Share Sounds.

Graham Spooner of The Share Centre looks at recent announcements from BP, Glaxo and Compass, all of which to a greater or lesser extent bucked the softness of the market in 2018. With Tui coming out with a profits warning, Graham also looks at what we might expect from them, as well as Astrazeneca and Royal Bank of Scotland.

James Cameron-Wilson casts his eye over the UK box office which has its first decent hit of 2019 with new #1 How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. Green Book, a big awards contender, is in at #2 with the derivative Escape Room clocking in at #4. James is mystified, though, as to why Can You Ever Forgive Me?, starring Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant, another hot pick for awards glory, should only have turned up at #8 in the charts. James also takes a look at the home release of A Star Is Born, one of his favourite films of 2018, with the DVD packed full of worthwhile extras.

Investing has proven to be the best way to beat inflation and grow your wealth over the long-term, but how do you get started? And if you do already invest but feel you’ve lost track of your goals or ended up with a jumble of investments, how can you improve things? In this second edition of a two-part podcast special on saving and investing, Simon Lambert and Georgie Frost dive into how to be a smarter investor. They bust the jargon and look at why people should invest, how to get started, what investments you can choose and how to find the right ones for you. Simon discusses his experience of investing, what he got right along the way and importantly the things he got wrong. But why should you invest? Well, between 1900 and 2017 owning UK shares would have delivered an average return of 5.5 per cent, beating cash savings at 1 per cent and property at 1.8 per cent, according to the respected Credit Suisse Investment Yearbook. There’s no guarantee that history will be repeated, but companies should always have the ability to put money to productive use and reward investors with rising share prices off the back of their profits, dividend payouts, or interest on bonds.

Want to keep up with the latest earnings updates from the States? Well join Chris Hill and the Motley Fool Radio Show team here on Share Radio, direct from Washington DC, for news, views and analysis of the US stocks that matter. In this week's show: Amazon fails to impress Wall Street; Microsoft reports some cloudy returns; And Facebook connects. Analysts Andy Cross, Ron Gross, and Jason Moser discuss these stories and dig into the latest from Apple, eBay, MasterCard, PayPal, Tesla, and Visa. Plus, Wall Street Journal editor Nat Ives talks about the business of Super Bowl marketing.

Latin America’s once-richest country, sitting atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves, is an economic basket case, a humanitarian disaster, with a dictatorship whose demise many believe cannot come soon enough. But, is it socialism that’s to blame for the widespread starvation, critical medical shortages, an explosion in crime, and a refugee crisis to rival Syria’s? You’re much more likely to read that this crisis is the product of corruption, cronyism, populism, authoritarianism, resource-dependency, U.S. sanctions and trickery OR even the residues of capitalism itself. Darren Grimes, Digital Manager at the IEA, was joined by the IEA’s Head of Political Economy Krisitian Niemietz and the Daily Telegraph’s Assistant Comment Editor, Madeline Grant to discuss was Venezuela REAL socialism?

Opinion surveys consistently suggest that the British public is overwhelmingly hostile to immigration - a hostility which shapes our immigration policies in many ways - often negatively. However, if we dig a little deeper into the polling data, it becomes clear that most people in Britain are not pro or anti immigration per se. Despite overall hostility to immigration, there are types of immigration that are widely accepted, or even popular with the general public. Today we're joined by the IEA's Head of Political Economy Dr Kristian Niemietz, the author of our latest report into migration. Kristian proposes a new post-Brexit immigration policy that would capitalise on the nuances in public opinion to push for the most liberal migration policy possible.

Adam talks to Dario Cucci, an International Speaker and founder of the Ultimate Entrepreneur event which takes place in London on the 9th and 10th. They discuss the pressures and challenges facing modern entrepreneurs and whether its more challenging compared to previous generations. Dario explains that there are more skills for a business owner, particularly at the start up stage to learn covering areas such as accounts, marketing, PR, sales and health. Dario highlights that information isn’t enough and sometimes the quickest way to learn is to meet the people that have produced the results or have the skills required. Free tickets to the event are available here.

ETFs are a cheap and simple way to invest in markets. Trouble is, there are more than two thousand listed on the London market alone. So how do you pick the right ones for you and your circumstances? Ed Bowsher gets tips on how to do it from two experts in ETF selection: Oliver Smith from IG Smart Portfolios and Hoshang Daronga from Copia Capital.

Ian Forrest, Investment Research Analyst at The Share Centre, looks at the latest Fed announcement, which was more doveish on future interest rate movements than expected. He assesses numbers from Shell, Royal Mail, Diageo and Shell and looks ahead to results from Ocado, currently in talks with Marks & Spencer.

Professor Tim Evans of Middlesex University considers why so many in the developed world are advocating hard-left economic policies, wondering if there is a growing disconnect between the young and those ruling us. He also looks at attacks on advertising, explaining how vital advertising is in a free society and that it is essentially commercial free speech. Lastly, he ponders the worsening economic and political situation in Venezuela, asking if President Trump has got it right in supporting opposition leader Juan Guaido.