The F&C Investment Trust aims to deliver long-term growth in capital and income for shareholders. It is a FTSE 100 constituent and is the oldest and one of the largest investment firm in the UK, with assets that exceed £7 billion. It invests in listed equities and private equity and has delivered 55 consecutive years of rising dividends. The trust is globally diversified and conservatively managed.

I have managed the firm since mid-2014, working with specialist stock-pickers from Columbia Threadneedle Investments and elsewhere in the market. This gives the trust exposure to different geographies, investment styles and sectors, including firms benefiting from long-term changes in what we spend money on, how we pay and use technology. The following holdings illustrate these themes.

Diverse stocks for long-term growth

Mastercard (NYSE: MA) is at the heart of the long-term move from cash towards card and digital payments. It earns fees on transaction volumes and values without taking credit risk, enabling an asset-light business model and exceptional capital returns. Its scale provides a significant competitive advantage. Consumers want cards that are widely accepted, while retailers want to accept the cards their customers already use, making Mastercard's network difficult for new competitors to replicate. Beyond the ongoing shift away from cash transactions in developed markets, there are opportunities for growth in emerging markets too. Mastercard is also expanding its value-added services, including cybersecurity, data analytics and open-banking services, providing further opportunities for growth.

Infineon Technologies (Frankfurt: IFX) is a leading supplier of the technology underpinning three significant long-term trends: electrification, energy efficiency and AI infrastructure. It has a strong competitive position built over many decades. Sophisticated power management is at the heart of many of the transitions currently underway, including the shift to electric vehicles, renewable energy and modernising the grid, and Infineon is the global leader in power semiconductors, which are essential in this area.

The rapid growth of AI is creating another significant source of demand. The data centres needed to train and run increasingly sophisticated AI models require huge amounts of computing power and electricity, making efficient power management increasingly important. This represents a significant new growth market for Infineon that barely existed a few years ago. While its shares have been volatile, we believe the current valuation does not fully reflect the potential.

Live Nation Entertainment (NYSE: LYV) is the world's largest live entertainment company and has grown revenues by 15% per year on average since the pandemic. The company is benefiting from a structural shift in consumer spending towards experiences over goods, with demand for live experiences, such as concerts, increasing as a result. The combination of ticketing through Ticketmaster, concert promotion through Live Nation and venue ownership and management gives the business a strong position across the live entertainment industry. Consumers can buy their tickets, see their favourite artist and attend a venue all within the same platform. This vertically integrated model creates a powerful competitive advantage, allowing Live Nation to benefit at several different points as demand for live entertainment grows.

The three businesses above operate in very different industries, but each has built a robust competitive position in an area benefiting from a long-term shift in demand. For investors, identifying companies capable of turning these structural changes into sustainable long-term growth can provide opportunities that extend well beyond the short-term market cycle.

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Shares in housebuilder Vistry (LSE: VTY) jumped 18% on 25 August when it was announced that the Kent-based company would receive £350 million as part of the government's £39 billion social and affordable homes programme.

The funding package was significantly higher than the award under the previous programme (£278 million). It was also the largest possible award in the first round of funding allocations (£9.5 billion). Vistry said it will deploy the funds immediately to more than 3,000 affordable homes. Per-home funding is £116,000, up from £79,000.

Vistry delivers around 15% of the UK's social/affordable homes and is one of the best ways for investors to benefit from Labour's drive to get the country building again, but the firm has consistently disappointed investors. After the recent funding package, there could be some light on the horizon. At the current valuation, investors don't seem to be pricing in any growth.

How Vistry became the UK's most shorted company

It's fair to say that Vistry has a chequered history as a public company. Greg Fitzgerald, the former CEO and executive chair, built the firm, which was formerly known as Bovis Homes, through a series of deals, rebranding the group as Vistry in 2020 following its £1.1 billion acquisition of Galliford Try's housing businesses. Fitzgerald aimed to create a builder focused on partnerships with local housing providers and local authorities, rather than sales to private markets, which seemed the right course as politicians began to re-prioritise public-sector housebuilding. To that end, the group bought Countryside Partnerships for £1.3 billion in 2022.

Fitzgerald had the vision, but struggled to realise it. Vistry's vocal shareholders, US hedge funds Abrams Capital and Browning West (more than 20% ownership), haven't helped. The funds came on board with the Countryside merger and have since increased their stakes. In March 2023, it emerged that they wanted to offer Fitzgerald a bonus of up to £60 million if the shares hit £18 within three years. The proposal mimicked the agreement with Persimmon's former boss Jeff Fairburn, who was forced to resign following public outcry over his £75 million long-term bonus package. Vistry's remuneration committee voted it down, but the damage was done.

Since then, the firm has issued six profit warnings. In October, November and on Christmas Eve in 2024, it issued three consecutive warnings that higher-than-expected costs would hit the bottom line. This trend continued in 2026. In March, the shares plunged more than 20% in one day when Vistry announced Fitzgerald would retire and the firm lowered its outlook for the year. Then, in May, Vistry said material cost inflation would hit pre-tax profit by around 10% for the year. In July, these forecasts were scrapped altogether. The firm told investors it would report a pre-tax loss of about £30 million for the first half of 2026 on top of the £40 million reported for the first half of 2025.

This stream of bad news has crushed the shares. Although they have risen 20% since their multi-decade low in June, they're off 80% after peaking in August 2024. Vistry is now the most shorted company listed on the London market.

Is there any silver lining for Vistry shareholders?

Unfortunately for long-suffering shareholders, there could be more bad news to come. Reports suggest Fitzgerald pushed Vistry's land buyers to purchase any land they could get their hands on, some of which can't be used. It's believed that the new CEO, Adam Daniels, is working to undo these errors. Ultimately, sales will help him improve the balance sheet, but there could also be write-downs. Buyers know the company is in a rush to sell and they will push a hard bargain.

So where's the good news in all of this? Well, Vistry is operating in a structurally sound market with increasingly supportive stakeholders across the value chain. The government's £350 million cash pot has removed immediate speculation about a deeply discounted rights issue and private bank funding for social housing is starting to be crowded in. Lloyds and Santander have both announced boosts to funding for the sector this year.

As a new CEO, Daniels has a chance to get to grips with all past problems (the group is also replacing the CFO) and reset expectations. Vistry needs to take control of costs and move forward rather than stumbling over its own mistakes.

Vistry is a deep value play

While the company faces an uphill struggle, brokers are optimistic. Panmure Liberum thinks the company is taking the right steps to reduce leverage (with a year-end target of £100 million of net cash and average daily debt of £650 million in the second half compared with last year's £771 million) and has pencilled in housing completions of 16,330 for fiscal 2026, up from 15,658 as stalled developments from last year reach completion. The broker believes completions will rise further to 17,170 in 2027 and to 20,157 by 2030. Panmure has pre-tax reported profit falling from £196 million to £29 million in fiscal 2026, before rebounding to £173 million in 2027 and then £452 million by 2030.

Peel Hunt has a similar outlook, with a pre-tax profit of around £300 million pencilled in by the end of the decade. If Vistry comes close to these figures, the shares look cheap at current levels. Vistry is trading at an average forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 5.5 for 2027 based on Peel Hunt's and Panmure's figures. What's more, its tangible book value per share – mostly land and property yet to be sold – is 625p, a full 120% above the current price. With the shares priced at around half the sector average and more than 50% below book value, if Vistry can prove to the market it's back on track, the shares could double.

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Since the turn of the century, the price of gold has risen more than fifteenfold, while the S&P 500 is a mere 8.5 times higher, after including dividends. Who'd have thought it? Selective dates, I hear you cry, but it remains true. In 2000, gold was on its knees after a two-decade bear market, while US equities were in a generational technology bubble, rather like they are today. Still, at no point have equities been stronger than gold this century, even at the depths of despair in 2015, following a 45% correction in the gold price.

Gold is a popular form of jewellery because of its beauty, timelessness and durability, but financiers like it because it is scarce and liquid. Being scarce means that governments can't print more, making it an effective store of value. Being liquid means you can trade gold in billions of dollars at the touch of a button, whatever the state of the global economy. Gold provides the backstop to the financial system.

Our governments have borrowed too much money, and it's an open secret that they'll never pay it back. But they'll pretend to do it the old-fashioned way, which is to print more money. That will devalue the currency, which ultimately means the purchasing power of money falls. The rising gold price will not only compensate for the falling pound in your pocket, but will also deliver something extra as the asset becomes increasingly sought after around the world.

Why gold is a universal form of payment

Central banks have always believed in gold. Imagine trying to transact large sums of value around the world before modern payment systems were created. An ounce of gold was recognised from here to Timbuktu and still is to this day. Central banks hold much of their reserves in gold, both to protect themselves from inflation and to meet foreign liabilities when required.

Before Nixon took the US dollar off the gold standard in 1971, the central banks typically held 60% of their reserves in gold. The figure spiked in 1979, after high inflation in the 1970s, as the price soared. Then we had the “Volcker Moment” in 1980. The then-chair of the US Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker, hiked interest rates to an unprecedented 20% to fight off inflation, which then embarked on a four-decade decline, up until Covid.

In the 1980s and 1990s, with inflation low and growth solid, the central banks lost interest in gold. Their share of reserves fell until 2008, just in time for the global financial crisis. Gold reserves then stabilised at 10%. After the invasion of Ukraine they started to rise for the first time since the 1970s. The 2022 war in Ukraine, which is still ongoing, saw the US and Europe freeze Russia's reserve holdings of US Treasuries. Central bankers, especially in the Middle East and Asia, took note. If Russia's reserves could be confiscated, so could theirs. The diversification into gold grew at the expense of US Treasuries, with China leading the charge.

Today, gold's share of reserves has grown to nearly 30%. Some of that can be attributed to a rising price, but the central banks have also added a staggering 4,500 tonnes to their holdings, worth $20 billion. With such high demand, gold has been able to shrug off the impact of higher interest rates.

The relationship between gold and real yields

Since gold pays no interest, it has traditionally moved inversely to bond yields. If rates are at 10%, it is more expensive to hold gold, in terms of opportunity cost, than if they are 1%. Inflation matters too: if yields are 10% and inflation is also 10%, the real yield is zero. Gold is said to be an inflation hedge that maintains its purchasing power over the ages. In that sense, the real yield has always been a more important driver for the gold price than the yield itself.

But there are different types of inflation. Consumer prices (CPI) reflect the cost of living, which many believe to be understated. Then there is monetary inflation, or the money supply, which has grown at an average rate of 7.5% for three decades. For most gold watchers, this is the number that really matters. If the amount of money increases, gold will appreciate and act as a balance.

It turns out that the growth of the value of the above-ground gold supply follows monetary inflation over the long term. Indeed, this is the basis for the World Gold Council's expected return framework for gold. They say the gold price should match nominal GDP growth over the long term. That is real growth and inflation combined. Since nominal GDP and the money supply normally match, gold follows the money supply, which is entirely logical.

It turns out that it does over the long term, but with cycles. There are times, like today, when demand from central banks and investors is high, and so gold rises faster than new money creation. And there are other times, such as the 1980s and 1990s, when gold gives up ground at a time when growth is robust and inflation contained.

In January this year, the price of gold touched $5,595. That marked a 434% gain from its $1,064 low in late 2015. The year 2025 was gold's second-best in modern records, with a 65% rise, last beaten in 1979 with a 126% gain. That was too much, too soon and there can be no doubt that gold got ahead of itself. Since then, there has been a healthy 29% correction. I think the worst is behind us and a gradual recovery is underway.

The recent boost came in August, when US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent announced an intervention in the Japanese yen and then two weeks later increased purchases of long-dated Treasury bonds. The amounts of money involved were on the light side, but the signalling was explosive. Governments are worried about the rising cost of borrowing and are prepared to intervene. Whatever they say, everyone knows it means printing more money, and there is much more to come.

The gold price will hit $7,000 by 2030

In 2020, I wrote a piece entitled The Rational Case For $7,000 Gold By 2030 for the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), the world's trade body for gold. At the time, the gold price was $1,700 an ounce, and many dismissed my piece as pie in the sky. Yet the premise was simple: long-term expectations for inflation would shift from 2% to 4%.

So far, and according to official data, the shift has been gentle, but expectations are rising. The bond market, as measured by Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS, inflation-linked US government paper), is not yet pricing in much higher consumer-price inflation, but is heavily concerned by public debt. Inflation expectations have not yet rung alarm bells, but with rising food and energy prices, and higher debt-servicing costs, it is a matter of time. Gold is signalling where the bond markets are headed, and that is not a happy place.

With $5,595 reached this year, my $7,000 target for 2030 looks plausible. I am confident that it will be achieved and wouldn't be averse to increasing that target given what is coming down the road. Many Western governments are broke, yet continue to be spendthrifts. The worse the situation gets, the more investors will flock to gold to protect themselves from the carnage caused by rising interest rates.

In the interests of balance, I'll explore the bear case. Under the right set of circumstances, that could be devastating for the gold price, just as it was in the 1980s and 1990s. But what would need to happen?

The US budget deficit is 6.1% of GDP. In practice, that means in 2026 they will spend $7.4 trillion against tax receipts of $5.6 trillion. That is a $1.8 trillion annual deficit. Then consider that their outstanding debt recently exceeded $40 trillion, a sum that keeps growing. In Germany, the deficit is 2.8%, in China 4.5%, in the UK 5% and in France 5.7%.

Austerity would mean balancing the budget, which the UK last managed to do in 2001. With a balanced budget, as the economy inflates and grows the ratio of debt to GDP soon declines. Do that for a decade or so, and debt servicing returns to being a minor expense. Take Ireland, where debt ballooned to 120% of GDP after the 2008 crisis. With an enforced austerity programme, it has now slid to 33%. Portugal was at 140%; now the figure is 91% and falling. The Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden all have low debt-to-GDP ratios despite being “progressive”. If the major industrialised nations balanced their budgets, or even signalled their intent to do so, the price of gold would fall. But with the US, the UK, Japan, China, Germany, France, Italy and others still behaving badly, we are not there yet – or frankly even close.

Gold is a buy until the political winds change, which will one day happen. The electorate in Argentina surprised us all when they chose president Javier Milei with his chainsaw. The people were fed up with an over-indebted, failed state, and they opted for austerity over chaos. The real surprise was that the support came from the youth, who gave him 70% of their vote.

It comes down to the simple fact that today's debt is tomorrow's problem. Governments that borrow to pay their bills are passing the bill to the next generation. There comes a time when austerity shifts from being perceived as an immoral choice to becoming the only choice. When that happens, it will be time to reduce your gold and switch back to bonds, possibly at very attractive interest rates.

Gold investments to buy now

You can invest in gold in a number of ways. My clients at ByteTree hold the gold exchange-traded fund (ETF) known as the iShares Physical Gold ETC (LSE: SGLN). They also hold the Silver ETF, iShares Physical Silver ETC (LSE: SSLN) and gold miners through the VanEck Gold Miners ETF (LSE: GDGB). Silver and the miners tend to do much better than gold in a rising market, but fare worse should the gold price fall.

British investors who want to touch their gold should hold Britannias or Sovereigns, which are free of capital gains tax. They can do this through a reputable dealer such as Sharps Pixley or The Pure Gold Company. But if you do buy physical gold, please keep it in a vault. And if you insist on keeping it at home, then the best security is not to tell anyone!

For the adventurous, add a little Bitcoin into the mix. I created the BOLD index, which combines bitcoin and gold on a risk-weighted basis. Bitcoin is often considered digital gold since the supply is constrained and it is a store of value. Rather than have a 50/50 split, I weight according to volatility.

That means more gold than bitcoin, since it is less volatile. That manages the risk and since the assets have low correlation and act independently, BOLD rebalances the portfolio each month. BOLD reduces the stronger asset, adding to the weaker asset, in a top-secret investment strategy known as “buy low, sell high”. The result is a strategy that has similar volatility to gold, but with higher historical returns. BOLD is available as an ETF, the 21Shares Bitcoin Gold ETP (LSE: BOLD).

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Britain gained full access to the CPTPP, the huge Pacific free-trade zone, last week after Canada's ratification. It is by far the most significant trade deal that Britain has been able to secure since leaving the EU. Though, with the bond markets in meltdown, the cost of Britain's debt starting to soar, and the economy sliding closer to recession, it is perhaps not surprising that this piece of positive news did not get much attention.

The CPTPP – or Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, to give it its full, if slightly cumbersome name – is a free-trade zone that covers 12 countries across Asia and the Americas, including Canada, Japan, Mexico, Australia and Malaysia. It became fully operational on 1 September. Our exporters now have full, tariff-free access to its 600 million consumers. The Treasury estimates the deal could deliver a £2 billion boost to the economy. It could be far larger: the CPTPP represents a vast market that is growing at a rapid rate.

The problem is that at precisely the same time that the CPTPP comes fully into effect, the government is talking about a “reset” with the EU. Prime minister Andy Burnham has talked constantly about getting closer to the EU, and senior ministers have come out in support of joining the customs union. But any closer relationship would, in effect, mean leaving the CPTPP. Brussels would demand full control of our trade policy as part of any deal, and membership of the customs union would mean that the EU would set Britain's tariffs again, including levies on anything we buy from the Pacific. The two trade deals are incompatible.

It would surely be crazy to choose Europe over Asia. Europe is a larger overall economy, it is a lot closer, and it still accounts for more than 40% of British exports. But we already have tariff-free access to the EU's market through our existing agreement. For growth, which is what really matters, the Pacific bloc is far more important than the European one.

To start with, it is rising in significance, while Europe is steadily declining. At the start of the century, the EU accounted for 25% of global output. Today it is down to 15%. By contrast, the Pacific, on both Asian and American coasts, has been growing far faster. Right now, the CPTPP is only £4 trillion behind the EU, measured by total GDP. Within a decade, the Pacific bloc will have overtaken the EU. That makes it a far more lucrative market.

The CPTPP is what the EU might have been

Next, the legal framework of the CPTPP is far superior. Members have full access to each market within the bloc based on recognition of each other's standards. Subject to local vetoes, if your product is on sale in Japan and meets all its safety and regulatory standards, then you can sell it in Mexico or Australia, and vice versa. It acknowledges that there is no need for an extra layer of bureaucracy. More importantly, there is none of the paraphernalia of an emerging superstate. There is no CPTPP flag, or anthem, or foreign minister strutting about on the world stage. There is no freedom of movement. It is just a simple free-trade zone that allows goods and services to be sold, and without tariffs, across a huge range of territories – akin to what the EU was back when it was just the Common Market.

Finally, it is easier to do business with. When an economy is stuck with zero growth, as Italy, France, and now Germany are, there are very few commercial opportunities. Not much is getting built, companies are not investing and consumers don't have much money to spend. By contrast, when it is growing rapidly, as most of the Pacific is, lots of possibilities open up. People are ready to sign deals because they need stuff. British firms will find it far easier to grow their order books in Australia, Chile or Malaysia than they will in Portugal, Greece or Austria.

So long as the PM keeps talking about a reset with the EU, there is no point in British businesses embracing the opportunities offered by the Pacific deal. The government should make it clear that Britain's main trading bloc is the CPTPP and that we have no interest in anything other than our existing trade deal with Brussels – and then seize the opportunities the CPTPP offers.

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The on/off Middle East crisis is on again this week, sending up oil prices in response. Dated Brent – a key benchmark based on North Sea oil – is above $100 for the first time since July at the time of writing.

Every time oil moves in a significant way, it raises the question of how best to play higher prices. One answer to that depends on what kind of move you expect.

Dated Brent – which is the benchmark that you tend to hear most – reflects what is happening to demand for physical oil right now. It is an example of a spot price, meaning the price to complete a commodity transaction immediately. In the case of Dated Brent, the buyer is buying a cargo of oil that will be loaded on a predefined date in the next few days or weeks.

However, traders also pay close attention to futures prices – the price of a contract to buy or sell oil at some point in the future. That date may be in one month, three months, six months or further ahead. There is a long chain of contracts which can stretch out for years, but most activity is in the ones closest to expiry.

As an individual investor, you can't trade physical oil directly. You could trade oil futures, but using an exchange-traded fund (ETF) such as WisdomTree Brent Crude Oil ETF (LSE: BRNT) is simpler. Yet this distinction between spot and futures prices is still important when using an ETF.

How oil ETFs work

While ETFs for gold or other metals often hold physical metal and reflect the spot price, oil ETFs have traditionally worked by buying futures contracts for near-term months. As each contract gets close to expiry, the ETF sells its existing position in that contract and rolls over into another contract a month or two further out.

So the ETF will reflect the trends in near-term oil futures. It will also gain or lose from a less obvious source of return called roll yield. If futures prices for the nearest months are higher than those for more distant months, the ETF will be selling higher and buying lower each time, and will earn a profit from doing so. Conversely, if prices for nearer months are lower than more distant months, the ETF will be selling lower and buying higher, and the roll yield will be negative.

If – as is often the case in a crisis – spot prices spike by much more than futures, a typical oil ETF will not rise by as much as the spot price does. However, the new-ish Onyx Spot Return Crude Oil ETF (LSE: OIL) takes a different approach. It holds very short-term daily Dated Brent futures, which it continuously rolls over. As a result, it is a closer proxy for the spot price. This product launched in June and has beaten traditional ETFs since then (see chart). Whether it keeps doing so depends on whether spot prices remain much higher than futures and on whether the futures roll yield is positive or negative. Regardless, it's interesting to see a new way to trade immediate shocks to physical oil prices that relies less on shifts in futures.

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Airlines have been one of the hardest-hit industries as a result of the war in Iran, and the industry is struggling to recover from a succession of punishing shocks.

The Covid pandemic was a challenging start to the decade for the airline industry, as it all but shut down global travel. Two years later, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent oil prices sky-high, pushing up input costs for airlines.

The story has been similar in 2026, with the US/Israeli conflict with Iran prompting the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which around a fifth of global oil supplies previously moved, adding further upward pressure onto the cost of jet fuel while pushing global inflation higher.

“High oil prices are turning the coming winter into a stress test for airlines,” said Lale Akoner, global market strategist at investing platform eToro. “Fuel and labour costs are rising, while geopolitical disruption and pressure on household budgets make it difficult to pass them on through higher fares.”

The International Air Transport Association warned in June that global airline profits would halve in 2026 due to higher fuel costs.

Airline stocks have been punished. The NYSE Arca Airline Index, an index of US-listed airlines, fell 11.9% in 2026 through to 10 September, while the STOXX Europe Total Market Airlines Index, which comprises European-listed airlines, fell 12.8% over the same period.

But while it is undoubtedly a challenging period for the sector as a whole, are there opportunities amid the disruption?

What does EasyJet’s acquisition mean for airline stocks?

One of the biggest consequences of the rout in airline stocks appears to be the acquisition of EasyJet (LON:EZJ) by US-based private equity firm Apollo.

EasyJet rejected a sequence of bids from private equity firm Castlelake, calling the bids “opportunistic” given they followed a sharp nosedive in the airline’s share price. EasyJet’s share price had declined by over 30% in the 12 months to the end of May, before Castlelake’s first bid.

Eventually, though, Castlelake’s rival Apollo made a bid that EasyJet’s board felt compelled to accept, and it now looks as though the airline will be acquired.

“EasyJet is now a different kind of investment, with Apollo agreeing to buy the airline for 715p a share,” said Akoner. “The deal, which appears likely to be completed, has largely insulated the shares from the latest fuel shock.

“However investors should be wary as most of the takeover gain has already been captured, leaving limited additional upside before the expected completion in early 2027.”

EasyJet’s takeover highlights the extent to which airlines are under pressure, and that this creates an opportunity that institutional investors are already exploiting.

“We think this difficult backdrop could still produce winners,” said Akoner. “Airlines are already cutting unprofitable routes, and weaker operators may have to go further. Fewer available seats should support ticket prices and allow the most efficient airlines to increase market share.

“For investors, the sector increasingly looks like a contest between companies with genuine cost and balance-sheet advantages and those relying mainly on passenger growth.”

Which airlines could be resilient?

Andrew Hollingworth, founder and portfolio manager at Holland Advisors, is of the view that the worse things get for most airlines, the better they are for Ryanair (DUBLIN:RYA) as it has permanent pricing power.

“Ryanair is the lowest cost producer,” said Hollingworth. “If they put their prices up by three euros, [no other airline] is remotely near them, so everyone’s got to pay. “

Most other airlines, though, only have pricing power when the winds are blowing in their favour.

“If the oil price is moderate or rising, but the economy is good, and demand on their routes is good, and they haven’t got new competitors, they can put their prices up and pass on cost inflation,” said Hollingworth. “But if the economy isn’t so good, but the fuel price is still rising, hard luck. There isn’t enough demand to pass on the cost inflation.”

Like Ryanair, Jet2 (LON:JET2) is also a low cost provider, but it offers more to customers through its scale economy than low prices alone.

“It’s not actually an airline, it’s a package holiday company,” said Hollingworth. “Jet2 gives you good value for money on a package holiday, but it also gives you customer service.”

That gives the company excellent customer loyalty, but Hollingworth doesn’t believe this is fully priced.

“The stock market's got it on a very low P/E ratio because it says ‘it's just another average tour operator like Tui,’ but that's not how the customer sees it,” he said. “The customer sees that they give them value for money, they give them good quality service.”

How to invest in airline stocks

If you think it’s time to buy rather than sell airline stocks, you have a few options (besides buying the shares of companies outright).

There are a number of thematic exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tracking the travel sector that offer exposure, such as the iShares STOXX Europe 600 Travel & Leisure UCITS ETF (DE:EXV9) which is a tracker fund following its namesake index, and the US Global Investors Travel UCITS ETF (LON:TRIP) which is an actively-managed ETF offering exposure to travel and tourism stocks. While both of these are diversified travel and leisure funds, airline stocks like Ryanair feature prominently in both portfolios.

Another option is the VT Holland Advisors Equity Fund, which is managed by Hollingworth. It holds Jet2 as its largest holding (with 8.1% of the portfolio) and Ryanair as the sixth-largest (with 4.4%) as of 28 August. Note this isn’t an airlines-focused fund, but one which aims to invest in compelling business models trading at favourable valuations across a range of sectors.

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For listed private equity funds, discounts to net asset value (NAV) widened sharply when bond yields rose in 2022. Investors were anticipating that the valuations of private equity investments would follow share prices down after the customary lag.

Boards responded with share buyback programmes in an attempt to add value and close the discounts. Yet discounts remained stubbornly high as valuations stagnated.

When markets started to move higher two years ago, investors could reasonably have expected private equity fund valuations to follow. This should have led to a fall in discounts, regardless of buybacks. Yet the evidence for this is mixed.

Diverging fortunes for private equity funds

Pantheon International (LSE: PIN) and HarbourVest Global Private Equity (LSE: HVPE) have returned almost 20% in one year, while Patria Private Equity (LSE: PPET) is up over 50% in three. All had significant help from narrowing discounts. However, 3i (LSE: III) has lost 25% and HgCapital Trust (LSE: HGT) almost 15%, as their discounts have headed in the wrong direction.

What is going on? The answer is that 3i and HGT are special cases. 3i traded on a large premium thanks to the phenomenal performance of discount retailer Action, which had come to account for over three quarters of its NAV. When Action's growth appeared to falter, that led to a slump in 3i's share price. The £28 billion trust now trades on a 7% discount, up from 30% a few months ago.

3i's update at its annual general meeting in June showed that pessimism about Action had been overdone. Performance in the rest of the portfolio is steady, but accounts for less than a quarter of the total. So despite 3i's shares being much better value than they were a year ago, they are still very much a bet on one company.

HGT specialises in the software sector and so it has suffered from fear that its holdings will be disrupted by AI. This fear may prove exaggerated, but has led to a justifiable fall in the share price even though underlying performance has been good. In its June update, it reported growth in revenue and cash generation of 16% and 19%, respectively, as well as £134 million of realisation proceeds in the first half at an average uplift to carrying value of 31%.

However, it has continued to reduce valuations and its portfolio is now valued at a weighted average multiple of 23 times cash generation. This still looks rich, especially as the portfolio carries plenty of debt, but is more than offset by the shares trading at a 23% discount. The shares have recovered from their May low, but the rally should go further.

The price of Oakley Capital (LSE: OCI) has also recovered, but it still sits on a discount of 33%, despite reporting a gain of 6% in NAV in the first half. Literacy Capital (LSE: BOOK) was a sector darling until two years ago, since when its shares have slid 40% to a 37% discount. The NAV has fallen 7% over the last year and is up just 3% over three, but an upturn is surely imminent. Both shares look a bargain.

Time to boost demand for private equity funds

Meanwhile, the funds of funds such as HarbourVest, Pantheon, Patria, ICG Enterprise (LSE: ICGT) and CT Private Equity (LSE: CTPE) – which invest in the funds of other managers or co-invest in companies alongside them – all trade on discounts of 25%-30%. Their boards continue to be obsessed with share buybacks to reduce the discount, but they need to focus more on increasing the demand for their shares than reducing the supply.

Investors are hungry to see evidence of hidden gems in private equity fund portfolios that can grow much larger over time. Action was once just a modest holding for 3i. Boards need to move onto the front foot in extolling their holdings. Yet investors shouldn't wait for them to do so, or they will end up paying much higher prices.

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What is a data centre?

A data centre is a big, highly secure building full of computers and the other physical infrastructure that the digital world is built on. They've been around for decades (since the 1940s, reckons IBM, in the form of “server rooms”), but the internet, cloud computing and now the widespread adoption of AI have all radically increased the need for giant – and now “hyperscale” – centres. Nowadays, much of what we do online every day – from Google searches to banking to streaming Netflix – depends on computing power and connectivity housed in data centres. There's no single authoritative figure for the number of such centres in the world, because there's no universally accepted definition of how big an installation has to be to count as one. But in terms of large data centres, commercially operated by companies such as cloud providers, there are around 11,000–12,000 worldwide, with the majority in the US.

What's inside a data centre?

A typical data centre will contain servers (powerful computers that process, store and distribute data); networking equipment (to connect the servers to the internet); sophisticated cooling systems (otherwise computers get very hot, and then stop working); and power infrastructure (such as substations, back-up generators and batteries). In recent decades, data centres have got much bigger, with so-called “hyperscalers” – the likes of Microsoft, Google and Meta – building vast campuses covering many acres. A data centre with 150 racks holding 25 servers each equates to 3,750 servers; but that's no longer considered large. According to the International Data Corporation, a true “hyperscale data centre” is one that contains at least 5,000 servers and occupies at least 10,000 square feet of physical space and uses more than 100MW of energy. And many are now vastly larger than that. A hyperscale data centre can hold thousands of racks and hundreds of thousands of servers – all built on vast sites covering hundreds of acres.

Why are data centres controversial?

Much media coverage of the backlash (or “techlash”) against data centres focuses on distrust of Big Tech and AI, and fear of job losses. More than half of Americans say they're more concerned than excited about the growing use of AI in daily life, according to a recent report from the Pew Research Centre. But the dominant sources of opposition are more mundane, says The Economist. Polls suggest that what worries people about the centres is their perceived local impact. In a recent Fox News poll, 75% of respondents cited concerns such as energy use, utility and water bills, construction disruption and traffic as the main reason they opposed a data centre in their area. Just 11% pointed to AI itself.

The politics around building data centres

More than 500 US counties and municipalities have passed data-centre bans or moratoriums, while dozens of proposed projects have been abandoned. Research group Data Centre Watch calculates that grassroots groups blocked or delayed at least 75 data centre projects worth about $130 billion in the first three months of 2026 alone. That's close to the $156 billion worth of facilities that were disrupted during all of 2025. What's striking, too, is how swiftly politicians have shifted their position. The Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, once touted the state as the “epicentre of AI development” – it boasts the most of any state except Virginia. Last week, though, now up for re-election, he said data centres had “dug their own grave” by overreaching. Across the US, the issue has emerged as a surprise key battleground in the US midterm elections, with some unexpected opponents (Republicans) and supporters (union-backed Democrats) of development. With typical grace and tact, president Donald Trump opined that: “The only reason that communities throughout the USA should not want data centres is if they want to end up being backwards and poor. If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let data reign.” China is delighted with the US backlash, he claimed. “If we kill the golden goose, you will only have yourselves to blame.”

Is Donald Trump right about data centres?

Perhaps. “Voters and politicians alike are making a big mistake” in blocking data-centre growth, says The Economist. One common myth is that data centres guzzle endless water. In fact, a mid-sized centre uses about as much as two golf courses and much less if it recycles its water, as many now do. Concerns over energy use are more credible, but there's little evidence that they raise energy prices for households; rather, by increasing demand they spread the fixed costs of infrastructure among more kilowatt-hours sold. And in any event, the “answer to competing demands on resources – whether water, electricity or something else – is to price them according to their scarcity, thereby encouraging more provision and higher living standards over time. It is not to ration inputs according to the arbitrary judgment of scolds.”

What about here in the UK?

Britain has a claim to being the home of the first data centre – in the large shed at Bletchley Park where wartime cryptographers built Colossus, the world's first programmable electronic computer. Today, the UK has 450 “large data centres”, according to government figures, with more than half of them in or close to London. In September 2024, the government designated data centres as critical national infrastructure and in January 2025 announced five “AI Growth Zones”, with £28.2 billion of planned investment. Our biggest data centre to date, says James Price on CapX, is a 148MW site outside Cardiff, but progress is slowing, with the likes of the UAE and Japan now steaming ahead. This, of course, is hardly a surprise. “In Britain, we can force £100 million to be spent on a bat tunnel; imagine what our planning system will do with a gigawatt campus.”

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New Year in the Maldives

Join Pixie Lott in the Maldives this Christmas. The British pop star will be performing on New Year's Eve at the InterContinental Maldives Maamunagau as part of the resort's "12 Pearls of the Ocean" programme of festivities. Each "pearl" is a day of activities and entertainment following a theme, starting with the lighting of the Christmas tree on 22 December. Santa arrives by boat on Christmas Day, the "Pearl of Champagne" features an exclusive yacht cruise with Champagne, while the Pearl of Play takes the form of a lively lagoon party and a moonlit dinner by the sea. At midnight on New Year's Eve, the sky above Maamunagau will be illuminated with fireworks and a drone display to see in 2027. In tandem with the "12 Pearls of the Ocean", guests can also learn about marine life with British artist and diver Janavi Kramer or enjoy a treatment in the spa, where wellness practitioner Braj Raj Singh will be taking up residence.

From around $1,500 a night, maldives.intercontinental.com.

Live like a local in Munich

Have you ever wished you could experience a place the way the locals do? Kempinski, Europe’s oldest luxury hospitality company, has launched a programme to achieve just that. Called E.R.A.s, which stands for Experience Real Access, guests staying at the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Kempinski Munich can undertake a literal flying visit of Bavaria’s royal castles aboard a private flight, guided by two historians. There is, as part of the programme, also a hosted dinner with live music in the royal halls of the Nymphenburg Palace. Alternatively, guests can brush up on their skills as painters, discover Bavaria's famous beers and the region's automotive heritage. Or they can take the plunge – into the Eisbach canal, guided by a Wim-Hof expert and go for a morning run with legendary German former footballer Lothar Matthäus.

E.R.A experiences from €130 per person, kempinski.com.

Starry nights in Northumberland

Matfen Hall's location on the edge of the International Dark Sky Park in Northumberland makes it the ideal luxury stay for enjoying starry nights in Britain. The area offers some of Europe's clearest night skies. The wild and rugged Northumberland National Park is also just a 25-minute drive away from the hotel, encompassing around 400 square miles of untouched landscape, tranquil rivers and sweeping moorland close to the Cheviot Hills. But if the nights prove too brisk, you don't even have to leave the comfort of your room – the spacious suites have their own telescopes. Within the Dark Sky Park, the Kielder Observatory will also be hosting stargazing activities. Afterwards, warm up in Matfen Hall's three AA Rosette The Emerald Restaurant.

From £350 a night, matfenhall.com.

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Reaching the age of 65 signals the beginning of retirement for many, but it can also usher in a phase of tax headaches.

The number of over-65s paying income tax has risen by more than three million over the last five years, according to figures from HMRC.

Meanwhile, greater numbers of beneficiaries of estates face paying inheritance tax (IHT) as asset values rise and with unused pensions set to be included in estates from April 2027.

The number of over-65s paying tax on their savings interest is rising too, while 38% of people who paid capital gains tax (CGT) in 2024/25 were 65 or older.

However, there are ways those in their mid-60s can minimise the damage and keep the taxman at bay.

Income tax on state, personal and workplace pensions

An increasing number of pensioners are paying income tax on their pension wealth due to frozen tax thresholds.

The personal allowance has been frozen at £12,570 and higher rate income tax band at £50,270 since April 2024. Meanwhile, the additional rate tax band was cut from £150,000 to £125,140 from April 2023.

A recent Freedom of Information (FOI) request submitted by Steve Webb, former pensions minister and partner at pension consultants LCP, revealed hundreds of thousands of pensioners are being pulled into paying more tax due to these frozen thresholds – a process known as fiscal drag.

The FOI found those of state pension age, aged 66 and over, paying income tax at 40% or 45% has more than doubled from 494,000 since 2021/22 to 1,092,000.

The number paying tax at 45% has almost tripled from 39,000 to 115,000.

With income tax thresholds frozen until 2031, these figures are likely to rise higher.

Webb said: “Many people of working age may have expected that they would be basic rate taxpayers in retirement, but few will have expected to find themselves paying 40% or more out of their pensions in tax.

“But this is the norm now for over a million pensioners, with the number set to rise further.”

How to pay less income tax on your pensions

One way to avoid tipping your income into a higher tax band is to time when you make withdrawals from your pensions, Webb said.

For example, you could split a single large withdrawal into two and spread it across two tax years to keep your taxable income in those two years lower.

Another, Webb said, is by adding more into a pension after you’ve retired.

He explained: “It’s still possible to get tax relief on contributions up to age 75, which lowers current taxable income – especially in years when you would otherwise be a higher rate taxpayer.

“For those who have income to spare in retirement, additional pension saving can be worth considering.”

It’s worth noting, there are rules around how much tax relief you can receive on pension contributions if you have flexibly accessed your pension.

For example, the money purchase annual allowance applies to contributions if you’ve accessed taxable cash from a defined contribution pension. If the allowance is triggered, tax relief is usually limited to contributions of £10,000 a year gross.

Capital gains tax

Over-65s often take up a large share of CGT liabilities in the UK.

Data from HMRC reveals that of the 551,0000 people who paid CGT in 2024/25, 212,000 (38%) were aged 65 or older.

Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at investment platform AJ Bell, said: “People tend to build assets as they go through their working life, so wealth peaks around the age of 65, and at that point they start spending their way through their wealth. This period captures that turning point.”

How to lower your capital gains tax bill

Wherever possible, you should hold assets within tax-wrappered accounts like ISAs or pensions so any gains are free from CGT.

Make the most of your CGT annual allowance as well. This allows you to dispose of gains of up to £3,000 each tax year free from CGT.

Coles, from AJ Bell, said it’s worth making the most of your CGT annual allowance each year on an ongoing basis, so you can dump assets tax-free bit by bit.

Also, if your partner hasn’t used their annual CGT allowance or ISA allowance, you could transfer assets to them to pay less tax or even a lower rate of CGT.

Source: HMRC

Income tax on savings

Over-65s are increasingly paying income tax on savings held outside tax-wrappered accounts.

The number of savers in this age group paying income tax on their savings is forecast to reach 2.1 million in 2026/27, more than four times the 517,000 in 2022/23, according to Freedom of Information (FOI) figures obtained by Paragon Bank.

The total tax liability facing over-65s in 2026/27 is expected to reach £3.34 billion compared with £795 million in 2022/23, based on the FOI figures.

How to avoid paying tax on your savings

You could try overpaying on your mortgage if you’ve got surplus cash you don’t need to access immediately. You could also pay off any credit card bills or personal loans using money from your savings pot as well.

Make sure you’re putting savings into tax-wrapped ISAs as any interest earned on them will be tax-free.

Andrew Wright, head of savings at Paragon Bank, said using ISAs was particularly critical for those aged 65 and over, as new rules limiting the annual cash ISA limit to £12,000 from April 2027 won’t apply to this age group.

“Making full use of your ISA allowance can help protect more of your hard-earned interest from tax and those aged 65 plus have the benefit of retaining the full £20,000 cash ISA allowance from next tax year,” Wright said.

Inheritance tax

Frozen IHT thresholds and rising asset prices are dragging more and more estates into HMRC’s net, including those of over-65-year-olds.

IHT receipts in the three months to July 2026 totalled £3.2 billion, according to HMRC, £100 higher than over the same three month period in 2025, and they’re expected to climb more when unused pensions form part of people’s estates from April 2027.

Ian Dyall, head of estate planning at wealth manager Evelyn Partners, said: “It’s worth remembering that it’s not strictly the deceased estate-owner who pays inheritance tax but the beneficiaries.

“However, that doesn’t make it any more palatable to those who have carefully saved and invested, and who want to pass on that family wealth without a big tax charge.

“It’s also worth pointing out that as people are living longer, many beneficiaries are in their fifties or even sixties before they inherit from their parents – so it may well be the case that more 65-year-old beneficiaries are starting to face IHT bills.”

How to lower an inheritance tax bill

Start with making the most of your gifting allowances. For example, you can give away up to £3,000 tax-free each financial year to one or more people through the annual exemption rule.

You can also make regular gifts to people, as long as they’re made out of income and not capital and they don’t affect your standard of living.

This is known as ‘expenditure out of income’ and can include regularly paying rent for a child or adding money into an under-18’s savings account.

Gifts of any size can be made IHT-free if they are made seven years or more before your death.

Dyall said: “The earlier gifting is done the better as that gives the seven year rule more time to expire, which then means the gift will be fully outside the estate.”

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Nationwide has boosted the perks of its fee-free FlexDirect current account, meaning new customers could get up to £370 in free cash in their first year.

The building society has upped its cashback deal, with customers now able to get up to £120 in free cash from spending in their first year, double its previous offering of just £60.

Spending is rewarded through £5 a month cashback when you spend at least £500 on your debit card, up to a maximum of £60 a year.

An additional £5 a month cashback is available when you spend at least £300 through direct debits on anything from water bills to streaming subscriptions, up to a maximum of £60 a year.

In addition to its boosted cashback offer, Nationwide’s FlexDirect account also provides 5% interest on current account balances up to £1,500 in the first 12 months, giving customers up to £75 in interest. This interest rate drops to 1% after your first 12 months.

The FlexDirect current account is fee-free, meaning none of the free cash you earn over your first year with the account will be eaten away by monthly account costs.

Since 2023, Nationwide has also distributed an annual 'Fairer Share' payment of £100 to each individual with a qualifying account, and in previous years having an active FlexDirect account has made you eligible for the payment.

That means if the building society decides to make the payment again in 2027, you may receive an additional £100 bonus.

Fred Powell, head of current account at Nationwide, said: "With our new free FlexDirect account, customers can still earn interest on money in their account, get cashback on everyday spending and benefit from a £175 switching offer.

“It means new customers could get as much as £295 with Nationwide in their first 12 months and that’s without adding the 5% on current account balances [and] access to savings accounts,” he added.

How to get £370 of free cash by switching to Nationwide’s FlexDirect

FlexDirect’s perks mean some new customers could manage to get £370 in free cash in their first 12 months – as long as they keep enough money in the account.

Firstly, new Nationwide customers are eligible for a £175 switching bonus when changing their main bank account to Nationwide through the Current Account Switching Service (CASS).

To qualify for the switch incentive, customers need to complete a full switch using CASS within 28 days of opening the new FlexDirect account, switch from an account with at least two direct debits, and pay in at least £1,000.

Then, once you have an active FlexDirect account, you can get £5 a month in cashback from everyday spending of at least £500, and another £5 a month in cashback from direct debits of at least £300

Together, this cashback will come to £120 over the full 12 months.

Finally, you can get another £75 from the 5% interest on your current account balance over your first 12 months.

To get the maximum amount, you will need to have a current account balance of at least £1,500 and make sure it does not drop below this all year to get the full £75 interest.

Put together, these bonuses mean new customers switching to Nationwide can get a maximum of £370 in their first year with the FlexDirect account – or more if Fairer Share is repeated this year.

Rachel Springall, finance expert at Moneyfacts, said: “Households are no doubt looking for simple ways to make their money go further, so it is incredibly important to take time out to review all the financial products they have, including current accounts, which are often overlooked.

“Nationwide’s FlexDirect account could offer customers up to £470 in value in the first year, including cashback, credit interest, the switching incentive and, assuming the £100 Fairer Share is paid again.

“The account is highly attractive all-round and rewards customers on their day-to-day spending with cashback. Those who keep a bit of cash in the account will earn an inflation-busting interest rate.”

Are you eligible for a FlexDirect account?

To be eligible for a FlexDirect account, you need to be aged 18 or over and be a UK resident.

To keep the account active, you will need to pay in at least £1,500 every month. This would most likely come from your monthly salary, but could also come from other sources like savings.

You must also agree that your FlexDirect account is for personal use only, and you must hold no more than three existing sole or joint Nationwide current accounts.

Most people build an investment portfolio gradually over many decades, through monthly contributions they barely notice.

An annuity works the other way. It is bought in one transaction and cannot be undone, often leaving buyers agonising over timing. With annuity rates at an 18-year high, is now the moment, or is it worth waiting for better gilt yields?

When you buy an annuity can make a big difference. On Canada Life's benchmark, a healthy 65-year-old with £100,000 bought £4,521 a year in January 2022. By the end of September 2022 the same £100,000 bought £6,873. Those who waited nine months got an extra £2,352 a year for the rest of their life.

Then again, 2022 was not a normal year, and no one knows what will happen in advance.

Tracking annuity rates

UK consumer champion Which? tracks the annuity market each month, recording the best income a healthy 65-year-old could buy with £100,000. In 2025, the worst month to buy was February, at £7,525 a year. The best was June, at £8,011. December closed at £7,665. The difference between best and worst was £486 a year for life.

But now compare providers. In January 2026, the most generous on the market offered £7,649 on the same £100,000. The least generous offered £7,100.

You can close the provider gap by collecting quotes. But you can’t close the timing gap. You can only stop a single day setting your income for life.

While drip-feeding into equities usually leaves you worse off than buying the lot at once, because shares are expected to rise and uninvested money misses the climb, annuity rates carry no such expectation.

Buying in stages is insurance against a rate move nobody can forecast. It won’t leave you better off than a single purchase would, but spreading the purchase over several dates means no single morning's pricing sets the whole income.

Huang, Milevsky and Young worked the problem through in the Review of Finance in 2017. Give a buyer a fixed budget, improve the rate on offer by roughly a tenth, change nothing else, and the sum they should commit today jumps from about 5% of that budget to about 85%. The authors call the pattern 'an asymmetric dollar-cost averaging strategy'. The market is American and the product is a deferred annuity, so the numbers do not transfer, but the pattern does.

Standard Life's model fixes the dates in advance. It is the only detailed UK modelling of staged annuity purchase I can find, and its saver buys at 65, 70, 75 and 80 whatever rates are doing. The rate improves at each purchase, from 6.6% of the pot at 65 to 7.0% at 70, 8.1% at 75 and 10.0% at 80. Every bit of that improvement is the buyer getting older. In the model, market pricing never moves. A model in which conditions never change cannot demonstrate the value of spreading purchases across changing conditions.

Standard Life's saver starts with £150,000. About £90,000 buys a level annuity at 65, and about £20,000 more buys another at 70, 75 and 80, with whatever is left in drawdown. The model assumes 5% a year on that balance, 3% drawn from it, and good health throughout. By age 90 that saver has drawn £259,115. A single purchase at 65 would have paid £253,775. Standard Life does not do that subtraction anywhere in the release, so here it is: £5,340.

Across 25 years, that is 2.1% more income.

The staged buyer pays for that £5,340 up front. In year one the income is £8,155 against £10,151 for a single purchase, a fifth less. Annual payments catch up at 75. But a decade of shortfall takes some making up, and the running total does not favour staging until 88. The model stops at 90, so the whole gain lands in the last three payments. The drawdown pot is empty by 80, which means the flexibility being sold runs out eight years before the money arrives.

The cost of waiting to buy an annuity

The cost of waiting is built into the rate. An annuity pays more at 80 than at 65 partly because the insurer expects to pay out over fewer years, and partly because buyers who die early subsidise those who live longer. Money still sitting in drawdown earns no share of that subsidy. It sits in markets instead, taking a different risk while it waits. The better rate at 80 is what waiting since 65 has already paid for.

Can you split your annuity pot?

Splitting a pot is easy enough. Aviva, Canada Life, Legal and General and Standard Life all set a £10,000 minimum on what is left after tax-free cash, so £250,000 divides four ways at each of them.

Pricing the split is harder. Phoenix Life, which shares an underwriting company with Standard Life, tells consumers that some providers may pay more on one large purchase than on several small ones. It doesn't say how much more. Standard Life's adviser site, meanwhile, says an annuity is unlikely to suit a client who wants savings kept invested for growth, which is what staging asks of them for 15 years. I can find no published estimate of what a UK annuity ladder would actually have returned.

But one argument for staging survives. Insurers price on life expectancy, so a condition that shortens it lifts the rate, and a later purchase may qualify where an earlier one did not. Which? found a 65-year-old in relatively poor health quoted six% above the standard rate by Legal and General and 15% by Aviva. Nobody can plan around that, but it is real.

So the order matters. Collect quotes first: in January 2026 the gap between the best and worst provider was £549 a year, and it is the one gap in this decision you can close. Then decide whether a fifth less income at 65 is worth paying to spread a risk nobody can forecast.

Staging is insurance. Sold as anything else, it is a poor deal.

Retirement planning and making the most of pension pots is firmly under the spotlight with more people facing a shortfall when trying to achieve a comfortable retirement.

The government’s Pension Commission warned in a recent report around 15 million people aren’t putting enough away for later life, particularly low and middle-earners, the self‑employed and women.

Meanwhile 45% of working-age adults, around 18 million people, are not saving into a pension at all despite nearly half of them being in work, the report found.

Greater numbers of people are forecast to be renting into retirement as well, according to recent research by retirement firm Standard Life, increasing the financial burden on pensioners.

All the while, the cost of the triple lock is coming under strain and the state pension may not be as generous in the future.

Given the context, your pension savings should be working as hard as possible. Experts say, though, for a lot of people, they're not and basic errors are costing savers potentially tens of thousands of pounds.

Steve Webb, partner at pension consultants LCP, Helen Morrissey, head of retirement analysis at investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown, and Daniela Silcock, director of Daniela Silcock Pensions Research, shared six pension mistakes you should be avoiding.

Not keeping paperwork

An estimated £31 billion is sitting in lost pension pots, according to the Pension Tracing Service. If you have a pension you have forgotten about, then some of this money could be yours.

Losing tracking of a pension pot can be easily done if you've misplaced paperwork containing contact details for pension providers and policy numbers.

These types of details will usually be on annual account statements or sometimes welcome packs or joiner letters from your pension provider.

Webb said: “I have lost count of the number of people who have contacted me asking for help tracking down a lost pension from a previous job.

“Those who have kept paperwork have a far better chance of success, enabling us to work out where the pension money is now held.”

If you’ve looked thoroughly and can’t find key pension paperwork anywhere, there are other ways to track down policy numbers and contact details for providers.

If you’re looking for an old workplace pension pot, you can try getting in touch with a previous employer through Companies House. Failing this, you could contact the free-to-use Pension Tracing Service.

Not making the most of employer matching

Under auto-enrolment rules, workers earning more than £10,000 a year are automatically put into an occupational pension scheme by their employer.

Under the rules, you contribute a minimum of 5% of your monthly salary to the pension and your employer adds 3% on top.

However, you can contribute more to a workplace pension if you want and some employers will ‘match’ this amount.

For example, you could pay 8% a month and your bosses would add 8%. If you have the budget, then matching is worth considering as it could give you a significant boost to your pension savings with extra free cash from your employer.

Research by Standard Life found someone starting working at 22 on a salary of £25,000 increasing monthly contributions into a workplace pension by just 1% could add £26,000 to their pension pot.

Webb said: “[It] is an incredibly efficient way of rapidly building up a pension pot, as every extra contribution is effectively doubled overnight.”

Not claiming tax relief on pensions

Pension tax relief is a tax break offered by the government to encourage people to save for retirement.

It is applied at your marginal tax rate, for example a basic-rate taxpayer would receive 20% tax relief and a higher-rate taxpayer 40%.

All basic-rate taxpayers receive pension tax relief automatically, however, if you are in a ‘relief at source’ pension scheme, you will need to proactively claim tax relief if you are a higher or additional-rate taxpayer.

Roughly 800,000 people failed to claim higher rate pension tax relief worth over £1 billion in 2023/24, according to a Freedom of Information request submitted by Webb.

He said so many people were missing out simply because they “will not realise that there are two different ways in which pension tax relief can be delivered”.

“This may be news to many people…but it matters hugely – if you pay £80 into a pension you get £20 basic rate relief making a gross contribution of £100 into your pension. But having made a gross contribution of £100 you are entitled to £40 relief if you are a higher rate taxpayer, not £20, and £45 if you are an additional rate taxpayer.

“You only get this if you claim it. The missing amount is £20 per £80 that you have paid in, which could amount to thousands of pounds for some people.”

You can claim tax relief either through your tax self-assessment tax return or via gov.uk.

Transferring a defined benefit pension into a defined contribution pension

A defined benefit (DB) pension, sometimes called a final salary pension, typically pays out a certain amount based on your salary and how long you’ve been part of a pension scheme.

Defined contribution (DC) pensions pay out a certain amount depending on how much you and potentially an employer have put into them, as well as how your investments have done.

You can transfer a DB pension into a DC pension, however Silcock explained once you’ve done this, the guaranteed benefits that come with it are permanently given up.

“A DB pension provides an income for life with protection against inflation. It may also provide an income for a partner or other dependent after the member dies.

“After a transfer [to a DC pension]…poor returns or high withdrawals could mean that the money runs out.”

That said, there can be advantages to transferring to a DC pension, including that you get more flexibility in choosing how your pot is invested.

You can also withdraw all the money from a DC pension in one go, which could work out more cost-effective than a DB pension if you don’t have long to live or you need the money to cover medical expenses if you have a terminal illness.

In addition, while most DB pensions will continue to pay a portion of your pension income to any of your dependents after you die, DC pensions can typically be left to a wider set of people, giving you more choice in who inherits your pension funds.

Adding too little into your pot and for not long enough

Not putting enough into a pension throughout your life, and starting too late, will reduce the size of your retirement pot.

Silcock pointed out that some people don’t contribute to pensions because they’re taking on caring responsibilities or simply because they can’t afford it, however others delay saving simply because “retirement feels a long way off”.

“People are likely to get more from their pension if they start contributing when they are young and continue throughout their working life,” Silcock said.

She gave the example of someone’s pension growing at 5% a year, with £1,000 contributed at age 20. This would be worth around £7,040 by the time the person turned 60.

This same amount added to a pension at age 50 would be worth just £1,630 – £5,410 less.

Silcock said for someone who doesn’t have the budget to start saving into a pension, it’s worth exploring if a partner can make contributions on their behalf.

Assuming you will get a full state pension

The full new state pension is worth £241.30 a week and can form the bedrock of your retirement pot, but not everyone will get that amount. Anyone planning for retirement should take time to look at how much state pension they will get.

To receive the full amount, you need 35 years’ National Insurance (NI) contributions, however you may be missing years, for example if you’ve had to leave a job to care for a child or relative.

Morrissey warned: “Don’t assume that you will receive a full state pension. If you’ve spent any time out of the workforce, you could have gaps in your National Insurance record that mean you get less.”

If you are missing years, you can top up your state pension with voluntary contributions – but before you do, consider whether it is worth topping up National Insurance contributions.

If you're young and still working, you have plenty of time to make up for the gap.

When geopolitical shocks occur, like the conflict in Iran that has shaken markets since late February, knowing where to put your money to protect your wealth is key.

The Association of Investment Companies (AIC), an industry body representing the UK’s investment trusts, has identified the closed-ended funds that have shown the greatest resilience during the conflict’s duration.

Technology-focused investment trusts have led the way, with the continued demand for artificial intelligence (AI) stocks and funds lifting the sector in spite of global turbulence.

“Investment trusts in the technology sector have continued to power ahead as the AI investment boom goes on,” said Annabel Brodie-Smith, director of the AIC. “And the growth capital sector has thrived due to its big holdings in fast-growing private companies and potential IPOs such as Anthropic, ByteDance and Revolut.”

So which investment trust sectors proved the most resilient – and which ones have delivered the greatest returns for shareholders over the course of the conflict?

The investment trust sectors that have been most resilient

It wasn’t all about tech and growth sectors. Some of the other top-performing investment trusts since the start of the Iran conflict have come from less obvious sectors – particularly renewable energy.

^{Source: theaic.co.uk / Morningstar. Share price total return in % from 02/03/2026 to 31/08/2026. Excludes VCTs. See AIC sector definitions.}

“Shares across the [renewable energy infrastructure] sector have bounced as investors have warmed to renewable energy during a war that has exposed the weaknesses of our oil and gas supply chains,” said the AIC’s Brodie-Smith.

Commenting on the outperformance of the renewable energy infrastructure sector, Charlie Wright, co-lead investment manager of Foresight Environmental Infrastructure (LON:FGEN), said “Iran conflict has perhaps prompted investors to reassess the strategic value of renewables and environmental infrastructure, reminding investors that an overreliance on volatile imported fuels is not a wise position to take.”

Which investment trust sectors have outperformed since the start of the Iran war?

Foresight Environmental Infrastructure was one of two renewable energy infrastructure investment trusts to make the top-five in terms of share price total return since the start of the Iran conflict.

Growth capital trust Molten Ventures (LON:GROW), which holds stakes in Revolut and Finnish space economy start-up ICEYE, took the top spot, while the Biotech Growth Trust (LON:BIOG) took second and Allianz Technology Trust (LON:ATT) came third.

^{Source: theaic.co.uk / Morningstar. Share price total return in % from 02/03/2026 to 31/08/2026. Excludes VCTs and trusts in liquidation.}

Stephen Packwood, co-manager of Greencoat UK Wind (LON:UKW) said “investor interest in renewables has picked up since the start of the war given security of supply and cost of energy concerns” but that the trust’s “strong performance in terms of power and net cash generation” had been the main driver behind its outperformance, covering its dividend payout in the first six months of 2026 and providing further capital to grow the business.

“Renewables, in particular wind, are well placed to take advantage of the forecasted increase in electricity demand over the coming years,” he added.

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Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) are not only a legal requirement, but increasingly scrutinised by buyers considering purchasing a home.

Data from property portal Rightmove reveals buyer demand for homes with an EPC rating of A was up by 22% in July this year compared to July 2025.

Colleen Babcock, property expert at Rightmove, said: “A home's energy efficiency can influence buyer demand, how quickly it sells, and ultimately the price a buyer is willing to pay.

“We’re seeing stronger price performance among more energy-efficient homes, while properties with lower EPC ratings are seeing smaller price growth overall.”

EPCs were rolled out by the government from 2007 and provide a rating based on the energy efficiency of a property.

Homes are ranked from A (most efficient) to G (least efficient). The certificate also offers recommendations on how a home could be made more energy-efficient and the savings to be made implementing them.

For example, yours might tell you to add draught proofing around your property, or to install solar panels to lower your electricity bill.

Why do you need an Energy Performance Certificate?

EPCs are a legal requirement if you’re selling, renting or building a property.

You must order an EPC for potential buyers or tenants before putting a property on the market to sell or rent.

In Scotland, you must also display the EPC somewhere in the property, like next to the boiler. This rule doesn’t apply to homes in England, Wales or Northern Ireland.

EPCs are valid for 10 years so it’s worth checking if yours is coming up for renewal.

How do you get an Energy Performance Certificate?

You can check if your property has a valid EPC via gov.uk, by entering your postcode, street name and town, or EPC number.

The digital version of an EPC will tell you when it is due to expire, as well as the potential score you could achieve by making energy improvements.

The average energy rating in England and Wales is D (score of 60).

If your property and digital EPC does not appear after taking these steps, or your EPC has expired, you’ll need to pay for a new one from an accredited assessor. You can find one via gov.uk.

The cost of the assessment varies depending on the assessor and the size of your property. According to trade platform Checkatrade, you’ll typically pay £65 to £120.

After it has been done, the assessor should give you a digital copy of your certificate.

Can you get free or discounted EPCs?

You should check if you can get a free or discounted EPC through your bank, building society or energy firm.

• Skipton Building Society customers signed up to its membership scheme can get free EPCs.
• Lloyds Bank offers customers cashback and free EPCs if they make energy-saving home improvements like installing heat pumps, insulation and solar panels.
• Santander customers with a Santander mortgage or personal current account can get an EPC for £75.
• Buy-to-let lender Foundation offers free EPCs to customers buying qualifying mortgages.
• OVO Energy customers can get a Home Health Report carried out on their property, which includes an EPC, for £25.

How Energy Performance Certificate rules are changing

The government is set to launch a new framework meaning EPCs will have four cost metrics instead of one: energy cost, fabric performance, heating system and smart readiness.

The reforms were initially due to launch in October 2026, but have been delayed. They are currently set to be rolled out in the second half of 2027.

Separately, landlords must ensure all private rental properties have an EPC rating of C or above, from E currently, by 2030 under the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard (MEES).

However, they will have to ensure they meet the C rating under the new framework being rolled out from 2027.

Landlords will have to meet a C standard in the fabric performance metric. They can meet this by, for example, installing loft insulation, cavity wall insulation or double glazing.

They will then have to meet the C standard in either the heating systems or smart readiness metric. They can meet the heating systems metric by installing a heat pump or low-carbon heat network and the smart readiness metric by having solar panels or smart electric vehicle (EV) charge point.

It will be at the landlord’s discretion as to whether they choose to meet the heating systems or smart readiness metric.

When do you not need an Energy Performance Certificate?

You don’t need an EPC for any of the following:

• temporary buildings that will be used for less than two years;
• stand-alone buildings with total useful floor space of less than 50 square metres;
• industrial sites and workshops;
• buildings that are due to be demolished;
• holiday accommodation that’s rented out for less than four months a year;
• residential buildings intended to be used less than four months a year;
• places of worship.

Young savers could be missing out on lower fees and higher returns by leaving money in a child trust fund (CTF) rather than transferring into a Junior ISA (JISA).

CTFs were a tax-free savings account available to children who were between 1 September 2002 and 2 January 2011. These accounts were given a funding kickstart from the government with an initial deposit of £250. The idea was to build a savings habit for children early on, letting the accounts earn savings interest or invest in the stock market before they could access the funds at age 18.

CTFs were replaced by Junior ISAs in November 2011, pushing responsibility onto parents to set up their own savings for their children. This also made CTFS ‘zombie’ accounts as providers shifted their focus onto Junior ISA.

But millions of savers still hold CTFs. The oldest children on the scheme turned 18 in September 2020 and around three million accounts have matured since then.

Of these around 2,285,000 were claimed or automatically transferred to an ISA as of April 2025, while 758,000 CTFs have not been claimed.

Experts warn that those who still have money left in both ongoing and matured CTFs could be better off with a Junior ISA where there are wider range of fund options for investments and better rates for those who kept their money in interest accounts. Even the fees attached to investment accounts can be lower.

What's the difference between a Child Trust Fund and a Junior ISA?

Both CTFs and a Junior ISA aim to encourage people to start saving with tax-free cash and stocks and shares versions.

You can’t open a CTF anymore but they were offered by banks, building societies and asset managers. If you are a parent of a child who was eligible for a CTF but did nothing with the money, the government will have put it into a default account for you which you will have to track down – there is currently £1.6 billion sitting in unclaimed CTFs.

Similarly, Junior ISA are offered by banks and you can open a stocks and shares version with investment platforms such as Hargreaves Lansdown and AJ Bell.

The annual contribution limit of £9,000 is the same and both offer the same tax advantages with no UK income or capital gains tax to pay on any returns.

There are differences when it comes to account administration. Most Junior ISAs can be opened and managed online, while there may be CTFs where you can only make changes and find out details via the post or over the phone.

Since CTFs are no longer available, providers will also be putting greater resources into Junior ISAs, meaning the fund options for investment are also going to be bigger.

For both accounts, the money is locked away until the child turns 18, at which point they become the legal owner of those assets.

While Junior ISA become adult ISAs at maturity, CTFs don’t change and the money can just stagnate until action is taken, which is another reason to consider moving your money.

Other differences emerge when it comes to returns and charges.

Should you move a CTFS into a Junior ISA?

JISAs have more to offer than CTFs, says Alice Haine, head of personal finance for Hargreaves Lansdown.

“A child can only hold one CTF and switching between cash and investments may require a transfer to another provider.

"With a JISA, a child can hold both a cash Junior ISA and stocks and shares one simultaneously, with the savings limit split between the two as desired. So there can be benefits to transferring across.”

Money left in a cash CTF could be getting a poor return compared with JISAs as banks and building societies have little incentive to offer decent rates, plus the rate tends to drop after maturity.

High inflation could also mean the lower returns in a CTF mean you are losing money in real terms.

How do the returns on a Junior ISA compare with a CTF?

Product choice is wider when it comes to choosing a cash Junior ISA and returns can be slightly higher.

For example, savers in Yorkshire Building Society’s now-closed CTF are getting a rate of 3.65%, which drops to 2.35% at maturity.

An average CTF pot of £2,200 would earn £80 of interest in a year or £51.70 if it had already matured.

In contrast, Leek Building Society has a top cash JISA rate of 3.85%.

The typical £2,200 CTF pot would earn a little more interest at £84.70 in a cash Junior ISA in a year or around £30 more under a matured interest rate.

A bigger difference emerges if you are investing. This is where charges can hit your CTF returns harder compared with stocks and shares Junior ISA.

While cash CTFs don’t have charges, millions of investment accounts were opened on behalf of parents by HMRC as default stakeholder options - typically backing tracker funds - that had fees capped at 1.5% per year.

Charges can be lower for a Junior ISA plus there are typically wider investment options beyond UK trackers that were offered by CTFs.

A 1.5% fee is expensive for what's typically a basic UK tracker fund, says Antonia Medlicott, founder of Investing Insiders. “Over 15 years, the average fund in the Investment Association's global sector grew by around 240%, while stakeholder CTF returns tracked closer to the far more modest bond and mixed-investment sector averages.

“That's two decades of compounding working against these children rather than for them.”

A modern Junior ISA can cost as little as 0.15% to 0.35% depending on the investment platform before underlying fund charges.

”This isn't a marginal saving, it's the difference between a fund that's barely kept pace with inflation and one that's actually done its job.”

How to transfer a CTF to a Junior ISA

Once you find the best Junior ISA to transfer the funds to, you will need to complete a transfer form with the new provider.

The transfer can only be completed by the registered contact, usually the parent or the child once they turn 18.

You will need to provide details such as your child’s Unique Reference Number, which you’ll find this on your annual CTF statement as well as the details of the account type and the provider. If you have lost the details, you can use HMRC’s CTF finder at gov.uk.

A transfer can take between two to six weeks and some platforms may even pay cashback for moving money across. Not all providers let you transfer a CTF into a Junior ISA.

You cannot hold both, so the CTF must be transferred in full and closed. This means that before moving, parents should compare charges, investment choice, performance and any valuable existing features.

While Andy Burnham's government will be left looking at ways to cut its spending as costs continue to rise, one quick win could be to remove the triple lock pensions system which could save the Treasury £3.3 billion.

The triple lock pension system promises to increase state pension payments each year in line with either inflation, wage growth or 2.5% – whichever is higher.

The system was introduced back in 2010 by the Lib-Dem coalition government, and successive governments have since promised to keep it in place.

But, 16 years on, it is considered one of the most expensive measures in place, draining government finances.

The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), which represents more than 50,000 businesses in the UK, said the mechanism should instead rise in line with Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation each year.

The BCC is calling on the chancellor to address it in the Autumn Budget, arguing that the policy should be scrapped to fund a cut to employer National Insurance contributions (NICs) for businesses taking on younger workers.

Why should the government remove the triple lock?

The BCC said ditching the triple lock and uprating the state pension in line with the CPI would raise £3.3 billion for the Treasury over two years.

This money could instead be used to extend the existing zero rate of employer NICs to workers aged 21 to 24-years-old. This would lower costs for businesses employing entry-level staff and could get more young people into work.

Calculations by retirement firm Standard Life suggest had the state pension risen in line with inflation instead of wages in April 2026, those on a full new state pension would be £120 a year worse off.

In his first speech as chancellor, John Healey addressed the NEET crisis, which is young people ‘not in education, employment or training’.

With over one million young people labelled as NEETS, he acknowledged that the government and businesses had a moral duty to get young people into work.

Though, when asked about whether he would consider an alternative for the triple lock, Healey simply said he agreed that youth unemployment was an issue.

“We will outline our plans based on the outcomes and recommendations made by Alan Milburn," he said.

He made no comment about replacing the triple lock.

In a snapshot poll, 74% of MoneyWeek readers said they believed the triple lock was vital for pensioners while 22% agreed it was unfair and expensive.

In its submission to the Treasury, the BCC also proposed lowering energy costs and business rates for businesses while increasing support for firms wanting to export globally.

Shevaun Haviland, director general of the BCC, said: “Pro-growth choices have never been more important. The chancellor must use his first budget to cut the cost of doing business, allowing everyone to reap the economic benefits.

“Piling more taxes on firms, would be a road to ruin. The quickest way to destroy business confidence.”

Triple lock under pressure

The triple lock has been called into question by numerous think tanks in recent years, and now the BCC, due to its ever-increasing cost.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) projects the state pension will cost 9% of GDP by 2075/76, up from 5% now, in part due to an ageing population but also the cost of the triple lock.

But despite the soaring costs, policymakers are hesitant to touch the mechanism because it is so popular among voters, namely older ones.

Speaking on the recent MoneyWeek Talks podcast, Steve Webb, the former pension minister who was in place when the triple lock system was introduced, strongly defended the triple lock, saying it was there to do a job.

“The problem with that is if you earn and earn and then stop earning, then the thing you fall onto when you stop earning needs to be connected to some proportion of what you were earning. Otherwise, you just fall off a cliff and your standard of living crashes," Webb said.

"So, the state pension needs to be pegged to a proportion of what people are earning and for 30 years, [prior to the triple lock] that had not happened."

You can watch the full interview here - or listen to it on any podcast platform.

Most people in the UK have a pension of some kind, with 82% of employees contributing to a workplace pension. Those who don’t contribute to a pension but have still worked for most of their life should also be eligible for the state pension, under current rules.

Do you need to learn a bit more about how retirement funds work, or are you already a pensions expert? Test your knowledge in our quiz.

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

• How to set up a pension if you're self-employed
• How to boost your pension pot
• How much state pension will I get?

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For people retiring within the next 15 years who have not saved enough for their retirement – or even those who just want to protect and grow the pension pot they have – now is the time to confront the numbers.

More than half of UK adults (56%) say they feel hopeful or excited about retirement, according to new research from PensionBee from a survey of 1,000 UK adults in August 2026.

Yet this emotional optimism is rarely matched by financial certainty. Just 16% have both worked out how much they will need and feel confident they’re on track to reach their retirement goals. More than a third (38%) have no idea how much their desired retirement will cost.

Fifteen years might not feel like a long time when it comes to retirement planning, but it is certainly not too late to make a meaningful difference, Lily Megson-Harvey, policy director at My Pension Expert, said.

“The worst thing people can do is bury their heads in the sand because they are worried they have fallen behind.”

15 years from retirement? The first steps

To retire by 2041 with your finances in the best shape, the first step is to get a clear picture of where you stand. That means finding out what you have saved across all your pensions and ISAs, what income you might realistically need in retirement, and whether there is a gap between the two.

“From there, you can look at what is within your control, whether that means increasing contributions where affordable, making the most of employer pension contributions or reviewing when you plan to retire,” said Megson-Harvey.

1. Prioritise pension saving

Pension saving should still be the primary vehicle for retirement saving at this stage. This is because of the incredibly valuable tax relief at your marginal rate – where the government essentially tops up your contributions by 20%, 40% or 45%.

Compounded over 15 years, this additional boost can lead to substantial extra savings – with the growth inside a pension remaining free of capital gains tax and dividend tax.

2. Salary sacrifice – use it before you lose it

Those who benefit from pension salary sacrifice arrangements get the most benefit of all, with extra savings on National Insurance and often employer top-ups, Andrew King, pensions specialist at wealth management firm Evelyn Partners, said.

Salary sacrifice is set to be capped at quite a low level of £2,000 per year from April 2029, so those with access to such schemes might consider “frontloading” their workplace contributions in the next few years, potentially also directing any bonuses into the pension scheme, King pointed out.

“Not only will they get the tax benefits of salary sacrifice but those savings can still benefit from compounding effects over a period of 15 years, and more if the pot remains invested into retirement,” he added.

3. Inheritances can work harder in a pension

Increasingly, King is seeing people receive inheritances well into their fifties and sixties as parents live longer. If they’re funnelled into a pension at this critical stage, these lump sums can go a long way to securing a comfortable retirement.

“Anyone who comes into a lump sum can take advantage of the substantial annual allowance of £60,000 and even three years of carry forward to turbo-charge a pension pot,” said King.

You can’t pay more into a pension than you earn in the current tax year, though, so if that is limiting, a big lump sum could be drip-fed into a pot over a number of years.

Investment strategies to consider if you’re 15 years from retirement

Investment choices are a growing concern of pension holders in the private sector as the vast majority are now saving into defined contribution workplace schemes – where the saver bears all the investment risk.

“Many people automatically think they should reduce investment risk as retirement approaches. While that can feel more comfortable, 15 years is still a long enough period for a significant allocation to shares and other growth assets,” said Lisa Caplan, director of Charles Stanley direct advice and guidance.

Growth remains important because inflation steadily reduces spending power over time. A pound today will not buy the same amount in 15 years' time; the Bank of England inflation calculator shows £1 of goods and services in 2011 costs £1.52 today as inflation has compounded at an average of 2.8% since then.

With one eye on growing your pot and the other on protecting it, an investment approach that can work well is the ‘three bucket’ strategy, said Caplan.

1. The first bucket contains long-term investments that are intended to remain invested for many years and focus primarily on growth.
2. The second bucket holds investments that aim to provide a mix of income and modest growth. This can act as a bridge between your long-term investments and your spending needs.
3. The third bucket holds cash and cash-like investments that can be used to fund withdrawals to cover your regular spending.

“The biggest mistake I see is becoming too cautious too early,” Caplan said. “With 15 years to go, investors still have time to recover from market setbacks and benefit from long-term growth.”

Another common pitfall is reacting emotionally to market falls. “Investors often move into cash after markets decline but then struggle to decide when to invest again. As a result, they miss part of the recovery and risk seeing their money lose value in real terms because of inflation,” Caplan said.

15 years from retirement – fund and investment trust ideas

With a 15 year time horizon, equities and bonds will still form the basis of most savers’ portfolios. But those in workplace pensions should check they are in an appropriate fund.

For instance, “lifestyling funds” will gradually switch you almost entirely into lower-risk bonds from age 50 or 55 – which can be far too soon, and cause investors to miss out on substantial gains.

Rob Morgan, chief investment analyst at Charles Stanley Direct, said for those happy to maintain an adventurous approach, a good-sized proportion of global equity exposure “makes sense”.

His top picks are:

1. JOHCM Global Opportunities fund

This offers a balanced share portfolio focused on durable businesses with strong balance sheets and consistent cash generation, he said, “which makes it worth considering as a core holding”, said Morgan.

“It can work on its own for those leaning towards being a bit more conservative, or alongside a passive strategy such as a global tracker fund or ETF such as Fidelity Index World or iShares Core MSCI World UCITS ETF,” he added.

2. RIT Capital Partners investment trust

With this investment horizon, Morgan also said it’s worth considering a multi asset approach that spreads risk across various asset classes. “RIT Capital Partners investment trust offers a ‘one stop shop’ across a wide spectrum of assets including selected shares and specialist externally managed funds,” he said.

Troy Trojan fund

For those wanting to keep things more conservative, Troy Trojan fund takes a flexible approach to preserving the real value of wealth against the ravages of inflation, said Morgan.

“This involves blending solid and reliable global companies with diversifying assets such as inflation-linked bonds and gold. The strategy is also available in Personal Assets Investment Trust for those that would prefer to buy shares rather than fund units.”

Don’t forget the power of passive

For those who want a more hands off approach, passive index investing can offer a neat solution – and one that has been endorsed by one of the most famous names in the finance world.

In 2013 Warren Buffett instructed the trustee managing his wife’s inheritance to put 90% of the cash into a low-cost S&P 500 index fund and just 10% into short-term government bonds.

The allocation decision underscores a broader investing lesson that diversification, low fees and long-term market exposure can matter more for building and preserving wealth than complicated portfolios or attempts to repeatedly beat the market.

New chancellor John Healey has laid out the principles of his economic policy, saying he will stick to the existing fiscal rules and seek to control public spending while trying to boost growth in Britain.

Healey emphasised his commitment to fiscal discipline and stimulating growth in his first major speech in his new position, delivered at a manufacturing plant in Coventry on 7 September.

The cost of borrowing was a major focus. Gilt yields reached record highs last week with the yield on 10-year UK government bonds (gilts) rising above 5.29% on 2 September, the highest level for 19 years.

"Staying true to our values means being honest about the need to control government spending,” Healey said.

He noted that government debt as a share of GDP has soared from 64% in 2009 to almost 100% today and placed the blame at the foot of successive Conservative governments.

He said borrowing costs were around the G7 average until the Truss budget “crashed the economy [...] Since 2022 we have been paying that Truss penalty as we battle to re-establish belief in Britain.”

“There's nothing progressive about the government spending £1 in £10 on debt interest,” he added.

Healey also sought to reassure markets that he will not let borrowing get out of control or ignore Britain’s self-imposed fiscal rules, saying: “On my first day in the Treasury I said fiscal discipline was my first priority as chancellor.

“It underwrites every promise this government makes and the Prime Minister and I are in lockstep in our commitment to meeting the fiscal rules at the upcoming budget: to balancing the books, with a buffer to protect against uncertainty, to controlling borrowing to bear down on inflation and reducing long term pressures on our public finances.

“This isn’t about lines on a graph, or numbers on a spreadsheet. It’s a matter of values.”

What will happen in the Budget?

As Healey’s speech was mostly in broad strokes, he did not provide specifics on what new policies may be announced in the Budget and refused to answer any questions about it.

Responding to questions from journalists on the subject, Healey said: “If I respond to speculation now that will only fuel more speculation. Every chancellor would say ‘that’s for the Budget’, and I will set out my plans and the future route for the government for this country at that Budget.”

Although we will have to wait for a full economic plan, Healey did make some broad announcements.

On devolution he said: “At the Budget, I will set out a roadmap to fiscal devolution, a permanent transfer of power and resources from Whitehall to our regions, with greater business rates retention for local councils and strategic authorities, grants from central government replaced by a share of local income tax for every mayoral strategic authority beginning in 2028.”

He also made a new commitment to reduce the regulatory burden on businesses by 25% before the end of this parliament in 2029 by taking “an axe to the thicket of consultation, litigation and administration that has a stranglehold too often on private investment.”

The chancellor also said he will make changes to the Treasury Green Book, the guidance on how to evaluate public spending, to skew investment into projects with “more long-term potential.”

Meanwhile, the way the government decides where to invest will start to include “economic potential analysis” in business case decisions to judge regions not on their current state, but on what they could become in the future.

Will taxes rise in the Autumn Budget?

Although Healey did not directly address whether or not taxes will be hiked in his first budget, he stood by the 2024 Labour manifesto which he said made “very strong, very clear, very specific" commitments on tax.

That manifesto pledged that none of the ‘big three’ taxes – income tax, national insurance, and VAT – would be raised on ‘working people’, ruling out the possibility that these taxes will rise.

However, these commitments still leave the door open for alternative tax hikes. For example, Rachel Reeves emphasised this same commitment in her first two budgets but still raised taxes in alternative ways.

Average UK house prices fell 0.4% in the year to August 2026, with prices down 0.2% over the previous month, according to Lloyds Bank.

The average UK property price dropped from £299,569 a year ago to £298,468, according to Lloyds’ latest house price index (HPI).

Prices fell during the month of August from an average of £299,153 in July.

It is the first time annual house price growth has trended negatively since November 2023, according to Lloyds’ data, and comes amid rising mortgage rates and lack of demand in the market.

Mortgage rates have ticked up in recent months as lenders have passed on higher wholesale costs to consumers due to the conflict in the Middle East.

The average two-year fixed-rate deal is 5.63% as of 7 September, up from 4.83% on 27 February, according to data firm Moneyfacts, the day before the US first launched airstrikes on Iran.

Andrew Assam, mortgages director at Lloyds, said the housing market was being stifled by these higher mortgage costs and sellers holding out for higher offers.

“The housing market has faced a more difficult backdrop in recent months, with the impact of global events on inflation and borrowing costs creating greater economic uncertainty,” said Assam.

“What we're not seeing is a rush of homeowners cutting prices. But more are choosing to sit tight, with sellers reluctant to accept offers they feel are too low, while some buyers are waiting to see how conditions develop. As a result, fewer homes are changing hands.”

North-South divide remains

There continues to be a strong regional divide when it comes to how well house prices are performing, according to Lloyds.

House prices in Northern Ireland were up 6.9% in the year to August, with the average property price now sitting at £231,245.

Scotland also continues to see strong growth, with prices rising 3.5% to an average of £223,437. Property values in Wales rose by 0.6% in the year to August to £230,282.

The North East and North West regions of England also saw positive movement, recording respective annual rises of 2.7% (£184,370) and 2.0% (£248,675).

In contrast, the story is much less positive across southern England and London.

The average house price in the South East fell by 1.6% in the year to August to £381,729, followed by Greater London where the average property value dropped by 1.5% to £534,177 over the same time period.

The South West and Eastern England both recorded annual house price declines of 1.2%, with average house prices now sitting at £298,807 and £331,410, respectively.

Jonathan Hopper, chief executive officer of search agent Garrington Property Finders, said a glut of supply in London and the South East of England was “attracting too few serious buyers” which was dragging prices down.

Hopper added: “High property values in these areas mean that many buyers need a large mortgage in order to afford the home they want, and the jump in interest rates over recent months has squeezed the amount they can afford.

“This has made buyers highly price-sensitive. As a result many are asking for, and getting, reductions on the prices of properties that have been on the market for a while.”

In contrast, the market was more “free-flowing” in northern England and Scotland, Hopper said, “with prices there still ticking up amid more balanced supply and demand”.

What could come next for house prices?

Activity in the housing market tends to slow in the summer and tick back up in the autumn, increasing demand and sellers’ opportunity to drive a higher asking price.

Tom Bill, head of UK residential research at estate agent Knight Frank, said that whether or not that trend played out this year will depend on any pre-Budget speculation and how the conflict in the Middle East, and any possible inflationary impact, unfolds.

Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at investment platform AJ Bell, added: “If the market grinds to a halt and prices remain depressed, it will make life even tougher.

“It’s difficult to muster enthusiasm for a purchase when you’re faced with having to pay higher monthly mortgage costs for a house that could lose value. It means more buyers are likely to sit tight.

“At that point there’s a decent chance that the market could suffer even more. We could see more widespread falls, as sellers are forced to cut prices. Alternatively, we could see the property market stall entirely, as nobody is prepared to blink.”

Bonds are central to the global financial system, and when their yields rise it can have a significant impact on your finances.

Bond yields – the amount that bonds pay in interest as a percentage of their price – are reaching all-time highs.

In August, yields on 30-year US government bonds (Treasuries) rose to over 5.3% , the highest level since June 2007. The yield on 10-year UK government bonds (gilts) rose above 5.29% on 2 September, the highest level for 19 years.

While higher yields might sound l positive, they actually reflect falling bond prices and a lack of confidence in the bond’s issuer’s ability to meet payment obligations.

In the case of gilts, when yields rise, the market price of existing gilts fall, making them less attractive for investors. Rising bond yields will also make any debt you hold more expensive, and could lead to tax hikes.

That said, from a macroeconomic standpoint, it could be argued that higher bond yields are necessary.

“One argument is that the rise in bond yields is not bad news, but good news, because it is a logical result of healthy economic growth rates,” said Russ Mould, investment director at investment platform AJ Bell. “It may also represent a return to normality after the crazy days of the 2010s and early 2020s, when headline interest rates and benchmark bond yields were near zero. That implied a cost of money, and time, of almost zero, which made little real sense.”

Why are bond yields rising

The current bond sell-off is being driven by several factors: in part including the threat of higher inflation due to the ongoing Middle East conflict, as well as the increased likelihood of central banks hiking interest rates in order to combat this inflation.

“Markets are now pricing in three hikes from the Bank of England over the next year,” said Matthew Amis, investment director, rates management at Aberdeen Investments. “Gilt yields look elevated here but until oil and gas start freely moving in the Straits of Hormuz, gilt yields are going to struggle.”

At the same time, bond markets are spooked by escalating levels of government debt. US government debt recently passed $40 trillion; in 2025, US government debt was already over 123% of the country’s GDP.

Oliver Faizallah, head of fixed income research at wealth manager Raymond James, attributes the bond yield spike specifically to US Federal Reserve (Fed) chair Kevin Warsh’s recent comments at the central bank’s Jackson Hole Economic Symposium on 28 August.

“We received no new information in the form of new macroeconomic data points, however a firmly hawkish tone from Warsh was enough to move markets,” said Faizallah. Warsh pointed to the strength of the US economy as well as his commitment to bringing inflation below the Fed’s 2% target.

“This resulted in markets pricing in more than two hikes by the Fed over the next 12 months,” said Faizallah.

How are bond prices, inflation and interest rates linked?

Bonds are sensitive to inflation. The amount that a bond pays to its holder is fixed in nominal terms (which is why bonds are referred to as ‘fixed income’), so if inflation rises, the real value of the bond to its holder falls. When bond prices fall, yields rise.

Bonds are also sensitive to interest rates – the rate of interest that central banks, like the Bank of England, pay to banks and other financial institutions that deposit money with them. Higher rates typically mean lower bond prices and higher yields, particularly on short-dated bonds, and these are the ones that have the biggest impact on mortgage and cash savings rates.

When anyone borrows money – be it the government or a couple buying a property – they have to offer the lender a better return than they would get by depositing their money at the central bank. So interest rates directly impact bond prices; when they rise, the cost of borrowing rises for everyone – governments, businesses and individuals.

What higher bond yields mean for your personal finances

Higher borrowing costs will have impacts across your finances.

“Credit card, mortgage and auto loan interest rates will rise if bond yields rise, as the lenders seek to preserve loan book margins and manage their risk,” said AJ Bell’s Mould.

Worryingly, higher bond yields could also lead, indirectly, to higher taxes. High gilt yields mean that the UK government is paying more interest on its debt. That will limit what chancellor John Healey can do when he announces the Autumn Budget in October.

The government’s fiscal rules prevent it from borrowing money to pay for day-to-day spending, and require debt to be falling as a share of the economy by 2030; any increase in current borrowing costs will have to be made up for with higher tax take.

On the other hand, higher interest rates would mean that you earned more money as interest on savings and cash.

How do higher bond yields impact the stock market?

Higher bond yields can also have a large impact on the stock market.

When professional (and some more sophisticated amateur) investors estimate the present value of an investment, they will do so by comparing the future returns they expect from it to current bond yields (in other words, the alternative ‘safe’ investment they could make instead). This is known as a discounted cash flow model.

The higher bond (and especially gilt) yields rise, the less appealing, in relative terms, a stock whose price is based on years worth of future returns becomes. Why take the risk on a company which could fail if you can make good returns with less risk in the bond market?

Higher bond yields could therefore mean “lower theoretical equity valuations, especially for companies whose strongest years of profit and cash generation may be some time in the future, such as technology and biotechnology companies”, said Mould.

“For now, higher bond yields are not unduly inconveniencing the FTSE 100, which still trades close to all-time highs, within touching distance of the 11,000 mark and up by more than 100% from the Covid-19 lows of March 2020,” Mould continued. “But in the end, weight stops trains and racehorses and higher returns on cash and fixed-income securities slow down stock markets – it is a matter of degree.”

Mould added that if the Bank of England hikes interest rates or if bond yields rise further, the UK’s stock market could start to struggle. “In a worst case: earnings growth could take a hit if higher borrowing costs cool consumer spending and corporate investment; takeovers could dry up if the cost of any debt used to fund them means such deals are no longer attractive; and higher yields on bonds make the yield on equities look less appealing.”

Should you invest in bonds?

Bond prices are falling; the returns you’re making on them (the yield) is rising, so is this a good time to buy bonds?

The issue is always one of risk. With corporate bonds, the risk is that the company you’re buying the bond from might default.

Government bonds in a developed economy like the UK would almost certainly never default on its debt. It is more likely to print money – thereby devaluing the currency – in order to meet its obligations. That means the main risk with government bonds is inflation.

Raymond James’s Faizallah believes that, while the recent bond sell-off isn’t unwarranted, it means the risks to bonds are now priced in.

“As it stands, bond yields are priced for higher and prolonged second round inflation, consequent central bank hikes, and further government spending driven by an increase in bond sales,” he said. “With the bad news in the price, there is a limitation to how much further bond yields can keep climbing.”

By the time you reach your 70s, you may well already be retired, or at least thinking about it carefully. But does hitting your 70s mean you need to change your investing strategy or stop investing altogether?

While it is never too late, there are some important considerations to take into account when managing your investments in your 70s.

“While your working life may be coming to an end, your investing runway still has decades left to run, so don't ever feel like you've been aged out of investing,” said Darius McDermott, managing director at broker Chelsea Financial Services. “When you're relying on your portfolio for income, capital preservation and diversification have never mattered more.”

Adjusting your investment strategy to potentially reduce the risk can be a good idea.

Younger investors have decades for their investments to recover from stock market shocks that causes their portfolio to fall over the short term. But, If you’re in your 70s, you may not have that luxury: a steep cut to your portfolio value could seriously hamper your retirement plans.

So managing your risk is one of the most important considerations for investing in your 70s.

There are various ways you can limit the risks you’re taking without having to sacrifice potential capital growth.

Investing in your 70s: equities or bonds?

A key decision for any investor to make, regardless of age, is how much should they allocate to equities (stocks and shares) or fixed income (bonds).

Because bonds are often considered safer than equities, older investors tend to hold a larger proportion of their portfolio in the asset class. Some people subtract their age from 100 and allocate the resulting percentage of their portfolio to risk assets, such as equities, and the rest to safer assets like bonds.

So, for example, if you are 75, you might put 75% of your assets into bonds.

This still means that a quarter of your portfolio is exposed to the potential rewards of stock market gains, but the majority of it is reasonably protected in the event of a stock market crash.

This strategy isn’t foolproof though as bonds are not entirely risk-free. Bond markets and equity markets have also been relatively closely-correlated in recent years, meaning that both could crash at once.

So rather than allocating that 75% exclusively to bonds, it might make sense to consider it as a bucket to allocate to less risky assets in a broad sense. This could include commodities, certain defensive stocks, wealth preservation funds or even cash. Some top saving accounts pay as much as 5%. Alternatively, money market funds are a popular way to invest as they offer a low risk option – similar to cash, but the return can potentially be higher.

However, the impact of inflation means that playing it too safe can be a bad idea. “As inflation stays elevated, the cost of keeping your hard-earned savings in cash only grows, and while interest rates look attractive today, it would be unwise to bet your entire retirement income on them staying that way,” said Chelsea Financial Services’s McDermott.

Should you invest in defensive stocks in your 70s?

You don’t necessarily need to abandon stocks entirely in your 70s, but it pays to consider exactly what kinds of stocks and shares you’re buying.

For the most part, you’ll likely want to concentrate either on defensive sectors, value stocks, or income stocks (there is some overlap between all three of these).

Defensive sectors

Defensive sectors are those which tend to perform about as well during an economic downturn as during growth periods. Consumer staples, healthcare and utilities are three good examples: people don’t spend significantly less on shampoo, medicine or their water bill when the economy is doing badly, compared to when it is doing well, so stocks in these sectors tend to hold up well during a downturn.

Infrastructure stocks can also play a defensive role in portfolios as infrastructure companies tend to have fairly predictable income streams which can rise in line with inflation.

“A good satellite option is an infrastructure fund,” said McDermott. “First Sentier Global Listed Infrastructure rounds things out with inflation-linked income from real assets like toll roads and utilities, diversifying away from traditional bonds and dividends.”

Income stocks

If you’re approaching or are already in retirement, the income you generate from your investments is key, as this could well form the bulk of your spending money.

Income isn’t just about funding your retirement; it can form an integral part of growing your portfolio’s value.

James Lowen, co-portfolio manager of J O Hambro UK Equity Income, makes the case that income stocks could be preferable to bonds, because of the potential for dividend growth.

“In fixed income coupons [the amount that a bond pays its holder in interest] are flat; they don’t grow,” he said. In the equity market, on the other hand, dividends do tend to grow – and this counteracts the impact of inflation eroding returns from fixed income investments.

“When choosing between equities and fixed income, [it’s important] to understand one grows, one is flat in nominal terms,” said Lowen.

Value stocks

Whatever kind of stocks you’re buying, it’s important to pay attention to the price if you’re investing in your 70s (and, arguably, at any age).

“When you buy a stock… your starting valuation has a big determinant of what you ultimately make,” said Lowen.

Buying stocks that are trading at high multiples compared to their fundamentals can leave you exposed to higher losses if market confidence turns.

On the other hand, buying stocks at lower valuations can offer some protection against downside losses, and also potentially offers greater room for gains.

“If you pay a full price, where’s your upside?” says Lowen. Buying value stocks "protects your downside and creates your upside optionality”.

Can commodities protect your wealth in your 70s?

Commodities can offer some diversification from equities, which can protect your investments in your 70s. While bonds can become correlated with equities, this is less true of certain commodities; the climate is often a bigger driver of agricultural commodity prices than the business cycle, for example.

On the whole, though, “commodities are cyclical and volatile, tracking economic growth closely”, said McDermott.

Gold, for example, has become more correlated with equities this year, since gold prices and the stock market have both become especially sensitive to interest rate expectations.

“Higher real yields also make gold less attractive, especially for anyone relying on portfolio income, since gold pays none,” said McDermott.

Meanwhile, industrial metals like silver and copper are closely linked to the business cycle as both metals have substantial industrial applications, so demand tends to rise when economic activity is higher.

Which funds could make good investments in your 70s?

“When you’re choosing funds, you’ve got to understand what their track record is on income growth,” said J O Hambro’s Lowen. His fund invests in UK equities with the potential to grow income over the long term; the fund is forecast to yield 4.15% in 2026. It has achieved a 9% compound annual dividend growth rate over the 21 years since its inception, meaning it would have yielded 29% in 2025 based on the initial unit price.

You could also select City of London Investment Trust (LON:CTY) which has raised its dividend every year for 59 consecutive years – the longest record of annual dividend increases for any investment trust.

McDermott highlighted Capital Gearing Trust (LON:CGT) as an investment trust heavily focused on capital preservation, which has delivered a positive return in 42 of the past 44 years while aiming never to lose money.

“Absolute return funds are another option worth considering, using both long and short positions across companies to smooth returns and cushion against market falls,” said McDermott. “Here we like Janus Henderson Absolute Return and SVS RM Defensive Capital.”

Multi-asset funds can also offer exposure across several asset classes in a single holding: McDermott singles out Orbis Global Cautious and Jupiter Merlin Income Portfolio as lower-volatility options.

And to add bonds – which McDermott calls “the traditional ballast of any portfolio” – McDermott recommends TwentyFour Dynamic Bond, or Artemis Global High Yield Bond as a higher-yielding option.

Private landlords are increasingly looking to leave the rental market, including investors rethinking the buy-to-let property part of their later life income strategy. Offloading a buy-to-let portfolio in retirement may be the right decision, but experts have said it takes some careful planning to do right.

A total of 2.86 million unincorporated landlords declared income from renting property in 2023 to 2024, according to government figures, but many could be considering putting property on the market.

Around 40% of landlords in a recent survey by the website Property118 said they were intending to sell one or more of their properties in the next three years, with 27% of the 2,096 landlords asked planning to exit completely.

Why are landlords selling up?

Many of today’s retiring landlords entered the market in a very different regulatory environment and built portfolios during what was a golden era for private landlords. The landscape today looks very different.

“Higher taxes, mortgage interest restrictions, increased regulation, Making Tax Digital requirements and evolving tenant protections, including the gradual removal of Section 21 powers, have significantly increased both the cost and complexity of being a landlord,” said Isabella Galliers-Pratt, senior investment director at Rathbones.

The balance has shifted away from smaller private landlords towards larger, professional operators that are better placed to absorb these costs.

“Property can still provide a valuable source of regular income and a degree of inflation protection over the long term,” said Galliers-Pratt.

“However, landlords approaching retirement should assess whether those benefits adequately compensate them for the ongoing administrative burden, maintenance costs, regulatory obligations and tenant management responsibilities.”

Should I sell my buy-to-let portfolio?

For retirees, the key question is whether property remains the most efficient way of generating income in retirement.

“Many investors are surprised to find a diversified investment portfolio can offer greater liquidity and flexibility, while also providing comparable, and in some cases higher, levels of net income,” said Galliers-Pratt.

For many retirees, the decision to sell is more about simplifying their finances and reducing the demands on their time.

Matthew Beck, chartered financial planner at Smith & Pinching, said: “The hassle and cost of being a landlord is increasing, and in many areas yields are falling. Once you strip out tax, costs and the time it takes to run a portfolio properly, the actual returns many landlords get are a lot tighter than they look on paper.”

When helping clients in this position, he always starts with the same exercise: working out their real yield after tax, fees and maintenance, and comparing that figure to what the same capital could realistically do elsewhere.

“The answer is often an eye-opener,” said Beck. “This isn't a case for selling everything overnight, but it's a useful starting point in plotting a course that’s right for them.”

How to sell a buy-to-let property portfolio in retirement

If you’re a landlord who’s already weighing up an exit from buy-to-lets, the number of properties you own matters.

Selling an entire portfolio in one go to another investor can offer speed and ease, but as it involves selling to someone who's looking for a deal, the price you get is unlikely to be full market value.

Likewise selling a property with tenants in situ narrows your buyer pool to other buy-to-let investors, and this can make it harder to achieve a top price.

Selling a vacant property increases the pool of potential buyers and this could help you get a better price, said Beck, “but you need to weigh that against the gap in rental income you’ll have while it's empty”.

The supply of homes for sale outweighs buyer demand in some regions at present, so be prepared for it to take several months to sell.

Tax is the other thing to think about, and you should get proper advice before you decide to sell, not after.

Capital gains tax on residential property is charged at 18% within the basic rate band and 24% above it, and everyone gets a £3,000 annual exempt amount. Married couples and civil partners who own property jointly can combine this amount, meaning the first £6,000 would be CGT-free.

Any gain has to be reported and paid within 60 days of completion, which catches people out if they haven't planned for it.

Chartered financial planner Beck gave the example of one of his clients – a couple in their mid-70s with four buy-to-let properties worth a combined £1 million. Their portfolio brings in roughly £45,000 a year in gross rent.

“On paper that sounds healthy, but it's actually less than they need to enjoy this stage of their retirement,” he said. “They've told me they feel limited by having to live on what the rent brings in each month, and are ready to sell up.”

“Our aim is to bring down their tax burden and give them more money to spend in the years they actually want to spend it, while keeping the rest invested sensibly, rather than sitting idle,” said Beck.

The other thing landlords should factor in now is timing. In April 2027, rental income tax rates will rise by two percentage points across the board, which will squeeze the returns you make on BTL even further. “That's not a reason to panic sell, but it is a reason to re-run the numbers to see how it will affect you,” Beck said.

“My advice to any landlord is: don't rush it, get proper tax advice before you do anything, and think as hard about what the money is for once it's freed up as you do about the sale itself."

Selling a buy-to-let portfolio checklist

Saif Derzi, property trading expert at Landlord Resource, said there are a few key things for landlords to consider before selling up.

1. In England, the tenant position is particularly important in 2026. Since 1 May, landlords have been unable to use Section 21 to seek possession of their property. If a landlord wants to sell and needs possession, they can use Ground 1A, but they only do this after the tenant has lived in the property for 12 months and the landlord has given them four months’ notice.
2. Selling a property portfolio should be based on whether the property is still delivering after mortgage costs, maintenance, insurance, management, tax, and the landlord's own time to justify the work and concentration of risk involved.
3. For someone entering retirement, compare the buy-to-let portfolio's net income with the income they could potentially generate from the net capital released by selling up, for example, if the money were invested instead.
4. Landlords won't necessarily need to sell everything. Disposing of the least profitable, most highly leveraged, or most management-intensive properties can be a way of releasing capital while retaining some rental income.
5. Look at the whole cost and process of selling, rather than just the asking price. Get a realistic valuation and check the mortgage balance, any early repayment charges, and the likely selling costs.

Investors pumped £278 million into funds in July, but sold off billions of pounds of equities amid domestic political uncertainty and global volatility.

While some investors were spooked, fund flows narrowly remained positive according to the latest data from the Investment Association, an industry body representing the UK’s investment managers.

Although on balance investors were confident in July, with more money invested than cashed out, the month’s figures are a sharp drop from the £3.6 billion inflow recorded in June.

In particular, investors continued to sell off their equities in July, with the asset class having outflows of £2.1 billion amid the continuing war between the US and Iran.

The UK saw the largest fund outflows in July as retail investors took a collective £1.6 billion out of British equities, the highest figure since January 2025. Overall net outflows from the UK were £1.3 billion across all asset classes.

This was likely a result of political uncertainty at home as Andy Burnham ousted Keir Starmer as prime minister, leading investors to take a more cautious stance as they waited to see the new premier’s plans for the country.

While equities fell out of vogue in July, more retail investors turned to fixed income amid the global and domestic uncertainty, with net flows in the month reaching £863 million, the fourth consecutive month of inflows for the asset class.

Miranda Seath, director of market insight & fund sectors at the Investment Association, said: “As domestic and geopolitical uncertainty grows, July saw modest net retail sales of £278 million and a six-month low for gross sales at £30.1 billion, a sharp decline to the inflows experienced in H1.

“The composition of flows points to more cautious positioning, with investors continuing to favour fixed income and mixed asset funds while stepping back from equities.

“While July’s uncertainty has led to muted flows, this month’s data suggests that many investors are not withdrawing from markets altogether, but are remaining selective and continuing to seek diversified, lower-cost exposure alongside more defensive allocations.”

What did Brits invest in in July?

The asset class with the largest inflows in July was fixed income, with £863 million placed in it.

Government bonds were the most popular fixed income investment (£333 million), followed by strategic bonds (£319 million), mixed bonds (£181 million), and specialist bonds (£122 million).

Mixed asset investments had the second-largest inflows of £733 million, followed by miscellaneous other investments (£589 million), and money markets (£206 million).

On the other hand, property saw minor outflows of £0.05 million, while equities saw the highest outflows of £2.1 billion.

While British retail investors sold off investments in their home country, they kept investing in America.

North America funds had the largest retail inflows during July, as Brits poured £192 million into them. This was followed by global funds (£50 million), and Europe funds (£23 million).

UK funds saw the largest outflows, as a massive £1.6 billion was taken out of British funds. Seath suggested the outflows were a result of the political uncertainty in Britain.

“Investors will be looking ahead to the new Government’s first Autumn Budget and the forthcoming 10-year plan for Britain in order to inform investment decisions based on the direction of economic, tax and investment policy, particularly in light of renewed inflationary pressure further tightening the UK’s fiscal headroom.”

Overall Asia funds had the second-largest outflows of £97 million, followed by Japan funds with outflows of £81 million.

Will net inflows turn to net outflows?

While investor sentiment has been buoyant so far this year, with net flows not turning negative for all of 2026 despite geopolitical headwinds, how long will the optimism last?

Not for long, seems to be the answer as investor confidence fell sharply in August, according to Boring Money’s index.

The index fell 12% from 52 to 46 in August as investors became increasingly pessimistic about both the UK and global economy after an optimistic June and July.

Meanwhile, 29% of investors say they are planning to move more investments into cash over the next six months, according to the research, indicating we could see more money taken out of the stock market in the remainder of 2026.

Holly Mackay, CEO of Boring Money, said: “June and July were positive months as investors reacted well to the memo of understanding ending the Iran conflict and closer to home, Burnham enjoyed a brief honeymoon period. However August’s data show a less positive mindset as investors exhibit lower confidence in both local and global economies and report plans to move more to cash and to invest less.

“Continued geopolitical turmoil, higher energy bills, early thoughts on the upcoming October Budget, and assumed tax hikes coupled with looming higher interest rates are weighing on investors who are a lot more bearish than they were in the summer.”

Buyers are returning to the UK housing market, but with a glut of stock available sellers will need to do all they can to shift their homes.

In its latest house price index, property portal Zoopla said searches on its website in July 2026 were 7% higher than July last year.

However, supply is outstripping demand. Zoopla said there were 5% more homes for sale on its portal in July 2026 compared to the same month in 2025.

Separately, property website Rightmove said the supply of homes on the market in July 2026 was close to a 12-year high.

Some estate agents believe we’re now firmly in a “buyer’s market” – defined as a period of high supply versus lower demand.

Why are we in a buyer’s market?

Tom Bill, head of UK residential research at estate agent Knight Frank, believes “uncertainty” is one of the biggest reasons we're in a buyer’s market.

He said fluctuating mortgage rates caused by the Iran conflict, speculation in the run up to last year’s Autumn Budget and fears over what could be announced in the upcoming Budget have dented demand and caused transactions to slow.

According to HMRC, there were 96,710 UK residential transactions in July 2026, 1% lower than July 2025 and 2% lower than June 2026.

“Things have been a bit stop-start over the last 12 months…and it’s causing buyers to hesitate and to think twice,” Bill said.

“There’s less speculation around this year than there was last year, but people are expecting more taxes on wealth and assets to come in the [2026] Budget because the government has a fairly limited room for manoeuvre.”

Meanwhile, a glut of flats are being put on the market.

Polly Ogden Duffy, managing director of estate agents John D Wood, said some of these flats were being sold by landlords leaving the buy-to-let market, in part, due to the Renters’ Rights Act coming into effect in May 2026 and an increasing tax burden.

Some 93,000 landlords exited the buy-to-let sector in 2025, with another 110,000 forecast to leave in 2026, according to lender Black and White Bridging.

“There are so many reasons today for landlords to not enter the buy-to-let market than perhaps five years ago,” Ogden Duffy said.

She also said homebuyers keen to swerve paying stamp duty twice may be sidestepping smaller apartments, which could be increasing the supply of flats in the market.

“[Buyers are] trying to avoid buying a one-bedroom flat and perhaps buying a bigger flat or a small house as their first purchase.”

High service charges and stagnant flat price growth in recent years were giving buyers extra reasons not to buy flats, Ogden Duffy said.

What could Andy Burnham do to help sellers?

Prime minister Andy Burnham ruled out scrapping stamp duty back in July, but experts say this would be one of the best ways to incentivise homebuyers and increase demand.

David Hollingworth, associate director at the broker L&C Mortgages, said: “Although we are in a more stable period [with mortgage rates]...stamp duty is a big cost that people will see as money to nothing, and it’s just another barrier to whether they should move.”

Scrapping stamp duty could help unlock some of the £5.5 trillion worth of UK housing wealth and galvanise the market, according to wealth manager Rathbones.

Their research suggests ditching the tax would lead to a further 300,000 housing transactions per year.

Ogden Duffy said even if the government didn’t want to scrap stamp duty completely, increasing the thresholds at which it is paid would stimulate the market somewhat.

Others have called for further solutions. Last month, Jason Honeyman, chief executive of property developer Bellway, said the government should introduce a deposit support scheme for first-time buyers to stimulate demand.

What can homeowners do to sell their homes?

Pricing your property accurately is one of the most important things you can do as a seller in the current market, Ogden Duffy said.

“If you are not pricing your property below your competition, you have to accept that you may not sell,” she added.

Recent research by Zoopla found 44% of UK homeowners listing properties for sale in the past three years didn’t sell them, with 34% of this group admitting they had priced their home too high.

Ogden Duffy said if you can’t afford to take the financial hit of a lower asking price, you could rent your property out – with so many landlords leaving the market, rents are being driven up, which offers an opportunity.

Average UK monthly private rent increased by 3.7% to £1,393 in the 12 months to July 2026, according to the ONS.

What if you don’t want to be a landlord or drop your asking price?

If you don’t want to drastically reduce your asking price and aren’t keen on renting the property out, there are other steps you can take to boost your home’s chance of selling.

Ogden Duffy said: “First impressions count, so in this day and age I wouldn’t be using an estate agent unless they had a professional photographer…a really good photographer is going to present your property in the best possible light, and [they] aren’t just taking photos.

“They can advise you to clear surfaces, help you reposition furniture [and] suggest times of day that would be better for light.”

Ogden Duffy also said listing your property on as many property portals as possible will increase your exposure, as will putting up a for sale board outside your home.

She recommended removing any “wildly eccentric” details from your home and trying to avoid being a seller in a chain of more than three people, which will increase the likelihood of delays that could lead to the chain collapsing.

Hollingworth said speaking to multiple estate agents for valuations can be useful when deciding what price to list your home at. For example, you could take all the valuations and work out what the average is.

He also said speaking to multiple agents can allow you to choose the one between all of them that is most enthusiastic about selling your home and will push for the best possible price.

High earners can now get £500 when switching to one of NatWest’s premier current accounts, which are tailored to the wealthy.

While the offer is one of the best bank switching deals on the market, it is only open to high earners and those with large savings or investments with NatWest.

You need either a minimum income of £100,000 a year (or £120,000 for a joint account), savings and investments of at least £100,000, or a NatWest mortgage of at least £500,000 to qualify for the Premier account.

The new switching offer runs from 2 September and has no fixed end date, but NatWest says it can be pulled at any time.

Tamara van den Ban, managing director of NatWest Premier Banking, said: “We’re here to help our customers feel confident about their money, so they can make the most of the lives they’ve worked hard to build – whether that’s planning for the future, protecting what matters most or experiencing more from life today.

“Our £500 welcome bonus is an invitation for new customers to experience the help and support we can provide.”

What is the NatWest Premier account?

There are three tiers of Premier accounts. The £500 bonus applies when an eligible person switches to any of them.

Customers on all tiers get access to a support service from NatWest’s financial experts who can provide guidance on managing your finances, including on starting investing, tax planning, and mortgages. You may need to pay additional fees for specialist and targeted guidance.

The lowest, free tier is Premier Select. It gives access to 24/7 support from NatWest, fee-free transactions in foreign currencies, and you pay no interest on the first £500 of an arranged overdraft.

The middle-tier Premier Reward account costs £2 a month and gives all the benefits above, along with some extras.

You can get £9 a month in rewards if you pay at least two direct debits per month of at least £4.50 each. You can also earn £1 a month when you log into the NatWest mobile app, and at least 1% cashback at selected retailers when using your NatWest debit card.

The highest and most expensive tier is the Premier Reward Black account.

It costs £36 a month and gives you the benefits of all the previous tiers as well as access to airport lounges, travel insurance, mobile phone insurance, breakdown cover, 25% cashback on tickets to concerts and shows, and discounts at cinemas, and more.

From 1 October, the monthly fee for this account will increase to £39 per month.

Who is eligible for the NatWest £500 welcome bonus?

To be eligible for NatWest’s switching offer, you must meet the following criteria:

• You must have an income of at least £100,000 (£120,000 for joint accounts), or at least £100,000 in savings/investments, or at least a £500,000 mortgage with NatWest
• You must not currently have a NatWest current account as of 2 September
• You must not have already redeemed a different NatWest switching offer
• You must complete a full switch using the Current Account Switch Service (CASS)
• You must pay at least £15,000 into your NatWest Premier account within 90 days of opening the account. This can be done in any number of payments and each payment must stay in your account for at least 24 hours.

If you have met the above criteria, your £500 bonus will be paid within 30 calendar days.

Should you switch to NatWest Premier?

Just because you are wealthy enough to qualify for the NatWest Premier account, it doesn’t mean it is necessarily the best option for you.

Consider which, if any, tier of Premier fits your needs and whether the benefits justify the monthly fee. You could also look at alternative packaged accounts from other banks and compare their benefits.

For example, HSBC is also offering a £500 welcome bonus to switchers who open a Premier Account. This account includes benefits like free travel insurance, preferential rates on loans, digital GP appointments, and more for no monthly fee.

Caitlyn Eastell, personal finance analyst at Moneyfacts said: “NatWest’s new £500 premier switching incentive is a significant move in the battle for affluent current account customers. The headline bonus puts NatWest firmly alongside the most generous premier switching offers.

“For consumers who qualify, the offer makes switching considerably more attractive, particularly because NatWest also bundles in dedicated premier support and financial planning.”

However, Eastell warned the welcome bonus “should be viewed as a sweetener rather than the main reason to switch. Customers should compare the ongoing benefits, eligibility requirements and any fees against their existing bank.”

SpaceX’s initial public offering (IPO) was a landmark moment for many investors, opening up a new galaxy of opportunities.

Its historic June debut saw the space exploration company valued at $1.77 trillion at its IPO and its share price surging by 50% in the first three days of trading. .

SpaceX’s (NASDAQ:SPCX) share price has fallen back since, but the appetite for space investing is only ramping up, with investors having more ways to access the sector than ever before.

Opportunities to invest in space are being fuelled by the ongoing artificial intelligence (AI) boom.

“Old space put humans on the Moon. New space is building the commercial infrastructure of the global economy,” said Mark Boggett, CEO of space tech investment firm Seraphim Space. “The convergence of AI and space tech, together with rising demand for connectivity, defence and sovereign capability, is creating one of the most compelling investment opportunities of the coming decade.”

How SpaceX and Nvidia are joining space and AI

It’s tempting to think of artificial intelligence (AI) and space as two separate themes, but they are increasingly closely linked.

SpaceX, for example, is largely an AI company since it merged with xAI, Elon Musk’s AI company and maker of the Grok LLM suite, earlier this year. SpaceX identified a $28.5 trillion total addressable market in its IPO prospectus, of which $26.5 trillion was attributed to AI – compared to $1.6 trillion for satellite connectivity and $370 billion for space launch services, which have historically been the pillars of SpaceX’s business.

One of the most visible crossovers between the space and AI themes is the concept of the orbital data centre – essentially, a data centre in space. These don’t exist yet, but they may not be far away: Starcloud, a start-up dedicated to making orbital data centres a reality, raised $250 million at a $2.3 billion valuation in August.

Among the list of investors in Starcloud’s latest investment round are tech hardware giants Nvidia and Cisco.

“Orbital data centres have gone from science fair to a funded race in a matter of months, with Nvidia neatly hedging both sides by backing Starcloud and SpaceX's rival Starmind,” said James Lockyer, research analyst at investment bank Peel Hunt said.

Nvidia especially is increasingly central to the space industry’s designs. Colette Kress, the company’s chief financial officer, confirmed at Nvidia’s Q2 earnings call that SpaceX is among a number of leading partners that the firm’s latest generation of chip, Vera CPU, is being shipped to.

Nvidia also holds a stake in SpaceX via an earlier investment into xAI.

“The chip cycle and the space cycle are fusing,” said Lockyer. “Nvidia funding, supplying, and holding equity in SpaceX ties the single most valuable name in AI to the most valuable name in space, and for investors it makes SpaceX a compute story as much as a launch one.”

How to invest in the new space economy

As the space industry develops, investors have greater access than ever before. While SpaceX is the largest company in the space sector and is readily available to buy since its IPO, other stocks such as Rocket Lab (NASDAQ:RKLB) and AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ:ASTS) offer space exposure too.

Companies like these can be accessed through thematic exchange-traded funds (ETF), such as the WisdomTree Space Economy UCITS ETF (LON:WSPG) or the Seraphim New Space UCITS ETF (LON:SERA), which launched on 2 September.

Seraphim New Space UCITS ETF is based on the Seraphim New Space Index, which identifies and weights companies across various components of the space investment ecosystem. Its representative holdings include SpaceX, as well as companies like space infrastructure company Intuitive Machines (NASDAQ:LUNR) or BlackSky (NYSE:BKSY) which offers “space-based intelligence” by using AI and machine learning to instantly analyse imagery captured from satellites.

The ETF also holds a position in Seraphim Space Investment Trust (LON:SSIT), which gained 56% in 2026 through to 28 August. Unlike the ETF, which will mostly hold publicly-listed companies, Seraphim’s investment trust mostly holds private companies related to the space economy.

The story of Japan has long been deflation. For the last 20 years or so, the country had been plagued by it, leaving its economy stunted. But the tide has finally turned.

The initial catalyst was the increase in import costs in 2022 that pushed Japanese firms to raise prices, says Masaki Taketsume, manager of the Schroder Japan Trust, on the MoneyWeek Talks podcast.

This led to a virtuous circle – increased earnings growth fed into higher wage growth. Higher wages fuelled consumption, leading to further earnings growth.

While this cycle may have helped end the deflation crisis, much of the groundwork was laid years before under the premiership of prime minister Shinzo Abe, who regained office in 2012 after a stint in 2006-2007.

To help pull Japan out of its rut, Abe employed the “three arrows” strategy. Taketsume says the strategy was used to tackle a shortage of demand in the economy, which was causing deflation and high levels of unemployment.

“The three arrows were a broad range of physical stimulus and accommodative monetary policy. The combination helped the Japanese economy to improve, narrowing the gap between supply and demand.

“The last arrow was deregulation, including corporate governance reform with a unanimous effort led by the Japanese government and regulatory agencies like the Tokyo stock exchange and investors like us.

“All the interested parties were supporting the Japanese corporation to rebuild their business portfolio and review their balance sheet to sustainably improve their return on equity. That effort has been evolving quite well”

How Abenomics gave Japan Inc. a jolt

Over the past few years, Abe’s corporate governance reforms have helped Japanese firms overcome a well-earned reputation of being uninterested in what their shareholders thought.

Taketsume says the reforms prompted Japanese companies to release excess cash from their balance sheets, initiate share buybacks, or increase their dividends to be more responsive to shareholders.

Now firms are being pushed further to undertake a comprehensive review of their business portfolio or make growth investments to realise a sustainable improvement in return on equity, a key gauge of profitability

“So in that sense, corporate governance reform is a structural positive tailwind for the Japanese equity market.”

Another aspect of the ‘Abenomics’ reforms was the cracking down on cross-shareholding, which had been rife among Japanese firms, but is now unwinding, according to Taketsume.

“Toyota Group used to have a reputation of having a very strong tie between Toyota and the supplier, but nowadays most of the Toyota group [has dissolved] their cross-shareholding. That’s one good piece of anecdotal evidence that the cross-shareholding has gone.”

The reforms are leading to stronger returns on equity.

Taketsume said: “If we move back to before the Abenomics era, average return on equity for the Japanese corporation was something like 4% or 5%, but now, thanks to the corporate governance reform, the Japanese company is getting closer to 9% or 10%”

While this transformation is strong – doubling in just over a decade – it still lags behind the European or US markets.

“Corporate governance reform is an ongoing effort, so that suggests we may see further upside in the return on equity for the Japanese company and move closer to that of the US or Europe,” said Taketsume.

For more on the Japanese stock market, the political context of Japan’s reforms, and more, watch the full episode of MoneyWeek Talks with Masaki Taketsume on YouTube, or listen to it 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.

Subscribe to 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.

Santander has launched a new bank switching bonus which is currently the highest-paying deal on the market.

The high-street lender is offering new and existing customers £240 to move banks, but you will need to open both a current account and a regular saver with the bank to qualify.

There are currently six bank switching deals on the market, and Santander’s offer is the highest-paying for non-Premier accounts.

Santander’s switching deal – what’s on offer?

Santander’s £240 bonus is available to new and existing customers. To be eligible, you must do the following:

• Request to switch your account before 7 October using the Current Account Switch Service.
• Pay in at least £1,500, which can be done through one or more payments, within 60 days of requesting the switch.
• Set up at least two qualifying household direct debits.
• Fund a Santander Regular Saver with at least £200. You can either open a new account or fund an existing one, if you have one.

You must do this within 60 days of the initial switch request. You are not eligible if you held a Santander current account on 1 January 2026.

If you qualify, you will receive the cash bonus within 90 days of requesting the switch.

Is Santander’s switching deal worth it?

Rachel Springall, finance expert at Moneyfactscompare.co.uk, says: “Santander’s new current account switching offer of £240 could be an enticing choice for customers who might need a financial boost after the summer holidays. It is one of the highest free cash payments available on a fee-free account, ideal for those who want a simple, straightforward account for their everyday banking.”

Currently, there are six bank switching deals on the market.

HSBC’s switch offer pays £500 and another £290 in cashback, but it is only available for higher earners (£100,000+ salary) or those with at least £100,000 in savings or investments. This means Santander offers the best deal for most customers.

Santander’s regular saver pays the most on the market, a top rate of 8% that comes with a fixed 5% bonus for 12 months. You can save up to £200 each month, and the rate is variable. Springall adds: “Unlike some other regular savers on the market that revert to a flexible saver earning a much poorer return, Santander’s account will continue for another year, paying 3% AER.”

You can also access Santander’s inflation-beating fixed-rate ISAs and its new cashback credit card that returns 3% on eligible everyday spending in the first year.

Santander has also promised to keep its Santander and TSB bank branches open for at least two years, following a significant round of closures which took place earlier this year.

If your local branch is affected, another option is Nationwide Building Society, which is currently paying £175 to customers. While that doesn’t make it a market-leading deal, the building society has pledged not to close any more of its branches until 2030.

Plus, Nationwide ranks as one of the best current account providers in the country, and is well-known for its £100 Fairer Share Payment that it has offered for four consecutive years.

Ultimately, you should pick a bank account that offers you more than just a switching bonus and can actually meet your current account needs.

A Premium Bonds holder has won a £1 million jackpot prize with a bond bought just nine months ago.

The saver, from London, bought the winning bond in January 2026 and has a total holding of £45,500. The winning bond number is 659VC982054.

The second jackpot winner is from Norwich and bagged the £1 million with a bond bought in January 2022. Their winning bond number is 484QT130447 and they hold the maximum total of £50,000 in Premium Bonds.

How many prizes will be issued in September’s Premium Bonds draw?

As well as the two £1 million jackpot payout, almost 100 Premium Bonds prizes worth £100,000 will be handed out in the September draw by NS&I. There will also be 192 £50,000 prizes and 381 £25,000 prizes.

More than 6.5 million prizes worth £497 million will be distributed in the September draw.

A total of 858 million prizes worth £42.8 billion have been awarded since the first Premium Bonds draw in 1957.

Here is the breakdown of all the prizes that will be shared out this month:

Source: NS&I

How to check if you've won in September’s prize draw

The two £1 million winners are notified in person by NS&I’s Agent Million each month.

Winners of the £100,000 and lower Premium Bonds prizes can check if they have won the day after the first working day of each month. For September 2026, that date is 2 September.

You can do this by using the Premium Bonds prize checker app, visiting the NS&I website or via Amazon Alexa.

The prize checker app and website will show you prizes you’ve won that month, anything you’ve won in the previous six draws and any older prizes you haven’t claimed yet.

Make sure you have your bond number or NS&I number so you can access your account.

There is no time limit to claim a Premium Bonds prize so you should check if you’ve won anything before and didn’t realise, even if you bought the Premium Bonds years ago.

NS&I says over 99% of prizes have been paid to winners since draws began in 1957, but there are still 2.8 million left unclaimed.

Government debt markets have been around since the city-state of Venice issued its first bonds in 1171, but public debt only became tradable in the English-speaking world six centuries later.

Contemporaries held conflicting views about the development. Several leading members of the Scottish Enlightenment were downbeat. As government debt across the developed world escalates, their concerns are proving timely.

In his book, A Fabulous Debt: The Epic Story of How Bonds Built the Modern World, Financial Times journalist Robin ‌Wigglesworth explains how Britain's geopolitical ascendancy was inexorably linked to its public finances, and in particular its ability to issue vast quantities of low-cost debt.

Thomas Mortimer, an 18th-century financial writer, described the nation's bond market as “the standing miracle in policies, which at once astonishes and overawes the state of Europe”.

Not everyone was sanguine. In his 1752 essay Of Public Credit, the Scottish philosopher David Hume fretted about Britain's newfound tendency to “mortgage the public revenues, and to trust that posterity will pay off the incumbrances contracted by our ancestors”.

Access to the bond market, said Hume, allowed politicians to behave extravagantly without having immediately to raise taxes. “The practice, therefore, of contracting debt will almost infallibly be abused, in every government.”

Adam Smith, the economist who wrote The Wealth of Nations, claimed the issuance of long-dated public debt “has gradually enfeebled every state that has adopted it… When national debts have once accumulated to a certain degree, there is scarce, I believe, a single instance of their having been fairly and completely paid.”

Another Scottish contemporary, Adam Ferguson, opined that a permanent and unproductive national debt was “to be reckoned among the causes of national ruin”. In the decades after these warnings were issued, Britain's national debt kept expanding. No crisis appeared, however, and the country's prosperity grew apace.

Looking on the bright side

In his History of England (1848), Thomas Babington Macaulay mocked the debt doomsayers. He hailed Britain's “fabulous debt” as “the greatest prodigy that ever perplexed… statesmen and philosophers.

At every stage in the growth of that debt, it was seriously asserted by wise men that bankruptcy and ruin were at hand. Yet still the debt went on growing; and still bankruptcy and ruin were as remote as ever.”

The error of the pessimists, said Macaulay, lay in their comparing national debt to that of an individual borrower. Since most of Britain's public debt was held by its countrymen, the nation was in effect borrowing from itself.

They also ignored that economic growth rendered the debt sustainable: “They greatly overrated the pressure of the burden; they greatly underrated the strength by which the burden was to be borne.”

The conditions that created a stable bond market in Macaulay's day have vanished, ‌however. Economic growth across much of the developed world has faltered. Excessive borrowing and spending by governments is partly responsible.

Bloated government spending is to blame for the collapse in productivity growth, according to Swedish economists Andreas Bergh and Magnus Henrekson. Hume expected that excessive debt would lead to debilitating taxes.

Government debt levels have risen inexorably since the financial crisis. Worldwide public debt has reached 94% of GDP, according to the International Monetary Fund. US federal debt is around 114% of GDP, reckons Fitch Ratings.

Economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff concluded that when government debt breaches the 90% threshold, economic growth falters.

Hume would have agreed: “We have always found,” he wrote, “where a government has mortgaged all its revenues, that it necessarily sinks into a state of languor, inactivity and impotence.”

He cautioned that overseas investors owning big portions of a country's debt “render the public, in a manner, tributary to them”.

A large share of the national debt issued by the US, Britain and France is held abroad. For instance, a third of Washington's $40 trillion in borrowing comes from beyond its shores.

Whereas Britain in the 19th century was the world's top creditor, the US today is the world's largest debtor.

The Bank for International Settlements notes that rising geopolitical tensions could disrupt capital flows, threatening nations with large current account deficits.

After interest rates shot up four years ago, government borrowing costs soared. This wasn't a problem in Macaulay's Britain, where public debt was mostly financed with fixed-interest perpetual bonds.

By contrast, US public debt has a relatively short maturity profile, rendering it more sensitive to changes in short-term interest rates. Rising interest costs on a large stockpile of debt strain government finances.

The historian Niall Ferguson says the decline of a political superpower becomes evident when it spends more on servicing debt than on defence. The US breached this threshold two years ago.

Hume envisaged a day when an overburdened government would stop paying interest on its debt.

Since governments nowadays print the money in which their debt is denominated, an option not available in 18th-century Britain, formal default is unnecessary.

Instead, bondholders can be short-changed through inflation, financial repression and the management of long-term interest rates.

“The natural death of public credit,” said Hume, is inevitable when “overbalanced by a great debt”. The Scottish philosopher's timing was disastrous, but his principles remain sound.

A longer version of this article was first published on Reuters Breakingviews.

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.

Law Debenture (LSE:LWDB) is a unique investment trust. It is part equity income portfolio and part professional services company, all in one high-performing £1.7 billion wrapper.

It has been a stalwart of the MoneyWeek Investment Trust portfolio since September 2015, with the second-best performance of all the trusts selected. Over the past ten years the shares have produced a total return of 263%, versus 130% for the FTSE All-Share index. It has also outperformed its benchmark by a wide margin over one, three and five years.

This performance is by far and away the best of any trust in the UK equity income sector. The secret of its success is down to the independent professional services (IPS) business.

The success of Law Debenture’s IPS

The IPS business provides a selection of relatively mundane, but essential services focused around three groups: pension services, which provides pension trust services across the UK; corporate trust, a provider of trust and escrow services for transactions such as bonds and mergers and acquisitions (M&A); and corporate services, which provides company secretarial and entity management services.

Inflation-linked organic growth has been complemented by acquisitions – most recently the purchase of company secretarial unit Konexo in 2024 – have all helped IPS grow both top and bottom lines.

These businesses grew net revenue by 6% in the first half of 2026 – the ninth consecutive year of mid-to high-single-digit growth.

These businesses are relatively specialist, so they are difficult for customers to do in-house. They are also low-margin and only profitable at scale, giving incumbent providers a significant edge.

There are only a handful of peers: the four public comparables include London-listed JTC, which is in the process of going private.

Dividend support

IPS accounts for only 15% of Law Debenture's net asset value (NAV), but over the years, its profits have helped support around a third of the trust's dividend distributions to investors.

That gives James Henderson and Laura Foll, the managers of its equity portfolio, a huge advantage for their strategy.

While other UK equity income trusts need to prioritise owning dividend-paying shares to support their distributions, they can take a more flexible approach.

For example, in February 2020, Law Debenture built a position in Rolls-Royce, which then had to suspend its dividend during the pandemic. Other income trusts might have been forced to sell, but Henderson and Foll held on. The position has since generated a return of more than 1,100%.

Other examples include Marks & Spencer and Babcock. Both of these have been held for capital gains, despite their poor dividend credentials.

A strong first half

The portfolio – which accounts for 85% of NAV – is built around growth, income and value. There is also a higher percentage of smaller and medium-sized companies than you might usually find in a UK equity income trust, which reflects the solid foundation provided by IPS.

For example, in the first half, positive contributors in the investment portfolio included companies viewed as beneficiaries of AI, such as Ceres Power and Infineon Technologies. Henderson and Foll also added positions in LSEG and Relx, two previous winners that had sold off due to concerns about the threat of AI.

Strong performers during the period included Beazley, Senior, International Personal Finance, Schroders and Tate & Lyle – all of which received takeover offers, which is “further evidence of the valuation opportunity available in UK equities”, say the managers.

The trust's own shares have also been trading well. For the six months to the end of June, they produced a total return of 16.2%, as they moved from a 2.5% discount to a 1.7% premium on top of the underlying NAV return.

The quarterly dividend was increased by 6% to 8.875p. Based on the company's current target for the year, the shares currently yield around 2.9%.

Henderson is set to retire in June next year, with Foll taking over the portfolio as lead manager. Given her ten years' experience at Law Debenture – as well as 12 on the Global Equity Income team at Janus Henderson – it should be business as usual when she assumes sole command.

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The squabbling heirs running Delfin, one of Italy's biggest companies, have “trumped” the television series Succession, says The Times, proving that “truth can be stranger than fiction”.

The hit TV drama featured four siblings vying for control of their family empire. At Delfin – the €55 billion holding company behind Ray-Ban's owner EssilorLuxottica – there are eight heirs battling it out. And there's more at stake than fancy eyewear.

Delfin is a big financial power player and has substantial holdings in a slew of Italian banks and other financial institutions – including UniCredit, Mediobanca, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena and the insurer Generali – as well as de facto control of the international property group Covivio.

It is thus “one of corporate Italy's top power brokers”, says the Financial Times, and this paralysing family feud has sent ripples across the country's financial sector at a pivotal moment. Italian banks are currently waging an internecine chess game of consolidation. The outcome at Delfin could swing the balance.

Delfin founder’s best laid plans…

It wasn't supposed to end like this, says the Luxembourg Times. The family patriarch, Leonardo Del Vecchio – who built the largest eyewear company in the world from a small optical workshop in the Dolomite foothills – “spent years designing a governance structure” to protect his legacy before his death in 2022.

He hoped to head off disputes by dividing the family holding company equally between eight heirs: his six children by three different wives, his widow and her son Rocco Basilico.

Yet from the outset, there were squabbles over everything from dividends to the future of the group's portfolio.

Matters came to a head this year, when Del Vecchio's fourth child – 31-year-old Leonardo Maria – a “keen DJ… avid Ferrari collector” and “mainstay in gossip magazines” – started flexing his muscles, says The Times.

He proposed cementing his control over the group by buying out two of his siblings.

For a time it looked as though “Leonardino” might get his way, says The Observer. But he hadn't bargained on opposition from key members of the EssilorLuxottica board – notably chairman and CEO Francesco Milleri – and his LA-based stepbrother Rocco, who is “credited” with arranging “Ray-Ban's controversial smart-glasses partnership with Meta”.

Their critique, says the FT, was that the younger Leonardo was “not his father” and they warned against concentrating too much power in his hands.

The dispute rapidly reached courtrooms in Italy and Luxembourg.

While Rocco Basilico and another half-sibling challenged the proposed sale of Luca and Paola Del Vecchio's stakes, Leonardo Maria “contested Basilico's entitlement to his 12.5% holding”.

Beating a retreat

After a punishing stand-off, it looks as though Leonardo Maria has conceded defeat, says Il Sore 24 Ore.

This week, he quit as chairman of Ray-Ban and chief strategy officer of EssilorLuxottica – claiming he intended to devote himself to new entrepreneurial projects. His parting shot, says Euronews, is that the company his father founded has “lost its soul”.

“I keep talking to people in the company. I did it when I was a store manager and I have never stopped doing it,” wrote the founder's son. But today, “the enthusiasm is not what it was. The sense of belonging is not what it was. The distance can be felt. And people sense it before the markets. Always.”

The departure of LMDV, as he is known in the company, from his executive roles may or may not end “the infighting at Delfin”, says The Times. But it is “a warning to Italy's legions of family firms facing generational change”.

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Does a fresh lick of paint in the kitchen increase the value of the house? Or a heated towel rail in the bathroom? Or an attractive water feature at the back of the garden?

We learned this week that the government is planning to appoint teams of inspectors to visit people's homes, and decide whether the owner has to pay the new “mansion tax”.

An extra levy will be imposed on homes worth more than £2 million, on a sliding scale going up to beyond £5 million.

It is meant to come into force in April 2028, but it is already proving a lot trickier than ministers seem to have realised.

Earlier this year, HMRC said it was hiring hundreds of inspectors to help with the valuation of everyone's home.

They will all have powers to enter a property to assess what it might be worth.

We can see what the authorities are getting at. If you simply rely on previous sale prices, it takes no account of how a house might have been improved, and lots of homes may well slip through the net.

There is a catch, however. It illustrates that while a mansion tax might appeal to the class warriors on the Labour backbenches, it is going to be very difficult to implement in practice.

There are three big problems. Firstly, going through a large house and trying to figure out how much each “improvement” or “feature” has added to its value is a huge task, and one that will take several years, at a minimum, of training before the “value police” are ready to start work.

It is a huge undertaking, from a state machine that can't build a new railway, or reservoir, or any extra houses. It is hard to believe it is all actually going to happen, and even if it does there will be years of delays as there is with every other government project.

A mansion tax could create a legal quagmire

Next, many of the valuations, quite rightly, will be taken to court.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) gave us a glimpse into the legal train wreck heading towards us earlier this year with a forecast that 20% of valuations would be challenged in court and that 40% of the legal cases would be successful.

The courts are going to be clogged up for years deciding how much individual homes are worth, creating huge backlogs and crowding out time that should be spent on far more serious issues.

Even worse, the top end of the British housing market is now in freefall, in part because of the looming mansion tax.

In Westminster, prices are down by 25%; in Kensington and Chelsea, 15%. Those falls are starting to ripple out into other boroughs and into the leafy commuter suburbs as well.

With those kinds of price declines, homes are going to drop below the £2 million threshold in huge numbers. The inspectors will have to change valuations constantly, and some owners are going to be heading back to court every year to try and get the tax removed.

Finally, the tax will only raise tiny sums anyway. The OBR has already downgraded its forecasts for the amount of revenue it will raise from £400 million in its first year, rising to £435 million by 2030-2031.

But it also warned that revenue would fall by £370 million before April 2028 because of reduced stamp duty, capital gains tax and inheritance tax receipts as households sold or downsized.

In other words, once all the costs are taken into account, the mansion tax may not end up raising any money at all.

All those expensive inspectors, with generous holiday allowances and gold-plated public-sector pensions that will stay on the government's books forever, will have been employed for absolutely nothing.

Those are just the practical details. The government still needs to deal with the moral issues.

What will it do about elderly homeowners, for example, who might not be able to sell a big house, but also can't afford to pay the extra tax on it?

Will it be able to face down the inevitable political backlash?

And given that the top 10% of earners already pay 60% of all the income tax collected in Britain, how can it justify yet more taxes on people who are already paying for most of what the state does?

And if the tax does cost more to implement than it raises in revenues, as it almost certainly will, how can it justify the drain on public finances at a time when the deficit is already soaring out of control?

The tax has not come into force yet. But it is already turning into a disaster.

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Targa Resources owns and operates natural gas pipelines, gas plants, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) export facilities and crude oil terminals across the US. In mid-August, its shares rose 10% after it announced a 20-year midstream deal with ExxonMobil to build and operate a portfolio of energy infrastructure assets for the oil and gas giant.

Targa's deal is the latest in a series of multibillion-dollar projects recently commissioned by oil giants and governments to help move oil and gas around the world.

Targa Resources (NYSE:TRGP) is a midstream energy group, playing a vital role in the energy sector. These businesses link upstream companies, which drill and extract the raw product, and downstream businesses, which refine and sell it to consumers.

Most oil and gas majors manage this part of the process themselves, but in markets such as the US, where thousands of smaller producers in oil fields need to connect to major refining and storage hubs, midstream firms are a vital part of the chain.

Growth in the pipeline market

The $65 billion Targa is just one such company in the industry. The firm was founded in 2003 and has grown steadily through organic growth and acquisitions. In 2004, it purchased midstream natural-gas operations from oil major ConocoPhillips and in 2005, it acquired an asset from energy supply business Dynegy. In 2007, the company listed as Targa Resources Partners LP, using the money from the initial public offering (IPO) to seal more deals.

Over the following two decades, Targa secured 20 further agreements, encompassing joint ventures, partnerships, asset sales and stake sales in key infrastructure assets.

Today, the group owns and operates assets across New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana. It is active in the key oil-production regions of the Permian, the Bakken Three Forks Shale, Eagle Ford Shale and Fort Worth Basin.

The Permian has become one of the most important oil-producing regions in ExxonMobil's portfolio. When the group sealed the $60 billion deal to buy Pioneer Natural Resources in May 2024, it doubled its footprint in the region and laid out plans to drive production to two million oil-equivalent barrels per day (boepd) by 2030, up from the 612,000 barrels Exxon produced from the region in 2023.

Production hit a record boepd in the second quarter and is now close to 1.8 million as the group continues to grow at a breathtaking pace.

Exxon's total Permian production consists of between 70% and 75% liquid hydrocarbons (crude oil and natural gas liquids) and 25%-30% natural gas. This needs somewhere to go, and that's where the deal with Targa comes into play.

Exxon has agreed to so-called natural gas liquids (NGL) dedications with Targa, whereby it is legally committed to using the company's midstream assets for transport, processing, or fractionation (a physical and chemical separation process) of NGL production from its key fields in the Permian region.

Following these commitments, Targa has announced three new natural-gas processing plants in the Permian Delaware: Wrangler, Ranger, and Ranger II, with a combined capacity of approximately 825 million cubic feet per day.

The plants are expected to be operational in the first half of 2028, with scope for up to five additional processing plants. It also announced plans to build a new, approximately 70-mile, natural-gas pipeline called Bull Run II, supported by take-or-pay commitments (whereby producers buy a fixed amount of capacity and pay whether they use it or not).

To meet these commitments, Targa has upgraded its expected capital spending for the year from $4.5 billion to $5 billion. The business spent $2.1 billion on growth and maintenance capital in the first half of 2026, up 23% from the same period in 2025.

A new gold rush

Despite substantial efforts by policymakers over the past two decades to wean the world off its addiction to hydrocarbons, there has been no let-up in the relentless march of the oil and gas industry.

Pipelines and midstream assets are an often overlooked part of this market, but the conflict in the Middle East has highlighted their importance to the global economy.

With the Strait of Hormuz closed to shipping, pipelines across the Middle East have become critically important for the region's oil and gas producers.

In the past two months, the United Arab Emirates has announced plans to open a new pipeline alongside its existing Habshan-Fujairah pipeline, doubling its capacity.

Meanwhile, America, Iraq and Qatar have also announced plans to upgrade a pipeline from Iraq to Syria, and Chevron is in talks to build a series of them from Iraq to Syria and Turkey.

According to The Economist, citing information from Global Energy Monitor, an oil data and research firm, 12,300 kilometres of pipelines are currently under construction worldwide, with an additional 20,100 kilometres proposed.

Taken together, these additions represent nearly a 10% increase over the 350,000 kilometres of pipelines currently in operation worldwide.

The most cost-effective way to get oil and gas from production fields (usually located inland or in deep water) to refineries and key export markets is by tanker.

Transporting each barrel of oil on the world's largest seagoing tankers can cost as little as a few dollars a barrel. But when it is impossible to use tankers to transport them, producers have no choice but to turn to other methods such as rail, road or pipelines.

A large-diameter pipeline that can carry around one millions barrels of oil per day costs, on average, about $5 million per kilometre, or $5 billion for a 1,000 kilometre pipeline.

That's assuming the pipeline is laid over relatively flat terrain. If mountains, rivers and lakes get in the way, costs can rise significantly.

The significant upfront capital cost is why midstream companies and pipeline owners turn to take-or-pay agreements.

Under these agreements, customers purchase a minimum amount of transport capacity on the pipeline and pay a fee for this capacity, often indexed to the price of oil over an extended period (frequently a decade or more).

The company has to pay to use this capacity whether or not it has oil to transport. This dramatically reduces the risk inherent in the project for the pipeline-operating company and its lenders.

Pipelines require a lot of capital to start, but the long-term economics are hard to argue with.

Data compiled by The Economist shows that the cost of transporting oil via a pipeline is, on average, around $5 per barrel. The cost rises to $18 per barrel when oil is transported via road or rail.

At the height of the US-Iran conflict earlier this year, some reports emerged of companies in central Africa paying as much as $200 a barrel, with $50 of that covering transport costs alone.

No wonder, then, that there is heavy investment in expanding pipeline networks to cut costs and improve reliability. In East Africa, for example, a 1,500 kilometre pipeline is under construction to transport oil from Uganda to the Tanzanian coast.

Argentina is building a 440 kilometre pipeline to connect its key oil fields in the centre of the country to the Atlantic.

There is a growing opportunity for investors. Because returns from pipelines are relatively stable and predictable, thanks to pre-agreed take-or-pay contracts, private infrastructure funds have flooded into the market.

According to McKenzie, a consultancy, assets under management across private infrastructure funds have rocketed to $1.6 trillion in recent years.

This year, global investment group KKR finished raising money for its largest-ever infrastructure fund with a total value of $19 billion. It's almost certain a large chunk of this will go to pipeline projects. Blackstone and Brookfield are also getting in on the action. KKR, Blackstone and Brookfield have signed a $16 billion deal with Kuwait's oil company for a stake in the country's pipeline network.

Don't be tempted by partnerships

The midstream sector is particularly strong in the United States thanks to a quirk of US tax law.

Midstream firms can be structured as master limited partnerships (MLPs), which are pass-through entities much like real-estate investment trusts (REITs).

MLPs pay no taxes, so they can distribute much more of their cash flow to investors. Investors then pay tax on these distributions. Over the past decade, many former MLPs have transitioned to C-corporations (a standard limited company) following a change introduced by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

The changes have opened these companies to a wider range of investors, but yields have fallen because dividends are now paid out after corporate tax; in the partnership model the tax liability falls on the investor.

As a rough guide, the Alerian MLP ETF currently yields 7.4% on a trailing 12-month basis, while the Alerian Midstream Energy Dividend UCITS ETF, which has strict limits on MLP exposure, yields just 3.6%.

The Alerian Midstream Energy Dividend UCITS ETF has enforced limits on exposure to MLPs owing to K-1 tax constraints – the reason why these MLPs are unsuitable for all but the most sophisticated investors. A Schedule K-1 Federal Tax Form is issued by US partnerships to report a partner's share of its income, losses, capital gains and dividends.

In short, they are a nightmare for non-US investors. Even smaller domestic US investors generally avoid partnerships to avoid the added administration these tax requirements create. Very sophisticated investors who want exposure to these businesses may use total return swaps or other synthetic instruments instead, rather than becoming entangled in the web of compliance. Don't be tempted by a high yield on a US midstream MLP.

Fortunately, plenty of other options exist for investors to play this theme. Kinder Morgan (NYSE: KMI), the largest natural gas-pipeline operator in the United States (and a former division of Enron) consolidated its various MLPs into a single traditional C-corporation in 2014 in order to lower its cost of capital and appeal to a broader range of local and international investors. Many of the company's peers have since followed suit.

A tailwind from AI

Kinder Morgan reported record net income of $867 million in the second quarter, up 21% from the same period last year.

Around $660 million of new projects coming on stream helped boost the company's top and bottom lines, including Tennessee Gas Pipeline's (TGP) Cumberland Project, designed to serve a new gas-fired power plant in Tennessee.

The company said it had a construction backlog of $9.7 billion at the end of the quarter, with an additional $400 million of projects not included in the official backlog, but sanctioned to proceed.

Natural-gas projects made up 92% of the backlog, and 60% of those projects are designed to support local power generation and distribution. The company believes it will outperform expectations by 5% for the year, with adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of $9 billion and a 12% rise in adjusted earnings per share.

Kinder Morgan, like other US midstream companies, is benefiting from increasing demand for power across the US driven by the AI boom. According to Goldman Sachs Research, domestic power demand from data centres is projected to more than double from 31 gigawatts (GW) to 66 GW by 2027, consuming over 8.5% of total US peak summer electricity.

To keep up, companies are commissioning new natural-gas power plants, which can be brought online in a few years and located next to data centres; pipelines are needed to connect these facilities to production zones.

Kinder Morgan may be the largest natural-gas pipeline operator in the sector, but peer Enbridge (Toronto: ENB) is worth nearly twice as much.

It plans to spend between C$10 billion (£5.3 billion) and C$11 billion this year, with half of that already spent in the first six months. It is constructing the $4 billion Sunrise expansion of its British Columbia pipeline (adding 140 kilometres of new pipeline in addition to upgrading the capacity of the existing pipeline) and spending $1 billion relocating a pipeline in Wisconsin.

Williams Companies (NYSE: WMB), the second-largest pipeline group after Enbridge in market value, has raised its spending guidance for the acquisition of Momentum Midstream. It is now projecting spending between $7.3 billion and $7.9 billion in 2026.

Enterprise Product Partners is spending around half as much, with capital spending earmarked at between $2.9 billion and $3.4 billion, net of asset sale proceeds.

Key projects include two new gas-processing plants in the Permian Basin, illustrating the growing importance of natural-gas processing and transportation.

Enterprise Product Partners is the fastest-growing of the large midstream companies, but it is also still structured as a partnership. It reported a 19% increase in adjusted cash flow from operations in the first half to $2.5 billion, as well as a 28% increase in net income, thanks primarily international demand for US natural-gas liquids and crude oil.

Energy Transfer also set several all-time record volumes, notably in natural-gas liquids transportation volumes, which increased 13%, and exports, which increased 25%. Distributable cash flow rose 32% to $2.6 billion. Enbridge, Williams and Kingdom Morgan are all trading at roughly the same valuation, with a price/ earnings ratio (p/e) in the low 20s and a yield between 3% and 5.5%.

The Alerian Midstream Energy Dividend UCITS ETF (LSE: MMLP) offers exposure to all three companies, plus 16 others, with Kinder Morgan, Williams, Enbridge and Targa comprising around 40% of the fund. Investors also get synthetic exposure to the Alerian MLP index.

The picks-and-shovels plays

Infrastructure provides a steady, predictable return. But if you want something offering a bit more excitement, consider the companies providing the picks and shovels to help build future pipelines. Companies worthy of research include Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT), Tenaris (NYSE: TS), MasTec (NYSE: MTZ) and Primoris Services Corporation (NYSE: PRIM). Caterpillar is a broad-based play on the health of the US economy. The company reported record revenue of $20.5 billion in the second quarter, up 24% year on year – the first time Caterpillar has reported more than $20 billion of revenue in a single quarter.

Meanwhile, the company's order backlog hit a record of $72.1 billion, that's not just related to its diggers. While Caterpillar is widely associated with earth-moving and construction equipment, it also operates the SPM oil and gas brand and manufactures equipment for gas power plants. This energy and transportation division increased sales by 17% year on year. While the stock has dipped recently, it is still trading at 25 times projected 2027 earnings.

Tenaris is one of the more interesting companies in the area. It supplies tubular steel used to make pipelines worldwide. Sales fell 4% in the second quarter, mainly because shipments to customers in the Middle East were postponed owing to the conflict.

Lower deliveries to Kuwait and Iraq were, however, offset by higher sales to Venezuela and Argentina, along with the start of delivery of offshore line pipes to the Sakarya Black Sea development in Europe.

The company reported a $3.6 billion net cash position at the end of June, compared with a $19bn market capitalisation. The stock is on a forward p/e of 13.9.

MasTec and Primoris are two of the largest engineering construction contractors in North America. The latter is more focused on utilities, while the former has a big pipeline and energy business. Still, both recently reported record second-quarter sales and record order backlogs.

MasTec reported a record 18-month backlog of $21.4 billion; of this total, $1.8 billion was allocated to its pipeline segment, while Primoris achieved a record total backlog of $13.9 billion (comprising $7.7 billion in the utilities segment and $6.2 billion in energy).

MasTec recently acquired The Superior Group to expand its services into datacentre infrastructure and trades at the higher valuation of the two (21 times 2027 earnings versus 14 for Primoris). That's because Primoris reported a loss for the second quarter, despite record sales. The losses stemmed from cost overruns on six renewable-energy projects. All of these will be complete by the end of the year, which should draw a line under the situation.

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The Old Mill, Linztford, Rowlands Gill, County Durham

A Grade II-listed former paper mill on the banks of the River Derwent. It has exposed stonework, wood floors, a wood-burning stove and a large kitchen with an Aga. 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, reception, double garage, studio, riverside terrace, gardens, 0.34 acre.

Price: £700,000 Finest Properties 0330-111 2266

The Stack, Trelyon, Truro, Cornwall

A five-storey, Grade II-listed former engine house dating from the 1800s overlooking a valley. It has granite walls with arched doorways and a wood-burning stove. 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, dining kitchen, reception, terrace, workshop, studio, gardens, 0.6 acres.

Price: £895,000 Rohrs & Rowe 01872-306360

Lakeland Cottage, Spark Bridge, The Lake District

This converted 1850s bobbin mill was originally one of the oldest continuously operating industrial sites in the country. The gardens include a pond and a bridge over the river that leads to a pavilion. 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 3 receptions, study, orangery, dining kitchen, balconies, garages, gym, greenhouse, outbuildings, workshop, private riverside jetty, grounds.

Price: £1.995 million Fine & Country 01539-733500

Rhydlewis, Llandysul, Ceredigion

A mid 17th-century mill in west Wales that was rebuilt in 1811. The former mill has solid stone walls and a full-height living area with a vaulted ceiling with exposed wooden rafters, timber panelling, a Danish wood-burning stove and large glass doors that open onto a substantial balcony that overlooks the garden. 2 bedrooms, bathroom, open-plan kitchen/living area, mezzanine, parking, gardens, grounds.

Price: £350,000 Savills 0292036-8915

The Old Foundry, Panxworth, Norfolk

A former iron foundry and smithy dating from 1869 on the edge of a village. It has double-height ceilings with a mezzanine, exposed beams and a large fitted kitchen. 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, reception, study, office, roof terrace, gardens.

Price: £550,000 Sowerbys 01603-761441

Royal Mint Street, London E1

A penthouse apartment in a converted Victorian factory originally constructed in 1890 for the tobacco manufacturers Thomas Bear & Sons. It has a dual-aspect kitchen and reception with double-height vaulted ceilings, exposed brickwork, the original cast-iron columns, timber floors and Crittal windows. 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, office/bedroom 4, open-plan kitchen/dining room, share of freehold.

Price: £2.25 million Knight Frank 0203-597 7687

The Old Fire Station, Worcester

A top-floor apartment in the award-winning Old Fire Station development in the centre of Worcester. The flat has an open-plan interior with wood floors and modern fittings. It comes with its own private balcony that commands views over Worcester Cathedral and also has access to a communal roof garden. 2 bedrooms, bathroom, open-plan kitchen/ living area, parking.

Price: £260,000 Allan Morris 01905-612266

The Wheelhouse, Canterbury, Kent

A Grade II-listed former industrial building dating from the 18th century just outside the city walls in the Nunnery Fields conservation area. It has a 32ft vaulted drawing room with a log-burning stove and a 36ft sitting room with a vaulted ceiling, exposed timber beams and a Juliet balcony. 6 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 4 receptions, study, conservatory, breakfast kitchen, greenhouse, garage, courtyard garden.

Price: £900,000 Strutt & Parker 01227-473700

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CVS Group (LSE:CVSG) is an example of how temporary uncertainty can create attractive investment opportunities.

For the past three years, the UK's largest listed veterinary services group has traded under the shadow of the Competition and Markets Authority's (CMA) investigation into the sector.

Investors feared the regulator would impose remedies severe enough to undermine the industry's profitability, pushing the shares down to 13 times earnings – a ten-year low.

Yet during that period, the business continued to compound earnings at an attractive rate. Revenue and profits kept growing, the firm expanded internationally and management kept investing in the business.

With the CMA's process now largely complete, investors have a chance to judge CVS Group on its operating performance rather than regulatory uncertainty.

Since listing in 2007, CVS Group has delivered uninterrupted revenue and Ebitda growth, a record few UK-listed companies can match, and one that helps explain why the shares historically commanded a premium valuation.

Few industries offer the resilience of veterinary care. People may postpone replacing a car or renovating the kitchen when finances come under pressure, but pet owners are unlikely to delay treatment for a sick pet. Demand therefore tends to remain resilient through economic downturns.

The industry's long-term outlook also remains favourable. Advances in veterinary medicine mean treatments once confined to specialist centres – including MRI scans, orthopaedic surgery and oncology – are becoming increasingly commonplace.

Add the millions of puppies and kittens acquired during Covid now reaching the age where healthcare spending accelerates, average spending per pet looks set to continue rising.

CVS Group has spent more than two decades building a business designed to benefit from those trends.

What started as a consolidator of independent veterinary practices has evolved into an integrated healthcare network spanning 500 sites, including general veterinary practices, specialist referral hospitals, diagnostic laboratories and an online pharmacy.

That integrated model creates meaningful competitive advantages. A routine consultation can lead to specialist diagnostics, orthopaedic surgery or oncology treatment without the patient leaving the CVS Group network.

Rather than referring work elsewhere, the company retains a greater share of each pet's lifetime healthcare spending while improving utilisation of its specialist facilities. It also makes the network more attractive to both clients and clinicians, reinforcing the advantages that scale already provides.

How CVS Group is cementing loyalty

Roughly 500,000 owners pay monthly subscriptions via The Healthy Pet Club, covering vaccinations, parasite treatments and routine health checks.

The subscriptions provide recurring revenue, and encourage owners to visit their vet more regularly – increasing customer loyalty while creating opportunities for higher-value diagnostics and treatment.

CVS Group has also invested heavily in recruitment, training and retaining veterinary professionals.

While labour shortages affect much of the sector, the firm's scale enables it to offer clearer career progression and more opportunities for clinical specialisation than independent practices can provide.

That should help support future growth and reinforce its competitive position.

The story does not end in the UK. Australia today resembles the UK veterinary market of 15 years ago – fragmented, independently owned and offering considerable scope for consolidation.

In three years, CVS Group has acquired 57 practices generating £80 million of annual sales, with the same disciplined acquisition strategy that proved successful in the UK.

Since the CMA announced its investigation, the company's valuation has steadily fallen even as the underlying business has continued to grow.

Australia has emerged as a meaningful contributor to earnings, the group has strengthened its market position and sales have continued to rise.

Management used the period to strengthen the business and diversify future sources of growth. CVS appears stronger today than when the regulatory review began, yet the share price continues to reflect much of the uncertainty.

That valuation gap is difficult to justify. Businesses capable of generating resilient cash flows, delivering consistent double-digit earnings growth and reinvesting capital over long periods rarely trade on just 13 times earnings. For much of the past decade, investors were prepared to value CVS Group at more than 20 times.

That premium was not simply a reflection of optimism. CVS Group combined resilient end-market demand with dependable double-digit growth, strong cash generation and repeated opportunities to reinvest capital at attractive returns.

Those characteristics remain largely intact today. If anything, the Australian expansion has broadened the opportunity to deploy capital at attractive returns.

Wage inflation remains a challenge across the veterinary profession and continued investment in clinicians may weigh on margins in the near term. Australia must still demonstrate that it can replicate the success of the UK business over a longer period. A rerating may therefore take time.

However, those risks appear broadly reflected in the current valuation. The CMA investigation depressed CVS's valuation for much of the past three years. It did not stop the business from growing.

If the market begins to focus on the latter rather than the former, today's valuation may prove an attractive entry point.

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What's the current situation with adult social care?

A few years ago a parliamentary committee memorably summed up the adult social care system in England as “unfair, confusing, demeaning and frightening” – and that remains a good summary.

A central problem is the “care lottery” involved in a complicated patchwork of funding rules, means-testing, local-authority decisions and private providers – with families taking up the slack.

Whereas a patient with cancer receives free state-funded treatment on the NHS, someone with dementia must fund long-term care costs themselves if they have assets worth more than £23,250 – so even modestly wealthy individuals can be forced to sell their homes to fund residential-care costs, which can easily top £100,000, or indeed multiples of that for the most unfortunate.

Addressing that unfairness in a way that's acceptable to taxpayers, those requiring care and those eager to protect hard-gained assets is a problem that has so far proved unsolvable.

What about quality of adult social care?

The squeeze on funding for local authorities, which provide social care, has led to a “fragile and fragmented market of providers”, says the Financial Times– leading to even lower pay levels, problems in recruiting and retaining staff and huge variations in quality.

As the population ages, demand is growing – at present only 42% of requests for help can be met. But it's not just about age: half of council care budgets go toward care for working-age adults, whose care needs can last much longer.

Overall, two million people have unmet care needs because they can't afford help, while more than 30,000 died last year while waiting for a social-care package, such as residential care, to be provided.

Under this badly functioning system, unpaid family carers absorb enormous personal costs, while delayed discharges owing to gaps in social care account for almost one in ten hospital beds, adding costs and stress onto the NHS.

What has Andy Burnham announced?

Andy Burnham has reconfirmed Labour's pledge to reform and rebuild adult social care in England via the creation of a National Care Service.

So far, though, that is very much an aspiration, with no fixed plan on how to achieve it – nor a clear picture of what that service will look like.

Burnham has also begun cross-party talks, and last month launched a “big conversation” with the public to get buy-in for whatever funding model is ultimately proposed.

And he has asked Louise Casey, a cross-bench peer, to bring forward delivery of her Independent Commission, begun under Starmer, to the summer of 2027.

Haven't we been here before?

Many times. Ominously, even Andy Burnham himself has been here before. As health secretary in 2009, Burnham floated a national-care scheme to revitalise and fund social care in England.

The Conservatives promptly branded the funding model – a levy on estates – a “death tax”, a label that stuck. But even so, Labour went into the 2010 election with a very familiar sounding policy – the creation of a National Care Service implemented in phased stages.

Under the Conservatives, a series of white papers were promised, but successive PMs failed to take action, with Theresa May's attempt at the 2017 election backfiring spectacularly with voters.

Labour accused her of planning a “dementia tax”; in fact she'd proposed a rather promising state-sponsored equity-release scheme that protected assets up to £100,000.

What are the funding options?

The phrase “National Care Service” suggests a universal NHS-style service free at the point of use and paid for out of general taxation. But the Health Foundation estimates the costs at £18.5 billion a year – and the UK's delicate fiscal position, demographics and low-growth economy make such a scenario highly unlikely.

More money will be needed, either via some form of hypothecated tax, or some form of compulsory social insurance that caps liabilities and pools risks – a model that works well in Germany and Japan. Here, civil servants have produced a model where workers over 34 pay an extra 1.8% income tax (above a £6,240) threshold to fund a national Later Life Care Fund.

Separately, Burnham has mooted scrapping inheritance tax and introducing a 10% levy on all estates, not just the largest 5% or so. Such a system would be simple and potentially raise large sums, but it's a tough sell politically and open to the “death tax” accusation.

So what's the solution?

Britain can't afford a “blank cheque” National Care Service that pours resources into a “taxpayer money hole”, says Eamonn Butler on CapX. But it urgently needs a “targeted safety net against genuine catastrophe”.

The first stage of any resolution will surely draw on the 2011 Dilnot report, says the FT: impose a lifetime cap on individuals' contribution to care costs and raise the assets threshold for making them pay. Such a cap would remove the threat of crushing expense that would overwhelm all but the very wealthy. And it would “create an insurable risk against which consumers could take out private insurance, avoiding having to sell their homes in their lifetime”.

The second plank, says Bloomberg, should be to “make more private provision workable”, for example by more stringent regulation that facilitates transparency and comparability, and by ensuring no one is penalised insuring themselves. “New financial instruments – from auto-enrolment pensions with a social-care component to annuities attached to home equity – could play a role if carefully regulated.”

In terms of funding, there “will be fights over thresholds, taxes and who gets what. So be it. The option Burnham can't afford is the one governments have been choosing for decades: pretending the bill disappears if nobody opens it.”

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Average asking prices for homes in Glasgow and Manchester’s commuter hubs have soared in the past year, new research shows.

Property portal Rightmove analysed asking price growth in commuter towns linked to six of Britain's largest cities: London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow and Cardiff.

Of the cities analysed, the strongest asking price growth is concentrated in commuter locations by Glasgow and Manchester, with 10 of the top 15 fastest-growing hotspots located here.

Asking prices are rising fastest in more affordable commuter areas, Rightmove said, but falling in some higher-priced locations.

Colleen Babcock, property expert at Rightmove said the research shows two very different stories playing out in the UK’s commuter markets.

“In the more affordable locations around Glasgow and Manchester, asking prices are rising strongly as buyers look for value within reach of major cities,” she said.

“Meanwhile, some of the more expensive commuter hotspots are seeing prices ease, which could create opportunities for buyers who may previously have been priced out.

“For anyone considering a move, it's a reminder that looking a little further beyond the main city locations can often open up more options and better value for money."

Glasgow and the North dominate list of commuter hotspots with the fastest rising asking prices

Asking prices for homes in Falkirk, a commuter town of Glasgow, had the highest annual change among the cities listed, with growth of 13.5%.

The average asking price for home in the town is now £183,596, just lower than the average asking price in Scotland of £199,888, according to Rightmove in August.

Clark Gillespie, director at Forth and Clyde Property, an estate agent in Falkirk, said the city is “an attractive choice for buyers because it offers a combination of affordability, strong transport links and excellent family amenities”.

The town has good transport connections to nearby hubs like Edinburgh and Stirling too, meaning “it's a practical option for commuters who want to stay connected to major cities while getting more for their money”.

Beyond Falkirk, towns near Glasgow dominate the list of commuter hotspots with the fastest-growing asking prices, with six locations earning a place in the top 15.

Several of Manchester’s commuter towns have also seen strong asking prices growth, with four ranking in the top 15.

Asking prices for homes in Rochdale have grown by 8.7% in the past year, the second-fastest of those analysed, bringing the average to £238,115. The suburb has asking prices lower than the average for the North West, which stood at £273,421 according to Rightmove in August.

Other notable Manchester commuter towns with fast-growing asking prices are St Helens (7.8%), Wigan (6.2%), and Stalybridge (5.6%).

Source: Rightmove, 24 August

London’s commuter hubs dominate list of asking price falls

Average asking prices in many towns serving London have fallen, representing 11 of the bottom 15 commuter towns.

Haywards Heath in West Sussex, a commuter town for the capital, has seen the biggest price fall of 4.8% since last year, Rightmove’s analysis found. Here, the average asking price is now £461,066, just below the average of £469,604 in the South East of England.

Meanwhile, asking prices in Maidenhead, Berkshire have fallen by 3.9% in the past year, bringing them to £571,686.

London does have one commuter town that bucks this trend. Broxbourne in Hertfordshire had the third-strongest asking price growth at 8.1%.

Some of Bristol’s commuter hubs have also seen asking prices fall. Asking prices for homes in Bath fell by 3.8% in the past year, while those in Yate, a suburb of the city, fell by 2.3%.

Source: Rightmove, 24 August

During Covid, Halfords (LSE:HFD), briefly benefited from the expectation that everyone would become a cyclist. Many people were making changes to their lives, such as adopting a pet, buying an exercise machine, or taking up a new hobby.

Shares in the firms that served these sectors surged, but once the lockdowns ended, many of these interests dwindled, causing the shares to fall back.

Even today, Halfords’ share price is still down 50% from its record peak in May 2021. But recently it has started to take off again and this time the increase could prove sustainable.

Halfords makes its money from selling accessories and providing repair services for bicycles and cars; it accounts for about half of all bicycles sold in the UK. It operates 370 stores, 496 garages, 21 mobile hubs and 92 commercial depots in the UK and Ireland.

Although overall sales have grown at a solid rate, increasing by around 40% since 2021, this conceals the fact that profitability has been far less consistent, due to higher costs and the overstocking of bicycles.

Normalised earnings per share are now less than half the level reached in 2021.

Halfords brings in a new broom

The good news is that Halfords' problems led to the appointment of new CEO Henry Birch last year. Birch has come up with a turnaround strategy based on three ideas.

In the short term, Halfords has worked hard to boost margins by keeping costs under control. It has also taken steps to improve its digital platform, making it easier for its customers to book services and sign up for regular plans.

However, the most interesting part of the new strategy is that Birch has been trying to shift Halfords' business more towards cars, which now comprise around 80% of sales.

He wants Halfords to focus on car repair and maintenance. One reason for this is that this part of the company has more growth potential than the stores owing to the greater opportunities for upselling (offering customers more and pricier products and services).

Another big advantage is that it is much harder for drivers to delay essential repairs than the purchase of accessories, making the division more resilient to the economic cycle.

Already this strategy seems to be paying off, with last year's pre-tax loss becoming a comfortable profit in the year to April 2026. Like-for-like sales (those from existing business units) are also growing at a healthy rate, while gross margins have improved too; Halfords recently upgraded its profit guidance for the next year.

Despite all this, the stock's valuation remains cheap at 12 times 2028 earnings and barely the value of the company's net assets.

The shares also offer a very solid dividend yield of 4.4%. Furthermore, they have soared 75% since 1 May, and they trade above both their 50-day and 200-day moving averages.

Go long at the current price of 232p at £15 per 1p. Put the stop-loss at 167p, which gives you a stop loss of £975.

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Skiing made easy

Wellness, luxury and indulgence come together at Hotel Nesslerhof. This five-star Austrian retreat is ideally located for hiking year-round. But its location within the Alpine valley of Großarl also makes it particularly well-situated for skiing.

Guests can pre-order their ski equipment online before they arrive and find it waiting for them in their personal locker after check-in. They can then cross the road to the Kieserlbahn cable car that will take them up to the Grossarltal-Dorfgastein ski area – part of the vast Ski amadé network (Europe’s largest), with 70km of immaculate slopes and 18 modern lifts. The ski area, where snow is guaranteed from December to April, is suitable for skiers of all levels.

Afterwards, guests should head to restaurant Sky Lounge Wolke 7 for panoramic views at the top of the Kieserlbahn or unwind at the Nesslerhof’s 1,800-square-metre wellness area and spa.

From £428 a night, including breakfast, visit nesslerhof.at/en.

Autumn food festival

The Culinary autumn food festival is returning to Schlosshotel Fiss, high in the Tyrolean Alps, from 5-25 September. Guests can take part in wine tastings and cooking workshops, as well as outdoor activities such as food-themed hikes through the mountains and events at the local distillery.

While the festival is bound to be indulgent, Schlosshotel Fiss has tied it in with its wellness programme so that guests can, for instance, go on guided walks through the hotel’s herb garden to learn about the Alpine plants that go into seasonal dishes.

There will also be yoga sessions beside Lake Wolfsee and sauna sessions in the evenings, accompanied by singing bowls.

Schlosshotel Fiss is situated in the sunny little village of Fiss, at an altitude of 1,438m. In the warmer months, it is ideally located for hiking and mountain biking, and in the winter guests are able to go skiing and snowboarding.

From €746 A night in winter, full board, schlosshotel-fiss.com/en.

Family fun on the slopes

Specialist ski operator Powder Byrne has been organising high-end holidays for families for 40 years. A range of ski programmes is available for children of all ages and abilities and, new for this year, Powder Byrne is introducing a ski clinic for adults to master their form.

The highlights this winter in Austria and Switzerland include Christmas in Arosa. Guests will be able to enjoy reliable early-season snow at Hotel Valsana – a refined hideaway in the Swiss Alps with a focus on staying healthy.

From £19,146 for a family of four for seven nights, with first-class train transfers.

And you can spend Easter at Hotel Maiensee in the Austrian Arlberg at an altitude of 1,800m, which has access to the Arlberg ski area. The pretty little resort of St Christoph is part of the bigger and better-known St Anton ski circuit.

From £19,256 for a family of four for seven nights, visit powderbyrne.com.

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“What should I do if there's a AI crash?” a friend asked me recently. It is a very sensible question – we don't know there will be an AI crash, but having a clear plan to follow when you start to worry is better than waiting and panicking.

However, it's also a very difficult question, because the AI theme is such a huge part of the market: tech is over 35% of the MSCI World index (once you allow for firms such as Amazon and Alphabet assigned to non-tech sectors), while the trillions of AI capital expenditure is also buoying other sectors.

My first suggestion is to look at what wealth preservation trusts such as Capital Gearing (LSE: CGT), Personal Assets Trusts (LSE:PNL)and Ruffer Investment Company (LSE: RICA) hold.

These have diversified portfolios intended to cushion a market downturn, while still achieving growth. You could put some of your portfolio directly into these trusts, or you could look at how they allocate to cash, bonds, gold and other assets such as infrastructure as a template.

Even if you are a growth investor who is comfortable with high volatility to earn higher long-term returns, portfolios like these give you ideas for temporarily reducing risk that may be better than holding cash.

If you prefer open-ended funds, Orbis Global Balanced stands out for an active approach with more of a bottom-up value philosophy than most multi-asset funds.

Hedge against an AI crash with value stocks

If you want to stay entirely in stocks yet still dial down risk, you need to consider what kind of stocks are not caught up in the AI boom and may sell off less or rebound more quickly.

Think about this top down – by region (eg, UK and Europe) or sector (eg, pharmaceuticals and financials). Or you could look for value-focused stockpickers who favour other sectors.

That said, keep in mind that a European industrial that makes power equipment held in a value portfolio may still be a play on data-centre construction.

So it is difficult to anticipate how widely any pain from an AI crash may spread.

The most value-focused global trust is AVI Global (LSE:AGT), while most UK trusts have a value bias.

Among open-ended funds, Ranmore Global Equity has consistent returns from a portfolio that is very different to a typical global fund.

Some niche funds to consider

A third option is to look at very niche strategies whose medium-term returns should hopefully be unrelated to the AI-heavy global index.

Majedie Investments (LSE:MAJE) is now centred around such investments. It's an interesting holding in its own right, while looking at its strategy may help shape your own.

There are many specialist investment trusts and funds such as BH Macro (LSE:BHMG), BioPharma Credit (LSE:BPCR), BlackRock Frontiers (LSE:BRFI), Nippon Active Value Fund (LSE:NAVF) and Rockwood Strategic (LSE:RKW) or Polar Capital Global Insurance.

However, picking such funds is an approach for experienced investors who clearly understand what they are buying.

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Putting money in the S&P 500 is popular among those who want to start investing as well as experienced investors.

The S&P 500 is an index that tracks the performance of 500 of the largest companies in the United States, and is therefore one of the most effective proxies for the US stock market.

If you put your money in the index, you are effectively backing large US companies to continue to perform and grow in the future. Historically, this has brought about large returns.

Between 1 January 2000 and 1 January 2026, the S&P 500 increased by around 386%, and in the year to 17 August 2026 alone, the index rose by around 20%.

Given the index’s historically strong performance, it’s a popular one for people to track – often using an exchange-traded fund (ETF).

ETFs are one of the “the simplest ways to start investing,” says Kate Marshall, investment analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

“They can offer a great entry point into investing because they provide exposure to a diversified mix of investments, such as shares or bonds, rather than relying on the fortunes of a single company or asset. This helps to spread risk and can smooth some of the ups and downs that come with investing.”

But with so many options, how do you choose the one that’s right for you?

What are the most popular ETFs that track the S&P 500?

The most popular S&P 500 ETF is the Vanguard S&P 500 UCITS ETF USD ACC (GBP), according to Hargreaves Lansdown.

That title has several components, each of which says something about the ETF:

• Vanguard is the name of the company that issues the ETF and S&P 500 refers to the index the ETF tracks.
• UCITS stands for “Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities”, a regulatory framework that governs how ETFs in the UK and European Union operate. It effectively means the fund can be sold to UK and European investors.
• USD refers to the base currency of the ETF – in this case US dollars. Some ETFs hedge against the possible impact of currency fluctuations between their holdings’ domestic currencies and another currency.
• ACC means the fund accumulates and reinvests dividends.
• (GBP) at the end refers to the trading currency of the fund. As this particular ETF is listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), you can buy and sell it in British pounds, meaning you do not need to manually convert currency.

This particular fund is listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) with the ticker “VUAG”.

The second-most popular ETF on Hargreaves Lansdown’s list is also from Vanguard – it is nearly identical to the one detailed above, but the only difference is that this one distributes your dividends. It trades on the LSE with the ticker “VUSA”.

A list of the top ten most popular S&P 500 ETFs among Hargreaves Lansdown’s investors can be found below.

^{Source: Hargreaves Lansdown, 31 July}

How much does an S&P 500 ETF cost?

When comparing S&P 500 ETFs, one of your biggest considerations should be the fund’s fees as they can eat into your returns.

The main one is the expense ratio, an annual fee charged by the fund provider for managing the fund. These are typically levied as a percentage of your holding in the fund.

For example, VUAG has an expense ratio of 0.07% which is relatively low. In contrast, HSBC's S&P 500 ETF has slightly higher fees of 0.09%.

That means that while both ETFs track the performance of the same basket of companies, you will pay higher fees with HSBC.

You should also look out for other types of general fees involved with investing, like platform fees. These are also usually levied as a percentage by the platform you use to make your investments.

Should I pick an accumulating or distributing ETF?

ETFs often have two variants: accumulating (ACC) or distributing (Dist).

The two labels refer to dividends – payments some companies make to investors – and what happens to them when they are paid out.

An accumulating ETF will automatically reinvest dividends back into the fund. This has the benefit of adding more money directly into your investments, meaning your position may grow faster.

Meanwhile, a distributing ETF will pay dividends into a bank account of your choice to do whatever you want with.

Which ETF to pick will depend on your priorities. Afolabi Thomas, equity specialist, Vanguard said: "Investors focused on long-term growth may prefer accumulation shares, while those looking for an income stream may prefer distribution shares."

One rule of thumb is the further you are away from retirement, the more likely an accumulation fund is right for you, as they allow your investments to grow faster.

“A distribution fund might suit someone who wants their investments to provide a regular income, which could become more relevant as they approach or enter retirement”, Lynn Hutchinson, head of ETF and Index Solutions at wealth manager Raymond James added.

“Though it doesn’t have to be a case of accumulation for younger investors and income for retirees. It really comes down to what you want the income to do. Someone in retirement could quite happily continue using accumulation funds and sell some of their investment when they need cash. Likewise, an investor who is still building their portfolio might prefer to receive the income”.

Why does performance differ between ETFs if they all track the S&P 500?

The performance of S&P 500 ETFs can vary slightly from one another.

This is known as tracking difference. Marshall explains: “Tracking difference shows how much an ETF has outperformed or underperformed its benchmark over a given period and is often the more important measure for investors, as it reflects the return they have actually received.”

There are many reasons an ETF may lag its benchmark, like fees, tax rates or securities lending (where the ETF issuer lends holdings out in exchange for a fee).

“Tracking difference gives you a broader view of what actually happened to the ETF's return once the various costs - and potential benefits - of running the ETF came into play,” said Hutchinson.

“That doesn't mean fees aren't important, they are. But when comparing two ETFs tracking the same index, looking at the OCF alone only tells part of the story. Looking at cost alongside historical tracking difference can give a much better idea of how efficiently an ETF has actually done its job: tracking the index.”

The number of individuals liable for dividend tax is estimated to have reached 3.2 million in 2025/26, up from 3.14 million in 2024/25, according to new Freedom of Information (FOI) figures.

The number of people having to pay dividend tax has almost doubled in the six years since 2020, when 1.81 million were liable to pay it.

The spike comes after successive cuts to the dividend tax allowance. The allowance was lowered from £2,000 to £1,000 in April 2023, then halved again to £500 in April 2024.

Around 630,000 individuals were brought into paying dividend tax when the allowance was cut from £2,000 to £1,000, according to the FOI figures obtained from HMRC by wealth management firm Quilter shared exclusively with MoneyWeek.

A further 480,000 were dragged into paying dividend tax when the allowance was cut from £1,000 to £500.

Rachael Griffin, tax and financial planning expert at Quilter, said: “These figures show how dramatically the dividend tax net has expanded in a relatively short period.

“While much attention is given to frozen income tax thresholds, the sharp reduction in the dividend allowance has quietly pulled hundreds of thousands of people into paying tax on investment income for the first time.

"The government has repeatedly said it wants to encourage greater participation in investing, but reducing the tax-free allowance has moved in the opposite direction by increasing both the tax burden and administrative complexity faced by ordinary investors,” Griffin added.

Source: Quilter

How does dividend tax work?

Dividends are paid to you if you own shares in a company. You don’t pay income tax on any dividends if your income is less than the £12,570 personal allowance.

You also receive a dividend allowance which means if you do pay income tax you can earn up to a certain amount before owing income tax on dividends. For the 2026/27 year, the dividend allowance is £500.

The tax rate you pay depends on your income tax band:

• Basic rate - 10.75%
• Higher rate - 35.75%
• Additional rate - 39.35%

As an example, if you received £3,000 in dividends and earned £29,570 in wages in the 2026/27 year, your total income would be £32,570.

Taking your personal allowance of £12,570 off this figure would leave you with a taxable income of £20,000.

As you are in the basic rate income tax band, you would pay 20% tax on £17,000 of wages, no tax on £500 of dividends because of the dividend allowance and 10.75% tax on £2,500 of dividends.

How to protect your dividends from the taxman

You can’t do much about falling dividend tax allowances, but there are ways to lower your dividend tax bill with HMRC.

Use a stocks and shares ISA

Dividends paid on investments held in stocks and shares ISAs are free from tax and don’t take up any of your £500 dividend allowance.

You can put up to £20,000 into a stocks and shares ISA each tax year.

Griffin, from Quilter, said: “Making full use of ISAs remains one of the most valuable planning opportunities available, particularly as the dividend allowance is now just £500.”

Do a ‘Bed and ISA’

If you have investments held outside a tax-wrapper, for example in a General Investment Account (GIA), you could consider transferring them across to an ISA.

The process is known as ‘Bed and ISA’, and involves selling investments in a taxable investment account and immediately buying them back inside a tax-wrapped account.

Investments transferred into an ISA will benefit from tax-free growth.

Transferring assets between spouses

You can transfer shares to a spouse or civil partner who either pays income tax at a lower rate or hasn’t utilised some or any of their dividend allowance.

By doing this, you’re effectively making the most of two sets of allowances.

Ade Babatunde, senior financial planning director at wealth manager Rathbones, said: “Sharing ownership of company shares between spouses or civil partners can allow both parties to utilise their allowances and lower-rate tax bands before higher dividend tax rates begin to apply.”

Consider alternative investments

If you’ve got the risk appetite, you could invest your money in a Venture Capital Trust (VCT).

VCTs are set up to fund younger businesses with high growth potential, and dividends and capital gains on ordinary shares aren’t taxed.

You also receive 20% income tax relief on up to £200,000 held in shares in a VCT, so long as those shares are held for at least five years.

One major drawback to VCTs is that because they invest in early-stage companies, there is a greater risk they could fail and your investments drop in value. For that reason, they can be a good option if you have maxed out your ISA and pension allowances for the financial year.

Small cap stocks are often overlooked but, for that reason, they can reward patient investors over the long term.

“Small caps offer a rare combination of attractive valuations, growth, and diversification,” said Abby Glennie, co-manager, Aberdeen UK Smaller Companies Growth Trust. “We’ve also gone through market periods globally where the dominant tech themes have driven handfuls of mega caps to lead markets, but perhaps now is the time for market strength to broaden out. Or at least for investor allocations to broaden out from mega caps for risk diversification, as they become increasingly nervous on the artificial intelligence (AI) trade.”

Glennie highlighted that small cap stocks have held up surprisingly well this year in the face of the conflict in the Middle East – which, on paper, could have looked like a major headwind for smaller businesses.

The MSCI World Small Cap Index returned 13.8% in 2026 through to 31 July, outperforming the core MSCI World Index which gained 10.3% in the same period.

“We aren’t seeing risk-off market performance in the way many would expect,” said Glennie. “Part of this driver is that smaller companies are trading at significant discounts to their historical valuation levels.”

What are small cap stocks?

Investment bank Saxo Group defines a small cap stock as one with a market capitalisation (market cap) ranging between $250 million and $2 billion.

Not everyone categorises small caps in this way. The major index provider, MSCI, groups stocks into size categories according to the percentage of the investable market they cover in each individual country, rather than using an absolute figure as a threshold.

“When constructing the MSCI World Small Cap Index, MSCI looks separately at each developed market, such as the US, Japan, UK and Australia,” said Lynn Hutchinson, head of ETF and index solutions at Raymond James. “The large and mid-cap companies might make up around the first 85% of each country's investable stock market.” Small caps then become the rest, and MSCI then combines the small cap stocks from each country into a single, market cap-weighted index.

Generally, though, the $250 million to $2 billion range is a good rule of thumb for thinking about small caps.

With exceptions, their smaller size means small caps are less globalised than larger stocks – they may, for example, be more tapped-in to the domestic economy of their home country than larger cap stocks.

Why invest in small caps?

Small caps can offer diversification, especially in the current environment where momentum investing has concentrated lots of portfolios into the world’s largest stocks.

“Small caps provide exposure to a much broader range of businesses, sectors, and growth drivers,” said Glennie. “Small cap benchmarks and portfolios tend to be very diverse in that way, not dominated by handfuls of stocks or one overarching theme.”

They also offer the potential for higher returns, though this comes with the caveat that you might need to be prepared to ride out periods of volatility.

“In my view, small caps shouldn’t be treated with fear but with healthy curiosity,” said Angeline Ong, senior investment analyst at trading platform IG.

Small caps also offer good value to investors at the moment. The MSCI World Small Cap Index has an average trailing price/earnings (P/E) ratio of 18.4, as of July 2026 – compared to 23.1 for the MSCI World Index, according to data from investment research firm Morningstar.

Are UK small caps good value?

The UK’s small cap sector in particular offers good value. It trades even lower – at just 15.6 times trailing earnings, according to Morningstar.

“We see opportunities across global small caps, but the UK remains especially compelling on valuations,” said Glennie. “UK smaller companies have experienced a prolonged period of investor neglect, and the asset class has been unloved.

“This has left valuations substantially below both their own history and many international peers,” Glennie continued. “At the same time, many UK listed small caps generate revenues overseas, giving investors access to international growth opportunities but at a discounted price awarded for its headline UK listing tag.”

UK stocks are widely undervalued, across the market cap spectrum. But its small caps are weathering the economic storms that 2026 has thrown. The FTSE 250 index (which is made up of mid-cap stocks) gained 10.6% in 2026 through to 25 August, while the FTSE AIM All Share Index (comprising the country’s smallest stocks) gained 6.4%.

“While macroeconomic uncertainty remains, this isn’t holding back the asset class in the way many market participants might fear,” said Glennie. “Many high quality UK small caps continue to deliver strong earnings growth, maintain strong balance sheets, and generate strong cashflows, as well as support shares through ongoing share buybacks.”

The risks of investing in small caps

MSCI highlights the fact that small caps can be more volatile than larger stocks. Additionally, they might be less liquid, which can make trading them more costly.

“If you’ve not done your homework, your due diligence… you could be caught offside and end up nursing quite large losses,” said Ong.

The lack of liquidity, Ong said, could mean you can’t sell a position you want to exit quickly enough just because there aren’t enough buyers on the other side.

“The risk with small caps is you might not have the flexibility if you want to get in and out quickly,” she said.

How to invest in small caps

It’s tempting to try to pick the small cap stocks you want to invest in, particularly as many of these might be businesses you’re familiar with yourself.

But this approach can exacerbate the risks of small cap investing. “We’d suggest [small cap investing] is best approached through a portfolio holding, rather than direct individual equities,” said Glennie. “This is because of the benefit of risk adjusted returns that you get through a managed portfolio, whereas at individual stock levels the risk level is much higher- so that strategy is perhaps only suitable for a certain type of investor.”

Tracker funds replicating some of the major small cap indices include the iShares MSCI World Small Cap UCITS ETF (LON:WLDS) or the Vanguard FTSE Global Small-Cap UCITS ETF (LON:VSML).

Active funds tracking global small caps include the Janus Henderson Horizon Global Smaller Companies Fund or the Invesco Global Smaller Companies Fund.

Investment trusts that focus on small caps include The Global Smaller Companies Trust (LON:GSCT) and Edinburgh Worldwide (LON:EWI).

For a focus on UK smaller companies, you could select Aberdeen UK Smaller Companies Growth (LON:AUSC). Top holdings as of 31 July include investment platform AJ Bell (LON:AJB) and construction firms Morgan Sindall (LON:MGNS) and Galliford Try (LON:GFRD).

If you do want to pick your own small cap stocks, Ong stresses the importance of sticking to companies, or at least sectors, that you understand very well.

“It’s not like buying Microsoft,” she said. “You really need to know what you’re buying.”