Foolish Special
The (Sort Of) Half-Year (-ish) Foolish Review
Introduction
OK, so it's actually a Two-Thirds Year Review, but we've never believed in timing the market. Or maybe this is the middle of the year In Real Terms, or Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation (the little-known MOTYBITDA figure which is crucial when valuing your time).
Fool UK has swelled its ranks in no uncertain terms in these last seven-and-a-bit months -- indeed, many of those ranks will be in the pub this Wednesday night feeling somewhat queasy from that very swell.
June and July represented a particularly good run in terms of Important Milestones. We ended June by winning the coveted -- nay, priceless -- New Media Age award for Best Finance Site. We then won Best Electronic Media at the Creative Freedom Awards the next week. Which was nice.
In July, a dozen UK Fools flew out to Fool Galactic HQ in Alexandria, VA, USA, to help the mothership celebrate the fifth anniversary of the introduction of Foolishness to this planet you call "Earth". Then, when the Brit contingent returned home, we were just in time to to cap off the year so far by celebrating Fool UK's 50,000th post to the message boards, and the enFooling of several long-deserving contributors.
But while we were having fun, what were the markets doing? The following pieces review the performance of the London Stock Exchange from January to July of this year, with three Foolish writers taking on three classes of company and picking out the darlings and the dogs.
First, Rob Davies (TMFEssex) looks at the big hitters of the LSE: the FTSE 100. Why did mining and steel companies do so well? (Incidentally, Rob also extends a Keynesian market analogy in this article. Clever, eh?)
In our second piece, Stuart Watson (TMFTiger) analyses the goings-on in the FTSE 250, or "mid-cap" stocks. There was good news for both growth and value investors in this middle region of the market, with tech stocks storming ahead and some more traditional companies coming out of long periods in the doldrums.
Finally, Chris Spink (TMFEagle) tackles the small-cap stocks, an area that has apparently seen dramatic growth this year; but is this a trick of the figures? The risks are higher (sometimes unFoolishly high), the liquidities lower, but then again -- here be Rule Breakers.
Here's to the next half-year (inflation-adjusted),
Martin Wake (TMF Sorted), UK Editor Fool
Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: FTSE 100 -- The First Seven Months
Page 3: The FTSE 250 Mid-Caps
Page 4: Small Caps So Far
