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.
18 October 2017
How to guard against a market crashMonday 19 October 1987 will live in the memory of investors as the day of Black Monday stock market crash. But this is not the only anniversary of note that has already been marked in 2017.
The Asian currency devaluations and debt crisis happened 20 years ago and we have just passed the tenth anniversary of the failure of Northern Rock.
Each date...
12 October 2017
Enter the DragonAt the start of 2017, India was the hottest topic in town when it came to Asian financial markets. Prime Minister Modi’s reform programme and falling interest rates were supposed to supplement helpful long-term demographics to provide strong corporate earnings and a soaring stock market.
For once, the consensus view was remarkably prescient. Mumbai...
5 October 2017
What oil stocks could be telling investorsFor all of the confusion over Brexit, the Bank of England’s plans for interest rates and the trajectory of the UK economy (which for choice looks to be losing momentum again), one thing does seem clear: the FTSE 100 is doing a very good job of going nowhere fast.
FTSE 100 has gone sideways for 18 monthsSource: Thomson Reuters Datastream
Perhaps...
27 September 2017
The lessons everyone can learn from JapanWith the Nikkei 225 and Topix stock benchmarks touching two-year peaks, the yen at a 12-month high against the dollar and the economy putting together its best streak of quarterly GDP increases for a decade, investors could be forgiven for thinking that everything in the Japanese garden is rosy.
Yet the Nikkei 225 has underperformed for the second...
14 September 2017
How to assess whether UK stocks can raise a gallop to the end of the yearAny investors who followed the old market maxim “Sell In May” will hopefully not feel too sore, as the FTSE 100 made awfully hard work of scratching out a 2% capital gain during the summer months.
But a gain is a gain and the index’s ability to make any progress at all in the face of the ongoing Brexit negotiations, heated rhetoric between North...
7 September 2017
How to get your kicks from the VIXNeither a natural disaster in Texas, nor elevated tensions between Washington and Pyongyang, the tardy pace of Brexit negotiations or soggy wage growth worldwide have stirred stock markets from their slumbers over the summer.
Across June, July and August, the FTSE 100 rose or fell by 1% or more in a single day’s trading just seven times – once...
16 August 2017
How to spot the next FTSE 100 profits accident – before it happens Unilever’s move to trigger management share awards off underlying earnings, the ongoing debate over the role of auditors in the wake of the accounting scandal at BT’s operations in Italy and shareholder protests over executive pay packets at Smith & Nephew, Burberry and Persimmon all flag the importance of how companies not just make a profit but...
3 August 2017
Why pricing power matters when it comes to picking stocksBack in May, this column looked at how to test whether a forecast dividend payment from a company was safe or potentially at risk of a cut, in the form of a check-list of financial ratios (see here).
But such research needs to dig deeper still.
We will now look at the operational characteristics of those companies which have the most consistent...
26 July 2017
Everything you wanted to know about Bitcoin (but were afraid to ask)Normally people get excited by lower prices and discounts as it makes things cheaper to buy. In the case of quoted securities it potentially makes them more profitable and safer to own, as disciples of Warren Buffett and Benjamin Graham will argue that buying at low valuation can both increase your upside and protect your downside.
But one of the...
20 July 2017
Share buybacks: pros and consIf a firm has a strong competitive position, which in turn grants it pricing power, there is a fair chance that the company will be able to generate consistently good operating margins and cash flow and therefore be able to return cash to investors.
And ultimately it is the ability to return cash to shareholders that separates share certificates...
