magazine archive
magazine archive
Education
Why do share prices change overnight?
Thursday 21 Mar 2019Relative newcomers to investing may be confused by the fact share prices can move between days, apparently without any trading taking place. Even more experienced investors often grumble darkly about these moves and in some cases the difficulty in buying as much as they want of a stock when it is...
What happens when you buy a share
Thursday 14 Mar 2019While potential investors are often focused on what they should invest in, they can overlook a vital aspect: how do I actually buy a share? Anyone looking to make their own investment should open a dealing account, ISA or SIPP (self-invested personal pension) through an investment platform or a...
Forget non-farm payrolls, you need to focus on PMIs instead
Thursday 21 Feb 2019Every so often a piece of economic data comes along which causes stock markets to have a major wobble. Among economic releases, by far the most widely anticipated are the US non-farm payrolls and the US manufacturing purchasing managers’ index or PMI. Non-farm payrolls are simply the number of...
Explaining stop losses and how they work
Thursday 24 Jan 2019The risk of loss is a reality for all investors so using a stop loss to sell shares if they fall to a certain price sounds like an ideal solution, but the reality can be different. Stop losses send an alert to a stockbroker when a share hits a certain price and instructs them to sell the shares on...
Decoding bond proxies and explaining the risks you need to watch out for
Thursday 18 Oct 2018Sometimes financial terms can seem intimidating to the uninitiated. Take bond proxies, for example. There are several different definitions of this term, which has become increasingly popular in recent years, but essentially these are companies which are seen as ‘defensive’ thanks to a reliable...
Create your own simple share price target
Thursday 13 Sep 2018Investors buy shares in the hope they rise over time and create value. The question is, by how much should a share rise, and over what timeframe, to qualify as a successful investment? For some investors earning a 10% return in six months would be a decent result. Others may have more aggressive...
Cracking the performance code
Thursday 06 Sep 2018Among the prime considerations when selecting a fund or investment trust for portfolio inclusion – and remember there’s a bewildering array of options available – is the small matter of performance. Even a casual observer of the investment scene will have come across the well-worn phrase ‘past...
Geared for growth: how to use ‘gearing’ as a debt check tool
Thursday 23 Aug 2018When most people think about debt they usually see it as something to avoid. Personal loans, credit cards bills and often hefty interest charges will typically spring to mind. It is often the same with investors. Companies with large debts have a nasty habit of coming a cropper, as Carillion...
What is free cash flow and why is it so important?
Thursday 16 Aug 2018Free cash flow is important to investors because it shows how much actual cash a company has at its disposal. This may sound like a simple point, but it is one which should rank extremely highly on an investor’s ‘need to know’ list. When a company needs to service its debts, pay dividends or invest...
Understanding the impact of share overhangs
Thursday 09 Aug 2018A share overhang is when a company has a large amount of shares in the hands of perhaps one or two holders which, if they were suddenly released on to the market, would ultimately flood it and dampen the share price. There could be various reasons for a share overhang, it could be a founder looking...