What else is there to do at the end of the year other than round up the most popular articles of the last 12 months?  So that’s exactly what I’ll do here with a stroll through the topics that really got some attention.

1. When is a good time to invest in the stock market? – The eternal question.  The answer is when it’s cheap… but the trick is to know when it’s cheap.

2. The shocking truth about growth investors – Okay, perhaps the truth really isn’t that shocking, but for some value investors it is.  But it shouldn’t be.  Warren Buffett has been a growth investor for 30 years at least.

3. How to find the best high yield shares – With a sideways market which doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, dividend income, rather than capital gains, is what more and more investors are after.  This how-to article provides some insights.

4. Is it time to sell Tesco? – This was one of the great debates of 2012 for UK value investors.  When Tesco tanked by 15% in a few days, was Buffett right when he bought more, or was Woodford right when he sold the lot?

5. Are Marks and Spencer shares good value? – The other high street favourite and long-term under-performer (both in business and investment terms).  Although market movements are random, you’ll certainly swing the odds in your favour by picking shares that are good value.

6. Twelve for 2012 – A selection of 12 stocks for 2012 from last year, as part of a mini-competition started by an online friend.  How did they do?  A virtual cash portfolio of £12,000, ignoring trading costs and including dividends, is valued at £14,385 today.  That’s a gain of 19.9%.  Dividends in the year totalled £698, which is a yield of 5.8% on the starting capital.  I think that’s a pretty decent result and quite similar to what happened with the UK Value Investor model portfolio, because many of the holdings were the same.

7. HSBC, A bank worth investing in? – Everybody loves to hate banks, but four years after the crisis began, many investors are looking for banking bargains.  With HSBC emerging relatively unscathed, is this the place to look?

8. Three ways to profit from…

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