Techa Tungateja/iStock via Getty Images By Erik Norland With geopolitical risk in the forefront, many investors are asking a similar question: where should one turn for a safe haven? The Japanese yen, the Swiss franc, the U.S. dollar or gold? The reality is that there are no easy answers. Since the Iran conflict began on February 28, the U.S. dollar has emerged as the primary flight-to-quality ins...
Techa Tungateja/iStock via Getty Images By Erik Norland With geopolitical risk in the forefront, many investors are asking a similar question: where should one turn for a safe haven? The Japanese yen, the Swiss franc, the U.S. dollar or gold? The reality is that there are no easy answers. Since the Iran conflict began on February 28, the U.S. dollar has emerged as the primary flight-to-quality instrument, gaining around 3% while most foreign currencies fell against the greenback. The Energy Advantage In past crises, investors often fled to gold or the Japanese yen. Today, they're choosing the U.S. dollar – and energy is part of the reason why. For decades, the yen was a reliable "flight to quality" instrument, but it has two disadvantages in the current environment. First, Japan produces very little of its own oil and natural gas. Higher fuel prices mean higher import bills and slower growth, a dynamic that weighs directly on its currency. Second, Japan’s debt-to-GDP ratio stands at nearly twice that of the U.S. and six times that of Switzerland. This debt burden didn’t matter when interest rates were stuck at zero. But now, with inflation above target and the Bank of Japan raising rates, long-term bond yields have surged. The soaring cost of financing that debt puts further downward pressure on the yen, altering the yen's role as a protective asset. Conversely, the U.S. produces approximately 13.9 million barrels of crude oil daily, covering nearly all domestic demand. While energy-dependent regions like Europe, South Korea and Japan remain highly vulnerable to supply disruptions, America’s energy independence provides a distinct economic advantage. This asymmetry in energy exposure explains why the dollar is functioning as the preferred safe haven at the moment. What About Gold? Gold rallied nearly 100% in the year leading up to this conflict, meaning it entered the crisis already very expensive. Since then, it’s traded mostly sideways as many investors de-risk po...
Former US intelligence adviser Michael Pregent says the US-Iran ceasefire is "fragile" and that both sides' proposals are a starting framework for further talks. (Source: Bloomberg)
Former US intelligence adviser Michael Pregent says the US-Iran ceasefire is "fragile" and that both sides' proposals are a starting framework for further talks. (Source: Bloomberg)
Indonesia’s foreign-exchange reserves fell for a third straight month in March to the lowest level in nearly two years as the central bank stepped up market intervention to stabilize the falling rupiah. Foreign reserves declined $3.7 billion to $148.2 billion, the lowest since July 2024, due to Bank Indonesia’s steps to stabilize the currency and the government’s external debt repayments, the cent...
Indonesia’s foreign-exchange reserves fell for a third straight month in March to the lowest level in nearly two years as the central bank stepped up market intervention to stabilize the falling rupiah. Foreign reserves declined $3.7 billion to $148.2 billion, the lowest since July 2024, due to Bank Indonesia’s steps to stabilize the currency and the government’s external debt repayments, the central bank said in a statement on Wednesday. The stockpile shrank by $8.3 billion in the first three months of this year. The rupiah declined 1.3% last month as the war in the Middle East drove up the cost of oil imports and revived long-term worries about fiscal slippage. BI said on Tuesday that it is continuing to intervene in the markets to maintain exchange rate stability, which is its “top priority.” Indonesia’s dollar stockpile can cover 5.8 months of imports and foreign debt servicing. The stash is adequate to support external sector resilience and maintain macro economic and financial system stability, the central bank said. The rupiah strengthened the most in seven months against the dollar on Wednesday as the greenback fell following news of a US-Iran ceasefire. READ: Bank Indonesia Prioritizes Stability as Rupiah Hits Record Lows
JHVEPhoto/iStock Editorial via Getty Images It has almost been one year since I published my last article about Givaudan SA ( GVDBF ) at the end of April. In the article I rated the stock as a “Hold” and argued that the stock price is still overvalued and wrote in my conclusion: In my opinion, Givaudan remains overvalued and is still not a good investment. The stock is trading at least 25% above i...
JHVEPhoto/iStock Editorial via Getty Images It has almost been one year since I published my last article about Givaudan SA ( GVDBF ) at the end of April. In the article I rated the stock as a “Hold” and argued that the stock price is still overvalued and wrote in my conclusion: In my opinion, Givaudan remains overvalued and is still not a good investment. The stock is trading at least 25% above its intrinsic value. I would not short the stock despite seeing downside risk as we are still talking about a high-quality business and great company. But I also don’t think that investing in Givaudan right now will lead to a high return on investment over the next few years. Since my last article was published, the stock declined 30%, and this is raising the question of whether Givaudan is fairly valued now or maybe even a bargain at this point. From its all-time high, the stock declined even 40%, but in the following article I will argue that Givaudan is still not a good investment. Why we can’t make the argument anymore that Givaudan is overvalued: the expected growth rates for the years to come are not enough to justify the current stock price just yet. Fiscal 2025 Results On January 29, 2026, the company reported fourth-quarter and full-year results for fiscal 2026. For the full year, group sales increased from CHF 7,412 million in fiscal 2024 to CHF 7,472 million in fiscal 2025 – resulting in 0.8% year-over-year growth. While sales still increased a little bit, operating income declined from CHF 1,394 million in fiscal 2024 to CHF 1,381 million – resulting in a 0.9% year-over-year decline. Earnings per share also declined from CHF 118.17 in the previous year to CHF 116.08 in fiscal 2025 – resulting in a 1.8% year-over-year decline. And while Givaudan reported only EPS declines in the low single digits, free cash flow declined 9.1% year-over-year from CHF 1,158 million to CHF 1,053 million in fiscal 2025. Givaudan Q4/25 Earnings Release While revenue for the full year i...
More than 80% of the UK’s tradespeople have had tools stolen. Some have lost months of work as a result. With thefts up 16% in a year, can the police and the government do anything to protect them? If you’re on social media and have even a passing interest in home improvement, there’s a good chance you will have seen Kevin Tingley’s work. The 39-year-old decorator is known as Paint Warrior – and h...
More than 80% of the UK’s tradespeople have had tools stolen. Some have lost months of work as a result. With thefts up 16% in a year, can the police and the government do anything to protect them? If you’re on social media and have even a passing interest in home improvement, there’s a good chance you will have seen Kevin Tingley’s work. The 39-year-old decorator is known as Paint Warrior – and has millions of followers across TikTok and Instagram . He’s in demand, highly skilled, generous in sharing tips from his many years of experience and even has his own range of products on sale in the UK and the US. But even with his social media army and branded brushes, he’s still not immune to the biggest threat faced by British tradespeople: tool theft. “It was Boxing Day morning,” Tingley says. “I was still in bed, my wife was on her way to the gym. She came running back in and told me that all the doors of my van were open.” Continue reading...
As the extraordinary superhero satires comes to an end, a mighty showdown has terrifying parallels with modern America. What a horrifying pleasure it has been to watch The Boys is back in town, for its fifth and final season. There’s too much to recap in full for those who have not yet had the pleasure of the satirical superhero show created by Eric Kripke from the comic books written by Garth Enn...
As the extraordinary superhero satires comes to an end, a mighty showdown has terrifying parallels with modern America. What a horrifying pleasure it has been to watch The Boys is back in town, for its fifth and final season. There’s too much to recap in full for those who have not yet had the pleasure of the satirical superhero show created by Eric Kripke from the comic books written by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. Or who have not yet been horrified by the gory splatterfest (courtesy of all kinds of body fluids) of the preceding 32 episodes, which have seen orifices and appendages put to extraordinary use, and some of which have rightly entered what we will very carefully spell as the annals of TV history. So, let’s just say that the new season finds us set for a showdown between an increasingly power-mad (“Have you seen the memes about me? Posting them should be a crime”) – or, as the voices of angels start speaking to him, possibly just mad – Homelander (Antony Starr) and the Butcher crew. The former is now overlord of the US, with the president and, apparently, Sage (Susan Heyward) at his beck and call. But the gang has just succeeded in screening – in front of a Maga … I mean, Homelander-loving … rally – the long-buried footage of him leaving the passengers on Flight 37 (as he did all the way back in season one when he was just a little baby villain) to die. Continue reading...
More than 33GW of battery capacity approved for Turkish grid since 2022 compared with 12-13GW in Germany Turkey has given the green light to more batteries to buffer its electricity grid than any EU member state, a report has found, in a further sign of rich countries losing steam in the race to a clean economy. More than 33GW of battery capacity have been approved in Turkey since 2022, according ...
More than 33GW of battery capacity approved for Turkish grid since 2022 compared with 12-13GW in Germany Turkey has given the green light to more batteries to buffer its electricity grid than any EU member state, a report has found, in a further sign of rich countries losing steam in the race to a clean economy. More than 33GW of battery capacity have been approved in Turkey since 2022, according to the climate thinktank Ember, while the total planned and operational capacity in European frontrunners that started deploying them earlier, such as Germany and Italy, is 12-13GW. Continue reading...
Richard Hewett, who was forced to sleep in his car when his relationship broke down, is one of many in the UK hit by rising costs and a lack of social housing When Richard Hewett’s relationship broke down, he was forced to leave his partner’s council house – but found his disability benefits didn’t stretch far enough to get him his own flat in his Essex home town. He resorted to the next best opti...
Richard Hewett, who was forced to sleep in his car when his relationship broke down, is one of many in the UK hit by rising costs and a lack of social housing When Richard Hewett’s relationship broke down, he was forced to leave his partner’s council house – but found his disability benefits didn’t stretch far enough to get him his own flat in his Essex home town. He resorted to the next best option: sleeping in his car. It wasn’t what he had expected, aged 59. At 6ft 2in, he squeezed into a Ford Focus and struggled to sleep. When he broke his ankle, he couldn’t look after it properly, contracted sepsis and had his leg amputated. Continue reading...
The UK and EU countries who abstained when Ghana’s UN resolution was adopted may soon find it harder to sustain the same old script on reparations The most revealing thing about Ghana’s UN resolution was not that it passed. It was who could not bring themselves to stand with it. On 25 March, the UN general assembly adopted the Ghana-led resolution by 123 votes to three, with 52 abstentions. It dec...
The UK and EU countries who abstained when Ghana’s UN resolution was adopted may soon find it harder to sustain the same old script on reparations The most revealing thing about Ghana’s UN resolution was not that it passed. It was who could not bring themselves to stand with it. On 25 March, the UN general assembly adopted the Ghana-led resolution by 123 votes to three, with 52 abstentions. It declared that the trafficking and racialised chattel enslavement of Africans was “the gravest crime against humanity” and urged steps including formal apologies, reparatory justice and the return of looted cultural property. The three states that voted no were the US, Israel and Argentina; the UK and all EU member states abstained. Continue reading...
The former chancellor was the chief architect of Germany’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels and cuts to defence spending. Both haunt the country today The former German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, is enjoying a curious political revival. Not so long ago, his reputation seemed in tatters. In light of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, many came to regard his longstanding ties to Russia and per...
The former chancellor was the chief architect of Germany’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels and cuts to defence spending. Both haunt the country today The former German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, is enjoying a curious political revival. Not so long ago, his reputation seemed in tatters. In light of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, many came to regard his longstanding ties to Russia and personal friendship with Vladimir Putin as self-serving. Fellow Social Democrats (SPD) tried to expel him from the party, and as recently as last year the government defunded the ex-chancellor’s office . And yet a veritable Schröder nostalgia is now seeping into German political discourse, a phenomenon that’s less to do with a reappraisal of his chancellorship than with a desperate identity crisis on the centre-left. Katja Hoyer is a German-British historian and journalist. She is the author of Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990 . Her latest book, Weimar: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe, comes out in May Continue reading...
When a friend received a text message from the mainland Chinese tax authorities asking her to ensure that all her declared income – including income from abroad – was accurate, Fan, a finance professional who asked that her full name not be used, was shocked. Her friend was now coordinating with the authorities to settle the outstanding taxes on her overseas trading, she said, adding that “there i...
When a friend received a text message from the mainland Chinese tax authorities asking her to ensure that all her declared income – including income from abroad – was accurate, Fan, a finance professional who asked that her full name not be used, was shocked. Her friend was now coordinating with the authorities to settle the outstanding taxes on her overseas trading, she said, adding that “there is no alternative but to comply” with such texts and that the incident had left her on guard about...