At some point, you’re going to buy shares in a company and then that company is going to issue a profit warning, stop growing or perhaps even cut its dividend. The question then is: What to do next?
Continue reading “Should you sell your shares when a company starts to underperform?”The Investment Lessons eBook: 2015 Edition
One of the best ways to become better at investing (or anything else for that matter) is to learn from the successes and failures of others.
The idea is simple enough, but finding detailed reviews of those successes and failures, along with information about any lessons learned, is not so easy.
And that’s true even though I’ve been writing post-sale reviews of my investments for almost a decade, and regular reviews of the UKVI portfolio since 2012.
Each of those reviews also draws out any lessons learned, but what I haven’t done is collect them together into a single document and then put that document in an easy-to-find place on the website.
That’s where The Investment Lessons eBook: 2015 Edition (PDF) comes in.
Continue reading “The Investment Lessons eBook: 2015 Edition”Chemring and the dangers of growth by acquisition
Chemring was one of the very first investments I made as a defensive value investor back in early 2011 and today that lack of experience definitely shows.
Continue reading “Chemring and the dangers of growth by acquisition”S&P 500 Forecast: Medium-term returns are likely to be negative
The S&P 500 has produced fantastic results for investors since the Great Financial Crisis. However, largely because of those rapid gains the US large-cap index is more likely to produce below-average or even negative returns over the next few years.
Continue reading “S&P 500 Forecast: Medium-term returns are likely to be negative”IG Group plc still looks cheap despite recent gains
IG Group is a world leader in online foreign exchange (forex) trading, spread betting and CFDs (contracts for difference) and it’s a stock I’ve owned for about two years.
Continue reading “IG Group plc still looks cheap despite recent gains”The FTSE 250’s CAPE ratio suggests the index is close to fair value
It would be fair to say that in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit referendum, the FTSE 250 crashed. It fell by more than 13%, taking the mid-cap index back to levels first reached in the middle of 2013.
That all sounds pretty gloomy, and it was. But it didn’t last, and by the time I’d written a post-Brexit market review, things were already looking up (for the FTSE 100 at least).
Continue reading “The FTSE 250’s CAPE ratio suggests the index is close to fair value”5 Reasons why BT’s shares could be riskier than you think
BT is a company which is known to virtually everyone in the UK and its shares are a favourite among investors seeking low risks and reliable dividends.
After all, what could be safer than a company which used to be a state-owned monopoly, and which today is far and away the leader in the UK’s fixed and mobile telecoms markets?
In reality, the situation is very different and, despite some recent successes, BT could be much riskier than many investors think. Here are five reasons why.
Continue reading “5 Reasons why BT’s shares could be riskier than you think”Defensive value portfolio review – 2016 Q2
Now that the exceptionally volatile second quarter of 2016 is over, it’s time for another quarterly review of my defensive value model portfolio and its performance against the FTSE All-Share.
Continue reading “Defensive value portfolio review – 2016 Q2”Why I’ve sold Reckitt Beckiser after its recent post-Brexit surge
Reckitt Benckiser is the owner of many famous brand names such as Dettol, Air Wick and Nurofen, and it’s a company I like so much I’ve invested in it twice.
Continue reading “Why I’ve sold Reckitt Beckiser after its recent post-Brexit surge”Brexit: The investment impact one week on
By now I’m fairly sure that you’re suffering from Brexit fatigue; I know I am. So I’m going to keep this as short as possible and then, hopefully, avoid the topic for a while.
The initial impact of the vote to leave the EU was, perhaps unsurprisingly, to induce a state of almost blind panic. Of course, that was simply an emotional response; a knee-jerk overreaction that any good student of the markets should have expected.
However, investors have now had one full week to think through the implications of our collective decision to leave the EU, so I think now is a good time to pause and take a look at what the aggregate wisdom of investors has come up with.
Continue reading “Brexit: The investment impact one week on”My secret investment plan for surviving and thriving after Brexit
So far I have managed to stay completely silent on the topic of Brexit, at least on this blog. However, I have been asked many times if I have a secret investment plan for surviving and even thriving in the event that the UK votes to leave the EU.
Since we now have just such a vote I thought it would be remiss of me not to say a few words, although I will be sticking purely to my secret investment plan and not wandering into the murky world of politics.
I’ll work through each of the major points in turn and then reveal my secret plan.
Continue reading “My secret investment plan for surviving and thriving after Brexit”The capital cycle is something every investor should be aware of
In common with many value investors, I spend most of my time analysing individual companies and very little time thinking about the economy or economic cycles.
Continue reading “The capital cycle is something every investor should be aware of”The FTSE 100 is cheap, thanks to a 20-year sideways market
On Wednesday the FTSE 100 closed just above 6301 points, continuing a near-20-year tradition of failing to get much above that level.
For some investors that’s depressing news; after all an investment going nowhere for 20 years is not exactly a stunning success.
But for investors who are thinking about returns over the next 20 years rather than the last 20 years, this lengthy sideways market is in fact better news than it might at first appear.
Continue reading “The FTSE 100 is cheap, thanks to a 20-year sideways market”Why I won’t be buying shares in Sainsbury’s anytime soon
Sainsbury’s has been one of the better-performing Big Four supermarkets in recent years but the company still faces some enormous challenges.
Chief among these challenges is the changing nature of its customers’ shopping habits.
Continue reading “Why I won’t be buying shares in Sainsbury’s anytime soon”Why Marks and Spencer’s shares would have to fall to 300p before I’d invest
Marks and Spencer is one of those companies that always seems to either need or be in the middle of a turnaround. However, despite all the endless talk of turnarounds, one thing that hasn’t turned around yet is its results.
Admittedly the recent 2016 results weren’t terrible, but they weren’t exactly awe-inspiring either.
Revenues, normalised earnings and dividends were all up a bit, but only by low single-digit percentages, and that has more or less been the story for most of the last decade.
Continue reading “Why Marks and Spencer’s shares would have to fall to 300p before I’d invest”Will value investors benefit from the end of QE?
In this guest post, Robert Davies, manager of the VT Smart Dividend UK fund, looks at the relationship between QE and the relative performance of value investing versus momentum and growth investing.
Continue reading “Will value investors benefit from the end of QE?”Looking for companies with a durable competitive advantage
This blog post is an excerpt from my new book, The Defensive Value Investor, outlining how I analyse companies to see whether they have any durable competitive advantages or not.
Continue reading “Looking for companies with a durable competitive advantage”Domino’s Pizza Group: Can future growth justify the current share price?
Domino’s Pizza Group has been a growth monster for most of the past 30 years. Historically it has doubled in size every five years or so and as a result, the shares are currently trading at a premium price.
That premium share price isn’t necessarily a problem though.
If Domino’s can keep doubling in size every few years then the share price will have little choice but to do the same. On the other hand, if that growth fails to materialise, shareholders could be severely disappointed.
Continue reading “Domino’s Pizza Group: Can future growth justify the current share price?”Some lessons learned from the Tesco value trap
When I added Tesco to the UKVI model portfolio in mid-2012 the company was still riding high, having produced an amazing run of rapid and consistent growth over the previous decade.
Even the financial crisis seemed powerless to stop Tesco’s march towards global domination.
Despite this success, in mid-2012 its share price had fallen back to levels last seen in the depths of the financial crisis and first seen in 2005, when the company was literally half its 2012 size.
As a result, the dividend yield was very enticing at 4.9%, especially given the company’s historic dividend growth rate of almost 10% per year.
The share price in mid-2012 was low following a dramatic near-20% decline in early January, which came as a reaction to a disappointing Christmas trading statement.
It was becoming increasingly obvious that some of the company’s international expansion efforts of recent years were not working, while the core UK business was coming under increasing price competition in a tough post-financial crisis world.
At the time I thought it likely that Tesco would easily cope with these issues, but I was wrong. The company’s fortunes went from bad to worse as Tesco became a classic value trap, as shown in the share price chart below.
Continue reading “Some lessons learned from the Tesco value trap”Why UK house prices are likely to fall over the next decade
UK housing market valuations are at record highs. That’s probably not much of a surprise to most people, but the negative implications for future house price growth could well be.
Continue reading “Why UK house prices are likely to fall over the next decade”