Huveaux, heaving itself back from the precipice
In practice:
How good is good?
Most studies I’ve seen demonstrate that the best returns come from the cheapest companies, and those with the strongest finances. Putting the two together, buying good companies at cheap prices, is common sense.
In practice it can be difficult to do because there is a trade-off between price and quality. It’s not [...]
The dash to trash
In practice:
Speculation is in the air
What a great Spring. The sun is out, the skies are blue, and unless you’ve been locked away in a bunker somewhere, investors and speculators have produced a remarkable turnaround in the stock market.
Here’s my plot:
The chart shows how we’re prepared to pay for UK shares (main market and [...]
OPD (again)
In practice:
Signs of overconfidence warn me off
Sorry about the absence of a post yesterday. OPD (OPD) waylaid me. It’s funny how it’s the shares you decide against that take the longest to appraise.
I wrote about the recruiter last week. It fits my pattern. The shares are dirt cheap. The 10 year price earnings ratio is [...]
OPD: A classic boom and bust share
In practice:
Another cheap recruitment company
The fortunes of recruitment companies depend on the fortunes of the economy, but OPD (OPD) looks like a boom and bust share par excellence. Founded by its current chairman and biggest shareholder, Peter Hearn, in the teeth of recession in the early 1990’s, its share price chart booms and crashes with the [...]
Dialight at the end of the tunnel
<blink>Buy me</blink>
Dialight’s chart reminds me of our politicians, huffing and puffing, but not achieving much. The price now, adjusted for splits and consolidations, is pretty much what it was back in 1994, as far back as Sharescope shows, though it’s also returned money to investors.
Judging by the numbers, Dialight is flashing a great big LED powered [...]
ASOS makes me look like an ass…
‘A’ is for acronym, and anomaly
Here’s a rarity these days, a couple of charts that go from bottom left to top right:
Yesterday, ASOS (ASC) announced it had doubled sales and and almost doubled of pre-tax profit and is looking ahead to another year of strong growth.
I cringe whenever I look at charts like ASOS, and [...]
Market warms up, bargains still abound
In practice:
‘Bounce’ still insignificant
As promised on Wednesday, from now on Monday’s a data rich day. First, off the market, and the bad news: It’s warmed up a tiny bit since I reported that the recent stock market ‘bounce’ was insignificant.
By my calculation, the long-term price earnings ratio of the stock market [...]
Extreme shares and extreme moves
In practice:
Naked PE shares on the move
Keith Anderson emailed me this afternoon, saying:
Nobody rings you up and tells you that the market has just turned. So here you are…
The inventor of the Naked PE is watching his portfolios of extremely cheap companies very carefully. The prices of three of the six companies in his list [...]
Thrifty companies at thrifty prices
In practice:
Technology to the rescue
A list of excuses:
It’s reporting season
Shares are trading at unusually low valuations
We just had the Easter break
So I’m struggling to keep up with the tidal wave of cheap, financially sound companies publishing their results, but life may be about to get a lot easier.
Sharelockholmes, a share screening service, has added a [...]
Stockmarket bounce is insignificant
In practice:
The market is cheap I tell you
Despite the recent bounce in the UK stock market, it’s still cheap.
The 200-point rise in the FTSE All-Share from 1,800 in early March to over 2,000 is trivial relative to its descent from 3,400 since 2006, so investors are still unenthusiastic about shares.
By comparing the price of shares [...]
