In the third of our four-part series on small caps (you can read part two on UK small cap funds and trusts elsewhere in this issue), we get our data-crunching caps on and take a look at key metrics around value, income and growth in the smaller companies universe.To narrow things down we limited our search to London-listed companies with market valuations between £50 million and £500 million. We

Vistry director buys 500,000 sharesSmiths News CEO sells £716,681 sharesTeam17 director sells 3,026,694 sharesA person closely associated with Usman Nabi, non-executive director of housebuilder Vistry (VTY) has bought 500,000 shares at 737p for a total value of £3,687,412 on 8 November.Browning West, an independent investment partnership based in Los Angeles, California is currently the company'

Full-year profit ahead of expectationsSpecial dividend of 2p per shareNew growth initiatives outlinedUK news wholesaler Smiths News (SNWS) was the second largest gainer in the FTSE All-Share on 5 November, the shares rising as much as 13% after the company delivered better than expected full-year results and announced a special dividend of 2p per share.The shares are up 18% year-to-date compared w

Smiths News (SNWS) 57pMarket Cap: £142.2 millionSuccessful investing comes down to what you get in the future for what you lay out today. How does doubling your money in around eight years sound, with the possibility of doing even better?In a nutshell, that is the investment case for the UK's leading newspaper and magazine distributor Smiths News (SNWS) which has been delivering print across Engl

Sky-high interest rates and unruly inflation make the future direction of the economy more uncertain than usual. It is certainly no time to be complacent.Against such a tough backdrop now is a good time for investors to take stock and consider if the income they expect from dividends in their portfolios are safe.Investors are often attracted to the highest yields, but this can indicate markets do

UK equities have had a healthy bounce in the past month with the FTSE 100 index advancing 7.6% and the FTSE 250 rallying 16% since 12 October.The reasons for the sudden about-turn are two-fold - the normalisation of UK government bond yields after they spiked following the political upheaval of the summer and disastrous mini-Budget in September, and generally better-than-expected corporate earning

US markets posted their biggest one-day gain in two years yesterday with the S&P 500 index surging 5.5% and the technology heavy Nasdaq rising a whopping 7.4% after consumer price inflation for October came in lower than expected.Despite many months of higher-than-expected inflation, investors have been fixated on anticipating a Fed 'pivot' and yesterday's inflation print could give the US central

The FTSE 100 struggled for direction on Tuesday as inflation levels continued to accelerate in the US, with the blue chip benchmark ending the session pretty much flat at 7,124.72 points.By 4.30pm UK time the S&P 500 index in the US was up 0.1% at 4,390.52.The CPI print of 0.9% for June was very much stronger than expectations of a 0.5% advance, leaving the Federal Reserve's repeated assertions th

London's FTSE 100 was broadly flat by midday at 7.128.43 points as initial momentum in the UK banking sector, after the Bank of England lifted dividend restrictions on the sector's heavyweights, began to wane and worries over rising coronavirus infections kept gains in check.By lunchtime, NatWest (NATW) was off 0.4% at 206p, with Barclays (BARC) flat at 172.7p, although HSBC (HSBA) and Lloyds (LLO

UK banks gave leading stocks a push higher in early trade on Tuesday afternoon the Bank of England lifted dividend restrictions on the sector's heavyweights but worries over rising coronavirus infections kept gains in check.At 9am, the benchmark FTSE 100 was around 0.3% at 7,174.34, with NatWest (NATW) topping the leaderboard with gains just shy of 2% to 210.4p. HSBC (HSBA), Lloyds (LLOY) and Barc

With 'value' investing still in the ascendancy in global markets, and with UK stocks still trading at a hefty discount to their international peers, we have screened the FTSE All-Share index for cheap stocks which we believe offer significant upside potential.As well as looking at straightforward price to earnings ratios for the next 12 months, we have included returns on capital - in order to wee