Three months ago we reflected on how Growth and Momentum had been winning investing strategies in 2015. But all that changed in the first quarter of the new year. Stockopedia’s tracking of 60 strategies inspired by the legends of finance saw most investing styles get beaten back by rocky market conditions. But there were still some strong results, plus a marked upturn among the Value strategies, driven by a sector that’s long been out of fashion - natural resources.

Before taking a closer look at how events unfolded, it’s worth having a quick recap on how these strategies work and what the performance stats tell us. Since late 2011, we’ve been tracking the returns from a range of approaches used by some of the world’s best known investors. They’re rebalanced quarterly to ensure that the the shares in each portfolio match the rules of each strategy as closely as possible. We don’t account for the drag of trading costs or the bonus of dividend payments.

It’s important to know that these models aren’t always realistically investable. At times, there may be very few companies that meet the rules of some of them. And because there are no restrictions on company size, sector or index, there’s no simple way of benchmarking them. So we show the FTSE 100 for the sake of comparison rather than as a meaningful benchmark.

Here is how the various main UK indices and Guru Screens performed in Q1:

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About the Author

Ben Hobson

Premium Member

Stockopedia writer, editor, researcher and interviewer!

10 comments

Howard Adams

Ben

These regular reviews are very informative. Thanks for doing them.

Regards
Howard

Reply
sealeyd

Hi Ben

How are the current set of New Years Naps performing compared to the indexes and the guru approaches?

David

Reply
David Talbot

Hi Sealeyd

To answer part of your query:
In the quarter ending 31/03/2016 Ed's NAP portfolio had an equivalent annual return of 0.90% whilst for the FTSE All Share the equivalent annual return was -5.59%. So, even if not outstanding, the NAP portfolio showed a more than satisfactory out-performance over the first quarter.

Reply
Rusty2

Really I have it set up and its about 1.5% down, maybe we have slightly different figures, I inc. spread but don't inc. dealing costs or dividends. Last Ed's report seemed to tie up with my figures. A 1.5% fall on annual return is about -6%. If you ignore spread then its about breakeven.

Reply
David Talbot

Hi Herbie

My NAP portfolio return is calculated in the same manner I believe Ed uses, and hence uses the Stockopedia closing prices on 31/12/2015 and 31/03/2016, but disregards spread, dealing costs and dividends. On this basis, the figure I quoted is correct, and gives the underlying capital return.

Reply
Rusty2

OK your figures are correct.

But Ed has just reported that NAPS is 1.9% down, so its about the same as the All share Index.

Reply
nemo

Ben

It does not appear obviously wise to highlight the performance of 'Guru' screens on a quarterly basis as this appears to be in conflict with their underlying purpose which presumably is to give you a system that you can use for running a portfolio over a period of years.

Yours

John

Reply
stockpot

Thanks Ben. Is there a way of keeping track of the composite performances, apart from your summaries?

Reply
canaryonavespa

Really interesting, thanks for this.

Reply
catalogue

For anyone who is interested my NAPs portfolio - Ed's sectors but all markets (Stockopedia markets). Some shares are not practical to trade e.g. HL does not offer them, so only HL offered ones or those they will trade have been added to the NAPS. As of close 15/04/16 my NAPs is down 0.5%. The question now is does one refactor and if so when?

Reply
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Index / Strategy Composite

Performance Q1 2016

FTSE 100

-1.1%

FTSE All Share

-1.4%

FTSE 250

-2.9%

FTSE SmallCap XIT

-1.0%

AIM 100

-5.2%

Guru Strategy Composite

-1.4%

Growth Composite

-6.1%

Momentum Composite

-1.2%