This is one of those strange months when if you had taken a four week holiday to some remote, non-internet connected location you would return to look at your share portfolio and say “Quiet month, then”. You might then start to read of the Japanese earthquake and its terrible consequences, of us being at war yet again, this time in Libya, and a range of other almost universally bad things. In fact, in mid March all our indices had sunk quite alarmingly. My own share portfolio was showing a greater short term loss than at anytime since the financial crisis broke 3 years ago. But, since then, most of these losses have been recovered – although exactly why is more difficult to fathom.
So, the FTSE100 ended March just 1.4% down, NASDAQ was unchanged and our own UK FTSE SCS Index was also down just 1.2%. All our indices are still showing gains for 2011 YTD.
System C Healthcare rose 50% this month on the back of that bid from McKesson . XChanging ‘recovered’ by 43% after the departure of founder David Andrews last month. As we showed in Xchanging may need reshaping there is real turnaround value in the company. Like Mouchel, we think the company would be better off within a larger group and obviously investors see a bid premium here too. Although we weren’t greatly impressed with Parity’s results, as the title of our post – Is Parity’s business of three halves two too many? – suggests, clearly investors have faith in the new (well, actually rather old!) management. Up another 19% at 29p they are not far short of the 34p peak they reached a few months back. Amazing to see Blinkx breech the 100p barrier – up 18% on the month and now up 10x since Dec 08. Video is getting really hot (or should that read ‘even hotter’?) and Blinkx is in a very sweet spot in video search. (I have long declared I am a Blinkx shareholder – and feeling rather smug about that too!)
Also good to see much troubled Micro Focus up 11%. Rumours of a bid helped. Although we never thought there was any substance behind this, we have little doubt now that Micro Focus will eventually ‘fall’ which gives the shares their current attraction. I wonder what Mike Phillips wife will do with the £10k profit she made this month? See CFO’s wife buys 29139 Microfocus shares.
At the other end of the scale, regular readers will feel no surprise in learning that Mouchel was the largest faller – down 39% - as Interserve pulls out of bidding. I really wonder how bad Mouchel is once you look under the covers? These bidders seemed so very keen but now seem to be running a mile. Phoenix IT also fell 17% after a rather muted Q3 trading update. Both Highams (down 25%) and Invu (down 29%) figure at the bottom of our charts, they are both ‘penny stocks’ and such movements should be discounted.
Amongst the global players, only Wipro put on a double digit gain – up 11% - maybe as a result of the sweeping reorganisation. Readers interested in the offshore players should, of course, also subscribe to OffshoreViews (part of our Foundation Service) The latest edition of OffshoreViews was published this week. At the other end of the scale, Mastek fell 13% this month. See Another difficult quarter for Mastek.
The future, as ever, looks increasingly uncertain. What we know is that UK consumers are pulling in their belts and the high street is gloomy. Ireland is showing that the financial crises are far from over. Then we should remember Prime Minister Harold MacMillan’s answer when asked what he feared most. “Events, dear boy, Events”. The last month has shown that the most seasoned forecasters can’t predict earthquakes, tsunamis, international wars etc.
Sell in May and Go Away might be good advice this year too!