No. of Recommendations: 23
I don't have any specific comments about Legal & General, or Lego.
But if you want a UK investing idea, look at the Financial Times tongue-in-cheek "XFT" index.
They take the FTSE firms, and find the 9 which have been mentioned least in the prior five years.
Currently they are
Sage
Spirax-Sarco
Croda
Halma
Rentokil Initial
Experian
Relx
Compass
Bunzl
This idea was first proposed in 2017.
Financial Times: Content 413f60b4 1b89 11e7 a266 12672483791a"Lex has hypothesised that it would be better to invest in companies the very mention of which can leave news editors dozing peacefully in their swivel chairs. We therefore split the current constituents of the FTSE 100 index into two groups: those mentioned least and most in the Financial Times over five years. Bingo! The XFT Index, as we call it, outperformed the Newsworthy 50 by 33 per cent...
there is a cohort of XFT companies whose steady growth, scaleable business models and low profiles should still repay study. Providing you can stay awake long enough to read their numbers."A brief follow up in June 2019
Financial Times: Content Fef086f4 8c45 11e9 a24d b42f641eca37"Health and safety procedures can bore the most diligent employee, however useful they may be. Halma, maker of health and safety instruments, has a similarly tricky time drawing attention to itself.
Halma is one of the latest additions to the group of lesser-known FTSE stocks that offer superior returns while putting financial journalists and analysts to sleep. The XFT Index, as Lex calls this contra-indicator of financial newsmakers, has outperformed the broader index by 22 per cent over the past three years, including dividend returns. "And another this August
Financial Times: Content Addffd2a fef8 46f3 bec4 e7cd41edd849"Since 2017, Lex has been keeping an eye on nine of the largest and least newsworthy UK-listed companies. These are the top constituents of what we dubbed the 'XFT index' of business rarely featured in the media. They have beaten returns on the FTSE 350 by almost 40 per cent over five years.
The companies have common traits. They are stable, defensive long-term compounders that operate on a global stage. They avoid profit warnings, megadeals or boardroom bust-ups. One such is FTSE 100 distributor Bunzl, which lifted its earnings guidance on Tuesday, extending 30 consecutive years of annual dividend growth."It was mentioned in today's Lex column, speculating that the recent M&A activity at Rentokil might bump them out of the snore-fest list.
The obvious question raised is whether the same might work within other markets, for example the S&P 500 or 1500.
Jim
