We’re at the halfway point of 2026, which is a good time to take stock of stock markets. Over the last six months, the UK’s FTSE 100 index has risen by 6%, excluding cash dividends. Meanwhile, the US S&P 500 index has jumped 9.2%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has leapt by 12.1%.

But when I look at global stock markets today, I see bubbles inflating everywhere. For example, South Korea’s KOSPI index has soared an astonishing 176% in 12 months. Also, the US stock market is hitting valuation levels not seen since 1929, just before the infamous Wall Street Crash. Then again, UK shares still look cheap to me, including this one…

A great British business?

One old City of London expression reads, “Fund managers talk up their own books”. In other words, investors tend to sing the praises of shares they already own.

For example, my family portfolio owns the stock of Bunzl (LSE: BNZL), whose shares have endured a rough ride since hitting all-time highs almost two years ago. On 18 September 2024, this FTSE 100 share peaked at 3,732p, but then began tumbling.

At its 52-week low, Bunzl stock bottomed out at 1,981p on 21 January, down a whopping 46.9% from its record high. Back then, I’d loved to have bought into this British supplier of disposable goods to other businesses.

Bunzl describes itself as a leading distribution and outsourcing company for food-service providers and food retailers. Its products include safety and hygiene equipment, chemicals, packaging, disposable tableware, personal protective equipment, and cleaning machinery.

For decades, Bunzl was a British success story, boosting its earnings through acquisitions and organic growth across North America, the UK and Ireland, Continental Europe, and the rest of the world (mostly Australasia).

Bunzl bounces back

My family owns this Footsie stock, paying 2,292p a share for our stake on 16 April 2025 — a day when the share price collapsed by 25.6%. I saw Bunzl as another ‘fallen angel’ — a solid, well-run company with temporarily depressed shares.

As I write, Bunzl shares stand at 2,638p, valuing this group at under £8.6bn. At this level, the stock trades on an undemanding 18.7 times historic earnings, generating an earnings yield of 5.3%. This means that the dividend yield of 2.8% a year is covered a healthy 1.9 times by trailing earnings.

Bunzl shares are up 27.1% in 2026 — just the kind of comeback I was hoping for. But while the stock is up 13.7% over one year, it has risen by a mere 8.6% over five years (dividends excluded).

I’m holding tight

My family’s Bunzl stake has a paper gain of 13.1%, excluding reinvested dividends. But I have no intention of selling these shares, because I see Bunzl as a prime candidate for powerful private-equity buyers.

With revenues and earnings stabilising and recovering, this ‘boring, undervalued’ company could become a takeover target. Indeed, activist investor Elliott Investment Management recently joined the shareholder register.

Of course, Bunzl might endure yet more quarters of weaker growth and lower margins, hitting its revenues, earnings, and cash flows. But this 172-year-old FTSE 100 firm has been around since 1854, so I think there’s plenty of life left in old Bunzl yet!

Here’s another exciting income stock on my radar…

What income stock do we like better than Bunzl Plc right now?

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Cliff D’Arcy has an economic interest in Bunzl shares.

The post Up 27.1% in 6 months: a FTSE 100 share paying out 2.8% a year! appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

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Here’s some bad news for millions of British savers and investors. Chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced a new tax on ‘tax-free’ Stocks and Shares ISAs. What is this tax and will you be affected? Read on to find out how to legally dodge it!

ISAs attacked again

The UK national debt stands at £2.9trn and we borrowed around £129bn in 2025/26, with debt interest amounting to £110bn of this sum. That’s why there’s nothing new in fiddling with the ISA rules. Successive governments have been moving the goalposts since ISAs — Individual Savings Accounts — replaced PEPs and TESSAs in April 1999 (an event I remember well).

Even so, the government will introduce a new tax on cash interest earned inside Stocks and Shares ISAs. The rate will be 22%, in a clear attempt to prevent savers hoarding cash inside share-based ISAs. This new tax will take effect from next tax year (2027/28).

Also, from April 2027, savers aged under 65 can put a maximum of £12,000 a year (currently £20,000) into Cash ISAs. These new rules are aimed at pushing cash savers into investing more into shares.

A low-risk tax dodge

Happily, my family portfolio will not pay this new tax, as we invest in money-market funds (MMFs) instead of cash. However, MMFs are not entirely risk-free — unlike cash deposits, which are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).

What are MMFs? They are funds — or shares in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) — that own rolling portfolios of short-term, high-quality debts and cash-like instruments. These include ultra-safe UK government bonds, plus certificates of deposit issued by strong banks, commercial paper issued by quality companies, and repurchase agreements (repos).

Typically, UK MMFs benchmark themselves against SONIA, the Sterling Overnight Index Average used as a baseline for many sterling debts. Right now, MMFs offer after-fees yields of 3.5% to 4% a year, versus the Bank of England base rate of 3.75% a year.

Top MMFs (and their ETF-based cousins) offer daily buying/selling, low charges, and risk ratings of one — on a scale of one (lowest risk) to seven (highest risk). MMFs maintain stable, steadily rising net asset values (NAVs) and have minimal investment risk. Typical yearly charges range from 0.05% to 0.2% — the lower, the better, usually.

My own favourite

Again, MMFs are not savings accounts and are not covered by the FSCS guarantee. Yet, my family keeps a hefty sum invested in one: the Vanguard Sterling Short-Term Money Market Fund (VASTMGA).

This is an accumulation fund, so it doesn’t pay out monthly interest. Instead, coupons are reinvested to lift the fund’s NAV. The fund’s £2.7bn current portfolio includes IOUs from 27 quality borrowers and charges 0.12% a year. In the year to end-May, it returned 3.89%. From March 2024 to end-May, it returned 10.26%.

Within UK pensions and Stocks and Shares ISAs, MMF distributions are tax-free. However, Rachel Reeves already plans a new rule to prevent investors from holding 100% of a Stocks and Shares ISA in MMFs. Yet more fiddling!

Finally, we at The Twelfth Magpie firmly believe that investing in the shares of great companies is one of the best routes to build wealth. While savings and MMFs are fine for short-term returns, I know no-one who got rich by sitting on cash. As one Russian proverb wisely states, “Those who take no risks drink no Champagne”!

Should you invest £5,000 in Rolls Royce right now?

When investing expert Mark Rogers and his team have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the flagship Twelfth Magpie Share Advisor newsletter he has run for nearly a decade has provided thousands of paying members with top stock recommendations from the UK and US markets.

And right now, Mark thinks there are 6 standout stocks that investors should consider buying. Want to see if Rolls Royce made the list?

Cliff D’Arcy has an economic interest in the Vanguard Sterling Short-Term Money Market Fund.

The post How to avoid the new 22% tax on your Stocks and Shares ISAs! appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

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Shareholders of British business Ocado Group (LSE: OCDO) must be one the toughest tribes around. Since its unbelievable, gravity-defying peak in autumn 2020, the Ocado share price has been among the FTSE 350 index’s worst performers. Is any hope left for long-suffering owners?

Go-go Ocado

Ocado was founded in early 2000 by three former investment bankers from Goldman Sachs, including current chief executive (CEO) Tim Steiner. The trio’s business plan was simple, but bold: to use cutting-edge technology to disrupt the world of grocery retailing.

After growing strongly, Ocado listed its stock on the London Stock Exchange in July 2010 at 180p a share. Over time, Ocado’s partners came to include leading retailers in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, Japan, France, Spain, and Sweden.

Ocado’s share price zigzagged along until late 2017, before setting off on a three-year surge. During the Covid-19 lockdowns of 2020/21, Ocado’s home deliveries soared, propelling its stock to new heights.

At their all-time high, Ocado shares peaked at 2,914p on 30 September 2020. This propelled the group into the upper ranks of the elite FTSE 100 index, with its market value exceeding £20bn.

Oh no, Ocado

Throughout 2020 to 2025, I persistently warned that Ocado stock looked wildly overpriced to me. It gives me no pleasure to be proved right, because shareholders have suffered huge losses over the last six years.

As I write, this stock trades at 174p, valuing the grocery-tech chain at under £1.5bn. The shares are down 15.1% over one month and 28.8% over six months. This pattern of declines continues over one year (losing 24.4%) and five years (collapsing by 91.2%). Yikes.

For me, Ocado’s biggest problem is that it remains consistently unprofitable. Despite having 14 retail partners, over 20,000 workers, and more than 3,000 patents backing its ‘pick and pack’ technology, the company has racked up colossal lifetime losses. If it can’t deliver persistent profits after 26 years, then what hope is left?

Is Ocado worthless?

Today, Ocado shares are worth 3.3% less than their launch price 16 years ago, plus they have never paid any cash dividends. This is exactly the kind of listed business I’m keen to avoid. That said, I don’t believe that this stock is worthless and will therefore go to zero.

As a business, Ocado has been a dismal failure for shareholders, but the firm has invested many billions in developing world-beating hardware and software. For me, this is the hidden value at the heart of the company — but who knows its monetary value?

If Ocado were to struggle to raise fresh capital (via new shares or bonds) for investment, then it could be game over for the group. However, I imagine that its proprietary assets might then be bought by some US rival or global player in tech or retail. That said, I’m nowhere near brave enough to back this hunch!

Finally, there may be change to come at the very top of Ocado. ‘Lifetime CEO’ Tim Steiner is rumoured to be stepping down, to be replaced as part of the firm’s long-term succession planning. Unfortunately, this news sent the shares down another 4% today. Is there no end to the suffering for Ocado shareholders?

Should you invest £5,000 in Ocado Group Plc right now?

When investing expert Mark Rogers and his team have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the flagship Twelfth Magpie Share Advisor newsletter he has run for nearly a decade has provided thousands of paying members with top stock recommendations from the UK and US markets.

And right now, Mark thinks there are 6 standout stocks that investors should consider buying. Want to see if Ocado Group Plc made the list?

Cliff D’Arcy has no position in Ocado Group shares.

The post Can anything save the Ocado share price? appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

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In my lifetime as an investor, there have been four major peaks for the Lloyds Banking Group (LSE: LLOY) share price.

Lively Lloyds

The first two peaks came during the stock-market bubble of the late 1990s, with the shares surging in spring 1998 and spring 1999. When the dotcom bubble burst, share prices tumbled and Lloyds stock duly followed suit.

After making a comeback up to spring 2002, Lloyds shares plunged again. Finally, after peaking in spring 2007, the stock collapsed spectacularly. (What is it about the Lloyds share price and spring crashes, I wonder?)

From 2007 to 2020, owning a stake in the Black Horse bank became reliably risky. The share price was wildly volatile during this period, making it harder for long-term investors to make consistent profits.

A new beginning?

During the Covid-19 crisis of 2020/21, Lloyds shares collapsed to a low of 23.59p in September 2020, with capitalism cracking under the coronavirus threat. How I wish I’d bought this stock during those troubled times. Instead, my family portfolio bought Lloyds stock in mid-2022, paying 43.5p a share.

After so many false dawns for shareholders, it seems like the shares have entered a new, less volatile era. As I write, they stand at 105.43p, valuing this British business at £61.4bn. Of course, the stock still moves up and down — for example, from a 52-week low of 72.85p on 2 July 2025 to a 52-week high of 114.6p on 4 February 2026.

Boring business?

As for my family’s stake, it has leapt in value by 142.4% in four years. This is an outstanding return from what I once considered a ‘boring, old-economy’ stock.

However, this isn’t the end of our story, because we have reinvested our cash dividends into buying yet more Lloyds stock. This has turbo-boosted our current (and future) returns.

That said, I expect modest yearly returns from Lloyds shares going forward. The rising share price has pushed down the dividend yield to 3.5% a year. Though pretty decent, this is not much higher than the 3.1% yearly cash yield from the FTSE 100 index.

Likewise, the shares are now valued at 13.7 times trailing earnings, delivering an earnings yield of 7.3% a year. Thus, the dividend payout is covered a healthy 2.1 times by historic earnings. This indicates that Lloyds may continue to lift its cash distributions for years to come.

In summary

Lloyds shares are up 38% over one year and 127.4% over five years, excluding dividends. Alas, I don’t expect such sparkling returns over the next half-decade.

For sure, there will be bumps in the road ahead for Lloyds, its shares, and their owners. As the UK’s largest mortgage lender, the group is heavily exposed to the housing market — which has weakened over the last 12 months. Also, the cost-of-living crisis continues, with bad debts and loan losses expected to creep up as real household incomes decline.

Then again, it will take a lot to prise this stock from my family portfolio. Though their best years may be behind them, I still see Lloyds shares as a reliable provider of powerful passive income!

Should you invest £5,000 in Lloyds Banking Group Plc right now?

When investing expert Mark Rogers and his team have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the flagship Twelfth Magpie Share Advisor newsletter he has run for nearly a decade has provided thousands of paying members with top stock recommendations from the UK and US markets.

And right now, Mark thinks there are 6 standout stocks that investors should consider buying. Want to see if Lloyds Banking Group Plc made the list?

Cliff D’Arcy has an economic interest in Lloyds Banking Group shares.

The post Could this be a new era for the Lloyds share price? appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

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A global stock market crash is coming, the only question being when. Alas, I cannot tell you exactly when share prices will plunge. But I’ve rarely been so worried in 40 years of investing. Here’s why.

Market meltdowns

Newbie investors since 2010 have never encountered a full-on market collapse. When global stock markets crash, the US S&P 500 index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite usually lead the way.

These are my five biggest market crashes, when the S&P 500 fell by 25% or more:

Since 2010, the US stock market has taken, at most, 15 months to recover from a previous crash, or 20 months after adjusting for inflation (rising consumer prices). Yet the recovery from the global financial crisis of 2007-09 took 56 months (148 months in real terms). That’s over 12 years, and that outcome left deep scars on me and other veterans.

Currently, I feel the same anxiety as when the dotcom bubble peaked in 1999-2000. However, that was over 25 years ago and, as American satirist Mark Twain once quipped, “The older I get, the more clearly I remember things that never happened”.

Even so, I feel apprehensive about returns from US stocks for the next few years. As my late nana once remarked, “Greed turns folks into fools” — and rarely have investors been so greedy and so fearless. SpaceX, anyone?

Crash-test dummy?

Bad news: US stocks have been more highly valued only once, just before the dotcom bubble burst in 2000. When I look at the charts of the S&P 500 from 1995 to 2000 and 2021 to now, they look uncannily similar.

Good news: 2003, 2009, and 2020 were three of my best years for investing. Imagine buying the US market in March 2009 to then see the S&P 500 soar from 666 points to 7,600 in 17 years. Happily, ‘crash buying’ has generated life-changing returns for investors.

Crash course

This week, my wife and I agreed to reduce our family portfolio’s exposure to expensive US stocks. We will switch into low-risk money-market funds and cheap FTSE 100 shares. Meanwhile, here’s one US value stock we won’t sell in the next downturn.

In mid-2022, we bought into Target Corp (NYSE: TGT) stock after a big share slump that May. After currency conversion, we paid £127.55 a share. As I write, the shares stand at $135.45 (£101.11). Hence, we are losing, but largely due to the pound strengthening against the US dollar.

At its 52-week low, Target stock traded at $83.44, but has since leapt 62.3% from this bottom. Yet, I don’t think the shares are not priced for perfection, unlike so many US large-cap stocks. They trade on 17.9 times trailing earnings, producing an earnings yield of 5.6%. Thus, their generous dividend yield of 3.4% a year is covered over 1.6 times by historic earnings.

Of course, a US recession would hammer Target’s sales, revenues, earnings, and cash flow — no doubt hitting its share price. But it would take a lot to prise these undervalued shares from our portfolio!

Should you invest £5,000 in Target right now?

When investing expert Mark Rogers and his team have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the flagship Twelfth Magpie Share Advisor newsletter he has run for nearly a decade has provided thousands of paying members with top stock recommendations from the UK and US markets.

And right now, Mark thinks there are 6 standout stocks that investors should consider buying. Want to see if Target made the list?

Cliff D’Arcy has an economic interest in Target Corp shares.

The post What stock market crash? Let’s party like it’s 1999! appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

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Since I started investing in 1986, my strategy has evolved massively over four decades. At first, investing felt thrilling, giving me a gambling-like buzz. Today, I’d define myself as a value/dividend investor keen on generating passive income.

But what changed? I got old…

Time to change

My investing approach didn’t change suddenly. Over many years, I realised that the best thing is to avoid making expensive mistakes. As my hero Warren Buffett advised, “Rule #1 is never lose money. Rule #2 is never forget rule #1”.

For the record, my three worst investments cost me close to £1m in losses. After my third howler, I decided to get rich slowly, rather than taking big risks chasing big returns. For me, value investing — buying undervalued shares in solid companies — felt like the right way forward.

American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “The years teach us much which the days never knew”. My wife has also been investing since late 1980s. A few years ago, I discovered that she had never lost a penny in all those years. Her strategy was simple: buy discounted shares in her employer (a FTSE 100 firm) and reinvest her dividends. That’s it.

At last, I grew to understand what works best for me and my family. Buy into good businesses at fair prices, collect and reinvest our share dividends — and avoid needless fiddling with our portfolio.

Turning cash into capital

Simply put, investing involves putting money away today with the aim of having more money in the future. One established way to do this is by using dividends to buy ‘free’ shares.

Dividends are regular or one-off cash distributions paid by some companies to their shareholder owners. The first snag is that not all listed companies pay dividends. A second hitch is that future dividends are not guaranteed, so they can be cut or cancelled at short notice. That said, many household-name UK companies have delightful dividend histories.

My wife and I work, so we don’t yet need income from dividends. Hence, we reinvest all dividends from our shareholdings into more shares. This increases our ownership base, boosting future returns.

Viva Aviva!

For example, my family portfolio includes shares in British insurer Aviva (LSE: AV). Aviva is the result of the merger of hundreds of insurance companies over hundreds of years.

Aviva provides life and general insurance, as well as pensions and savings. Thus, its success is tied to the health of stock markets, which have boomed since 2022. Today, Aviva employs over 36,000 people and services over 25m customers in the UK, Canada, and Ireland.

As I write, Aviva stock stands at 610.2p, valuing this group at £18.3bn. Though the shares are up 48% over the past five years, they have fallen 0.5% over the past year. (These returns both exclude Aviva’s generous dividends.)

At present, Aviva shares offer a market-beating dividend yield of 6.5% a year — more than double the FTSE 100’s cash yield. Also, given the shares hit 700.8p on 6 January, I see them as having significant potential — assuming markets stay healthy.

Then again, the US stock market looks volatile and could drag down asset values. If markets tumble, then Aviva’s earnings, profits, and cash flow would suffer. Even so, we will keep our stock for the long run!

Should you invest £5,000 in Aviva Plc right now?

When investing expert Mark Rogers and his team have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the flagship Twelfth Magpie Share Advisor newsletter he has run for nearly a decade has provided thousands of paying members with top stock recommendations from the UK and US markets.

And right now, Mark thinks there are 6 standout stocks that investors should consider buying. Want to see if Aviva Plc made the list?

Cliff D’Arcy has an economic interest in Aviva shares.

The post How to use passive income to build real wealth appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

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The US stock market is gearing up for the biggest flotation in history. This week, Elon Musk’s SpaceX is set for an initial public offering of shares. Though this is the biggest thing to hit markets in decades, I’m deeply worried. Here’s why.

Dreams and nightmares

Elon Musk is like British food spread/yeast extract Marmite: you love him or hate him. Personally, I admire anyone striving to push the limits of science for the greater good. However, I think he often goes too far, making unfulfilled promises while spinning tall tales for an eager global audience.

For example, Elon wants SpaceX to build moon bases — possible using current technology. However, he also wants to colonise Mars — a preposterous task at present, given the cosmic peril of a 140m-mile journey.

Also, this issue needs addressing: Musk claims that SpaceX will put AI data centres in orbit. Sure, solar power will be plentiful, but what about dispersing waste heat from chips? Problem: conduction and convection are tricky in a vacuum.

In short, while Elon likes to dream big, his dreams can become nightmares when faced with the ineluctable laws of physics.

Elon-gated valuation

Turning to SpaceX, the company, this is actually four separate businesses. First, there is SpaceX itself, a highly successful and ground-breaking rocket-maker. Second is satellite-based internet service Starlink. Third is social-media platform X (formerly Twitter). Fourth is xAI, developer of artificial-intelligence service Grok.

My big concern is that all four businesses are unprofitable or barely make any money. Overall, SpaceX is hugely loss-making, partly because it must invest huge sums into R&D (research and development).

Space X plans to float $86bn of its shares at a market valuation of $1.78trn. At this level, it would immediately be the seventh-largest US-listed company, leapfrogging Tesla (Musk’s other public business).

Then again, only 4.8% of SpaceX stock will be available for trading on day one. This shortage will likely generate the first-day pop (price surge) common among popular IPOs. However, more shares will flood the market as employee lock-ups expire over the following six to 12 months.

Even worse, SpaceX will be valued at 92 times its revenues, not its earnings. This valuation is so unhinged and incredible that I must steer well clear of this overhyped float.

Crash course

As a lesson, here’s what Scott McNealy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems said to Business Week magazine in 2002 after the dotcom bubble burst (edited for brevity):

At 10 times revenues, to give you a 10-year payback, I have to pay you 100% of revenues for 10 years in dividends. That assumes I have zero cost of goods sold. That assumes zero expense from 39,000 employees. That assumes I pay no taxes. That assumes you pay no dividend taxes. That assumes zero R&D spend. Now, would you buy my stock at 10 times revenues? Do you realize how ridiculous those assumptions are? What were you thinking?

Sun Microsystems stock peaked at $257 in September 2000. The business was sold for $9.50 a share in 2010. Ouch.

Of course, Musk could be right: SpaceX might become “the biggest, most profitable company ever” under his glorious leadership. After all, he did amazing things with Tesla (a business he bought into). Alas, I sincerely doubt it. Caveat emptor!

Should you invest £5,000 in Rolls Royce right now?

When investing expert Mark Rogers and his team have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the flagship Twelfth Magpie Share Advisor newsletter he has run for nearly a decade has provided thousands of paying members with top stock recommendations from the UK and US markets.

And right now, Mark thinks there are 6 standout stocks that investors should consider buying. Want to see if Rolls Royce made the list?

Cliff D’Arcy does not own shares in any of the companies mentioned.

The post Hoping to buy SpaceX stock? Then you must read this! appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

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• How much is £15k put in an ISA at the start of 2026 worth today?
• £10,000 invested in the S&P 500 at the start of January is now worth…
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As US stock prices keep relentlessly rising, I feel the next stock market crash getting closer. In May, the S&P 500 hit 11 fresh peaks. In 2026, the index has set 23 new record highs, breaching 7,600 points on 2 June.

As share prices soar, buying into listed companies becomes a risky business. And given the irrational exuberance among investors, I suspect that the coming market meltdown is inevitable. What might trigger the next collapse?

Price sensitive

Academics have long debated what bursts bubbles and causes financial crashes. Could it be sudden reversals of equity inflows into outflows? Excessive use of leverage and gearing? Economic downturns, changes in interest rates, or external shocks?

I’m not an academic and don’t own a crystal ball, so I’m unable to predict the future. Also, one of my heroes, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Niels Bohr, allegedly warned, “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future”.

Then again, after nearly 40 years of investing, I have directly experienced six major market meltdowns. For me, the underlying cause was always the same: share prices became excessively high, reaching crazy levels and detaching from reality. When financial gravity was finally restored, prices came crashing down to earth.

Three Titans

Right now, I suspect the event most likely to trigger the next stock market crash is the imminent arrival of three new US-listed companies.

Three huge private groups — Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Sam Altman’s OpenAI, and Dario Amodei’s Anthropic — are set to float a small proportion of their shares in the US this summer. Current valuation estimates for these ‘three Titans’ are colossal: around $1.8trn, $1trn, and $1trn, respectively.

One enormous problem is that this trio of AI Goliaths doesn’t make much profit, as their revenues are tiny compared to their prospective market values. In other words, a huge batch of shares in largely unprofitable businesses is about to be dumped on passive investors and active buyers.

When this last happened on a grand scale (in 1999, as the dotcom bubble peaked), it triggered one of the worst market downturns in history. From its peak in March 2000 to the trough three years later, the US stock market lost almost half its value. I do hope this doesn’t happen again.

A crash-resistant share?

When the crash finally arrives, I suspect that go-go growth stocks and financial shares might be hit hardest. In my search for crash-resistant UK shares, I came across one long-term market survivor: biopharma giant GSK (LSE: GSK).

GSK is built on four growth pillars: respiratory, immunology and inflammation; oncology; HIV; and infectious diseases. As I write, the shares stand at 1,894p, valuing this FTSE 100 stalwart at £76.8bn. This stock is up 26.8% over one year and 38.5% over five years, but is 17% below its 52-week high of 2,282p.

Trading on 13.3 times trailing earnings and offering a dividend yield of 3.5% a year, this stock looks undervalued to me. Indeed, I’d happily buy some, except my wife and I already own stakes in GSK (her employer for over 31 years).

Of course, when stock markets crash, few shares survive unscathed. Also, any recession-driven downturn in GSK’s revenues, earnings, and cash flow would be a blow for shareholders. But for now, we shall hang onto our stakes!

Should you invest £5,000 in GSK right now?

When investing expert Mark Rogers and his team have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the flagship Twelfth Magpie Share Advisor newsletter he has run for nearly a decade has provided thousands of paying members with top stock recommendations from the UK and US markets.

And right now, Mark thinks there are 6 standout stocks that investors should consider buying. Want to see if GSK made the list?

Cliff D’Arcy owns GSK shares.

The post I suspect this will trigger a stock market crash! appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

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• Down 14% to around £19! Is now just the right time for me to capitalise on GSK’s bargain-basement share price?
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In nearly 40 years of investing, I’ve made my fair share of mistakes. Indeed, my three worst investments racked up almost £1m of losses. Then again, life has taught me I can learn more from failure than success. So, what should I do with the worst-performing FTSE 100 share over the past five years?

The Footsie’s biggest flop

Over the last half-decade, the FTSE 100 has risen by 46.5% (excluding cash dividends). However, 36 Footsie stocks have fallen in value over this period.

Looking through this list of losers, I see that my family portfolio owns five of these ‘fallen angels’. Hence, I must be a terrible investor, right? Not exactly, because I bought these shares from 2021 to 2023, following substantial price falls.

That said, I note that my family owns the blue-chip index’s biggest loser of the past five years. This Footsie flop is Persimmon (LSE: PSN), one of the UK’s largest housebuilders. What went wrong for this company (and our shares)?

Persimmon’s plunge

For the record, Persimmon stock is down 19.9% over six months and 18.7% over one year. Over five years, it has crashed 66%, wiping out almost two-thirds of its peak market value. Ouch.

Again, the above figures all exclude dividends. These were once very generous from this British business, which was founded in 1972. For 2021, the yearly dividend was 225p, but this was slashed to 60p for 2022, where it has remained ever since.

At their all-time high, Persimmon shares briefly exceeded £33 in February 2020. But the Covid-19 crisis of 2020/21 placed a wide range of companies under stress, especially construction firms.

Worst still, after years of the base rate being close to zero, the Bank of England started raising it from December 2021. To cool down a rapidly expanding economy, the Bank hiked its base rate from 0.1% a year to 5.25% a year by August 2023.

Thus, what really did for Persimmon were rapid and steep increases in mortgage rates. This made buying a home much more expensive, shrinking the base of potential buyers and hammering the housing market.

Buy, sell, or hold?

As I write, Persimmon shares trade at 1,075.5p, valuing it at less than £3.5bn. This makes the firm one of the FTSE 100’s smallest constituents, putting it at risk of being demoted to the mid-cap FTSE 250 index.

At this level, the shares trade on 12.2 times trailing earnings, delivering an earnings yield of 8.2% a year. This covers the chunky dividend yield of 5.6% a year by almost 1.5 times.

After losing the majority of their value, Persimmon shares may now be in the market’s bargain bin. Certainly, they look far from expensive to me. Also, the group had £117m of cash at hand at the end of 2025 (down from £258.6m at end-2024).

With home sales, sale prices, and revenues on the up, I suspect that this group may have turned a corner. Thus, I have decide to hold onto our beaten-down shares and await developments. As one former boss once remarked to me, “Cliff, when you do nothing, often you do nothing wrong!”

Should you invest £5,000 in Persimmon Plc right now?

When investing expert Mark Rogers and his team have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the flagship Twelfth Magpie Share Advisor newsletter he has run for nearly a decade has provided thousands of paying members with top stock recommendations from the UK and US markets.

And right now, Mark thinks there are 6 standout stocks that investors should consider buying. Want to see if Persimmon Plc made the list?

Cliff D’Arcy has an economic interest in Persimmon shares.

The post This is the worst FTSE 100 share over 5 years. Should I sell it? appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

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Since its 2026 closing low on 30 March, the S&P 500 has soared to a series of fresh highs. As I write, the US index stands 19.4% above this year’s bottom. To me, this resembles the run-ups to the 2000-2003, 2007-2009 and spring 2025 stock market crashes. But what can investors learn from previous price plunges?

Risky business

I started investing in the 1980s, so I’ve lived through six major market meltdowns. In the first — Black Monday (19 October 1987) — the S&P 500 collapsed by 20.5% in one day. Yet the index ended that year up 2% (excluding cash dividends).

Lesson #1: over decades, and in hindsight, even brutal market falls can resemble tiny bumps in the road.

My next stock market crash was the ‘dotcom bubble’ bursting. During this financial panic, the hugely overvalued US Nasdaq Composite index was crushed, plummeting 78% from March 2000 to October 2002.

Lesson #2: when share prices become crazy, financial gravity eventually brings them back to earth with a bang.

My third market rout was the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2007-2009. Back then, things got so bad that it capitalism itself was wobbling and panic hit high streets as savers rushed to withdraw cash from ailing banks.

Lesson #3? Buy during times of maximum despair. Our family investments made in March 2009 are now worth 10+ times what we paid.

Remember the Covid-19 crisis of 2020/21? The US and UK stock markets both crashed 35% in a month before rebounding strongly.

Lesson #4: following Warren Buffett’s advice, my wife and I were greedy when others were fearful, putting 50% of our fortune into shares just as markets turned. Market timing may be for mugs, but this one decision paid off big-time.

Lesson #5: we always keep cash to buy more shares at fair or bargain prices. Lately, around a sixth of our portfolio is in low-risk, low-fee money-market funds as a cash reserve.

Baking bad?

I try to avoid the worst of market meltdowns by buying cheap shares. Sometimes, I buy into established companies after sudden price slides. For example, we bought Greggs (LSE: GRG) shares for 1,696.7p each after a one-day price plunge last July.

Greggs stock is down 14.8% over one year and 30% over five years. Currently, this FTSE 250 stock trades at 1,743p, valuing this leading ‘food to go’ chain at £1.8bn.

However, these returns exclude dividends, which are increasingly generous from this British business. The shares’ 4% dividend yield easily beats the FTSE 100’s cash yield of 3.1% a year.

Greggs sells a wide range of reasonably priced food and drinks through 2,600 UK outlets. Yet, the shares are far below their all-time high of 3,443p hit on 31 December 2021. Today, trading on just 14.6 times trailing earnings, I would argue this stock is already in the bargain bin and ripe for recovery.

Of course, sustained inflation and the rise of GLP-1 diet drugs could hit Greggs’ sales and profit margins, while it is often at the mercy of bad weather and tax rises. And while this share is by no means crash-proof, I suspect it will survive the next stock-market crash — whenever that may be!

Should you invest £5,000 in Greggs Plc right now?

When investing expert Mark Rogers and his team have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the flagship Twelfth Magpie Share Advisor newsletter he has run for nearly a decade has provided thousands of paying members with top stock recommendations from the UK and US markets.

And right now, Mark thinks there are 6 standout stocks that investors should consider buying. Want to see if Greggs Plc made the list?

Cliff D’Arcy has an economic interest in Greggs shares.

The post 5 lessons for investors from 6 stock market crashes appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

More reading

• Here’s what £5,000 put into Greggs shares a year ago is worth now
• A year later, they’re still down – is it time for me to dump my Greggs shares?
• How much would a £20k Stocks and Shares ISA started a year ago be worth today?
• Here’s why Greggs’ sub-£16 shares look cheap to me anywhere under £35.14
• Here’s how much passive income 1,000 Greggs shares could pay…