Today I am looking at the investment case for three stock market surgers.
In control
Shares in instruments and controls specialist Spectris (LSE: SXS) took off during the course of last week, gaining 19% between last Monday and Friday. Investor appetite was helped following Spectris’s latest financials on Tuesday, which showed that sales had edged 1% higher in 2015 to £1.2bn.
This was a solid performance given the challenging state of the firm’s end markets, and revenues are anticipated to pick up, with the company planning further product launches and acquisitions. Indeed, Spectris bought out Switzerland’s CAS Clean Air Service just today.
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With heavy restructuring also ticking along nicely, the City expects the London firm to bounce from recent earnings losses and punch a 23% earnings jump in 2016. This leaves Spectris dealing on an attractive P/E rating of just 14.8 times, while a sub-1 PEG rating, at 0.7, underlines the firm’s decent value relative to its growth prospects.
On top of this, a predicted 52.5p per share dividend — yielding a handy 3% — sweetens the investment case.
Software strider
Software provider Fidessa (LSE: FDSA) also enjoyed a massive share price ascent during the course of last week, the stock adding 29% between Monday and Friday.
Like Spectris, Fidessa benefitted from strong full-year numbers, the company advising last Monday that revenues leapt 7% in 2015 to £295.5m despite volatile trading conditions. And encouragingly the firm advised that its end markets “continue to improve with increasing opportunity for new services.”
The number crunchers do not believe that Fidessa will enjoy explosive bottom-line growth in the near-term, however, and a predicted 2% advance leaves the business dealing on an elevated P/E rating of 23.9 times. But a predicted dividend of 86.8p per share, yielding a huge 4.4%, helps to offset the high multiple.
A power pick
While it is true that resurgent risk appetite has propelled stock markets higher over the past week, there is no doubt that plenty of ‘mud’ — from fears over extreme Chinese cooling to the outcome of June’s ‘Brexit’ vote — remains in the system that could drive share prices through the floor again.
As a consequence, demand for quality defensive companies remains very much alive, a factor that helped to drive National Grid (LSE: NG) 3% higher between last Monday and Friday. And I expect the electricity network operator to keep chugging higher as the fruits of its vast investment programme in the UK and US drive earnings in the near-term and beyond.
The City expects National Grid to enjoy a 4% earnings bounce in the year to March 2016 alone, resulting in a very-decent P/E rating of 14.9 times. And when you also factor in a projected dividend of 43.7p per share — yielding a mammoth 4.8% — I believe there is plenty of room for the power play’s shares to positively re-rate.
