Playing FTSE

Who’s been piling money into real estate? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! With Paul not here, the Steves are taking the time to discuss their more distinctive interests. This week, it’s lemon farming. Steve D has a lemon tree and Steve W is wanting to start a small orchard. We’re starting this show off in a weird place. But there’s plenty of your regularly-scheduled content to go around. Because earnings season generally does, we’re kicking off with the earnings from the banks. We’ve got Bank of America, JP. Morgan, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup on our list to look at. But is either Steve buying any of these? Procter & Gamble also reported earnings recently. Prices going up meant that volumes went down and the consumer goods giant came in pretty much level with where it was before. Neither Steve is particularly impressed. If Paul was here, maybe he’d feel differently about a dividend king with 60+ years of consecutive increases. We’re finishing off with a look at Disney. Both Steves like this one, but it’s been attracting some activist attention lately. Nelson Peltz thinks he has something useful to contribute, but Disney don’t agree. The Steves give their thoughts on the company and the activist. All on this week’s PlayingFTSE Podcast!

0:00 Intro 4:44 7 Stocks If We Were Starting A Portfolio Today 20:12 Chat GPT’s 7 Stock Portfolio. 26:56 Stonks 4 Paul Who’s been outsourcing their podcasting work to ChatGPT? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Podcast!   On the edge of earnings season, Paul, Steve, and Steve have been thinking about what stocks they’d put into a beginner portfolio. And the Steves have been thinking about stocks for Paul. They aren’t the same, promise!   Steve and Steve have put together their 7 stock portfolios. Some names that you might expect and some that you probably wouldn’t. Also some names missing that you might be expecting.    Steve D has a bunch of companies that you’ve never heard of. But you’ve probably heard of the products they make. Paul wonders whether that’s where a beginner investor should be pitching up.   Steve W has a bunch of things you have heard of and one you probably haven’t. Unless you do your banking in Hull or Sweden.   Speaking of banking, Steve W’s stock for Paul is Bank of America. As a dividend investor, the burgundy one likes companies that pay out cash. And Steve thinks there’s more going on than meets the eye at first.   Steve D is looking at something more exciting. An established, profitable, reputable healthcare stock with an obesity drug and a potential cure for Alzheimers. A big price tag, but if it comes off, this won’t even touch the sides.   All on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show!

Our appearance on JKR Investing: https://youtu.be/jZmCdA66FAE  What’s Steve D found down the back of his sofa? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show!   Steve and Steve are in the house this week as Paul is in… some other house. With not a huge amount happening so far this week, we’re looking forward to what we’re wanting to achieve in 2023.   First, though, there’s news from the US. People still have jobs. And they’re getting more and more of them. That means one of two things. Either the soft landing is back on, or the inflation problem isn’t going away. Which one is it? The Steves discuss.   Not everyone’s in the jobs in the US, though. Amazon have announced plans to cut 18,000 jobs and Salesforce are set to lose quite a few as well. For shareholders such as Steve and Steve, is that a good thing or a bad thing? And why can’t these companies get their headcounts right the first time around?   Next up, it’s our ambitions for the new year. Steve W is looking for a non-financial plan. He’s aiming at the 5am club after listening to part of a book on Blinkist. That’s madness, isn’t it? He’ll never manage it, surely…  Steve D is opting for something more traditional. He’s looking to fill his ISA. But this is a particularly interesting year for PlayingFTSE’s Yorkshire representative. Why? Tune in to find out…   Lastly, we’ve got thoughts for new investors. Plenty of people are getting started investing and we’ve been thinking about what we think it would be good for new starters to know. Obviously not financial advice – never financial advice.    All on this week’s PlayingFTSE Podcast!

Happy New Year everyone! Welcome to the PlayingFTSE Show!! This week, our show is about everything that we’ve learned from 2022 and everything that we’re looking forward to in 2023. At the end of 2021, we made some bold predictions – which ones were right and what have we learned from those that weren’t? Steve D was predicting the takeover of either ASOS or Boohoo. That doesn’t seem to have happened yet, but why is he giving himself partial credit for this? And what does he think will happen to inflation in 2023? Paul was anticipating positive things for Tesla and Bitcoin in the year gone by. That didn’t really happen. But which company is the PlayingFTSE Show’s resident dividend hunter looking at for a return to form in 2023? Steve W was wrong about just about everything from inflation, through to the S&P 500. Undeterred, though, he’s going for two more stocks that he thinks can outperform in 2023 – and one that he thinks might go in the bin. What are they? Find out all of this – and what everyone agrees will happen to the housing market – on this week’s PlayingFTSE Podcast!

What have Steve and Steve been doing with gingerbread? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show!! As 2022 comes to its end, we’re looking back at our favourite stories of the year, why they’re important to us, and what we’ve learned from those stories. We’ve gone for three similar ones this year – nobody really took Russia-Ukraine, or Elon Musk buying Twitter. Steve D’s eye was caught on the year in crypto scandals. Sam Bankman-Fried has been arrested and Bitcoin is down over 60% since the start of the year. But what does this mean for him? Steve was a crypto enthusiast once upon a time, has anything in 2022 caused him to come round to the Charlie Munger view? Steve W is interested in what’s been going on at ARK. Cathie Wood has been fighting the FED this year and the results for her backers haven’t been good. She’s still optimistic, though. But this isn’t exactly a 2022 story – the decline in the price of ARKK shares started in 2021. So why does Steve W think of this as a 2022 story? Paul has been looking at Tesla. Like ARK and crypto, this has also had a tough 2022. The big question for him is whether the fall in the Tesla share price means the stock is fairly priced yet. Figuring that out means thinking about why the stock has been coming down. Does it have anything to do with the CEO being distracted? Selling Tesla stock? Paul has an idea… All in this week’s PlayingFTSE Podcast!

How far can Steve D go in his Tesla? And how many countries has Steve W heard of? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show! Steve and Steve are on deck this week to have a look at this week’s news. And they’re starting with interest rates. The US hiked rates to 4.5% this week and the UK increased them to 3.5%. The stock market seems to be selling off in response – but haven’t we seen all of this before? After that, it’s on to the stock samplers – remember those? Last July Steve and Steve picked five stocks to go up against David Gardner. As we approach the end of a pretty grim 2022 and the halfway point of our three year contest, it’s time for a check in on how everyone’s doing. Spoiler alert: nobody’s doing well… Lastly, we’ve got a new segment. All three of us at the PlayingFTSE podcast like reading investing articles with catchy titles. But we thought we might try and rewrite the articles of some of the catchiest headlines. So after having found a title of ‘1 stock to double down on in December’ the Steves have their own candidates for the subject matter. All on this wek’s PlayingFTSE podcast!

Where does Kasper buy his car accessories? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE Podcast! We’re all together for this week’s episode and there’s lots to talk about. Kicking off, Steve D’s found some interesting data about app downloads in November. TikTok vs Instagram? Zoom vs Teams? Spotify? We discuss who’s winning the battle for space on people’s phones and get an insight into what Paul looks at on TikTok… After that, we’re on to worrying about people’s jobs. Larry Fink, the BlackRock CEO has been in the headlines. Shockingly, it looks like the company’s big ESG drive might all be a marketing manoeuvre. But is Fink’s job in danger? Steve D owns BlackRock shares and he’s got the latest. Besides Fink, who else is in trouble? Steve W is concerned for Chris Hill (not that one) the Chief Executive at Hargreaves Lansdown. With revenues going backwards, the company’s competitive position under threat, and the stock down substantially, might one of the more established UK investment platforms be due a change? Steve D has a revolutionary idea… But Steve D is concerned about Halfords. The company’s revenues are up but this is the result of buying up tyre shops and selling off their real estate to fund it. In a world where MOTs are a commodity and electric vehicles are less likely to need oil changes, will this business still be around in 10 years? Paul thinks there’s something of value here and Steve W can see a way that he’d prefer the business to operate… All on this week’s PlayingFTSE Show!

What will the stock market do in 2023? Is the Legal & General dividend safe? Where’s Paul? Find out the answer to none of these questions on this week’s PlayingFTSE show! Kicking us off, Steve D has some fun facts about the show. As a podcast, we get a Spotify wrapped just like (or nothing like) everybody else. At one point, we made it into the top 5% of most followed podcasts on Spotify! Thank you to everyone who put us there, everyone who keeps listening and watching, and everyone who has sat through the tirade of adverts that Steve accidentally lined up on last week’s show. He also has some notes on his big Larry… Steve also has some exciting news about a new savings account. It’s from First Direct and pays 7% interest on an amount between £75 and £300. Who needs investing? What is our show even *for*? And do the Steves have this account? Find out… In other news, the FCA thinks that people shouldn’t be stashing their money in savings accounts yielding 0.25%. We tend to think the same thing with our money, but Steve W is wondering why the authorities have finally got around to this idea. Their plan is to lower the qualification requirement for financial advisors dealing with people who have basic needs. Never mind what we think — what does actual financial advisor Tom Morgan think? Find out at the end of the show… One of the things you might like to invest in is the Meet Kevin Pricing Power ETF. That’s a thing and we’re here to discuss it. Steve D thinks it looks strange, Steve W thinks it looks expensive. There’s clearly some merit to the idea that pricing power is important and Meet Kevin has a huge following, of the kind we’ll likely never have, and he’s a very very good salesperson. But what kind of ETF would we be if we were going to start a fund of our own? Steve W has found something he prefers. Preferred stocks. Our resident value investor has a hunch that stocks that pay fixed dividends might be about to become a sought-after asset as a recession cuts into corporate profits. And there’s one in particular that’s on his agenda. Steve D reads Steve W’s written work, so he knows what it is. And attentive viewers will recognise it from a previous episode. All on this week’s PlayingFTSE podcast!

How many Japanese trading houses can Paul name? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE show! We’ve got World Cup Fever this week on the show. It’s an exciting time in the world of football and an exciting time in the world of stocks. We kick the show off with news from the FCA — it’s encouraging trading apps to stay away from ‘gamification’ and falling into gambling territory. Is that too little too late? Steve W thinks so, but Paul has other ideas… Relatedly, UK investment platform Freetrade has put itself up for sale. It’s an interesting time to be looking at doing this, but Steve D still owns some Freetrade stock. Is he selling? That brings us to our next topic — Trading 212. They’ve been adding some new Japanese positions on the CFD platform. With the idea that they might be coming to the ISA soon, the Steves have been checking out what’s on offer. The main thing catching their eye is the prospect of investing like Warren Buffett in some trading houses. But what are they, and why is Buffett upping Berkshire’s stake in them? Lastly, it’s the big one. Disney has just fired its CEO. His name is Bob. They have a new one. His name is also Bob. Like the one before. But what’s going on there? Are investors just getting tetchy at the falling share price and unprofitable streaming operations? Or is there something more to this story? Steve D has the info. All on this week’s PlayingFTSE Podcast!

Steve D’s avoiding crashes and Paul’s going straight down. Welcome to the PlayingFTSE Show! The Autumn Statement is this week’s big news and there’s a lot in it. Up go taxes (for higher earners anyway) and down goes the Dividend Allowance. There’s more money for the NHS and less tax free money for dividend investors. Will it stabilise the UK markets? Is it a good budget? Should we be worried? There’s a lot to talk about and the three of us have a lot of different ideas. After that, it’s the comparatively trivial matter of $32bn of scandal going on in crypto. We’ve been staying away from the FTX story so far while it unwinds, but we can ignore the matter no longer. What lessons can we learn from the shambles? And what happens next for Sam Bankman-Fried? In happier news, it’s 13F season again. Warren Buffett’s been to the shops and bought himself a decent piece of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company which both is and isn’t on-brand for the Oracle of Omaha. Something else has been catching Steve W’s eye, though, as everyone ponders the semiconductor manufacturing play… Lastly, there’s the UK’s Warren Buffett. He’s been buying a lot of things. None of them is Meta Platforms, despite its share price being down significantly. One of them, though, is Apple, which Fundsmith has been staying away from fairly carefully. Is this change of heart welcome? Find out on this week’s PlayingFTSE podcast!