With shares having taken a pounding during 2008, investors have been keen to identify firms which may buck the trend for the coming year.
And a good indication of where traders are putting their money comes in the form of the number of people ‘buying’ certain stocks in long-term spread bets.
Established spread betting company Spreadex – which enters its tenth year of trading in 2009 – has seen plenty of customers opening positions, speculating on where companies’ share prices will be over the next three months.
And a look at the top 10 most positively traded equities among the Spreadex spread betting clients shows the banks are clearly back in favour.
Here’s a run down of the top 10 stocks:
1. Royal Bank of Scotland
RBS shares started the year around £4, but had virtually halved in value by June as the effects of the credit crunch became apparent.
The turmoil increased in October as shares fell below 60p on news that banks were in funding talks with the Government.
At the end of November it was announced the Government had taken a 57.9% stake in the business and by the end of the year the share price closed at around 50p.
2. Barclays
At the end of February Barclays was trading at what would be a year high of over 510p but by July that price had halved.
Shares recovered slightly after July’s open offer, but by October the share price was tumbling below £2 as the banking system neared collapse.
The bank ended the year by shunning a government bailout, instead turning to the Middle East for help, with its shares at 153.40p at the turn of the year.
3. LloydsTSB
Throughout February, March and April Lloyds TSB shares were just below £5, touching a high of 488.50p.
However, by September shares had dropped to below £3 and not even the announcement that the group was in merger talks with HBOS could halt the decline.
The merger was given regulatory clearance at the end of October when shares briefly rose back up above £2, but they ended the year at 126p.
4. Halifax Bank of Scotland
HBOS began the year with shares above £7, hitting a high of 719.50p. But by June there were signs of trouble with the company announcing £1bn of writedowns before rumours of funding problems surfaced causing 50% of the value of the company to be wiped out.
The rumours were soon confirmed and Lloyds TSB stepped in with a merger leaving HBOS shares at 69p by the end of December – an incredible drop from 12 months earlier.
5. Rio Tinto
From £41.59 at the end of January, the mining firm saw its share price rise steadily for the first half of the year thanks to developments including Aluminum Corporation of China Ltd raising its stake in the company.
By May news of a possible takeover by BHP Billiton saw shares hit a high of £71.67 but when that deal failed to materialise, the effects of the global credit crunch and plummeting commodity prices sent shares below £40.00 by the end of September.
In December Rio Tinto announced it was slashing 14,000 jobs as shares ended the year at £14.90.
6. Soco International
Gas and oil firm Soco saw its share price hover around the £20 mark until the end of June, but July saw prices tumble below £14 following the plugging of a Vietnamese well and several broker downgrades. By October the price was at £11.11.
News of a potential buyer for the firm saw the price recover to above the £14 level but the share price continued to see-saw until the end of the year, finishing on £10.95.
7. Tesco
Tesco began the year with its share price around 442p. After occasional dips below the £4 mark, shares then broke that level in June.
Moves including Tesco taking full ownership of its finance arm from the Royal Bank of Scotland kept the share price just below the £4 level until October, when shares followed the rest of the market in plunging as the credit crunch took hold.
Plans to tighten spending saw a recovery in December when shares rose to 360p by the end of the year, well off its lows of 285.9p.
8. Mitchells & Butlers
Pubs had a tough time in 2008 with the effects of the smoking ban to contend with on top of everything else.
Mitchells & Butlers shares fell from a high of 489.5p at the start of the year to 175.5p in July.
The share price did rally after that, helped in part by Whitbread’s move to buy the firm’s Lodge Sites, but prices topped out around 338p and ended the year at 160p.
9. Severn Trent
Water company Severn Trent’s shares hovered just below the £15 level for the first half of the year – despite suffering a heavy fine from the sector regulators in April for falsifying data.
In October shares plummeted to just above £10 and then recovered before a warning over the rising cost of financing and a cancelled dividend sent prices down again. At the year’s end shares were at £11.98.
10. HSBC
HSBC was one of the banks to largely avoid massive writedowns caused by the effects of the credit crunch thanks to its investments in the Far East.
Its relative position of strength compared to its competitors saw shares hit a year high of 938p in October.
But the inevitable soon occurred with shares crashing towards the £6 level in November as the credit downturn hit Asian markets. In December, after admitting exposure to the Bernard Madoff fraud, shares closed the year on 662p.
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