Takeover talk, stock screening, and the usefulness of aphorisms

Episode notes In this week's episode Allan reviews a book on stock screening, an article on a well-known stock market aphorism, and a podcast interview with the UK manager of Pret A Manger. Allan's update This week Allan has been trimming some fat in his portfolio while pondering what to do about his H&T shares. Resource of the week Despite all the concerning headlines regarding the hollowing out of the London stock market there are still around 1500 companies for investors to choose from. If you start looking overseas you will add thousands more to your list. Since you can't hope to watch them all, you need a way of whittling down the number to something much more manageable. That's where stock screens come in. This week's book recommendation offers a great introduction to how they work, and what you can achieve if you learn to use them properly. Four Ways to Beat the Market, by Algie Hall Article of the week This week's article is an interesting little piece from MoneyWeek. There are plenty of aphorisms that do the rounds in the investing world. "Sell in May and go away" is one of those that is commonly touted. But is it really true? The costly myth of "sell in May" Podcast of the week This week's podcast recommendation comes from City AM's Boardroom Uncovered podcast, and is a conversation between Jon Robinson and the UK Managing Director of Pret A Manger, Clare Clough. It's a nice reminder of the issues facing businesses on UK high streets, and in the food industry in general. And this interview is potentially quite timely, given the rumours that Pret's owners are considering floating the business on the public market. It's well worth a listen. You can find it on Apple Podcasts here Or watch it on Youtube here Support If you want to support the podcast you can: Visit the website over at smallinvestortoolbox.com Follow me on Mastodon or Bluesky Leave a review on Apple Podcasts or your platform of choice Buy me a coffee Music and sound effects Bossa Antigua Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Sound effects from https://quicksounds.com This podcast is powered by Pinecast.