This week, we round up the top 10 recommendations our MoneyWeek experts have given readers this year. And Sanlam’s Ricco Friedrich (pictured above) came out on top.
What I would invest in now
As you know, the Personal View page reveals the very best share selections from our team of investment experts every week. Having bounced off its lows in early March, the JSE’s shot up an astounding 47.77% since then. And we’ve certainly cashed in on the momentum this year. Out of the 110 shares tipped in this page this year, our analysts have got an impressive 90 shares correct. That’s an 81.8% win rate – with our top 10 shares bringing in a total gain of 778.20%. So let’s have a look at the top five recommendations made this year.
In February, Ricco Friedrich, the head of unconstrained equity at Sanlam Asset Management tipped Mondi Plc (JSE:MNP) as his big share for 2009. Citing this commodity paper business as “trading materially below its tangible book value of R65.00,” Ricco believed that Mondi would pick up as the cycle turned. If you’d bought Mondi when it was tipped, you’d have made a phenomenal 115.20% gain in just ten months.
Our next big hitter was OMIGSA’s Grant Watson. Grant, who Co Heads the quants division, had the following to say in April: “As the dollar weakens and the US economy is put under greater pressure, gold will soar – and so too will our economy.” And soar it did. It sent niche retail banker Capitec (JSE:CPI) to an impressive 99.19% gain, which you would have pocketed had you bought the share in April.
In third place, we find another Sanlam analyst. Barend Ritter’s timely punt on commodity giant, Anglo American (JSE:AGL) saw the share rise 94.73% in just nine months. His view that very depressed commodity prices would “bounce off their lows” was spot on. If you bought into this share, it’s time to bank your 94.73% gain.
In early February, junior analyst at Tsolitsa Securities, Gerard Luttschreuter told us that the expectation of more rate cuts “offers a small glimmer of hope for a market recovery in late 2009”. To date, the Reserve Bank’s shed a whopping 4.5% off our interest rate. Having made this prediction, Gerard deftly pointed out that shares with record low PEs would present some great discount buys.
For this reason, he picked insurance group Old Mutual (JSE:OML) – who had been smacked down to penny share prices thanks its decision to cut dividends at the beginning of the year. The share’s run up 83.10% since being tipped in February. So it’s time for you to bank your gains.
The last analyst to make our top five this year was independent analyst and regular contributor, Lavan Gopaul. When Lavan confidently told us that “once the global economy starts to turn around, this will see the Asia/China growth story re-emerge and it’s likely this will be the force that lifts us all out of the doldrums,” we could hardly believe our ears. But seeing is believing. His decision to punt iron-ore giant Kumba Iron Ore (JSE:KIO) was a great one. It’s bounced up 83.10% from its February tip price of R146.00 – hope you got in on this one.
So there you have it. Our top five analysts beat the market by an astounding 33.05% or more.
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