Richard is a highly-respected investment writer well-known for his Share Sleuth portfolio, a model portfolio he runs for the investment platform Interactive investor. Richard eats his own cooking – buying good businesses at reasonable prices and holding them for the long-term in his Self Invested Personal Pension.
I’m a long-time ShareScope and SharePad fan and my aim is to help you find better companies faster using the fantastic tools at your disposal. My focus is on finding businesses we can reasonably expect to prosper for many years. As well as analysing data, I work out the strategies companies are following and try to verify that they are working in the real world by quizzing executives, visiting companies, trying their products and observing how they operate.
Today’s article is the first in a new series called ‘From ideas to investments’ which takes an in-depth look at how to generate investment ideas from fundamental data and develop those ideas into profitable investments. We’ll be looking at the benefits and pitfalls of stock screening and subsequent steps in developing a unique style incorporating
Financial statistics from SharePad and non-financial data from the company itself all indicate Motorpoint is no ordinary car dealer. If you’ve bought a vehicle from the company, or read its annual reports, you’ll probably know why. My article on Electrocomponents showed how I find most of my investing ideas with the simplest of SharePad filters,
IG Design, formerly International Greetings, is one of my biggest investment mistakes—even though I made a few quid on it. Since I sold my shares in International Greetings—as it was called then—in April 2014, the company’s share price has risen from 71p to nearly £5.00. Clearly I misjudged the prospects of the business and that
You don’t have to look far to discover Electrocomponents’ ambition. “BECOMING FIRST CHOICE” is the title of its annual report this year. But that strapline is one of the last things I found out about the company while evaluating the share. I discovered Electrocomponents using the simplest of screens in SharePad, learned more about it
Tenpin bowling chains are like London buses. You wait around for years and then two of them list almost at the same time. Phil Oakley has already reviewed the UK’s biggest operator, Hollywood Bowl, but there’s more to be learned from the number two. Private equity owners of companies tend to list them on the
Investing in AIM-listed shares can help you reduce inheritance tax but you have to be picky. Not all shares qualify, and they must be good investments too. As usual, SharePad can help narrow down the field. What is an IHT-exempt portfolio? People with large estates can reduce the inheritance tax bill when they die by
Looking through the prisms of profitability, debt, cash flow, strategy and valuation, Strix may be an exception to the rule that new issues make bad investments. Finance professor Elroy Dimson and his colleagues made a startling find when they studied the long term returns of UK Initial Public Offerings between 1980 and 2014. The longer
Most companies will answer questions from shareholders and potential shareholders. At Annual General Meetings shareholders have a right to ask questions and get answers. A large proportion of listed companies report full-year results in late winter and spring because their financial year-ends coincide with the end of the calendar year in December. As surely as
To get a grip on where a company is going you have to understand where it has come from. Fortunately, that doesn’t mean reading every annual report. Usually, it’s not enough to read the latest annual report. To understand a firm’s business model and strategy, how it makes money, how it plans to make more,
Investors pin their hopes on what could go right. The great product. The winning strategy. The growing market. The new technology. These may be good reasons to own a share, but only if you have also considered what could go wrong. In my last article I left you on a cliff-hanger. I described power adapter
While it’s comforting to know a business has enjoyed success, long-term investors must also form an opinion on its prospects if we’re to hold the shares through thick and thin. In How to read an annual report, I identified the sections of a typical annual report that explain how a company has made money, how
Rule number one in long-term investing is to understand how the businesses you expect to profit from will make money – otherwise, how can you be confident they will? Annual reports are the most complete source of public information on how businesses make money, and how they intend to make more money. Investors who read