UK engineering business Spirax (SPX) is expected to deliver mid-single digit organic revenue growth for 2024 when it announces results on 11 March.As a reminder, the company (once known as Spirax-Sarco Engineering) is a FTSE 100 constituent focused on steam, thermal electric and niche pumping solutions, across a wide range of end-markets. After a period in the doldrums which has seen the...

Shares in Cheltenham-based thermal energy management and fluid technology firm Spirax Group (SPX) hit a five-year low this week, trading even below the level they reached at the peak of the pandemic sell-off, after its latest capital markets event failed to spark enthusiasm.The FTSE 100 group, whose shares are down 33% this year, making them one of the worst performers in the index, is guiding...

West Country engineering firm Spirax Group (SPX) is being shunned by investors after its first-half results.The numbers themselves were pretty disappointing but more damaging was the downgraded guidance for 2024 and the implications this has for 2025. The company moved from mid-to-high-single-digit growth to mid-single-digit growth in revenue and from modest margin growth to flat margins. The...

Stocks in London ended lower on Thursday, though avoided deeper losses thanks to a better-than-expected US jobless claims reading.The FTSE 100 index ended down 21.91 points, 0.3%, at 8,144.97. It had been 1.3% lower earlier on Thursday, however.The FTSE 250 fell 67.45 points, 0.3%, at 20,508.58, and the AIM All-Share lost 2.11 points, 0.3%, at 765.21.The Cboe UK 100 ended down 0.2% at 813.12,...

Investors looking to put money to work with a company for the long term often employ fundamental analysis, which involves scrutinising financial metrics and analysing financial statements to help them understand how fundamentally strong a company is. While profit margins are a solid indicator of a good or bad business, the margin doesn't tell you anything about how much money a company...

For the second part of our annual survey, we asked fund managers if they had changed their view on any stocks this year, for better or for worse, and what lay behind their decisions.As with the winners and losers survey last week, the answers were often frank and once again we would like to thank everyone who took part.Thomas Moore - Aberdeen Equity Income Trust (AEI)THE STOCK THAT I CHANGED...

Huge swathes of Europe, North America, Asia and Africa have endured boiling conditions this summer, with the majority of scientists pinning the blame for the planet's exceptional heat and rain, as well as wildfires in countries such as Greece and Canada, on human activity.Data from the EU-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service showed that the first three weeks of July were the warmest...

Over the last 15 years the electronics and electronic equipment space, home to some of the UK market's highest-quality engineering and capital goods firms, is the best performing sector in the FTSE 350 with an 11.7% compound annual return.The industrial engineering sector is not too far behind with its own annualised return of 9.7%. For comparison, the FTSE All-Share's annualised return over...

Making the decision to click the buy button and invest your hard-earned cash in a stock is an important step in an investment journey and often the most difficult part.Knowing your money is at risk inevitably makes it tricky to commit and any reticence could mean you miss exciting opportunities.To help you get over this hurdle we are going to look in detail at when you should consider buying a...

A high price can stop investors from buying a particular stock, simply because they cannot afford it. Not everyone has the $1,000+ which it costs to buy a single share in many US-listed companies. It's a long-standing frustration but slowly we are seeing solutions to the problem.Amazon has joined the likes of Alphabet, Apple and Tesla in doing a 'stock split'. Each existing Amazon share will...

While average wages may have risen 3.6% last year in nominal terms, the rate of inflation as we exited 2021 was 5.4% and last month it accelerated to 5.5% so in real terms workers are actually less well off now than they were a year ago.To make matters worse, the Bank of England has forecast inflation will top 7% in April before it starts to come down again. A large part of the increase is due...

UK stocks experience their worst one-day fall in more than 12 months on Monday as global markets swooned due to sustained weakness in US technology stocks with the Nasdaq 100 collapsing by 4% as sellers began to exhibit signs of panic.Asian trading saw a volatile session with Japan's Nikkei 225 and China's Shanghai Composite up slightly, but the EuroStoxx 50 index of leading European companies...

UK stocks fell sharply at the start of the week as global markets swooned following weakness in US stocks on Friday.Asian trading saw a volatile session with Japan's Nikkei 225 closing 0.25% higher and China's Shanghai Composite up slightly, but the EuroStoxx 50 index of leading European companies shed 2% as tech stocks faced heavy selling.Investors are also bracing themselves ahead of an...

UK and European stocks started the week on a down note following weakness in US stocks on Friday, although futures prices indicated a bounce of close to 1% for the benchmark S&P 500 at the open.Asian trading saw a volatile session with Japan's Nikkei 225 closing 0.25% higher and China's SE Composite up slightly. Oil prices continued their rise with Brent Crude gaining 0.5% to $87.70 per...

Austria imposing a full lockdown and Germany possibly following suit is not what the markets want to hear. Despite the ongoing rollout of Covid vaccinations, this pandemic is still raging on, and with it comes more disruption to consumers, businesses and the flow of goods.We've just seen what happens when companies trading on high earnings multiples disappoint the market - their share prices...

London's major stocks opened modestly lower as the inflation genie continues to work its way out of the bottle, although banks defied the gravitational pull.At 9am, the benchmark FTSE 100 was 0.13% down at 7,317.61 after UK inflation rose to its highest in almost a decade. But there was plenty of demand for bank stocks, seen as benefitting from an increasingly likely rise in interest rates,...

On an invested sum of £210,000, the return over two years on my SIPP and stocks and shares ISA active retirement portfolio of around 30 shares is 12.4% excluding dividend payments.I have been documenting my investing experience in Shares since August 2020 and these articles have provided readers with an insight into how I try to make money from the markets and manage my...

City of London Investment Trust (CTY) has been a popular choice for investors over the years, but a period of underperformance versus the UK Equity Income investment trust sector average on a three and five-year basis is a worry.Typically investing in FTSE 100 companies, City of London has been a hit with certain types of investors, particularly those approaching retirement or already in it....

We're pleased to welcome back Malcolm from Edinburgh who is sharing his experience as someone in retirement taking charge of their investments for the first time. This is part five of the series click to read parts one, two, three and four. In managing my retirement portfolio of 30 shares, currently divided between 12 in the FTSE 100, 13 in FTSE 250 companies and five from the FTSE AIM 100...

The FTSE 100 index finished the day breaking through the 7200 level to close 59 points or 0.8% higher at 7,220 points, taking it above its pre-Covid high.The gains were helped by a softer than expected reading in US core CPI numbers, meaning American inflation may be peaking. The Dow Jones Industrial Average Index responded positively to the CPI data, trading 0.5% higher, whilst the Nasdaq...