magazine archive
magazine archive
Feature
Markets have hit a rough patch but investors can take some comfort in corporate earnings
Thursday 13 Mar 2025Investors appreciate that nothing goes up in a straight line – occasionally stocks get ahead of themselves and need a period to ‘reset’, which for those looking at the longer term can often be an opportunity to add to their holdings at lower prices. It feels as though we are going through something...
Step into an ISA: how to make the most of the tax efficient wrapper
Thursday 13 Mar 2025Speculation about the fate of the cash ISA allowance has revived the debate about the merits of using a stocks and shares ISA to put your money to work in the financial markets. Regardless of whether the Government follows through on a reported plan to limit contributions to a cash ISA to £4,000,...
Is it wrong to chase performance as an investor?
Thursday 13 Mar 2025One of the basic tenets of investment is not to buy something an asset just because its price has gone up. And yet in the last decade, performance chasing has been a much better strategy than buying investments which have seen their prices fall sharply, a blind bargain-hunting approach which...
BP CEO’s hoped-for return to 2010 market value is a big ask
Thursday 06 Mar 2025Part of being a successful leader of a public company is managing expectations – setting achievable targets which you can tick off and, by doing so, build credibility with the market. The under-pressure boss of oil and gas outfit BP (BP.) Murray Auchincloss will have been aware he needed to make a...
Under water: Catch the below pre-Covid level stocks which can rise to the surface
Thursday 06 Mar 2025Just over five years ago the stock market began to react in earnest to news of the Covid pandemic. The sell-off was short and sharp, with a modest recovery from the lows in the spring followed by sharper gains in November 2020 after AstraZeneca (AZN) made a vaccine breakthrough. However, a large...
How I think about my investments in the technology space
Thursday 06 Mar 2025Investing in tech stocks has been making money for ordinary investors for years. Since the internet emerged in the early 1990s, the broadly drawn tech space has consistently delivered market-beating growth in revenues and profits and dominated share price returns. It is no coincidence that aside...
Emerging markets: Trump, Chinese consumption and DeepSeek
Thursday 27 Feb 20251 . President Trump follows through on tariffs: US imports from China, Canada and Mexico, which account for 40% of US trade, will be subject to tariffs ranging from 10%–25%. Mexico and Canada have already negotiated a temporary pause in implementation and talks are continuing with China, although...
Can China stoke domestic consumption?
Thursday 27 Feb 2025According to figures quoted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace China lags way behind the global average when it comes to the proportion of its GDP which is accounted for by domestic consumption. The Washington-based thinktank notes that, globally, based on World Bank figures,...
Why I am also saying no to KKR’s £1.6 billion bid for Assura
Thursday 27 Feb 2025Like every investor who turns on their computer in the morning to find one of their stocks has been bid for, my initial reaction to the news US buyout giant KKR (KKR:NYSE) had offered a premium for my shares in healthcare facilities provider Assura (AGR) was ‘happy days’. The joy was momentary,...
Total return trust champions
Thursday 27 Feb 2025Hotter-than expected UK inflation for January, with headline CPI up 3% year-on-year versus the 2.8% expected, combined with a volatile geopolitical backdrop, means investors should be seeking ways to protect their income. Shares has long championed the unique advantage investment trusts have when...