Shares in Baltic Classifieds (BCG) - the leading online classified advertising firm in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - have been on a roll since posting strong half-year results in December.The company operates 14 portals for classified ads, covering four areas - automotive, real estate, jobs and services, and generalist - and serving businesses and consumers.Each division increased its market sha

It has been difficult to ignore the renewed sense of optimism creeping into stock markets this year. Misery has been replaced by a watchful brightness, and nowhere has this sheen reflected better than among software growth stocks.After tumbling more than a third in 2022, the US-listed iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV:BATS), comprised of many of the major enterprise software players,

With engineering software company Aveva (AVV) poised to exit the stock market thanks to a takeover, it will mean losing the UK's largest 'tech' firm by market value, at £9.15 billion.Aveva has been majority owned by French industrial group Schneider Electric (SU:EPA) since 2017 and this shareholder now wants the whole business.That's a slightly different bid situation to most of the other tech ta

A key point of difference for investment trusts compared with other types of fund is they often trade at a premium or discount to the valuation of the assets they hold.A particularly interesting situation to keep tabs on is where relationship between the share price and the net asset value of a trust is significantly out of kilter with its longer-term average.SCREENING THE UNIVERSEUsing data from

Love them or loathe them, buy-and-build business models make up a substantial share of the stock market.Companies pursuing this strategy aim to acquire businesses, usually in an industry or industry subsector, so they can gain a larger market share and perhaps ultimately enjoy higher pricing power.Increasing scale and profitability should also equate to strong shareholder returns - and there are m

The pick-up in corporate takeover activity in the UK and abroad is a positive lead indicator for recovery funds, according to M&G fund manager Tom Dobell. He says mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are often the point at which recovery funds sell holdings as previously-broken firms in their portfolios become fixed and subsequently get taken over.Recovery funds can also get valuation uplift when compan

It looks increasingly likely this year will experience a strong 'El Niño' effect when a warming of the southern Pacific plays havoc with established weather patterns. Savvy traders can benefit from the climatic anomalies that will follow given their predicable impact on assets prices, particularly in the commodities space.Covering a third of the planet's surface area the Pacific is an engi

At a time when interest rates have been held at the historic low of 0.5% for four years and with commentators questioning how long the FTSE 100's record run can continue, insurance could provide the perfect hedging tool.The asset class is uncorrelated to interest rates, credit risk or the equity markets and can therefore provide much-needed portfolio diversification. Late last year investors were

Those looking to make money from the internet can find a 1,001 ways to do so via the UK equity market. Online dating agencies, suppliers of accountancy software over the web, price comparison websites, digital marketing experts, fashion portals - the London Stock Exchange Group's (LSE) Main Market and Aim have them all.It is perhaps no surprise the British equity market has such a wide breadth of