How to buy, sell and short Diageo shares
Diageo shares are a popular choice for traders and investors across the globe. Find out how you can get exposure to this giant in the beverage industry with this step-by-step guide.
Buying Diageo shares
- Create or log in to your IG trading account
- Decide whether you want to trade CFDs
- Search for ‘Diageo’ in the search panel
- Choose your position size
- Confirm the trade and monitor your position
If you don’t want to take ownership of Diageo shares, you can speculate on the share price with derivates in order to:
- Get full exposure with a 20%-25% deposit on almost all of our tier one shares1
- Hedge your positions with CFDs
How to sell and short Diageo shares
You can sell physical Diageo shares with us, even if you bought them through another provider – by transferring them to us for free. Or, you can go short on the share price by speculating on downward price movements. The benefits of short-selling include the ability to profit from falling share prices, and the opportunity to hedge against any existing investments or long positions.
Buying Diageo shares
- Create or log in to your IG trading account
- Decide whether you want to trade CFDs
- Search for ‘Diageo’ in the search panel
- Choose your position size
- Confirm the trade and monitor your position
Diageo’s live market price
Diageo shares: the basics
Diageo shares are listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) under the ticker DGE, where it is a constituent of the FTSE 100. It also has secondary listings on the New York Stock Exchange (DEO) and Euronext (GUI).
Strong fundamentals make Diageo shares a popular choice for investors. The company’s shares have historically performed very well, with a 56.7% share price increase over the past five years, despite the wider market decline caused by the coronavirus pandemic.2 Diageo delivered a robust set of full-year 2020 results, and the company remains positive that alcoholic beverages will remain highly attractive in future.
Diageo pays a dividend twice a year – split approximately 40/60. In 2020, the dividend was 69.88p per share.3
What is Diageo’s business model?
Diageo’s business model can be broken into two segments:
- Premiumisation – where the aim is to reach more consumers, ‘increasing the penetration of spirits around the world’3
- Sustainability and responsibility – which focuses on reducing harmful alcohol use, protecting natural resources and increasing diversity in the workplace
Diageo has more than 200 brands, including Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker and Guinness. It sells these beverages in more than 180 countries around the world, with its biggest revenue producers being scotch and beer.
Diageo key personnel: who manages the company?
Diageo has several executives that manage the company in different regions across the globe. The key players are:
| Ivan Menezes | Chief executive |
| Kathryn Mikells | Chief financial officer |
| Ewan Andrew | President, global supply and procurement & chief sustainability officer |
| Debra Crew | President, Diageo North America |
| Cristina Diezhandino | Chief marketing officer |
| Sam Fischer | President, Diageo Greater China and Asia Pacific |
| Alberto Gavazzi | President, Diageo Latin America and Caribbean, global travel & sales opex |
| John Kennedy | President Europe, Turkey and India |
| Anand Kripalu | CEO, United Spirits Limited |
| Dan Mobley | Corporate relations director |
| Siobhán Moriarty | General counsel & company secretary |
| Mairéad Nayage | Chief HR officer |
| John O'Keeffe | President, Diageo Africa |
How to analyse the Diageo share price
Buying or selling Diageo shares must always be based on a solid foundation of both technical and fundamental analysis. It’s important to study Diageo’s financials and other factors that affect the business before using your capital to deal shares or trade derivatives. You should also analyse the health of the economy and its sectors, review news reports, study the competition, and gather all other relevant information before making a trading or investment decision.
- Technical analysis is concerned with chart patterns, technical indicators and historical price action
- Fundamental analysis is based on the fundamentals of a company, including its net revenue or profit and loss statements
Some popular technical indicators are:
- RSI, which assesses the momentum of assets to gauge whether they are in overbought or oversold territory
- Moving averages, which can help to determine the direction of the current trend
- Stochastic oscillator, which enables you to identify the end of one trend and the beginning of another
Some popular fundamental metrics are:
- Earnings per share (EPS): determine the value attached to each share and whether the business is profitable or not by calculating Diageo’s earnings per share (EPS). To calculate EPS, divide Diageo’s profit by the number of outstanding shares
- Price-to-equity (P/E) ratio: outline how much you need to spend on Diageo shares to make $1 in profit. To calculate P/E, divide Diageo’s current market value per share by its EPS
- Return on equity (ROE): measure how much income the company makes on assets compared to shareholder investments. To calculate ROE, divide Diageo’s net income by stakeholder equity
- Dividend yield: compare the company’s annual dividends to the share price. To calculate dividend yield, divide the dividend amount by the share price, and then multiply by 100
Learn everything you need to know about fundamental analysis
Buying and selling Diageo shares summed up
- There are two ways to buy Diageo shares – derivatives trading and share dealing
- Derivatives enable you to speculate on share price movements without taking ownership of shares
- Buying or selling Diageo shares must always be based on a solid foundation of technical and fundamental analysis
1 Deposits on leveraged trades are 20%-25% for 99.14% of tier one shares (correct as of 1 June 2020). For more information, view our share trading margin rates
2 As at 9 November 2020
3 Diageo, 2020
IGA, may distribute information/research produced by its respective foreign affiliates within the IG Group of companies pursuant to an arrangement under Regulation 32C of the Financial Advisers Regulations. Where the research is distributed in Singapore to a person who is not an Accredited Investor, Expert Investor or an Institutional Investor, IGA accepts legal responsibility for the contents of the report to such persons only to the extent required by law. Singapore recipients should contact IGA at 6390 5118 for matters arising from, or in connection with the information distributed.
The information/research herein is prepared by IG Asia Pte Ltd (IGA) and its foreign affiliated companies (collectively known as the IG Group) and is intended for general circulation only. It does not take into account the specific investment objectives, financial situation, or particular needs of any particular person. You should take into account your specific investment objectives, financial situation, and particular needs before making a commitment to trade, including seeking advice from an independent financial adviser regarding the suitability of the investment, under a separate engagement, as you deem fit.
Please see important Research Disclaimer.
Explore the markets with our free course
Discover and learn how the range of markets you can trade on with IG Academy's online course – ‘Introducing the financial markets’.
Put learning into action
Try out what you’ve learned in this shares strategy article risk-free in your demo account.
Ready to trade shares?
Put the lessons in this article to use in a live account – upgrading is quick and easy.
- Trade on over 10,000 popular global stocks
- Protect your capital with risk management tools
- React to breaking news with out-of-hours trading on 70 key US stocks
Inspired to trade?
Put your new knowledge into practice. Log in to your account now.
