magazine archive
magazine archive
Russ Mould
The 20 names which hold the key to UK dividends
Thursday 23 Jul 2020An aggregation of analysts’ forecast for all of the FTSE 100’s members suggests that the index offers a dividend yield of 3.6% for 2020 and 4.4% for 2021. Those figures may look alluring to income-hunters, especially as the Bank of England base rate looks firmly anchored at 0.1%, and the next move...
Earnings forecasts flag FTSE 100’s mixed profit pedigree
Thursday 09 Jul 2020The Financial Conduct Authority’s decision to give companies additional time to prepare their financial statements may elongate the process but the imminent reporting season for UK plc could go a long way to shaping how the headline FTSE indices perform for the rest of this year and beyond. The...
Good portfolio planning matters more than good luck
Thursday 02 Jul 2020The twentieth-century American journalist Edward R. Murrow may be best known for his ground-breaking reports from Buchenwald in 1945 and the manner in which he signed off each of his broadcasts by saying ‘Good night and good luck’. That phrase was ultimately used in 2005 as the title of a film that...
US equities may need to prove their independence from the Fed
Thursday 25 Jun 2020America’s S&P 500 stock market index is down just 5% so far in 2020 and it is up 5% compared to its level of a year ago. Given everything that the world continues to throw at it – COVID-19, a deep economic downturn, social unrest, ongoing trade tensions with China and apparent chaos in the...
EU gears up for its next challenge
Thursday 18 Jun 2020This week’s online meeting of the European Union’s members to debate the proposed €750bn Covid-19 recovery plan is vitally important economically and politically. For progress to be achieved and help offered to those who need it, amid predictions that EU GDP will drop by 8% to 12% in 2020, all 27...
Why the UK market has lagged behind
Thursday 11 Jun 2020At the time of writing, the FTSE All-Share stands 32% above its March lows, which sounds pretty good, even reassuring, on the face of it. However, that rebound means that the All-Share has still lagged the FTSE All-World over the same period. It also means that the UK has underperformed most major...
Why US corporate profits need to recover – and fast
Thursday 04 Jun 2020As America’s benchmark S&P 500 index barrels beyond the 3,000 mark once more, the US equity market continues to price in either a rapid earnings recovery or substantial monetary stimulus (and support for financial markets from the Federal Reserve) or further fiscal stimulus from Capitol Hill –...
What a corporate dash for cash could mean for investors
Thursday 28 May 2020April gave investors a taste of corporates’ need for cash, as listed firms tapped shareholders for £3.3bn, according to London Stock Exchange data, but Compass ( CPG ) and Whitbread ( WTB ) moving to raise £3bn between them in the space of a few days takes the figures to a different level as firms...
Why the FAANGs are flying high
Thursday 21 May 2020The best performing stock in the S&P 500 in 2020 to date may be a gold miner, Newmont, but 10 of the top 20 names are tech stocks of various colours and five more are pharmaceutical or biotech plays. Two – Netflix and Amazon – are part of the FAANG quintet, along with Facebook, Apple and Google...
Can gold miners help to dig income seekers out of a hole?
Thursday 14 May 2020Whatever investors think of the quality and accuracy of the data coming out of China, on either the extent of the Covid-19 outbreak or the economy, they may be intrigued to note how the country is behaving, as that is much harder to obfuscate. Zijin Mining acquired Canada’s Continental Gold for C$1...