Morrisons fails to convince despite Ocado deal May 16, 2019 | City Talk By Graeme Evans from interactive investor. It talks the talk, and a 6 per cent dividend yield is attractive, but can this £50 billion grocer walk the walk? Morrisons (LSE:MRW) offered more evidence of its "ever-improving shape" after a robust trading update and intriguing deal to re-write its online partnership with Ocado. While the supermarket's shares [...]
Royal Returns – Interactive Investor on funds and trusts fit for children May 15, 2019 | City Talk By Jemma Jackson from interactive investor. Whilst the latest addition to the Royal family won’t want for much, it’s unlikely that any investments made on his behalf will be left to languish in cash. This contrasts with the majority of the nation’s Junior ISAs, where 70 per cent by number are in cash in the 2017/18 [...]
Can a 60/40 split portfolio deliver better outcomes? May 15, 2019 | City Talk Recent decades have been a tumultuous time for investors. In the last 20 years alone we have experienced two of the biggest stock market crashes in history – the bursting of the dotcom bubble at the turn of the millennium and the financial crisis in 2008. Smoothing returns and avoiding losses has been a crucial [...]
Why Domino’s Pizza sell-off was overcooked May 14, 2019 | City Talk By Graeme Evans from interactive investor. Hungry bargain hunters gobbled up shares in Domino's, correctly betting than an early slump was unfair. After selling 12 pizzas every second on New Year's Day, the rest of 2019 certainly hasn't panned out in the same emphatic fashion for Domino's Pizzaor its investors. Shares slumped as much as [...]
Four ways passive investing has altered the markets May 14, 2019 Ever since the first exchange-traded fund (ETF) listed in Europe 19 years ago, passive investing has proved hugely popular. ETFs are traded like stocks, and simply track the big indices like the FTSE 100 or the Dow Jones, as opposed to having a fund manager cherry-pick individual companies for you. And with the lowest annual [...]
Cybersecurity: why you’re right to be cautious May 13, 2019 | City Talk By Ian Hall (City AM, for the CFA Institute) The threat of cybersecurity and data-privacy attacks is under-estimated and growing, and organisations and individuals should proceed with extreme care in respect of digital information security, according to a Switzerland-based expert. David Basin, Professor of Computer Science at ETH Zurich, used a seminar at the 72nd [...]
US regulator SEC gives go-ahead for first ‘negative fee’ fund May 13, 2019 The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the US financial regulator, has approved the first ever “negative fee” fund, which will pay investors for depositing their money. New York-based Salt Financial has waived its 0.29 per cent fee and will contribute 0.05 per cent to the fund instead meaning an investor will receive $5 (£3.86) for [...]
BP: Discipline and efficiency underpin ‘buy’ case May 13, 2019 | City Talk Profits are down in the first quarter, but BP remains on track, writes our head of markets. BP (LSE:BP.) may not have repeated its immense performance from the full-year numbers in February, but nonetheless remains on track to deliver on its strategic promises. The company's prodigious cash flow continues to enable its share buyback programme, [...]
The real revolution in electric vehicles… May 13, 2019 | City Talk Electric vehicles (EVs) have reached a clear inflection point. Product quality has improved and consumer availability is expanding rapidly. Perhaps most importantly, the cost of electric car ownership is finally approaching parity with traditional combustion engine cars. The colourful stories within the industry have also helped generate interest: the spectacular and turbulent growth story of [...]
Why bombed-out Sainsbury’s leads the FTSE 100 May 10, 2019 | City Talk Hammered since the Asda merger was blocked, our head of markets explains the surge to a three-week high. Rather than fight the decision of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), Sainsbury (LSE:SBRY) and Asda decided to call off the wedding. This leaves a huge strategic question mark over where Sainsbury's goes next. Not surprisingly, the [...]