In this weeks Money Talks Edmund Shing explains why troubles looms for Volkswagen after the emissions scandal, what is going on at Glencore and why Direct Line Insurance is his UK stock of the week.
What is going on at Glencore?
China is definitely in the middle of a slowdown, theres no doubt about that. But to say that China is going to collapse is I think going too far. But when you look at Glencore the mining group, which actually recently received a lot more money from the senior directors, hundreds of millions of dollars, what weve seen is actually quite worrying because the share price has simply collapsed, suggesting that its going to go bust.
We dont think its going to go bust because the leading shareholders are actually the CEO and the company directors. Having said that, as a retail investor you dont need to rush. You always want to play with the trend and the trend at the moment is not very obviously upwards.
Does any stock market look good at the moment?
I like the eurozone as a stock market. If you group France, Germany and all those together, there are ETFs [Exchange Traded Funds] you can buy in those countries. The European Central Bank is going to lend a lot more support in terms of liquidity to the financial markets over the next three months, so thats going to be a big boost.
And after what happened in August the Eurozone stock market looks a lot cheaper and offers good dividend income as well.
UK stock of the week?
Direct Line Insurance has done very well since I last recommended it but still offers an outstanding income yield of 6.4%. As a brand theyre doing very well in the insurance market and the Harvey Keitel ads are selling well and pushing the brand forwards quite nicely.
Edmund Shing is Global Head of Equity Derivative Strategy at BNP Paribas in London. He holds a PhD in Artificial Intelligence.
