If you'd invested in: Dialight and Pearson

published 21 July 2017

If only...

Dialight (LSE: DIA) makes industrial LED lighting, specialising in the hazardous and heavy industrial markets. Poor performance saw the company demoted from the FTSE 250 in December 2013. It suffered a series of profit warnings, and the share price fell steadily till it bottomed out in early 2016. A new CEO and restructuring of the business have seen the shares rise strongly since then, climbing by more than 100% in the last year.

Be glad you didn't

Industrial lighting-maker Dialight has had a bright year, while educational publisher Pearson is down in the dumps.

Pearson (LSE: PSON) is an educational-resource company, publishing course materials and carrying out exam assessments. Around 60% of its sales come from the US. It has been selling assets, including the FT newspaper and a chunk of publisher Penguin Random House, to invest in education. Investors remain unconvinced by its strategy and the shares have fallen by more than 30% in the last year.

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Ben studied modern languages at London University's Queen Mary College. After dabbling unhappily in local government finance for a while, he went to work for The Scotsman newspaper in Edinburgh. The launch of the paper's website, scotsman.com, in the early years of the dotcom craze, saw Ben move online to manage the Business and Motors channels before becoming deputy editor with responsibility for all aspects of online production for The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday and the Edinburgh Evening News websites, along with the papers' Edinburgh Festivals website.

Ben joined MoneyWeek as website editor in 2008, just as the Great Financial Crisis was brewing. He has written extensively for the website and magazine, with a particular emphasis on alternative finance and fintech, including blockchain and bitcoin.

As an early adopter of bitcoin, Ben bought when the price was under $200, but went on to spend it all on foolish fripperies.