[ad_1] Image source: Getty Images Last week, the FTSE 100 hit a two-week low, with growth stocks declining sharply. This came in the wake of a global sell-off in financial stocks and fresh concerns about credit quality in US regional banks. The global mood turned particularly cautious on Friday (17 October), as the UK market fell around 1.5% amid weakness in banks and oil stocks. US-China tensions Much of the pressure stemmed from escalating tensions in the ongoing US-China trade dispute. Beijing threatened tighter controls on rare earth exports, prompting President Trump to soften calls for 100% tariffs on Chinese goods.…
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[ad_1] Image source: Getty Images Over the years, some of the best FTSE 100 stocks to buy have been what is known as ‘Dividend Knights’. The usual definition is a stock that increases its dividend for 25 consecutive years. Companies that achieve this feat over such long periods tend to be very rewarding for those owning the shares. The problem? Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20. Picking out the firms that pull off the ascent into stock aristocracy is simple after the fact. Picking those firms before the good times requires some blend of experience, research, and luck. One way…
[ad_1] What if we banned every single car from the streets of your city tomorrow?That’s not the central question that “War on Cars” podcast creators Doug Gordon, Sarah Goodyear and Aaron Naparstek are asking in their book, “Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves From the Tyranny of the Automobile” (Thesis, 2025). But it is the answer: The book format gives the safe streets superstars space to push their exploration about the future of transportation to a new frontier.From top: Sarah Goodyear, Doug Gordon, Aaron Naparstek.What would our world look like if cars weren’t at its center? And how can we make…
[ad_1] Image source: Getty Images It’s possible for a parent to open a Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) on behalf of their child. It will remain under their control until their offspring reaches the age of 18. At this point, it’s no longer classified as a Junior SIPP. Hargreaves Lansdown has a useful calculator on its website, which assumes an annual growth rate of 5% and yearly fees of 1%. This demonstrates that investing £300 a month (including £50 of tax relief) — the maximum allowed for the first 18 years — and continuing this for a further 47 years, would…
[ad_1] Image source: Getty Images I’m looking to see if the stock market crashes between now and 31 October. Why? My fellow Motley Fool UK contributor Royston Wild is on holiday and he says share prices fall sharply when he’s away! Now, that’s obviously not a serious reason to start thinking about selling shares. But it’s not actually that much worse than some of the reasons other people are citing right now… Valuation According to the latest hedge fund data from Bank of America, the thing most fund managers are looking at is valuations. Specifically, the multiples at which artificial…
[ad_1] Image source: Getty Images The FTSE‘s home to some of the best dividend-paying companies in the world. High yields can be incredibly appealing, especially during uncertain market conditions. But as every seasoned investor knows, not all yields are created equal. Sometimes a double-digit return can be a sign of trouble ahead rather than opportunity. That’s why I’ve been looking closely at two FTSE shares with yields north of 10%. Both look attractive on paper, but I’m not convinced now’s the time to buy. Energean Energean‘s (LSE: ENOG) a London-listed oil and gas producer with operations across the Mediterranean and comes…
[ad_1] Image source: Getty Images In a market wrestling with inflation, a consumer squeeze, spiralling deficits, and interest rate uncertainty, National Grid (LSE: NG.) shares offer something rare: earnings visibility. And with demand for electricity continuing to grow, I am becoming increasingly attracted by its investment proposition. Monopoly The company owns and manages the wires and substations that transport electricity all over the country. Its returns are linked to inflation and not volatile power markets. To put it another way, it earns a predictable return for operating the network. This simple business model also becomes additive. A bigger network translates…
[ad_1] Image source: Getty Images The shares, trusts, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in my porfolio cover all four corners of the globe. But my exposure to Europe was looking a little light, so I decided to remedy this by investing some tax relief in my Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP). Interest in European shares has rocketed in 2025 as investors look for better value than US shares currently offer. The FTSE 100 is up 14% in the year to date, slightly outpacing the S&P 500‘s 13.8% gains. Germany’s DAX has risen an even-more impressive 21%, though performance has been mixed in…
[ad_1] Image source: Getty Images The Taylor Wimpey (LSE:TW.) share price has been a huge disappointment to me, plunging 38% in the last year. That wasn’t what I expected when I added it to my Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) a couple of years ago. At the time, the shares looked cheap, trading on a price-to-earnings ratio of around seven and offering a 7%-8% dividend yield. I thought I was locking in great value from one of the most reliable income stocks on the FTSE 100. The stock jumped soon after I bought it but the fun didn’t last. Sticky inflation, higher interest rates,…
[ad_1] From October, our popular equity mutual fund screener (thousands of our readers use it) will include the Ulcer Index as a parameter along with rolling returns, downside capture, upside capture, trailing returns and standard deviation.The Ulcer Index is a measure of downside risk in actively managed mutual funds. It is a simple way to find out how stressful it is to hold a fund compared to a benchmark.The standard deviation (volatility) is a measure of deviations from an average (monthly) return. Both positive and negative deviations are accounted for. The Ulcer Index is defined similarly to standard deviation, but…