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 April 2018
Market volatility – we haven’t seen anything yet“Despite talk of stock market volatility, the reality is that the FTSE 100 and S&P 500 indices are still behaving pretty calmly relative to the last 20 years, so investors may need to be prepared for wilder times ahead,” says Russ Mould, AJ Bell Investment Director.
Similar quiet periods to match the subdued stock market action of 2015-2017 – such...
29 March 2018
Four lessons to draw from 18¼ years of precisely zero from UK stocksA potential takeover bid for a fourth FTSE 100 stock is helping the index to try to cling on to the 7,000 mark, as Takeda’s plan to consider an offer for drug manufacturer Shire adds to the offers (hostile or otherwise) for GKN, Smurfit Kappa and Sky.
But that 7,000 mark is still awfully close to the 6,930.2 mark reached on 31 December 1999. This...
22 March 2018
How to test the foundations of the property sectorHe is unlikely to have appreciated it, or cared, at the time, but Mark Twain’s advice to “Buy land, they aren’t making it any more” has long since formed the basis of the investment case for UK commercial property, either via quoted stocks or dedicated funds.
Whether property is right for an investor’s portfolio will depend upon their overall...
15 March 2018
How to use moving averages to pin down the FTSE 100In capital, local currency terms, the UK is the worst performing country among the 23 nations classified by the MSCI as ‘developed’ markets in 2018 to date.
The UK is the worst performing developed market so far in 2018 Capital return, local currency Last 12 months 2018 to date * Hong Kong 25.6% Hong Kong 5.6% Austria 20.6% Singapore 4.4% Norway...
8 March 2018
Four reasons why financial markets may not want to see tariffsWhen Donald Trump was running for President, financial markets were wary of him, not least because of his calls for tariffs and protectionist policies, and it now looks like those fears may be realised, depending upon how America’s trading partners respond.
Such concerns could start to counter the optimism generated by the President’s drive for tax...
1 March 2018
How to build a margin of safety into stock portfolios (Part II)The first part of this column, which looked at price/earnings ratios (PEs) and how to use them cited Warren Buffett a lot. With uncanny timing, the American investment legend’s annual Letter to Shareholders in his Berkshire Hathaway vehicle arrived last weekend (24 February) to provide an ideal context for the second part of our look at how to...
21 February 2018
How to build a margin of safety into stock portfolios (Part I)The UK stock market’s leading indices, the FTSE 100, FTSE 250, FTSE All-Share and (for small-cap fans) FTSE AIM All-Share, have all forged some kind of rally subsequent to the sudden slump of early February.
However, not one of the quartet is showing a gain for the year, as of the time of writing, unlike the headline American benchmarks, the Dow...
7 February 2018
Will the Year of the Dog mean China is markets’ best friend or a foe?While drops in the US dollar, the American Treasury market and even the US stock market are grabbing all of the headlines, China’s currency is storming higher, buoyed by solid economic data and the political stability which seems to be the result of last autumn’s 19th five-yearly Party Congress.
China’s Shanghai Composite index also made good...
7 February 2018
Five lessons to learn from the market meltdownAs the legendary US baseball player Yogi Berra once noted: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
The task is a precarious and generally thankless one, especially when it comes to financial markets, not least because no-one – but no-one – has a crystal ball.
Positive forecasts can easily come unstuck and then be subject to...
31 January 2018
Is this really the end for the long bull run in bonds?Japanese Government Bonds (JGBs) have the nickname of ‘the widow maker’ because so many traders have come unstuck trying to call the top in the JGB market over the past 25 years, generally getting themselves carried out as they shorted, or sold, Tokyo’s debt market.
Experts who look at, and investors with exposure to, the West’s Government debt...
