I have to state that even at the start of the era of the present brand of corporate structure with the cult of CEO, the human resources departments, core and non core business, and all the other phoney transatlantic phrases and concepts which are bandied about, it can be seen from the recent history of…
GlaxoSmithKline: a share supported by a good yield, a potential special shareholder return and potentially supportive news flow. When I first started to put pen to paper on this pre-trading statement appreciation of GlaxoSmithKline, the share price was 1626. In terms of years, Shakespeare was dead and buried by 1626. The share price now, as…
In my recent musings about the relative charms of BP (BP.) and Shell (RDSB) equity, I concluded that I preferred BP because Royal Dutch could make a bid for BP. Earlier this week, Royal Dutch Shell blew that bit of rationalisation out of the deep blue waters of speculation, by saying that it was to…
Looking at the workings of Next (NXT) financial reports reminds me of those moments in the Antiques Road Show when the affable clocks expert opens the back of an 18th-century clock to reveal a still perfect working mechanism. Next is a similarly perfect mechanism for producing sales, earnings, dividend and cash growth. It will not remain eternally…
Following recent full year results shares in multi-jurisdictional financial services business STM Group surged by 17% and have since touched levels last seen in summer 2012. With significant investment having been put into the business in the past few years, and the firm benefiting from strong operational gearing, profits are set to continue rising. With…
I last visited Marks and Spencer (MKS), or ‘Marks and Sparks’ as our family used to know, it early in January. The drama was whether M&S was finished as a general merchandiser – most particularly in the ladies wear department, where it seemed totally incapable of revising its one time reputation as a big supplier…
One of the best things about spread betting is the ability to cheaply trade shares you might only want to be in for a few days or even just a month or two. There isn’t much cost and you can quickly bank (hopefully) a nice profit. My favourite was to spread bet is to find…
Sell-offs are often a great opportunity for patient investors to acquire prime assets on the cheap, and the recent sell-off in the oil & gas services sector appears to be a case in point. In this month’s small-cap section we have put together a selection of the most exciting companies in the sector, all of…
Detachment is everything in investing. And there is bucket loads of detachment here on the Limpopo. They once ascribed the mystique of the superiority of the Edinburgh fund mangers to the fact that that they were far from the London market with all its distractions and crowd following investors. Here on the Limpopo a man…
Surveying the market shore line for value, my searching eye was caught by International Consolidated Airlines (IAG), the rather long, plain faced name for a business which the advertising industry often portrays as incredibly glamorous. I speak of passenger airlines. As we all know, the glamour soon wears off once you have waited for a…
