Dear Fellow Investor, I am sure you have heard of the Magic Formula – if not here is a quick summary: The Magic Formula was defined in an excellent book by Joel Greenblatt called “The little book that still beats the market”. It identifies good quality companies that are trading at an attractive price. It…
I’m in Ireland this week travelling round on steam trains, seeing the sights, indulging in the famous culinary delights (that’s not potatoes any longer, for anyone under that outdated impression), and of course supping the occasional Guinness. The company that runs these excellent excursions is called Steam Dreams. It organises many trips around the UK…
The conventional wisdom, until recently, was that consumer services had been blown out of the water by the advent of the internet. Why would anyone go to a high street insurance broker to sort out his car insurance when he could log onto the internet and get a get a quote directly from Gocompare.com or…
It’s been a tough time for Majestic Wines plc over the last year or two it seems. They have increased sales revenue but managed to post lower profits. Of course profits are dependent on the company’s attitude to future risk in terms of contingent liabilities and reserves, which are basically potential profits sitting on the…
Let’s talk about the vibrant industry whose customers we all are on a regular basis: budget, or low-cost, no-frills airlines. Thanks to these operations, we Brits are amongst the most peripatetic people on the planet. Two business models have emerged in the airline industry over the last 20 years. Firstly, there are airlines which specialise…
On Monday the M&A rumour mill, which has been in overdrive since the year began, spat out reports, based on a 40 word Brazilian blog, that three of the Brazilian backers of Anheuser-Busch InBev were considering a bid for Diageo. Of course, such reports sent Diageo’s stock jumping by just shy of 7%, with continued…
As seen in this month’s Master Investor Magazine One of the inherent contradictions within capitalism is its tendency to gravitate towards monopolies. From a capitalist’s perspective, a monopoly is the favoured situation, as it removes the competition and enables supernormal profits to be extracted indefinitely. However, in practice, monopolies tend to be bad for the…
My short on TESCO (TSCO) at £2.17 paid off handsomely as it dropped as low as £2.01, but then we had a bounce back to £2.17. But it’s now time to short again and back down to the £2.00 level. As I have said in my previous posts, at £2.00 the price is going to…
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” ― Steve Jobs “Welcome to the most exciting and important frontier since the digital music revolution began 16 years ago”, said Rdio’s CEO in mockery of Apple after the company unveiled a series of new products that were mere copies and redesigns of existing products and services…
HSBC Holdings shares at 614p. After the tablets are brought down from the mountain, look good value on fundamentals even if the share price does seem to have run out of momentum at the moment. Yesterday first thing, the CEO of HSBC Holdings came down from the mountain carrying in the style of Moses, new commandments…
