In case you missed it, we did a round-up last week of the first quarter performances of the 60+ guru strategies that Stockopedia tracks in the UK. The news was that the gurus have got off to a good start in 2015, with Quality and Value strategies leading the way, and just edging the market.
Various factors (including QE) have energised European markets this year, and that's having a very positive impact on some of the European versions of these screens. Even so, they are going to have their work cut out if they are to beat the spectacular near 20% gain on the FTSE Eurofirst 300 so far in 2015. There is some commentary about the drivers of European markets here and a note by J.P. Morgan here.
On a separate note, back in early 2013 Stockopedia introduced a system of scoring and ranking every company in the market based on their quality, value and momentum. Rather than relying on single ratios or individual factors, the StockRanks are calculated using a blend of measurements. So far the results have been excellent - the best returns have on average (and as expected) been found in good quality, cheaply priced and improving shares. This week Ed Croft, the CEO of Stockopedia, took a closer look - and sparked a great deal of debate - with a gratuitous deconstruction of the StockRanks and the factors that are driving their performance.
Elsewhere, we applied some of the rules used by Warren Buffett to find firms with wide economic moats, in Screening for strong economic moats to find large cap winners. And Stockopedia's small-cap expert Paul Scott was busy as usual, covering updates from the likes of Quindell, Netplay TV and Blur Group.
Elsewhere this week, we've been reading:
- Jonathan Davis in The Spectator - Neil Woodford interview: A return to normal around the corner? Utterly wrong
- John Authers in the FT (subscription)- Active managers have no excuse for poor performance. And on that subject… Matt Levine on Bloomberg View - New York discovers Wall Street charges fees
- Simon Lambert in the Daily Mail - An honest look at a year's investing - and the mistakes I made
- The Wall Street Journal - Star investors reveal their hits and misses and Jason Zweig…
