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1 week ago | 
investorschronicle.co.uk | Alex Newman
Ignore the scar left by April’s brief sell-off, and UK stocks are having a good year. Make that another good year: the FTSE All-Share’s total return of 7.6 per cent in 2025 so far means the three-year annualised equivalent is now 8 per cent. Nor, however, are bond investors faring too badly. And the yield on 10-year gilts, while not at January’s panicky levels, remain high enough to attract some investors.
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1 week ago | 
investorschronicle.co.uk | Alex Newman
When we last ran our Cash Magic screen 12 months ago, seven of its 30 selections were oil and gas stocks. A momentum-based version of the same methodology was similarly effusive, with five of its 21 picks hailing from the sector. Lest this seem like an active bet on fossil fuels, remember that stock screens are designed to avoid the often-thankless task of predicting the near-term fortunes of various industries.
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2 weeks ago | 
investorschronicle.co.uk | Alex Newman
The proliferation of US stocks and the MSCI’s strong correlation to the dollar mean investors need to take action to protect their portfoliosPublished on May 22, 2025Picture the scene: you’re at a party, the nation’s best-loved weekly investment magazine artfully positioned in your jacket pocket. Spotting the well-known calling card of a stockpicking sophisticate, someone sidles up to you with a question to which they’ve clearly given some thought.
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2 weeks ago | 
investorschronicle.co.uk | Alex Newman
The CEO, a new book by the financial historians Michael Aldous and John Turner, is above all a wonderful economic and social history of the individuals who have led British companies since the Victorian era onward.
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2 weeks ago | 
investorschronicle.co.uk | Alex Newman
It is designed to exploit mean reversion, a compelling investing concept, but there are issues to iron outPublished on May 20, 2025Mean reversion – the idea that a stock’s average historic price, valuation or earnings can be used to determine whether it is cheap – is one of the more compelling concepts in investing. For a start, past averages contain a lot of information.
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3 weeks ago | 
investorschronicle.co.uk | Alex Newman
Our Strategy screen’s nuanced take on metric-based investing has served up 25 names for 2025 Published on May 12, 2025A great thing about screening stocks is that it allows the humble retail investor to exclude any unwanted or undesirable features from an enormous array of potential candidates. That makes it a huge time saver. But it’s also targeted.
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1 month ago | 
investorschronicle.co.uk | Alex Newman
Making sense of profound change is always hard. But it’s especially hard in the moment. Since “liberation day”, market commentary on Donald Trump’s tariffs has ranged from the stunned to the apocalyptic. And yet, in dollar terms, the S&P 500 is down less than 4 per cent in 2025. Note the currency used here. For non-US investors, many of whom have benefited from years of a strong dollar and even stronger US share prices, the greenback’s sell-off has amplified the pain in equities.
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1 month ago | 
investorschronicle.co.uk | Alex Newman
This week is the turn of our Peter Lynch-inspired Stalwarts stock screen, which for the second year in a row has comfortably beaten its benchmark, the FTSE All-Share. I say ‘year’ (in keeping with the screen’s annual refreshes) although given we last updated things in the first half of April 2024, the most recent 52-week period is now getting on for 55 weeks. Admittedly, that has been a conscious choice, which in the world of quantitative, rules-based investing is normally frowned upon.
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1 month ago | 
investorschronicle.co.uk | Alex Newman
If you’re reading this, you are – in a real sense – ‘doing’ investing. Which is to say that by reading this piece, in a magazine aimed at serious personal investors, you are engaged in the investment process. You’ve come here for a combination of ideas, news, argument and information – all of which you hope will help you to become a better investor. So do we. It’s a serious endeavour. Now look down. What are you wearing? It might be very little, as you enjoy the sun in the garden, phone in hand.
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1 month ago | 
investorschronicle.co.uk | Alex Newman
How will our Double Up screen deal with ongoing market shocks? Published on April 28, 2025For the first 18 months after the October 2023 launch of our Double Up screens, the backdrop to UK stocks was positive. The FTSE All-Share index – against which the methodology is partly benchmarked – steadily climbed, firstly due to sustained momentum ahead of the UK general election in June 2024, and then again at the start of 2025, as non-US stock markets finally caught global investors’ interest.
