By: Annabelle Williams

I'm deputy money editor at City A.M. I started my career on a local newspaper before moving into financial journalism. I've worked in a number of senior editorial roles including news editor and features editor. I write about global economics, investment, technology, and personal finance.

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Four great books to super-charge your brain in 2016 – we review the best from commodities to effective investing and The Big Short

February 18, 2016

THE SECRET CLUB THAT RUNS THE WORLD by Katie Kelly Commodity prices have crashed, with everything from oil and metals to grains at multi-year lows. It seems like the end of the “commodity supercycle”, the post-millennium boom when prices of all base goods were soaring. But how did they become so expensive in the first place? [...]
Pension changes: Government plans to let pensioners sell their annuities on a new secondary market have been universally criticised

February 18, 2016

Pensioners will be able to sell on their annuities from next year, swapping regular income payments for a lump sum. It’s part of government plans to give greater freedom to the 5m pensioners who are already living with annuities. Some may be regretting their choice, and the idea of a fat lump sum instead of [...]
Oil prices: Is the age of oil coming to a close? Some say Saudi Arabia’s pumping out black gold because it knows its days are numbered

February 18, 2016

It's the conspiracy theories around why Saudi Arabia is keeping oil prices low that make the saga so intriguing. Data shows the Saudis have raised their monthly production levels throughout this spell of cheap oil. The desert kingdom has been blessed with abundant, easy to access reserves of black gold, which are believed to cost around [...]
Four mistakes newbie investors make – from following fads to gambling away your savings

February 16, 2016

FOLLOWING FADS There are lots of esoteric areas of investment which sound fascinating and it’s easy to believe you have stumbled upon the next big thing – especially if performance has been good lately. I regularly hear from people with little saved who’ve invested in areas such as corn or liquid natural gas. Those niche [...]
Brazil credit crunch fears grow: Debt is high, bankruptcies are rising, and a bank collapse could be next – while critics have dismissed special measures from Dilma Rousseff’s government

February 16, 2016

Two million revellers descended on Rio for Carnival, the biggest party in the world. And now the city has six months to prepare for the next extravaganza, the 2016 Rio Olympics which kick off in August. Brazil could do with a bit of cheer. As looking at the economy, there’s scant reason to celebrate. A decade [...]
Pension changes mean it’s time to talk to your boss: Drop in the annual allowance will catch City workers out

February 15, 2016

TIME is running out for higher earners to re-negotiate their pension packages before planned new changes to the tax system kick in this April. The amount people can save tax-free in a pension each year will drop, with special rules coming in for anyone earning over £150,000. Experts are advising city workers to check their [...]
China’s ghost cities symbolise the nation’s troubles: overspending, debt and wild speculation. Now the People’s Bank of China wants to devalue the yuan to boost the slowing economy

February 9, 2016

Ghost cities dotting the landscape are an eerie reminder of China’s failed ambitions. Yujiapu cost billions. The buildings were modelled on Manhattan’s skyscrapers, as it was supposed to be a new centre of world finance. Sitting on the edge of the huge northern city of Tianjin, it’s mostly empty. There are scant signs of construction on [...]
Do plunging stocks predict global meltdown? Some believe a world recession is coming as oil prices are low, deflation creeps out of China and GDP growth flounders

February 1, 2016

The dust has barely settled on the global financial crisis. The clean-up job is still ongoing, with interest rates at or just above emergency levels and tougher financial regulation being implemented. Yet some say there is a new crisis brewing. Equity markets around the world have plummeted this year, reflecting a catalogue of risks. There’s geopolitics [...]
Saudi Arabia under stress: Opec leader is adapting to $30 Brent crude prices and its widening budget deficit by privatising state-run oil company Aramco – and will not cut oil supply

January 28, 2016

No-one thought oil prices would stay this low, for this long. When the price of Brent crude first halved to $50 a barrel in June 2014, most commentators thought it would be back up again by Christmas. Eighteen months later and oil has continued to go south. It is now priced 70 per cent cheaper than [...]
Hold your horses: The government’s plans for to let pensioners sell their annuities in a new secondary market are coming in for criticism

January 27, 2016

Pensioners who bought an annuity will be given the freedom to sell it on from next year, under new government plans. But criticism is piling up, and it seems the new secondary marketplace will be a good idea for almost no-one – except the brokers who trade them. The details are still being ironed out, but [...]

Ed Sheeran pays himself over £40m after album success

San Francisco 49ers: Stake sale to OpenAI chair values NFL team at $9bn

London Museum: inside the £400m cultural development at West Smithfield

By: Annabelle Williams

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