Ferrari IPO

The Ferrari IPO is due to be released this Thursday 30th July on the New York Stock Exchange, 50% of the luxury car brand is owned by the FCA Group, a merger between the manufacturing brands of Fiat and Chrysler.

FCA are due to sell a 10% stake as an IPO in order to aim around $5billion to help fund an investment program incorporating Jeep, Alfa Romeo and Maserati as well as paving the way to help form Ferrari into an independent brand.

But is this really a good decision at all, this week Bloomberg posted an alternative to purchasing shares- buy a vintage ferrari. Their prices are never going to crash as they are ‘tangible assets’.

(Graph-Average price of 13 ‘hottest’ Ferrari’s 0f the 1950-1980’s)

Although historically, Ferrari prices have fluctuated, within the 1990’s their prices plummeted as much as 70%. Investors should be cautious.

Chloe Lidia

Virgin Money IPO

Virgin Money is the latest company to announce plans for a initial public offering (IPO).

The company originally known as Northern Rock was bought by Richard Branson + US Billionaire Wilbur Ross in. The sale is looking to raise around £150 million, with 50 million going to the UK government.

Only 3 days ago the telegraph reported Virgin Money to have the best two, three and five year fixed rate ISA.’s, these ISA’s are set to be released tomorrow 10/10/14.

At the end of June 2014, Virgin Money reported a pre-tax profit of £59.7m compared with £13.1m in the same period in 2013. In addition, Virgin Money has purchased a UK credit card loan portfolio from the credit card company MBNA, one of the most popular on the market. It aims to grow this part of the business to £3bn by 2018.

Dates of the release of the share on the market have not been confirmed, however this looks to be a good investment with good prospects for the company to come.

Chloe Stearn

#trading #virginmoney

Virgin Money IPO

Virgin Money is the latest company to announce plans for a initial public offering (IPO).

The company originally known as Northern Rock was bought by Richard Branson + US Billionaire Wilbur Ross in 2011. The sale is looking to raise around £150 million, with 50 million going to the UK government.

Only 3 days ago the telegraph reported Virgin Money to have the best two, three and five year fixed rate ISA.’s, these ISA’s are set to be released tomorrow 10/10/14.

At the end of June 2014, Virgin Money reported a pre-tax profit of £59.7m compared with £13.1m in the same period in 2013. In addition, Virgin Money has purchased a UK credit card loan portfolio from the credit card company MBNA, one of the most popular on the market. It aims to grow this part of the business to £3bn by 2018.

Dates of the release of the share on the market have not been confirmed, however this looks to be a good investment with good prospects for the company to come.

Chloe Stearn

#trading #virginmoney

Alibaba Update

Initial analysis of the IPO looked promising however it was reported that share sales within Asia were constricted and that a minimum order of £150,00 equivalent to 19104079.88 $HK was expected for potential investors to be taken seriously.

The expected release of the IPO on the New York Stock Exchange is scheduled today when the market opens.

It has been reported that the sale of the IPO will raise more than $21.8 billion having already raised this amount at the end of close on 18/09/14. It will be interesting to see how this stock reacts on the market, although as I mentioned previously the IPO on the Hong Kong Stock market has been described as many analysts as a ‘flop’.

Chloe Stearn

Alibaba

For those of you who are not familiar with Alibaba, it is Chinese online marketplace linking wholesalers with customers the products available range from baby toys to marble.

Alibaba is set to launch its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in about 8 days time (19/09/14).

Alibaba made a $2 billion profit last quarter where as Amazon barely broke even. Although many are not familiar with this company it handles more transactions than Amazon and Ebay combined. In 2013, Alibaba’s merchandise volume totaled to $248 billion overpowering Amazon’s $116 billion (according to estimates from the IDC).

The shares are set to be between $60-$66 which would look to raise up to $24.3 billion for the company, this would place them in the top 25 of the S&P 500 Index.*

According to the Wall Street journal the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Alibaba ‘seems conservative’ demonstrated within the image below.

Alibaba’s presence is set to expand in unison with the expansion of the Chinese middle class.

However, a year after Alibaba was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange its share value had decreased 55%. Alibaba is a great business with good expansion prospects for the future, although history could still repeat itself.

Chloe Stearn

* S&P 500 Index- stock market index based on the market capitalization’s of the 500 largest companies in the NYE Stock Exchange.

#trading #alibaba

King Digital Entertainment

King digital entertainment, the British technology firm have filed to be listed on the New York stock exchange.

The company are the creators of arguably one of the biggest apps of 2013, Candy Crush Saga. This app was the top downloaded free app of 2013. Would this be a good investment opportunity?

78% of the firms revenue was a result of candy crush and it only took $64m before this. Concentration of the revenue on only title is a fundamental issue. 

However the company stated that they are planning to expand and diversify their game portfolio making candy crush to represent a small part.

In conclusion, the decision for investing should be put on hold until they are confirmed to be listed and more details are known on the their future predictions as a company.

Chloe Stearn

 

The last 48 hours 12/02/14-13/02/14

In the last 48 hours two companies in the FTSE 350 have plummeted. Barclay’s PLC and Rolls Royce.

Firstly, yesterday (12/0214)  Barclay’s reported a decrease in its profits of 32% down to 5.2 billion. Shares dropped a total of -1.61%. Barclay’s reported that they have plans to cut a total of 12,000 jobs this year alone. Although their profits are down their bonuses are still on the up. Those working in Barclay’s investment banking sector are expected to earn an average of £60,100 in their bonus this an increase of 13% from last year.

Secondly, today (13/02/14) shares in Rolls Royce have plunged 13.64% today on the back of their latest results. They reported that their underlying profits were up 23% and dividends were up by 13%.

To me and many other analysts this doesn’t look right, so why has this rarity occurred?

They had to restate their 2012 figures and adjust its results for 2013 before it reported on 13/02/14 following the advice from Britain’s accounting regulator. This caused Rolls Royce to lop around £40 million off last year’s pre-tax profits.

As well as this they several employees from Rolls Royce China and Asia have been arrested in the last 24 hours, as bribery and corruption was reported from outside sources.

These reasons may be the underlying reasons as to why the unthinkable happened to their shares today.

Chloe Stearn

Change in FTSE 100 and FTSE 250

Publication in Guardian

Royal Mail and industry trials company Ashtead join the FTSE 100. Eliminating Indian miner company Vedanta and speciality chemicals maker Croda.

Vedanta and Croda join the FTSE 250 along with Merlin Entertainments and estate agents. Also joining FTSE 250 are Carphone Warehouse, Grafton and Riverstone Energy.

 

 

 

A beginner’s guide to forex trading

Forex Market in simple terms is the foreign exchange market.

It’s estimated that around $4 trillion is traded on forex markets every single day. It’s impossible to appreciate how big that number is. But put it this way: that’s greater than the turnover of all of the world’s stock and bond markets combined.

A key feature of forex trading is that it’s always done in ‘pairs’. Every forex trade consists of two currencies. You are effectively buying one currency and simultaneously selling another – you exchange one for the other. That’s why the rate at which they are traded is called the exchange rate.

The first currency in a pair is referred to as the “base currency” and the second is called the “quote currency”. Most currency pairs are priced out to four places past the decimal point. When the very last number moves up or down by one increment, that’s called a ‘pip’. A pip is the smallest price change that an exchange rate can make. On an average day a major currency pair moves
between 100 and 200 pips.

EUR/USD is the world’s most traded currency pair accounting for more than a quarter of all forex trades, closely followed by USD/JPY and GBP/USD.

 

 

Trades within November 2013

November has been a good month for amateur traders.

The first of these opportunities came when Royal mail became privatised, the last time a major UK company became privatised being UK Rail and Utilities in the 1970’s late 1980’s.

Royal mail share prices has subsequently rose over 70% in its first 2 weeks trading, starting at around 450p a share it now has a current value of 532.5p standing today (25/11/13). Current market analysts have stated that they believe the share is now over-valued. Although when looking at Centrica a previously privatised company, their 3 year share value has increased by 200p and is still on the up trend.

 

There was also the début of twitter shares, the first day on the stock market the twitter shares rose an incredible 73%, “Considering that this is a company that has yet to make a profit, it will be interesting to see how far investor enthusiasm can drive it,” said Market Analyst Alastair McCaig from IG.

Finally, Poundland is a good company to invest in, they are currently in the process of doubling its store numbers to 1,000 and are looking at opportunities to expand the business across Europe.