By his own admission, Nick Train, manager of Finsbury Growth & Income (FGT), isn?t one for nostalgia, whether that is reflecting on past glories or the ?melancholy fact? as he puts it that the popular investment trust has underperformed the FTSE All-Share index for the last three years.Moving into 2024, the trust has again lagged the benchmark with a share price return of -1.9% in January against

Shares sink to 10-year lowCost-cutting plan increased to $4 billion2024 earnings expected to be 30% below consensusA tough year for US pharmaceutical firm Pfizer (PFE:NYSE) just got even worse on Wednesday after the Covid winner reset expectations again.This disappointed investors and sent the shares 7% lower overnight to a new 10-year low.The news also dragged down the share price of Pfizer?s Ger

It has been an up and down year for the UK stock market but some names have really shone over the course of the last 12 months. In this article we go through the market cap ranks to identify the best performing large-, mid- and small-cap stocks in 2023.£5 billion+ market capWhile Nvidia (NVDA:NASDAQ) has dominated headlines globally as excitement around AI (artificial intelligence) helped drive i

Software firm beats estimatesShare buyback an added positiveStock tops FTSE 100 gainersFinance and payroll software firm Sage (SGE) pleased investors not just with its better-than-expected annual results but with a surprise share buyback on top of the raised dividend.Sage shares topped the FTSE 100 leader board with an advance of 8% to a new lifetime high of £10.76. STRONG ORGANIC GROWTHFo

The events of the past three years have completely altered the investment backcloth against which fund managers are trying to earn above-average returns.Fund managers can have an investment framework to operate within, but what do they do when a 'black swan' lands? How do they adapt their strategies and reshuffle portfolios when a once-in-a-century event happens - like a global pandemic or an outb

Two surprisingly positive readings on the strength of the US economy bolstered Wall Street overnight and were lifting European shares early Wednesday, with the dollar also on the rise.The FTSE 100 index opened up 24.35 points, or 0.3%, at 7,485.33. The FTSE 250 was up 86.64 points, or 0.5%, at 18,141.48. The AIM All-Share was down 0.27 of a point at 755.34, however.The Cboe UK 100 was up 0.3% at 7

With so much macroeconomic uncertainty, the recent mergers and acquisitions spree has lost momentum apart from one sector.Big pharmaceutical firms are awash with cash, yet patent cliffs (expiration of patent protection) present challenges which can be partially fixed by buying smaller biotech firms with products almost ready to go to market.International Biotechnology Trust's (IBT) Ailsa Craig and

Having missed the January tech rally, accounting tools software supplier Sage (SGE) has been making up for lost time. The share price has stormed higher since reporting first-half results on 17 May, with analysts getting excited about the prospect of cloud adoption triggering a new era of growth.That's important for what is now the UK's biggest technology company by market value. Sage's cloud reve

There is no hotter area to invest in today than artificial intelligence, or AI as it is commonly known. Ever since OpenAI's ChatGPT took the world by storm, investors have been racing to find winners from this explosive trend.Corporate leaders, meanwhile, have been scrambling to prove to investors that they are harnessing the technology to drive revenue growth, improve operational efficiency, and

Today's era of higher interest rates means shares face competition for investors' hard-earned savings money from the interest on cash and the coupons paid out by bonds. However, the purchasing power of cash is being eroded by inflation, while the coupons investors clip from bonds can only ever be fixed.'The beauty of equities and equity income is the growth,' says Troy Asset Management's Blake Hut

- Bank crisis sends markets tumbling- Capital preservation funds back in focus- Technology shares surge as bond yields fallIt has been a brutal week for banks amid fears of contagion risk from the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and rescue of Credit Suisse (CSGN:SWX) with knock-on effects across stock markets.The FTSE 100 has lost 4% while the domestically focused FTSE 250 is down around 3%. The ba

- Activist Carl Icahn takes 1.4% Illumina stake - Shares jump 17% after falling 57% over two years- Pfizer acquires Seagen for $43 billionUS gene sequencing giant Illumina (ILMN:NASDAQ) saw its shares jump 17% overnight after activist investor Carl Icahn revealed a 1.4% stake and launched a proxy fight to gain board seats.According to the Wall Street Journal Icahn said: 'We are convinced that at l

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,

- Net asset value (NAV) slides 5.8%- Second consecutive year of underperforming the benchmark- Train shows confidence by buying sharesNick Train-managed Finsbury Growth & Income Trust (FGT) suffered a disappointing 5.8% slide in its net asset value total return for the year ended 30 September 2022.This represented a second consecutive year of underperformance against the benchmark FTSE All-Share I

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

- Bus operator in the crosshairs of two potential buyers- Minded to recommend a deal if firm offer forthcoming- Last week FirstGroup rejected bidLondon's largest double-decker bus operator Go-Ahead (GOG) has attracted takeover interest from two potential buyers as investors bet on a revival in the UK transport industry.Go-Ahead said on Monday (13 June) that it has received two takeover proposals a

- Credit Karma acquisition paying-off- Q3 forecasts beaten and full year growth guidance raised- Share price rallies nearly 3% in after-hours tradingBuying a credit scoring company just before the world plunged into economic difficulties looks like a sharp bit of business for Wall Street-listed small business accounting software firm Intuit (INTU:NASDAQ).Credit Karma, bought in November 2020 for $

- Cloud migration continues to drag on operating margins- Share price where it was in July 2016- Income yield of 2.7% and 5% organic growth unlikely to attract investorsEnterprise software firm Sage (SGE) continues to find itself trapped in investment no-man's land. Is it growth, is it income? no it's Sage, to borrow the quotation from the 1966 Superman musical? 'is it a bird, is it a plane? no it

UK stocks closed on a positive note with the FTSE 100 index ending 1.3% higher at 7,470 points and the FTSE 250 Index firming 1% to 21,873 points at the bell.Brent crude futures hit $90 per barrel for the time since 2014, fueling concerns over inflationary pressures and the need to further raise UK interest rates. Goldman Sachs recently increased its oil price forecast to $100 per barrel.However,

The major UK equity markets continued to build on earlier gains at lunchtime trading on Wednesday.Travel stocks were in demand following the government's confirmation that Covid testing will be dropped for double jabbed travellers arriving in England.At lunchtime the blue chip FTSE 100 equity index was 1.76% higher at 7501.16 and the mid-cap FTSE 250 firmed 1.5% to 21,976.03.All eyes will be focus