UK 18:40 Saturday, 3 October 2026
Breaking news and expert analysis on fast-moving AIM and LSE listed shares
It might be August, but Thursday is always a busy day for anyone following stock market updates. Today I could write (again) about TUI (TUI) or Entain (ENT) but frankly I said enough on the former back in May, and today’s update may be talking about rising numbers of holidaymakers (but it is still making a loss and has a bunch of corporate debt). Meanwhile the latter has been a really good holding for me over the last 20 months, albeit after a dodgy start. As I previously noted, I still conclude that taking profits over recent months has been very sensible, but it is fine to run a few still (as I do) if you wish. Today though I am going to write more about Aviva (AV.).
It has been a great last year for my investment in Aviva (AV.), shares in which have risen from just over 250p to above 400p in the last month or so. Certainly my view back in February was that the sale of its business in France, Poland, Italy and part of Asia struck me as a very sensible move. The completion of these deals is still set for later in the year – along with the anticipated return of capital. Elsewhere, ‘our positive trading performance in the first quarter of 2021 reinforces our confidence in the targets we announced earlier in the year...we still have much more to do, to deliver stronger returns for our shareholders’, which sounds like good movement.
I declared my new FTSE 100 corporate crush a month or so ago here and Amanda Blanc, the newish CEO of insurance giant Aviva (AV.), is starting to deliver. Yesterday's announcement was that the company has sold its majority shareholding in its Singapore business to a strong sounding consortium for a cool £1.6 billion, which is not too shabby for a middling at best geographic division for a company with a market cap of £11.6 billion. Go that simplification plan!
Hello Share Snafflers. In times of crisis, I like to favour insurance companies. They usually have big reserves and the wave of uncertainty that accompanies disasters means more people buy policies, for which they’re prepared to pay higher prices...
Forget reading the multi-part regulatory news disclosures from insurance behemoth Aviva (AV.) today, just click on the webcast re-run and listen to the first fifteen or twenty minutes presentation by the company's new CEO Amanda Blanc. It has been a long time since I was so impressed by the initial clarity of expression in a large cap corporate turnaround plan...
Hello, Share Shakers. Though I’ve written recently on how insurance companies may weather the virus crisis, I’ve not before specifically noted shares in Aviva (AV.). I hold some big insurance shares, but not in this jumbo even though I consider it to be one of the best...
If you want to periodically (or even frequently) look like a fool...then I would heartily suggest you engage with the financial markets. As I have discussed on these pages before, a really good batting record is getting seven out of ten calls correct...with the other three losers being curtailed before they get anywhere near joining the fifty percent or worse down club. Anyone who claims a record better than this should either be on the front page of Businessweek or is the next Bernie Madoff.
Back in August I observed that buying Aviva (AV.) shares was 'so much better than buying FTSE-100 units'. If you run some analysis over the last three months or so, then this has certainly been achieved, with the FTSE-100 up a couple of percent but Aviva shares up a little more than 10%.
