ARTICLES
& INSIGHT

All the latest articles & insight from our investment writers to inspire your own research and analysis.

Author Index

Author Index

Anatomy of a bubble

The trickle of annual reports in January and February has turned into a stream. It will soon be a flood. Eight companies have achieved less than three strikes. Richard takes a closer look at Dotdigital, which achieved only one strike last November. Of the 13 companies that published annual reports in the last fortnight, a

Read More »

Gilts – The investment return benchmark

Guest author Andrew Latto explains that UK gilts serve as a benchmark for investment returns, offering safety, no capital gains tax, and government backing. While their fixed returns provide certainty, they remain vulnerable to inflation and interest rate fluctuations. Gilts don’t need a UK government guarantee – gilts are the government. They are also among

Read More »

The Trader: Red Flag Checkup

In this article, Michael looks at things to look for before buying stocks in order to check up on potential red flags. Before buying any stock, it’s important to do some quick checks to stop you from buying a complete crock. Depending on the type of trade will depend how deep you go. For example,

Read More »

The curious case of the company investing in its worst business

Richard digs deeper into Spirax’s annual report to discover why its numbers have deteriorated and consider whether the company can re-establish its tremendous long-term track record. 5 Strikes Only four companies have published annual reports and passed the minimum quality filter since my last article. Only one of them achieved less than 3 Strikes, and

Read More »

Screening For My Next Long-Term Winner: BIG Technologies (LSE: BIG)

Sifting through the IPO carnage of recent years leads to high-margin, cash-rich BIG Technologies. Maynard Paton reviews the tagging specialist’s positive progress, entrepreneurial boss, generous options and current valuation. “It’s Probably Overpriced“ IPOs have suffered badly during the last few years. Buoyant markets encouraged lots of companies to go public at optimistic valuations… …only for

Read More »

Bi-Weekly Market Commentary | 19/2/2025 | PRV, PZC, BATS | Big Ideas

A look at some of Cathie Wood’s “Big Ideas” and ARKK ETF portfolio. Companies covered PRV, PZC and BATS. The FTSE 100 ended the week around 8,735, up +0.4%. The Nasdaq100 and S&P500 were up +1.2% and +0.5%, respectively. The best-performing index YTD has been the FTSE China 50, +15% followed by the German DAX

Read More »

The Trader: House v Player

Michael looks at the pros and cons of trading as both the house and the player. I’m often worried that whenever I mention the words “position sizing” you will groan and think “Not this again”. But it truly is the most important factor in trading. Not the only important factor, of course. There are many.

Read More »

A Strategy for Science

Six years after selling Science, a share that today has no strikes to its name, Richard looks at the consultancy’s last annual report to see where the company’s strategy took it. Since last time, only three companies have published annual reports and made it past my minimum quality filter. I assigned all of them 4

Read More »

Monthly Fund Focus: Small cap investing, The Saba saga, Investment Trust ideas

Investing in small and micro-cap stocks can be a risky exercise at the best of times, which is probably why funds and especially actively managed investment trusts have proved so popular. But there’s been a weight of academic research into small-cap investing, and it’s increasingly suggesting that small caps, especially in the UK, might not

Read More »

Bi-Weekly Market Commentary | 5/2/2025 | RNWH, BBSN, FEVR | Slow Intelligence

A look at Rory Sutherland’s idea of “slow intelligence”, and if it makes sense to make processes less efficient. Companies covered: RNWH, BBSN, FEVR.   We’ve seen significant volatility over the last couple of weeks, first with Nvidia’s reaction to DeepSeek’s AI model then Donald Trump’s tariff announcements. After all that, the FTSE 100 ended

Read More »