Markets sold off sharply towards the end of last week, with the FTSE down almost 3% to 7,106. IAG (the old British Airways) and Rolls Royce were both off c. 10% last Friday. Novacyt was up +27% last week, after the company said its genesig® COVID-19 Real-Time PCR tests have been approved in the UK […]
Month: November 2021
Checking out a company’s revenues
One of the best things you can do to really understand a business is to spend some time studying how and from where a company generates its revenues. A series of simple and straightforward questions can allow you to gain a great deal of insight into how a company works. All of the information you […]
Marks Electrical plc | I liked the service so much, I nearly bought the company
Richard was so impressed by his first look at newly listed Marks Electrical, he was tempted to buy something from the online retailer of cookers and other domestic appliances. As for the investment, he was tempted too… I do not know whether it is a glitch or a feature, but a quirk of SharePad has […]
Weekly Commentary 22/11/21: Indexing Regret
The FTSE 100 fell in the second half of last week, but at 7,202 still remains around the top of its previous May-Oct trading range. The Nasdaq was up +1.75% and the S&P +0.5%. Brent Crude fell back below $80 per barrel, suggesting that tensions between the EU and Belorussia are not having a wider […]
A guide to selling Puts: Shares on sale
A couple of months ago I wrote an article extolling the virtues of selling Covered Calls on FTSE 100 stocks. The technique involves selling Call options on shares you already own to bring in additional income. When you combine the technique with a portfolio of dividend-yielding shares, you can create a veritable income machine. However, […]
Small-Cap Spotlight Report: Aquis Exchange
Aquis Exchange is taking on the London Stock Exchange by offering unlimited trading for a fixed monthly fee. MaynardPaton studies the disruptive qualities, favourable economics and profit potential of the challenger’s trading platform. Investors love ‘disruptors’. Find a pioneering upstart that is stealing market share from industry dinosaurs, and your portfolio may enjoy a huge […]
Weekly Commentary 15/11/21: Gold fails to glister
The FTSE 100 rose +0.8% towards 7,400 before dipping back slightly on Friday to 7,353. That was a better week compared to the Nasdaq 100 and S&P500, down -2% and -1% respectively. However, the FTSE outperformance has mostly been driven by a weak pound, which fell to 1.34 to the dollar, as currency markets reacted […]
DFS plc | Will the investment last as long as the sofa?
Richard likes a business that is in control of its own destiny. He takes a look at DFS plc, the sofa seller that unexpectedly featured in his list of vertically integrated businesses. Of all the names that came up in my trawl for vertically integrated businesses, sofa seller DFS was perhaps the most surprising. To […]
Weekly Commentary 8/11/21: Meme stocks as protest
The FTSE 100 hit a high for 2021 at 7,314. The S&P500 also continued to trend upwards, hitting a new high of 4,680 and now up +25% since the start of the year. In contrast, the FTSE China 50 Index is down -16% since the start of the year. The US bond yield was at […]
A guide to free cash flow in SharePad
A cash flow analysis of a company has long been seen as a good thing for an investor to do. Often, if you want to get a feel for what’s really going on with a company and the numbers it produces, its cash flow statement will tell you a lot more than its income statement. […]
Weekly Commentary 1/11/21: The shopping trolley problem
The FTSE 100 was flat last week, drifting around 7,226. Nasdaq and the S&P500 did better, up +2.8% and +1.1% respectively, following strong results from Google and Microsoft. Apple and Amazon signalled that disruption and costs from supplying customers with physical products were rising. Facebook became Meta. Name changes should not affect share prices, but […]
