This year was always going to be a volatile one. We flagged that up in our risk forecasts for 2022 which we published in November. Looking at this year dispassionately, we could see a number of major risk themes would be converging in 2022, sooner rather than later. We are fast arriving at the eye of this particular storm.
From a stock picking perspective, this makes things harder, but it is important to keep a close eye on the reams of data available to the investor and to stay slightly ahead of the market on many of these stories. There are still good stocks out there which will continue to profit over the coming weeks. We note in particular our commodities-related long term micro cap plays are springing into live. Cloudbreak Discovery, for example, was up over 120% going into the end of February.
Looking at the market, it is going to be the canny commodity plays that are going to be getting a lot of speculative attention in March. Sadly we were forced by our risk constraints to exit Royal Mail, which we still consider to be an excellent and undervalued stock. It is probably more a victim of index-related selling at the moment.
VinaCapital Vietnam
We have added two investment trusts in February. VinaCapital Vietnam caught our attention because it is one of the best trusts on the London market at the moment, and also taps into a market which is young, fast growing and has been a beneficiary of manufacturing and services businesses that want operations in Asia but have decided against China. Vietnam’s stock market was one of the best performers on the planet during the pandemic. This trust also has exposure to some unlisted businesses in Vietnam which are also well positioned to benefit from further economic growth.
Riverstone Energy
Our second investment trust joining the portfolio is Riverstone Energy. This is a focused energy services play with a good basket of underlying companies in the fund. But what makes it a bit different is that it is also diversified into some interesting clean energy plays. This is a long term capital growth trust, but it combines traditional oil and gas companies like Centennial Resource Development with next generating energy technology opportunities like FreeWire Technologies. With energy prices heading upwards across the board, Riverstone Energy should be able to deliver some upside for investors over the course of the next year.
IG Holdings
Our third addition in February is IG Holdings, which regular readers of this site will be very familiar with. The online brokerage did extremely well during the pandemic as it signed thousands of new clients. But we also like the CEO’s new strategy, focusing on new markets like the US which traditional CFD brokers were simply not able to access previously. IG is adopting a more ambitious global strategy while at the same time also embracing further technology innovation in the trading space. IG should be well-placed to make further profits if the markets are volatilie: we saw the big online brokers do well at the front end of the pandemic over the spring and summer of 2020.
Sold in February: Kingfisher, Royal Mail, Spectris and Wedgemount Resources
Tactical trading portfolio
These are shorter term equity and commodity trades which we can see playing out within one to three months. We will sometimes keep these on longer if the trade is still quite range bound but we are anticipating further upside. These trades have the tightest risk parameters.
| Company/Instrument | Start price | Current price* | Percentage change |
| Raytheon Technologies | 73.3 | 98.12 | +33.8% |
| Sosander | 15.8 | 24.0 | +52.4% |
| Lloyds Bank | 40.4 | 48.44 | +19.8% |
| Glencore | 272 | 442.15 | +62.6% |
| Hugo Boss | 52 | 53.52 | +2.9% |
| BP | 337.95 | 363.55 | +7.6% |
| SPDR Gold Shares ETF | 173 | 177.94 | +2.9% |
| BHP | 2389 | 2472 | +3.5% |
| Anglo American | 3355 | 3823 | +13.9% |
| IG Group Holdings | 809 | 781.5 | -3.4% |
*Prices as of close of play on 28th February 2022
Longer term buy and hold portfolio
These are positions where we see a longer term growth scenario, usually in the small to mid cap space, but sometimes larger companies. We will typically be keeping these stocks on the list for at least six months and often longer. Consequently our risk tolerance is higher for these positions than for the trading list.
| Company/Instrument | Start price | Current price* | Percentage change |
| Remedy Entertainment | 14 | 33.15 | +136.8% |
| Harvia | 8.86 | 36.0 | +306.3% |
| Yellow Cake | 211.50 | 352.0 | +66.4% |
| ITM Power | 260 | 332.2 | +27.8% |
| MTI Wireless | 47.0 | 48.5 | +3.2% |
| QT Group | 86.40 | 110.8 | +28.2% |
| Nordnet | 152.20 | 163.65 | +7.5% |
| First Rand | 5229 | 6612.0 | +26.4% |
| Turkish Airlines | 13.86 | 25.62 | +84.8% |
| Live Nation | 81.78 | 126.04 | +54.1% |
| Bellway | 3474 | 2884.0 | -17.0% |
| Morgan Sindall Group | 2600 | 2320.0 | -10.8% |
| Marshall Motor Holding | 273.0 | 390.0 | +42.9% |
| Airtel Africa | 109.6 | 142.1 | +29.7% |
| Vertu Motors | 71 | 60.0 | -15.5% |
| Riverstone Energy | 566 | 576 | +1.8% |
| VinaCapital Vietnam Opportunity | 498 | 493.5 | -0.9% |
*Prices as of close of play on 28th February 2022
Venture portfolio
These are companies which we see as having long term and considerable growth prospects. Due to their size and the nature of the business they are in, we feel that our normal risk management constraints should not be applied to these stocks.
| Company/Instrument | Start price | Current price* | Percentage change |
| Nano One | 1.13 | 2.34 | +107.1% |
| Taat Global Alternatives | 1.26 | 1.83 | +45.2% |
| Kodiak Copper | 0.24 | 1.49 | +520.8% |
| Euro Manganese | 0.44 | 0.37 | -15.9% |
| Thunderbird Entertainment | 1.05 | 3.88 | +269.5% |
| Pineapple Power | 3.25 | 8.60 | +164% |
| ProStar | 0.89 | 0.32 | -64.0% |
| Minnova Corp | 0.35 | 0.12 | -65.7% |
| Red Moon Resources | 0.82 | 1.59 | +93.9% |
| Cloudbreak Discovery | 4.50 | 10.22 | +127.1% |
| Zoglo’s Incredible Food Corp | 0.43 | 0.17 | -60.5% |
| EnWave Corp | 1.01 | 0.94 | -6.9% |
| Net Zero Infrastructure | 0.045 | 0.0295 | -34.4% |
| Poda | 0.58 | 0.22 | -62.1% |
| Electric Guitar | 3.22 | 3.05 | -5.3% |
*Prices as of close of play on 28th February 2022
