Saba Capital just sees "an opportunity to get it on the cheap.”
Read my interview with Jonathan Simpson-Dent, the chairman of the embattled Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust, as it gears up for an existential shareholder vote next week.
www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...
EXC: The UK's first prediction market might be launched as soon as this week. EasyBet is launching a similar product in February.
Matchbook will launch its product at the end of January at the latest, and is also providing a white-label product for easyBet
www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...
In years past, Venezuela bonds removal from JPM EMBIG after US sanctions were a massive factor in their significant drop in value
This is quite a big deal re Venezuela bonds. JP Morgan Emerging Market Bond Index has increased V bond weighting yesterday, by 30bps.
That equates to a lot of forced buying (spread over months) that will likely see bonds head up to 60/70c.
As one hedge fund told me, trading in Venezuelan bonds after the country defaulted in 2017 was essentially a way to trade the Monroe Doctrine
It's unsurprising then that some are contemplating investing further on the basis that Maduro's ouster is just the start
www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...
Last week, the US military stormed a supertanker after it departed Venezuela's Puerto José terminal, carrying roughly 1.1 barrels of oil.
Barely a week after the ship was captured, a tanker carrying British insurance departed from the exact same terminal.
www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...
NEW: FCA to allow crypto margin trading
Initial guidance from the FCA banned margin trading for retail customers, but new rules set out yesterday will permit it - as long as losses don't exceed posted collateral.
Usual rules re retail lending e.g. forbearance/credit checks also not required
Unfortunate timing:
Yesterday: Dame Debbie Crosbie, Nationwide CEO, appointed government's new Women in Finance champion
Today: Nationwide fined record £44m over financial crime controls, including failing to spot a customer receiving £27m in fraudulent Covid furlough payments!
Some personal news - after 3 years at The Times, I've joined The Telegraph as Financial Correspondent.
So anyone with anything interesting to say about banks, hedge funds and the like - please do drop me a message!
You can read our contribution to this investigation, as well as those of our 13 other partners, here: www.ftm.eu/files/the-sh...
Honoured to have won the European Parliament's Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize for Journalism with @jamesdhurley.bsky.social and 13 other newsrooms across Europe.
Our investigation looked at former owners of ships now in the Russian Shadow Fleet.
www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/pres...
EXC: The Treasury opposed government plans to force a Chinese company to sell its stake in a UK chipmaker on national security grounds.
With @georgegreenwood.bsky.social
www.thetimes.com/business-mon...
More than three-quarters of the FTSE 100 and a similar proportion of the FTSE 250 make their shares available to US investors by cross-trading them on OTC Markets, known primarily for owning the so-called "pink sheets" in the US.
www.thetimes.com/article/b553...
Particular credit goes to the team at @ftm.eu who led the investigation and did much of the early digging into this!
Take a read of the investigation and partner contributions (including ours) here:
www.ftm.eu/files/the-sh...
Honoured to have been shortlisted for the Daphne Caruana Prize for Journalism with @jamesdhurley.bsky.social and journalists at 13 other newsrooms for our collective investigation into the former owners of ships in the Russian Shadow Fleet.
daphnejournalismprize.eu/edition-2025...
EXC: The US has collected $1.36 bn in tariffs from imports of British products between April and July this year, according to US gov estimates.
That's ~ 6x the same period in 2024, and means British exports faced the 12th-highest level of duties of any country.
www.thetimes.com/business-mon...
Nothing - the London-headquartered smartphone company - has raised $200 million at a valuation of $1.3 billion.
No small feat for a company operating in an industry dominated by a small number of major players.
www.thetimes.com/article/584b...
The discrepancy hasn't gone away either; Oxford Economics noted similar shortfalls in more recent data up to July.
Full story:
www.thetimes.com/business-mon...
The bank attributed the shortfall between declared and actual tariffs to “implementation frictions” in their rollout, due to shipment timing issues, deferred payments and delays in customs systems adapting to the new tariff schedule.
A recent note from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond found that in May, the average tariff rate based on the duties Trump had signed into law stood at 17.5 per cent.
However, the effective tariff rate - based on the actual amount of duties collected by the US was far lower - just 8.7 per cent.
While Trump has raised tariffs to levels not seen in a century, his administration appears to be struggling to enforce them - 🧵
www.thetimes.com/business-mon...
Interesting Calastone figs:
* North America-focused equity funds saw net outflows of £330mn in July, the first outflow since October 2024.
* Global equity funds (which are 60-70% US weighted) saw their second consecutive month of outflows, first time in Calastone's 10-year records.
In less than a month's time, the de minimis exemption will end for any business exporting to the US. I spoke to businesses in the UK about what it means for them:
www.thetimes.com/article/b8bd...
European semiconductor businesses were among the few clear beneficiaries of yesterday's trade deal between the EU and US as much of their exports will be exempt from tariffs.
On the other hand, EU spirit makers failed to secure an exemption, at least initially:
www.thetimes.com/article/bde6...
Earlier this year, a cross-department raid on company formation agents led to 11.5K companies being struck off Companies House
One agent registered ~5K firms at a single address in London. Most of which were based elsewhere in the UK, or not in the country at all
www.thetimes.com/business-mon...
The FTSE 100 broke 9,000 words today, then closed below it - but I wrote 1,000 words about it anyway.
Interesting point - since 2019, defence companies have risen from 7% to 11% of the FTSE 100. Over that same period, energy companies have fallen from 19% to 11%.
www.thetimes.com/business-mon...
EXC: At least 7 vessels exported Iranian oil or related products while holding British insurance from two British shipping insurers.
www.thetimes.com/business-mon...
The number of entry-level jobs has fallen by nearly a third since ChatGPT was introduced in Nov 2022
More importantly, the share of vacancies which are entry level has shrunk over that same period to just 25%, suggesting AI is having a unique effect on grad jobs
www.thetimes.com/business-mon...
