UK shares continue to struggle for grip on Monday as fears over the economic rebound roll on. The FTSE 100 is down fractionally on the day as investors fret over the third Covid-19 wave sweeping across Europe. Moves by several European countries to postpone rollouts of the AstraZeneca vaccine have done little to improve confidence either.
That said, I haven’t stopped spending to build my own Stocks and Shares ISA despite these fears. There are still plenty of UK shares out there I think might make me big shareholder profits in the near term and later. And it’s possible to dig these out by putting in the effort to do some decent research.
A FTSE 100 firecracker
Antofagasta (LSE: ANTO) is a FTSE 100 stock I expect to deliver big returns in 2021 and possibly beyond. This is because I expect the prices it can ask for its copper to remain strong as infrastructure spending ramps up, outlay on the green revolution improves, and growing inflation boosts investor demand for safe-haven commodities.
Strong factory data from China has boosted my confidence too. Latest industrial output figures showed a 35.1% spike in activity over January and February. This bodes well for copper as China accounts for 50% of the worldwide total demand. It’s little wonder City analysts think Antofagasta’s annual earnings will jump 80% in 2021, a reading which leaves this UK share trading on a forward price-to-earnings growth (PEG) ratio of 0.3.
Of course there’s always a chance earnings projections for UK shares can miss the target. And the mining industry in particular is loaded with risk due to the complexities of dragging large amounts of metal from the earth. That said, I still think there’s a lot to get excited about over at Antofagasta today.
A riskier ISA buy
Tesco (LSE: TSCO) is another FTSE 100 share which could be considered too cheap to miss right now. City analysts think profits here will increase 53% year-on-year this fiscal year to February 2022. This also results in a sub-1 PEG ratio of 0.3 (any reading below 1 can suggest a firm is undervalued by the market).
However, Tesco isn’t a UK share I’m prepared to gamble my hard-earned cash with. Soaring competition among Britain’s supermarkets is creating more and more stress for the FTSE 100 firm. And the soaring popularity of discounters Aldi and Lidl in particular is severely hampering margins.
The experts at Statista expect the newer kids on the block to keep going from strength to strength too. They anticipate sales among discount chains will rise 40% between 2019 and 2024. Compare that with the 3% increase predicted for the broader British supermarket sector.
It’s not all doom and gloom for Tesco though. There’s the possibility that profits from the grocer’s market-leading online proposition could rocket during the digital revolution. Still, I’d much rather use my money to invest in other cheap FTSE stocks where the risks to my capital are lower.
