Our analysts are +36.9% in FTSE 250 names year to date. This is the signal to follow.

Our team's nine FTSE 250 Stock Pitches this year are all in profit, up 36.9% since publication. It’s not down to luck. Many of them were riding a repeatable signal, and it's still firing.

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The FTSE 250 Index (FTSE:MCX) used to be seen as the powerhouse index of Britain. It hosted the best of British mid-caps - dynamic, exporting growth stocks - even shaking off Brexit concerns to hit a peak in 2021. But since then, it struggled underwater for nearly five years - 1,798 days to be precise.  But last week, on the 4th August it finally broke above those highs, and now looks like clearing 25,000, up 11% for the year.

This is a signal that money is coming back to undervalued British shares, but it’s still being picky. The poor AIM index remains 39% below its 2021 peak. So there’s not yet a rising tide - but capital is certainly returning to quality mid-caps. More than this, when the market gets selective, mid-cap stock pickers can do exceptionally well. So in this article - I’m going to give you some tools to hunt in that direction.

Nine out of nine +36.9%

Excuse me a moment of congratulations for our analyst team.  Graham, Mark, Roland, Ed and James - have published nine FTSE 250 stock pitches in 2026, and as of 6 August every single one is in profit. The average gain is 36.9% since publication, across an average of only 113 days since publish date. That’s a very impressive feat.

Of course shares never go straight up, four of the nine were underwater a week after we published them, and the big winners took months to mature. Nine winners, in a market that’s been this kind to mid-caps, is a small sample and a short track record. Nonetheless, I’m impressed. If only my portfolio had done as well as this year to date!

 After a good run like this - I do like to look back and figure out what drove the big winners. What did these selections have in common before they moved. Yes they had higher StockRanks - but what else did our analysts see?

The tell - raised guidance

Let’s take CMC Markets, the best performer - and also the star of the NAPS Portfolio this year. Last November, CMC told the market it was trading “ahead of expectations” and raised its own earnings guidance - the shares rose 29% in a single day. Most investors will see a spike like this and assume the market has repriced it efficiently and move on. But we read momentum like this differently: a company publicly raising its own guidance is a strong signal, the StockRanks had been agreeing and volatile markets and a strong business strategy were working for CMC. Mark’s excellent pitch followed in March. By July, CMC had raised guidance again - “significantly ahead”, and the shares moved another +42% in a day. That stock pitch now sits on +115% gain.

It wasn't a one-off.

• Raspberry Pi reported ahead of forecasts and set out fresh guidance on 31st March, leading to a massive +47% jump. Roland sensed the moment and pitched it eight days later; another “significantly ahead of expectations” update followed in June, worth 28% move on the day.
• Keller had reported ahead in March before our Ed Sheldon’s May pitch - but July brought upgraded guidance and a 22.5% announcement day gain.
• Watches of Switzerland, pitched by Graham in the first week of January, raised guidance in February and again in May.

Four names that shared the same signal: each company was telling the market, in its own words, that its business was beating its own plans. Those are four of the five biggest winners.

The other pitches took different routes: Pets at Home is a turnaround case - with a well-timed bottom fish by Roland - Bodycote was James’s quality at a reasonable price selection that attracted bid interest, while Dr. Martens has been pitched on a recent StockRank Jump. Frasers Group, ZIGUP and TBC Bank complete the set.

But the most powerful returns behind the biggest winners have been driven by raised earnings/revenue guidance. So I decided to investigate more thoroughly to see if we could identify more FTSE 250 shares with the same profile.

How much has raising guidance paid?

We’ve been exploring various text and financial indicator analyses on Results and Trading Statements in RNS for all London shares since December 2024 - a small fixed timeframe, but packed with insights. We’ve classified whether each company has been using “guidance” change language in their outlook statements. i.e. whether they are raising or lowering their guidance on earnings and revenue forecasts for the future.

One thing to know about the FTSE 250 before we go deeper - only 159 of its constituents are actual operating companies. The other 91 are investment trusts, funds and REITs. I’ve excluded those 91 from the analysis as I’m really interested in the operating companies.

Across those 159, here's the median share price path after each kind of guidance statement. The six-month column is measured from the announcement-day close - i.e. it compounds on top after the day one close:

Look at that first row. The market pays raised guidance twice - 6.1% on the day, then another 6.1% of positive share price drift over the next six months, with two thirds of guidance raisers higher six months on. That post-announcement drift is exactly what the CMC and Keller pitches harvested. The third row shows the mirror image - six months after a guidance cut, the median company was still below the before the bad news day share price. In a way - good news pays double.

And we can go deeper. If we split the guidance raisers by their StockRank: upgrades from companies already ranked 80 or above went on to a median 18.7% total gain over six months. Upgrades from names ranked below 66 popped on day one, but then stalled. The 54 companies in the top-band event sample is a small set, so treat it as a tilt in the odds for now. But raised guidance on an already-high StockRank, FTSE 250 name has been a good recent bet.

Why does the FTSE 250 serve up this signal so reliably? It seems to be because FTSE 250 management are plain speakers. They address the forecast outlook in 39% of their company updates - double the rate of the rest of the market - 15% of them cite analyst forecasts outright, three times the rate anywhere else. Down on AIM, disclosure leans towards the boilerplate "in line with market expectations" formula that the market abuse regulations demand. FTSE 250 companies seem to tell us the numbers, and then tell us whether they’ll beat them. For investors who read the news every day, there's actually no straighter talking set of companies than the FTSE 250.

Which FTSE 250 stocks are raising the bar right now

And this brings us to today. These 159 FTSE 250 operating companies are in quite good shape - their median StockRank is 72, up from 65 last September, and 61 companies are ranked 80 or above, with 32 in the 90s. 23 of the 61 have raised guidance or beaten expectations since February. 

Here are the twelve ranked 90-plus with the latest signals:

“Return since“ is the further move after each announcement's closing price to 6th August close.

The usual disclaimers apply. This is a research starting list, not a set of buy recommendations - several of these have already been on strong runs, and Morgan Sindall and Ithaca aren’t budging on good news. Raised guidance plus a high StockRanks seems to have an edge - it’s certainly where many of our best performing 9 stock pitches came from - but not all will move.

Over to you

If we take one rule from all of this: when a FTSE 250 company with a strong StockRank raises its own guidance, the move often has further to run.

The team are going to continue with some FTSE 250 pitches over the next few weeks to help you dive further into the details. Those nine winners haven't exhausted the 159-company list, and of course, many of the best ideas come from the community not from our team. So if you hold, follow, or have done any research work on shares in that table - or further across the FTSE 250 - please do share your thoughts in the comments.