Friday Email: 18 March 2016
Every Friday morning our lead analyst Mark Riding sends out his weekly run-down and upcoming events in the investor calendar, like this one:
That was a decent week for the markets with the FTSE 100 rising 90 points over the course of the week with the miners and oil companies holding onto their recent gains in spite of many commentators telling us to beware the rally. In my view it would be a very bad idea to not hold any natural resource stocks at this stage of the economic cycle. Keep away from smaller companies that do not have the financial strength of the majors as their hedges at prices way above the current market prices are going to run out or diminish sooner rather than later.
Meanwhile, we keep seeing some very high yields in the DividendMax tools and this week sees Plus 500, the much maligned Israeli CFD and spread betting company going ex-dividend for 7% on Wednesday. They have recovered their business extremely well and they look well poised to continue with their big payouts in the coming years. ITV and Taylor Wimpey also caught my eye for their upcoming special dividends, although both have performed well this past week.
Notable dividend increases this week came from NMC Health (14.8%), SDL (24%), Legal & General (19%), Brooks Macdonald (20%), Spire Healthcare (33%), Ted Baker (18.6%) and Volution (14.3).
The week ahead sees Next reporting on Thursday and what a bad year they have had in share price terms so far being down almost 10%. They are some way below their buyback level so expect that to resume following the results. I am a big fan of Next and I believe their buyback / special dividend formula works well for shareholders. By their standards they have had one of their lesser years, which explains the share price fall. It remains a quality company and should be on the watchlist.
The Friday email is delivered to over 20,000 subscriber’s every week, and remains a widely read run-down of recent events and what investors can expect in the week ahead written by our chief analyst Mark Riding.
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Read next: 11 March 2016
Another busy week as the reporting season continues to unfold. The market initially seemed happy with what the ECB did on Thursday, but then turned down shortly after. The markets were saying 'do something' and when the ECB did it and more, it rose initially and then fell quite sharply. Now, this morning it is back up again. Volatile stuff. Over the past five days, the FTSE 100 is down about 50 points.