Investors' Chronicle

On this week's IC Alpha Podcast John and Phil talk about two companies in the travel sector that have borne the brunt of Covid-19 and may have further pain to come, why lockdown is proving good news for one specialist retailer, and a distributor that's expanding despite the difficult economic backdrop. Investors' Chronicle has supported private investors in the UK for over 160 years by highlightin...

Google searches for the word ‘staycation’ have spiked in 2020. Brits fearing unpleasant air travel, hostile international hosts or an unexpected two weeks of enforced quarantine on return to the UK have opted to holiday in these green and pleasant lands. Investors' Chronicle has supported private investors in the UK for over 160 years by highlighting rewarding investment opportunities. Investors'...

Government bonds were one of the only reliable portfolio diversifiers when equity markets crashed earlier this year, but they now face several pressing questions. Are they too expensive, and will they still work in the next sell-off? What will the future hold for bonds more generally? Mike Riddell, manager of the Allianz Strategic Bond fund, has successfully navigated recent bouts of volatility by...

On this week's episode, John Hughman and resident analyst Phil Oakley discuss the state of play for the housebuilders with the help of this week's results from Redrow. Plus what Next can do in response to the evolving retail sector and how Ocado has found itself in the Covid-19 sweet spot. But is Phil convinced? If you don't subscribe to Alpha already, you can sign up for a four week trial for jus...

The pub feels like just the right place to launch the Investors Chronicle’s brand new podcast, especially as the topic up for discussion in episode one is beer. Investors' Chronicle has supported private investors in the UK for over 160 years by highlighting rewarding investment opportunities. Investors' Chronicle is a service by the Financial Times . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for mor...

Professor John Kay has held a host of the UK’s leading economic advisory and academic positions. In early 2020, he published an incredibly prescient book alongside Lord Mervyn King which lays out the dangers of economic modelling when attempting to deal with crises. Reassuringly, Radical Uncertainty: Decision making for an unknowable future, shows that we can make good decisions, even in a very un...

On this week's new IC Alpha Podcast, John and Phil discuss the worrying outlook for the UK economy and the pound as a result of the government's disastrous handling of Covid-19 and now the final stages of Brexit negotiations.  For companies exposed to the consumer economy this has brought mixed fortunes – as John and Phil discuss, strong numbers this week from Games Workshop and Frontier...

On this episode of the IC Interviews, editor John Hughman speaks to the magazine’s regular investment trust columnist John Baron. A former fund manager, John has provided updates on two live investment trust based portfolios for the Investors Chronicle since 2009, one focused on growth and the other on income. John has recently completed an updated version of his book, the Financial Times Guide to...

For the vast majority of investors, the stock market remains primarily a place for making money work harder. But increasingly, environmental and social consciousness is playing a role in investment decisions. But a lack of clear guidelines on ESG reporting means there has been a rise in both companies and funds attempting to make themselves seem cleaner than they are - and life harder for investor...

Peter Toogood is the chief investment officer at retirement solutions provider Embark Group, having worked for 25 years in financial services including as an advisor, researcher and investment manager. In this podcast, we talk with him about the current market battle between growth and value, the rise (and sometime inconsistencies) of ESG, and Peter's own solution for the...

BT’s chief executive seems to have spent much of the last few weeks preparing his company for a hostile takeover approach. The fate awaiting BT and its shareholders raises questions about how the company has found itself in this sorry state. To answer that, we have to go back to the 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher had an agenda. In this week’s podcast Megan Boxall and John Hughman have been joined b...

Private equity has developed a bad reputation for extracting value from companies and then foisting their remnants on unsuspecting equity markets. At the same time Private Equity trusts have delivered returns for investors that have beaten some of the world's best performing indices and offer access to areas of industry that equity markets just cannot reach. On this week's inve...

The platform market has changed a lot since Hargreaves Lansdown launched in the UK nearly 40 years ago. The market's growth in products, information and legitimate online brokers is surely only a good thing? The answer is tricky. More options have helped bring prices down, but also make it harder for investors to make a decision, whale scams and security remain hot issues.  In this episode of...

Last week was big for US tech - with a fiery Congressional hearing and bumper quarterly earnings. “With the exception of Amazon, all of these companies are not expensive stocks now”, argues Walter Price, portfolio manager of Allianz Technology Trust. In this podcast, Mr Price tells us his views on growth, regulation, and China’s moves to replace the US as the dominant world superpower.  Inves...

 Coronavirus has intensified the growing animosity between the world’s two great superpowers, China and the US, and worries are mounting that the confrontational rhetoric may at some point turn a cold war into a hot one. But the virus has also stretched Western economies to their limits and cast into doubt just how they can fund the cost of the new arms race that may just be starting. On this...

'What comes next for investment in the tech sector?’ is a question Mary McDougall put to Ben Rogoff, lead investor at the hugely popular Polar Capital Technology Trust. His response: "I feel like the growth trajectory for those companies is very strong. The challenge is always – and it really is a challenge for a growth investor – to try and assess how much of that is already captured in the valua...

Gold has reached $2,000 an ounce on the futures market this month and gotten very close in spot terms as well. The precious metal has been trading at multi-year highs for over a year now, since breaking $1,400 over a year ago. This year, the Covid-19 job losses and major economic slowdown supercharged an already surging gold price. The big question is whether you should still be buying. On this we...

Sir Ronald Cohen is described as the ‘father of British venture capital’, having co-founded Apax Partners in 1972. For nearly twenty years he has pioneered initiatives in the world of impact investing, including the Social Impact Investment Taskforce created during the UK’s presidency of the G8.   In this interview, Sir Ronald explains how the environmental and social impact of comp...

Pharmaceutical progress in the war on coronavirus has accelerated this week and share prices have leapt as a result. On this week’s podcast John Hughman and Megan Boxall get the lowdown from Harriet Clarfelt on the recent announcements and dig into the share price movements with trader Michael Taylor. We have also spoken to the chief executive and chief financial officer at Tristel and Phil Oakley...

The trimming or cancelling of dividends in the UK is incredibly significant. With income expected to be significantly lower in 2020 than it was in 2019, a reader’s letter has highlighted how stark the situation is for some private investors. He said: “40 per cent of my retirement income comes from shares.” At a time like this, it’s hard to know where to turn. On this week’s podcast Megan Boxall an...

Few financial experts speak with such authority about psychology in investing as Michael Mauboussin. He’s written the book on behavioural finance – literally, many times. In this interview, he and Algy Hall pick through the main discussion points of his latest research paper – ‘BIN there, done that’, which analyses the sources of mistakes people make when forecasting. Investors' Chronicle has...

After suffering the fastest bear market in history in March America's stock markets have powered to new heights on the back of the strength of its technology sector and vast stimulus. But plenty of pitfalls lie in wait – high valuations, election uncertainty, civil disorder and escalating tensions with the world's second superpower: China.  In part 2 of our series exploring how markets may re...

Welcome to the IC Interviews, our new podcast format featuring in depth interviews with the people you need to hear from. WPP-founder  Sir Martin Sorrell  spoke to Lauren Almeida about his new venture, S4 Capital, how Covid-19 is accelerating the trends he sees shaping the advertising world in the digital era, and why he believes a V-shaped economic recovery is on the cards. Investo...

Welcome to the IC Interviews, our new podcast format featuring in depth interviews with the people you need to hear from. Alex Newman spoke to platform boss Andy Bell , founder of AJ Bell, about the private investing landscape, the future of shareholder democracy, and how to investor behaviour has changed in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Investors' Chronicle has supported private investors in...

Welcome to the IC Interviews, our new podcast format featuring in depth interviews with the people you need to hear from. Risk management expert and founder of HSBC’s geopolitical risk team  Derek Leatherdale  told Alex Newman what investors need to know to keep their money safe in an increasingly fractious world, and what could happen next in the US: China standoff. Investors' Chronicle...