As the obligatory appetiser before we serve up the Xmas share tips for 2025, we need to hail the champions of this past year’s rumble.
In the final counting, the results of the 2024 Xmas stock tips competition show that around half the entries beat the 7.9% return from the FTSE 100, which is not bad.
There was a fierce jostling for a place on the podium in the last couple of weeks between five of the contestants, with some late moves completely upending the final standings.
But the overall winner was largely settled once Donald Trump won the US election and that unleashed a wave of bitcoin buying to propel the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF into a 100%-plus gain, and top place to William ‘Billy’ Farrington for the second year running.
This means the winners of two of the winners from the past three years have been narrow-focus ETFs (2022’s was a sarky Cathie Wood short), with Nvidia being the source of the victory in 2023 and an AIM-listed biotech in 2021.
Here are the final standings*:
1st: iShares Bitcoin ETF – William Farrington, journalist at Proactive
Tipped at $27.94, closed at $57.72 – gain of 106.6%
In fact, at the time we published the 2024 Xmas tips the iShares fund and a handful of other near-identical spot bitcoin ETFs were still a twinkle in the companies (and many bitcoin investors’ eyes). Even so, the Aussie axolotl fancier opined at the time that “the catalysts are in place for another solid year ahead for the only cryptocurrency that truly matters.”
Without the extra boost from the Trump win, he still was on course to win, with the ETF having been up in the low 40% region in late October. Congratulations to our double-winner as he now departs the Proactive shores for pastures Down Under.
2nd: Future PLC (LSE:FUTR) – your Christmas tips correspondent himself
Tipped at 759p, closed at 992p – a gain of 30.7%
You know those children’s parties you used to go to when the birthday boy or girl wins all the games and the parents seem to have no shame about it? Embarrassingly, this seems a bit like that to me – although I am giving considerate smiles to my other guests and generous (though virtual) party bags for all. Sorry, everyone else!
Similarly, shares in Future were boosted by a bump last week, which was on the back of a solid trading update from the publishers of The Week, Guitar World and Country Life. When I picked Future as my tip it was on the view that concerns about AI gobbling up the lunch of online publishers were overblown, and the update confirmed that revenues will have remained flat this year.
3rd: Compass Group PLC (LSE:CPG) – Chris Beauchamp, IG
Tipped at 2,114p – closing price 2,709p – gain of 28.1%
After two fourth-place finishes in previous versions of this tipster throwdown, IG’s chief market analyst has bagged himself a medal position thanks to his choice of the FTSE 100 catering group. Chorister Chris will surely be singing a happy festive tune to himself in the next few days (or months maybe, such is the prestige). Chris’s pick was based on the valuation a year ago being close to lows, on a price/earnings basis, and a view that its outlook was not a gloomy as many feared. He was right - with dividends included, the gain would have been 30.2%.
4th: Equinox Gold (TSX:EQX) – Vince Stanzione, The Millionaire Dropout
Tipped at $5.05 – closing $6.41 – gain of 26.9%
Missing out on a podium place by a faction, Vince says he was “a little disappointed” with his 2024 pick of a small gold producer, though it still made money – though not as well as the gold price, which is up over 30%.
“This a reminder that mining stocks can trail the underlying commodity.”
Vince notes that the Equinox Greenstone Mine recently went into commercial production and is expected to produce an impressive 390,000 ounces annually but “mining stock investors are still very weary and do not believe anything until it materialises”.
5th: Chrysalis Investments Ltd (LSE:CHRY) – Darius McDermott, Chelsea FS
Tipped at 77.35p – closing 97.7p – gain of 26.3%
Also very close to a medal, but also improving from his previous positions of 7th and 10th, Darius fared well with this investment trust. At the time he said it was the “highest conviction holding across the four investment funds on which we are the investment adviser”. And a year later says he is “very happy with this return”. Chrysalis was boosted by one of its top three holdings, Klarna, now readying its IPO. “I very much hope the momentum continues and would expect another positive year for the company,” he adds.
6th: TUI AG (LSE:TUI) – Dan ‘Wilderness’, Financial Wilderness
Tipped at €7.08 – closing €8.74 – gain of 23.4%
Dan was third last time and so close again to another medal place.
TUI has been up and down - post the beginning of the year the price began to slide like someone who'd had too many at the all-inclusive bar before a, coming back strongly to emerge from the pool fully refreshed and tanned with the healthy glow of a good positive return on the year. I still think there's quite a lot to like here - demand for holidays remain high against toughish economics, Tui is continuing to manage down it's COVID-legacy debt burden and the P/E remains cheap relative to many other market names.
7th-9th: Emma Deuchars, Peter Sleep, Neil Wilson
With a gain of 16%, newcomer Emma bested many with her pick of the Premier Miton US Opportunities fund, which aimed to “reflect strength within the US market and the broadening of The Magnificent Seven rally”. Its focus on “holding quality stocks that can produce consistent cashflows which will compound over time” means it looks like one for the medium term at least.
Similarly, the 11.3% for the Schroder Global Recovery fund, selected by Peter Sleep, then of 7IM, and a 7% for the Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund picked by Neil Wilson of Finalto were either side of the FTSE 100’s return, which is probably our main benchmark for this competition.
A solid result for all three.
Unfortunate timing
Picking a stock or currency to be up over 12-month period is just a construct for this game and not a strategy generally pursued by any investors.
The arbitrary nature of selecting a start date and an end date means that for some picks there will be unforeseen and unfortunate consequences.
This was arguably the case for Smith & Nephew PLC (LSE:SN) (tipped by Peter Higgins, aka Conkers3 of the Investing Matters/TwinPetesInvesting podcasts); Pfizer Inc (NYSE:PFE, ETR:PFE) (tipped by Alex Campbell, financial commentator at Freetrade) and Harbour Energy PLC (LSE:HBR) (tipped by analyst Mark Crouch at eToro).
Smith & Nephew had been sitting on a gain of over 12% until early September, before the following month saw the hip and knee maker slash its full-year revenue outlook to account for a downturn in demand and pricing pressures in the China; similarly Pfizer was up 10% in the summer and still in positive territory until the US election, with Trump’s selecting vaccine sceptic Robert F Kennedy Jr for his cabinet hitting many drugmakers’ shares; and for Harbour, if the start date of the contest had been a week earlier the share would be enjoying a gain of 10%.
For Barratt Developments, simultaneously tipped by Danni Hewson of AJ Bell and Victoria Scholar of Interactive Investors, the expected lifting of the housing market gloom did happen to an extent, but with interest rates slow to come down, not by as much as the pair had hoped.
Before the merger with Redrow was completed in October the stock was just below flat, but there has been a sector-wide subsidance in recent months, and a loss of almost 22% is the price for Barratt Redrow PLC (LSE:BTRW) now.
Says Dani: “Barratt’s share price hasn’t exactly set markets on fire but its acquisition of Redrow has set the company up for future growth. The government’s commitment to building 1.5 million new homes and streamlining the planning process should provide decent tailwinds for the company over the next couple of years, but pressure on affordability is likely to remain an issue especially with housebuilders warning on an uplift in costs on the horizon.”
Things that go Bang, not even Close
As for Bango (down 49%), I’ll hand over to Andrew Hore, editor of the AIM Journal.
“Unexpected costs and delayed contracts knocked payment services provider Bango (BGO) at the beginning of the year and the share price – 191.38p when recommended – halved and never recovered.”
Andrew notes that Bango did move into the back in the second half of last year and a forecast pre-tax profit of around $5.5 million for this year would put the shares on 18 times earnings. “Several new contracts have been won this year and there is good potential for growth and hopefully that will show through this year.”
Final word for John Kingham and his unfortunate pick of Close Brothers Group PLC (LSE:CBG).
"2024 was an annus horribilis for Close Brothers after regulators changed the rules of the game and broke the motor finance market, just as they broke the retail energy market,” he says.
“Despite being an objectively excellent business, Close Brothers has suspended its dividend and this is exactly why broad diversification is essential for the vast majority of investors."
Quite so! An average of all our investments would give a gain of 6.8%.
Note: Tip prices were taken from 21 December 2023 and closing prices from 11 December 2024