Our Picks: How did we get on in April?

Despite the global lockdown, April has seen something of a rebound in the financial markets as governments looked to contain the coronavirus.

Investor sentiment was buoyed by the enormous fiscal packages announced by the largest economies with the US Federal Reserve the last to deliver, but seemingly the catalyst for positive sentiment. The move from China and other subsequent countries to move out of lockdown and kick-start their economies has given investors confidence that COVID-19 is in containment and the damage to economies won’t be lasting.

Time will tell if this confidence proves to be well-founded but markets are well above the levels seen at the outset of the crisis.

• Goldman Sachs expects economy to recover in 2H

Here at The Armchair Trader, we have spent time working on a list of 34 stocks from around the world that we feel have great recovery potential or growth prospects in the current climate. We will be tracking these stocks over the next month and providing our thoughts on how they are performing.

The Armchair Trader’s April picks

Having nominated Burberry as our short of the week back on 21st February owing to the collapse in production and sales, primarily in China, we saw the share price fall from 1870 to 1200 on 24 March. This month, we have added Burberry to our list of Recovery Stocks. The sell-off has brought the stock in to Oversold territory in our view and while we don’t expect immediate signs of recovery, we do see this fashion brand coming back strongly as the economic upturn gathers momentum.

We revisited Novacyt on 28th April. The stock was our coronavirus hedge, supplying the testing kits needed to detect COVID19. It had fallen from its 500p highs earlier in the month to 370p, still up 134% from our original piece in March. At the time of writing, the stock was around the 400p level.

AstraZeneca was added to our picks list on 15th April as the share price hit 1 year highs having been relatively unaffected by the economic crisis owing to its defensive properties. The Pharmaceuticals giant has been hitting the headlines for its work with smaller research company’s  which has seen its share price rise from £76.15 to £84.61 at the time of writing, a rise of over 11%.

International Stocks

We wrote about Copper and Gold exploration company, Kodiak Copper on 23 April as the Canadian mining company was poised for new exploration phase at its MPD site. Here at The Armchair Trader, we have been bullish on the Copper price for a while and felt that the company represented an excellent opportunity to access the metal price. Since adding the stock to our watchlist, the share price has risen from 0.24CAD to 0.31CAD representing an increase of 29%.

We wrote about Finnish stock Next Games, a “pure play” on mobile gaming, on 29th April following Finnish businessman  Jari Ovaskainen purchase of shares in the business in the middle of April. While this represents a short period since writing, the stock has continued its upward momentum, rising from €1.37 to €1.54.

A regular in this column, Canadian battery materials specialist Nano One has seen its share price rise from 0.97CAD to a price of 1.24CAD at the time of writing. The company has confirmed that it has seen positive results for its patented cathodes with solid state batteries, holding the prospect for some very interesting strategic relationships for the company. We remain confident that this stock is in a strong position financially and as the economy picks up, we will see them go from strength to strength.

We added streaming service Netflix to our picks list at the end of March amid heightened demand following the global lockdown and the stock has rewarded us with a rise from 357.12USD on 27 March to 428USD at the time of writing, representing an increase of around 20% over the period.

Well positioned to build on Netflix success, Canadian streaming television content provider Thunderbird Entertainment Group is another stock that interests us. There has been little movement in the short time since we wrote about the stock – we will revisit this in our May review.

We first wrote about Finnish sauna specialist Harvia and its global ambitions for expansion back in March but the stock was predictably hit by the coronavirus inspired market crash. However, since our follow up on 3 April on the acquisition of EOS Group, shares have risen from €8.86 to a current price of €10.00 representing a rise of over 12%.

Gaming developer, Remedy Entertainment signed publishing agreements with Epic Games in March which has seen its share price rise from €14 to €20. We first picked Remedy in January with the share price at €13.45 and the stock has rebounded strongly following a dip in March.

Here’s how our April picks performed

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.

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