The signs that a company is heading for disaster

When things look like they can't get any better for a company, they're probably about to get a lot worse. Matthew Lynn explains why that is your signal to sell.

There has always been a rough checklist for signs of impending corporate disaster: abig new headquarters by a prestigious architect;a place in the House of Lords for the chairman;a costly re-branding campaign or expensive acquisitions in industries the firm knows nothing about.

On any of those signs, savvy insiders have always dumped their shares. Now we can add another signal to the list: allegations of world domination. Once a firm gets to the size where everyone is accusing it of being too big, the game is probably up. It's time to get out of the shares.

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Matthew Lynn

Matthew Lynn is a columnist for Bloomberg, and writes weekly commentary syndicated in papers such as the Daily Telegraph, Die Welt, the Sydney Morning Herald, the South China Morning Post and the Miami Herald. He is also an associate editor of Spectator Business, and a regular contributor to The Spectator. Before that, he worked for the business section of the Sunday Times for ten years. 

He has written books on finance and financial topics, including Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis and The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031. Matthew is also the author of the Death Force series of military thrillers and the founder of Lume Books, an independent publisher.