European bank stocks have fallen to historically low multiples. The earnings outlook is uncertain and the banking environment is in flux. Tighter regulation, coordinated at the EU level, and challenging market conditions have forced banks to refine their business models and strategies – but all this has impacted their Return on Capital. European banks are…
It is sometimes difficult not to be swayed by what the trading Twitterati are excited about. The current Stock Du Jour is Ferrum Crescent. Ferrum Crescent (FCR): 0.6p Technical Target It was the turn of the Executive Chairman of Ferrum Crescent Justin Tooth to be star of the show in the small cap market this…
It’s three months since the UK voted to leave the EU. In that time we have in place a new Prime Minister, a looser monetary policy and sterling is the weakest it has been versus the US dollar in over a decade. All in all, it’s been a dramatic quarter. While the FTSE 100 has…
It seems somewhat ironic that in a week dominated by Apple’s potential takeover of McLaren in order to go further down the road of driverless cars, one of the best performing stocks of the week on the UK market has been Seeing Machines. Seeing Machines (SEE): Technical target as high as 8p Considering that we…
Somewhere in Aldershot in a Nissen hut, a door, marked Legal Secretariat, is knocked: “Permission to speak, Sir” “Yes, what is it Atkins?” “It’s my pay slip, Sir” “And?” “I only get £10 this month” “And?” “Well, it shows a deduction for £3,600 to pay for counsel” “Yes?” “It’s not Woking District Counsel is it?…
Being something of a chocoholic, and being one of the few people actually prepared to pay £3.85 for a 65% Supermilk bar, the short history of Hotel Chocolat has been a source of much personal interest. Hotel Chocolat (HOTC): Break Towards Implied 300p Technical Target It would appear that the rating upon which Hotel Chocolat…
The world of central banking continues to delight. This particular niche has delivered the greatest advances in economic knowledge, outputting refined new tools to improve the way our economy works. They redefined the zero lower bound, making it possible for borrowers to get a return on their debts; they turned the time preference upside down;…
Investors should not assume we have seen the full implications of the UK decision to go it alone. Like history, the future is another country; they do things differently there. One of the useful things taught in economics, is to distinguish between the ‘short term’ and the ‘long term’. John Maynard Keynes (whose wisdom has…
The protracted period of low interest rates triggered by the 2008 financial crisis has pushed up the value of many reliable, income-generating parts of the market to the extent that their valuations have become considerably overstretched. One area where there are still some pockets of value is infrastructure. The companies operating in this sector provide…
I have to admit that, as in the case with Lonmin (LMI), at one stage earlier this year I did succumb to the idea that Glencore may be no more. Instead, the share prices of both companies have reversed sharply to the upside. In the case of Glencore, the question is can it continue? Glencore…
