Category Archives: Money

‘I thought buying things would make me feel better. It didn’t’: The rise of emotional spending

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Many of us are living for the buzz of the doorbell – spending billions we can’t afford on stuff we don’t need. Here is how to recognise the problem and regain control

In the past fortnight, I have bought the following items online: a hideous cat tree that takes up most of my living room, a lavender pillow spray, two scarves, a pair of gloves, two candles, a sheet mask, a pair of fleece-lined jogging bottoms (so comfy!), a card-holder and an under-eye brightening cream. None of these purchases were essential. Many I haven’t even taken out of the packaging, leaving them in a pile by the front door.

Ten months into the pandemic, I know the rhythms of the courier networks better than I know my menstrual cycle. Royal Mail in the morning; DPD and Hermes in the afternoon. Amazon comes any time, including late at night. DPD couriers insist on taking a photo of you with the package, mortifyingly. I wonder where these photos go: me in a food-stained tracksuit, dirty-haired, holding an armful of packages I can’t remember ordering with an abashed smile. I pray they never see the light of day.

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Are share-trading apps a safe way to play the markets?

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After investors caused havoc on the markets last week in a battle over the shares of a video-game chain, we explore the promise and pitfalls of the apps they used

A year ago shares in struggling US video game store GameStop were worth just $3.25 a pop, yet at the end of last month they had reached $482. This stupendous surge was created by thousands of armchair traders, organising themselves on internet forums such as Reddit, who were attempting to outwit hedge funds who had placed massive bets on the chain’s decline in a process known as short-selling.

This has resulted in billion-dollar losses for some hedge funds, and big profits for traders who cashed out before the stock fell back to less than $100. Many of these speculators were using a new generation of share-trading apps, such as eToro, Robinhood and Trading 212. Have these services tipped the scales of financial power in favour of the little guy? Here we answer some key questions …

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Will Ikea’s recycling scheme really make it greener?

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The furniture chain is trying to tackle the throwaway culture problem, but it has drawn criticism

If spending more time at home has made you consider a furniture update, do not sling out that Billy bookcase just yet. Instead of taking it to the tip, you may be able to raise some cash through Ikea’s new buyback service. The scheme, which it announced last autumn, allows customers to take their furniture back to the store to be refunded and receive a voucher worth up to half of the item’s original value. It will then be resold to a new home, giving it “a second chance at life”.

The furniture retailer says the service will reduce waste and increase sustainability, and is part of its efforts to go greener. Last week it told the FT it was also looking at offering a wider range of spare parts to help people repair its products.

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‘Lost generation of unemployed’: Covid hits careers of over-50s

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People over 50 who lose their jobs more likely to suffer long-term joblessness than other age groups

Lisa Griffiths, a 61-year-old special needs nanny, has spent her career easily moving from one contract to the next. So when her last, five-year contract ended recently, she was shocked to find new employment opportunities far more limited than she had expected.

Then, while she was considering her options, the pandemic hit and work dried up altogether.

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GameStop shares plunge as traders dump stock

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Reddit-inspired surge in stocks such as struggling video games store and AMC dive as hedge funds close positions

Shares in GameStop plunged by 65% in early trading on Wall Street as the trading mania sparked by small investors, that sent its stock surging and cost hedge funds billions of dollars, lost momentum.

The struggling Texas-based video game store chain has been the focal point of a battle by small traders, using forums such as Reddit, to punish Wall Street hedge funds that have bet on certain stocks falling in value. GameStop shares hit a high of $482 last Thursday but slumped to $80 shortly after the market opened. They recovered to $117 by mid-session, but closed down 60% at $90.

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How GameStop traders fired the first shots in millennials’ war on Wall Street

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The dramatic struggle over video game chain’s shares suggests markets must now contend with a breed of angry, young, networked investors

When Ben, 28, a software engineer from Leeds, bought two shares in US games retailer GameStop for £460, it was for one reason, he says: “When they make the film about this in years to come, I’ll know I was there at the frontline with a bunch of idiots on the internet, trying to bring down Wall Street.”

For Emma Rivers from East Sussex, who invested £1,400 in the same company – having known little about it a few weeks ago – it has all been about sending a message that capitalism has had its day.

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GameStop shares surge again as Robinhood restores trading

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App helping to fuel share-buying frenzy allows ‘limited buys’ after a $1bn cash injection to safeguard trades

Shares in companies including videogame retailer GameStop soared again on Friday, as an army of small investors taking aim at Wall Street regained access to amateur share trading platform Robinhood.

The app, weaponised by activist small investors to trap hedge funds in a “short squeeze” that has cost them $20bn on paper by some estimates, had suspended buying of stocks such as GameStop, cinema chain AMC and BlackBerry on Thursday.

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Mastercard to raise fees by at least 400% for EU firms selling to UK customers

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Change from October could lead to higher prices for those paying with UK-issued cards

Mastercard is to increase the fees EU firms face to take payments from online shoppers from the UK by at least 400%, in a move that could mean higher prices for consumers.

When a credit or debit card is used, a percentage of the purchase price is paid by the retailer to the bank that issued it as an interchange fee, which is set by a payments firm.

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Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption

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Sales increase 43% globally in 2020 as plunging battery costs mean the cars will soon be the cheapest vehicles to buy

Electric vehicles are close to the “tipping point” of rapid mass adoption thanks to the plummeting cost of batteries, experts say.

Global sales rose 43% in 2020, but even faster growth is anticipated when continuing falls in battery prices bring the price of electric cars dipping below that of equivalent petrol and diesel models, even without subsidies. The latest analyses forecast that to happen some time between 2023 and 2025.

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The Wodge: can London’s tallest new skyscraper survive the Covid era?

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Nicknamed The Wodge because of its girth, the capital’s tallest ever office has just muscled onto the skyline. But in the age of coronavirus, who wants to jostle for 60 lifts with 12,000 others?

With the City of London deserted once more, its streets only populated by the occasional Deliveroo driver or tumbleweed-seeking photographer, it seems a strange time to be completing the largest office building the capital has ever seen, not least because the very future of the workplace is now in question.

But, rising far above the Cheesegrater and the Walkie-Talkie, dwarfing the now fun-sized Gherkin and boasting the floor area of almost all three combined, 22 Bishopsgate stands as the mother of all office towers. It is the City’s menacing final boss, a glacial hulk that fills its plot to the very edges and rises directly up until it hits the flight path of passing jets. The building muscles into every panorama of London, its broad girth dominating the centre of the skyline and congealing the Square Mile’s distinctive individual silhouettes into one great, grey lump.

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Top UK bosses are paid 115 times more than average worker, analysis finds

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Vast gap in earnings described as ‘unfair’ and ‘repugnant’ by trade union leaders

Bosses of top British companies will have made more money by teatime on Wednesday than the average UK worker will earn in the entire year, according to an independent analysis of the vast gap in pay between chief executives and everyone else.

The chief executives of FTSE 100 companies are paid a median average of £3.6m a year, which works out at 115 times the £31,461 collected by full-time UK workers on average, according to research by the High Pay Centre thinktank.

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Richest 1% have almost a quarter of UK wealth, study claims

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Official figures have missed £800bn of private assets, says thinktank, amid calls for wealth tax to fund Covid recovery

Almost a quarter of all household wealth in the UK is held by the richest 1% of the population, according to alarming new research that reveals a historic underestimation of inequality in the country.

The study found that the top 1% had almost £800bn more wealth than suggested by official statistics, meaning that inequality has been far higher than previously thought. Researchers said the extra billions was a conservative estimate and could well be more.

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Extend Covid measures or households face ‘cliff edges’, says Labour

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Universal credit boost, ban on evictions and mortgage holiday must continue, party says

Many low- and middle-income households will face financial hardship unless ministers maintain support for those who have lost their jobs or experienced steep cuts in income during the second wave of Covid-19, Labour has said.

The shadow chancellor, Anneliese Dodds, said in a new year message to Rishi Sunak that the chancellor must extend a range of Covid-19 rescue measures due to run out over the next three months “to protect struggling households from financial ruin”.

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Future shock: how will Covid change the course of business?

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The crisis poses a deadly threat to some sectors and creates opportunities for others. We examine how they will fare in 2021

Coronavirus has changed lives and industries across the UK, accelerating fundamental shifts in behaviour and consumption that were already on their way. Debates about home working, preserving local high streets and the ethics of air travel were bubbling away before coronavirus rampaged across the world, but the consequences of the worst pandemic in more than a century have either settled those arguments or boosted the momentum behind certain lifestyle changes. Here we look at how those debates have been changed – or resolved – by Covid-19.

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Hangovers, heartaches, horrible meetings: why we all need ‘work wives’

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If you started a new job in 2020, or began working from home, you’re missing out on more than the Christmas party. Here’s why office friendships matter

You never forget your first. I met Abi in early 2009 when we were assistants on a fashion magazine. We sized each other up like a pair of cats on a suburban lawn, then quickly became inseparable. She: Mancunian, funny and forthright. Me: in her words, “Quite posh, aren’t you?”

We were on the bottom rung of a monthly publication that specialised in celebrities and style. It would be fair to say we were not great experts in either field. One aspect of the job involved going to parties to get quotes from famous people. At one, we attempted to interview a pop star, only for our confused interviewee to tell us she was in fact a makeup artist.

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The tactics retailers use to make us spend more – and how they harm the vulnerable

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Online stores draw in shoppers but those with mental health issues are particularly susceptible

As a digital marketer, Emily Ware spends a lot of time online, yet this comes with a risk. Ware has borderline personality disorder, a mental health condition linked with impulsive behaviours. In her case, that’s spending money online.

“At the start of 2020 I was £4,250 in debt with nothing to show for it,” she says. “A good 95% of this was due to impulse spending, from clothes to pub trips to gig tickets. One of the worst was spending £300 on tickets to see Cher on a whim.”

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Reporting on wealth: ‘The virus isn’t a leveller. It has made the rich richer’

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Four years in to the newly created role of wealth correspondent, Rupert Neate explains how the lives of millionaires affect us all

In my reporting, I’ve been interested in how the hobbies and lifestyles of the super-rich affect everyone who isn’t well-off. I wrote an investigative piece on superyachts, and how their billionaire owners often spend £200m or more on what is essentially a floating palace on the ocean, but staffed by people who are entirely unsupported, working up to 24 hours a day.

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‘Why did it take nine hours to go 130 miles in our new electric Porsche?’

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A Kent couple love their new car – but their experience suggests there are problems with the charging network

A couple from Kent have described how it took them more than nine hours to drive 130 miles home from Bournemouth as they struggled to find a working charger capable of producing enough power to their electric car.

Linda Barnes and her husband had to visit six charging stations as one after another they were either out of order, already had a queue or were the slow, older versions that would never be able to provide a fast enough charge in the time.

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Covid set back attitudes to public transport by two decades, says RAC

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Most Britons see their car as more important now and would not choose greener alternative

The pandemic has put back attitudes to driving versus public transport by two decades, with almost two-thirds of UK car owners now considering their vehicle essential, research has found.

A clear majority would now refuse to switch to a greener alternative even if better trains or buses were available, according to the RAC. The research for its annual Report on Motoring found reluctance to use public transport was now at its highest for 18 years.

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From Click Frenzy to Cyber Monday: how online sales became an ‘unofficial sport’

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It isn’t your imagination – there really are more online sales now, and they’re changing Australia’s retail calendar

Five stores email you on the same day. There’s a big sale coming tomorrow. You make a note in your calendar, planning to get some Christmas shopping done. By the time you log off the next day, a little dazed, you have an extra set of bedsheets and a popcorn machine you had no intention of buying.

It was that pop-up offer that did you in – a little red ticker ran across the screen saying “Hurry! Only three items left!” It was probably driven by a machine-learning algorithm.

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