Can upmarket British fund boutique Ruffer recover its allure?

Fund boutique Ruffer has always prided itself on making investments that go against the herd, boldly marketing its approach as “deliberately different”. But its contrarian stance has left the investment house delivering such poor returns over the past two years that even cash has performed better. At the heart of Ruffer’s thesis was the conviction … Read more

German spending plans lift bond market’s growth forecasts

The dramatic rise in Germany’s financing costs this week is far from a rejection of Friedrich Merz’s fiscal bazooka, investors say, with many believing the chancellor-in-waiting’s spending plan can boost growth without stretching Berlin’s finances beyond a sustainable level. German Bunds had their biggest one-day sell-off in decades on Wednesday as markets adjusted to a … Read more

A darling of renewed US energy dominance reels from own mis-steps

Senior Trump administration officials attended an event on Thursday celebrating the $18bn expansion of an LNG export terminal by Venture Global, the upstart producer lauded as a harbinger of renewed US energy dominance. But just as energy secretary Chris Wright praised chief executive Mike Sabel as a “great, bold founding CEO” in his speech at … Read more

Is this dotcom bust 2.0?

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. How do you know when a bubble has popped? Twenty-five years ago on Monday, a multiyear US stock rally hit its peak and began a precipitous decline that would wipe 77 per cent off the … Read more

Wealth managers dump investment trust shares

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The UK’s largest wealth managers are selling their holdings in investment trusts, leaving the £274bn industry exposed to more opportunistic and activist investors, experts have warned. Wealth managers divested some 1.2mn investment trust shares last … Read more