Lex: a user’s guide

Dear reader,

We hope this short guide will help you to read and enjoy the Lex column. This is available to all premium readers and is a key part of that subscription package.

Thanks,

The Lex Team

Why read Lex?

Lex is the flagship daily investment column of the Financial Times. We aim to help you make better investment decisions. Our coverage consists of concise analysis of the big financial news around the world — and of a few quirky stories that catch our attention.

Investment is a broad category for us, encompassing everything from stock picking and M&A to project finance.

Where did Lex come from?

The Lex brand started as the pseudonym of British journalist Hargreaves Parkinson, who wrote influential financial commentary under that name as early as 1932.

Then as now, some investment columnists failed to back up their opinions convincingly. Instead, they would cite hunches, shadowy tipsters or the supposed acumen of big shots.

Parkinson, a down-to-earth northerner, thought this was codswallop. He would obtain as much data as he could, weigh it up and then draw conclusions from it. This was radical at the time. It is what Lex still does today.

Why is it called Lex?

Good question. “Lex” means “the law” in Latin. It may be a shortening of “The Law of the Markets”. Or it may have been Parkinson’s jokey way of claiming superiority over rival column Autolycus, named after a Shakespearean thief. Either way, Lex is now synonymous with the product rather than anything else, Superman villains aside.

The offer

Our core product is 24 notes analysing significant financial stories or trends weekly. Some readers read these as an adjunct to news reports. Others treat Lex as a standalone product that selects and dissects important stories for them.

We publish two notes on broader topics online at the weekend — usually on financial aspects of market, lifestyle or technological trends. These encompass everything from olive oil shortages to artificial intelligence in the workplace.

Our Wednesday newsletter comes from a different Lex writer around the world every week, highlighting a key local issue. Our Friday newsletter summarises the week’s coverage in easily digestible form. The Lex Populi feature in FT Money aims to demystify investment analysis for UK private investors.

Finally, we publish a Lex in Depth deep dive every quarter on big topics such as stranded assets or the chip cycle. Several of these long-form articles have won journalism awards.

Lex readers

You are a varied bunch, ranging from New York M&A bankers to City of London lawyers and Asian wealth managers. Some readers are investment professionals and C-suite executives who are keeping a finger on the pulse of financial and corporate life. Others are DIY private investors or early career professionals seeking to deepen their financial knowledge. Our research reveals a skew towards relative workplace seniority, higher incomes and budgetary responsibility.

Opinions

We aim to deliver these. The conclusion “only time will tell” is banned. Each new head of Lex is issued with a sharp red pencil to score out every possible variant of that cop-out. Lex writers can buy and sell with their imaginary billions. They cannot hold.

We believe we have a good predictive record. But we are happy to admit we are sometimes wrong. That is better than sitting on the fence.

Brevity

We keep Lex notes short to save you time, not so we can go home early. Our aim is to compress our findings into short pieces that are easy to digest.

Jargon

Lex is a little more technical than some other parts of the FT. We use some terminology that may be unfamiliar to some readers. One example is the word “ebitda”, a popular measure of cashflow profits. Lex has a special dispensation within the FT to use this abbreviation. We would burn through too many column inches if we had to write “earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation” every time.

Sums

Lex also has unusual freedom within the FT to calculate its own numbers. Valuing companies — usually in the context of M&A deals and flotations — is a key activity for us. Our valuations allow us to reality check the business rationale for transactions. The latter are sometimes the result of corporate ego rather than rational strategy.

Anonymity

Collective authorship means we have a common voice backed by consistent positions on some important issues. This makes it harder for Writer A to reverse Lex out of the position taken by Writer B the week before — and which would typically have been signed off in debate with colleagues.

Critics stung by a Lex opinion they disagree with sometimes accuse us of hiding behind anonymity. However, team members are all listed on FT.com. You can probably also work out who writes what from our locations and specialisms.

Standpoint

Our main perspective is that of a medium-term long investor with a three- to five-year time horizon. We are inclined to steer readers away from bad investments rather than urge them to go short. The latter tends to be a time-sensitive strategy. At the longer end of a curve measured in decades, we ponder such propositions as carbon transition and sentient AI.

Contact and feedback

If you have any questions or suggestions about Lex, please email the team at lexfeedback@ft.com. Another way to join the discussion is to post comments under our articles online. This is a good place to debate financial issues (politely) with other readers.