magazine archive
magazine archive
Editor's View
The shifting ISA landscape and the case for investing
Thursday 13 Mar 2025This week we extol the virtues of ISAs. For the last quarter of a century or so, these products have allowed savers and investors to shield their cash from HMRC and avoid having to fill out complicated paperwork at the end of the tax year. As of the end of the 2022/23 tax year, Britons had...
The inherent unpredictability of oil prices and European stocks in demand
Thursday 06 Mar 2025Investors are getting conflicting signals when it comes to the future direction of oil prices, and this week’s fall to three-month lows off the back of crude producers’ cartel OPEC+’s decision to boost output is unlikely to be the end of the story. The introduction of tariffs on neighbouring...
Why management change matters and the importance of compounding
Thursday 27 Feb 2025Always quoteworthy, Warren Buffett once said: ‘I try to invest in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will.’ While the maxim has merit, management does make a difference and management changes can have a major impact – for good or bad – on even...
Saba strikes out with trusts push and the energy implications of a Ukraine peace deal
Thursday 20 Feb 2025All the meetings requisitioned by Saba at UK investment trusts are now done and dusted and the scorecard makes sobering reading for the US activist hedge fund – trusts seven, Saba nil. That doesn’t mean there is room for complacency on the part of the investment trust industry, as Saba has shone a...
What could get Japanese stocks moving again?
Thursday 13 Feb 2025Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba could have been forgiven for a degree of trepidation before his recent visit to the White House. Tariffs would have a major impact on Japan given how reliant its economy is on exports. Therefore, beyond a mild warning from president Donald Trump that Japan...
Trump tariffs, why UK stocks could be well placed and the benefits of investor participation
Thursday 06 Feb 2025Investors now have a flavour of how unpredictable life could be under a Trump administration as tariffs on neighbours Mexico and Canada were announced and then subsequently delayed in the space of 24 hours. Quite what this means for global markets is still up for debate and there remains an air of...
China AI venture DeepSeek comes out of nowhere to upset the apple cart
Thursday 30 Jan 2025Who had an open-source Chinese AI chatbot on their bingo card as something which could trip the markets up in 2025? Not me, I have to confess. We have a news special on the DeepSeek story and its implications from my colleague Martin Gamble, who won’t mind me saying has seen a few market cycles in...
Will mining M&A speculation prove to be more than just idle chatter?
Thursday 23 Jan 2025The market is alive with chatter about a mega-merger in the mining space after the revelation of a failed coupling between Rio Tinto (RIO) and Glencore (GLEN) . That’s understandable for several reasons, but recent history shows flirtations between corporate giants often go unconsummated. Having...
The Federal Reserve could be done with rate cuts
Thursday 16 Jan 2025Interest rates are back in focus. The UK is seeing its borrowing costs surge, as Martin Gamble explains in this week’s news section, and this has its own domestic causes, even if it also reflects similar moves in other sovereign debt. The latest US jobs figures strongly hint that the Federal...
Crunch time for UK investment trusts and stock market bargain hunting
Thursday 09 Jan 2025It’s crunch time for UK investment trusts. Already dealing with issues around disclosure on charges, the intervention of US hedge fund Saba just before Christmas, leveraging its large stakes in several trusts, is also shaking the foundations of the industry. We plan to look at this story in lots of...