magazine archive
magazine archive
Editor's View
Popular investment trust trading strategy hits a wall
Thursday 27 May 2021Buying investment trusts when they trade on a discount to net asset value and selling when that gap has narrowed has been a popular investment strategy for many people. Unfortunately, the rebound in the stock market since the Covid-inspired crash in early 2020 has rendered that strategy much harder...
Bitcoin’s entry into the mainstream is proving short-lived
Thursday 20 May 2021For a time, bitcoin became just too big to ignore, with the cryptocurrency reaching all-time highs above $64,000 in April. When the price of an asset increases six-fold in a matter of months people are bound to sit up and take notice. Amid signs that institutional investors were warming to the...
Psst... Europe’s outlook is good and many investors aren’t looking
Thursday 13 May 2021Investors concerned about US markets potentially getting ahead of themselves may instead want to look at Europe. It is approaching an inflection point with the vaccine rollout, such as the expectation that one third of France’s population will have received their first jab by mid-May. From...
Smithson is known for quality, so why the appetite for chicken and pizza?
Thursday 06 May 2021Investment trust Smithson ( SSON ) has built a reputation for investing in quality companies and its performance has been good since launch in October 2018, up 65.8% versus 33.4% from the MSCI World SMID index benchmark to 31 March 2021. Investors may therefore wonder why it is backing chicken and...
The reaction to Biden’s tax plan is overblown
Thursday 29 Apr 2021The latest tranche of Biden’s tax plan is provoking wails of protest on Wall Street. Proposals to boost capital gains tax have prompted warnings of a big market downturn in the US and already sparked some weakness in shares. The argument is that people will sell their stocks ahead of any tax...
The value rally is being powered by ratings change not earnings
Thursday 22 Apr 2021Another week, another push forward for the UK stock market. We’ve waited for a long time for this to happen and it’s very satisfying to see the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 finally get some winds in their sails. The key question is whether the rally has legs. Some companies look like they’ve already...
Markets are rallying: should I dump a fund that’s been left behind?
Thursday 15 Apr 2021Two major stock market indices in the UK and US have just hit new record highs, the FTSE 250 and S&P 500 respectively, and the FTSE 100 is at its highest level since February 2020. Investors are likely to be in a good mood as portfolios could be looking flush. Looking at my own portfolio,...
What AstraZeneca’s woes say about ESG investing
Thursday 08 Apr 2021Global multi-national businesses with billions of pounds in revenue and profit aren’t obvious candidates for sympathy but it’s hard not to feel a bit sorry for AstraZeneca ( AZN ) after its experience over the last six months. In partnership with Oxford University, AstraZeneca has developed a Covid...
DMGT’s Cazoo boost: When old media meets new media
Thursday 01 Apr 2021Amid all the hype around the multi-billion-dollar stock market listing of UK car marketplace Cazoo via a special purpose acquisition vehicle or SPAC in the US, it would be easy to miss the big windfall this could mean for newspaper publisher and shareholder Daily Mail & General Trust ( DMGT...
Argument strengthens in favour of UK stocks
Thursday 25 Mar 2021Comments from the Bank of England on 18 March that there is a better outlook for UK economic growth than previously anticipated will strengthen the argument that UK stocks are ripe for picking, particularly companies with a domestic focus. Also supporting this argument is the fact the UK is more...