. The government says it is running a primary budget surplus and the debt-to-GDP ratio, close to 200% at the peak, is now 136% and it is set to fall to 128% next year.

The bond markets like the look of all those figures and are charging Greece less and less to borrow money. The yield on its ten-year bonds has fallen to just 4.4%, a lot less than in France or Britain. The days when Greece was about to go bust and threatened to take down the eurozone as it collapsed are now firmly in the past.

Greece has welcomed foreign capital

At the same time, Greece is starting to acquire a reputation as the “new Dubai”. The British hedge-fund billionaire Chris Rokos, the country's third-largest individual taxpayer, recently moved there. US hedge fund Millennium Management is opening its first office there. Skyscrapers are going up along the Athens Riviera, a stretch of coastline just outside the capital.

You can see why. The Greek government has offered a series of tax incentives to bring money into the country. Executives who relocate their tax residency to Greece pay only 5% on their bonuses and carried interest, far less than they would in London, Paris, or even New York. And there is a flat-tax regime that caps tax on foreign income at €100,000, with foreign assets exempt from Greek inheritance tax. A similar deal in Italy helped turn Milan into a booming financial centre, at least until the government increased the flat-rate payment to €300,000, and now it is doing the same for Athens. With the war in the Persian Gulf, there is a space in the global market for a low-tax, trading and financial centre, and Greece looks willing to take the prize.

It has, however, been a long, hard slog for Greece to get itself back on track. At the height of the eurozone crisis, it could have left the single currency and massively devalued, while defaulting on its debts. That would have been one way out of the mess. In the end, the country resolved to knuckle down and work its way back to financial stability. Over five painful years, GDP fell by almost 30%, a collapse on the scale of the Great Depression of the 1930s, and it has still not managed to get back to its pre-crisis level of output. Public spending was cut by 25%. The civil service was slashed from one million to slightly over 600,000, while wages were frozen.

Unemployment soared, wages fell by 25% or more and up to 50% in sectors such as tourism. Pensions were cut 11 times to keep pace with the austerity programme. Most of the toughest cuts were imposed by the so-called “troika”, made up of the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and that gave the local politicians the space to make some very hard decisions. Even so, eventually spending was brought down and the public finances started to stabilise.

There is a lesson in that. More and more countries are starting to come under sustained attacks from the bond markets. France is right in the firing line, but so is Britain, and perhaps Italy as well. Yields are starting to soar as investors become more and more nervous of the deadly combination of rising debt and sluggish or non-existent growth. They may find themselves caught up in a full-scale sovereign-debt crisis at any moment.

Greece shows that there is eventually a path to recovery. The trouble is, it takes a long time, deep cuts to the size of the state, and a willingness among the voters to make a lot of sacrifices to restore the country's competitiveness. The outlook for Greece is bright again. But it was a very tough slog. It is hard to imagine countries such as France and Britain putting up with the same kind of austerity – even though, just like Greece, it may be the only way finally to bring their debts under control.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

Bond yields and geopolitics are ever present for investors. But that brings its own challenges, as it can often be difficult for us to recognise things that surround us and shape our thinking to the point where they go unremarked.

There is an old parable repeated by David Foster Wallace in Infinite Jest, which, in his version, goes something like the following: two young fish are swimming along and run into an older fish. “Morning, boys. How's the water?” asks the older fish. The younger fish nod, swim on, then one turns to the other: “What the hell is water?”

Bond yields are rapidly rising

Bond yields are rising fast. Ten-year gilts are at 5.4%, ten-year Treasuries at 5.2%. German and Japanese bond yields are also at two-decade highs. Many investors now view these bonds as attractive – although the fact that yields are still trading there tells us that money is not yet flowing back into them in a big way.

To decide whether they are good value, we need to consider what has pushed bond yields up. Is it fears of higher inflation, worries about government finances, growing supply of long-term corporate debt, or expectations of robust growth driving higher short-term rates? However, we must also consider whether our sense of what's normal could also be misleading us.

Ten-year gilt yields are well above their average of 3.3% since 2000. Yet for much of that time, they were held down by central-bank intervention. Many analysts and managers working today will have spent most of their formative years in a low-yield environment, and will instinctively feel that 5% is exceptionally and unsustainably high. Yet if we look back further, the picture changes. The average since 1980 would be 6%, while the average since 1960 – including the inflationary 1970s – would be 6.9%. So whether yields are exceptional depends on what you think is normal.

When does geopolitics matter?

My second example comes from a recent seminar, where an experienced institutional investor argued that geopolitics doesn't matter. Yes, markets react to events in the short term, but these rarely had lasting consequences, he noted.

Yet such individual events were mostly fluctuations within a steady environment. Always remember that every investor working today has spent most, or all, of their career in the post-Cold War era, with the expectations for trade, security and capital markets that peace created. We are clearly in a different geopolitical regime today – and that will have consequences.

We will be discussing the implications of this at our MoneyWeek Wealth Summit on Friday, 6 November in London. But to stretch the parable a bit: the fish often learns what water isn't very abruptly, when it gets hooked by the fisherman. Investors want to avoid the same outcome.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

Seoul is booming, but much of the global property market has stalled. The South Korean capital recorded real house-price growth exceeding 10% over the past year, according to the 2026 edition of the UBS Global Real Estate Bubble index. The AI-chip boom has sent a wall of money flooding into Korea.

Lisbon and Madrid are also property hotspots. In Switzerland, ultra-low interest rates are keeping Zurich and Geneva eye-wateringly pricey. However, the wider picture is one of stagnation. Across the 23 global cities analysed by UBS, residential property prices increased by an average of just 0.5% in real terms over the past 12 months.

Canada has seen the biggest retreats, with Vancouver and Toronto recording 10% declines in real terms as the country cracks down on foreign buyers. Most US cities also saw real-term declines, except for AI hub San Francisco. Germany is glum, with Frankfurt and Munich seeing inflation-adjusted drops of nearly 4%.

Just two cities are flagged by UBS as showing “high” bubble risk: Zurich, and Tokyo. Inflation-adjusted prices in the Japanese capital have surged by around 50% over the past seven years, the result of buyers' increasing leverage and a nascent pick-up in wage growth.

London saw a 1% year-on-year decline; prices in the capital have dropped 15% since 2021 in real terms. Prospects for a recovery remain hampered by “stretched affordability”.

Beyond London, UK house prices are also stagnant. Lloyds reports that the average home cost £298,441 in September, almost the same as 12 months before. The average cost of a five-year fixed-rate mortgage has hit 6%.

The global property market is being overshadowed by stocks

Property doesn't seem to be the “path to wealth” it once was, says The Economist. The average house in England is “now worth less in real terms than it was two decades ago”.

Global household wealth increased by $40 trillion in 2025, according to calculations by the McKinsey Global Institute; about 57% of those gains came from stock markets, with property accounting for just 15%. In the US, stocks overtook property as a share of household wealth in July, the first time that has happened since World War II.

Still, there are advantages to buying outside bubble conditions. “Average market exuberance is now well below the levels observed before interest rates began rising in 2021,” says UBS.

Underlying demand for urban housing is “robust”, as shown by the fact that “rents have broadly kept pace with income growth” over the last five years. In London, rents are still “close to record highs”, a symptom of a “persistent housing shortage”.

On a medium-term view, property “in most cities is likely to provide inflation protection”. Just don't expect your house to make you rich.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

The chancellor of the exchequer is one of the most powerful roles in the government, as they are in charge of the UK’s economic policy.

Whoever holds the office becomes one of the most high-profile members of the government and has the power to make decisions that directly impact your money.

How much do you know about the history of the office and its holders? Test your knowledge in our quiz.

How well did you do in our chancellors quiz? Share your results on social media.

• When is the Autumn Budget?
• Will taxes rise in the Autumn Budget?
• Inside a Budget: ex-Treasury minister reveals the chess game behind your tax rises

For all the latest news and analysis, subscribe to MoneyWeek’s newsletters.

As 2027 nears, many will start thinking about where and when to go on holiday next year.

Whether you have a luxury cruise on your mind or you’re planning to relax in one of the best hotels in the world, there are plenty of destinations across the globe that offer something for each kind of traveller.

Where to travel in 2027

Travel group Expedia has just released its Unpack ’27: The Trends in Travel report, revealing where different trends are taking holidaymakers.

The data has been compiled based on increases in flight and accommodation searches on Expedia for travel from 1 September 2025 to 27 July 2026 versus the same period in 2025.

We’ve compiled the top destinations of the year and delve further into each destination below.

Source: Expedia Unpack ’27: Destinations of the Year

1. South Lake Tahoe, California, US

South Lake Tahoe in California, US, has seen the biggest rise in interest among travellers, according to Expedia, with searches up 195% year-on-year. Straddling the California-Nevada border, it is known for dramatic Sierra Nevada scenery and tranquil mountain escapes. In the winter months, you can head to the slopes for skiing and snowboarding, while the warmer months are ideal for kayaking and paddleboarding in the crystal-clear waters of North America’s largest alpine lake.

2. Hyogo, Japan

Japan has even more to offer beyond its better-known cities Tokyo and Kyoto. Hyogo, a prefecture in the Kansai region of Honshu, combines centuries-old heritage with hot springs and a vibrant cuisine. In the historic town of Himeji, you can find one of Japan’s most impressive castles, soak in the hot-spring resort of Arima Onsen after a day of sightseeing, sample seafood specialities and try the famous Kobe beef.

3. Punta del Este, Uruguay

Often associated with luxury yachts, beach clubs and extravagant summer parties, Punta del Este is one of South America’s most glamorous coastal destinations. But there is more to this Uruguayan resort town than its reputation as a playground for the wealthy. The cosmopolitan city is a perfect base to explore the sand dunes of Cabo Polonio, and offers plenty of room to unwind on its many golden beaches, while enjoying fresh seafood and wines from the many waterfront restaurants.

4. Sedona, Arizona, US

Sedona’s striking red-rock formations have made it one of Arizona’s most recognisable landscapes, drawing holidaymakers seeking adventure. The viewpoints of the surrounding desert are equally as rewarding, and you can relax at the many world-class spas and yoga retreats, or browse the town’s independent shops and art galleries.

5. Busan, South Korea

Busan, South Korea’s second-largest city after Seoul, is visibly distinct from the latter’s urban environment. It is home to lively beaches, fish markets and the centuries-old Buddhist temple Haedong Yonggungsa, which overlooks the sea. The colourful hillside neighbourhood of Gamcheon Culture Village is famous for its murals and independent cafes, and you can spend hours shopping at Shinsegae, the world’s largest department store.

6. Holbox, Mexico

For travellers keen to escape Mexico’s hustle and bustle, the island of Holbox has plenty to offer. Located off the Yucatán Peninsula, this car-free island is the perfect place for swimming, cycling between powdery-white beaches and enjoying the many waterfront restaurants. You can float in bioluminescent waters — when tiny marine organisms make the water appear to glow in the dark — or join excursions to see whale sharks in the day.

7. Perugia, Italy

Perugia is a medieval Italian city in the heart of Umbria. Its historic centre is decorated with cobbled lanes, stone archways and grand palaces. You can discover famous artworks at the National Gallery, take a historical tour of the city’s Etruscan heritage, or attend the world-famous Umbria Jazz Festival and EuroChocolate to sample decadent chocolates. Italian food not to miss includes truffles, cured meats and excellent Sagrantino wines.

8. The Tweed, New South Wales, Australia

The Tweed is a region on the northern edge of New South Wales that shares a border with Queensland. It is known for its lush hinterlands, rainforests and volcanic peaks, while the beaches are ideal for water sports, and you can hike in the Wollumbin National Park. The region’s food scene is also attractive, with farm-to-table experiences and a unique experience at the Husk Farm Distillery, Australia’s only sugarcane distillery and the country’s first producer of sugarcane juice rum.

9. Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada

Niagara-on-the-Lake is a picturesque countryside escape that sits on the shores of Lake Ontario. The town is brimming with over 20 award-winning wineries, independent shops, tea rooms and 19th-century buildings. It is also home to the Shaw Festival, which brings theatre performances to the area throughout the year.

10. Chichester, UK

If you’re looking for a getaway that doesn’t require a passport or standing in endless airport queues, Chichester makes an appealing case. With a historic cathedral and the South Downs on its doorstep, the market town is ideal for exploring the quieter side of southern England. Its Roman origins are still visible in the city’s compact layout, while the nearby coast offers sandy beaches and lush wetlands. Its proximity to Goodwood House also makes it an ideal location for those attending horse racing, motor racing or other events at the estate.

“At this time of year, you could ski in shorts,” said my colleague – an experienced skier, last April – just before I headed off for three days at the French Alpine resort of Val d'Isère. In the end, I kept my salopettes on. But after an hour on the slopes, I ditched the ski coat to enjoy skiing under a glaring sun that ripened the hard, morning snow to a texture that suited novice and experienced skiers alike.

Spring skiing is the way to go, I now know – and April is ideal for anyone who's less keen on skiing in freezing winter temperatures. The sun has a quality about it that you'd expect in south-eastern France. For reference, the town is 120 miles north of Monaco. It is a high-end resort at 1,850 metres above sea level in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. Some 60% of Val d'Isère's slopes are above 2,200 metres.

We reached Val d'Isère via Geneva airport. Although quieter in April, the resort is nevertheless bustling with a cross-range of ages. There's ample space on the slopes during the day, yet a lively après-ski scene during the night.

The town – which has hosted many major skiing events, including Olympic ones – sits on the edge of the Vanoise National Park, with the Grande-Motte being the largest mountain visible, rising to 3,653 metres above sea level. Fauna in the park include the bearded vulture, golden eagle and the Alpine ibex, a species of goat whose males have fearsome horns.

Val d'Isère's slopes are easy to reach by foot. Gondola lifts are plentiful. Although Val d'Isère is eminently walkable, Hip Hideouts – the village-centre Alpine-style apartment where we stayed – offers a chauffeur service. This was great for reaching the town's borders, from where we took a gondola to La Folie Douce – a mountainside restaurant and party venue boasting Europe's highest outdoor cabaret.

Hip Hideouts apartments are full of Alpine charm

Our Hip Hideouts Le Parc Marceau apartment – adorned in wood for warmth, comfort and Alpine charm – offers “crafted bed & breakfast” that includes a private breakfast chef and chauffeur service. Our apartment sleeps ten in five rooms and features a spacious communal kitchen/lounge area with a balcony.

The apartments are within a wider luxury complex known as Le Parc 1963 and they feature a concierge, gym and a clean snow room (a wellness facility).

We were also hooked up with excellent skiing instructors there from Oxygène.

Learning the ropes on the slopes

As a first-time skier, I had one-to-one instruction. Perhaps surprisingly, being in my mid-50s, I quickly found my ski legs on the nursery slopes and elevated soon to a steeper, faster run. A few tumbles later, my companions and I headed for an hour-and- a-half of snowshoeing, with an expert guide from Evolution 2 who spoke knowledgeably about the flora and fauna. Snowshoeing is a different way to see the slopes, which – at this leisurely pace – we realised were yielding the Alps' famed seasonal crocus.

Snowshoe with children and there would be great snowball fights. But for us adults, getting closer to nature than with skiing, it led to some discussion concerning the environment. We learnt that the Grande-Motte – which was stunningly visible from our route – is estimated to have around 50 years left until its glacier disappears.

Right now, meltwater from the mountains provides a huge hydro-electric dam. Our guide's other job is to measure the water supply so that the electricity board can better manage the area's power supply.

Our first night's dinner was at restaurant Poya. Its menu is inspired by Alpine cuisine and the low-lit venue is designed around being a bar and restaurant, each in their own space and seemingly with their own purpose. The bar is popular on the après-ski scene, while the restaurant's menu promotes a familial atmosphere through a number of generously portioned dishes to share.

A ski haven for foodies

We feasted on mature rib-eye beef with Bearnaise sauce. There is an old joke that the only vegetarian dish you'll find on a French menu is chicken. Certainly Poya – which promotes a bon-vivant atmosphere – is heavy on meat, but the restaurant bent over backwards to accommodate two guests with strict dietary requirements and this was the same with each restaurant we visited – such as Le Blizzard, part of an eponymously named five-star family-run hotel that boasts gourmet dishes and a long table of ornate desserts within its intricately wood-beamed dining area.

On another night we shared a ski classic – fondue (more precisely, Savoyard fondue, made with Beaufort, Comté, Abondance and Savoie wine). This was at l'Aigle d'Or, which is housed in a four-star hotel called Experimental Chalet Val d'Isère.

As a premium ski resort, Val d'Isère is undoubtedly a foodie experience for the tourists who visit there, 42% of whom are Britons, according to the tourist board. Retreating from the chic restaurants and the rich French cuisine to our Hip Hideouts chalet one night, however, was a welcome relief from high-end restaurant food. Chefs Tom and Caitlin served up chicken, duck and a fascinating apple dessert, each with the qualities of wholesome home cooking and yet still fine dining. The Marceau's large balcony window adds to the already ample spaciousness. Once you've dimmed the lights and become enveloped by cosiness, it's tempting to stay in every night.

Nick was a guest of Hip Hideouts at the Le Parc Marceau apartment. From €2,400 per person, B&B for up to ten people sharing. Evening chef is an optional extra. Visit hiphideouts.com for more information.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

Putting your affairs in order during your lifetime can give you and your loved ones peace of mind for the future and make sure your wishes are carried out after you’re gone.

Sorting all the paperwork and administration involved can be difficult and time-consuming, but planning ahead and creating a record of your personal and financial details, as well as communicating your wishes to your loved ones, can make a big difference.

We look at some steps to consider taking.

Write your will

Writing a will means you can officially declare what you want to happen after you die, giving you control over how your assets and belongings are inherited.

Without a will, your possessions could be split in ways that you may not have wanted and make the process of inheritance more difficult.

Your will should include instructions about how your money, property, and belongings (like jewellery or other personal items) should be divided once you die, who you want to inherit parts of your estate and if you want to give any money to charity.

The will should also detail who you want to look after your children if you die while they are under 18, who you want to be the executor of your will, and other relevant wishes for what you want to happen after you die.

While you don't need a solicitor to write a will, it is recommended you get advice from a professional if your will is not straightforward.

You will need to make sure your will is legally valid.

You can keep your will at home or store it with your solicitor, bank, the national probate registry, or a company that stores wills. Tell your executor, a close friend or relative where it is.

It’s sensible to write a will early on but review it every few years and after major life events, such as marriage or divorce, to make sure it still reflects your wishes.

Olly Cheng, financial planning divisional lead at wealth manager Rathbones, said it can be a good idea to start having conversations about what will happen to your assets after you die early on.

“The first thing is for people to get comfortable with the idea of having those conversations,” he said. “Going in, you need to understand that your children [if you have them] will have opinions but that's okay because the final decision is still yours. But having that conversation will save a lot of hurt later.”

Check your pension inheritance wishes and how they will be undertaken

You may be able to leave your pension wealth to your loved ones but you can’t leave your pension in your will.

Who inherits your pension is decided by who you nominate in an “expression of wish” or “nomination of beneficiary” form that you give to your pension provider(s).

In this document, you will nominate a person or multiple people who you want to inherit your pension.

There are two main ways this can be set up: under direction, or under discretion.

If you chose inheritance to be under direction then who you nominate in this form will be final.

However, there are scenarios where this could cause problems.

For example, you may have filled out the form early in your life and forgot to update it after a major life change, such as remarriage, meaning the stated beneficiary may not be who you want to inherit your pension.

In this scenario, your pension scheme would legally have to pay your pension out to the state beneficiary regardless of when that form was submitted.

This is where choosing inheritance to be under discretion can help. When you choose this, a pension scheme administrator will use your ‘expression of wish’ form to help guide their decision, but it will not be the final say.

If the administrator’s investigation concludes that the stated beneficiary is different to who they believe you would have wanted to inherit your pension, then they can overrule the form.

Most pension schemes are under discretion, according to the government.

Clare Moffat, pensions and tax expert at Royal London, said that while it can be daunting to give this power over to somebody else, it can be a sensible decision.

She said: “It's useful to remember that the main purpose of the scheme administrator is to find out where you would have wanted that money to go. If that's not clear because you've not filled out a form or it's a very old form, then they will investigate to find out where that money should go, and they will ask different people.

“They'll get evidence from solicitors. They'll ask how many family members there are. They'll ask lots of questions, but if inheritance is set up under direction and you don't keep your forms up to date, then that money could be going to someone you didn't want it to go to.”

Either way, it is important to update your relevant pensions inheritance forms regularly, to ensure your pension goes to the right person.

If you have bought an annuity or are considering one, you should check what its inheritance rules are. Some annuities provide lump sums or continue for beneficiaries after you die, while others stop payments immediately.

For example, if you bought a joint life annuity, then payments will continue to be made to your surviving partner after you die, though rules about the exact amount paid will differ. On the other hand, if you bought a single life annuity then the beneficiary wouldn’t inherit the annuity.

Plan for inheritance tax

In the UK, your estate will only be liable to inheritance tax if it is worth more than £325,000 and you leave it to someone other than your spouse. If you are leaving your home to your children or grandchildren, then the threshold increases to £500,000.

Anything in your estate above this threshold is taxed at 40%, or 36% if you leave 10% or more of the net value of your estate to charity in a will.

If your estate is likely to be above this threshold, you might want to plan to reduce inheritance tax liabilities during your lifetime.

Cheng at Rathbones, said: “The biggest misconception is that you need all these complex structures [like trusts], but actually for most people it can be really simple. The idea is, if you can gift money to your kids, that's usually the best thing to do.”

The ‘seven year rule’ means that you can give away as much of your estate as you like during your lifetime, and if you live for seven years after the gift is given, it won’t be subject to inheritance tax.

There are various inheritance tax gifting allowances that can be used each year to give money or assets away free from inheritance tax liabilities. This could lower your overall estate.

Cheng said that while structures like trusts can be useful for some people, most people assume they need complex tools when they do not.

“Trusts and all these other things are often about control, not about tax – if you put money in trust, you're still going to have a seven-year clock. So, what most people miss is that actually the best thing is just to have a really grown-up conversation with your children. And there may be reasons not to give them money directly, but it should always be the starting point.”

This being said, there are situations where setting up a more complex structure like a trust can be the right thing to do. This may be because you have a blended family, or you do not want to give your children all the money at once.

If this is the case, consider speaking to a professional wealth manager or financial planner and see if a trust is the right way forward.

However, Cheng warned that when starting to plan for inheritance tax, you should not immediately start gifting your estate away without first considering how much you actually need to live through retirement.

Plan for your funeral

Some people may decide to outline their funeral wishes before they die.

If you want to do this, consider creating a detailed document that provides straightforward instructions of what you want to happen at your funeral.

Some things you may want to include are the location, whether you want to be cremated or buried, whether you want to donate your organs, whether you want a religious funeral, and any particular wishes.

Tell your loved ones where they can find this document. You can also outline these wishes in your will, although they aren’t legally binding.

You can also prepare for how the funeral will be paid for.

Some life insurance policies will include funeral cover and if yours does then you should tell your loved ones this. You may consider buying a pre-paid funeral plan. Otherwise, funeral costs can be taken from your bank account even if it is frozen.

Create a fact file and tell your loved ones where to find it

Creating a file of your finances can mean your loved ones don’t need to search for personal and financial information after your death.

In this document, include a list of all your financial accounts with a description of what they are, what they are used for, and how to get into contact with the organisation. This may include your current account and credit card providers, mortgage lender, pension provider, and insurance brokers.

Royal London has created a “When I’m gone” document covering many of these areas that you can access for free, print, and fill out. Don't write security information about your accounts, such as passwords and PINs in the document.

Keep the document securely in a place that you remember and your loved ones know about. For example, this could be in a locked filing cabinet in your home, or in your solicitor's office. It may be a good idea to keep it in the same place as your will.

Additionally, you could include a list of your important online accounts, like social media profiles, so your loved ones can access them and close them or turn them into memorial accounts.

AJ Bell has slashed the fee on its ready-made personal pension, making it one of the cheapest fee-wise on the managed personal pension market.

The investment platform has today (14 October) reduced its annual charge from 0.45% to 0.35% for investors taking a hands-off approach.

The 0.35% fee is all-in, covering administration and investment charges, with investors facing no additional charges on transactions.

AJ Bell launched the ready-made personal pension in 2024, and now offers investors the choice of five growth funds based on their risk appetite.

AJ Bell manages the investments for you which can be helpful for those who are time poor or new to investing and don’t want the responsibility of managing their investments.

The ready-made pension also lets savers track down old pension pots and consolidate them into a single account.

Mahdi Shabir, lead insight analyst at Boring Money, a website providing advice on saving and investing, said: “AJ Bell's pricing change is both compelling and illustrative of the increased competition in the ready-made pension market.

“Following price reductions from both Moneybox and Hargreaves Lansdown in the past 12 months, AJ Bell has thrown down the gauntlet by reducing fees from 0.45% all-in to 0.35% for its ready-made pension.”

Is AJ Bell’s ready-made personal pension worth it?

Following the fee change, AJ Bell’s ready-made personal pension is now one of the cheapest own-brand managed pensions on the market.

However, the higher the value of the portfolio, the less competitive it becomes fee-wise.

For portfolios worth £20,000 or less, its fees are the lowest out of the major providers offering similar products, including Aviva, Fidelity and Hargreaves Lansdown, according to analysis by Boring Money factoring in platform and ongoing fund charge fees.

However, based on a portfolio of £50,000, interactive investor’s (ii) managed pension is cheaper on an annual basis.

Based on a portfolio size of £300,000, AJ Bell’s ready-made pension is more expensive than similar products from Monzo and PensionBee.

Source: Boring Money, looking at the most aligned ready-made pension product offered by mainstream providers, factoring in platform fees and ongoing fund charge fees, excluding transaction costs. **no regular savings plan assumed

Beyond fees, AJ Bell’s ready-made personal pension comes with five growth funds to choose from depending on your risk profile.

However, ii has 10 different investment portfolios to choose from depending on what level of risk you’re willing to take.

Should you consolidate your pension pots?

AJ Bell’s ready-made personal pension also comes with a free pension-tracing service included. You can then consolidate these pots into one with AJ Bell.

Consolidating pension pots can make it easier to track investments and see whether they are performing well, as well as reduce what you’re paying in fees.

Shaun Yates, direct to consumer managing director at AJ Bell, said: “Many people have accumulated several pension pots over the course of their career and it can be surprisingly easy to lose track of them.

“Keeping on top of multiple accounts often leaves people unsure whether their savings are working as hard as they could be.”

It’s worth double-checking you won’t lose out on valuable benefits that come with a pension before consolidating it. For example, it’s generally not worth giving up a defined benefit (DB) scheme pension.

Check for any exit fees which may be incurred from ditching a pension pot as well.

Patient investing has driven the number of ISA millionaires – those with £1 million or more held in their ISAs – to a record high of 7,730 in the latest tax year.

The figures, revealed in a Freedom of Information (FOI) request sent to HMRC by savings and investment app Plum, mark an increase of more than 50% in the number of ISA millionaires in the 2023/24 tax year, compared to 5,070 in the tax year prior.

The average ISA millionaire now has a pot worth £1,348,000, virtually the same as the average in the 2022/23 tax year despite over 5,000 more individuals becoming ISA millionaires.

“A jump of more than 50% in a single year is really telling,” said Will Bryant, director of wealth strategy at Plum. “These aren’t people who suddenly saved their way to £1 million. It’s the result of years of patient investing, where the growth on your growth starts doing the heavy lifting. That’s the bit people underestimate.”

The number of ISA multi-millionaires has also increased, with 320 individuals sitting on ISA pots worth between £2 million and £3 million, 40 with pots between £3 million and £4 million, and 60 with accounts worth over £4 million.

Among those 40 with pots worth more than £4 million, the average account value was £7,708,000. This figure balloons to just under £12 million when looking at only the top 25 ISA investors in the UK.

As any money held in an ISA is shielded from capital gains tax and dividend tax, returns from these portfolios will be protected from a hefty tax bill. For example, a portfolio of £1 million which grew by 15% – the average return from the S&P 500 index over the last 10 years – will have brought tax-free returns of £150,000.

Bryant added: “These investors didn’t reach millionaires’ row by selling every time things got scary. They’ve sat through financial crises, Covid, rising interest rates and tariff worries, all of it.

“Staying put is harder than it sounds, but it’s time in the market, not trying to time the market, that works. And this data is proof of that.”

Are there any cash ISA millionaires?

While it is theoretically possible for someone who put their full £20,000 ISA allowance into cash each year since 1999 to have become an ISA millionaire, it is incredibly unlikely.

The vast majority of ISA millionaires joined the club by putting their ISA contributions into the stock market.

A separate FOI request sent to HMRC by Murphy Wealth in 2025 found that in the 2021/22 tax year, not a single ISA millionaire managed to reach the figure through cash ISA holdings alone.

The request found that 94% of the UK’s ISA millionaires got there exclusively through stocks and shares ISAs while the remaining 6% held money in a combination of cash and stocks and shares ISAs.

How can you become an ISA millionaire?

While joining the ISA millionaire’s club may seem a distant dream, diligent and patient investors could get there sooner than you may think.

Data from Plum shows that someone starting from scratch today and putting their full £20,000 ISA allowance into a stocks and shares ISA could reasonably expect to become an ISA millionaire in around 22 years, assuming annualised returns of 7% after fees.

Any investors who want to reach £1 million in their ISA should remember that patience is key.

Charlene Young, head of technical at AJ Bell: “ISA millionaires paint a great picture of what can happen when investors combine time, regular contributions, patience and perhaps a bit of good fortune.”

She said that those who want to build up £1 million in their ISAs will need to adopt a ‘get rich slow’ mindset and start as early as possible.

“There will be younger investors with a high-risk appetite who have achieved huge returns, but ordinary investors are normally best served by a diversified portfolio held for the long term.”

As for what you should invest in, Young says there isn’t a single route to becoming an ISA millionaire.

“Analysis of AJ Bell’s ISA millionaire investors has shown that shares and [investment] trusts are especially popular, but there are plenty using funds too. The important thing is to invest in what you feel comfortable with and understand the level of risk you are taking in return for the potential reward.”

Further changes to the tax regime would deter businesses from investing in the UK and stunt economic growth, entrepreneur and HomeServe founder Sir Richard Harpin warns.

Prime minister Andy Burnham was rumoured to be looking at bringing capital gains tax rates closer to income tax rates in the upcoming Autumn Budget, but self-made billionaire Harpin says this, or the possible introduction of a wealth tax, would be “absolutely devastating for British business” and result in an exodus of the wealthy – neither of which would help the UK economy.

Speaking to digital editor-in-chief Kalpana Fitzpatrick on the MoneyWeek Talks podcast, which you can also watch on YouTube, Harpin said: “We’ve clearly seen people have already left the UK, and we don’t want to see more people leave.”

The threat of higher taxes on the wealthy means as many as one in ten UK adults are considering leaving the country, according to a YouGov poll commissioned by wealth manager Tideway Wealth following the 2025 Autumn Budget.

“There’s got to be incentives for risk-takers to invest and work 24/7 to make a business successful here in the UK, to hopefully grow it and expand it internationally,” said Harpin.

“So we can’t have a situation where capital gains tax is the same level as income tax. There have got to be rewards for risk-takers. That’s the key to growing the UK economy.”

Following weeks of speculation, chancellor John Healey has reportedly rejected calls to raise CGT to match income tax rates, according to the Financial Times on Tuesday.

Some argue Britain’s wealthiest should pay more tax. In July, over 100 UK-based millionaires, including broadcaster and businessman Gary Lineker and musician Brian Eno, penned an open letter to Burnham saying they would be happy to pay a wealth tax.

When asked whether billionaires should pay more tax, Harpin said, “I don’t think they should”, arguing that those billionaires had taken a lot of risk and made a lot of sacrifices in order to make their businesses successful.

“It’s a difficult job as an entrepreneur,” Harpin said. “Failure is only one step away. Those billionaires have earned their money. If they’re still in the UK, they’ve paid their capital gains tax if they’ve sold their businesses. The businesses themselves have paid a high level of corporation tax so we should not have a period of double taxation.”

How HomeServe went from losing £50,000 a month to being sold for £4.1 billion

Harpin knows the risks that entrepreneurs take better than most. His lifelong dream of becoming a successful businessman nearly led to his business running out of money – twice.

Harpin and his business partner began their company in 1992, with their combined life savings of £50,000.

The business venture, then called A1 Fast Fix, hit major stumbling blocks. "We literally saw our life savings go down the drain in the space of six months,” he said.

Harpin says the problems were due to the wrong business model, high costs and a lack of repeat business.

In December 1992, they had to borrow money from friends and family to keep the business going.

The following spring, they got £500,000 in investment from South Staffordshire Water for 52% of the business.

There was a "big sense of relief", Harpin said: “I thought, right, now I can really grow the business, and it got bigger every month.”

But the company continued to haemorrhage money. "All that happened was I took £10,000 a month of losses and they became £50,000 a month of losses,” he said.

A little over a year later, the business was back in the same position. “[We’d] run out of money. [We were] literally down to our last £10,000”, Harpin said.

He continued: “Even my business partner came to me and said, ‘Richard, your life's dream of becoming an entrepreneur…you’ve got to face it, it’s over’.”

But Harpin refused to give up. “When you’ve got a life’s dream, you’ve got to make it happen,” he said.

Luck did strike, and Harpin found out about a water company in Surrey offering annual plumbing cover.

“I went down to Surrey, stopped people in the high street and said, ‘Have you joined up? What did you like about it? What did you not like about it? And literally designed our plumbing insurance membership on the street.”

The insurance memberships took off and customer growth exploded. By 1997, HomeServe had one million customers in the UK and by 2010, five million globally.

In 2023, Harpin sold HomeServe for £4.1 billion.

How can you become a billionaire?

After selling HomeServe three years ago, Harpin is now helping other entrepreneurs grow their businesses.

In 2015, he set up Growth Partner, which provides funding and advice to medium-sized businesses to help them scale. In 2023, he acquired Business Leader, a private network where chief executives and founders of businesses worth over £3 million can receive coaching and tips on how to grow their firms.

This summer, his book ‘How to Make a Billion in 9 Steps’ was published. Harpin discussed some of those steps on the MoneyWeek Talks podcast, including why “copying” and adapting existing ideas can be a recipe for success.

“We’re taught at school that copying homework is bad. In business, it’s definitely good to copy somebody else’s idea, like I did, and then do it better and bigger and quicker,” he said.

Harpin also discussed the importance of "honing your character" and focusing on the things you’re good at – step nine from the book.

“I was only good at a very small number of things and I was really bad at lots of things,” he said.

“I used to get really miserable at my performance review with my chairman, until I realised that what I needed to do was just focus on my couple of strengths and then hire people that could do all the things that I was bad at, that I didn’t like doing, and that was the magic bullet.”

‘Why you should start a business in the UK now’

The vast majority of businesses Growth Partner works with are UK-based.

And although economic growth remains sluggish, Harpin believes it is still a good place for businesses to thrive.

“I still believe that there is no better place in the world to run a global business from,” he said. “There’s a relatively low level of red tape, and what better time to open a business or expand a business than in a difficult time?

“It will eventually get better, and if you can grow through difficult conditions, then think about how easy it’s going to be in the future.”

To learn more about Richard Harpin’s life and his tips for succeeding in business, watch MoneyWeek’s full podcast on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

About the podcast

MoneyWeek Talks is a podcast that helps you unlock the secrets to financial success. Editors Kalpana Fitzpatrick, Andrew Van Sickle and Cris Sholto Heaton are joined by influential guests – from CEOs and entrepreneurs to economists and fund managers – to share their top tips on managing money, investing wisely and building wealth.

Follow the MoneyWeek Talks podcast and get ready to make it, keep it and spend it with confidence. You can also watch the episodes on our YouTube channel.

Income tax receipts make up more than a quarter of the government’s total income each year, making it a key tool for the government to cover its costs.

The majority of people in the UK pay at least some income tax, with your total tax bill increasing with the amount of money you earn.

But how much do you know about the vital tax? Test your knowledge in our quiz, which looks at income tax in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Residents in Scotland pay Scottish income tax rates to the Scottish government.

How well did you do in our income tax quiz? Share your results on social media.

• How income tax is calculated
• How to file a self-assessment tax return
• What is fiscal drag? How you could protect your money

For all the latest news and analysis, subscribe to MoneyWeek’s newsletters.

The rise of the so-called “experience economy” offers a welcome alternative to our increasingly digitised life. It promises highly curated, in-person experiences offering the sense of community and direct physical engagement with the world that has been stripped from the daily rhythms of life.

It is a truism that people's lives are increasingly digitalised, but the data still retains the capacity to shock. UK adults spent 4.5 hours per day online in 2025, according to Ofcom. For 18-to-24-year-olds, the figure was six hours and 20 minutes, mostly on their smartphones. And it's not as though we are spending these digitalised lives with others. A significant number of people work remotely, at least some of the time. Over 40% of UK workers spend part of their week working from home.

More unsettlingly, when we are online, we often consume content that isn't even generated by a fellow human being. The marketing platform Ahrefs recently conducted a remarkable study showing that almost 75% of new websites contained significant AI-generated content. The machines aren't just delivering entertainment; they're creating it.

But as investors, we know that when something becomes abundant – screen time, digital content, isolation – something else becomes scarcer, and, typically, more valuable. Today, some of that scarcity seems to be migrating towards the experience economy.

An “experience” might be a trip to a concert or a sports match. It might be dining at a restaurant whose kitchen offers a special menu, or taking a trip to a beach with the softest sand and the bluest water. This isn't new. Business strategists Joseph Pine and James Gilmore coined the phrase “experience economy” in 1998, with the idea that companies could command pricing power through events that engaged consumers on a memorable, emotional level. But the forces that created the need for such an economy have only become stronger over the last quarter of a century.

What is the experience economy?

The evidence for an experiential boom in spending is already widespread. In its 2026 State of the Consumer report, consultancy McKinsey highlighted that the global experiences market between 2023 and 2025 grew more than three times faster than spending on non-essential goods. Mastercard recently found that 88% of British consumers would be happy to redirect their spending on things towards experiences.

Michelle Evans, data group Euromonitor's Global Lead on Retail & Digital Consumer Insights, says there is a broad rotation among consumers from “owning more to experiencing more”. The trend has been building for over a decade, but has accelerated since Covid.

It seems to be a reaction to digital saturation: “In an increasingly digital world, consumers are placing greater importance on experiences that improve wellbeing, create memories, strengthen relationships and feel genuinely human.” And young consumers, those most exposed to digital lives, are leading the rotation.

Live music and sports are among the purest embodiments of these experiential urges. Think of Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, the 149-concert extravaganza in 2023 and 2024, which became an economic phenomenon in its own right. It was the most financially successful tour of all time, generating over $2 billion in direct box-office sales, more than twice its nearest rival.

How Swifties are fuelling the experience economy

Twenty-two million people joined the virtual queue to buy tickets for Swift's Singapore concert, almost four times the country's population. The vast majority of these would-be attendees were planning to fly in from overseas; they were going on a musical pilgrimage. The quasi-religious nature of this fandom is underlined again by the fact that in Philadelphia over 20,000 ticketless fans stood outside the stadium during the concerts, night after night, just to be physically close to the Swiftian phenomenon.

A similar devotion characterises live sports. According to entertainment analytics firm Two Circles, 79.4 million fans attended ticketed professional sports events in the UK in 2025, 1.7 million more than the year before, and this despite a 5% increase in ticket prices. Attendance levels are far above pre-Covid figures.

When the Premier League first started, in the early 1990s, stadium utilisation rates sat at 70%. In the 2024-2025 season, that had risen to 98.8%. There is a sense in which attending a concert, or a Premier League match, is not just entertainment; it is a way for people to forge their identities and feel part of something larger than themselves.

This matters economically. AI may be able to commoditise digital content, but it cannot replicate the experience of standing next to 60,000 people at Anfield. “Travel, wellness, live events and community-based experiences all benefit from the fact that they are difficult to replicate digitally and often become more valuable as consumers spend more of their lives online,” says Evans.

Economist Alex Imas has argued that as AI makes some forms of production abundant, scarcity will not disappear, but will relocate towards what he calls the “relational sector”, where the human element itself contributes to the value of the product. As investors, we want to be in the businesses of monetising this relocated scarcity.

There are several ways we can invest in the experiential economy. Live Nation Entertainment (NYSE: LYV) is the world's largest live-entertainment company, operating concert promotion, venues and ticketing services. It is positioned between consumers and the increasingly valuable experiences they are seeking. Concerns over competitive practices have dogged the stock. A federal jury earlier this year found it operated a monopoly, and it is unclear how this will be rectified.

The experience economy is safe from AI

However, the underlying business, protected by exclusive, multi-year venue and artist contracts, remains structurally difficult even for AI to disintermediate. The extraordinary demand for the sort of experiences it facilitates was illustrated by the collapse of Ticketmaster's system under the weight of 3.5 billion ticket enquiries for Taylor Swift's Eras Tour.

Airbnb (Nasdaq: ABNB), the world's largest platform for booking alternative accommodation, is another interesting play on the experiential economy. The company has a valuable set of inventory consisting of millions of homes across the world, which it has spent almost 20 years building. While its product (accommodation) isn't scarce, Airbnb's value lies in facilitating the increasingly valued experience of global travel, taking a healthy commission in the process.

A third way to play consumers' strong desire to invest in live experiences is TKO Group (NYSE: TKO), a firm roughly split between the UFC, the world's leading mixed martial-arts business, and WWE, the dominant player in the world of professional wrestling. These distinct, but related, businesses are near-monopolies in their respective domains.

TKO Group differs from Airbnb or Live Nation. It is not an intermediary; it owns the product itself. Live sports are perfectly placed to resist the commoditising effects of AI. Their essence is that they are unique and occur in real time; even if you cannot be there in person, you must be sitting in front of a screen as the event unfolds. The fact that there is no algorithmic substitute for their product gives them low price sensitivity.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

Judges Scientific (Aim: JDG) was once a favourite of the London market. Over the years from March 2004 to March 2024, the shares rose 10,300%, compared with a return of just 160% for the FTSE All-Share excluding dividends. But since reaching an all-time high in 2024, the shares have lost nearly two-thirds of their value. Investors have clearly lost patience with the group, which once commanded a valuation of 40-plus times forward earnings. However, the issues seem to be more cyclical than structural, and the underlying business model is far from broken.

How Judges Scientific profits from niche industries

Judges Scientific isn't really one single business. The group operates as a collection of businesses acquired over time and owned under one holding company. Former CEO David Cicurel founded and seeded the firm in 2002. It started as an activist investment company, but shifted direction shortly after its initial public offering in 2003 (priced at 95p per share vs the recent peak of 12,000p).

Rather than buying stakes in public equities, Cicurel decided the business would achieve better returns by acquiring whole companies, particularly small firms serving a niche in key scientific and testing end markets. The first entity acquired under this new regime was Fire Testing Technology, which specialises in measuring how different materials react to differing levels of fire and heat. With $3 million in annual sales and an earnings before interest and tax (Ebit) margin of 25%, the deal became the blueprint for further acquisitions.

Cicurel and his team continued to build Judges Scientific with similar acquisitions. The template they used and continued to use hasn't really changed. Judges acquires small, usually owner-operated entities, and leaves them to it. It provides the capital and funding to develop new technology or processes, while the underlying businesses continue to focus on what they do best – serving their customers with small, but vital tools and products.

A key metric for the group has always been return on tangible invested capital (ROTIC), a measure of profit for every £1 invested in tangible assets. For Cicurel, any business with a ROTIC below 20% was a no-go and, as a group, Judges has tended to earn a ROTIC of 20%+ across the 23 core businesses it owns today.

Why is Judges Scientific struggling?

After nearly two decades of near-continuous growth, Judges Scientific's growth story stalled in 2024. After its Geotek subsidiary reported delays to a key high-margin project, sales ended the year 2% lower. In November of that year, the firm also issued a profit warning, the only one in its history. Profit fell 21% for the full year. Still, three new businesses were acquired across the holding firm and via subsidiaries as the group continued to execute on its acquisition strategy.

In 2025, clouds continued to gather. These included the hit to global research spending following US budget cuts, higher operating expenses and a slowdown in orders from China. North American revenue fell 25% overall. Net profit declined from £22 million in 2024 to £21 million in 2025. At the end of November 2025, Cicurel also announced he would step down as head of the business in February 2026, to be succeeded by former group business development director Tim Prestidge. The group's long-standing CFO also said he would step down in September 2027. Investors didn't hang around to find out how Judges would navigate the transition. Stock sales pushed prices down 50% from their all-time high in 2024 to the end of 2025.

Unfortunately for the new CEO, the outlook doesn't look set to improve anytime soon. Revenue in the first half of the fiscal year fell 21% year on year to £55.7 million, with adjusted pre-tax profit down 75%. Order intake fell 12% in the first half, driven by lower demand from the US and China and softer sales from renewable energy customers. However, Judges says momentum has picked up since the period ended, with order intake running just 1% behind the levels of the prior year.

Judges Scientific is priced for perfection

Judges Scientific's underlying business performance tells one story, but it's also worth noting that the shares have rerated substantially over the past two years. In 2024, before the recent sell-off began, the shares traded at a forward price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) of around 43, a premium multiple by any yardstick. After the recent decline, the shares are trading at just 19 times forward earnings, a much more realistic multiple, but arguably still a bit high for a zero-growth business.

Still, it's clear the company is suffering from cyclical, not structural issues. Underlying end markets are robust and demand for scientific equipment hasn't vanished. Granted, it will take time for funding to return to the sector after budget cuts, but Judges' underlying businesses are still investing, developing the cutting-edge kit that'll be required when funding returns.

What's more, Judges Scientific has the cash to buy peers that might also be struggling and don't have access to the same capital reserves. The group has also extended its banking facilities to 2030, which will underpin its ability to keep growing through its buy-and-build strategy. Net debt of £41 million is equivalent to roughly 1.9 times earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda), giving headroom for further borrowing. Most of Judges' end markets are highly fragmented, served by smaller owner-operated businesses that may not survive alone.

Analysts at Berenberg say the group's margins will stabilise and sales will improve next year as funding and spending recover. They've then pencilled in a small recovery in 2028, before growth really returns in 2029. Based on these forecasts, now could be a good time to start accumulating shares in this one-of-a-kind business, which is going through a rough patch.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

“CryptoDad” J. Christopher Giancarlo is a lawyer who was chairman of the CFTC between 2017 and 2019. He is the author of CryptoDad: The Fight for the Future of Money, and his latest book, The New Adventures of CryptoDad: The Quest for Financial Freedom in the 21st Century, will be out in October.

Matthew Partridge: How did you became known as “CryptoDad”?

J. Christopher Giancarlo: When I first became chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), I felt that at some stage we would be called upon to make rules for cryptocurrencies, so I worked hard to understand the area, including doing some synthetic bitcoin mining in the chairman's conference room. Around that time, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange asked us about the listing and trading of crypto derivatives. While we gave it additional regulatory scrutiny, we eventually greenlit the launch of bitcoin futures in the face of furious opposition from Wall Street and global regulators.

I was therefore summoned to justify our decision in front of a US Senate committee. While I submitted a 60-page briefing document to the committee beforehand, I made a big show of pushing my papers away and telling the committee that I was approaching them as both a regulator and a father. I then explained that I had three college-age students whom I had tried to interest in the stock market. However, all they wanted to talk about was crypto, and I argued that we owed it to this generation to build a sensible regulatory regime so that they are not ripped off.

As a result, I was dubbed “CryptoDad” by the industry. The name stuck; I like it and use it. But what I'm most proud of is that eight years after we gave the go-ahead to bitcoin futures, that market is deep, liquid and, most importantly, well regulated by a competent federal regulator. There has been no market manipulation.

Matthew Partridge: You call Donald Trump the first crypto president. Why?

J. Christopher Giancarlo: Crypto is one example of his administration's belief that the only way for the US to cope with its debt mountain is through unleashing innovation and securing strong economic growth. So crypto is just one technological innovation, along with nanotechnology, biotechnology, drone technology, rocket technology and AI, that will help the US grow out of its debt load. Trump was also clever enough to recognise that the Biden administration had squandered its political advantage with the crypto generation by suppressing innovation in the field.

Matthew Partridge: Do you think the crypto industry has enough momentum to withstand a possible change in the balance of political power?

J. Christopher Giancarlo: The Trump administration's message to the crypto community is that if they stand by it, the president will do everything possible to ensure that even if the Republicans lose the White House in two years' time, the roots of crypto innovation will have become so deep that they can't be pulled up by the opposition. Whether this will actually happen is another matter. Still, I would say that crypto is no longer a political dividing line between the parties. Data centres and the development of AI are far more contentious.

Matthew Partridge: You talk about property records as being one of the “killer apps” of the crypto revolution. What exactly do you mean by this?

J. Christopher Giancarlo: Property is one of the most analogue financial assets. For one thing, many property records are still stored on physical paper. During the Great Chicago Fire, all the property records were housed in a building that went up in flames and it took decades to figure out who owned what. What's more, many systems have complicated rules, such as 100-year leaseholds in the United Kingdom. Even in the US, many property buyers have to take out insurance against ownership claims from other people. Establishing ownership of the title can be difficult, especially the further back you go.

Putting all these records on the blockchain [the digital ledger underpinning a cryptocurrency], as my county in New Jersey has done, will greatly reduce ambiguity around ownership, while speeding up the selling process by allowing for easy transfer of titles. It will even allow people to sell fractional shares in property. Most importantly, it will make it much less onerous for people to borrow money against their property, which will be transformational, given that property is one of the biggest assets in most people's portfolios.

Matthew Partridge: What is the Digital Dollar project?

J. Christopher Giancarlo: When I left government, I believed that eventually every major economy would put its currency on a blockchain-based system and tokenise the instrument [making a digital version of its currency, similar to bitcoin]. I therefore founded the Digital Dollar project to focus on the answers to three questions.

Firstly, how do we future-proof the dollar by putting it on the blockchain? Secondly, how do we do so while retaining, if not enhancing, the dollar's status as a reserve currency? But the third and perhaps most important mission is to make sure that the dollar is future-proof and put on a blockchain in a way that secures free enterprise, free trade and individual privacy.

This is important, as China's digital yuan is a digital modernisation, but it's also meant to be a way to control its population. The European approach to its digital euro doesn't purport to be an instrument of control, but does seem to be a surveillance tool. Agustin Carstens of the Bank for International Settlements has even talked about using a digital single currency to track every euro. By contrast, I believe that government shouldn't be able to know what you do with your money unless there is a probability that you're up to something illegal.

Getting that balance right is crucial, so we founded the Digital Dollar project to work on those three elements – and we've now secured continuous funding from our benefactors through 2028. We take no view as to whether that digital modernisation of money should be done by the private sector or the public sector. The Trump administration is clear that this modernisation will take place through private stablecoin operators. [Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies linked to real-world assets such as the US dollar or gold.] Congress has passed the Genius Act, which legalises the modernisation of the dollar through the private sector.

Matthew Partridge: Are there any countries other than the US that are doing interesting things with crypto?

J. Christopher Giancarlo: I think Japan will become a leader in private-sector, non-dollar-based stablecoins. Singapore and the United Arab Emirates have been very innovative in their licensing regimes. However, while Europe has passed the comprehensive Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MICA), this has not unleased the wave of innovation that it hoped it would, and has largely been overlooked by other regulators. I'm also a bit disappointed by the UK, which was ahead of us ten years ago.

Matthew Partridge: What should the UK do to regain its position at the forefront of crypto?

J. Christopher Giancarlo: I would use an Italian word, coraggio, which means courage. I think that since Brexit, for whatever reason, the UK has been unwilling to take risks when it comes to financial innovation. My approach is to let innovation flourish, but make sure the regulator is just one step behind and well equipped with some of the best minds available to help it understand the sector's innovations.

Matthew Partridge: Bitcoin and crypto generally have become mainstream assets in recent years. Do you think that means the huge price gains we've seen in the last decade are much less likely in future? Is crypto likely to begin behaving more like a currency than an investment?

J. Christopher Giancarlo: I think the triple-digit percentage gains we've seen are probably a thing of the past. When it comes to a new technology, the outsized gains for investors often come early. So as the asset class matures, the scope for 100%-plus gains dwindles.

The same thing happened with the internet revolution 25 years ago. The big gains for companies such as Cisco Systems and Microsoft were in the early years. And you see that in all new technology revolutions; the biggest gains in the AI companies came about two years ago. That's why investors are always looking for the next new thing.

Matthew Partridge: What is the latest thing in financial technology (fintech) that could become the next crypto?

J. Christopher Giancarlo: Decentralised financial markets. Markets used to be closed on weekends, so if an event occurred on a Saturday, you couldn't hedge your position until Monday morning. Well, along comes a decentralised exchange called Hyperliquid, with its own specialised blockchain, and suddenly people are trading within minutes of a Saturday event. Traditional exchanges are now starting to operate 24/7, because the decentralised exchanges have revealed demand on weekends.

The same thing is happening with so-called perpetuals. Futures contracts used to be dated, with the parties settling up at a particular time. But now perpetual futures allow you to hedge a position indefinitely; you just continue to fund the margin. Again, that began in many offshore markets. Decentralised exchanges are forcing traditional markets to up their game.

Matthew Partridge: You've said that crypto is a young person's financial revolution. Do you think it still has a role to play in a low-risk portfolio of someone who is retired, or close to retirement?

J. Christopher Giancarlo: As you age, you move from equities to debt and ultimately cash, and the biggest risk becomes inflation. Since bitcoin is anti-inflationary, with many people seeing it as the equivalent of gold, it certainly has a place in such a portfolio. More broadly, I think the traditional financial system served the second half of the 20th century very well. But times are changing, and the current system has proved slow and expensive. Moreover, crypto is another element of how the internet has changed how we communicate with each other.

What I would say to the older generation is that the new generation, which grew up trading tokens on video games and has never set foot in the bank branch, is going to bring this new system with it, so there's no going back, and everything of value is ultimately going to be tokenised and put on a blockchain. Instead of fighting the trend, you should learn about it and consider putting some crypto in your portfolio to protect you against the one trend that, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be reversing: Western governments debasing their money.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

Sheikh Tahnoon is the younger brother of the UAE’s ruler, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed (MBZ). He combines his role as the emirates' top money man and dealmaker – he runs the UAE's largest sovereign wealth fund and the First Abu Dhabi Bank – with a vital position as head of national security. He is perhaps the individual who has done most to further his country’s relations with the US.

Twenty years ago, the United Arab Emirates was “at the centre of a political firestorm” when a bid to buy up six major US seaports, through the Dubai-owned logistics company DP World, triggered uproar, says the Financial Times. Alleging the oil-rich Gulf state was a financing hub for al-Qaeda, some in Congress warned of a dire threat to US security if the UAE was allowed to run strategic ports. DP World was forced to back out of the sale. It also proved “a watershed moment for the UAE – and its relationship with America”.

The ruling Al Nahyan dynasty, implacably opposed to Islamic extremism, decided it was time to fix this “fundamental misunderstanding”. And they did. Two decades on, the UAE is one of America's most capable allies and business partners in the Middle East.

Sheikh Tahnoon, who is rarely seen in public without his trademark dark glasses, cuts an enigmatic figure, says The Guardian. His influence is global. He presides over an economic empire worth roughly $1.5 trillion – equal to the entire output of Indonesia or Turkey – with an extraordinary breadth of investments. In the UK alone, he oversees healthcare providers and property giants and manages investments in public utilities such as Thames Water. This summer, the sheikh's investment conglomerate IHC bought a controlling stake in Richard Caring's Ivy hospitality empire.

Sheikh Tahnoon's race to global dominance with G42

But the business that has done most to cement relations with the Trump administration and Silicon Valley is Sheikh Tahnoon's AI and cybersecurity company G42, which has now successfully positioned itself at the heart of the global AI establishment. Microsoft has invested $1.5 billion and its vice-chair, Brad Smith, now has a seat on the G42 board. G42 is either a direct investor in or a major partner of Anthropic and OpenAI.

Donald Trump has “clutched Tahnoon and G42 close to his bosom”, and last year reversed a decision to restrict the export of AI chips to the UAE, paving the way for the construction of the biggest data centre in the world in a campus outside Abu Dhabi, says The Wall Street Journal. Dubbed “Stargate UAE”, the completed facility will have a 5GW power capacity, up to five times the size of today's largest hyperscale data centres. The US chip deal was announced two weeks after one of Tahnoon's investment vehicles acquired $2 billion worth of cryptocurrency issued by the Trump family's company, World Liberty.

Sheikh Tahnoon's father, Sheikh Zayed, who established the ruling dynasty following independence from Britain in 1971, is believed to have fathered 30 children, but it was the offspring of his third and favourite wife, Fatima, who emerged as the nation's powerbrokers. Tahnoon and his five brothers are known in the UAE as the bani Fatima, or “sons of Fatima”, says The Guardian, and grew up steeped in her “worldview that placed their family at the centre of the universe”.

Whether playing chess, video games or throwing Brazilian jiu-jitsu moves, Tahnoon, 57, is “obsessed with winning”. But his activities as the UAE's security chief reveal a darker streak, says The Guardian. “The UAE has a long history of enforced disappearances, secret detention sites and vicious reprisals against the family members of exiled dissidents.” Indeed, G42 is the “culmination of Tahnoon's dual identity as a financier and spymaster”. Much of its expertise derives from DarkMatter, a now-dissolved company renowned for its hacking and surveillance activities.

It may trouble some that the UAE is emerging as such a strong global force in AI and that Tahnoon is at the heart of it. Very few people outside the UAE even know his name. “He's quiet,” one former US national security official told The Guardian, “and he's always everywhere.” If he gets his way, his global reach has only just begun.

Manchester City football club has been found guilty of serious financial misconduct by an independent commission appointed by the Premier League, after years of investigations and legal wrangling.

It is a damning verdict. The panel found that the club artificially inflated its revenues by at least $1 billion, with sham contracts designed to get around the rules that are meant to ensure a roughly level playing field between the teams in the league.

The details are complex, but the bottom line is something that has been pretty obvious for years to anyone who follows the game: Manchester City was using the financial firepower of its oil-rich owners in the United Arab Emirates to outspend its rivals. It could offer the biggest transfer fees and the most lavish wages to secure any player it wanted. The club is appealing the decision, but faces significant punishment if it is upheld.

There is a bigger issue at stake here: “sportswashing” – engaging with high-level sport to spruce up a country's reputation – is now under threat. It has become a huge business. The Premier League has become one of the most obvious examples, with a whole series of teams owned either directly by foreign states, their investment funds, or by oligarchs closely linked to them.

But it does not stop there. Saudi Arabia has invested heavily in the LIV golf tournament. Qatar spent billions hosting the 2022 World Cup. Russia hosted the 2018 tournament. Formula One includes races in such well-known bastions of human rights and democracy as Bahrain and Azerbaijan.

It's not hard to see what is in it for the regimes. It raises their profile, boosts tourism and softens their image. For millions of viewers around the world, most of whom are not very interested in politics, the practice introduced them to a country they may not previously have been very aware of. It was all well worth the few billion you might have to spend on stadiums, sponsorship or prize money.

Manchester City's image tarnished beyond repair

The Manchester City scandal is going to change the equation dramatically. There are two major problems. To start with, entire investments can get wiped out in the space of a few days. No one really knows how much money was spent on turning Manchester City from a mid-table English club into one of the most successful teams in Europe. That, after all, is the whole point. We have no idea what was happening with the books. It was a lot, however, that much is for certain. If the team is relegated all the way down to League Two (what used to be the Fourth Division before they renamed it), it will be worth a whole lot less, and perhaps nothing at all. Billions will be lost, with very little chance of ever clawing it back.

Secondly, even if the allegations are proved inaccurate, the club's image has surely been tarnished beyond repair. No one blames the players or the manager for the scandal, even if they might have asked harder questions about where all the money was coming from. They will blame the owners. But sportswashing only makes sense if it actually improves your reputation. In the wake of this scandal, everyone who follows football, even if only casually, will have a far lower opinion of the regime that backed Manchester City than they did before – the opposite of what was meant to happen.

We don't yet know if all the money poured into sportswashing is about to dry up completely. The scandal may blow over, and many of the contracts that have been signed can't be unwound quickly. But in its wake, countries are likely to be more cautious about backing major global events. They will be aware that the money they sink into them may well be lost. They will realise that it may well backfire and make them look very, very bad.

The result is that the money machine will be switched off. Most major sporting events will have to go back to being more modestly financed. The salaries will be lower, existing stadiums will have to be made to work instead of building new ones, and the agents and hustlers who surround the whole circus will have to find something else to do. Sport itself may be much better for that – but a lot of money will have been lost forever.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

The Beacon, Countisbury Hill, Lynmouth, Devon

A house built in 1904 on a wooded hillside for a shipping magnate who wanted to observe his ships passing in the Bristol Channel. It has a lookout room offering 180-degree views towards the Welsh coast. 7 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, 2 receptions, coach house, 10.2 acres.
Price: £2.5m Jackson-Stops 01271-325153

Glen Doll Lodge, Glen Clova, near Kirriemuir, Angus

A renovated Victorian former shooting lodge dating from 1872 on the edge of Glendoll Forest at the foot of Craig Mellon. It has open fireplaces with wood-burning stoves, 8 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, 3 receptions, kitchen, 2-bed cottage, stone bothy, 0.7 acres.
Price: £875,000 Savills 01738-477525

High Mote, Elsdon, Northumberland

A renovated former farmhouse within walking distance of a village, set in large gardens with extensive views over the Northumberland National Park. It has beamed ceilings, wood-burning stoves, a kitchen with an Aga and a range of outbuildings. 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2 receptions, conservatory, separate home office, outbuildings, 3.37 acres.
Price: £740,000 Finest Properties 0330-111 2266

Kirby Knowle Castle, Kirby Knowle, Thirsk, North Yorkshire

A renovated, Grade II-listed, 13th-century castle largely rebuilt in 1653 and set on high ground with far-reaching views across rural Yorkshire. It has ceilings with ornate mouldings, open fireplaces, a bespoke dining kitchen and grounds bordered by stone walls. 8 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms, 3 receptions, library, cinema, wine cellar, gym, 2-bed cottage, parkland, woodland, 65.6 acres.
Price: £7m Savills 01904-617820

Ty Fry & Ty Fry Isaf, Peniel, Denbigh, Denbighshire

Two independent residences with far-reaching views over the Vale of Clwyd. Each property has a wood-burning stove and a bespoke kitchen. Ty Fry: 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, dining room, open-plan kitchen/living area. Ty Fry Isaf: 4 bedrooms, bathroom, reception, 2 loft rooms, barn, 26.24 acres.
Price: £950,000 Fisher German 01244-409660

Lower Carhullan, Askham, Cumbria

A renovated stone barn with striking views of the Lakeland Fells and the Pennines. The interiors include high ceilings, exposed stonework, underfloor heating, a wood-burning stove and a bespoke breakfast kitchen with an Aga. 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, reception, dining kitchen, utility, store, laundry, boot room, detached 1-bedroom annexe, gardens, paddocks, 3 acres.
Price: £750,000 Finest Properties 01228-583109

Pollanaich, Nedd, Drumbeg, Sutherland

This traditional croft house is situated on a hillside overlooking a loch, an island and the surrounding mountains. It has been extended to include a tower room accessed by a spiral staircase, which commands panoramic views. The gardens lead down to a boat shed with a sedum roof. 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, kitchen, dressing room, 3 receptions.
Price: £575,000+ Galbraith 01463-224343

Monte Cielo, Malvern, Worcestershire

A renovated, Italianate-style property dating from 1870 in a commanding position on the eastern slopes of the Malvern Hills. An external staircase leads to a roof terrace that affords panoramic views across the Severn Valley and Bredon Hill. It has feature fireplaces and terraced gardens leading down to an oak-framed hut that is currently used as a summer kitchen. 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 3 receptions, balconies, garage, gardens, 1 acre.
Price: £1.35m Knight Frank 01905-574 6884

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

What are tax havens?

Tax havens are small, well-governed, offshore financial centres that offer low or zero taxes, combined with secrecy – or at least strict privacy – regarding client and ownership information.

Many of them are islands connected in some way with Britain to exploit the country's legal frameworks, stability and access to the City of London, but with the convenience and flexibility of separate fiscal regimes. The islands have a massive incentive to take advantage of their position, and specialise, given financial services can generate vastly more income than other local industries.

Which British territories are tax havens?

Offshore financial centres linked to the UK fall into two categories: Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories. The first group is made up of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man, which have enjoyed varying degrees of fiscal and legislative independence for many centuries (and are not legally part of the UK). When international finance took off in the 20th century, these islands had the advantage of independent legal and tax systems, plus close links to one of the world's biggest financial centres.

By contrast, Overseas Territories (the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands are the big three financial centres) are legacies of empire – self-governing microstates with their own tax and legal systems, but with the British monarch as head of state.

How big is the offshore financial centres industry?

The Cayman Islands is the legal domicile for 30,000 investment funds, with about $9.1 trillion in assets under management, according to its government's figures, with more than 75% of offshore hedge funds domiciled there.

The British Virgin Islands are specialists in company incorporation, holding companies and trusts – home to 352,000 registered companies, according to figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024. According to the Tax Justice Network, some $2.6 trillion of foreign direct investment passed through British Virgin Islands structures that year.

Bermuda's specialism is insurance and reinsurance, with 1,210 registered firms handling $2.17 trillion in total insurance assets and about $300 billion in assets under management through licensed investment businesses. In each case, the territories claim to provide an essential and legal tax-neutral framework that enables global commerce. Critics say they facilitate aggressive tax avoidance and profit shifting, allowing corporations and individuals to pay hundreds of billions of pounds less in tax.

Is being an offshore tax haven sustainable?

There's definitely increased pressure on low-tax jurisdictions, both from global trends towards greater transparency and from the UK itself. The Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories are part of the OECD's Common Reporting Standard (CRS), meaning they must exchange financial-account information with foreign tax authorities. They are also subject to the OECD's 15% global minimum tax for large multinational groups, meaning the likes of Bermuda and Jersey – which both had zero-rate regimes – have been obliged to meet that minimum.

Meanwhile, the UK has been gradually pushing for more transparency when it comes to “beneficial” (ultimate) ownership of assets, with the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018. Progress is far from complete, however, and wrangling continues. The Cayman Islands, for example, finally agreed to allow “legitimate interest” access in 2025, but in practice the process is slow and subject to expensive appeals and delays that critics say are designed to discourage access requests.

Will Britain's tax havens survive?

Neither of these trends are set to lead to the collapse of the UK's offshore tax havens. But the picture is morphing from one of “tax haven” bank secrecy and zero or low tax, to one of offshore centres providing tax-neutral legal and financial infrastructure for global capital. Strikingly, in 2025 the Overseas Territories between them froze more than $11 billion of assets under sanctions regimes, on Foreign Office figures. In other words, they are well on the way to being integrated into international anti-money-laundering and sanctions enforcement.

The relationship between the UK and its dependencies and territories has sometimes been fraught, with Jersey occasionally threatening independence if London gets too heavy-handed. But they are a positive asset and shouldn't be taken for granted, says James Price in City AM. The Overseas Territories account for 4.4% of the UK's services exports – more than Spain or Italy, or any Asian country except China. And they entrench the City's global dominance, channelling “enormous sums of money into the country and fuelling finance with access to worldwide asset pools. In turn, this stimulates investment, drives productivity and more than offsets lost tax revenues”.

How is Jersey as an offshore financial centre?

It's still one of the world's leading offshore centres, says Simon Nixon on Bloomberg. But tougher competition from rivals such as Dubai, Singapore and the Cayman Islands means the island is “locked in an increasingly difficult battle to preserve a financial-services industry that accounts for 40% of its government revenues and 44% of gross value added”.

Brexit hasn't helped – EU rules mean that funds marketed to European investors must be administered on European soil and Jersey has lost business to Dublin and Luxembourg. London, the source of Jersey's deal flow, has lost business to the Middle East and Asia.

And the UK's post-financial-crisis ringfencing rules (surplus deposits can no longer be lucratively parked with UK banks) has seen the number of banks on Jersey shrink by a third since 2017. A Jersey government-commissioned review put it well earlier this year: that “the privilege has shifted”. For decades, Jersey operated on the assumption that “access to the island was itself a privilege; now, Jersey must go out and compete for business like everyone else”.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

Energy security is becoming one of the world’s hottest topics as constrained supply pushes oil prices higher.

You’d be forgiven for thinking US president Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025 would have spelled the end of the sector. ‘Drill, baby, drill’ was a cornerstone of Trump’s re-election campaign, and he has been proactive in promoting fossil fuels over renewables – even going so far as to halt the development of several renewable energy projects that were already under construction, citing ‘security concerns’.

“The administration has directly paid developers to simply stop: close to $4 billion across deals with TotalEnergies, Golden State Wind, Bluepoint Wind, Invenergy and RWE since March 2026,” said Angeline Ong, senior investment analyst at trading platform IG. “The main aim, as it is understood by the markets, is to discourage the expansion of wind energy in favour of fossil fuels.”

This has led to corporate retreat from renewable energy projects. “BP cut annual transition spending to $1.5-2 billion, more than $5 billion below prior guidance, and scrapped its target to shrink oil and gas output by 2030,” said Ong. “Shell has leaned harder into liquid natural gas while holding oil output flat and trimming low-carbon spending.”

However, the S&P Global Clean Energy Transition Index returned 9.3% in the 12 months to 7 October, and 5.3% in 2026 to date. These figures mask a decline since 2 June, at which point the index was up 43.9% year-to-date, but the potential, at least, for a rally is there.

The International Energy Agency says renewables are on track to overtake coal and become the largest source of electricity generation in 2026, and projects that renewables’ share of global electricity generation will increase from 33% in 2025 to 37% in 2027.

So is the investment case for renewables over, or do its recent struggles present a buying opportunity?

Why have renewables risen this year?

Ironically, another Trump policy decision has put renewable energy back on the agenda this year.

“The conflict [in Iran] reminded everyone of how the theme has developed over the last few years,” said Charlie Wright, investment director at energy investment specialists Foresight Group.

“The primary objective of renewables is decarbonisation, and that is still obviously very important,” he continued. “But in the aftermath of the Ukraine conflict and now [the conflict in Iran] reminds everyone that building domestic renewables is also about energy security and reducing our reliance on imported fossil fuels, whose prices can be affected by events far outside our control.”

Energy prices have risen dramatically in the UK this year. Between 27 February (immediately before the Iran war) and 6 October, the price of Brent Crude oil rose by 38.8%. This has led to diesel prices breaching £2 per litre for the first time in recent days.

“Just from an energy security perspective, the more domestic, low-cost generation we have can only be a good thing,” said Wright.

Renewable energy is a broad category, and different components might be set differently from others. Solar power could, for example, be more resilient than other forms due to its centrality to artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure.

“Solar and battery storage is likely to be built because they're the fastest thing to bolt onto a data centre that needs power yesterday,” said IG’s Ong. “This is why the S&P Global Clean Energy Transition Index is up over the past year even as US offshore wind developers are being paid to stop building.”

Is now a good time to invest in renewable energy?

The rally over the first five months of the year shows that there is still life in renewable energy. Since 2 June, though, the S&P Global Clean Energy Transition Index has fallen 26.8%.

Renewable energy is undoubtedly facing challenges, not least higher inflation and interest rates – which according to Ong are particularly challenging for capital-intensive projects like wind farms, which have long construction timelines. Ong added, though, that “solar and battery storage are comparatively insulated because build times are much shorter, which is part of why they're thriving on the AI-demand tailwind”.

Foresight’s Wright says that in the UK over the last two years “there have been more headwinds within core renewables (wind and solar) than at any time over the last 10-15 years”. These include lower power prices than had been assumed when many historical projects were assessed, as well as some weaker years for wind and solar generation.

“There’s been a combination of both project-specific underperformance issues as well as more macro, power price-related issues that have generally meant the asset classes perhaps haven’t performed as well as investors would have liked,” said Wright.

Regulatory changes have also provided headwinds. In January, the UK government announced that the renewables obligation (RO) scheme, which incentivises energy companies to use renewable energy sources, will account for inflation using the consumer prices index rather than the (usually higher) retail prices index it had previously used. This means the subsidies that renewable energy projects will receive will be lower over the long term.

Wright views these setbacks as minor though.

“Wind and solar are still absolutely fundamental asset classes for decarbonisation in the UK,” he said. “Whether it’s hitting net zero targets or getting anywhere near it, a lot of wind and solar still needs to be built.

“So it’s still an enormous investment opportunity, but along the way there will be some peaks and troughs in investor sentiment to those asset classes.”

How to invest in renewable energy

Renewable energy investments share many of the advantages of traditional infrastructure or utilities investments, but given the sector is still in a relatively early stage, there is the potential for greater growth over the long term than these sectors are known for.

Whether any given renewable energy project would function as an income investment or a growth investment depends, in Wright’s view, on the point at which you invest.

“If you’re buying into an operational wind or solar project, that would be a greater focus on income,” he said. “You’d be buying into the yield that asset is going to produce over a number of years, but I don’t think you would really look at that as a growth opportunity.”

Investing earlier in the project’s life cycle, though, offers greater opportunity for capital growth – though there is of course greater risk the earlier you invest.

If you decide to invest in renewable energy, there are two main routes in.

One of these is through listed companies directly involved in the sector. Some of the largest of these are Vestas Wind Systems (COPENHAGEN:VWS), First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR) and Nextpower (NASDAQ:NXT).

You could alternatively invest in the renewable energy sector via funds or investment trusts that target it.

There are various tracker funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that track the S&P Global Clean Energy Transition Index, such as the iShares Global Clean Energy Transition UCITS ETF (LON:INRG).

Actively-managed funds tracking the sector include Guinness Sustainable Energy or the Polar Capital Smart Energy Fund.

Wright is co-lead manager of Foresight Environmental Infrastructure (LON:FGEN), an investment trust that invests in private renewable energy infrastructure projects. It holds 39 assets located across the UK and mainland Europe.

Other investment trusts such as Greencoat UK Wind (LON:UKW) or NextEnergy Solar Fund (LON:NESF) can offer targeted exposure to specific forms of renewable energy.

Investors are contemplating a new eurozone debt crisis after the euro hit a 17-month low against the US dollar. Concern has focused on France, where public debt stands at €3.596 trillion, equivalent to 119% of GDP. The yield on ten-year government bonds, known as “OATs”, approached 5% for the first time since 2002. The gloom is weighing on the local CAC 40 share index, which is down 6% over the past month.

In Paris, the remaining optimists argue that France just needs to follow Italy's example, says Eric Mengus in Les Echos. After years of struggle, Rome is running primary budget surpluses (that is, before interest payments). But that consolidation rested on a political consensus that is lacking in France, where major parties continue to cling to “illusions”. Many believe that the problem can be solved through new wealth taxes. The radical left calls to cancel parts of the debt outright in order to “make the banks pay”.

Back in the real world, primary deficit reduction of three to four percentage points is probably required to rein in the situation, yet the current government is struggling to get support for a budget that reduces the deficit by 0.6%.

Eurozone at most risk since the 2012 crisis

The “old cliché” – that “France doesn't reform, it only has revolutions” – is being tested anew, says Simon Nixon on Substack. All eyes are on “Le Spread”, the gap between French and German government borrowing costs. This measure of eurozone risk has reached 1.4 percentage points, the highest level since the 2012 eurozone crisis. That remains far short of the levels seen by the likes of Italy and Greece during the eurozone crisis. And although rates have spiked, the legacy of years of ultra-cheap borrowing means interest expenses for Paris are still a modest 2% of GDP. But what is lacking is political will in a country that hasn't achieved an overall budget surplus since 1974.

It doesn't help that France is out protesting again, this time about the lack of money for high schools, says the Financial Times.

Debt has risen by more than a trillion euros since Emmanuel Macron took office in 2017. The president's pro-business reforms failed to raise enough revenue to curb runaway spending. The European Central Bank (ECB) has been reluctant to get involved, but with the way things are going some think that it is “just a matter of time”.

Still, talk of 2011-style “contagion” across the eurozone is unwarranted, argues a note from asset managers DWS. The ECB and member states have developed a series of monetary tools and procedures that would make fighting another debt crisis much more orderly than in 2011. The continent's banks are also much better capitalised today. “France's fiscal problems are real,” but trouble in the eurozone is not necessarily trouble for the eurozone.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

The MSCI Emerging Markets index has become distorted. Three tech heavyweights – Taiwan Semiconductor, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix – now account for almost 30%. As a result, Taiwan and South Korea make up nearly half the index, and Asia totals 80%, while tech is 44%.

Returns have been strong lately, driven by the tech names – up 90%, 238% and 422% respectively in the last year. Still, this is not what investors think they are getting when they buy into emerging markets.

How to find domestic growth in emerging markets

Fortunately, there are trusts that offer more diversification. Utilico Emerging Markets (LSE: UEM) invests in infrastructure, utilities and related assets so it has no exposure to the tech giants. The geographic balance is also very different: Brazil is 22%, other Latin America 17% and Eastern Europe (including Greece) 9.5%. UEM is notably underweight China with just 9% there, mostly in Hong Kong, versus 20% in the index. “We find China very difficult, as regulations can change overnight,” says co-manager Charles Jillings.

Stock selection is key as “mismanagement can destroy a good asset”, he says. “If we can't find value in a country or sub-sector, we don't invest.”

The largest holding is Orizon Valorização de Resíduos, a Brazilian waste management company, followed by International Container Terminal Services, which is based in the Philippines but operates in 19 countries.

The spread of the portfolio is further shown by holdings that include internet infrastructure company Korea Internet Neutral Exchange, Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacífico, which operates airports on Mexico's Pacific coast, and Piraeus Port in Athens.

This gives UEM much higher exposure to domestic growth in emerging markets than the global, tech-focused index, often at attractive valuations.

Sonatel, a leading mobile phone company in West Africa, growing at 12%-13% a year thanks to rising customer spend but is trading at just 2.7 times cash flow, says Jillings.

The lack of tech means UEM has lagged the MSCI Emerging Markets over one and three years (though is still up by 14% and 34% respectively) but has returned 9.5% per year since 1995, ahead of its benchmark. The shares are on a 10% discount to net asset value (NAV) and yield 4.3%.

Back smaller stocks in emerging markets

Mobius Investment Trust (LSE: MMIT) offers a different angle, investing in “dynamic small and mid-sized companies” rather than the giants. The £136 million portfolio, which holds just 25-30 stocks, has minimal overlap with the MSCI Emerging Markets index.

While MMIT still has 38% of the portfolio invested in Taiwan and Korea and 31% in technology, this has been reduced in favour of industrials and financials. China accounts for less than 3% of the portfolio – an underweight that resulted in 22% underperformance of the MSCI Emerging Markets Mid Cap index last year but has been rewarded with 12% outperformance this year.

Meanwhile, India has risen to 28% this year. While foreign investors have been selling, domestic investors have been buying, notes lead manager Carlos von Hardenberg. The Nifty 50 index now trades 10% below its 2024 peak, even though economic growth is still 7.5%-8%, inflation is just 4% and interest rates are 5.25%. The rupee has lost 10% in the last year, but this is benefiting exports and import substitution.

Since mid caps have lagged large caps, returns of 33% over one year and 44% over three years are behind the MSCI Emerging Markets index, but mid caps are due a catch-up. The portfolio should offer 23% operating margins for the portfolio and annualised earnings growth of more than 45% over the next five years, estimates von Hardenberg. The shares trade on a 10% discount to NAV and yield 1%.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.

If you can lock in near-6% income on a bond portfolio, why expose yourself to the risk of a nasty stock market sell-off ? A growing number of ordinary UK investors are concluding just that, with Hargreaves Lansdown reporting a 38% year-on-year rise in the number of users holding individual gilts – UK government bonds.

The great government bond yield blow-out has been most prominent in long-duration instruments such as the 30-year gilt, which now yields 5.94%. But don't let that lure you in. As James Baxter of Tideway Wealth notes, the government has avoided new issuance at such eye-watering rates.

Instead, you would have to buy a gilt that was issued a few years ago at a lower coupon and that is now trading at a discount to the par value. While the mathematics are slightly complicated, the takeaway is that a chunk of that tasty 6% return comes as a capital gain when the bond redeems at par value, say in 2055. Most of us will be long in the tooth by then.

While the state of the public finances might lead you to think that the UK is at risk of default, that isn't a realistic prospect; the Bank of England can always print more pounds. Instead, the real dangers for bond buyers are interest-rate risk (higher rates tank bond valuations in the secondary market) and the risk of inflation that erodes the real value of the fixed income.

Are index-linked gilts (linkers) a solution to the risk posed by inflation? Probably not, says Christian Mayes for Morningstar. Linkers tend to have longer maturities than nominal gilts, leaving them more sensitive to higher interest rates. Indeed, linkers got crushed in 2022 because the damage from higher interest rates outweighed the benefits of built-in inflation protection.

A niche strategy for bonds

The renewed popularity of gilts rests in part on a rather niche tax strategy. While coupon payments are subject to tax outside an individual savings account (ISA), gilts are exempt from capital gains tax (CGT). That makes short-dated bonds trading at a steep discount to par attractive. Anna Macdonald of Hargreaves Lansdown highlights a 0.125% coupon bond currently trading for £94.78 and maturing in January 2028. That gives a mostly tax-free yield to maturity of 4.2%. For higher-rate taxpayers who have already exhausted their other allowances, such gilts are a low-risk place to put surplus cash. An understandable impulse, given all the talk of stock market bubbles.

But there are opportunity costs. Avid gilt buyers may be passing up better opportunities in the stubbornly cheap UK stock market. True, for income-seekers the FTSE 100's 3% dividend yield is less appealing than the ten-year gilt. But at 7.4%, the earnings yield (the inverse of the price-to-earnings ratio) comfortably outstrips the ten-year gilt, notes Russ Mould in The Telegraph. Stocks still look the better value proposition.

Yes, markets can crash. But equities also offer the opportunity for capital gains and, perhaps crucially in the current setup, a degree of protection against inflation.

This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.