Sharesify
Sharesify is an online resource for private investors and produced by several former employees of Shares magazine. It aims to help private individuals manage their own money and investment portfolios.
Launched in 2026, we publish daily news content, analysis and thought-provoking written content about stocks, investment trusts, funds, ETFs, ISAs, SIPPs, plus produce podcasts, webinars and more.
Our easy-to-read style and depth of analysis aims to make Sharesify essential reading for those investing today.
We write about all companies on the UK stock market, covering large, mid and small cap stocks on both London’s Main Market and AIM. We also provide extensive coverage of stocks listed in the US, Europe, Asia and other overseas stock markets, interview fund and investment trust managers about performance and the secrets of their investing technique, highlighting products that provide exposure to interesting companies, geographies and growth or income-generating assets.
We also write about ways in which to build a diversified investment portfolio as well as managing your investments once you have started to put money into an ISA (individual savings account), dealing account or SIPP (self-invested personal pension).
Our digital content will be full of ideas for filling your portfolio, whether you are saving for something like a new house or car, or if you are investing to fund your child’s university fees, your grandchild’s Junior ISA, or building a nest egg for retirement.
We show you how to make money and save money by giving you all the important information to help you make informed investment decisions.
Sharesify
Talking ASML, IBM, Netflix, US Banks, plus Barratt Redrow, BP, Dr Martens, Dunelm, Frasers, ME Group and Sosandar
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Join the team as they reveal why it's been a good day for chip lithography machine maker ASML, a key beneficiary of the AI capex trade, and why yesterday was a bad day for IBM causing the shares to lose 25% of their value.
There are also blowout results from US banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, and an upgrade to Q2 forecasts from energy giant BP on the back of higher oil and gas prices.
The guys also discuss UK consumer names including Dr Martens, Sosandar and ME Group, which is diversifying into dog washing machines of all things. Finally, there's a look ahead to results from Dunelm, Frasers and US media firm Netflix.
Hello, and welcome to the latest midweek edition of the Shares of Podcast. I'm joined as always by James and Steve. How are we, gents?
SPEAKER_00Oh, Danny.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a it's another scorcher, and it's another scorcher for the US market with uh um you know SP and Nasdaq almost back to their highs. That CapEx uh AI Capex trade is well and truly on again, isn't it, Steve?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean it's been so so uh jumpy. I mean the last few weeks we've seen so much volatility and and it's it's great. You talk about global markets, but look at the cost bit. So the South Korean market, so dominated by Samsung and SK Heinex, you know, it it lost nearly 10% and it had to had to um be trying to have to be halted um because of they have to worry about panic selling and so on. Um, and yet you know a day goes by and suddenly there's a big recovery again. So it really is up one day down the next. Um, it's it's so difficult to assess where where an investor's sort of sentiment is going to land. So interesting stuff going on. We had we had IBM announce some some interesting, um uh very disappointing figures, but interestingly, I thought the CEO was quite honest. He suggested that they he thinks their team have been uh particularly slow at adapting their business models in this new age of of AI, and so um they've seen some of their customers kind of redeploy uh CapEx um in the short term and away from from from the kind of stuff that um IBM are trying to do. So that's the reasoning why the the the um results and and the guidance was was rather weak. Whether that's long term or not, we shall wait and see. We had an opportunistic bid from uh of PayPal. Um it's it's it's kind of speculation at the moment, but allegedly striped big Irish-based uh payments company uh owned by a Scottish Mortgage and Advent uh International PE company looking to maybe take um PayPal over. So interesting dynamics, but it looks like a really bargain basement opportunistic bid. So whether anything comes of that, we'll we'll we'll again wait and see. And and the other really big news, of course, is ASML uh knockout results again, shares responded pretty positively up about five percent. Um, and and that's a real clear indicator that the AI trade CapEx is going very, very well and and looks to be very strong for the next few couple of years, realistically, not just the next couple of quarters, but it's just about our valuations already reflecting that, and that's the big debate.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean customers clearly can't get enough of their stuff at the moment. Um, and James, consumer stocks in the UK also going well still.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, surprisingly resilient still in. So we've had uh Dr. Martin's out this morning. The key comment there, I think, was on US wholesale, which they said was encouraging. Uh, so that turnaround seems to be on track. Um, some very curious companies have reported as well. So, Me Group, this is photo booths and laundry machines, and it's also trialling dog washing machines, so it's quite an interesting business. Oh, really? It coughed up a profit war in uh, I think it was April time, where it blamed quite the Middle East conflict for a slowdown in passport applications. Uh, but they flagged a return to more normal trading. Um, and they were sort of doing a lot of deals with Asda, Morrison's Audi, and Lidl in terms of putting those laundry machines at the front of stores, which seems to be going quite well. And just one other one that caught my eye was Sassandar, which is it's a microcap, it's an online clothing retailer, but that's returned to pretty strong revenue growth after taking a hit from the MS Cyber Strike last year, which MS is a third-party uh partner for the business. Uh, unusual in that Susandar is opened, has opened brick and mortar retail stores, uh, which are online only, but it's gone in that direction. Still a bit of a drag on profitability, but they're seeing some signs of an uptick with their uh physical stores. So very interesting indeed.
SPEAKER_00So I just want to I just want to ask you a bit more about so dog washing. So this is so so what you put dog a dog into like a big washing machine, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you just you you know you get your pooch clean, you spray it, and it's uh it's at the trial stage. So yeah, it's a very curious business.
SPEAKER_00That's that that's a brilliant addendum to their their core operations.
SPEAKER_02It couldn't get more random, could it? The one thing that's obviously caught my eye this week is yeah, how the oil prices rebounded when everybody thought the Strait of Hormos was uh back open and shipments were gonna reach normal levels. I don't think there was really realistically any chance that would happen. So it's shut again. Brink crew's over 85 bucks. BP's come out with uh Q2 guidance, which is obviously a lot higher than it was because their average crude the average crude price for them was over a hundred dollars in Q2. Um, and I know that most analysts, when they forecast earnings for BP and Shell, have been using $75 for Brink Crew this year. So that's pretty standard.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think I think the interesting thing. I mean, we saw uh US CPI was was was pretty pretty calm, really, but uh you know uh oil prices it's CPI is a trailing index, obviously, and so uh oil prices could start creeping up again with more conflict going on, acceleration of conflicts. So uh, I mean it's the the inflation monster that's the big issue, isn't it? Because that's really going to dictate the direction of interest rates, and if we start seeing interest rates rise again, that will really put a damper on stock markets.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's interesting because you know, despite all this sort of and and geopolitics and so on, you look at the US bank results and they are absolutely blowout. And you know, Jamie Diamond's saying, Well, consumers still spending, businesses are still investing and hiring, and and obviously they've all made loads and loads of money out of things like the SpaceX IPO, companies raising money left, right, and centre. Uh, I think they had record trading in equities, and I think actually Goldman Sachs now holds the record for quarterly revenue from trading equities on Wall Street, you know, the whole of Wall Street. They've posted the biggest ever ever results. Um, but you know, we we think about you know, as I say, markets approaching highs. Even Jamie Diamond did say that he wondered whether it's as good as it gets, and I think investors may be feeling that too. So you guys have done slightly more defensive uh pieces on investment trusts.
SPEAKER_01James, go ahead. Yeah, that's that's right, Ian. So people are a bit nervous about perhaps you know an AI bubble or those sort of things. We just flagged uh five ideas, three are the sort of capital preservation funds, and then another one is a global macro and also a UK equity income fund that buys stocks on low starting valuation, so it might have a bit more downside protection to it. So do take a look at that on the website.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean I I I I wasn't looking at the investment trust space, but I looked at um open-ended investment companies, so normal sort of uh funds, and and we're really the aim was to how to build a portfolio that could give you something in the region of a five percent uh annual return, um, and nicely diversified. So I'm not going to mention any of the names that I um I've featured there. Uh you listeners, come to the website, go and have a look at that. We do these kind of features quite quite regularly, looking at different ways to try and earn regular income because it's it's quite an interesting debate. Uh a lot of investors only want natural income, other investors want total return. We've written about that as well um over the last couple of weeks. So come to the website, have a look around. There's there's loads of good content there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and doing it through funds and trusts is a really good way to um hedge your bets as well. Because if you are an income investor, you know, if you look at what Barrett Developments has come up with today, they're replacing dividends with share buybacks. Yeah, they're gonna pay a notion of 1p per share dividend, and all the rest of the sort of full year 26 uh final dividend and the interim FY27 dividend are going to be in buyback, so you're you're not gonna get the income, and that's so it's really important, you know, diversify your approach. Try you know, use funds and trust to do that. Yeah, um, what what else have we got to come then, fellas?
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, really interesting uh results coming up. Um, tomorrow night will be Netflix, and and Netflix, I suppose, is traditionally the kind of Kickstarter of the tech side of earnings. So the banks always start these things off, and you talked about the banks earlier. Um, it the you the US tech cycle really gets going with Netflix, and they're their results after the market closes Thursday, tomorrow, um uh after after the bell. Um, and and and I I've written a page, put it on the website. I mean, the shares are down nearly 20% year today. I think it's really worth having a look at what you know why that is the case and what the company needs to do to address that, what's going to make the um the market sit up and go suddenly, yeah, we like Netflix again. So have a read of that, it's on the website. It'll be it's not quite live yet, it'll be live in the next uh half hour or so.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's interesting, isn't it, Steve? How uh I say we've got markets at highs and this AI Capex trade is on the some stuff just gets left behind, people just aren't paying attention to it. Um, and James, what do we got in the UK coming up?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so we've got uh Dun Elm and Fraser's tomorrow, so that'll be a busy one for retail. Good read on the homewares market from Dun Elm. Uh Fraser's, you've got you know a read into sportswear and a kind of affordable luxury segment, and quite timely with Mike Ashley reportedly trying to gate crash the uh the Harvey Nichols deal from next. So uh yeah, it'll be interesting to watch.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Um, I mean the other thing is uh next week we should point out uh I think you and I are chatting with Mercantile Investment Trust, aren't we? Um, UK small and mid-cap uh specialist uh invests in what they call tomorrow's market leaders, and that is next Thursday, folks. So that's uh 23rd of July. Make sure you stay tuned for that. Yeah, we'll uh we'll uh keep our fingers crossed for a good result for England tonight. Take care.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, see you guys.
