This time last year we looked back on 12 months that had dragged down a number of the 60 or so GuruModel investing strategies that we track at Stockopedia. Markets drifted through 2014, causing some of the approaches inspired by the legends of finance to struggle. But it was all change in 2015; parts of the market did well and that was a big boost to investing styles like Growth and Momentum. So it’s time to take stock, review the performance and try and make some predictions for 2016.
About the Guru Models
For newcomers to Stockopedia, here’s a quick recap of how these investing screens work. In late 2011 we started tracking the performance of a range of approaches that have been used by some of the world’s best known investors. They’re rebalanced quarterly, scooping up the shares that most closely meet the criteria of each strategy. We don’t account for trading costs or dividend payments.
In different market conditions, some strategies may have very few shares qualifying for their rules, which can skew the results. But in a way, that’s revealing in itself. This isn’t a competition, it’s a project to give us an idea of what has and hasn’t worked and what that might suggest about the future. So, these aren’t always easily investable strategies.
Another thing to remember is that the strategies do pick up stocks of widely varying size, and that makes it difficult to benchmark the portfolios. We often show the FTSE 100 as a comparator, but it’s not really an ideal benchmark for these strategies. So, here’s an overview of various index and style performances in 2015:
| Index / Strategy Composite | 1 Year Performance |
| FTSE 100 | -4.9% |
| FTSE All Share | -2.5% |
| FTSE 250 | +8.4% |
| FTSE SmallCap XIT | +9.9% |
| AIM 100 | +14.4% |
| Guru Strategy Composite | +3.7% |
| Growth Composite | +21.9% |
| Momentum Composite | +10.1% |
| Quality Composite | +5.8% |
| Income Composite | +0.9% |
| Value Composite | -1.4% |
| Bargain Composite | -20.6% |
Broadly speaking, it was the small and mid-cap company indices that did better in 2015, although digging in would still uncover…
