The Telegraph business desk’s share tips for 2024
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Another year has passed and The Telegraph’s business team once again humbly offers another round of share tips.
Reader, are you ready?
First, a brief recap of 2023: We did better than the previous year, but still slumped into the red overall.
If you had invested £10,000 in the share tips we gave this time last year, you would have ended 2923 with almost £9,940 – a loss of less than 1pc.
By contrast, if you had backed each of our eight share tips for 2022 you would have lost 30pc of your money.
Putting your money into a FTSE 100 tracker in 2023 would have left you marginally better off, with gains of just 0.3pc.
While the overall portfolio made a loss, there were some very good calls. Best of all was Oliver Gill’s tip to buy The Restaurant Group, owner of Frankie & Benny’s and Wagamama, which was later sold to private equity.
At the start of 2023, the company’s shares were changing hands for a mere 31p each but it was later bought out for 65p per share.
That is quite the return, and one that would have grown a £1,000 nest egg to about £2,081.
Another pick of note was Tom Rees’ tip to buy supermarket giant Tesco: The shares have jumped almost 30pc higher this year, growing a £1,000 investment by nearly £300.
Meanwhile, Gareth Corfield’s tip to buy Softcat also returned 15pc and Rachel Millard’s suggestion of National Grid gained 6pc.
My suggestion to buy GSK would have gained you 0.9pc, but I’m afraid tips by other reporters to buy WPP (-8.2pc), Begbies Traynor (-19.4pc), Burberry (-30pc), Enphase Energy (-49.8pc) and Nanoco (-57.9pc) all turned sour
On the other hand, you have to take risks to reap – theoretical – rewards. So we’re once again putting forward some stocks we think are worth a look in 2024.
Buy at your own peril – but we hope there are nuggets in here somewhere.
Tim Wallace, deputy economics editor: Persimmon
After a difficult year for housebuilders in 2023, Persimmon could have a better time of it in the 12 months ahead.
This tip is based on two risky bets: one a dead certainty, and one a hunch.
First, the gambles.
Housebuilders’ shares collapsed when the Bank of England whacked up interest rates. Andrew Bailey may insist otherwise, but my expectation is that rates will come down as inflation falls and Britain dabbles with recession.
That recession is caused in part by higher interest rates, so it is not mad to expect lower borrowing costs to boost housing demand despite the state of the wider economy.
Then there is a political bet. Sir Keir Starmer keeps saying he wants to build more houses. If he delivers, then that is good news for Persimmon which is in the business for making them.
Here comes the dead certainty: the population is growing fast and that means either we build more houses, or prices go up. Either is good for this stock.
This logic applies to all housebuilders. So here is the hunch: Persimmon has risen less than its big FTSE rivals in 2023 so perhaps there is room for some catchup.
