Buy the company or the product? Consumers understand their favourite brands, so they should buy shares in the firm August 31, 2018 We've all been guilty of being swayed by the hype that surrounds fashionable items. The iPhone X is a perfect example of that. Unphased by the £1,000 price tag, fans pledged their money before the new phone even hit the shelves, while thousands camped outside Apple stores on the day of its release. But let’s [...]
Claim-hit Wonga stops taking loan applications as it ‘considers its options’ August 30, 2018 Wonga appeared to be on the verge of folding this morning, as it made the decision to stop taking new loan applications. The payday lender told customers that it “continues to assess its options” in the wake of a huge number of compensation claims that led to shareholders providing an emergency £10m earlier this month. [...]
Business expansion doubles Arrow Global’s profit August 30, 2018 European asset manager Arrow Global today revealed that profit after tax more than doubled this year, driven by business expansion. The figures Profit after tax rose by more than 100 per cent to £8.5m in the first half of this year, compared to £3.7m in the same period in 2017. In the six months to 30 June [...]
Lender Amigo hails surging revenue but profits count the cost of IPO August 30, 2018 Amigo witnessed a 50 per cent leap in sales across the first quarter of its new financial year, but its share price remained flat as the costs of its recent stock market float impacted profits. The figures The lender reached £62.9m revenue for the three months to the end of June, a whopping 47 per [...]
Three major growth themes August 29, 2018 | City Talk Scientific advances bring both threats and opportunities for investors. Technological progress can render some business models obsolete, but at the same time open up new avenues of growth and wealth creation. Taking a thematic approach is one way to try and profit from a changing world. This involves investing in a collection of companies in [...]
Crowdfunding goes stateside: Seedrs strikes deal with Angelist’s Republic August 28, 2018 London-based equity crowdfunding platform Seedrs has landed a strategic partnership with US site Republic, pushing its expansion stateside. The deal means UK startups will be able to run joint crowdfunding campaigns in both countries, targeting investors on either side of the Atlantic. Republic, which is the sister company to well-known individual investor site Angelist, said the relationship [...]
FUD & The ICO Market Right Now August 28, 2018 Last week we looked at being at strategic partnerships in ICOs. This week I want to take a bit of a snapshot of the ICO market at the time of writing. At the time of writing, the crypto currency markets are looking concerning. Those who have been investing in ICOs are putting the brakes on [...]
Report highlights huge divide between public sector and private sector pensions August 27, 2018 PUBLIC sector pensions are three times more generous than their private sector counterparts, despite being paid for through general taxation, a new study has revealed. According to the Tax Payers’ Alliance, a 25-year-old employee entering the public sector on the national average wage of £28,600 per annum, would enjoy a far larger a pension pot [...]
America’s record bull market: five charts that tell the story August 24, 2018 | City Talk The US stock market is on its longest bull-run in history. It began on 9 March 2009 and, so far, has lasted nine years, five months and 13 days. As of today, it beats the great equities performance of the 1990s. A bull market is broadly defined as one that rises over time without falling [...]
Investors believe the government is failing at Brexit negotiations August 23, 2018 The majority of British investors think the government is doing a bad job at securing a Brexit deal for financial services and almost half think the UK will be poorer after it leaves the European Union. In total 59 per cent of investors feel the government is failing at the negotiations and does not "have their back", [...]