Due Diligence by the Numbers
Social media platforms have played a major role in attracting the flood of new investors to share markets over the past year. Seasoned market experts have expressed concern many of these new investors lack the know-how to perform their own “due diligence” on a potential stock to pick to start or add to their investment…
Six tips for better behavioural investing
At a turbulent time for global markets, Nick Kirrage, Co-Head of the Value Team, recently sat down with the Investor Download podcast. We discussed the current state of financial markets, reflected on the behaviour of investors and how they might best navigate the current turmoil. Below are six key points. 1. Understand what’s driving market volatility…
How To Analyse Company Financials
For many investors financial analysis forms the foundation of their investment decision. In their minds, it is the essential component in the process of evaluating a company as a potential share market investment. By digging into the crown jewels of a company’s annual report -the income statement; the statement of comprehensive income; the balance sheet;…
Are share buybacks a positive or negative sign?
I have mixed feelings on share buybacks. The good: they suggest a company believes its shares are undervalued. The bad: the company is running out of growth options and relying on capital-management initiatives to prop up the share price. As a follower of small- and mid-cap companies, I like high-growth companies that reinvest profit, to…
7 Principles For Successful Long-Term Investing
1 – Plan On Living A Long Time Thanks to advances in medicine and healthier lifestyles, people are having longer lives. This chart shows the probability of reaching the ages of 80 or 90 for some who are aged 65 today. A 65 year-old couple may be surprised to learn that there is a 51%…
Being a successful investor
In 2008, John Bogle, founder of The Vanguard Group, said in a speech to a conference of Financial Planners: “Investing to me, is all about the long-term ownership of businesses, focussed on the gradual accretion in intrinsic value that is derived from the ability of our corporations to produce the goods and services that our…
10 Tips for Succesful investing
To be a successful investor over the long term, we believe it is critical to understand, and hopefully overcome, common human cognitive or psychological biases that often lead to poor decisions and investment mistakes. Cognitive biases are ‘hard wired’ and we are all liable to take shortcuts, oversimplify complex decisions and be overconfident in our…
5 portfolio pitfalls to avoid
A new reader asked this week for my advice on successful investing. Like too many investors, she had a “cocktail” portfolio – a mismatch of stocks that promised quick gains. There was no investment strategy, she overtraded and returns were not benchmarked. I’ve seen this problem too many times over the years. In the hunt…
Explainer: what is short selling?
By Carole Comerton-Forde, Australian National University Short sellers are often portrayed by the media to be the villains of the financial markets. They are usually presented as evil traders that drive down the prices of good companies. However, the academic research on short selling typically provides evidence more consistent with them being heroes. They identify…
Creating a trading plan
Bradley W. Gareiss, Technical Analyst, GFT A trading plan is a must. I would be will to bet that virtually all successful traders have one. However, most new traders have no plan. In fact, I bet most new traders barely even have actual reasons for entering a trade. Imagine that you are planning to loan…
