Shares in defence firm BAE Systems (BA.) have fallen by 25% over the past six months, creating an attractive buying opportunity. We think some of the concerns which have weighed on the share price are overdone and would look to full year results on 21 February as an early catalyst for the stock to recover. Buy ahead of that event.The weakness in the shares has left them trading on a 2019 price-to-

Buy it, fix it, build it, flog it: this is Melrose Industries' (MRO) business model mantra in a nutshell. We think now is a superb time to buy the shares.The £10.3bn FTSE 100 turnaround specialist operates more like a private equity firm than a traditional company. The manufacturing-focused entity has also been called an asset stripper by less charitable market watchers but its ethos has little i

There is a widely held perception among the British public that the UK stock market's main index - the FTSE 100 - is a leading measure of the economic health of the nation. Such a view is fostered by much of the mainstream media, yet this has become an increasingly flawed interpretation.With something like three-quarters of revenues from companies listed on the index now generated overseas, the Lo

The proliferation of Twitter (TWTR:NYSE) means most of us are used to following strangers and copying their fashion, eating habits, music or literature tastes. Mimicking these same people's financial trades sounds like a step too far but it's something many wannabe traders have started to embrace, despite the enormous risks involved.Over the last three years numerous 'social trading' platforms hav

In Oliver Stone's 1987 stock market thriller Wall Street main character Gordon Gecko expresses his disdain for the fund management community and their inability to outperform their benchmark. 'Ever wonder why fund managers can't beat the S&P 500? Cause they're sheep, and the sheep get slaughtered.'Gecko is essentially saying that if you follow the crowd and buy the most popular stocks you could en

It was exactly 163 days after joining AIM via an £15 million initial public offering (IPO) priced at 51p that Kromek (KMK:AIM) stunned the market with a revenue warning. The x-ray technology designer was forced would admit revenue for the period to be 'significantly below current market expectations,' thanks to delayed large contracts and a failure to get its commercial team properly in place.'In

America is the most popular overseas market for UK investors, which should perhaps not come as a surprise when you consider that the country's stock markets are home to many companies that are global leaders in their fields.The 2013 FT Global 500, which identifies the world's 500 largest listed companies by market cap, includes 183 American constituents with household names like search engine Goog

With a market cap of almost £1.9 trillion, the FTSE 100 is home to the very biggest and most powerful firms quoted on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange. With market capitalisations ranging from £144 billion at Royal Dutch Shell (RDSB) to £3.1 billion at AMEC (AMEC), the benchmark covers the cream of the current corporate crop and the largest generators of sales and profits available

Now we know that US president Barack Obama will be living in the White House for the next four years investors can begin to mull adjustments to their portfolios with a little more confidence. They appear to be doing just that, with equities leading the charge. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (the Dow), to many Americans the nation's stock market benchmark, closed at 14,010 at the start of this mo

An investor is someone who allocates capital in the expectation of a financial return and, more particularly, a gain that compensates them for the risk involved. One of the biggest variables, or risks, in any stock's performance is the quality of its management team. Fred Goodwin at Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and John Mayo at the now defunct Marconi are two examples of firms where powerful chief