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‘V’ is for Victrex

And ‘P’ is for pick of the week
This week’s pick of the week is Victrex (VCT), the world’s leadin manufacturer of polyketones, specifically Victrex PEEK polymer.
If investing really were about buying what you know, then this company would be about as far down my watch list as a pair of underpants on a Christmas list, [...]

This week’s shares: United Drug, Sage and Europa Oil & Gas

Prospecting for oil in Reigate
Europa Oil & Gas (EOG)
We’re getting used to companies divining oil in the deepest, furthest and most inaccessible of places so it’s with a chuckle I turn to Europa and its wells or prospective wells in Lincolnshire and near Reigate (among others).
Europa’s auditor is not the first I’ve seen to sign [...]

Towards a unified theory of finance

Visionary spotted on YouTube

I’ve been watching Robert Shiller lecturing1 Google employees on the subprime crisis, the subject of his recent book, trying to reconcile his faith in finance theory…
Maybe it’s because I’m trained in finance. I believe in financial theory and that there’s a technology we have to adapt. And actually the crisis ought to [...]

Question 1. Is it cheap?

It’s a PE ratio, but not just any old PE ratio
Last week I boiled the way I pick shares down to three questions, the only three that count. Having spent most of the blog building up to that point I didn’t elaborate, leading Mike to comment:
It is useful to have a checklist but I think [...]

Coppock or popycoppock?

Picking the market’s bottom
A letter to Money Observer sent me on a curious trail into the world of technical analysis yesterday.
A reader asked whether the Coppock indicator is signalling investors should buy the FTSE 100.
Early in my investing career, I used charts to time my purchases. It’s very easy to do, with software and on [...]

The rest of this week’s shares: easyJet, Intec, Ransom

Horny goat weed not doing it for me, yet
easyJet (EZJ)
Despite news today that easyJet is nicking passengers from weaker and more expensive rivals in a kind of flight away from quality, I’m a bit surprised by investors’ enthusiasm for the budget airline.
Maybe there’s still a cachet to owning shares in an airline, or maybe investors [...]

Some of this week’s shares: Carluccio’s and DMGT

Two stocks in the buy-zone
Here’s part one*1 of this week’s lightning review of companies that have:

recently published their annual reports,
long, profitable records, and…
relatively low share prices in relation to those profits

Carluccio’s (CARL)
To get a flavour of Carluccio’s watch iBall, last June it took a playful look at the restaurant-cum-deli chain last June. Unfortunately for shareholders, [...]

The only three questions that count

Top-down, bottom-up – It’s all the same…
The Only Three Questions That Count is the title of a book by Ken Fisher, which I have rather cheekily expropriated for this blog entry.
Ken’s questions were designed to help the reader be a better top-down investor by challenging her to think rigorously about what category of investment she [...]

The Long-Term PE

It’s a PE ratio, but not just any old PE ratio
Last week I boiled the way I pick shares down to three questions, the only three that count. Having spent most of the blog building up to that point I didn’t elaborate, leading Mike to comment:
It is useful to have a checklist but I think [...]

Do WHA/T?

The ‘A’’s have it
Say you read February’s Share Sleuth article, the column I write for Money Observer magazine, which will be on Dewhurst. You like the sound of the company. You do your own research. You still like the sound of the company. Which shares do you buy?
Dewhurst is one of, I believe, a diminishing [...]

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