Articles by: CHRIS BAILEY

views

A pleasing update from Imperial Brands

Regular readers will know that I never have smoked or vaped and never will in the future. It is not my bag but if people want to buy the range of products offered by Imperial Brands (IMB), British American Tobacco (BATS) and the few other global corporate peers that exist out there (all of which are highly taxed by governments around the world), that is absolutely fine by me based on my belief in a freedom of choice. As for health and safety and common-sense, if you want to ban tobacco and related stocks then I guess you should do the same for alcohol and gambling and a bunch of pharmaceuticals. Anyhow, my view has been that Imperial Brands has been a must-have for your pension fund for a couple of years now. And so it has been pleasing to see a 20% share price rise this year (despite all the overall global market angst) and a 4% share price rise today.

By Chris Bailey
2022-10-06 09:57:42

views

Tesco is a solid place to do your food shopping – and the same is now true of shares in the company

Back in June I observed about shares in Tesco (TSCO) that “I think there are better buys in the market today, but if you already hold Tesco shares, chill out and enjoy the weekend”. The share price back then was around 250p and today it is kicking around 205p. So, are shares in Britain’s largest supermarket now cheap or not?

By Chris Bailey
2022-10-05 11:34:58

views

Time to grab a Greggs vegan sausage roll (and its shares too?)

Back in early August I observed that a dump below a twenty quid share price would be quite interesting for anyone interested in buying shares in Greggs plc (GRG). And, with the fall in the company’s share price over the last two or three weeks, we now might be at an interesting moment.

By Chris Bailey
2022-10-04 10:12:56

views

Interesting updates from Essentra and James Halstead

For me, any company with a market cap below £1 billion is a small cap and so a bit of small cap focus for me today, given updates from two corporate names I have mentioned before: Essentra (ESNT) and James Halstead (JHD).

By Chris Bailey
2022-10-03 11:55:25

views

Between playing the investment game or not, you can do a lot worse than 3i Infrastructure

It is the last day of the month and also the final day of the third quarter of the year. Interesting times at many levels but it is not impossible out there for any investor (so long as you don’t pick some crazy investments). To that end, I hope you have not been too light in your allocations to the commodities, tobacco, defence and pharmaceutical sectors, as well as a bit of general non-sterling exposure. But one area a bunch of investment thinkers are very excited about is the infrastructure space. And that brings me back to 3i Infrastructure (3IN).

By Chris Bailey
2022-09-30 10:27:08

views

Imperial Brands really should be loved by ESG investors

Another ‘interesting’ day in the financial markets but, fortunately, not all my pension fund holdings are down today. I see Burberry (BRBY) has announced another senior corporate change as “Daniel Lee has been appointed Chief Creative Officer” from Monday 3 October 2022, as “Riccardo Tisci will be stepping down as Chief Creative Officer and leaving the Company at the end of this month”. As you all know I am a big fashion expert (not!), so clearly the newbie’s Bradford background, profile as an “award-winning designer and one of the most exciting British creative talents of his generation”, combined with his recent three years as the Creative Director at Bottega Veneta “where he helped reinvigorate the Italian luxury brand”, is all very exciting stuff. I am completely unsurprised the stock is up 3% today given all of that then! And moving on from one area of excitement, to another: the world of ESG and Imperial Brands (IMB).

By Chris Bailey
2022-09-28 11:55:59

views

The ongoing saga of woe at Saga

As undoubtedly many of you know, a saga is ‘a long story of heroic achievement, especially a medieval prose narrative in Old Norse or Old Icelandic’. Meanwhile in the UK financial world, in my opinion there is an ongoing saga at Saga plc (SAGA), a company which may describe itself as “a British company focused on serving the needs of those aged 50 and over” and hence sound very relevant, but which has had even a peer shocking 95% share price fall over the last five years. So why has its first half numbers today pulled the stock down over 15% this morning to what looks like a new share price low?

By Chris Bailey
2022-09-27 11:30:19

views

More management change excitements in the FTSE 100 (and beyond)

I am sure there are lots of people thinking about the pound today, but hopefully you are much more of a global investor than your UK-centred cost base will need. As even the Americans will learn over the next generation or so, it is about so much more than apple pie, the right to bear arms and the dollar. Anyhow, onto other matters. Shall we talk about job changes again?

By Chris Bailey
2022-09-26 10:39:41

views

Seminar time with easyJet and Sage Group

Welcome to Friday and the ‘excitement’ (as the BBC put it) of a “wave of tax cuts expected from chancellor in bid to boost growth”. What fun awaits (not)! Meantime, what I have been busy with over the last couple of days is a couple of corporate seminars.

By Chris Bailey
2022-09-23 10:45:58

views

We could talk about global central banks but I would prefer to focus on today’s numbers from PZ Cussons

The good news for you today is that I am not going to talk about the bunch of central bank rate increases, including further upward moves by the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England plus the first shift by Swiss National Bank to a positive base rate for ages. By my reckoning, the only central bank still with the comedy of negative base rates is the Bank of Japan (who you may recall the new PM has a soft spot for). And all ahead of tomorrow’s mini-budget special by the new chancellor… Of course what I really want to talk about though is stocks, which brings me to full year numbers from PZ Cussons (PZC).

By Chris Bailey
2022-09-22 14:16:15

Page 1 of 93 (921 articles)