With the UK economy seemingly headed for a 'soft landing' and interest rates set to fall at some point this year, more adventurous investors will be looking to add a little more risk to their portfolios.Given the UK market, and the mid-cap space in particular, is widely acknowledged to be cheap, the passive option would be to buy a mid-cap ETF (exchange-traded fund) such as the iShares FTSE 250 (M

The FTSE 100 finished strong on Thursday, coinciding with a successful day for New York stocks in the aftermath of the Federal Reserve?s status quo interest rate decision on Wednesday evening.The FTSE 100 index closed up 50.91 points, 0.6%, at 8,172.15. The FTSE 250 ended up 125.74 points, 0.6%, at 20,052.33, and the AIM All-Share closed up 3.13 points, 0.4%, at 768.11.The Cboe UK 100 ended up 0.6

The end of the tax year is coming down the track fast and that means there are only weeks remaining to make full use of your £20,000 annual ISA allowance.Even if you are some way off this maximum limit or haven?t invested through an ISA at all in 2023/24, the rapidly approaching deadline is a good spur to look at the possibility of making money from the financial markets.Two weeks ago we ran an a

Revenue up 12% and EBITDA up 14%?Exceptional? trading in insuranceTougher comparisons this yearPrice comparison website Moneysupermarket.com (MONY) reached a milestone last year, posting record revenue despite an almost complete lack of energy switching on the platform.However, the suggestion that comparisons in the insurance market would get tougher as the year progresses took the steam out of th

Three-month revenue up 14%Insurance income jumps 38%Shares gain 7.5% on updateShares in Moneysupermarket (MONY) climbed 7.5% to 263p after the FTSE 250 price comparison website said increased customer switching in car and home insurance products gave its third-quarter revenue a major boost.The company reported 'strong growth in all core insurance channels' including insurance and travel with reven

On 30 May, investment bank Berenberg published a research note on legal group DWF (DWF) saying it should eventually see a 'significant re-rating' as the company continued to deliver organic growth with improving margins. At the time, the shares traded on five times forecast earnings for the year to April 2024.Eight weeks later, Berenberg's prediction has come true and the shares have gone up more

Although the latest UK inflation figures are easy off, the cost-of-living crisis is still alive and kicking, as food, energy and petrol costs remain stubbornly high.This is bad news for consumers but good news for some companies who are benefiting from the doom and gloom on the high street and in households. Here are 10 names doing well.Shoe ZoneFootwear retailer Shoe Zone (SHOE:AIM) sells shoes a

Strong demand for insurance productsFirm estimates households have saved £1.3 billionFull year results seen 'towards top' of estimatesPrice comparison platform Moneysupermarket.com (MONY) lifted its full-year earnings guidance and its interim dividend after first-half results showed more people were shopping around for deals, especially on car, home and travel insurance.The shares edged higher by

- Travel and motor insurance lead the way- Still waiting on energy switching revival- Shares up nearly 30% year-to-dateA big improvement in people shopping around for car and travel insurance policies was the key driver behind the 15% revenue growth for Moneysupermarket (MONY) in the first quarter of 2023. It is paid commission by product providers when someone uses its platform to take out insura

Moneysupermarket.com (MONY) 246pGain to date: 41%Website comparison company Moneysupermarket (MONY) received a potential boost this week after energy group OVO launched a 12-month fixed deal for customers, set 9% below the government's energy price cap. This effectively kick-starts the return of the energy switching market.It follows a two-thirds decline in gas prices since the peak last summer an

First there was ChatGPT - the disruptive AI chatbot made by OpenAI (Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) and now there are searches powered by AI (artificial intelligence) which could bring a revolution in digital advertising as well as spell the end of bog-standard online enquiries.REINVENTING SEARCHIn early February 2023, Microsoft (MSFT:NASDAQ) and OpenAI introduced AI-powered Bing and Micr

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,

Moneysupermarket.com (MONY)Price: 233pGain to date: 34%We recommended money-saving website operator Moneysupermarket (MONY) in May 2022 on the basis the cost-of-living crisis would lead everyone to start comparing what they pay at the moment for services like insurance and broadband with what they could be paying if they switched to a different provider.WHAT HAS HAPPENED SINCE WE SAID TO BUY?We're

- Shares may have run ahead of fundamentals- Unchanged dividend a negative surprise- Energy switching service still on holdThere was a sense of 'travel and arrive' with today's release of full-year numbers from Moneysupermarket.com (MONY), given the strong run in the shares since the start of the year.Lack of news on the energy switching front and the decision to hold the dividend at last year's l

Moneysupermarket could be in demandConsumers are increasingly looking to switch products and economise where they canGiven there has been no sign of a let-up in the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, we suspect price comparison website operator Moneysupermarket.com (MONY) would have had a strong final quarter in 2022.At the nine-month stage, growth was already ahead of expectations, especially in its

Using data from Stockopedia Shares has identified those stocks which havethe most upgrades and downgrades over the past week.Among the stocks where analysts have been nudging forecasts higher, tobacco firm Imperial Brands (IMB) stands out.We looked at the Imperial Brands investment case in detail in this article. The company has demonstrated its pricing power, with its core product's addictive qua

- Price comparison site benefiting from tough backdrop- Money and travel channels drove Q3 growth- Warns energy switching 'unlikely' to return in 2023Shares in Moneysupermarket (MONY) topped the FTSE 250, marked up 6.5% to 211.4p, as the price comparison site increased full year guidance after delivering growth ahead of expectations in the third quarter ended 30 September.The Chester-based group's

Weakness in the pound will only serve to heighten the likelihood of foreign companies buying UK businesses.We saw this happen when the pound slumped after the EU referendum on Brexit in 2016, including takeovers for chip giant Arm and broadcasting group Sky.UK stocks have been cheap on a relative basis to many other geographies since then, and now they've got even cheaper due to political, financi

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

When Adobe (ADBE:NASDAQ) reported second quarter figures in June 2022 it unveiled earnings that beat forecasts, reporting $3.35 versus consensus estimates of $3.31. So far, so what? The market shrugged the results off - the share price dipped 1.2% to $360. Yet this was the latest in a long run of quarterly forecast beats that, barring a single period in 2018, stretch back to 2013.Since then, Adobe