Our Recovery Stocks competition came to an end this week and for those of you who entered, it’s time to announce our King of the 34.
Whilst the result was a close run thing between 3 stocks, payment services company Square [NYSE: SQ] (+88.3%) led our competition in week one and has not been out of the top five since. It pipped the competitions’ most picked stock, online video communications company Zoom NASDAQ:ZM (+81.0%) and renewable energy equipment supplier ITM Power LON:ITM (+80.4%).
Our top 3 picks are all very much businesses for our modern times and their performance since the end of May has justified their inclusion in our competition as recovery stocks. However, to show we are human and don’t always get it right, our housing industry stocks (Ibstock, Forterra) have very much held back the overall performance of our picks. While we feel that high quality stocks in the housing sector currently provide excellent value and will eventually recover, the timing of these picks proved our downfall.
The Aviation industry (Chorus Aviation) is currently still having a tough time of things too but as countries begin to lift their travel bans and the threat of quarantine, those businesses that have been able to withstand the economic impact of COVID-19 will be well positioned to benefit.
The Pharmaceutical industry (Hikma and Pfizer) made up our other two recovery stocks nestled at the foot of our performance table. Both are high quality businesses but like most of the sector, actually fared better over the early stages of the crisis than many other stocks. These naturally defensive stocks had nothing like the same ground to make up as many stocks that lost as much as 50% during the March crash and that has been reflected in their performance over the duration of the competition.
Competition winners
Our King of 34 Recovery Stocks were up 15% on average representing a healthy return over the course of the 6 week competition. While the timing was a little fortunate with the announcement of lockdown measures easing soon after the start, it shows that there is real opportunity in the financial markets even in the most difficult of economic climates.
There was just the single entry that picked Square as the King of the 34. The winner will receive a £250 Amazon voucher. In addition, we have selected 5 runners up from those who chose Zoom as their King of 34. Each runner up will receive a £50 Amazon voucher. We will be in touch next week to let the winners know.
Thank you to all those who entered. We will be running another competition later in the year which will be announced on our daily newsletter. Be sure to subscribe if you haven’t already.
Our King of the 34 performance table [Final]
| Company | % change |
| Square | +88.3 |
| Zoom | +81.0 |
| ITM Power | +80.4 |
| Huya | +52.5 |
| Shopify | +34.4 |
| Rio Tinto | +27.0 |
| Burberry | +19.4 |
| Dexcom | +16.9 |
| Netflix | +16.1 |
| Homeserve | +15.6 |
| Microsoft | +15.2 |
| AVEVA | +14.5 |
| Reckitt Benckiser | +13.5 |
| Flutter Entertainment | +12.5 |
| Walt Disney | +12.4 |
| Harvia | +11.8 |
| Regeneron | +11.6 |
| CIBC | +11.4 |
| Rentokil Initial | +10.1 |
| Remedy Entertainment | +9.9 |
| Mastercard | +9.5 |
| Just Eat Takeaway | +7.3 |
| Eli Lilly | +5.6 |
| Unilever | +5.1 |
| Equinix | +5.1 |
| WM Morrison | -1.0 |
| BP | -3.3 |
| Newmont | -3.8 |
| Pets at Home | -5.5 |
| Hikma Pharmacuetical | -5.6 |
| Chorus Aviation | -9.8 |
| Ibstock | -10.6 |
| Pfizer | -11.6 |
| Forterra | -24.5 |
Share price performance from close of session on 7th July 2020
- Find out more about our King of the 34 stocks and see our latest updates
- How did our stock picks get on in June?
*Data sourced from SharePad. The UK’s no.1 investment data & analysis software for Private Investors as voted for by FT/Investors Chronicle readers. Discover the advantage at www.sharescope.co.uk/sharepad.
