Rule number one in investing is to buy what you know, but how does that work when what you know is changing day by day? Richard grapples with clothing and fashion retailers, who are themselves grappling with the emergence of the Internet. Just about every type of retailing is going through profound change thanks to […]
Month: June 2019
Weekly Commentary: 24/06/19
Structural Change in the City It always amazes me how debt can lead to innovation. Humans find ingenious solutions. The Bank of England was founded in 1694 because the 9-year war against France was expensive. Usefully that enabled us to continue to increase the debt which brought about the South Sea Bubble and subsequent crash […]
Screening For My Next Long-Term Winner: JD Sports Fashion
Today I am revisiting the share screen that pinpointed Games Workshop back in January. The shares of the quirky wargaming retailer have soared more than 60% since that review… …and I wonder whether the same screen can unearth another promising opportunity. To recap, the exact criteria I am re-using are: 1) Annualised earnings per share […]
Weekly commentary: 17/06/19
It’s “avoid the warnings” time Last week saw a few profit warnings. Somero, Ted Baker, Quiz, Pendragon warnings were based on revenue disappointments but I suspect cost pressures are building too at the moment. The trend of increasing warnings appears to be a growth trend with Q1 showing the highest number of warnings in this […]
Scapa has had a rocky three weeks. Its market capitalisation is down by 50%. Is it a buy?
THE SETTING After nine years of impressive revivification under CEO Heejae Chae, the specialist tapes maker Scapa has just delivered three tingling episodes in three weeks. It could have stabilised now but it’s worth well under half its starting price. Knock one came on the day of its annual results, 21 May. The results were […]
Checking the numbers match the story
One thing we should always check is that a company’s long-term performance matches the story it tells us. Churchill China says it is “adding value” to tableware, a horrible bit of jargon that is easily corroborated in SharePad. I received a nasty shock last time I reviewed one of my long-standing investments. Familiarity, I said, […]
Weekly Commentary: 10/06/19
Companies with Culture The noise around Woodford’s humiliation last week was deafening. And it was a bad week for Hargreaves Lansdown (-14%). I don’t recall such a lot of noise around a fund manager since the demise of New Star in 2008 having paid a special dividend to shareholders and gearing up into a bear […]
Screening For My Next Long-Term Winner: Jupiter Fund Management
Today I have revisited a share screen that applies two ratios favoured by ‘quality’ investors — operating margin and return on equity (ROE). The exact criteria I re-used were: 1) An operating margin (latest and 10-year average) of 20% or more, and; 2) An ROE (latest and 10-year average) of 20% or more. Any business […]
Weekly Commentary: 03/06/19
The “End of Global Trade” Week Last week the talk moved from politics to trade wars. Consensus seems to be that the trade war between the US and China is set to continue for a while. With the UK political situation causing uncertainty which slows management decision making processes there is reason to worry that […]