NAPS Portfolio Gains 22% In 6 Months - Is This A Straight Up Year?

Mon 8:42pm by Edward Croft

5 comments 1121 reads

When the NAPS Portfolio started, way back in 2015, I had no idea that by the end of the year 19 out or 20 stocks would be winners, and the portfolio would have risen 42%.

2015 turned out to be one of the best ever years for the NAPS, but I’m starting to wonder whether 2025 might match it.

The first half of the year has been nothing short of stunning.

22% return before dividends.
17 out of 20 winners.
One takeover. One doubler.
A new all-time portfolio high.
No individual stock picking (the NAPS is a passive approach).
Lots of fun watching them go up.

There’s a long way to go, of course, and anything can happen, but I have had good feelings for 2025.

A year ago, in a webinar (and in the half-year NAPS article) I offered five positive reasons why I felt the UK stock market might be in a good place. I’m rarely one for predictions, but the signals felt right at the time.

There have been wobbles of course, but despite the FTSE All Share rising 8% over the last 12 months, it’s actually now on an even lower valuation (by P/E ratio) than it was then. It still trades at a significant discount to international indices. If the UK stops shooting itself in the foot economically, then perhaps there’s plenty of room left to run.

Quick primer - if you are new or want a refresher

Long-time subscribers will know the NAPS Portfolio well — it’s built on the StockRanks, incredibly simple to run, and has outperformed every UK fund manager over the past decade.

If you’re new to Stockopedia, start with this 10-year review - it’s a good overview of how the strategy works and how it's fared for 10 years.
But if you prefer a visual walkthrough, don’t miss this brilliant explainer video by the Financial Wisdom YouTube channel. It’s short, sharp, and nails the essence of the NAPS.
And if you want a bit more background, I ran this 40-minute webinar recently covering the core principles and logic behind this style of portfolio approach.

What’s worked in 2025

At the start of the year, I said the portfolio would need to rise 40% just to reach the average UK market valuation…

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Silver Moon

6:28am

I'm not surprised, those who copied are in luck. Well done Ed!

Abel

6:42am

I started to run my own version of the NAPS portfolio with some little tweaks:

Spread under 400bps
Net debt < 3x Op Profit
Momentum Rank > 70

The original list on 1st January showed almost the same companies as the original NAPS screen, unfortunately not all of them are available in my broker, so I missed on Serabi Gold (LON:SRB) or Metals Exploration (LON:MTL). I took a loose rule on the sector allocation, making the decision to rule out on buying a second company from sectors that had low StockRanks overall and overloading on others with higher Ranks.

My biggest winner so far is Altyngold (LON:ALTN), more than doubling the price in the past six months. From the 20 companies, only 4 are losers, 2 of them very big ones with Thungela Resources (LON:TGA) down almost 40% and Gamma Communications (LON:GAMA) down 26%.

I'm up 15.38% YTD so it's a decent performance and at the moment 2% of the portfolio value is cash from the dividends received on H1.

AlexB1966

7:05am

Great performance. I run a value portfolio on similar lines (with more discretion - I whittle the list down from those that pass using my 'discretion') but across UK, Germany and France (plus some others) so the stock selections are quite different and I am slightly more active. +25.5% including dividends YTD. Big winners are Serabi Gold (LON:SRB) Lion Finance (LON:BGEO) TBC Bank (LON:TBCG) Television Francaise 1 SA (EPA:TFI) Renold (LON:RNO) Coface SA (EPA:COFA) Multitude AG (ETR:MULT) Orange SA (EPA:ORA) and the big losers have been Billington Holdings (LON:BILN) and XP Power (LON:XPP) .

Honey Badger

7:47am

Well done Ed. My own NAPS, which runs August to August, is similarly up after treading water until February, hitting a new high in March, crashing in April - and then surging ever since. Talk about a roller coaster. My pension, of which the NAPS is the major component, is up 30% since the tariff lows. Selling on profit warnings has also served me well again. Things went badly wrong for IG Design (LON:IGR) in January - to the extent that forecasts were suspended. I managed to get out at the bell, down about 40%. Looking for a replacement in the Basic Materials sector, Metals Exploration (LON:MTL) and Altyngold (LON:ALTN) were neck and neck so I put 50% into each. They are up 82% and 114% respectively, meaning that IG Design (LON:IGR) turned out to be a “good” disaster. Coupled with Serabi Gold (LON:SRB) (+156%), the miners have made it a very good year.

My new portfolio will come into force mid August. Interestingly, if it was today - and per your SNAPS list - half of the portfolio would make it through for another year. I think the most rollovers I’ve had previously is four. For Gulf Marine Services (LON:GMS) and Hikma Pharmaceuticals (LON:HIK), it will be three years in a row. In fairness, Hikma Pharmaceuticals (LON:HIK) has been rangebound for the entire period. It will be interesting to see how long the momentum can continue.

Spender71

10:00am

Hi Ed. Excellent returns! Just as well you changed your mind about ending the NAPS Portfolio as mentioned in your post 1/01/2025! Clearly your instincts and those of your subscribers that opposed this were justified.

NAPS Portfolio gains 22% in 6 months - is this a straight up year?

Quick primer - if you are new or want a refresher

What’s worked in 2025

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Edward Croft

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