Brokers have picked a diverse mix of stocks for 2018, in many cases opting for those that have underperformed in the last year or so.
It's always worth remembering that winning the Brokers' Picks competition requires different strategies to everyday investing. A single year is an arbitrary time frame – often not long enough for value investors but too long for traders.
It is interesting to see the way participants opt for different ends of that spectrum in an attempt to capture a market beating annual result.
Hamilton Hindin Greene has leaned most heavily towards value investing picking well established stocks that have been out of favour and could present a bargain.
The two most obvious examples in their selection are Fletcher Building and Comvita – both strong companies that were punished by investors in 2017.
"Fletcher Building aired plenty of dirty laundry in 2017," says Hamilton Hindin Greene's James Smalley
"Whilst the risk remains of more coming to light, we believe the risk of major surprises has been limited by the announcements to date, and the recent KPMG Audit."
When you strip out the downgrades associated with the Building & Interiors business unit, Fletcher Building actually had a reasonable year, Smalley and his team noted. "We expect continued strong performance from most divisions, and a return to more normal performance from the Building & Interiors business unit."
Comvita had a tough year, its share price falling 37 per cent at one point before almost recovering back almost to break even by December.
"The decline was the result of investors' concerns of a lower than usual honey harvest, the discovery of myrtle rust in the North Island, and a drop-off in grey channel sales," says Smalley.
"We see these headwinds as temporary, and see significant upside potential on the back of better climatic conditions, continuing natural health product market demand from China, and favourable societal trends."
Well you know after 10 years of writing this blog one thing is common. You just don't know with any certainty what is going to happen the next year, month, week and day and hour if you ask me. But let me be specific - for once. 2017 has been a good year for Share Investors Portfolio. It has added around $175,000.00 excluding Divs and for the first time has been valued at way over $1 million dollars - when you include all the dividends returned thus far. My attempt at trading shares have been spectacular in various shapes and sizes. My biggest regret also happens to be my biggest success. Fisher and Paykel Healthcare. It rallied something like 60% this year and my regret is sadly not buying double what I actually bought at the beginning of 2012. I havent lost one dollar, as opposed to other years in the past. The market is at 8398 for the year and I have no dought it will test the 10000 mark next year as the tax cuts in America start to flow through in the 2019 calendar year. It is looking spectacular on our market and especially European markets as they shake the last vestiges of the end of the GFC.
It stands to reason that if inflation and interest rates stay low your going to find markets continuing to take a vast amount of the populations moola. But you could start to see that change should there be a sharp upwards trend in either oil or interest rates. Then there is debt - all sorts of debt but especially in this country where we recently passed the one Trillion dollar mark in residential housing values - a great percentage of that one Trillion is debt - and you have to eventually pay it back. And that just little old NZ, a country with a whisker away from 5 million people! There are manifold problems brewing in the private sector debt all over the world - watch out. And...happy trading and holding of course. www.shareinvestorforum.com
Just managed to sell 3000 Tourism Holdings Ltd [THL.NZX] for $5.34 from $5.03 bought on 30 Oct. Yes it was 3000/not 1000 as I miss-directed you in Oct - Sorry. Made $810.00 or 4%. Could have made more cause I think it will drift up but not a bad return for 6 weeks - cause the alternative is just about Zero. Not sure I'm cut out for this short term thing. Ho hum.
Listing in a reverse listing today is TIL Logistics Group Ltd [TLL.NZX]. It will list at $1.50. I will be after some and will put a crazy bid in of $1.51. I say crazy because you would expect this particular one to be highly sought after. Highly sought after because of its history and conservative nature. And because it has thoughts that it could be bought out! I read this in their prospectus - if that's what you call the thing that has all the details about the sale - remember this is a reverse listing. My first reverse listing in 20 years! www.shareinvestorforum.com