The Week Ahead: 16-20 December (TSTL, DOTD)

13th Dec '24 by Megan Boxall

19 comments 1810 reads

Good afternoon and welcome to the Week Ahead.

We’re in the official run down to the end of the year, with very few company announcements in the schedule. In fact, I would say we’re getting to the time of year when companies scheduling announcements may be doing so in the hope that at this time of year, no one cares. Look out for dividend cuts and minor profit warnings from some low profile companies!

We’re also at the time of year when it is definitely acceptable to watch Trading Places. Which is, in my opinion, the best investing film.

Thank you all for your engagement and suggestions on last week’s article. I’ve started trying to address some of those requests:

GSK analysis - I have taken a closer look at the investment case of the British pharma giant. You can read my verdict here.
Garmin - I have started delving into the investment case and have added the company to my 2025 watchlist. I’ll look to publish my thoughts in detail over Christmas. Incidentally, Garmin is also on my Christmas list.

The week in review

No signs yet of a Santa Rally.

Interest rate cuts in the Europe provided some stimulus to the Stoxx on Wednesday. While the tech-heavy Nasdaq Index hit historic highs on Thursday when it opened trading north of 20,000 for the first time ever.

Both the US and UK interest rate decisions are due next week and current thinking is that while the Federal Reserve is likely to trim rates, the Bank of England will be holding firm. Lower borrowing costs could yet provide some more sparkle to the US, but London’s markets continue to provide slightly less Christmas cheer than their global counterparts.

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At Stockopedia we’ve covered the results or news of 32 companies, you can catch up on all of our news analysis via this link.

A couple of company highlights from the week for me:

I have pondered whether I should include Games Workshop (LON:GAW) as a highlight, because it would be the second week in a row, but news of the company’s deal with Amazon this week is a definite win for the week. Roland covered…

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chelsea

13th Dec '24

Comprehensive rundown, many thanks Megan, think the key events will be the interest rate decisions.

Cricketfan

Next week's list includes two of my current favourites:

Beeks Financial Cloud (LON:BKS) and Time Finance (LON:TIME).

The BKS entry is for their AGM so unlikely to offer much news. Always the chance however that we may get an inkling of an other exchange ready to sign up...

TIME is the one I am watching closely. The traditional clearing banks have apparently all but vacated new lending to SMEs leaving field open to TIME (and others). Management here have not put a foot wrong so far and the opportunity to grow rapidly is there if the economy makes even half decent growth. I am hoping for some indication that TIME is seeing some 'early spring shoots'.

Douglas1971

14th Dec '24

Tristel (LON:TSTL) Megan, thanks for your views on this company, which appeared on my watchlist late October. Whilst it remains on the list it did not appeal to me looking at progress of the stock price but I remained intrigued with the financials. Now I know the story and will keep an eye on this one. Trading Places is a classic Christmas film in my household. “It was the Dukes, it was the Dukes!’’

Investingnewbie

Trading Places… The Big Short for me. Otherwise, great read, Megan. Thank you and have a great Christmas.

Rusty2

Tristel (LON:TSTL) watch out the directors share options.

Also directors have sold a lot of shares this.

Is this company more for the directors benefit or shareholders?

lagib

dotDigital (LON:DOTD) paying £3bn in divis, now that's the type of share I like in my portfolio!

I would love it too if divi was that high. Which it isn’t, decimal place has moved methinks!

Grippie

"directors have sold a lot of shares"

This never inspires confidence.. however...

Isn't Swinney the previous CEO/founder who handed over to Sassone? Also, istr on one of Paul Hill's podcasts that one of his interviewees described Dixon the CFO as having a close working relationship with him and that she thought she might be hoping to take over as CEO.
If I'm correct in these "stories" it might excuse those two cashing in to some extent. I see that Sassone was with Massimo in the US so hopefully he went into the job at Tristel (LON:TSTL) with his eyes open to the hurdles in the US..

Richard Goodwin

I believe Swinney and Dixon are married! Other than that yes. Paul Swinney was the LT CEO who has now retired

GreyInvestor

Could we please have a link to your new podcasts on the main splash screen?

Many thanks.

The issue is the directors are getting £ millions of share options and the profits are shown before these are deducted.. Paul Scott has covered this in the past.

Harry Hindsight

Thoughts for future car market thematic, which is at the forefront of high tech.

Tesla (NSQ:TSLA) boosted by the tariff 'threat' and flying as high as his space ships. But investors may not have safe arms to collect them when the inevitable happens. But they do say don't bet against Elon Musk.

The Chinese may get whacked to 'level the playing field', for Tesla, but China is a big market for them so Musk needs to tread carefully.

I'm not much interested in the autonomous angle, trying to remedy a problem that isn't there, but has other 'benefits' like war machines. Drones have already changed this space (all made in China of course).

The Chinese will rule autonomy anyway if regulators in the US are less comfortable with 'accidents' and can get more real world testing data. Baidu (NSQ:BIDU) already employs driverless cars, as well as an other businesses such as a successful Chinese search engine. Mobileye Global (NSQ:MBLY) does driver assistance systems. Alphabet (NSQ:GOOGL) are testing Waymo cars in London.

I see the MG branded cars everywhere in London, Chinese SAIC (not sure if can invest, maybe one of the ETF's). KIA is now a mainstream car in the UK and very good too. London Taxi's are now electric by Geeley under LEVO brand, and do a very nice van which looks far nicer than the Tesla truck.

BYD Co (PNK:BYDDY) I think sell more cars than Tesla, have a EV battery division and sells energy storage units. The cars are sold in China but could develop overseas to friendlier markets.

CATL ships 36% of worldwide batteries, far more than Tesla.

Maybe a humanoid robot will be the ultimate solution for driverless taxis. A friendly chatterbox, perhaps with a Micheal Caine accent (changeable of course) who could probably calculate your tax return whilst driving you to see Mum. Can swivel the old 'swede' so better than fixed point sensors. Plus safer for the ladies out late at night.

Total Recall anyone.

And if you buy a drone for christmas well guess where it comes from .......

All of the above arguably sell more cars, batteries, have higher growth and together a lower valuation than that of Tesla. They are on the US market or through an ETF.

China also produces most of the rare earths needed for a lot of tech, but I would guess the the US has these as well just not bothered to exploit them yet.

Blue Bird (NMQ:BLBD) $1bn US school bus co with several low or zero carbon power solutions. Currently below its 200ma so put an alert for when it breaks above.

dscollard

15th Dec '24

Weekly Wrap

UK indices underperformed on the weekly led by the FTSE250 giving back a lot of the early December gains with small cap AIM showing similar (plot)

Dollar and 10 year yields making the biggest gains in the past week while oil led in the commodities space +4% on the week . Gold manage to eek out a gain despite the DXY but looks to be losing some steam while many of the precious metals respected their denominator and sold-off with silver taking the brunt . Worth noting iron ore turning green and copper holding unch as China's HSI closed the week 0.5% to the good on more stimulus hopes

Not huge evidence of sleigh bells yet : mega caps have been sideways since May in a £7900-£8450 range, the mid cap FTSE250 is also rangebound in what looks like a consolidating bull flag from the Aug '24 highs while AIM is still the weakest link but is showing some signs of basing : if it holds and rallies off the 50MA next week around 734 it may auger some good things into year end and early 2025.

If oil stays bid next week it should help across the mcap range

PMIs tomorrow in Asia, Europe and US may have some directional impacts though Retail Sales across regions, CPI/PCE and BoJ BoE interest rates likely to be of more impact ...

.... it is the week before Christmas so liquidity may well be thin and bumpy and more "seasonal liquidity" may also be in play

in sector terms the stand out winner over the past week and month has been Personal Goods up over 30% on the month and 4% on the week with big recover gains in the likes of Burberry (LON:BRBY) Dr Martens (LON:DOCS) Watches of Switzerland (LON:WOSG) while Warpaint London (LON:W7L) takeout of Brand Architekts (LON:BAR) added to the cheer

on a relative bullish/bearish basis, this sits in the upper right quadrant as names advance in both medium and longer terms treads (see median plot ) along with Consumer Services , Tobacco , Utilities and Banks.

The bottom left quad (declining on both timescales) sits Renewables, Home Builders, Industrial Materials , Oil & Gas, Pharmaceuticals

here's a weekly heatmap for all sectors with bright spots in Banks, Personal Care and Grocery , Tobacco , Insurance Electronic and Electrical, Personal Goods , Medical Equipment

The Week Ahead in Earnings

.. light week with 11 names, 0.5% of the LSE market cap with Bunzl (LON:BNZL) being the only megacap

5 FTSE 250s inc Chemring (LON:CHG) SThree (LON:STEM) Serco (LON:SRP) Integrafin Holdings (LON:IHP) Hollywood Bowl (LON:BOWL)

Names in the below are coloured most bearish (deep red) too most bullish (bright green) on a relative scale based on an aggregate score (price relative to common moving averages )

Interactive version of the below here (not very mobile friendly )

trying to pin down company reporting dates is a black art e.g Tristel has an AGM Monday where it often updates on earnings though it is not a formal earnings date, FY 24 should report mid Jan '25

SThree (LON:STEM) already reported last week and it was not pretty.

KBR

Megan and Bohenie

Thankyou for responding to my BPR query last week in the Week Ahead article. KBR.

thanks - was out of action last week but does look like a car crash result: these visuals are built by machines so based on expected dates- always a case of Trust but Verify

Yes, l think the UK should have, more scheduled updates, like the US markets.

Also l prefer reporting after the market closes rather than 7am.

The Week Ahead: 16-20 December (TSTL, DOTD)

The week in review

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Megan Boxall

19 comments

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