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ZPG bid highlights appeal of digital platform businesses
Thursday 17 May 2018Zoopla’s parent company ZPG ( ZPG ) was an obvious takeover target and we aren’t surprised to see it receive a 490p per share bid from US private equity firm Silver Lake. Congratulations if you owned its shares before the takeover news was announced. And hopefully you did own them, given that ZPG...
The dangers of ignoring dividend growth rates
Thursday 10 May 2018Some of the most popular FTSE 100 stocks for dividend income may not be as appealing as you think once you look at dividend growth and the effects of inflation. In an ideal world you should seek dividend growth levels in excess of inflation so you are obtaining a positive return in real terms. Many...
Why all investors cannot afford to ignore bond yield movements
Thursday 03 May 2018Investing is often about looking for signals from the market such as corporate news, currency movements and economic data. They can help you to decide if it is time to buy or sell. A major signal this year has been the increase in the yield on US Treasuries (aka US government bonds), which exceeded...
Uncertainty isn’t the only driver of the gold price
Thursday 26 Apr 2018You would have thought a backdrop this year of a trade war, a missile strike on Syria and the return of cold war tensions would have driven up the gold price, given it is seen as an asset to own during times of strife and uncertainty. In reality gold has only moved up 1.6% in value so far in 2018...
Which is more important: quality or valuation?
Thursday 19 Apr 2018Which is more important when considering making an investment into an individual stock: quality of the business or its valuation? It’s an interesting debate which recently cropped up on a social media channel. The boss of a US asset management company argued that the price of fundamentals, such as...
The succession issue
Thursday 12 Apr 2018Press speculation suggests FTSE 100 advertising business WPP ( WPP ) is lining up several candidates to replace current chief executive Martin Sorrell amid an investigation into his personal conduct. This is something the company would have to confront soon anyway given Sorrell turned 73 earlier...
How to spot decent dividend opportunities
Thursday 05 Apr 2018While this year’s stock market weakness is bad from a capital returns perspective, it does have some benefits from a dividend perspective. A reduced share price will serve to push up dividend yields, assuming there is no change to dividend forecasts as a result of earnings pressures. Therefore now...
Dissecting the market to see what’s moving up and down
Thursday 29 Mar 2018Thirty out of the 38 sectors in the FTSE 350 have fallen in value since the start of 2018. The market as a whole, as defined by the FTSE All-Share, is down by 8.5%. The FTSE 100 index has fared even worse, down 9% year-to-date. Five of the FTSE 350 sectors in positive territory have mustered up...
Is the stock market over-reacting to bad news with large share price declines?
Thursday 22 Mar 2018The UK stock market is being very edgy with extreme reactions to negative news. More than 230 companies have seen their share price fall by more than 20% year-to-date. That’s approximately 12% of the entire market and nearly twice as many as the number of companies which fell by more than a fifth...
How to deal with profit warnings
Thursday 15 Mar 2018The number of UK-listed companies issuing a profit warning hit a two year high in the final quarter of 2017 with 81 offenders, according to consultant EY. And the profit warnings keep coming in 2018. Investors must accept that profit warnings come with the territory when putting money into equities...