With one day left, this March has been volatile for UK investors. Over the past month, the FTSE 100 index has lost 3.7% of its value — and that’s even with a near-4% rebound over the last two weeks.
Across the Atlantic, the S&P 500 index is actually up 1.9% over one month. Again, this follows a 5%+ recovery from March’s low. Hence, it’s fair to say that, after a positive start to 2022, volatility caught investors by surprise this month.
Down go FTSE 100 stocks
Over one month, 24 shares in the Footsie have risen in value. These increases range from 0.2% to 12.8%, with the average being 3.4%.
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This leaves 76 losers. Declines from these laggards range from 0.1% to 23.5%, with an average loss of 7.4%.
Of course, some FTSE 100 shares have fared far worse than others. Here are the five biggest flops over one month, based on Thursday’s closing prices:
| Company | Sector | One-month % change | One-year % change | Five-year % change |
| British Land | Property | -16.2 | -31.2 | -42.0 |
| Beazley | Insurance | -16.4 | +32.3 | +1.1 |
| Barclays | Banking | -17.7 | -9.2 | -31.1 |
| Standard Chartered | Banking | -23.4 | +17.6 | -15.6 |
| Ocado Group | Retail/Tech | -23.5 | -59.0 | -10.1 |
Price plunges across these five flops range from almost a sixth to nearly a quarter — all in the space of a single month. And while two of these shares have gained in value over the last 12 months, only one eked out a positive result over a half-decade. Ouch.
One thing that stands out is that four of these five fallers have been hit by severe shudders in the banking world. Following the collapse this month of three mid-sized US banks and Swiss giant Credit Suisse, property, insurance and banking shares have been beaten down worldwide.
Which of these shares would I buy today?
If I had to choose one of these shares to add to my family portfolio today, I’d think long and hard. But I strongly suspect my answer would be Big Four bank Barclays (LSE: BARC).
Last Friday, shares in the Blue Eagle bank dived to just over 130p a share. At the time, I kicked myself that I lacked spare cash to buy more Barclays stock. My wife had already bought this FTSE 100 share for our portfolio last July.
Even after this week’s strong comeback, this stock still looks dirt cheap to me. Here are its fundamentals:
| Current price | 144.82p |
| 52-week high | 198.86p |
| 52-week low | 128.12p |
| Market value | £22.4bn |
| Price-to-earnings ratio | 4.8 |
| Earnings yield | 21.0% |
| Dividend yield | 5.1% |
| Dividend cover | 4.1 |
At currently depressed price levels, Barclays shares trade on a lowly multiple of under five times earnings. This translates into a bumper earnings yield of 21%.
What’s more, the bank’s dividend yield of over 5% a year is covered more than four times by trailing earnings. While I have no doubt that Barclays is set to have a much tougher 2023 than 2022, I see this as a wide margin of safety for long-term investors like me.
Finally, as the UK economy weakens, banks’ bad debts and loan losses are set to surge. Therefore, I predict bank earnings will be dragged down this year. Even so, I see this FTSE 100 stock as a steal at today’s price!
