Playing FTSE

Who’s spent £130 on Vistry shares? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! Steve D’s managed the show’s standard performance – between the FTSE 100 and the S&P 500 this week. Steve W, on the other hand… Earnings season for the S&P 500 is underway with the big banks reporting. And their share prices didn’t react particularly well, but the stocks still look unusually expensive.  By contras...

Where is Botley? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! Steve W is feeling pretty good about his portfolio – ahead of the S&P 500 and the FTSE 100. But Steve D is feeling even better – new year, new us? Defence stocks were one of the stock market’s top themes for 2025. But a pair of announcements from Donald Trump caused chaos in share prices on Thursday. One prohibited dividends and share...

► Get a free fractional share! This show is sponsored by Trading 212! To get free fractional shares worth up to 100 EUR / GBP, you can open an account with Trading 212 through this link https://www.trading212.com/Jdsfj/FTSE. Terms apply. When investing, your capital is at risk and you may get back less than invested. Past performance doesn’t guarantee future results. ► Get 15% OFF Fiscal.ai: Huge...

Whose portfolio has been gold and whose has been meh? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! Merry Christmas Everyone! We’re actually recording this about a week early, but we’re excited to be sharing the big day with all of you. It’s the most wonderful time of the year. We’re reporting on how our portfolios have done and giving you the satisfaction of pointing out how much better than us you a...

What happens when a roof truss goes into cardiac arrest? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! With one week to go before Christmas, the Steves have generated the same result. It’s between the FTSE 100 and the S&P 500 and it’s positive… just. We haven’t looked at Jet2 on the show before, despite it being a stock that several of our UK friends like. But with net cash almost equal to its market...

Happy birthday to who? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! This show is the one we recorded, but a Cloudflare outage prevented us from airing it when it was originally due. So don’t worry about market performance – just enjoy! It’s been a while since we looked at Inditex – the parent company of Zara. But Steve D thinks it’s worth coming back to see how things have been going.  After a weak f...

Who makes a self-destructing phone? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! There’s nothing good to report from the Ashes, so the Steves are sticking to the stock market this week. Unfortunately, there’s nothing good to report there, either… Todd Combs isn’t going to be Warren Buffett’s long-term replacement. He’s leaving for a job at J.P. Morgan, but should Berkshire Hathaway shareholders be wo...

How many runs are England going to lose the next Test by? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! Both Steves have been doing well this week in the stock market. But the S&P 500 has been ahead of both of them – just...  Compass Group is a stock we liked very much when we looked at it earlier this year, but we thought it was expensive. It’s fallen since then, though, and the growth keeps comi...

Who’s going to win the Ashes? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! In a down week for the stock market, it’s Steve W who’s been making it happen for the show this week. He’s down slightly less than Steve D – is that what winning looks like? Nvidia’s earnings this week looked pretty good – sales growth was strong and is expected to be strong in the next quarter. But the stock went the wrong wa...

Who’s winning 2-0? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! Steve W’s matched the S&P 500 this week and Steve D’s not far behind. Despite some big movements, it’s all pretty tight in the stock market this week. 3i – one of the FTSE 100’s top performers – crashed at the end of the week. It’s been a bad year for private equity firms, but the company had been holding up well.  Steve W thinks he...

Who’s been making hailstones fall? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show. Steve W has had a dreadful week in the stock market and it’s not been better for Spurs on the football pitch. But Steve D’s here to save the show and the week.  Rightmove shares crashed on Friday after the company issued its Q3 update. That bit was fine, but there are some lower profit margins on the way with AI investing...

Who’s doing a Warren Buffett with a secret stock? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show. Steve W has had a dreadful week in the stock market and it’s not been better for Spurs on the football pitch. But Steve D’s here to save the show and the week.  Alphabet is hitting new highs after a strong earnings report. Investors are impressed by its Google Cloud results – and future spending – and the s...

Who buys branded tuna!? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! Both Steves have nailed it this week – head of the FTSE 100 and the S&P 500. There are 51 other weeks in this year, sadly, but we’ll take the wins where we can get them. Netflix shares fell 10% as earnings came in below expectations. But this was the result of a one-off tax hit in Brazil that’s going to mess up the P/E ratio for...

► Get a free fractional share! What’s the tail risk for the stock market? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! A big underperformance from one Steve this week and a big outperformance from the other one. But who’s managed to do what? October’s Bank of America Fund Managers Survey suggests investors are worrying about an AI bubble. So we’re revising this theme as a potential stock market crash...

What do hedge fund managers think is going to cause a stock market crash? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! All change this week – Steve W creeps back towards being average as Steve D’s portfolio has an off week. But why’s it a bad week to be Welsh? The stock market is definitely going to crash, the only questions are when and why? One candidate is a bursting AI bubble, which is what Steve...

What is Chinese tapas? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! Steve W’s had a below-average week, but Steve D is absolutely running away with it. Or at least, he would be if he hadn’t had such a big lunch… A year has passed since Steve W thought he saw 30% upside in AG Barr shares, so it’s time to check in on that idea. And the results so far have been… mixed. On the one hand, the company has d...

Who does Steve D want to open the England batting? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! It’s the end of Q3 and time to check in on the PlayingTSE portfolios. And the last week hasn’t been a particularly good one for either Steve. Steve W has finally managed to buy a European stock for his portfolio. It’s LVMH, which has actually done quite well over the last three months or so.  Elsewhere, th...

What has more rabbits than people? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! Steve D is back from holiday and his portfolio is firing on just about every cylinder available. Steve W hasn’t done badly, but it’s been a great week for the man from Hull… Nearly nobody thinks the US stock market should be more like the UK. But President Trump has floated plans to shift US-listed firms to reporting twic...

► Get a free share! This show is sponsored by Trading 212! To get free fractional shares worth up to 100 EUR / GBP, you can open an account with Trading 212 through this link https://www.trading212.com/Jdsfj/FTSE. Terms apply. When investing, your capital is at risk and you may get back less than invested. Past performance doesn’t guarantee future results. ► Get 15% OFF Fiscal.ai: Huge thanks to o...

What’s Steve W worrying about at the end of the month? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! Both Steves are ahead of the market this week – or at least, they were when we recorded this week’s show! But one is more ahead than the other… The big story this week is Alphabet’s antitrust case and there are two parts to it. The significance of being forced to share data with competitors is not to b...

What’s Steve D been doing with his plums? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! Matching results this week for the Steves. Both down, both in between the FTSE 100 and the S&P 500, but both the same – not a particularly noteworthy performance. Nvidia’s remarkable growth story continues, but how remarkable actually is it? It’s twice Alphabet’s market cap for half the revenues and Steve W isn...

Who’s in Steve D’s Fantasy Football team? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! Both Steves seem to have solved the stock market this week, with portfolios going up on days where the S&P 500 has gone down. But only one has outperformed this week… Shares in WH Smith crashed 42% on Thursday after the company issued a profit warning. But it bounced back 11% on Friday as investors took in the...

Who’s gone from a partnership to a limited company? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! Steve W’s away on holiday this week, but before he went away he sat down with Jamie from Stocks and Savings to catch up. It’s been a while, so how are they getting on? Jamie and Andreea have gone from being an Instagram operation to running a podcast of their own. And they’re storming up the Apple podcast...

What is a “Broista”? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! Mixed fortunes for the Steves this week in the stock market. It’s a return to normality for Steve D, but Steve W has underperformed just about everything.  Diageo’s full-year results caused the stock to climb 10% – but Steve W owns the stock and didn’t see the results as terribly positive. It’s not long ago that investors were told to...

What happened with Rentokil this week? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! It’s not been a good week for either Steve – or the FTSE 100, or the S&P 500. Steve W’s in between the indexes and Steve D’s below them both.  Taylor Wimpey is the latest addition to Steve D’s portfolio. But the firm made a loss and lowered its dividend as a result of cladding provisions during the first half of t...