Russ Mould is AJ Bell's Investment Director. He has a Master's degree in Modern History from the University of Oxford and more than 30 years' experience of the capital markets.
He started out at Scottish Equitable in 1991 as a fund manager, where he had responsibility for the Nordic and Swiss equity markets. In 1993, Russ joined SG Warburg, now part of UBS investment bank, and worked there as an equity analyst covering the technology sectors for 12 years. He has also worked on IPOs and M&A deals. Russ was voted best analyst in the semiconductor sector in 2001 by Institutional Investor and reached the level of Managing Director in 2003 when he became head of UBS' global semiconductor research effort.
A member of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment (MSCI), Russ is responsible for providing written and video content for customers and clients. He also helps to build the company’s profile in print and broadcast media as part of AJ Bell's wider PR and brand team, working alongside the Investment Committee.
Russ joined Shares Magazine as technology correspondent in 2005 and took on the post of Editor in 2008. He was appointed as AJ Bell's Investment Director in 2013 following the company's acquisition of Shares' parent company, MSM Media. Russ regularly creates content across the AJ Bell website, including the Daily Market Update and Chart of the Week, and he hosts his own 'Breaking the Mould' weekly video series.
Outside of work, Russ is a qualified cricket coach, Italian speaker and avid fan of Doctor Who and NFL.
3 April 2015
Use the SOXX to test market's appetite for excitementOne of the tracks for which singer-songwriter Ian Dury was best known was Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll and when it comes to testing the market's appetite for a little excitement, advisers and clients just need to substitute for the first word for the Philadelphia Semiconductor index – or SOXX – to get a fair gauge of the market mood.
Technology...
27 March 2015
Portfolios need more virtues than just patienceThe financial markets continue to digest the implications of the policy meeting of the US Federal Reserve (18 March), which saw chair Janet Yellen drop the word “patience” from the central bank's carefully crafted outlook statement. Fed-watchers interpreted this to mean Yellen would not be sanctioning an interest rate increase at either of the US...
25 March 2015
Portfolios need more virtues than just patienceThe financial markets continue to digest the implications of the policy meeting of the US Federal Reserve (18 March), which saw chair Janet Yellen drop the word “patience” from the central bank's carefully crafted outlook statement. Fed-watchers interpreted this to mean Yellen would not be sanctioning an interest rate increase at either of the US...
20 March 2015
Watch what the smart money is doing“I am convinced that if it [the price system of a free market] were the result of deliberate human design, and if the people guided by the price changes understood that their decisions have significance far beyond their immediate aim, this mechanism would have been acclaimed as one of the greatest triumphs of the human mind.”
Thus wrote the...
20 March 2015
Round up of the Budget and what it means for youGiven the General Election is less than two months away, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne was always going to try and curry favour with this Parliament’s final Budget. A number of new tax breaks were definitely welcome although the 59-minute speech was not all good news for savers, even if the stock market liked what it saw, judging by...
13 March 2015
Why banks are still too big to ignoreBanks continue to make the headlines and not necessarily for the right reasons. Lloyds may have pleased investors by reinitiating dividends after a gap stretching all the way back to 2008's interim payment but earnings figures were generally disappointing and the sector has lagged the FTSE All-Share over the past year, as if to suggest the market...
6 March 2015
Watch how sentiment could sway the marketsWhile the FTSE 100's advance toward and then beyond its 1999 all-time high of 6,930 continues to attract headlines, another famous benchmark is making a dash to reach its own prior peak, reached fifteen years ago almost to the day. The NASDAQ Composite topped out at 5,048 on 10 March 2000 and at the time of writing America's technology-laden...
27 February 2015
Become a convert to the income causeWhile the majority of clients and advisers may have little time for dealing with the intricacies of stock-specific research the dividend cut announced by FTSE 100 Centrica earlier this month (19 February) is unlikely to have passed by unnoticed.
The company's new chief executive, Iain Conn, who only took the reins from Sam Laidlaw in January...
20 February 2015
Why China's central bank may hold sway in the Year of the SheepPicking the right asset class, individual geographic market and the right funds or stocks to play that choice is not just about finding the best economic growth. Nowhere exemplifies this better than China.
Despite a 140% increase in GDP in absolute, local currency terms over the past seven years, the Shanghai Composite languishes some 46% below its...
13 February 2015
Income-seekers must face the duration testThe latest figures from independent consultant ETFGI which show cash barrelling into fixed income Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) serve to confirm the scramble for income remains as acute as ever. The data reveal net global flows of $13.3 billion in January to the third largest month on record for the asset class.
Equities suffered outflows while...
6 February 2015
Three key themes stay centre stageAs oil and equity prices flip flop around, the logical conclusion is markets are confused as to whether they should be focussing on growth, fretting about the implications of interest rate rises or panicking about the threat of a deflationary, debt-sodden downturn.
Soft commodity price weakness and declines in emerging market equities, bonds and...
27 January 2015
How to stay safe in the search for incomeMarkets remain fixated by the European Central Bank's (ECB) decision to launch a Quantitative Easing (QE) programme last Thursday (22 January) and the results of the Greek general election (25 January). The events look interconnected anyway, as the timing of the ECB's policy shift leaves it with scope to keep markets sweet by using any bond...
23 January 2015
Central banks' efforts to call the tune hit a bum noteThe markets continue to digest the implications of last week's decision by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to stop interfering in currency markets and let the Swiss franc find its own level against the euro. That move, more than three years in the coming, is still roiling the forex industry, at a time when commodity markets are still in flux, bond...
16 January 2015
Be wary of the corporate cheerleadersThere are many different schools of thought when it comes to investing. Some portfolio builders prefer to go with the flow and follow momentum in share prices, earnings forecasts or perhaps a combination of the two. Others are happier going against the crowd in search of value which they believe will emerge once a catalyst appears to change market...
9 January 2015
Start spreading the newsAs stocks begin 2015 with a whimper and bond prices rally yet further, markets seem newly preoccupied with the twin threats of a growth shock and deflation. This already puts the bullish consensus on shares and bearish one on fixed-income firmly on the back foot, as the optimism caused by the non-event of the last Federal Reserve meeting (17-18...
19 December 2014
Dollars, debt and dividends look set to dominate in 2015As one year ends, clients and advisers often sit down to review portfolios and see what lessons can be drawn with regard to strategy for the future.
This year is ending with a flurry of renewed volatility, a collapse in the oil price, a renewed decline in bond yields and a wobble in stock markets – all developments few would have been forecasting...
12 December 2014
Why the search for yield may call for some home comfortsChancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne's decision to buy back the remaining War Loan is the one policy to emerge from the Autumn Statement (3 Dec ’14) that still attracts surprisingly little attention. The Government will return the £1.9 billion principal to owners of the 72-year old bond next March. This might not seem like a big deal, but...
5 December 2014
Why the slide in Brent crude begs big questionsOil continues to make all the headlines, as the price of a barrel of Brent crude hovers around the $70 mark. That is some 40% below the peak for the year, reached in $115.1, and the big question now is why crude is crashing now.
A meeting of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in Vienna late last month did nothing to arrest...
28 November 2014
Advances in energy could fuel a lasting recoveryAs the Paddington Bear film hits the nation's cinema screens, Darkest Peru is going to attract a fair bit more attention than usual and from a financial perspective Lima's government is trying hard to write a few headlines of its own. According to the Financial Times newspaper, the Peruvian finance minister, Alonso Seguera, this week (24 Nov)...
21 November 2014
Watch the oil price as transport stocks set the toneAfter October's wobble, global share prices appear to be finding their feet again, while Government bond markets also seem to be enjoying renewed calm, as yields grind lower and prices inch higher once more. Whether this is down to the application of fresh monetary anaesthetic, in the form of Japan's enhanced quantitative easing (QE) programme, a...
14 November 2014
Cash returns are still kingApologies for returning to the world of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) for the second week in a row but the latest intriguing product launch is worthy of note for several reasons. On Monday (10 Nov), Invesco's PowerShares Global Buyback Achievers UCITS ETF listed on the London Stock Exchange, with the EPIC code of BUYB.
The 'smart beta' tool...
7 November 2014
The race to the bottom begins againLast week's (31 Oct) monetary policy announcement from the Bank of Japan electrified the Tokyo stock market, pushed yields on ten-year government bonds ever low and at the same time drove a stake through the heart of the yen - perhaps appropriately enough given it was Halloween, after all.
The Japanese counter has since slipped further to around...
31 October 2014
It's all as easy as A, B ...and CROCIMonday's (27 Oct) survey from the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) that reveals the fastest sales growth in more than three years for the UK's retailers is easy to understand in many ways. Oil and therefore petrol prices are on the slide, inflation is subdued at 1.2% and unemployment stands at a six-year low, all factors which suggest...
24 October 2014
Debt and dollars make for a potent mixRegular readers will have to indulge this column a little this week, as it returns to two themes which appear here frequently, namely debt and the dollar. The implications of the sixteenth Geneva Report on the World Economy continue to gnaw away at me, especially as the writers' conclude that debt as a percentage of global GDP is now 212%, some...
17 October 2014
Watch out for the canaries in the coalmineMarkets are now wrestling with fears that economic and corporate profits growth will disappoint and do so just at a time when the US Federal Reserve is removing the safety net enjoyed by holders of risk assets for most of the last five years. Fed Chair Janet Yellen is expected to confirm on 28-29 October that the American central bank is cutting...
