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.
17 December 2019
Why the FTSE 100 has a chance to challenge 8,000 in 2020The FTSE 100 is barely any higher than three years ago and the pound is still way below where it was in summer 2016, so it is relatively easy for value-seeking contrarians to make a case for a UK stock market which has underperformed, feels unloved (judging by fund flow data) and looks potentially undervalued on the basis of earnings and yield. As...
13 December 2019
Stocks, bonds and sterling react as markets hope for break in Brexit deadlockMarkets had been taking their lead from the opinion polls and pricing in a clear-cut victory for the Conservative Party and that is what they have got. I have even heard some psephologists assert the Tories have won their largest percentage of the vote since 1970 – which is some ways is pretty ironic, as in 1970 the Conservative leader and winner...
11 December 2019
FTSE 100 earnings forecast momentum falters as election draws near and sterling ralliesThe FTSE 100 got tantalisingly close in July to its May 2018 all-time high of 7,877 but it failed to kick on and one reason why was that corporate profit forecasts have started to trickle lower, hindered by weaker commodity prices, a sluggish domestic economy and the pound’s late-year rally. Since the start of the year, pre-tax income forecasts for...
16 October 2019
How to value Saudi AramcoAfter more than two years in the planning, reports suggest that Saudi Arabia is about to press the button for the initial public offering of its state-owned oil firm, Saudi Aramco. Institutional investors will therefore have to weigh up the pros and cons of the deal and decide whether the investment case is sufficiently strong and the valuation is...
4 October 2019
Dudley helps BP overcome deadly legacyWhile he will probably be disappointed with BP’s share price performance during his nine-year tenure as the oil major’s CEO, Bob Dudley will be able to look back and argue that he got three important things right.
He increased the company’s focus on safety and worked to improve BP’s reputation in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico disaster. He...
3 October 2019
Is the WeWork fiasco a warning of wider market volatility ahead?Wednesday’s 3.2% fall in the FTSE 100 is getting the new month off to a bad start and it may prompt some investors to think of the comment made by Mark Twain’s character Pudd’nhead Wilson: ‘October: This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June...
2 October 2019
Flutter stakes its claim for a bigger slice of the American betting pieFlutter Entertainment was the second-best performer in the FTSE 100 in the third quarter of this year (and William Hill was on the fringes of the top ten in the FTSE 250) so someone, somewhere clearly felt the bookmaking sector was ripe for action – and Flutter’s announcement of an all-share deal to buy Canada’s Stars Group suggests they were...
18 September 2019
FTSE 100 down to five female CEOs as Laury prepares to leave KingfisherWhen Kingfisher boss Véronique Laury steps down on 25 September she will become the tenth FTSE 100 CEO to do so this year, with five other already-announced changes at the top yet to become effective. In addition, her departure, as she is replaced by Thierry Garnier, will take the number of female FTSE 100 CEOs down to just five following on from...
9 September 2019
PPI claims rush crimps Lloyds’ cash return plansLloyds is joining RBS and CYBG in admitting that it needs to set aside more money to cover a final rush of PPI compensation claims and – like CYBG – the provisions look set to hit the bank’s plans to return capital to shareholders.
Lloyds has stated that it will suspend its share buyback programme with some £600 million still to go, owing to the...
4 September 2019
Will the iPhone 11 launch give Apple’s shares a lift?Shares in Apple have surged by more than 40% from the low reached after the profit warning of 3 January but they have yet to recapture the all-time high reached last September, when the firm’s market valuation briefly exceeded $1 trillion. The major reason for this is poor earnings momentum and investors will be looking forward to the iPhone 11...
