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.
25 November 2020
Run of takeovers suggests UK stock market is still cheapThe confirmation of a bid for AA, an approach to GoCo and a raised offer for Elementis make it 14 takeover deals in just over a month, to suggest that someone, somewhere thinks there are some UK-listed companies going cheap. The average premium offered for the targets is 46% so any investors who owned some of them will be feeling pretty happy with...
18 November 2020
Bitcoin: up and up it goes (until it blows…again?)Gold is holding firm around $1,900 an ounce and silver is hanging on to what looks like an upward trend at just shy of $25 an ounce but it is Bitcoin that catches the eye, which is now trading above $18,000, only a fraction below its December 2017 highs. The cryptocurrency is up by more than 150% this year and can point to a 60% gain since August...
2 November 2020
Second English lockdown fails to spark fresh FTSE sell-offThe UK’s stock market seems to be taking the imposition of a second lockdown in England pretty calmly, all things considered, and there are three possible reasons why this may be, even if at first sight a fresh halt to most economic activity is not likely to helpful to companies’ profits, cash flows or valuations.
The first is that the bulk of the...
23 October 2020
Centamin runs into more trouble on the yellow brick roadYou would have thought that sitting on a gold mine would be a path to instant riches, especially when the precious metal’s price is trading near its all-time high, so shareholders can be forgiven for being frustrated by the latest profit warning from Centamin. Production difficulties at the Sukari mine in Egypt – and management’s completely...
20 October 2020
Gamesys winning run continues with latest strong trading updateIt may not be a household name but Gamesys is one of the ten best performing stocks in the FTSE 350 index in the year to date and the leader amongst betting and gaming service providers and its upbeat third-quarter trading update helps to show why`. Sales rose 31% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis in the third quarter, after advances of 27% in...
14 October 2020
FTSE 100 banks look to avoid living down to low expectations with Q3 resultsJP Morgan Chase and Citigroup got the third-quarter reporting season for the US banks off to a good start, as both easily exceeded consensus forecasts, thanks in the main to a big drop in provisions for bad losses on their loan books. Shareholders in the Big Five FTSE 100 banks will be hoping for similar good news after a terrible year so far for...
13 October 2020
How much good news is baked into Apple’s share price ahead of the latest product launch?Apple’s shares are rolling higher again as investors get excited about the latest round of product launches, including a hotly-anticipated 5G phone, but the stock’s history suggests that the markets have a classic habit of buying on the rumour and then selling (or at least pausing for breath) after the fact.
In the six months before the firm’s...
12 October 2020
FTSE 100 dividends are forecast to fall £18 billion in 2020After further dividend cuts and reductions in analysts’ estimates, FTSE 100 dividend payments are forecast to fall 24%, or £18 billion, in 2020 after an 11% drop in 2019, leaving the total at its lowest level since 2012. That means the FTSE 100 is currently expected to yield 3.5% for 2020, increasing to 4.2% in 2021.
Dividend forecasts for the year...
7 October 2020
Banks struggle to persuade investors (and regulators) that better times lie aheadThe release of third-quarter results from US Main Street banks JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup on Tuesday 13th October and then Bank of America and Wells Fargo on the 14th will be important both as the starting point for America’s third-quarter reporting season and a precursor for the results that are due from the FTSE 100’s Big Five banks at the end...
5 October 2020
Picture darkens at Cineworld as pandemic punctures film release schedules againCineworld’s annual report for 2018 described that year as ‘transformative’ for the group, thanks to the £2.3 billion acquisition of US cinema owner and operator Regal Entertainment and it was absolutely spot on – but unfortunately not in the way that was intended, not least because the purchase price came with an extra £1.6 billion in inherited...
