Friday Email: 05 December 2014

The FTSE 100 has had a flat week and a slow start to Decemeber when thoughts of the Santa rally once again start up. A similar pattern to last year with a slow start in December followed by a good end to the year can be expected again. My thoughts are starting to move to next year and I am quite worried for the UK stock market because I think that the UK general election may bring extreme uncertainty to the market. We will discuss this more as time moves on, but it is definitely something to monitor very closely.

The week just past was very good in terms of the results of companies that we cover. Every company that reported declared a dividend increase and some did very well indeed with Betfair especially increasing its interim dividend by 50% and announcing a £200 million return of capital. Other notable increases came from Photo-me (30%) and Brewin Dolphin (24%). Today, Berkeley Group, one of the companies that we were pushing earlier in the year when the shares took an inexplicable drop declared its next milestone payment of 90p, going ex on the 18th December and paid on 23rd January. Once again, they have performed very well.

The week ahead slows further as the market looks to the year-end with only a handful of companies reporting. We will be preparing some research this week and also starting to think about our portfolios and small cap tips for next year, which will be published on or around the 1st January.

We will also endeavor to meet members requests for additions to DividendMax that are outstanding including Poundland, Banco Santander (UK) and a fairly large number of investment trusts.