Haynes still worthy
A belated check
I picked Haynes (HYNS) in July 2008 to be the first company profiled in a new column, Share Sleuth, for Money Observer magazine. Then, the shares cost £1.72. Luckily, as I hadn’t finalised the Thrifty 30 methodology then, it fits, so it was one of the first companies I included when I started [...]
An expensive Treatt
Not a penny chew…
A nearby sweet shop still sells sweets out of jars, gobstoppers and sherbets, and glitzy foreign chocolates in glass drawers and luxurious packaging that remind me of a bygone era.
If Treatt (TET) were a sweet it would be one those exotic chocolates, or maybe a Turkish delight. Some of the ingredients [...]
Putting investing heroes in their place
[This is a transcript of a podcast originally recorded in October. If you prefer to listen to it, it’s here .]
I’m grateful to a colleague of mine, Peter Temple, for writing an article that’s reminded me of the debt I owe another Peter, Peter Lynch.
It was Lynch’s book ‘One Up On Wall Street’ that inspired [...]
Gold is not for Grandma
[This is a transcript of a podcast originally recorded in December. If you prefer to listen to it, it’s here Since then the gold price has been down and up, but it’s pretty much where it was.]
Contrary, to the popular conception, value investors are optimists. Yes, like vultures we lurk around troubled companies where [...]
Dewhurst still pushes the buttons
Keeping the faith.
I first spotted Dewhurst (DWHT), a year ago when its shares cost 185p. The company featured in the February 2009 edition of my Share Sleuth column (PDF) in Money Observer, and they were in the first group of shares included in the Thrifty 30 portfolio when I started it in September, added [...]
Making room for RM
Not so IT
As any parent knows, school has changed since our day. Yes kids still refuse to wear coats even though it’s minus five degrees outside, but the roofs have tiles on them, kids loosen their straps so their rucksacks hang around their bottoms instead of knotting stumpy ties, and parents are more involved, [...]
2010: An Investing Odyssey
A long, wandering and eventful journey.
There’s not much point in rehashing 2009. If you hibernated through it you missed a good whipsawing by the stock market and your investments are probably doing much better than they were at the beginning of the year. If you panicked at the beginning of the year and sold [...]
MARS Attacks!
A pint of Hobgoblin and a half of Black Wych
A Very Happy New Year to you. If you spent it in a pub then my first blog of the year should bring the convivial atmosphere and smell of real ale back to you because it’s about Marston’s (MARS).
As you can see from the chart, [...]
