Phil has over 25 years experience of investing. He started out as an investment analyst for asset managers and City stockbrokers before becoming a writer. He has worked for MoneyWeek and Investors’ Chronicle and was the CFA UK Financial Journalist of the year in 2020. He worked for ShareScope between 2014 and 2018 and helped to develop many of the investment tools in SharePad. He has written a number of educational investment articles for ShareScope and is also the author of the book How to Pick Quality Shares.
I am passionate about investor education and try and make what might seem complicated subjects easier to understand. Investing is not just about picking winners but also avoiding losers and learning from your mistakes. My aim is to make investing as simple as possible by focusing on what matters and avoiding what doesn’t.
Why do people invest their money rather than just save? It’s not just about growing your savings so that you will have more money in the future. It’s about growing the buying power of your money. You want the £1 that you are investing today to buy more things in the future than it does
Tax-efficient savings accounts (ISAs) and self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs) are the best option for most savers and investors. Here’s what you need to know. Savings Individual savings accounts (ISAs) are tax-free savings accounts. That is, you are not liable to pay capital gains tax (CGT) on the profits you make on this money. You can
For some people the thought of picking their own shares can be a little bit daunting. Rest assured, it doesn’t have to be. Whilst it is best to do at least a little bit of homework before you part with your hard earned cash, successful investing does not require a high IQ or lots of
Many investors like to build a portfolio of individual shares and even bonds but for some investors, investment funds can be a useful alternative. For example, some investors may want to have a degree of control over their investments but don’t wish to dedicate the time to choosing and managing a lot off individual investments.
From what I can see we are still firmly in a bull market in shares. Momentum remains a strategy that is paying off handsomely with a select group of companies continuing to see their share prices increase faster than their profits. But this will not go on forever. Shares with stretched valuations have little downside
Updated: August 2024 If you are reading this, the chances are that you’ve decided to take control of your investments or are doing so already. You may have been investing for some time but feel you could do better. Many of you may be new to investing, or have previously left the management of your
Updated: August 2024 SharePad is packed full of useful financial data. This data holds the key to understanding the financial health and value of any company you are looking at. To a new or inexperienced investor, the mass of numbers may seem a little daunting. That’s quite understandable but it shouldn’t be. If you understand
Updated: August 2024 In the previous chapter, we looked at how a balance sheet was put together and the numbers that go into it. In this chapter, we are going to take all those numbers from the balance sheet and turn it into useful information for investors. A company’s balance sheet contains a wealth of
Updated: August 2024 Hopefully, you will now understand balance sheets and how important and useful they are. Let’s move on to a set of numbers which most people think are even more important – profits. Just as we did with balance sheets, I am going to explain the numbers in an income statement in this
Updated: August 2024 Now that we’ve dealt with the basic format of an income statement it’s time to move on and show you how SharePad turns those numbers into really useful information. Knowing your way around an income statement is vital to understanding what makes a company tick. However, to get the most out of
Updated: August 2024 The last four chapters have been spent looking at the balance sheet and income statement and how to use them. In this chapter, we will move on to arguably the most revealing piece of financial information that a company gives investors – its cash flow statement. When a company’s financial results are
Updated: August 2024 We did a little bit of cash flow analysis in the last chapter. In this one, we look at the cash flow ratios that SharePad calculates for you and what they can tell you about a company’s financial performance. The key issues that this chapter will point out are: Cash flow is