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Owain Bennallack

Owain is a magpie of the investing world -- and not because he gets into a flap. Almost any style of investing might suit him, depending on the bigger picture, and he's held all sorts of companies. Paraphrasing Keynes, he says: “When the market changes, I change my mind -- what do you do?” That said, Owain is usually a buyer of equities, where he prefers lightly geared, modestly rated companies, and is increasingly on the lookout for Buffett-style intangible quality. He aspires to buy-and-hold: his best investment ideas are worth much more than he sold them for. Then again, his worst investment went bust due to management fraud!

Recent Articles

Modern suburban family houses with car on driveway
Investing Articles

Homebuilders under fire again

| Owain Bennallack

Accused of profiteering during the boom of the past decade, homebuilders are now under the cosh for much the same reason…

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Businesswoman calculating finances in an office
Investing Articles

What do you know that the company doesn’t?

| Owain Bennallack

Some investors will blame anyone but themselves for their stock picks gone wrong. In a way it’s understandable. It’s very…

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Concept of two young professional men looking at a screen in a technological data centre
Investing Articles

Don’t bail On Baillie Gifford’s technology trusts

| Owain Bennallack

We all thought the cockroach was the most indestructible thing on Earth. Turns out it’s the Nasdaq 100. When the…

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Smiling white woman holding iPhone with Airpods in ear
Investing Articles

Apple and its $3 trillion vision

| Owain Bennallack

You know what they say: the first trillion dollars is the hardest. No wait! They say it’s the first million dollars…

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artificial intelligence investing algorithms
Investing Articles

Are we betting intelligently on our artificially brainy future?

| Owain Bennallack

If Artificial Intelligence is set to wipe out journalists’ livelihoods, then the hacks are making hay while the sun shines.…

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Newspaper and direction sign with investment options
Investing Articles

‘Apocalypse Nearly’ for the London Stock Exchange

| Owain Bennallack

It’s also important to acknowledge that much of what ails the LSE is going on elsewhere, too.

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Couple working from home while daughter watches video on smartphone with headphones on
Investing Articles

Is property built on a strong platform?

| Owain Bennallack

Is this the time to look for other bricks-and-mortar bargains before they are all bid up by the big boys?

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Bronze bull and bear figurines
Investing Articles

When investing clichés go to war

| Owain Bennallack

We would never have even heard of Warren Buffett if he’d invested in index funds, had they even been available…

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Young Black woman looking concerned while in front of her laptop
Collective

The psychologically unimportant FTSE 8,000 level

| Owain Bennallack

The FTSE 100 index recently hit the 8,000 points level – at around the same time as I hit my…

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Close up of a group of friends enjoying a movie in the cinema
Collective

What a 73-year-old Japanese cinema classic reminds us about investing

| Owain Bennallack

There are many ways to look at any potential investment.

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Person holding magnifying glass over important document, reading the small print
Investing Articles

In case of potential systemic financial crisis: break glass

| Owain Bennallack

These simple steps will prevent the majority of financial crises becoming the next Great Depression. But every disaster is different.

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photo of Union Jack flags bunting in local street party
Collective

Mostly Arm-less: why UK investors can live without a London listing

| Owain Bennallack

Britain’s latest Prime Minister Rishi Sunak recently struck a deal with the European Union to overcome trade frictions in Northern…

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Lady wearing a head scarf looks over pages on company financials
Collective

Don’t be deceived by dividends

| Owain Bennallack

You can’t pay cash out to shareholders via a dividend when there’s no money coming in.

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Diverse group of friends cheering sport at bar together
Investing Articles

The tries and tribulations of rugby and investing

| Owain Bennallack

You could do worse than tape a Post-it note to your monitor as a reminder: ‘Things change’.

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Young Asian man shopping in a supermarket
Collective

Hands off our ISAs

| Owain Bennallack

Here are my 10 main objections to the Resolution Foundation think tank's proposal to cap ISAs.

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Diverse group of friends cheering sport at bar together
Investing Articles

Don’t buy a football club

| Owain Bennallack

Richard Branson once quipped that if you want to become a millionaire, become a billionaire first and then start an…

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Tabletop model of a bear sat on desk in front of monitors showing stock charts
Collective

China comes back from the brink

| Owain Bennallack

Beleaguered investors looking at the share prices of stricken technology and growth giants like Amazon and Tesla might take heart…

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A front-view shot of a multi-ethnic family with two children walking down a city street on a cold December night.
Collective

Take a walk down Quality Street in 2023

| Owain Bennallack

The de-rating of quality stocks has been painful for investors. But it’s in the past.

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photo of Union Jack flags bunting in local street party
Investing Articles

Tremors felt in the UK housing market

| Owain Bennallack

The residential housing market is at the heart of the UK economy. It’s hard to see how a fall in…

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many happy international football fans watching tv
Investing Articles

Investing in the African future

| Owain Bennallack

We might look at UK-listed firms that have a lot of exposure to the continent.

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A man with Down's syndrome serves a customer a pint of beer in a pub.
Investing Articles

Spilling the beans on successful investing

| Owain Bennallack

You never have to wait long very for a crisis in investing.

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Father working from home and taking care of baby
Investing Articles

The names have changed but Jeremy Hunt’s blockbuster budget is more of the same

| Owain Bennallack

Jeremy Hunt’s budget proved to be something of a two-parter.

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A couple celebrating moving in to a new home
Investing Articles

Mistakes have been Made

| Owain Bennallack

Business was booming at Made.com at the time of its IPO. Its customer base had grown to 1.1 million in…

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Hand flipping wooden cubes for change wording" Panic " to " Calm".
Investing Articles

There’s method to the madness

| Owain Bennallack

Embrace the (apparent) chaos! It can make you rich in the long term.

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Modern apartments on both side of river Irwell passing through Manchester city centre, UK.
Investing Articles

Towering disappointment

| Owain Bennallack

Most investing textbooks will tell you commercial property – or real estate, as US authors prefer – is a useful…

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British flag, Big Ben, Houses of Parliament and British flag composition
Investing Articles

Who will profit from this chaos?

| Owain Bennallack

There are some bright notes. Wholesale gas prices have come down recently. Perhaps next year’s energy bills won’t be quite…

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Shot of a senior man drinking coffee and looking thoughtfully out of a window
Investing Articles

There are no no-brainers in investing

| Owain Bennallack

The lesson of history is not that every decade you get a ‘no-brainer’ chance to dust down your Warren Buffett…

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Sun setting over a traditional British neighbourhood.
Investing Articles

Public misgivings

| Owain Bennallack

Elon Musk faces huge challenges if he’s to make a profit on his $44 billion investment in Twitter.

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Risk reward ratio / risk management concept
Investing Articles

The bond vigilantes are back

| Owain Bennallack

Vladimir Lenin, the revolutionary founder of the USSR, once said: “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks…

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Engineer Project Manager Talks With Scientist working on Computer
Investing Articles

The end of the tech slump or just a Figma of the imagination?

| Owain Bennallack

Could Adobe's big ticket takeover similarly break the disenchantment of tech investors?

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woman sitting in wheelchair at the table and looking at computer monitor while talking on mobile phone and drinking coffee at home
Investing Articles

How to buy £1 for 85p

| Owain Bennallack

Investment trusts may trade at a discount for many reasons – often at once – but it’s mostly centred on…

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Investing Articles

Should investors trust in Truss?

| Owain Bennallack

What would we press new Prime Minister Liz Truss to get on with?

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Abstract 3d arrows with rocket
Investing Articles

Investing in inflation

| Owain Bennallack

Inflation was moribund in the West for two decades, with near-zero interest rates since the financial crisis their barely perkier…

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Smiling mortgage couple
Investing Articles

Time to take your shot to get rich

| Owain Bennallack

In Time’s Arrow – a mind-bending novel by Martin Amis – time runs backwards. Everything that happens proceeds from what we’d consider…

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Investing Articles

Things change

| Owain Bennallack

Uncertainty is the only certainty. Stay humble and diversified.

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Investing Articles

3 things I don’t do to make money from shares

| Owain Bennallack

Stick to buying good companies that you'd ideally own for the long-term, or else invest in index funds and get…

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Investing Articles

Investing for a pandemic-proof portfolio

| Owain Bennallack

What to invest in if the world has changed due to the pandemic...

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Investing Articles

5 other things going on besides Covid-19

| Owain Bennallack

Realising how big stories can be crowded out by even bigger stories can give an investor antibodies against news media…

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Investing Articles

Doomed dinosaurs and diversification

| Owain Bennallack

Change is a constant, in life and markets. Invest accordingly.

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Investing Articles

Coronavirus crisis cancelled?

| Owain Bennallack

If the world's largest economy is a canary in the coalmine, it's squawking.

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