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.
11 February 2021
All eyes on dividend payments as Big Five Banks prepare to report their resultsUnchanged or increased payments from Smurfit Kappa, CCH, AstraZeneca and RELX in the past week mean FTSE 100 firms have declared dividends worth £5.2 billion in February, more than offsetting the £2.5 billion of cuts announced by BP and Shell. That provides some welcome relief to income-seekers and sets the scene for the Big Five banks, the first...
10 February 2021
Market trends after one year of COVID are clear but Pfizer Monday changed them allIt seems remarkable now just how relaxed financial markets were during the early stages of the covid-19 outbreak in Asia and even Italy, but confidence ebbed rapidly from late February onwards once they grasped the gravity of the situation. Share prices plunged for a month and even though some found their footing, plenty of others in the worst...
8 February 2021
The Super Bowl Rule: Will Buccaneers’ win signal in fresh surge in US stocks?Gamblers who sided with the favoured Kansas City Chiefs will have lost their money as the defending champions lost the fifty-fifth Super Bowl to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and their quarterback Tom Brady, the most successful player in the National Football League’s history.
But stock market investors may be pleased to see Brady grab an unprecedented...
4 February 2021
Shell tantalises shareholders with promise of a first-quarter dividend increase in 2021Shell’s fourth-quarter and full-year results were undeniably ugly, as both offered huge losses, but the oil major’s promise of a dividend of $0.1735 a share in the first quarter of 2021 would represent an increase in the pay-out on both a quarter-on-quarter and a year-on-year basis.
Shareholders must now decide whether that promised payment...
1 February 2021
Come back Sir John Barnard, all is forgiven: social media traders start surfing silverFirst GameStop, next up silver seems to be the message on social media as the precious metal’s price hits a six-month high at just under $29 an ounce and traders look to storm a new market.
Whether it will be quite so easy to shunt around silver as it was GameStop remain to be seen, especially as Nelson Bunker Hunt and his brothers came a cropper...
28 January 2021
Five questions investors need to answer before the Gamestop game comes to a stopAlthough the past few days’ frenzied activity in Gamestop is putting hedge funds, shorting and short-squeezes firmly back in the headlights, the most shorted stocks in America (and the UK) have been massively outperforming the wider benchmarks since last November. This suggests that this was a professional hit first – hedge funds forcing other...
25 January 2021
Race for dominance of the fast-fashion markets heats up as ASOS and Boohoo look for bargains of their ownConfirmation that ASOS is looking to buy certain assets from the fallen Arcadia group, notably Topshop, and Boohoo’s response that it is now the proud owner of Debenhams’ brands in readiness for launching them on its own online platform both show that the pace remains as relentless as ever in the world of fast fashion.
Both firms are looking to...
12 January 2021
easyJet joins British Airways as it gets state-backed bailoutFew industries have been as hard hit during the pandemic as the airline business and its leading players are still scrambling for months to shore up their finances so they can come through the turbulence unscathed. easyJet’s management and shareholders will therefore be very grateful for the new, five-year £1.4 billion loan provided by a group of...
5 January 2021
Entain declines to entertain bid from MGM ResortsEntain is pushing back on an all-stock bid from MGM Resorts and even the prospect of an approach partially funded by cash does not seem to be moving the FTSE 100 firm’s board to recommend the proposal. But money talks even more loudly in the betting industry than it does in others and it would be no surprise if the predator were to put a bigger...
23 December 2020
World Investment Outlook 2021: Chapter two – USA PoliticsDonald Trump continues to contest November’s election result but without much success at either state or Supreme Court level. He is unlikely to go quietly into the night but December’s Electoral College vote in favour of Joe Biden, by a score of 306-232, puts the Democrat in pole position for inauguration day on 20 January 2021.
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