The Standard’s City desk had a big year in 2023, as our selection of stock tips delivered returns well ahead of the market.
Simon Hunt’s pick of Darktrace was the top performer, with the cybersecurity firm’s stock surging 41%.
If you’d bought an equal value of shares in all six tips, you would have finished the year up almost 20%. That’s a performance that few of the City’s highest-paid stock pickers managed to match.
Darktrace — up 41%
If 2023 will be remembered for anything, it will be as the year the world woke up to the power of AI. Darktrace, being one of the UK’s biggest AI-powered companies, was a major beneficiary. Its stock price was also boosted after it batted off piercing allegations from a New York asset manager’s short-seller report -- a dark cloud which had hung over the company’s shares for months. Simon Hunt
H&T — down 8%
The theory was sound: this time last year I reckoned that a cost of living crisis would be good news for pawnbroker H&T. The results went in the right direction, with H&T’s pledge book hitting a record £114 million in August. Margins were maintained and gross profit jumped too - but whilst I tipped the stock at 476p, it finished the year at 437p. The stock was hit hard by rising wage costs as well as higher interest costs. I still back well-managed H&T as a longer-term bet - but mea culpa for this year. Lucy Tobin
LSEG — up 26%
The London stock market has been moribund. But the London Stock Exchange Group, which runs the market, has flourished. It’s a tech/data business with a stock market attached and is going places. It is up 26% from where I tipped it last year at 7214p to today’s 9120p. I’d hold on to those shares for the long term if it were me. Simon English
HSBC — up 12%
HSBC shares stood out during an otherwise frustrating year for the London-listed banking sector. Supported by higher interest rates, HSBC’s strategy of shifting capital to where it can deliver the greatest returns — Asia and its wealth and personal banking division — paid off. Its strong financial performance underpinned some bumper shareholder returns, marked by a resumption of quarterly dividend payments and $7 billion of buybacks. Graeme Evans
Ocado — up 17%
Well it came good in the end - but anyone brave enough to buy shares in Ocado at the start of the year endured a roller coaster ride. The online supermarket traded as low as 343.4p in May before being chased to a peak of 976.4p just two months later. Fortunately the artificial constraints of the calendar year made my tip look clever - even though my reasoning for buying was well wide of the mark - as the shares closed up at a healthy profit. Jonathan Prynn
Premier Foods — up 31%
It was an exceedingly good year for Premier Foods. The maker of Mr Kipling cakes and the Sharwoods range of cook-in sauces appealed to cost-conscious consumers keen to treat themselves at home, with a well-timed ad campaign branding their own kitchen as “the best restaurant in town”.
The FTSE 250 company coped with the wave of inflation and in November was able to cut its prices back to levels seen in the summer of 2022 and lift its profit forecasts. CEO Alex Waterhouse oversaw a steady rise in market share which helped bake in total shareholder returns, including dividends, of 26%. Michael Hunter
