The Week Ahead: Hints For The ISA Season | US Opportunities Beyond Mag7

25th Mar by Megan Boxall

27 comments 2659 reads

Good morning and welcome to the Week Ahead.

We’ve been really pleased with the responses to this new format in the last few weeks (do keep sending us your feedback), which we’ve used to highlight upcoming financial results and economic events. But now with results season winding down on both sides of the Atlantic and in Europe, I have taken the opportunity this week to try and address some of questions that have been raised, especially from those of you who are looking for opportunities beyond the beleaguered British markets.

We’re a couple of weeks away from the start of the new tax year - a time when many of you might be pondering your strategy and thinking about the best ways to use your new years allowance. Our Academy has got some ideas if you’re doing a bit of a portfolio spring clean. This morning we have published Roland’s latest guide to generating investment ideas using screens and look out for some hints about healthy portfolio management later in the week.

There are still a few numbers that might be of interest set to be released this week, which you can find in the table below. In the UK, Tuesday sees a small flurry of FTSE 250 announcements, including a couple of gambling companies. In the US, GameStop (NYQ:GME) is set to announce final quarter results on Thursday. It has been three years since downtrodden private investors in the US failed to turn this stock into a battering ram to take down the big, bad hedge funds and only succeeded in hurting themselves (and teaching the investment world a valuable lesson about short squeezes). Since then, sales have continued to slide and the company hasn’t been able to turn a profit since 2018. It looks like the hedge funds might have been right and GameStop is going the same way as Blockbuster.

Announcements to look out for this week

	UK financial results	International financial results
Monday	Pennon Group trading update GSK AGM
Tuesday	Ocado trading update Interim results - Bellway, Smiths Group, Softcat, YouGov Annual results - 888 Holdings, Flutter Entertainment	Buzzfeed Q4 earnings Small pharma companies (including cannabis stocks)
Wednesday	Interim results - James Halstead Final results - S4 Capital	Gamestop Q4 earnings
Thursday	Final…

Unlock with Email

Unlock with Google

Already have an account?
Login here

Mark Carter

25th Mar

If anyone is looking for ISA top-up ideas, here's a few, both big and small: RS (LON:RS1), Oxford Instruments (LON:OXIG) , IMI (LON:IMI) , Ashtead (LON:AHT) , Focusrite (LON:TUNE) , Macfarlane (LON:MACF) , Ultimate Products (LON:ULTP, Frasers (LON:FRAS) , Somero Enterprises (LON:SOM) , Spectra Systems (LON:SPSY) , Gamma Communications (LON:GAMA), Oakley Capital Investments (LON:OCI) .

Bonus share: Croda International (LON:CRDA). Quality investors Smithson Investment Trust (LON:SSON) has been buying late (?) 2023, and "Sweet Stocks" did an extensive write-up about them today https://open.substack.com/pub/...

I consider them good quality companies at reasonable valuations. I only own OCI and MACF from the list, but will probably add one of the above come ISA season.

There must surely be something on that list to take your fancy.

GettingOutOfTheRatRace

I think it could be worth adding Trading 212 to the ISA platforms that support US stocks. There is no commission or holding fee, only a FX fee

Saxonboy57

Any thoughts on Etoro?

Megan Boxall

We've got a few members of staff who use Trading212 and really like it.

I haven't actually used it myself and I do worry a little about how the platform makes its money considering there is no commission or holding fee. Other platforms with a similar model tend to have very wide spreads, so it's harder to buy the stocks that you're after close to their actual price.

Thanks Yadi,

Yes Costco is a really interesting stock which I looked at briefly when it had results recently. I can't believe the quality and the returns compared to peers in the UK.

Management has done such a brilliant job investing in new tech to improve returns from the store. And the growth - given it is a retailer - is very impressive (11% revenue CAGR in the last five years).

Plus, the company is well positioned to thrive regardless of the economic environment. When times are tighter, it's been able to switch its positioning quite well to suit the requirements of customers. Bigger ticket items (you can buy hot tubs in Costco) tend to be in higher demand when customers are flush with cash.

Cuddlesticks

Thank you for the IG insight. Does the Direct Market Access where you can see level 2 pricing and input your own orders not help with UK small caps?

Rusty2

Sorry, I don't use level 2. I just try to trade, often no live quotes, even for small orders. This has got worse in the last year. I can use HL but too expensive but they don't seem to have so many issues.

Problem with IG is orders can get filled with very small amounts. I had one where I got 1 share, the commission was more. HL order is all or nothing. IG generally ok for US stocks where you only pay forex fee.

Thomas Whitehead

I agree. T212 is my favourite platform for buying individual stocks.

Robinhood has launched in the UK now. They're offering US stocks with no commission, no holding fee, and NO FX fees. I do wonder what there plan is. No ISA or SIPP at the moment, so not suitable for main portfolios as of yet.

clennan1

Another great article, thank you Megan.

Indie

Hi Megan, You mention Roland’s latest guide and say it was published this morning. The last activity on his profile was 15 March… Hope it’s available soon to end the suspense!

Love these Week Ahead articles.

Sanjay

For a trading platform to buy US Stock - I use Trading 212 because:

All trades are commission free - good to buy a number of buys to average cost.
You can use Dealing or ISA accounts
You can convert £s in $s once and then buy and sell in dollars and hold cash in $s which eliminates forex fees per trade
Uninvested cash attracts daily interest payments (5.2%pa for £ and 5.1%pa for $)

Agree with Megan, the market seems to be easier to trade with good liquidity.

I understand they make money on the spread, so you have to buy using limit orders but most of their revenue might come from CFD spread

One downside I've noticed compared to other brokers is the liquidity on small cap shares, it takes way longer to fullfil, not sure why

Hi Indie, thanks for the feedback. And sorry I forgot to link to Roland's latest Academy article - here it is (and I'll link in the article as well) https://www.stockopedia.com/ac...

john2

The FT report that Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg have joined the parade of tech insiders selling shares. Is it perhaps time for a move downwards for the Magnificent Seven, particularly those involved in AI?

mighunter

Trading 212 also try to aggregate orders so no problem on the big names, but you'll be waiting a lifetime for them to fill the order in some of the Smaller Cap names popular on here. Particularly so right at that moment where something news sensitive has come out and you're wanting to try and deal immediately, forget about it!

Fluffyredsheep

26th Mar

Fineco are shutting down there UK business 29th Nov 2024

BenHazz

27th Mar

I had the impression trading212 was targeted at very amateur investors trying to fleece them, with no trading fees. However when i read up more i was quite impressived and opened an account in USD for a bit of diversification. I must say I have only positive feedback on the service. As long as you aren't trying to trade anything too small, which I'm not, I've found it to be great. I just set up 5 stocks I was sick of watching go up- NVIDIA (NSQ:NVDA) , Microsoft (NSQ:MSFT) , Alphabet (NSQ:GOOG) , iShares Semiconductor ETF (LON:0JG8) and Arm Holdings (NSQ:ARM) . Its already up 10% in less thatln two months!

daverawc

28th Mar

i tried 212 but found the execution so slow that often the price had moved several points before i was matched

Mark L.

5th Apr

I wish I'd started investing in US stocks 15 years ago. Put off by high exchange fees from Barclays Stockbrokers and Interactive Investor. Mea Cupla. Despite these would have been much better off just accepting the added cost.

I made my first direct share purchase Microsoft (NSQ:MSFT) in January, though have had tracker ETFs for a while. The way things are heading on the London Stock Exchange, it looks like it will eventually become unsuitable for serious equity investment - though it looks pretty cheap right now.

The sting in the tail for me is that investing within an ISA, you are not allowed to hold cash in non sterling denominations. Unless anyone knows a way fround this?

So Barclays you can pay up tp 1% exchange fees on purchase and the same on sale. Shockingly high.

The Week Ahead: Hints for the ISA season | US opportunities beyond Mag7

Unlock the rest of this article with a 14 day trial

About the Author

Megan Boxall

27 comments

Unlock the metrics for all these stocks and more...

Unlock the metrics for all these stocks and more...