Think Chat

Having been contacted the other day by the Eden Brown Group regarding an investment, I decided to look into it a little more. The guy I spoke to sounded very plausable and I have to admit, I was very interested in what he had to say.

Having looked closer, I realised that these guys are based in Barcelona and I checked their accreditation (Yes, they are BAFIN registered) and were offering me a deal that was pretty hard to decline. However, I'm not that gullible so I asked the chap to call me back the following day, after I'd done a little research.

When investing in shares, a major indicator to look out for is the price earnings ratio - a similarly important indicator is earnings per share, and the two are, in fact, intimately linked.

Before covering the subject of price earnings ratios, it is first necessary to cover earnings per share, how it is calculated and what it represents.

Earnings per share or EPS is defined as:

A company's earnings divided by the number of shares in issue.

(The earnings figure used in this calculation is the 'profit after tax')

Spread betting is a financial product that has opened up trading on a wide range of markets, and put this within easy reach of the public at large. Firstly though, to clear up a common misconception, this is NOT actually betting in the traditional sense. In a traditional betting scenario, you would say, back a horse to come first in the 2:30 at Cheltenham - you are looking for a specific result at a specific time ie: first at the finishing line on 29th of June at 2:42.

A question that I am still often asked by clients is "why are you recommending foreign shares for my portfolio?" Admittedly most of my clients are within the 65 to 75 year age range, and undoubtedly there is an element of cultural bias here, evidenced by the fact that my younger clients do not have a problem embracing international markets.

Nonetheless, the question is valid and I will try to address the main reasons here: