What better place to wait out the pandemic than Barbados? Like most of its Caribbean neighbours it has been good at keeping Covid-19 at bay during the past few months. But that does not mean the island has been unscathed.

Tourists’ spending accounts for 40% of the island’s GDP, with approximately 30% of the workforce employed by the industry. This helps explain the latest proposal of the prime minister, Mia Mottley.

She is advocating a “Welcome Stamp” for visitors to work remotely in paradise for up to a year. The idea is that if holidays are not possible, then maybe the island can attract well-heeled office workers who no longer have to go to the office.

  The visa is open to applicants worldwide for £1,590 (US$2,000) per person, or £2,385 (US$3,000) per family.

  To qualify, applicants must earn at least £39,760 (US$50,000) per year and have health insurance.

  In between Zoom meetings, visa recipients can enjoy beach time: surfing, scuba diving and jet-skiing; or, since that can be thirsty work, there are plenty of local rum distilleries to tour. If this sounds like something you could get on board with, just switch your status to “working from beach”.

Money Statistics?

$74trn – The combined net worth of all those with investable assets of at least $1m at the end of 2019, an increase of 8.7% from 2018. The US had the most millionaires at 5.9 million.

£40bn – How much the migration of one million Hongkongers, three million of whom have been offered a path to UK citizenship, would contribute to the British economy.

$20,000 – The forecast price prediction of Bitcoin, for the end of 2020, by most analysts. As of the 7th of August, Bitcoin’s price is $11,875, a gain of over 20% in the last month.

Today’s National Day

NATIONAL DOG DAY !

PUBLISHERS NOTICE

Just In…  

Hello,

We have just received the email below from one of our customers. I thought you might be interested in what he has to say…

From: John C******* [john********@*****.com]  
Sent: 09 August 2020 09:58
To: Admin
Subject: “The Hermes Strategy “

Dear Bill, 

Well that was a result —- I certainly wasn’t expecting the system to pay for itself in 2 days with 66/1 shot Star of Emaraaty! I have backed 66/1 shots before, but I don’t think I would have picked this one!

Once again ——Thank You Very Much.

Kind Regards,

John

If you’d like full details on what he is talking about pleaseClick Here 

 All The best 

John

“ What’s your biggest weakness? Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?” Such is the mind-numbingly predictable ritual of the modern job interview. Afterwards, the interviewer usually makes a gut-instinct decision about who to hire.

Yet this wildly subjective methodology is a bad way of finding the best people. Everyone thinks they have good intuition, but the data says otherwise. One study showed people were worse at predicting a student’s future grades after reading a profile and interviewing them compared with reading a profile alone.

Interviews introduce a lot of useless “noise” – information that seems significant but is just a distraction. One of the biggest bits of noise is charm. The traditional interview is an ideal environment for the charismatic – fine if you are recruiting a sales force, but not if you need an accountant or a software engineer.

Thankfully things are changing. There is a growing trend towards competency-related tests: the best way to test job candidates is often just to see if they can handle important job tasks.

Suffering From A Tax Conscience?Take This To Relieve The Symptoms

£15,000 – The extra charge paid by recent homebuyers who bought just before the government’s recent change to the stamp duty threshold, now £500,000, than those who buy now.

  £1.1m – How much Prince Charles, as the Duke of Cornwall, received from the unclaimed assets of residents of Cornwall who died without leaving a will or having surviving relatives, in the year to March.

  Excellent work has been undertaken by the Cabinet Office’s Efficiency and Reform Group in terms of finding savings, but taxpayers’ cash has still been wasted in a number of ways, with significant sums ripe for being saved in many areas, including:

  £53 billion – Additional cost of funding pay and pensions for public sector workers over and above the private sector average, based on analysis of figures from the Office for National Statistics and the Pension Policy Institute.

  £25 billion – Amount wasted through inefficient public sector procurement and poor use of outsourcing, based on an authoritative report from the Institute of Directors.

  £20.3 billion – Cost to the economy of public sector fraud, according to the National Fraud Authority

  £5 billion – Amount paid in benefits to those with an income in excess of £100,000. £4 billion – Losses to the taxpayer from RBS and the sale of Northern Rock.

  £2.9 billion – Amount spent needlessly by the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills and Department for Culture, Media & Sport, which should both be scrapped.

  £1.2 billion – Annual subsidy to foreign farmers through the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy.

Today’s National Day

NATIONAL RADIO DAY !

PUBLISHERS NOTICE

Just In…  

Hello,

We have just received the email below from one of our customers. I thought you might be interested in what he has to say…

From: John C******* [john********@*****.com]  
Sent: 09 August 2020 09:58
To: Admin
Subject: “The Hermes Strategy “

Dear Bill, 

Well that was a result —- I certainly wasn’t expecting the system to pay for itself in 2 days with 66/1 shot Star of Emaraaty! I have backed 66/1 shots before, but I don’t think I would have picked this one!

Once again ——Thank You Very Much.

Kind Regards,

John

If you’d like full details on what he is talking about pleaseClick Here 

 All The best 

John

The difference between a bubble and a mania is hard to define, but most of us figure we know it when we see it, to borrow an American judge’s famous summary of pornography. The boom or bubble, according to your taste, in large tech stocks such as Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook or Microsoft doesn’t seem to pass that test.

We can argue about whether they are overvalued, but they are clearly very valuable. At worst, they should be worth a good proportion of what the market now thinks. Some other trends look more like mania.

Take electric-vehicle maker Tesla, whose share price recently passed $1,000, up from around $400 in January. Its market capitalisation of $200bn is now larger than Toyota’s; its enterprise value is just a third smaller than Toyota and 20% smaller than Volkswagen, and is larger than Hyundai, General Motors or Ford.

Toyota and Volkswagen both make more than ten million from vehicles per year; the other three make six to seven million each. Tesla makes less than 500,000. Simply put, Tesla needs to grow production and market share vastly, or become hugely more profitable than its rivals, to justify its current valuation. That is conceivable, but very optimistic. If it fails, it’s worth a great deal less

Shares We’re Buying This Month 

Focusrite, the audio specialist has been enjoying a lockdown boom. A world leader in the hardware and software used to record, mix and edit sound, Focusrite used to sell mainly to the music industry. Yet emerging demand from podcasting, game streaming and online education means that there is more opportunity than ever in this sector. The group enjoys large gross margins, particularly in its software operations. A price/ earnings ratio of 26 is justified by auspicious long-term growth prospects.

Founded in 1993, Caretech today runs more than 500 social-care facilities, looking after children and young adults with complex conditions ranging from autism to anorexia. Staff-to-patient ratios are high and many employees have been with the business for years; indeed, a large number own the shares. Activity remained resilient despite the disruption of lockdown and the company last month hiked the interim dividend by 7%. The payout has also risen every year since 2007.

Sales at the owner of Premier Inn and Beefeater plunged by 99% during the first seven weeks of lockdown, prompting a £1bn rights issue. The funds have provided crucial balance-sheet ballast, yet the money will also be used for future growth and investment. The travails of rival Travelodge suggest that there will be plenty of chances to poach assets in the coming months, while there is scope for Whitbread to grow its market share considerably.

Today’s National Day

NATIONAL AVIATION DAY !

PUBLISHERS NOTICE

Just In…  

Hello,

We have just received the email below from one of our customers. I thought you might be interested in what he has to say…

From: John C******* [john********@*****.com]  
Sent: 09 August 2020 09:58
To: Admin
Subject: “The Hermes Strategy “

Dear Bill, 

Well that was a result —- I certainly wasn’t expecting the system to pay for itself in 2 days with 66/1 shot Star of Emaraaty! I have backed 66/1 shots before, but I don’t think I would have picked this one!

Once again ——Thank You Very Much.

Kind Regards,

John

If you’d like full details on what he is talking about pleaseClick Here 

 All The best 

John

The two biggest uncertainties facing investors are when we will have an effective vaccine or treatment for Covid-19 and whether the economic recovery will be V-shaped or resemble some other increasingly contorted letter of the alphabet.

Although these questions are obviously related, they are not entirely the same. The world will not get back to normal until the coronavirus is no longer a major problem, either because we’ve solved it medically or because enough people have caught it and got over it.

But the scale of the economic shutdown that we’ve seen in the last few months is so great that unless activity snaps back as far as it can in the meantime, we risk a vicious cycle of business failures and rising unemployment that condemns us to many years of economic struggle even if vaccines, treatments or acquired immunity arrive relatively soon.

So while stockmarkets are justifiably taking the view that a year or two of lost profits has little impact on the long-term fundamental value of companies, they are still implicitly betting that the wider economy rebounds as much as possible. Anything that is not V-shaped at first means greater medium-term risks, not just a slower recovery.

Hence watching the short-term economic data is a lot more important now than it would usually be. That doesn’t mean fretting over GDP numbers. First, these don’t arrive in time to be useful. The Office for National Statistics will release its UK GDP estimate for April to June on 12 August – more than one month after the end of the quarter. Second, we already know what it will show, a gigantic recession.

The actual magnitude is irrelevant. What matters is what’s going on right now, that means looking at more timely leading economic indicators. So far, these look modestly encouraging. UK retail sales were nearly back to pre-lockdown levels in June. Restaurant and pub trade seemed to be at around 70% of the preCovid-19 level by mid-July, which is a reasonable start given that the government has spent months trying to terrify people into staying in their homes.

New car sales were weak in June, but it seems buyers may have held back in the hope of a government incentive scheme. The picture appears broadly similar elsewhere: the OECD composite leading indicators show activity starting to bounce back globally in June. Unemployment remains very high and job vacancies low, but hiring and firing always lags the cycle. In short, uncertainty is high, but if you’re an optimist, a V certainly looks possible.

Today’s National Day

NATIONAL NIGHT OUT DAY !

PUBLISHERS NOTICE

Just In…  

Hello,

We have just received the email below from one of our customers. I thought you might be interested in what he has to say…

From: John C******* [john********@*****.com]  
Sent: 09 August 2020 09:58
To: Admin
Subject: “The Hermes Strategy “

Dear Bill, 

Well that was a result —- I certainly wasn’t expecting the system to pay for itself in 2 days with 66/1 shot Star of Emaraaty! I have backed 66/1 shots before, but I don’t think I would have picked this one!

Once again ——Thank You Very Much.

Kind Regards,

John

If you’d like full details on what he is talking about pleaseClick Here 

 All The best 

John

The covid crisis has led to a boom in pet sales, with lockdown prompting many of us to decide that we could do with one to keep us company. Pets4Homes, the free pet classified advertisements site, rehomed 2,000 pets per day during lockdown.

If you got a pet the chances are you paid a lot for it. With demand fast outstripping supply, prices have rocketed, with the average cost of a puppy doubling to £1,400. Cocker spaniels saw the biggest price rise. A puppy would have set you back by an average £2,109 in June, triple the cost 12 months earlier.

The price of cats also shot up by almost a third during lockdown. People were parting with almost £400 on average for a kitten. If you are inclined to get a pet, be careful. In March and April 669 people lost £282,686 to pet cons, according to Action Fraud. Scammers post advertisements online despite not having any animals to sell. They ask for a deposit, then more money for insurance, vaccinations and delivery, but the pet never appears.

Always identify a Kennel Club Assured Breeder, or find a breeder through a personal recommendation. Ensure you see a puppy, even if it’s over a video call, and ask to see vital paperwork, such as a puppy contract. Before you get a pet, consider how much it can cost you over its lifetime. Food, vets’ bills and other costs add up to an average of £4,500 for a small dog, rising to £13,000 for a large breed.

The average cat will cost its owner around £12,000. The next question is pet insurance. It is a booming industry, with 3.6 million policies. “Given the high costs of veterinary care, a growing number of pet owners are… paying a steady monthly premium for peace of mind. Claims have nearly doubled to £815m in the past six years.

The average pet insurance claim is £793. Before you sign up, note that the average premium for a dog over the age of five is £381 a year. If you have a dog that lives for 15 years, it would cost £4,975 to insure it. If you have savings to cover vets’ bills in the early years, then another option is to self-insure. Rather than pay an insurer you put the equivalent premium into a savings account.

Flush With Success

I was wandering through a shopping centre, when my attention was grabbed by the price tag on a mobile phone. It was over £20,000. I have no idea who pays such a large amount for a soon-to-be-obsolete item (people who haven’t worked very hard for the money, I’d imagine) but it does show there’s a market for an upgraded version of just about anything.

Atlanta Watercloset realised this when they launched their businesses, which aims to provide “exceptionally clean” portable restrooms (toilets) for outdoor events. If you’ve been to such an event, you’ll know that the competition provide the bare basics, but little more.

Atlanta Watercloset offer toilets with fresh water sinks, interior lighting, mirrors, coat hooks, shelves and branded loo roll. The environment around the restrooms can be specially prepared with privacy shields, flowers and pathway lighting. The service is particularly popular at weddings, where nothing can be allowed to spoil the special day.

Whatever the product, some people will always be attracted to an upgrade – a premium offering over and above what’s provided by the standard product. If you find yourself competing fiercely with everyone else in your market, now could be a good time to look at whether there’s a market for an enhanced version of what you do at a premium price.

Today’s National Day

NATIONAL BEACH DAY !

PUBLISHERS NOTICE

Dear Streetwise Customer, 

  I hope you’re keeping safe and well.

  This offer is limited, so we are only make it available to our most valued Streetwise customers at the moment.

  Back in the autumn, we alerted a few of our customers to a course, created by a guy making what seemed at the time to be an outrageous prediction.

  He predicted the world would soon be gripped by a unprecedented crisis which would create a huge financial opportunity. Crazy eh?

  Anyway the course revolved around a strategy which would enable anyone to make £2,803 a month to ‘tick over’ in normal times, but would then transform into a massive fortune maker once the implications of the predicted crisis hit.

  Not many people (including me!) believed the prediction, but £2,800 a month is certainly worth having and a number of our customers got on the bandwagon and started doing well with it…and then the crisis came…sooner than anyone thought.

   The big opportunity he planned for is about to hit, and I want as many of our customers as possible to benefit…but there’s a hitch.

   For reasons explained when you take a look at the details here, I can only help NINE people at the moment. But those nine people are going to get something nobody else has been able to get up until today…

     The full programme in one package and at a huge discount!

   For full details take a look here.

www.streetwisenews.com/CFTFC

Very Best Wishes,

John Harrison
Streetwise Publications

P.S. Everything comes fully guaranteed and makes truly fascinating reading.

www.streetwisenews.com/CFTFC