Shares Magazine was totally revamped this week.

Out has gone the tabloidy style, and aticles on small caps, in has come long articles by market 'experts' and large cap reporting.

The Prospector has been axed.

I am disppointed with the changes, and wondered if anyone else here subscribed or bought Shares, and had a view they wold like to share?

Queen1,

LOL!

Not surprised by such a letter, but, IF it's genuine, you have to wonder if the person bought the mag before, and if so, why?

The content has completely changed, so if you like it now, why did you buy it before?

My guess is they will not revert back and are trying to tough it out hoping readers will stay loyal.

I think their circulation will fall due to them not listening to their loyal customers, but instead relying on "market reserch"

Yes, I noticed that too queen. Very selective of the many emails they must have received.

A terrible, if not cynical attempt at manipulation.

ok, found a copy of the year beginning tips. Here's a table (rough and ready back of fag pack calculations) They had stops of 20% so I've put if they would have been stopped out at any point. Out of 20 tips 4 fell by more than half and 18 fell below the stops. Pretty poor especially given how much the market has come back. Not clever enough to work out the total % loss. Two shares had some kind of consolidation so wrote con for those. Couldn't be bothered to trace them!

company tipped at Price now +/- stopped?
Barclays 523 449 -15% -20%
Cattles 293.5 244.5 -17% -20%
ITE 159.5 148 -7% --
Lloyds 471.75 429 -9% -20%
Morgan S 1121 1044 -6% -20%
Nat Grid 820.5 700 -13% --
Next 16.74 1298 -22% -20%
S Cross 537.5 367 -32% -20%
Unilever 1746 1768 +1%
Xtrata 3604 4204 +17%
2 ergo 177 205 +15%
Ashley H 129.5 157 +20%
CVS 241.5 258.5 +7%
Deb free 202 97 97 -52% -20%
FDM 125 98.5 -21% -20%
Fundel 596.5 285 -52% -20%
Haike 117.5 97 -18% -20%
Machtech 396.5 292 -26% -20%
Plant Impact 52 50.5 -3%
Protherics 53.5 47 -11%
Begbies 102.25 117 +15%
Bluwater 13 5 -60% -20%
Coolabi 34.5 19.5 -42% -20%
Egdon 223 16 ? ? (con)
Lidco 8.5 11.75 +35% -20%
Payzone 70.25 47.75 -32% -20%
Petrolina 12.25 ? (con) -20%
Petroneft 29 32 +10%
Scisys 37 41 +11% -20%
Wagon 32 16 -50% -20%

have just noticed free demo is a cherished old format from nov 07 !ive got my refund and the first moneyweek has arrived ,think it may be ok .

I think this weeks edition was better than the few previous. I think the content has slightly more depth to it than the previous magazines. The layout is improving and the contrast between the founts and paper slightly better.

I will wait and see for a few more weeks.

To be fair this weeks edition was a slight improvement. The sector report on house builders was very good, and feature on pharmaceutical was interesting, as was some article in Directors deals for a change. I also like the table of Broker views, but not the analysts in action.

The problem is overall the magazine has a dull feel to it, which seems intended to appeal to a different section.

What they need to do is give more space to the chartest, at least back to two pages, and re-introduce the Trading plays section, I feel this has been a big loss, and should have been expanded along with the chartest.

As for the letter of praise "what a joke" they must have searched for that one.

I'm still subscibing until the end of my contract in August, but wouldn't renew because the way they have gone about this change tells me how much they think of the current readers "not alot" I will subscribe to IC........

ps..... has anyone noticed how the brokers updates on the trading thread have been stopped, I wonder if this has something to do with the analysts recommendations they are so keen to use in the mag now.

never mind I will look elsewhere on the internet.

OK -I do see some improvements, or rather returns of sections in this weeks mag...

Back in is a section called Explorer thats details O&G and Mineral plays...
Back is Calender...


Seems slightly more on smaller caps (4 pages of news) and this weeks feature is Mobile Comms so nearly all firms (WIN, 2ERGO etc) are small caps.


Still has the stupid Analyst section taking about 8 pages though...
Will hang on for now..

I must say that i am far from being impressed,
If somebody can point out the improvements I'd like to hear about them.
Out of a possible 10,I would give it a 3

Stegegro,

I haven't seen this week's edition, but judging by what you say, they are gradually putting back some of the old popular features, and now the Prospector page seems to have returned, albeit under a new name, to save face no doubt!

This has now become shambolic (IMO), It's become Shares mag's equivalent of the 10p tax rate fiasco, IMO.

What a shame that they lost subscribers such as myself by taking out the mining / oil and smallcap features, and now they seem to be slowly putting them back in after weeks of protest!

I wonder how much they paid the "market researchers"?

I have now received an email inviting me to review the next four editions of the magazine free online!

Hmmm.

If you want to win back long term subscribers that cancelled when you stripped out all the small cap and mining / resource content they originally bought the magazine for!, maybe a good idea is to mail one out and let's see if it has improved since the initial revamp?

I would suggest paying subscribers,and ex subscribers, are the best market research you will ever get!

Andy,

I agree, but having flicked through this weeks edition in the newsagent , its still rubbish. They are still not listening. They will soon enough though because as we all know, money talks and when the sales figures dwindle away, maybe theyll realise but itll be way too late then.

My opinion, I rate Shares Magazine a SELL :)

evilratboy,

Pity, but I'm not surprised, as we are not good at admitting mistakes in the UK.

I bet circulation has fallen, and it's hard to see where they will gain any as their new target market is already well served.

I cannot understand why they made all the changes.,in more ways than one I,ll give it 2 more weeks,then cancel my D.D.

chessplayer,

My guess is circulation was falling, and as their niche was the AIM small cap market, they decided to make a quantum leap into the market served by the Economist and the Investors Chronicle, and the magazine now resembles a cross between the two IMO.

The problem is that the AIM smallcap investor finds those magazines dry (IMO) and therefore, don't buy them.

That leavses the market without a magazine that caters for the AIM smallcap sector, and an opportnity for someone.

I now receive moneyweek, and whilst it's no replacement for the original Shares, it is a good light read IMO, and only costs around half the price.

In addition there is the free proactiveinvestors magagine, which focuses soley on the small cap sector, mostly mining and oil, but does cover others too, but is only published every 4 - 6 weeks.

I now subscribe to moneyweek and have already prospered through SRB & SUN, my shares subscription runs out in september and I'll wait until then before I decide. I feel there has been a slight improvement in certain areas, but they do themselves no favours, the 2 most recent editions carried the same dates for ex-dividend stocks (28th may) and for dividend payment stocks (23rd may). So, was it a duplication of the stocks or, as in this case the dates were incorrect, but I had to check both editions to find out.
2517

2517,

I am going to check out this week's edition for the improvements you mention.

There have been some cosmetic improvements but my biggest issue with the magazine is this:

I wouldn't trust an analyst's recommendation as far as I could throw it. Every single one has some level of ulterior motive, however small. But the recommendations from Shares used to, I feel, be made in an unbiased way. But now, apart from the Plays of the Week, all of the articles are based on the views of analysts. Not just in the analysts section but in all areas of the magazine. The shares team no longer feel able or willing to provide a point of view, instead they dish up an amalgamation of analysts comments. There are no buy, hold or sell recommendations and the magazine is all the poorer for it.

Share magazine used to be something that I read cover to cover, now it just sits on the side unread. I have cancelled my subscription but I still receive a copy each week until next month. Having had last Thursday copy sitting unread by the computer I thought I would take look today to see if there was anything interesting in this issue.

Unfortunately the front page wasn't to encouraging, with a cover story on Analyst tips, and who had the best tips, very dull indeed and I flicked past with indecent haste. Maybe the analyst like to read about themselves, I can't imagine normal investors being that interested.

Then I noticed yet again shares giving themselves another pat on the back with there buy rating of HBOS last month, yes I think we have got the message now.

All in all a very dull read indeed, and I skipped through the issue in 30 minutes. I only managed to find one company worth looking into, Accsys Technologies AXS. It's a real shame because I really looked forward to the mag before the changes, I really can't imagine there are enough analyst buying this magazine to read article on themselves, and to see there faces in print to improve circulation figures. A small target readership indeed.

As I have cancelled subscription, this will be my last post on this blog, but good luck to others if this type of format floats your boat.

Maybe Queen1 set them thinking - we'll show you how OUR analysts are getting it right.
However, I note that when there is a BUY in any mag, you cannot buy at that price, for that was at least three days ago and if I take a subscription I have to wait until 12:30 - so i buy from the shop.

On the new format:
I guess it's marginally better now they've got rid of the grey text and reversed sections. What is wrong with plain black on white?, or a tint of no more than 5%.
I'm not keen on pretty photos I'd rather see a minimum of 5-years sp as it's very easy to forget what went on before.....and with so many co's it's not good.

What would I like? Something about the Execs - but not pages, please, the Good and Bad, perhaps? Then the Products - far too often news is all positive, with little regard to the inevitable disapointments. e.g. competitors, outstanding debts, etc.

It doesn't help that the Analysists managed to find a profit in Tanfield - yet this stock was a long-term "winner" for readers - so how come the Analysists failed to find the snags in this business? That the Boss (Stanley?) was involved in starting a competing business should have alerted them.....and even now the focus is on the "electric vehicles" yet this only represented 20% of the turnover....oh dear.

But what's undeniably daft is the Issue Number/Date in tiny reversed print on the cover - does no-one want to read this - so why not leave it OFF! If they think the Mag is attractive (by writing Shares in large letters), I think the date/issue is important enough to be maybe 10% of the size......or larger!

I cancelled during may and am STILL waiting for a refund