[ad_1] Investors are pulling back from long-duration notes. by Alice Gledhill and Ruth Carson A spate of poorly-received longer-dated sovereign bond auctions worldwide has raised questions about the willingness of investors to fund the spending plans of governments from the US to Japan. Japan’s 30-year bond sale Thursday was the third in as many weeks to show signs of a cold shoulder from buyers, with one measure of demand the weakest since 2023. A post-auction rally suggested investor expectations of demand had been even lower. Meanwhile, Tuesday’s auction of 12-year Australian government debt saw the weakest demand in about six years and Wednesday’s post-election South Korean…
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[ad_1] Image source: Getty Images The Wizz Air Holdings (LSE: WIZZ) share price slumped more than 25% when the market opened Thursday (5 June) and, as I write, it’s still hovering around that level. The reason? A 61.7% fall in operating profit for the year ended 31 March, to €167.5m (£150m at current exchange rates). That was caused in large part by a number of its aircraft being grounded due to problems with their Pratt & Whitney GTF engines. At year-end, 42 planes were still stuck on the tarmac. Conflict in the Middle East and Ukraine also had an impact…
[ad_1] Image source: Getty Images FTSE 250 high-tech defence firm Chemring (LSE: CHG) is trading at a 14-year high of £5.54. The last time it traded at more than this was 1 September 2011, when it hit £5.65. That said, there can still be value left in the shares as price and value are different things. I took a deep dive into the business and ran the key numbers to get to the bottom of the firm’s valuation. Increased spending by NATO Chemring’s shares are trading at such lofty levels partly because of the increasing defence threat to the West. Most…
[ad_1] Image source: Olaf Kraak via Shell plc Shell’s (LSE: SHEL) share price is down 15% from its 5 July 12-month high of £29.10. Comparing its share price chart with that of the Brent oil price benchmark shows a near-identical trading pattern. In basic terms, this implies that the UK oil giant has no additional value over and above the oil price. That is, no additional value from its high-value petrochemical products, green energy products, trading operations or anything else. Handily though, the value of the likely future cash flows from all of Shell’s operations can be seen via discounted…
[ad_1] As the EU prepares its next multiannual financial framework (MFF), it must decide how to use limited public resources to forge a path towards security, resilience and competitiveness, with decarbonisation at the core. Despite rising investment needs, the current EU budget still struggles to crowd in private capital at scale. The solution lies in approaching the issue from all angles: both using this MFF cycle to send much clearer investment signals towards target areas, and using the MFF as a tool to improve the deployment of transition finance. The European Commission has announced that the development of the next…
[ad_1] The 29th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP29) was the much-anticipated “finance COP.” Negotiators were tasked with replacing the previous $100 billion target with a more ambitious New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG). After tense last-minute discussions, the developed countries eventually committed to “taking the lead” on providing “at least [$]300 billion per year by 2035,” out of a $1.3 trillion total. While nominally tripling the previous $100 billion target for developed country financing, the new goal incorporates funding from “a wide variety of sources.” When combined with the effects of inflation, this makes the…
[ad_1] Image source: International Airline Group One of the valuation metrics I look at when considering a share for my portfolio is its price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio. In general, the lower the P/E ratio, the cheaper a share may be. For example, at the moment the International Consolidated Airlines Group (LSE: IAG) share price is around seven times its annual earnings per share. Such a single digit P/E ratio is often considered cheap. Easyjet has a P/E ratio of 11, for example, while Wizz Air is on a whizzier 19. But does that P/E ratio really mean IAG is the sort…
[ad_1] Image source: Getty Images Three months ago, the FTSE 100 index hit an all-time high on 3 March. It then eased back, before plunging steeply in April after President Trump announced hefty tariffs on US imports. However, after Trump backed down, the stock market raced back up and is now within 1.2% of its peak. Two FTSE 100 flops However, some Footsie stocks have fared much worse than others over the last six months. By my reckoning, 36 FTSE 100 shares have lost value in the past half-year, with declines ranging from 0.6% to 35.7%. Also, my family portfolio…
[ad_1] Image source: Getty Images Real estate investment trusts (REITs) can be effective ways to target a large and growing passive income over time. Like any dividend share, the levels of income they pay are linked to the amount of earnings generated. However, REIT obligations state they must pay a minimum of 90% of annual profits in dividends in exchange for tax breaks. So investors often enjoy better income visibility with these assets. Here are two top investment trusts that have grabbed my attention today. As well as offering that security, they also have the sort of dividend yields that…
[ad_1] Image source: Getty Images Now trading at 294p per share, B&M European Value Retail (LSE:BME) shares have lost 46% of their value over the past year. In that time, the discount retailer has tumbled out of the FTSE 100 and into the FTSE 250 share index. B&M’s struggled badly in what’s been a tough time for UK consumers, resulting in the resignation of its then-chief executive in April and a steady stream of profit warnings since last year. The retailer slumped again yesterday (4 June) after a chilly market response to its full-year trading numbers. As a long-term investor,…