Dear Financial Voice Reader,
So as the New Year approaches, let’s have a look back as everyone does this time of year. Who won, who lost? Who made money, and who messed up?
Well of all the UK listed shares, Petrel Resources won. It was up over 1500%. It helps it’s a high risk penny stock. Other winners – probably thanks to some keywords in their names included Leaf Clean Energy (751%) and Silence Therapeutics (+688%) and Shield Therapeutics (+480%).
Of those on my radar meeting my criteria from my algorithms for revenue growth, profits and income are Augean (+204%) and Rockrose Energy (+200%).
Don’t get me wrong – some companies were destroyed in 2019. Take Motif Bio and Cabot Energy. Down 98%! Even the giant Metro Bank was down nearly 90%. And if you think that makes it a buy, you know what happens if a stock falls 90% and halves again? It’s down 95%. So you may think ‘surely after a 90% drop it can’t fall lower?’ Well, if you think something that drops 90% can drop 95% then you must also believe that something that drops 90% can halve in price and you lose 50% of your money.
Of the biggest fallers, my algorithms tell me that XPS Pensions Group may have been unfairly smacked down and is undervalued with some good growth and therefore recovery possibilities. Then again it was only down 20% in the year.
Of the biggest UK stocks, the world beaters were Future (up 200%), Pets at Home and JD Sports (+130%). Of course these elephant size stocks don’t dance as much as penny shares. Of the 350 largest UK companies, 7 doubled in value in 2019. And 43 were up 50% or more. Indeed 280 out of 350 gave you a better return than your bank account.
And those to be battered in 2019 from the UK’s 350 largest companies? Tullow Oil (-65%) Aston Martin (-56%) and NMC Health (-51%). Whether or not this was down to Brexit, according to our algorithms valuing companies and their revenue growth and income generation we see Plus 500 (-38%) and Cineworld (-13%) as overdone falls. Arguably also Centrica (-34%).
What if we do the same analysis for the US stock market. Let’s take the US 500 list. The outright winner – Advanced Micro (+134%) and Lam Research (+115%) and KLA (+95%). The stinkers were ABIOMED (-47%) and Macy’s and TripAdvisor (-45% each).
Who are well attractive still – AES (40% (disclosure – we are shareholders)), Albemarle, AT&T, Qualcomm, Oneok. Of the fallers, the better valued according to our algorithms are: Halliburton (which list only 10% anyway in 2019) and Albemarle (also down 10%).
Alpesh Patel
The author is founder of www.trading-champions.com, www.sharescope.co.uk/alpesh andwww.pipspredator.com
