Last year was an unmitigated disaster for the financial media’s share tipsters. Not only did every single annual portfolio lose money, but all of them also underperformed the FTSE 100, which managed a small rise.
One might argue that the more domestically focused FTSE 250 is a more accurate benchmark for UK stockpickers, but just two portfolios managed to beat even that index’s dire 19.7% loss for the year. Rarely have broad market trackers looked so appealing when compared to the hassle and heartache of picking individual stocks.
The only publication to emerge with any real credit is Barron’s. The US weekly topped the table in 2021 after benefiting from a strong year on the S&P 500 index. This year it did even better, by handily beating the S&P’s 19.4% plunge in a dire year for Wall Street.
Missing out on Santa
The secret to its success was choosing unfashionable energy plays such as Shell (its best tip, with a total return of 39.7%). It also helped that unlike the other publications Barron’s liquidates its portfolio in mid-December.
That usually sees it miss out on the “Santa rally” (the tendency for markets to rise into the end of the year), but this year global stocks slumped pre-Christmas, enabling Barron’s to dodge part of the sell-off. While six of its ten picks recorded positive returns, the overall portfolio was dragged down by bad calls on Amazon (down 46%) and General Motors (-30%). The Times takes silver this year. Its best tip was outsourcer Serco, which produced a total return of 19%. The worst was housebuilder Barratt Developments, which lost 40%; the paper pins the blame on “the turmoil sparked by Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-Budget” for unleashing a housing downturn.
The bronze goes to Shares magazine. Its 21.3% loss came from ill-timed bets on pricey growth stocks such as sustainable wood technology business Accsys Technologies (down 63%) in a year where investors went looking for value. Instead, the more mundane business of food and beverages proved the place to be, with Tate & Lyle the publication’s best tip. It produced a total return of 11.5%. Investors’ Chronicle comes in fourth, even though all five of the magazine’s top picks lost money. US genome sequencer Illumina, down 46.9%, proved the worst of the bunch. Overall, however, the magazine’s
