2025 in Review - Winners and Losers across the StockRank Spectrum

Ed,

I keep my own database of stockranks so can add the results of my analysis to this conversation.  I have beginning of 2025 ranks for about 700 shares with corresponding total return for the calendar year 2025, sourced independently.  The factor that surprised me most was Quality: relative to the market average, returns were clearly inverted from expected, with higher-quality shares lagging and the lowest-quality group doing best, while the mid and mid-low  buckets were roughly flat.  The chart below illustrates this with average returns for the quality quintiles compared to my universe mean.

I’d be interested in whether this is what you’re seeing in your broader dataset and if so whether this feels like a quirk of 2025 or something structural in the composition of the quality rank.

Brilliant.  Thanks homosap.

Following on from Tim's comment regarding the power of compounding.....

For anybody who is interested, here is an interesting table which shows the power of compounding:

Although the table is in $$$s, you can easily substitute $ for £.

What the table shows is that if you invested 1p on day one and you were able to double your money everyday for one month, then at the end of the month your investment would be worth a staggering £5.3million.

I did the maths calculation and the figure does indeed come out at £5,368,709  .

Happy New Year David.

 .

Ed, taking a second look at your chart of The 47 Stocks That Doubled in 2025 I hold 11 of them.   Were I lesser of a risk taker on EEE, GGP and KEFI then I would have been down to 8 stocks. Realising which way the wind is blowing early on is pretty important regarding the winning of multi-baggers while adding more shares at later dates and prices will fatten the goose but lessen the chances of seeing the price of the stock double or more. What I'm really saying here is that there can be a great deal of variance between portfolios and between those of your chart.  Take mine, I'm actually underwaterin SAGA  and KEFI through having bought into them years ago and and kept them for years too long (I may add to KEFI tomorrow).  Then there are the three holdings that did double, RR, which I have top-sliced, GGP and STB.  Now, where is SRB, well, it's my largest single holding and for reasons given above sits at a gain of only 89.8%.

"Restrict the universe to shares above a £10m market cap (983 stocks), and the median return barely improves, at 0.27%, with a mean of about 5.8%." 

Thank you for making me feel much better about my yearly performance, Ed! I'm tracking for a return that is barely positive. I see the 12 stocks of Christmas from last year has fared similarly. 

It has certainly felt like large caps have completely dominated in 2025. I was listening to a podcast that said>40% of US stocks had failed to make gains too. And this in a year with interest rate cuts. Hopefully 2026 will see broader participation.

My NAPS filter does not look just at Market Cap and StockRank, I look for a spread less than 4%, Momentum Rank > 90 and net debt < 3x op profit. I'm flexible with the debt filter and may turn it on/off for certain industry groups such as Consumer Cyclicals or Consumer Defensives where there are a lot of retailers with lots of leases counting towards the net debt figure.

My trading platform is T212, so I'm limited on picking up some AIM shares like Serabi Gold and Journeo, as they don't use SETS trading service and aren't available in the platform. Thanks to that limitation I've picked Altyngold for my 2025 portfolio,  one that I'd missed if I could invest on SETSqx shares.

Cracking performance this year with 33.49% profit excluding divis.

For my NAPS 2026 I'd explore how to consider broker forecast into the filtering process, probably just for deciding between 2 stocks with the same StockRank

Thanks everybody for a totally absorbing year from which I have learnt something nearly every day

For me this has been my best year since the technology boom

Thanks to Tom Winnifrith I bought few PAF in 2007 I think at an average of 5 p

They did very well but when Jan Nelson left in 2017 I sold l out ( 16/17p)but kept following and when they got down to 9p and Corbus Loot took over I started buying again

Time in the market is the lesson I draw from this

As a footnote I have only once followed TW share tip

Hi Ed,

Thank you. 

I have kept some old stocks which I had before i joined stockopedia which has good quality rank but poor value and momentum, I thought good quality stocks should grow over long term. your chart shows good quality stocks did not do so well compared to good value and momentum over last year, do you think this year has been outlier or this is how it behaves every time?

wishing all best wishes and seasons greetings

A poor year for me, 5%. My average over the last 12 years is 19% and a CAGR of 14.9%, so this year has been a rubbish underperformance. 

My main mistake was to try and be too clever earlier in the year and timing the market around the tariff carnage. I ended up selling some things low and buying back higher. 

Another mistake which I need to work on is buying things when they are too extended. Breakouts are all well and good, but not all are created equal. 

Finally, I just think there is an element of luck in short term returns. And some years I have definitely had it but not this year. Nothing has been a disaster but I haven't quite managed to catch the big waves. It has often felt like my portfolio is stuck in the mud, despite individually everything looking perfectly OK. 

Everything is a learning process, onwards and upwards for next year. I would be screwed without Stockopedia so thanks to all the team. 

P.s Can we have the various ranks available as an overlay or indicator in the charts please? And a word highlight feature in the RNS view? Thank you, Santa, 

Thanks Ed for you r articles and editorial content, Stockopedia as a whole is starting to transform my returns.

At the moment we hold mainly cash in our ISA's. In my SIPP I trade individual stocks and have achieved a 14% return which I'm delighted with. However my wife's SIPP has returned 29% by only trading etf's, one in particular iShares Gold Producers UCITS ETF USD (Acc) (LON:SPGP) produced most of the return. Hopefully this will continue into the next year with the support of your team and contributions from subscribers.

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year

Thanks, Ed. Really interesting! I'm expecting value (especially growth-adjusted) to outperform in 2026

Hi Ed. Thank you and the Stockopedia team for all your excellent work over 2025. You've certainly helped my portfolios and made me a more focussed and rational investor. 

Over 2025 my smaller ISA of riskier stocks made 19.3%. I'm very happy with this result but even happier with my SIPP which comprises more big caps and less riskier ones. This year I have been much more disciplined on stock picking relying heavily on Stocko Quality and Momentum scores before making the leap. It's up 25.3%. 

Having been previously burned, I stayed away from miners and gold. This cost me.

My big failing is knowing when to sell. Either loosing confidence and taking profit too early (on the premise that any profit is a good profit), or hanging on too long when a 'favoured' stock starts declining (it's just a glitch and it'll soon recover). 

I'm trying to formulate a selling strategy based on Ichimoku and declining Stock Ranks. Let's see how that fares in 2026.

Best wishes to you and the Stockopedia team and all subscribers for a great Christmas break and a happy, prosperous and, most importantly healthy, New Year.

Clive

"In other words, the typical stock - and probably the typical private investor portfolio - earned around 5%. Ignore the indices - that’s your real benchmark."

An excellent example of the type of statement which more than justifies my subscription. In hindsight, is so blindingly obvious and yet had never occurred to me,  Thanks!

Great article, thanks Ed.  My NAPS portfolio is up 43% YTD.  It struggled to get going during Q1, but came out fighting after the Trump tumble in April.

I tend not to obsess over percentage increases and rely on Interactive Investors performance data for my ISA performance which they suggest has come in at a trailing return of 43.87% over the year. It suggests my 5 year annualised performance has been 23.51% per annum. I am not sure how they calculate these %ages and how accurate they are.  

Something over 50% of my holdings have been in PHGP, ABBN, GAW, VLX, IGG, SLP and SNWS all of which I have held over a number of years although I have trimmed or  expanded them slightly at times. Otherwise I have dipped in and out of a dozen or so smaller holdings which this year have included IPF, RFX and SRB. I sold Saga too early. Currently I am holding about 30% cash so have probably left a bit of the recent market rise on the table.

I have to say that  the detailed analysis provided by Stockopedia has been invaluable when it comes to selecting shares outside my current core holdings. Many thanks for all your hard work and all best wishes for Christmas and the New Year.

Ed, you say Value and Momentum were the top performers but if you look at the top 25 QM stocks, they were the best performing, slightly ahead of VM stocks. 

Edward,

I don't know how you calculate your 16% rise in FTSE100 (UKX)

My figures are Dec 31 2004 8173. Today (23 Dec 2025) 9889. 

That is a rise of 21.0% excluding dividends. Adding dividends makes a total return of around 25%

Am I wrong?

Kuronagi

Great analysis Ed, really interesting to read.

Does the StockRank score work similarly in different jurisdictions? Would be curious to see the effectiveness in the US, Europe, etc, and/or at different market caps… basically I’m wondering if one could ‘turbo charge’ it a little bit by using the StockRank for smaller companies or broadly cheaper jurisdictions?

More great stuff Ed and yet another reminder of the power of the Stock Ranks.  My performance this year was 5.5%, my worst since discovering Stocko over a decade ago, but at least I just about beat the "typical stock", which, you generously suggest, should be my benchmark.  That at least made me feel better about what was a relatively dismal performance.

I have learnt so much since I became a subscriber and I'd like to think that I'm a better, or at least, a more knowledgable investor.  Yet it was one of my earlier successes that led me to make a naive and costly mistake this year.  I did well in early 2022 to sidestep the Covid market collapse after listening to a Radio 4 interview with an epidemiologist who foresaw the likely pandemic.   That success caused me to lean into a view that the advantage of agility, which we private investors have over institutions, might also allow us to indulge in a little market timing when bad things came down the pike.  Unfortunately, I don't think anybody foresaw the insane levels of the tariffs on Trump's ludicrous gameshow board in early April. After pondering the repercussions for a few days, I decided to repeat the lessons I learnt in 2022 and I sold heavily with a view that I retained the agility to get back in when the dust settled.  The speed of the rebound caught everybody (presumably with the exception of Trump's insider's) by surprise and I didn't re-deploy in earnest until the summer by which time the recovery from the Trump tantrum was well established and the TACO trade was in full swing.  My only saving grace was that my summer re-deployment included the enlargement of a position in Goodwin (LON:GDWN).  That alone has spared my blushes and my overall 2025 performance from a worse outcome.

I made a post around a year ago in response to another of Ed's NAPS articles where I  wrote that I could have saved myself untold hours of tinkering and worry over the prior decade, and achieved only slightly inferior results, had I simply followed the NAPS principles from the get go.  This year, I suspect I would have actually done far better and slept easier but hey, for some of us, NAPS just won't ever be as much fun!  That said, whilst I don't follow NAPS to the letter, and I certainly overtrade, I'm still very thankful to Ed that I do at least  always remain mindful of keeping the return drivers on my side across a diversified portfolio and those principles have kept me ahead of the market for a long time.

 As others here have said, this is a fabulous platform and Ed's tease about "we got something rather exciting" has really got me wondering, and looking forward to 2026 and another year of joy, despair, madness and intrigue!  Merry Christmas to all at Stocko Towers and the wider Stocko community.  Good luck and success in 2026.

Like others already posted, discovering Stockopedia and the "Naps" suggestion of equal investment in each of the two top ranked shares in each of 10 catagories, to ensure diversification has worked a treat for me in my first year as a subscriber. I started after reading and listening to much hearsay about British shares being undervalued and offering a good opportunity for the DIY investor and only too well remembering the effect that Trump had on the US economy, when he was last in charge. In addition I was only too well aware that all of my global funds seemed to carry an equal weight of the magnificent 7 US technology giants competing to spend the most on AI, which could only ever result in reduced employment and increased efficiency in production rather than provide extra manufactured goods or tangible wealth. Having purchased equal amounts of the suggested stocks I found it was important to follow daily news broadcast about them, both on Stockopedia accompanied by suggestions for adjusting holdings appropriately and from simply reading the Financial Times. Through the latter it soon became obvious that Trump was set to remove the checks and balances of the SEC in order to introduce cryptocurrency and constantly berating Jerome Powell Chair of the Federal Reserve for his reluctance to reduce interest rates at a time when his introduction of sweeping tarrifs looked set to wreck the economy just as they had previously.

It soon became obvious that the dollar was falling fast and even the Chinese government had begun buying gold reserves rather than retain dollar reserves. 

In this climate the recomended shares of MTL and SRB really took off and before long I found myself swapping shareholdings in Shell and Ocean Wilsons for more of the same, but incuded THX on this occasion. There were other tweaks such as Ed's suggestion of combining healthcare stocks in APH and HIK for SPI and losing MWE to double up on JNEO which has long been a favourite.

Where stocks have been lacklustre, I have always found the stock ranks and momentum information a great hunting ground. A perfect example has been NRTB to replace SUP and STRAD. There are other examples, but the data and information is readily available in wonderful detail so that I only have myself to blame if I don't read it, set the alarms available to me and act on the information. I know that I am ridiculously overweight in basic materials at the moment, but still feeling bullish about Siver, Copper and Gold am making the mistake of letting my heart rule my head too much.

Thanks to Stockopedia and the advice available through the Naps strategy suggested I am currently 40 % up on the year so far.

Lets hope when the crash comes in the US it doesn't hurt our own financial institutions.

Merry Christmas one and all

Many thanks Ed for this review, and please pass on my grateful thanks to all your team, who do a great job.

To be brief, in hindsight I now realise my stockpicking experiences in the past were more than a little imprudent to say the least, but Stockopedia has been a real gamechanger for me, both educationally through the webinars and through the help of the stockranks, data and discussion comments.  There are so many things I used to do that I wouldn't dream of doing now since joining Stockopedia, and so many things that I now do that I wouldn't have known to do back then (if that makes sense).

My portfolio in 2025 shows a profit of around 3.5% (excluding divs) which I know doesn't come close to matching what some investors expect but I'm having fun, I'm learning every day, and I'm in control of my own finances. 

I wish you and all the team a truly great Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year - Thank you!  

Great to read your reviews Ed. Stockopedia has transformed my investing. This year in particular has been great with 4 of my portfolios up over 30% and the Value portfolio up over 40% (all with dividends included). Some interesting takeovers eg Renold (LON:RNO^J25) and of course Fresnillo (LON:FRES) and Serabi Gold (LON:SRB) doing some heavy lifting. Europeans also a good hunting ground and Enova International (NYQ:ENVA) in the US though I sold that out too early missing last 20% (Grr - note to self to leave things alone if they are going well). Have a great Christmas and thank you!

Thanks Ed - All very interesting . Stockopedia & Dividendmax are my two main investment tools. My SIPP have increased by nearly 10% per annum whilst in drawdown & taking decent monthly sums. Gold has been amazing & glad I stuck with polymetal, now solid core resources on AIX which has been a five bagger over the past 5 years. Merry Christmas to all

I would rate Stockopedia 100 for Value, Quality and Momentum. Thanks as always Ed and the team.

Thanks for such a great article, Ed.  I really do enjoy your reflection as this greatly helps with my own - of which I have done a good amount of this year.

Long story short, I lost confidence and dashed to cash following Trump's tarrifs and kept a larger potion in cash even when entering back into the market.  This really hurt my performance all year.  Whilst I'm currently c10% up for the year,  7% of that has been in the last five weeks - very much a lucky escape!

Lesson learned (hopefully).  I need to take a far less emotional approach in favour of a more formulaic one - something you've presented the evidence on time after time over the years, I've just not been listening! 

Thanks for this article Ed, it is good to reflect and you always provide me with food for thought. Seeing as you have asked, I am currently up around 24% YTD. I owned Goodwin (LON:GDWN) the whole year, no top ups, no top slices but I did break my own ’rule’ (more of a guideline really) and let the position run above 10% of portfolio value.  Games Workshop (LON:GAW) has also done well, once again.

And then I had metals and miners - The Royal Mint Physical Gold ETC Securities (LON:RMAP) from February, Ishares Physical Metals (LON:SSLN) from September. I started adding individual miners from the spring  - Thor Explorations (LON:THX), Pan African Resources (LON:PAF) and Fresnillo (LON:FRES) but then cashed them in during September for funds to remove the idiosyncratic risk - Golden Prospect Precious Metals (LON:GPM) and iShares Gold Producers UCITS ETF USD (Acc) (LON:SPGP) . All have done well during my holding period. 

The rest of the portfolio has been a bit ‘meh’  in terms of capital returns but it has churned out sufficient dividend income to exceed my start of year target which I’m delighted by given that The Royal Mint Physical Gold ETC Securities (LON:RMAP, Ishares Physical Metals (LON:SSLN) and iShares Gold Producers UCITS ETF USD (Acc) (LON:SPGP) are all top 5 positions but do not pay any dividends.

Moreover, 2025 is my tenth year of running my Compound Growth & Income portfolio which has been heavily influenced by Stockopedia and my average return over that time is over 20% per annum. I owe you a huge debt of gratitude for having the foresight to start this site and share your knowledge for the collective benefit. Thank you!

My best wishes to you and the team for a relaxing festive period and a very happy, healthy and prosperous new year.

Simon

Thanks Ed. Those opening comments - just superb. Wise words. 39% ytd, which is ok. Gold miners my biggest winners by far, both in UK & Canada. Slightly held back by biggest position by far being a Canadian oiler but hoping for a rebound H2 '26 in O & G. This has been the year of commodities and I believe and hope that a generational breakout is underway. Commodities have been in the doldrums for years and are still relatively undervalued. I believe run still has legs.  I wasn't heavy in gold at start of year. I went quite big in summer and my performance recovered quite well. I looked for gold miners who hadn't taken part in the big rally and were still undervalued and had future catalysts that markets weren't giving value to. My point is it's never too late to take part in a rally, there are always a number of good company options to choose from both here and abroad. My biggest source of winning share ideas was X, as usual. There are some amazing private investors based overseas who post their ideas. Happy Christmas everyone.  

Thank you for pointing out which of the stocks I held at the beginning of '25 would probably underperform  - and turning out to be right at the end  of the year (again) .  The number of my sub-SR90  holdings will fall in '26.

Moving on:

I measure my performance on a total return basis (and am currently outperforming your 5.5% + average yield ~4%, but not getting 21% + ~4%).  Looking in a bit more detail I noticed that the performance of my holdings could be grouped by dividend paid i.e.
total return on my 0% dividend paying stocks 
> total return on my 0.01 -4% dividend stocks
> total return on my > 4.01 - and on  dividend stocks

I haven't measured this previous years and of course my stocks are a  tiny subset of the ASX.

I set up 3 virtual SNAPS portfolios split by dividend in November 25 and so far they are performing according to that pattern :- +6.66% / -0.92% /  -1.95%  compared to the ASX index.  

There are small  cap miners in the 0% group, it is a very short time period, and so this could be explained by that and also possibly in the general case.

Has anyone seen this pattern - or know of any literature on this area - if it is a systematic effect I should change my rules.

Thanks Ed, I’m13% up for the year helped by stocko persuading me to get out of some low rated value traps and redeploy. I’m still learning thanks to your methods and commentary. Best wishes for the season and a prosperous 26 for all subscribers

Hi Ed,

Regarding your chart which shows the 47 Stocks that doubled in 2025, could you please tell me whereabouts I can pull up this chart at anytime of the year on Stocko or could you please tell me which parameters I need to enter when performing the search for the highest climbing stocks?

I was reading an article which stated that J P Morgan sees no reason why 2026 won't continue to be another good year for investing.

All the shares which I owe in my portfolio can be viewed by clicking on my avatar.

Wishing everybody at Stocko and all Stocko subscribers all the best for Christmas and 2026.

David.

Thanks Ed. Stockopedia is simply THE best tool for investors and you and your colleagues commentary on individual shares is amazing.  Thank you

Thanks Ed, looking forward to the new NAPS list on NY Day. I have done well this year, particularly following NAPS idea from 1st June, which is up  nearly 16% excluding dividends. I will take that all day long.

Thanks Ed and seasons greetings to you and your family. Once again, Stockopedia has proved a valuable tool in my stock picking. Great value.

Thank you Ed. You’ve dragged me kicking and screaming away from the uncertain promises of story stocks and into the much more satisfying world of high stock rank shares. My portfolio has benefitted  accordingly with a noticeable uptick in performance and just as importantly a significant drop in volatility during market drawdown periods. Keep up the good work. 

My performance this year certainly agrees with Ed's analysis. My large-cap 'boring' divi-paying SIPP is up 18%, while my small/mid-cap more growth orientated folio is up 8% - and there were times I felt it would struggle to break even year-end. Both folios performed poorly at the start of the year, but Trump's Tariff Liberation Day marked a rapid change in their performance, especially the predominantly large-cap folio. I look forward to Ed's insights and the 2026 NAP!

Hi Ed. Timely reminder to stick to strategy. I've been lucky to have a good year (+40%) in UK VM shares with a fairly heavy gold bias which just got heavier during the year. Had some luck with @saga but failed to pull the trigger on @fresnillo at 440p doh!!! Nice to see Cockney Rebel's "bowls" entering the mainstream Stocko lexicon!! 

Another great reminder .......  note to self, must pay more attention in 2026.   Thanks to the whole Stockopedia team for their articles/thoughts/stock ranks during 2025