http://blog.iii.co.uk Inside one of the UK's leading websites Thu, 08 May 2008 17:14:39 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Astute readers of this blog may have noticed I don't talk about Ken Fisher's views as much as I did in the early days. There's a very good reason for that. For over a year now he's been writing for us on the Interactive Investor mothership so you have plenty ... http://blog.iii.co.uk/an-open-love-letter-to-ken-fisher/ Dr Keith Anderson picks out the very cheapest stocks on the market using his Naked PE ratio. Meanwhile insiders are buying shares in Johnson Service, which was in our last list. First, here's the May list, straight from Dr Keith Anderson's database: Just in case you haven't been following the series ... http://blog.iii.co.uk/the-six-cheapest-stocks-in-may/ Well, maybe for a while. I'm consulting the financial journalist's bible - Michael Brett's How to Read the Financial Pages - on banks and rights issues - as background research for a Moneywise column on Fred "the Shred" Goodwin, the RBS chief executive who recently asked shareholders for £12bn to ... http://blog.iii.co.uk/last-word-on-banking/ It didn't happen in 'On the buses'. I'm arranging interviews with Roy Stanley and Andrew Brian, Darwen's (DHP) chairman and chief executive about their exciting new bus manufacturing company (yes, really - see below) - the deadline for the iBall script is tomorrow - when their PR adviser gives me a ... http://blog.iii.co.uk/bus-company-reverses-into-bus-company/ Just snipped this from the Bank of England's Financial Stability Report, published today. It's the credit boom in a nutshell: A prolonged period of overextension… For a number of years, low interest rates and benign global economic conditions encouraged higher risk-taking by investors and increased borrowing in parts of the household and ... http://blog.iii.co.uk/rewriting-the-financial-stability-report-or-the-credit-boom-in-a-nutshell/ Yes, those boobs were fake! As regular readers know, when I'm not writing this blog, or editing the Interactive Investor mothership, or writing my Moneywise columns (or eating Swedish Meatball Wraps at Pret-a-Manger), I'm writing scripts for iBall. It's a lot of fun, though sadly with success comes money and ambition and ... http://blog.iii.co.uk/fake-boob-scandal-rocks-iball/ Are banks good investments? Robin Soole, posted a comment saying prospects for banks are not that bad, which explains why prices are going up. I'm replying here, interspersing my comments with his (I think you'll see why): Your article reminds me of James Montier’s idea that investment performance is not based ... http://blog.iii.co.uk/on-bankers-winning-beauty-contests/ Deborah is sceptical about my views on bank valuations.  She says: ...we really don't know which financial companies will survive the deleveraging, by the time share dilution is done they won't resemble anything like they were before, and their level of historical profits weren't based on any thing sustainable.  My gut ... http://blog.iii.co.uk/when-a-bargains-not-a-bargain/ Richard Pzena, a "conservative value investor", explains his methods in Forbes: The companies at the top of the list are selling for a low price relative to what their histories suggest they should be earning in the future. Now, typically, they're not earning what their histories suggest, which is why they ... http://blog.iii.co.uk/value-investor-not-conservative-enough/ Weighing in on bank valuations again, here are four fundamental reasons why I 'm not buying banks: Price, profits, cashflow, and deposits. The long-term price earnings ratio is my preferred measure of value. I take the average of up to nine years of earnings and divide it into the current share ... http://blog.iii.co.uk/four-reasons-banks-arent-cheap-enough/