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Year: 2005 || Week: 33

The pensions crisis means that many private sector workers are going to face a miserable old age. But public sector workers have no such worries… not yet, anyway.

Is there anywhere in the UK can you get a house with a sea view at a price that makes any sense? Try the Isle of Wight.

How should the fund management industry charge for its services? MoneyWeek editor Merryn Somerset Webb has some suggestions...

Which is the best property market to invest in now? It isn't Spain, it isn't France and it certainly isn't Bulgaria or Hungary, says Merryn Somerset Webb. It's Germany...For years now the UK property market has been making investors vast fortunes. Pri

A professional investor tells MoneyWeek where he'd put his money now. This week: Alan Hardy, head of investments at Lloyds TSB Private BankingA pitfall too often overlooked by many investors is the impact of inflation. Most commentators are now making

“The sharp slide in shipping rates this year has been widely attributed to a slowing Chinese economy,” writes Kevin Morrison in the Financial Times. “But it may have more to do with the arrival of new ships as owners expand their fleet.” The Baltic Dr

*** The end of cheap milk? *** A big Yahoo! for Chinese internet users *** The Sea Turtle who floated Baidu...will US housing rust or bust?... it's 'banker beware' when it comes to China...and mor     --------------------- -

Yahoo’s $1bn purchase of a 40% stake in Chinese internet auction group Alibaba.com is the latest “and most eye-watering” in a series of such deals, said the BBC.

Until early this year, I steadfastly argued that US housing markets were far from bubble territory, supported as they were by strong fundamentals and buttressed by what I saw as attractive ‘valuations,’ at least by my admittedly crude metrics.

No wonder Robin Yanhong Li was all smiles as he rang Nasdaq's ceremonial closing bell last Friday. The intensity of the feeding frenzy surrounding the market debut of “the Chinese Google”, Baidu.com, surprised even the most bullish: shares rose 354%

High up on the Tibetan plateau at 10,000 feet lies the City of Golmud, isolated even by the standards of that barren land.  With no airport and at least 16 hours from the nearest sizeable town by the fastest possible transport, the Han Chinese i

Want to learn more about investing in the stock market? Read our beginner's guide for the basics on buying and selling shares.

*** No more rate cuts in the near future *** Warren Buffett gets in on Kingfisher action *** Don't sell in May...the eurozone's liquidity trap...buying commodities...and more...    --------------------- - Mr Market's going to be pretty

If the Bank of England has done its sums correctly, last week's 0.25% rate cut “is likely to be the last,” said Edward Hadas on Breakingviews.com. In its quarterly inflation report, the bank scaled back its UK growth forecast for 2005 from 2.5% to a

If history is a reliable guide, ten years from now the price of commodities will be much higher and the price of stock markets will be much lower. For the past 50 years, commodities and the stock market have been inversely correlated. The stock marke

From time to time we hear suggestions that the eurozone economy is about to fall into a 'liquidity trap'. Indeed, this risk is still advanced as a reason for the ECB to cut interest rates. How seriously should we take this threat? Keynes first talked

So much for selling in May. Major markets have been on a roll since then, with America's S & P 500 up 6% to a four-year high and the FTSE 100 ahead by over 10% to a 44-month peak. UK stocks have been helped by a strong performance from the heavyweight

*** No summer sunshine for retailers? *** French abstention hurts Scottish & Newcastle *** Why saving isn't bad for the economy...another take on fund managers...Germany's stock is rising...and more  - More misery for retailers as the British Re

Fund managers are experts at making money - for themselves that is! One reason that City bods get fat while their clients get thin is that fund managers get their hands on huge amounts of dough - literally billions. All they have to do is to find an

Restructuring in Germany - at both the macroeconomic and microeconomic levels - is now about to pay off.  At a corporate level, the share of profits as a percentage of national income has already increased from 36% to 39% since the start of the

Following Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, in his testimony to the Congress on July 20, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said that it is quite likely that we are currently experiencing a global savings glut. Agreeing with Be

It was only a couple of years ago that brewer Scottish & Newcastle left a rather “bland aftertaste”, says Lex in the FT. It was underperforming badly at the time, and suffered from its over-reliance on mature European markets. Now it seems things ar

*** New records for oil *** Was that a false start for the Bank of England? *** Much more to come from the UK's housing market correction...listening to the fund managers...Japan's looming elections...and mor      -----------

Let me give it to you straight - your fund manager doesn't have a clue where stocks are headed In fact, I like to use fund managers as a contrary indicator for what to do when it comes to my investments. Why? Because it works. It's amazing h

UK-based Standard Chartered bank “is in the right places at the right time,” said Lex in the FT. The group saw pre-tax profit come in at $1.33bn in the first half of 2005 from $1.1bn last time, and pre-tax profits from south-east Asia, its “second-la

There has been remarkably little market reaction to Prime Minister Koizumi's decision to call early elections for 11th September, following defeat of the postal reform bill. If anything the markets are moving in the opposite direction to what might h

The housing market correction may have a long way to go.  Near term, the outlook for house prices, for transactions levels and for mortgage lending is significantly cooler than we have seen over the past five years.  In our view, UK house p

*** New decade lows for house price inflation *** No blue skies ahead for retailers *** The bear stretches and yawns...why investing like the rich isn't always a good idea...how to win at the casino ..and mor      -----------

“Troubled” UK telecoms equipment supplier Marconi is in early talks which may lead to a takeover by its Chinese partner, Huawei Technologies, for more than £600m, said the Sunday Times. Though neither firm has commented on the talks, most believe th

Has there been a clear indication of a major change in the stockmarkets in the past two weeks? Yes, the credit cycle is changing, the implications of which are overwhelming... If our assessment that the credit cycle has changed is correct, the implic

Even in the age of Google, Reuters and Bloomberg, nothing beats going places and getting first hand impressions. That's why last week I headed to Las Vegas for a bit of research into the gambling business. Last year our premium service, Profit Hunte

The latest Spectrem Group survey of wealthy US investors has some interesting implications. Not least is the suggestion that ultra high net worth households in the US have quietly doubled their exposure to mutual funds in the past two years, at a ti