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...

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!

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...

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...

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...

UK plc have been disappearing from the world's largest trade fairs. Pre-pandemic, UK biz were the 2nd largest exhibitors at Drinktec with c 100 companies attending. This year, just 25 will go. The disappearance has become so noticeable that even the CEO of CES commented on it earlier this year.

Richard Caring has apologised after his restaurant empire sent a letter to suppliers demanding a 2.5 per cent "discount" on bills due to the "current increased cost of trading". Caring told The Times that the letter (attached) had been sent in error and was "totally incorrect".

Almost all artificial intelligence models are based on the principle of neural networks, a computational model inspired by the human brain. However, are there other, more efficient ways of building AI models? One start-up spun out of Newcastle University thinks so: www.thetimes.com/article/d34d...

Looks like the UK's tariff rate will be 10%, according to the poster Trump is holding up at his press conference. It looks like tariff rates are discounted by 50% though a global minimum of 10%

Among the products facing duties as a result of Trump's steel and aluminium tariffs - fancy ovens and farm equipment. Various estimates have put the amount of UK steel and aluminium product exports affected by the tariffs at ~ $3bn. Read more here: www.thetimes.com/article/e6c9...

Spelthorne council, which invested over £1 billion in properties including BP's main campus, is to be taken over by government-appointed commissioners. I wrote about bad property bets made by the council and three others in London's commuter belt last year. www.thetimes.com/article/resi...

For the first time ever, Rolls-Royce's market cap has surpassed that of BP. The vast majority of this is down to individual performance. Though Trump factor - combination of tariffs + European rearmmament likely pushing both over the edge.

CCEP is almost guaranteed to join the FTSE 100 at the next reshuffle. Combined with the other Coca-Cola bottler already in the index, Coca-Cola HBC, it will mean nearly 2% of the entire FTSE 100 market cap is dedicated to bottling or selling Coca-Cola products. www.thetimes.com/business-mon...

The Times has partnered with Shadow Fleet Secrets, which shows that more than a third of the tankers in the Shadow fleet were previously owned by European and US shipping companies, producing sales of more than $6 billion. This includes ship owners from the UK: www.thetimes.com/article/1be0...

Update on Yvegeny Prigozhin's legal case against me - UK law firm that acted for Putin’s warlord Prigozhin 'broke no rules' democracyforsale.substack.com/p/uk-law-fir...

Military contractors, weapons-carrying cargo ships, and an enormous Russian military tugboat... @tomjss.bsky.social and I took a look at what Russian ships are up to in British waters www.thetimes.com/uk/defence/a...

Yesterday the defence sec said that the Yantar, a known Russian intelligence ship, was spotted passing through British waters. It's not the only Russian ship with military links to pass through UK waters since Feb 2022. With @yeomans.bsky.social www.thetimes.com/uk/defence/a...

From BCG's Trade report: UK's Trade with China is set to decline by 2.3 per cent a year - despite the UK's more neutral stance as supply chains respond to the demands of the rather more heavyweight US and EU. www.thetimes.com/business-mon...

EXC - Darktrace makes its first acquisition since it went private last year - only the second in its history as the company is set to become "more acquisitive" now that it is off public markets. www.thetimes.com/business-mon...

In November, @jamesdhurley.bsky.social and I wrote about how an 'insolvency avoidance scheme' used Neville Taylor to help companies drop debt Today Taylor, who was listed as the director of over 400 companies, has been banned from running companies for nine years. www.thetimes.com/article/inso...

The Top 10 biggest fallers and risers in the FTSE 100 + FTSE 250 over the last year (excluding the stocks that dropped out of the FTSE 250 altogether). Read more about the best and worst-performing stocks over the year: www.thetimes.com/article/911d...

AstraZeneca has made about £45 million in payments to doctors and healthcare organisations in Russia since the war against Ukraine. It made payments of about £24.4 million in 2022 and £20.6 million in 2023. with @alexralph.bsky.social www.thetimes.com/article/ac81...

Do public-private partnerships work as a way to channel private capital into infrastructure projects in the developing world? Short answer is, as far as the evidence suggest, probably not. Though in some areas, namely Telecoms, the model has proved effective. www.thetimes.com/article/d751...