The first question The Sunday Times asks is ‘Should you be investing in China?’ – a perfect storm of economic and political risks has raised growth fears after almost £5.4bn was withdrawn from funds investing in Chinese companies over the past four weeks as investors grew increasingly fearful of tensions between the People’s Republic and the West.
It seems that a fraudster who was fined more than £1m and declared bankrupt over a separate scam costing investors £3.7m has been approved by City regulators to run a new financial company, Claiming4U. Samuel Nathan Kahn, 49, was fined £1.1m in 2011 by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), the regulator at the time.
The paper admits the markets are surging, but warns readers to prepare themselves for a second slump; analysts warn of a “detachment from reality” and the possibility of a second downturn when the economic realities of lockdown take their toll.
They wryly observe that ‘only fantasy fund managers never make a mistake’ and offer a ‘list of shame’ as a cautionary tale for any investors in shares.
The Sunday Telegraph advises caution about mortgage holidays; homeowners may be denied loans or face higher interest rates in the future.
In the same vein, they report that business owners who have furloughed staff or taken a government loan face mortgage rejections – company directors who have accepted official Covid-19 support are being rejected by lenders, even if profitability has not been affected.
Worryingly, it seems that some official avenues to raise concerns about care homes have been cut off during Covid-19, forcing some families to seek costly private legal advice instead.
The Mail on Sunday confirms what we’ve all long suspected – currently, £5,000 in a Nationwide ISA doesn’t even earn you enough to buy a Mars bar and the major banks are paying peanuts too (I was tempted to add ‘snicker’ there, but maybe not…)
But it’s not all doom and gloom as the paper highlights some of the small firms doing better now than before the lockdown.
The infrastructure tsar, Sir John Armitt, urges Ministers to ramp up investment in roads, railways, windfarms and broadband to dig the country out of one of the deepest recessions in history.
The creed of the Inland Revenue is simple: “If we can bring one little smile to one little face today, then somebody’s slipped up somewhere.” (Sir David Frost)
Hope you’re all keeping well and not too tempted to nudge the boundaries of the relaxations of lockdown; a second wave of the virus will be devastating.
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