16 Aug 2011
When Not to Invest in Shares
Most of the academic research out there suggests that shares are the best investment vehicle. They have produced the biggest returns for a given amount of risk; so does this means it always makes sense to invest all your savings in the stock market?
11 Aug 2011
BAE Systems - It's Time to Get Defensive
Big dividends. That's what I want. Big dividends that only get bigger. And in the world of big, growing dividends, they don't get much bigger than BAE Systems. This giant defence contractor really fits the bill when it comes to a big, solid income that's likely to just get bigger (have I used the word 'big' enough yet?). It's big (okay, okay, I won't do it again), financially robust, has a long history, a steadily growing dividend and is internationally diverse. What more could you want? Oh, and thanks to Mr Market's panic it's currently yielding over 7%. I'll wait while you get up off the floor.
4 Aug 2011
How to Find the Right Kind of Growth
Microsoft style growth
When I talk to people who 'dabble' in the stock market, one of the thing that almost always comes up is growth. The general idea seems to be that if you want a reasonable investment then put your money into Tesco, Marks & Spencer or RBS, but if you really want to get rich then the only way is to find some small company that's about to be the Next Big Thing.
28 Jul 2011
Building an Income to Retire On
Remember the mantra from last time – income first, capital growth second, invest for the long term. With shares, income means dividends and the higher the yield the better. However, there’s more to it than that.
If you go to your favourite stock screener (or just google ‘stock screener’, there are plenty out there) and sort all the shares in the UK market by dividend yield you are probably going to get a large number of junk shares. That’s because the quoted dividend yield is based on the last dividend that was paid out, not the one that’s going to be paid out next; and it's what gets paid out over the next few years that really matters.
26 Jul 2011
SOLD – Creston Returns 22.2% in Only 237 Days
This small media company has been doing pretty well recently
and after the latest annual report at the end of June it was time for a
revaluation. I originally bought Creston
back in November last year and only barely mentioned it in the 2010
performance review, so I’ll go into more detail here.
22 Jul 2011
Are Your Shares as Safe as Houses?
Generally there are two ways that people invest for their
retirement. The first is in the stock
and bond markets and the second is in property. In both cases this can be either through a fund of some sort or directly as a stock picker or buy-to-let investor.
Thinking about the stock market in terms of property
investing is useful as the two fields have quite a lot of overlap, even if they
aren’t usually compared directly.
A sensible approach for both property and stock
market investors is to focus on income
first and capital growth second with each individual investment being viewed with a long term perspective.
15 Jul 2011
AstraZeneca versus the FTSE 100 – Which is better?
If you’re going to be a stock picker then one of your goals has to be to beat the market. It must be, otherwise why would you bother with all the extra work? And if you’re out to beat the market then it makes sense to check each potential investment against the market to see which is best.
11 Jul 2011
New fund launch, The UKVI 20 (part 1)
I will shortly be launching a new model fund which will be called the UKVI 20. This fund will be separate from my personal investments, although the two will be very similar to start with and I expect them to eventually have exactly the same constituent parts but with slightly different weightings.
I’ll put up the facts and figures for the UKVI 20 onto the web site in due course and I’ll keep posting my private investment performance for several more years until the new fund has some reasonable amount of history behind it.
I’ll put up the facts and figures for the UKVI 20 onto the web site in due course and I’ll keep posting my private investment performance for several more years until the new fund has some reasonable amount of history behind it.
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