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Image source: Getty Images It’s incredibly simple to start investing today. A few clicks on a smartphone and you’re away. However, this blessing can turn into a curse without preparation. Here are three questions that are worth thinking about when starting out. 1. Are my finances sorted? One mistake some eager newbie investors make is investing every spare penny into the stock market. This becomes problematic when a crisis hits. For example, the car engine might break, necessitating a replacement and immediate £3,000 outlay (or more!). In this situation, someone might be forced to sell their shares to raise cash.…

Image source: Getty Images The share price chart for FTSE 100 drinks giant Diageo (LSE: DGE) makes for interesting viewing. Does it offer a potentially brilliant opportunity – or an alarming signal? Since the start of 2022, the Diageo share price has tumbled 48%. Ouch. Some potential opportunities That has, however, thrown up a couple of possible opportunities. One is a higher yield. Diageo has raised its dividend each year for decades, but until recently its yield was nothing to write home about. A falling share price, however, has pushed the Diageo dividend yield up to a level of 3.7%…

Image source: Getty Images Does it take a lot of money and effort to start buying shares? The answer is no — and no! It is possible to start buying shares even on a modest budget – in this example, I use £300. As for effort, smart investing certainly takes some effort. But, I do not see that as a necessary barrier to investing. Step one: learning the basics and building a plan What sort of effort might be involved, then? It seems rash (and potentially costly) to start buying shares without even understanding the basics of how the stock…

The S&P 500‘s up only 9.5% so far this year, compared to 25% in both 2023 and 2024. Some stocks, like Palantir and GE Aerospace, have been driving growth. But two household names are stumbling. Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) – often seen as poster children for innovation – are down nearly 10% each this year. Apple: strong fundamentals, weaker sentiment Apple remains one of the most recognisable brands on the planet. Yet its share price has slipped 7.9% this year. At first glance, this seems puzzling. At $408.6bn, it has the fourth-highest revenue in the US and…

Image source: Getty Images All things considered, the FTSE 100 index is having a great year — up 11% as I type this. But some of its members aren’t faring quite so well. And there’s one stock in particular that could be in for a rough ride next month. Not looking good B&Q and Screwfix owner Kingfisher (LSE: KGF) is down to report its latest set of half-year numbers on 23 September. Personally, I’m a bit cautious about what the market might make of them. Shares in the £5bn cap business have been pretty volatile of late. Positive momentum in…

Sales of Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) cars plummeted in the first half of the year, with volumes coming in 13% below the same period last year. So, it might stand to reason that Tesla stock has had a torrid time of it, too, right? Not necessarily! The carmaker’s stock price is down 14% so far in 2025. But over the past year, it is up – and not just by a little bit. A 68% gain means that Tesla stock is worth slightly over two-thirds more than it was one short year ago. That represents more than half of the total 134%…

Image source: Getty Images As the name indicates, the FTSE 250 has more than double the amount of stocks in it than the FTSE 100. In theory, this should mean more shares with the potential to stage a stunning recovery. But 250 is a lot to sift through. So, to narrow down my options, I asked ChatGPT for the best FTSE 250 comeback stock. Here’s what the AI chatbot came up with. The pick After its usual chatty preamble, where it buttered me up by using my name and saying I was smart to consider the mid-cap index, ChatGPT plumped…

Image source: Rolls-Royce plc What a month it has been for shareholders in Rolls-Royce (LSE: RR) – yet again! For the umpteenth time this year, Rolls-Royce shares broke new territory, with the price hitting yet another all-time high. The share price is up a phenomenal 1,200% over the past five years. Even more stunningly, the growth has been 2,660% since an October 2020 low. Wow! September will see Rolls-Royce paying its interim dividend to qualifying shareholders. Can its share price maintain upwards thrust this autumn – and beyond? For it to do so, I think a few things probably need…

Image source: Getty Images Penny stocks are not normally known for their dividends. More often than not, small-cap firms plough every spare penny back into growth or exploration, leaving little left over for shareholders. And when a penny stock does yield highly, it often says more about the share price collapse than the underlying business. But while trawling through the London market for undervalued shares to add to my passive income portfolio, I may have stumbled across something interesting: Pharos Energy (LSE: PHAR). This tiny oil explorer could be one of the rare penny stocks that combines both income and…

Image source: Getty Images So far, 2025 has been anything but tasty for baker Greggs (LSE: GRG). The share price has crashed 44% since the start of the year. For now at least, there is no obvious sign of even the start of a recovery in the share price. That has pushed the sausage roll maker’s dividend yield up to a tasty 4.4%. It also means that Greggs’ share price is at levels last seen during the pandemic back in 2020. Its share price-to-earnings ratio of 11 looks low to me and I have been buying the share repeatedly this…