magazine archive
magazine archive
Editor's View
Are the worst performing sectors the best ones the following year?
Thursday 15 Dec 2022There is a widely held view among many investors that a successful investment strategy is to buy the previous year’s losers. The idea is that bad news might be fully priced in, and you’re paying a cheaper price to buy something that could rebound on good news. To test this theory, I looked at the...
Is it better to have conviction or hedge your bets when investing?
Thursday 08 Dec 2022It feels like we are once again on the cusp of change in the markets. Whether that’s a shift in central bank policy, inflation easing or a major development with the Ukraine war, there are plenty of levers which could put stocks on the move – either up or down. The difficulty is knowing which way...
Why it can pay to buy more shares if the market overreacts to bad news
Thursday 01 Dec 2022Overdramatic is the best way to describe the current market reaction to stocks that deliver the slightest bit of bad news. It certainly applies to Dr Martens ( DOCS ) whose share price fell by 23% in a single day after it guided for lower profit margins and a slowdown in growth for the direct-to-...
Royal Mail can only dream of the efficiency gains achieved by Procter & Gamble
Thursday 24 Nov 2022Management teams often talk the talk about streamlining a business but find it much tougher to walk the walk. Just look at Royal Mail’s owner International Distributions Services ( IDS ) which for years has struggled to achieve the efficiencies it has promised thanks to a toxic relationship with...
Might 10 November 2022 go down in history as the turning point for shares?
Thursday 17 Nov 2022There have been several distinct turning points in depressed markets in recent years. Monday 23 March 2020 saw the US Federal Reserve say it would do whatever it took to stop the US economy collapsing from the Covid pandemic. Monday 9 November 2020 saw Pfizer and BioNTech say their Covid vaccine...
Investors beware: the Government has its eyes on your dividends
Thursday 10 Nov 2022There is growing speculation that chancellor Jeremy Hunt will increase taxes on individuals who owns shares when he announces the UK Autumn Statement on 17 November. This threatens to eat into people’s returns and make investing less appealing to those not already doing it. Media reports suggest...
Why any gas price relief in Europe could be short-lived
Thursday 03 Nov 2022One of the few positives European commentators have been able to cling to in recent times is the big drop in benchmark gas prices. However, while a glut of gas in storage and mild autumn temperatures are helping for now, there are reasons to believe things could get worse again before they get...
What can GSK do to catch up with its global health care rivals?
Thursday 27 Oct 2022It’s been a tough few years for UK pharmaceutical giant GSK ( GSK ) . Arguably the time is ripe for health care stocks. They enjoy decent pricing power, demand is relatively uncorrelated to a troubled global economy and margins are typically strong. Added to this, the Covid-19 pandemic offered a...
Revealed: how investor impatience can come with big costs attached
Thursday 20 Oct 2022We’re often told that patience is a virtue, which let’s be honest can be fairly annoying – we understand, obviously, but it’s not always easy to put this doubtless good advice into practice. This maxim is just as frequently applied to investing as it is to other areas of everyday life, and will...
Why this market might be enough to make you turn to drink
Thursday 13 Oct 2022We are staring down the barrel of a global recession, exacerbated by rising interest rates and that’s making life very difficult for consumer-facing stocks. However, could the alcoholic drinks industry be an exception? History suggests this sector can be recession resilient. There is logic to this...