Richard was a long-term shareholder in Castings PLC, but he sold his entire holding in 2020. What did he see in the company? Why did he lose confidence after so many years? And what has changed to make him think perhaps it could be a good long-term investment after all? Castings PLC and I have […]
The Bank of England released its twice yearly Financial Stability Report last week. The report says that UK bank balance sheets are in much better shape than the 2007-8 crisis and they expect impairments in 2021 to be lower than the £22bn credit losses taken last year. The “guardrails” against shareholder dividends have now been […]
Greg Robinson from Fire Revolution spells out how you can double or even treble increase dividend yield with covered calls.
I am sure many readers will be familiar with the impact of COVID-19 on the foreign exchange market. Subjugated to the rises and falls of major economies, the foreign exchange market faced wrath like so many other industries. As unemployment reached unimaginable figures, remittances fell to tragic lows. The year 2020 is a year of […]
Warren Buffett admitted the other year that he had not bought shares at an IPO since 1955. “They’re picking the time to sell to you; I like it when I am picking the time to buy“, the investing master warned when asked about flotations. Mind you, every great share went public at some point… and […]
Just as I thought the FTSE 100 was breaking out of its trading range 7000-7200 markets dipped at the end of last week to leave the FTSE at 7084. The US 10 year Government bond yield fell to 1.33%, down from a peak of 1.74% at the end of March, suggesting that bond markets have […]
Investors often find resilient businesses occupying specialist niches. Richard takes a first look at Sopheon, which makes software that helps big businesses manage the many products they are developing, and the strategic projects they are working on.
William, our youngest SharePad subscriber, is relatively new to the world of investing and trading. He has kindly offered to share his experiences so far, and is keen to learn more.
We take a look at 8 recent IPOs listed on the LSE over the past month and whether they’re worthwhile investments.
The FTSE 100 at 7,145 appears to be breaking out of the trading range that it has occupied since the beginning of May. The S&P +15% since the start of the year, is still ahead of the Nasdaq +13% although last week the latter was closing the gap, reporting a positive +1.5% gain. Amazon is […]
Our funds specialist returns with another new suggestion for the Dynamic 35, Digital 9 Infrastructure, although he argues it could also sit inside the Prudent 15 list as well. This fund is an asset-backed infrastructure fund with an exciting technology customer base who want to buy into a new digital world through mobile phone towers, […]
The FTSE 100 is up +10% since the start of the year, currently at 7,120. The best performing stock in the FTSE 100 in H1 was Royal Mail +72%, followed by Entain +61% and Ashtead +57%. The worst was Fresnillo -29%, the Mexican based silver miner. This was followed by food retailers: Tesco -24%, Just […]
Equals Group Plc (EQLS) is a provider of international payment services. The company operates through the following segments: Currency Cards, International Payments, Travel Cash, Banking and Central. It develops a cloud-based person-to-person payments platform that enables personal and business customers to make payments in a range of currencies and countries. The company was founded […]
I was at lunch this week with some trader friends, discussing the market and the various strategies you can use to make money. We came to the agreement that in the small caps space, having an informational edge is definitely an advantage. Knowing what you own and why you own it is one of Peter […]
The FTSE 100 finished the week flat, ending at 7,130. Both Nasdaq and the S&P500 also moved less than 1%; it was almost as if the sun was shining and traders were watching football matches. There were more significant moves in Govt bond markets, the US 10y bond yield rising to 1.57%, responding sharply to […]
We take a look at UK IPOs due to be listed on the LSE over the next month and how their sector has been performing this year.
Will tech stocks still provide reasonable returns for the rest of the year? Or are bank stocks a better bet?
The FTSE remains range bound, up less than +1% to 7,125 last week, still below its 2021 high of 7,130 reached in early May. The S&P500 was flat at 4,239 and Nasdaq was up +1.4% to 13,960. Though companies are talking about input cost inflation, most commodities are also off their recent highs, with the […]
Impressive profit growth, a ‘scalable’ business, hefty insider ownership and a P/E re-rating have helped Impax Asset Management become a huge share winner. Maynard Paton looks closer at the ‘green’ fund manager.
Richard examines Next’s bold strategy as it seeks to win the Internet by becoming an enabler of fashion brands. Surprisingly the strategies of the racier names in fashion retail look staid in comparison.
Last week Brent crude was up +4% to $71 per barrel which helped BP +6% and Shell +4% lead the FTSE 100. Since the 7th May high the index has kept a narrow range between 7,130 and 6,950, currently 7,060. In the US, car companies like GM were up +7% (or +52% since 1st Jan) […]
The FTSE 100 is up +10% since the start of the year, currently at 7,120. The best performing stock in the FTSE 100 in H1 was Royal Mail +72%, followed by Entain +61% and Ashtead +57%. The worst was Fresnillo -29%, the Mexican-based silver miner. This was followed by food retailers: Tesco -24%, Just Eat […]
We take a look at UK IPOs listed on the LSE over the past month and how they’ve performed upon opening.
If you believe cryptocurrencies are the future, then the bank notes and passports printer De La Rue (DLAR) is not for you.
The FTSE was quiet remaining just above 7,000 through the week. Looking at the five best performing stocks since the start of the year (Ashstead +53%, Entain +47%, Evraz +38%, Glencore +38%, Lloyds +37%) and the worst five (Tesco -24%, Just Eat -23%, Fresnillo -19%, London Stock Exchange -18%, Ocado -16%) it’s hard to discern […]
The market has been risk-off in the last few weeks. Why? It’s anyone’s guess. The Talking Heads will say inflation, price of lumber rising, price of lumber falling, geopolitical tensions… If only they could tell us before the event instead of finding reasons for why things happened after the event.
Richard’s pursuit of Quarto, a publisher of illustrated books, takes him on a trail that leads to Hong Kong and Delaware. What he finds is anything but a straightforward turnaround.
This week I look at Cerillion, the telco billing Group; Sanderson Design Group, the wallpaper and interior design company (previously known as Walker Greenbank); SigmaRoc, which is acquiring concrete quarries, and Games Workshop which needs no introduction to most readers.
Our funds expert turns his attention to the slowly recovering property-focused real estate investment trusts sector. His new addition to the Dynamic 35 is a very actively managed pan European fund of funds that invests across a wide range of real asset-backed niches.
WANdisco has raised $217 million since 2012 yet has never made a profit. But could deals with Microsoft and Amazon finally trigger a sales boost? The board’s optimism is not backed by its share dealing.
Markets sold off last week, with the FTSE 100 down -2.3%, S&P 500 -2.8% and Nasdaq 100 -4.5%. The best performing index was Brazil’s Bovespa, which was still up less than 1%. Despite the sell-off being attributed to inflation, the UK 10Y bond yield at 0.86% and US 10Y bond yield at 1.64% remained steady. […]
We take a look at UK IPOs due to be listed on the LSE over the next month and how their sector has been performing this year.
There is an old stock market maxim that says we should “sell in May and go away.” Like most proverbs or cliches, it has a foundation in truth.
Moneysupermarket wants to get to know us, so it can sell us more products. Innovation and diversification are the pillars of a strategy responding to a maturing market.
It’s good to have management with experience of boom and bust cycles, so Bruce looks at two companies run by Chairmen over 80 years old. With the FA Cup and Champions League Final later this month he starts with some football stories from his time at Seymour Pierce.
We take a look at UK IPOs listed on the LSE throughout April 2021 and how they’ve performed upon opening.
Bruce looks at tech stocks reporting Q1 results in the US, Google vs Facebook, and the resurgence of Microsoft. Plus a mix of UK companies reporting this week, including Tristel, Water Intelligence, HeiQ and Sylvania.
Do we wait for dips? Buy now? Buy more? Is it all over now, again?
Markets have been very strong recently, so it’s important not to get carried away. Bruce looks at stocks with accrued income, % revenue recognition, acquisition and fair value accounting adjustments.
April is typically a strong month – perhaps because of all the tax-selling clearing and reducing sell pressure. New ISA money tends to enter the market too. Cash is a position, but many punters feel it burning a hole in their pockets and so tend to end up spending it.
I like companies that boast significant net cash. I therefore apply certain filter criteria to identify some reasonable cash-flush businesses.
Bruce wonders if value vs momentum factors is really the best way to think about companies on the stock market. He also looks at the Novacyt profit warning, The Mission, and two high performance stocks: Volex and Impax.
What defines a worthy stock for investment or retirement income? Unfortunately, for many investors, the answer is a stock that pays dividends. While dividends are a factor (among many) that can be used to judge a stock, it isn’t necessarily the most important or profitable determination to make when investing.
Investing in mining stocks is always a speculative exercise. Where are we in the cycle?
A company’s strategy should not just tell us what it wants to achieve, but why and how. Richard introduces a simple framework for analysing strategy and highlights a good strategy, and one that is more difficult to fathom.
We are most of the way through result season for companies with December year ends. Bruce discusses how companies with patchy track records can border on evasive in their RNS disclosure, without quite crossing the line to unacceptable. Often the share price reactions suggests that investors aren’t fooled though.
I run my filter every week, usually on a Saturday morning. By running the filter every week, it allows five trading sessions to pass and therefore potentially offer up new stocks. Time is a trader’s greatest asset, and it makes no sense to run the filter every day when almost all of the stocks will be the same.
How do you answer that age-old investment conundrum – when to get in and when to get out? Here’s a technical approach to finding the best recovery candidates as they emerge.
Tech stocks were strong performers last year. The pandemic meant that providers of remote services like Zoom Video Communications or Peloton Interactive experienced massive sales growths, while a whole host of cybersecurity and cloud hosting companies did well alongside the usual big players like Microsoft, Apple and Amazon. However, as the economy bounces back from the disruption of COVID-19, tech stocks have slumped.
I am probably jinxing it now, but owning shares in Howden Joinery has never lost me sleep. Despite the pandemic and a fall in profit, this year’s annual report has the same calming effect it does every year, and not just because of the pictures. Howdens explains the business very well, and quietly delivers on the promise.
There have been at least 15 ten baggers since the March low in the UK. Bruce looks at 4 stocks that now have a fair wind behind them, that should be geared into further recovery.
A few months ago, SharePad released a new feature called the Single Page. Learn to use it and maximise your productivity.
Let me start by confessing this article covers pension deficits. What follows may not be that thrilling and does require you to concentrate. But please stick with me, especially if you have ever fallen victim to a ‘value trap’.
In these articles about funds, I have tended to steer clear of the many, many alternative funds listed on the London market. That is not because these funds are not interesting – many of them are – but because I felt their business model hasn’t entirely been proved.
Bruce compares a couple of Direct Carrier Billing (DCB), mobile payment platforms: Boku v Bango. He wonders if platform economics has become too popular, with the benefits well recognised but not downside. Also Ocean Wilsons, the Brazilian (Salvador, Bahia) port business.
It has been a difficult few years for UK investment fund managers.
Between the debacle of the Woodford Equity Income Fund and the COVID-19 pandemic, “star” funds that promised so much have led only to disappointment for investors.
Over the years I have ignored Kingspan because it is big, acquisitive, and supplies building materials. My gut reaction to these facts is that Kingspan is best avoided, but my gut could well be wrong.
Bruce looks at the fungible vs non fungible assets, using examples from recent events in the art markets. Stocks covered this week are Kape, Somero and Tremor.
The breakout retest is a great way of trading a breakout if you missed the initial rally. We looked at how traders should look to play these and the importance of a well-timed buy.
One of my favourite SharePad screens identifies good-quality companies that have grown without acquisition. One such is Best of the Best.
With Scottish Mortgage Inv Trust down 9% last week, Bruce looks at the debate between Lawrence “usually a mistake to sell” Burns of Baillie Gifford and Andrew “take profits” Dickson of Albert Bridge Capital. Companies covered Renishaw, Solid State, K3 Capital and Franchise Brands.
As the Dow Jones Index took a tumble at the end of February, many analysts saw this as the beginning of a long-overdue market correction. Some have floated talk of a stock market bubble for a while, but despite the challenging conditions of the last year, the market rebounded and finished out the year strongly. However, the dip on the 24th of February — which saw the index shed 1000 points — has led some traders to talk of an opportunity to cash in on the slide.
Recently, I have adapted my SharePad setup so I can turn over even more rocks. The cornerstone of my setup remains the KISS+ filter. KISS, stands for Keep it Simple (Stupid) and the plus sign is just a reminder that I have improved this filter over the years.
Everyone likes a turnaround. This is because people like the idea of buying at the bottom and reaping the rewards.
However, trading turnarounds can take a lot of time. Businesses are often slow to change and it is not a quick process.
This article will show you how to trade some potential turnaround stocks and give you some pointers to look at next time you are considering trading a turnaround.
Nasdaq sold off last week, down 7% since the middle of February, though still up since the start of the year. Tesla fell to $680, versus a peak of $896 earlier in February. US 10y yields hit 1.49% last week up over 50bp in the last month Financial bubbles don’t pop because speculators suddenly start […]
Let’s start with a wealth warning: This article covers bitcoin miner Argo Blockchain; I am not a bitcoin expert; The bitcoin price is highly unpredictable; Argo’s share price is highly unpredictable, and; Argo issues frequent updates. The upshot is my logic and calculations may be completely wrong or out-of-date by the time you read what […]
At midnight, on 1st January this year, the K.L.F. released their back catalogue of music (hits such as 3AM Eternal, Justified and Ancient, Last Train to Trancentral) on Spotify and uploaded their old videos to YouTube. This was their first activity as a band since 1992, when they announced they were leaving the music industry […]
After a dip caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in March of 2020, the US stock market rallied back and closed out the year at an all-time high. This has continued throughout the start of 2021, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average now at over 31,000 points. But despite the vaccine rollout, unemployment and economic disruption […]
If you look DotDigital, as I did a few years ago, you will find much to like about the business: Source: SharePad financial summary It is highly profitable in terms of Return on Capital Employed and profit margin. The exciting thing about a company like this is, as long as it can reinvest the cash […]
Last week Bloomberg reported that junk bond yields in the US fell below 4% the lowest level ever recorded and down from 11.5% peak yield in March last year. This is the opposite direction to the yield on the “risk free rate” of US 10y bond (hitting 1.18% last week) which has been steadily rising […]
For some time now IG Group has been flashing on my SharePad filters. The three screenshots just below show IG offers: High margins; Decent returns on equity; Cash-rich accounts; Attractive five-year growth; A lack of past acquisitions, and; A modest P/E. Those characteristics are an unusual mix in a market presently bereft of obvious quality […]
Private equity fund in transition – new addition to Dynamic 35 Listed private equity funds have had a chequered record on the London Stock Exchange. On paper they are a great innovation, allowing private investors access to usually institutional grade alternative assets. Crucially they allow investors to put money to work in profitable, scaled up […]
Back in the middle of August I outlined two growth-oriented portfolios, comprising a gaggle of exchange traded funds. The first was a Global Trends portfolio, a collection of eight ETFs which aim to track a selection of key thematic big trends. To monitor performance, I established two live portfolios on the SharePad platform, with the […]
Moonpig IPO’ed last week at 350p, valuing the company at £1.2bn, and the shares rose +24% to 430p the following day. Meanwhile the FT reported that Elon Musk is expecting SpaceX to be valued at $60bn in a funding round later this month. Virgin Galactic is up +163% in the last 3 months. Valuations are […]
Bunzl, a company I investigated last year, is a classic roll up A distributor of everyday items consumed by businesses and organisations, it routinely acquires much smaller distributors, improves their efficiency and creates economies of scale. This reduces customer’s procurement costs, and improves the profitability of the mothership. To grow, the company has repeated this […]
My last article detailed my new filter. If you missed it then you can read about it here. As discussed, this filter looks for stocks that are uptrending and are off their recent highs. It provides trading ideas that we can then dig further into. Here are some recent results. Calnex Solutions (CLX) Calnex is […]
Some of the speculative exuberance has spilled over the punch bowl at the cryptocurrency party into a number of glass half empty equities. GameStonk, err I mean GameStop, rose from below $20 a share earlier this month to over $500 per share, as retail traders from the Reddit thread “Wall Street Bets” piled in to […]
In this article I will continue focusing on primary and secondary trends but this time I will use moving averages to define market phases. You can also view Part 1 of this article Lessons from the Trend (Part 1): Breakouts for more primary trend details that relate to what we are talking about here. For […]
Welcome to a series of occasional articles in which I shine an investigative spotlight on particular small-caps. My aim is to demonstrate how to analyse companies in SharePad and beyond to help you become a more informed investor. I start today with LoopUp (LOOP), a £44 million developer of software for remote meetings and conference […]
I was initially unimpressed by the UK’s mass vaccination rollout. However it is important to keep updating your beliefs when data is better than you had been expecting and not miss the inflection point. From below 150K per week in December, we now have almost 5m vaccinated. My mistake was to extrapolate in a linear […]
Another captivating headline – this time from Forbes. So what are the facts, and why is it increasingly a stock pickers market, where if a rising tide doesn’t raise all boats, but instead the tide goes out, then we don’t want to be left standing without clothes on. The stock market has been on a […]
Barr makes Irn Bru, which I drank once, getting on for forty years ago in Scotland. Irn Bru is to Barr what Coke is to Coca-Cola and Vimto is to Nichols, the drink upon which the business was built. Being a southern softy I may not have been a regular drinker of Irn Bru, but […]
In the early days of a new Democrat presidency, the President’s campaign manager observed that: “I used to think if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the President or the Pope or a 0.400 baseball hitter. But now I want to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate anybody.” The […]
I released a new filter several weeks ago. This was a new filter I was testing and mentioned this in my Investors Chronicle column. I’ve released it onto the library due to popular demand and in this article I’ll explain how to get the best out of this filter. First of all, you can find […]
“While we have this euphoria it’s pretty hard to imagine the bubble breaking. But look at the data and you think this thing could go…” (Grantham, GMO, Dec 2020). “In every portfolio, you need to ask yourself what is going to be more relevant [in] five to 10 years versus today. The most interesting trend […]
Happy 2021! I trust SharePad will help bring you good fortune in what could be another twelve months of financial thrills and spills. As usual I plan to trawl the market for interesting shares that I hope assists your company analysis and stock-picking. I start the year with Avon Rubber, a FTSE 250 member that […]
The FTSE 100 started the year strongly +6% during the week to 6857. Both the S&P 500 +1.3% to 3804 Nasdaq +1.4% to 13068 were more subdued, though largely unaffected by events in Washington. 10 years ago when I was in Tbilisi, I remember a US dignitary explaining to the Georgians that the point of […]
Happy New year. This year, I have resolved to keep things simple, which is not easy in investing. Aide memoire… Just before Christmas Chris, a SharePad customer, emailed me with a request: When I look at company reports which often run to a couple of hundred pages I find the position somewhat daunting… It would […]
“Until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words… wait and hope.” – The Count of Monte Cristo The FTSE 100 finished the year at 6460, down 14% from 7585 this time last year. There were some odd movements in share […]
The FTSE 100 closed around 6,487 to 24 December down -15% from the start of the year. From a peak of 7670 in mid-January the index fell by -35% to a low of 4998 at the end of March before recovering +30%. A reminder of the importance of pound cost averaging, because a -30% drop, […]
This year has confirmed that most of the news is at best irrelevant to me as an investor. Worse, the news stressed me out. It regularly fed my mind with impossible problems to solve. Companies I admired closed down, temporarily I hoped. They raised money in emergency fund-raisings. They furloughed staff. So far, the determination […]
The FTSE stayed level around 6580, while Nasdaq hit a new high of 12752. Bitcoin rose through $20,000 for the first time. I have a dim memory of a party in South London, around 2006-2007, when someone began trying to convince me that everyone could create their own electronic currency. After all, he said, money […]
All the best trends in the market need to start somewhere. I’m going to show you how to define a trend using two methods and offer some thoughts and reasoning on position management. For my next two articles I will focus on primary trends. If you are unsure what I mean by primary trends please […]
After a strong November and start of December the FTSE 100 was largely unchanged this week at 6566. More broadly, the signs of a cyclical recovery are evident: oil price rose through $50 a barrel and copper and other industrial commodities have also been strong. Airbnb IPO’ed with the shares closing on their first day […]
Having prospected for investments in the soft drinks industry, I think Nichols is perhaps the most intriguing of quite an interesting group. It has been enormously profitable and a steady grower, unlike the other candidate, Fever-Tree, which has experienced both extraordinary profit and extraordinary growth. Fever-Tree makes me nervous. Explosive growers rarely keep growing rapidly […]
The best performing FTSE 100 stock last week was Rolls Royce, up 19%. The worst was Unilever down 6.5%, which suggests expectations of a vaccine are inoculating investors against risk. On Nasdaq, the vaccine stock Moderna, was the best performing up 44% in the last 5 days, while Zoom was the second worst performing down […]
“Goldman Sachs says these stocks are set to rally in 2021” It’s a captivating headline, isn’t it? Don’t worry; I’ll tell you which stocks in a moment and whether I agree with Goldman’s. And between Goldman’s history and my own, you might want to bet on me. The US market’s Dow Jones Industrial Average just […]
Traditionally most investors tend to regard the division between developed markets (DM) and emerging markets (EM) as a simple divide. We all put more money in the DM but then try and make sure we have some, smaller exposure, to the broad gaggle of national markets which represents the developing world or EM for short. […]
FTSE weakened slightly to 6300 in the second half of last week, but the bounce of former “Covid losers” continued with Rolls Royce, Glencore, Shell and BP all up 8% in the last 5 days. Nasdaq continued to rise to 12152 and Tesla’s value exceeded half a trillion dollars. airbnb IPO Last week airbnb filed […]
The pharmaceuticals sector is another popular sector with private investors and retail traders. This is because the volatility is high and traders are often attracted to the blue-sky lottery ticket type stocks. The road for a junior pharmaceutical company is long and hard. First of all, drugs need to go through three phases of testing […]
