There is an old stock market saying that profit warnings come in threes. For investors this implies that any company which first announces such a warning should be avoided for some time. In other words, never attempt to catch a falling knife. But like many such clichés it is often wrong. Profit warnings can occur…
There are scores of books for sale about the life, successes and investment philosophies of Warren Buffett. A quick search in the book section on amazon.co.uk for the Sage of Ohama’s name brings up no less than 5,591 relevant results. From classic read The Snowball, to collections of his timeless shareholder letters, along with hundreds…
Just like getting back with an ex-partner, there are number of risks involved in investing in companies which have previously gone bust and come back to the market in a different, but recognisable, guise. Take Game Group for example. The computer games retailer was a stock market darling as recently as 2008, as it benefited…
Over the past decade or so the internet has transformed the way in which we consume news, with readers moving away from the traditional “deadwood” press towards digital media. The chart below shows how the circulations of some major newspapers have been hit, with only the Evening Standard seeing a rise in circulation over the…
On an asset class basis, most of the investment media focus post Brexit has been upon the performance of sterling, which as I write is down by 9.4% against the US dollar since referendum day and 7.5% lighter against the euro. In contrast, despite banks and housebuilders having plunged in value, blue-chip stocks on the…
At the end of May this year there were 1,016 companies listed on AIM, representing a range of industries, countries and sectors. With 118 constituents Mining is the largest sector on the junior market, followed by Software & Computer Services at 101, Support Services at 97 and then General Financial stocks at 96. While companies…
As most investors will know, shares in UK listed blue-chip banks have delivered some pretty dreadful returns over the past ten years. As a result of the Great Financial Crisis of 2008/09 share prices plunged across the sector, numerous lenders were forced to accept bailouts from the UK government and two banks (Northern Rock and…
As seen in the lastest issue of Master Investor Magazine Warren Buffet is considered to be a great man for many reasons. For a start, the words of wisdom in his famous Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letters are so influential that they are widely quoted amongst the investment industry. For example, while working on the Master…
While doing research for my article in this month’s Master Investor Magazine (Small Caps in the Song of Buffett) there were some companies I had to reject, as they didn’t meet all of the investment guru’s buying criteria. To re-cap, Buffet likes companies with a wide “economic moat” – a situation which helps them to…
Having done a scan of all the stocks in London for this three part feature one stood out as being the cheapest, by far, in valuation terms. Chinese seafood seller Aquatic Foods Group (AFG) is trading on a PE of 0.7 times, yields 15% and has net cash of c.£40 million against a market cap…
