If ever there was a company that demonstrated complexity can be bad for business, it’s Nichols. When diversifies, profitability crumbles. When it sticks to marketing soft drinks it prospers. Guess what it is doing now? The one thing you will not read much about in this article is Vimto. Vimto is a soft drink and
This week Jamie returns to a topic mentioned late last year; the use of Google Trends to get a sense of how sections of the economy are performing. He then discusses what, if any, investment ideas can be narrowed down. He then reviews the travails of two ex-private equity businesses with similar names. One he
Companies have three main choices when it comes to financing their business. They can use money from shareholders or equity, use the profits and free cash flows produced by the business, or they can borrow money from lenders. Debt on its own is not a bad thing. If a company takes the money it has
This week Jamie talks about the economics of the UK housing market and why he thinks that the house builders’ apparent cheapness is an illusion. He then discusses what he believes are better ways to invest in housing construction and rounds off by reviewing the trading updates of two companies, whose fortune is somewhat determined
Michael looks at a roundup of the weekly news and highlights one stock to avoid. There’s been plenty of action this week. And perhaps sentiment for the UK market is on the mend? The news is full of articles sounding the alarm for the UK stock market. Peel Hunt’s chief Steven Fine said that there
Yü Group has delivered wonderful multi-bagger returns during the last few years. Maynard Paton recaps the energy supplier’s entrepreneurial leadership and remarkable recovery following an accounting bombshell. Everybody loves shares that keep on rising. SharePad lists 37 names that have consistently delivered 15% or more annualised returns during the last one, three and five years:
Richard tightens up his “Minimum Quality” filter so that SharePad is doing more of the heavy lifting. In a not-very-scientific test, 18 out of 21 good-quality businesses were identified by it. Last month I shared a list of all the companies that passed my semi-automated sifting of the entire stockmarket over the course of the
This week Jamie talks about the remuneration of investment companies, reveals one of his personal investment trust holdings and explains his rationale. He then reviews the current state of Frontier Developments, which has gone from micro-cap to super-star mid-cap and back again in the past few years. Finally, he provides a brief review of the
Phil uses SharePad to shed some light on the very popular Fundsmith Equity fund. Fundsmith has great long-term performance but recent performance is more modest. Fundsmith is one of the most popular managed funds out there and gets plenty of column inches due to its high-profile manager Terry Smith. Since starting out at the back
A look at a possible reason for the outperformance of large-cap US technology stocks, and what might reverse the trend in favour of smaller companies. Stocks covered: ZOO, KETL, TMG. The FTSE 100 was up +0.9% last week to 7,952. Nasdaq100 was down -0.3% while the S&P500 was up by a similar amount. China resumed
The gold price has been perking up in recent weeks – is now the time to be looking at the wide array of gold-based funds, especially in this era of monetary inflation powered by big government? This month David also looks at whether the private equity market is improving, plus he shines the spotlight again
Richard unearths five good-quality businesses that have recently published annual reports. Top of the list are InterContinental Hotels (IHG), and MoneySupermarket (MONY)… Joyfully, I am away on holiday but my holiday is mistimed in one respect. The post-Christmas lull in annual report publishing has come to an end. A large number of companies with financial