Saturday, July 2, 2011

Private Investor calls

In a previous article, I looked at the top ten buys and sells by private investors, as reported by TD Waterhouse. I discovered that investors made good calls on both their buys and sells. Encouraged by the first set of results, I decided to repeat the experiment.

I have changed my methodology slightly. This time, I am looking at 4 weeks worth of data (the weeks of 31-May, 07-Jun, 14-Jun, 21-Jun) from TD Waterhouse. The same principle applies: I look at the top 10 buys and sells, and eliminate shares appearing as both buys and sells. Here are my results:

Buys:
  • CWC - Cable & Wireless Comm - 40.62p
  • NG. - National Grid - 614.32p
  • PIC - Pace - 107p
  • VOD - Vodafone - 164.26p
Sells:
  • ANTO - Antofagasta - 1408.18p
  • EO - Encore Oil - 63.50p
  • SOLO - Solo Oil - 1.40p
The FT-ALLSHARE currently stands at 3120. Share prices are as at today, and have been taken from Google. Barring spreads, dealing costs and stamp duty, they represent prices that you could obtain right now.

I am happier with the way the list has turned out this time, as it shows some more consistent themes, rather than a lot of to-ing and fro-ing within the same sector. Commodities is out the window, and investors have opted for techie and/or safety. Will investors be proved right in dumping their junior oilies? Will Pace finally sort their supply issues out and resume growth, or was that delay in a customer contract an ominous sign of things to come? I'll let you know in 6 months time.

In the meantime, happy and prosperous investing.

Edit 08-Jul-2011: FT-ALLSHARE corrected from 3210 to 3120.

2 comments:

Camalot94 said...

As I've just sold NG because I suddenly noticed how much debt it had and couldn't see any upside anymore and PIC because I wanted to get off the rollercoaster, I'll be interested to read your follow up. I did just buy some Vodafone though, so hopefully I won't be completely wrong.

Unknown said...

Many thanks for your comment, Camalot94. I personally hold PIC and VOD, and none of the others in the list.

I agree that NG has a lot of debt, and it's in a stodgy regulated sector. VOD seems more interesting.

You're certainly right about the rollercoaster that is PIC. I continue to hold because I think (and it really is just a judgement) that the risk/reward looks acceptable. The company has some operational issues, which look temporary. The question remains as to whether the deeper-looking issues are serious, or not. It's not without its risks, I'll grant you that.

It's interesting to see that people bought CWC (C&W Comms) but not CW (C&W Worldwide). CW has had some stinky old problems lately, which investors seem to have avoided.

I'm quite interested to see how things pan out; although we wont for some time yet.