Playing FTSE

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...

What’s half the price of Nvidia and makes twice the revenues? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! Neither Steve has done as well as they were hoping this week. Steve W’s disappointed to find himself between the indexes and Steve D’s had some big fallers.  Reports of Google losing market share don’t seem to be hitting Alphabet’s revenues… yet. There’s strong growth across the board, especiall...

What does Trading212’s AI think both Steves are missing from their portfolios? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! It’s been a volatile week in the stock market with a lot of big ups and downs. And the Steves have had differing results this time out. Rachel Reeves delivered her Mansion House speech this week and it caught Steve W’s attention. In particular, the Leeds Reforms are looking to g...

Who has to try and figure out what to do in the mornings? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! Another week, another outperformance for one Steve. And the other one hasn’t done bad, either… Terry Smith – known to some as Britain’s Warren Buffett – has released his shareholder letter for the first half of 2025. And the Fundsmith Equity Fund has been losing money. Chief among the detractors is...

Which hole has Steve D been shoving money down? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! The Steves are on a roll right now – both are ahead of the FTSE 100 and the S&P 500. And there’s one stock in particular that’s been doing it for both of them over the last seven days… Greggs shares have had another appalling week, this time due to the weather being too hot. But does that change anything...

Who’s been selling their Southern Copper shares? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! It’s the end of Q2, so it’s time to check back in on portfolios. That means Steve D, Steve W, the Britbox, and the Eurobox, but who’s been outperforming what? Steve D was having a quiet time of things in Q2. But then that all changed later on in the piece.  With over £2,000 in cash, is Thermo Fisher Scientif...

Who’s got wood? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! Both Steves are up ahead of the market again this week, extending an impressive run. But who were the real winners over the last seven days? As FTSE 250 stocks go, XPS Pensions has been an outstanding performer over the last five years. And the future doesn’t look bad either.  A strong competitive position in an industry where shifting regu...

What is PSNFL? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! It’s been a storming week for both Steves. But who’s done well, who’s done better, and what’s been going on with Nintendo? Rachel Reeves has issued the latest set of government spending plans. And there have been some obvious winners from the news.  Chief among these is Rolls-Royce. But the housebuilders have also been doing well and both St...

Check out James Fox! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trade_pass/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Trade_pass Is the doctor in or out when it comes to Greggs? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! This week, we’ve got something different on the show. It’s an interview with the UK’s leading independent stock picker! Dr. James Fox writes at GuruFocus and Fool UK. And he’s here to talk with...

What happens if you try to widen your cavities too much? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! A stellar week for Steve D in the stock market and an adequate one for Steve W. So spirits are high as we set up for recording, but how long will that last? Macfarlane is a small cap UK packaging stock. It’s up against bigger competition when it comes to distribution, but its manufacturing business i...