- Wealth managers least liked
- Bank of Georgia gets full house
- Real estate popular among analysts
Humans generally feel more comfortable in groups which partly explains why stock prices often move in broad trends: knowing other investors and analysts have come to the same conclusion about a company breeds confidence in the investment case, whether or not it turns out to be correct.
A rarer breed of investor prefers to stand alone and deliberately take a contrarian view, opposite to the crowd, believing they have spotted something others have missed.
Irrespective of the type of investor, how the market is positioned is an important consideration in analysing opportunities, so this article looks at the most and least favoured stocks with a market capitalisation above £500 million as seen through the lens of the analyst community.
FOR THE CONTRARIANS
Given the rarity of outright Sell recommendations, we have compiled a list of stocks which have the biggest proportion of ‘Underperform’ ratings among those which are covered by at least three brokers.
The list is dominated by financial companies, with wealth manager Abrdn (ABDN) the least favoured with half of the 14 analysts covering the company giving it the thumbs down.
Outside of financials, also in the analyst doghouse is embattled fast fashion retailer ASOS (ASC) which saw Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group (FRAS) nudge up its stake in the group on Christmas Eve to almost 23%.
MOST LOVED
Geopolitics seem to be taking a backseat as far as Bank of Georgia (BGEO) is concerned, with all four analysts covering the company seeing a full house in terms of buy recommendations.
Analysts have increased their 2024 and 2025 earnings forecasts for the lender by more than a third over the last 12 months.
Also flying high with analysts is digital payments and commerce group PayPoint (PAY) with three out of four analysts giving the company a Buy recommendation.
At the half year results (Nov 21), the firm said consumer behaviour had improved from the slow start in April 2024 although broader economic indicators demonstrated a continued ‘challenging’ environment for UK consumers.
Real estate companies also feature heavily in the table of most loved companies, including European industrial parks property company Sirius Real Estate (SRE) which announced the acquisition of a neighbouring business park in Munich for €13.3 million on 17 December.
