Bitcoin bounces as the pound plunges: what’s next for global markets? May 20, 2019 | City Talk Last week was all about a modern currency enjoying some big moves – all while a more established one was plunging. Bitcoin has been grabbing its fair share of headlines in recent months, with the crypto favourite trading above $8,000 last week for the first time since July last year. This served to bring the [...]
John Bennett: “A truer active, more idiosyncratic portfolio” May 17, 2019 | Sponsored John Bennett, Fund Manager of Henderson European Focus Trust, explains the thinking behind his new, more concentrated portfolio. John Bennett, Fund Manager of Henderson European Focus Trust, explains why the board has reduced the minimum number of holdings the Trust can invest in from 50 to 45; and why investors should not be spooked by [...]
Even ITV’s big dividend can’t win over investors May 17, 2019 | City Talk After falling again sharply on these first-quarter results, interactive investor's head of markets explains why ITV is finding life so hard. Strategically, the song remains the same at ITV (LSE:ITV) as it continues to respond to changing viewer habits, while also lessening its reliance on traditional advertising. Indeed, there are signs of progress on both [...]
Why is the mortgage market strangely resistant to technological change? May 16, 2019 Technology is so pervasive that it is easy to forget just how fundamentally it has impacted our lives. In fact, it is hard to think of an area of life that hasn’t been made more accessible, faster or cheaper. Personal finance is no exception. Price comparison websites, mobile banking, and other innovations have all transformed the [...]
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 [...]
The big fixer-upper: How to solve the problems in the mortgage market May 15, 2019 We've sent people into space, built driverless cars, and engineered robots that can think like us. And yet, fixing the mortgage approval process still seems out of humanity’s reach. The market is riddled with inefficiencies. Consumers are forced to fill out documents detailing every corner of their lives, while clunky underwriting processes mean that it [...]
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 [...]