Daily Stock Market Report (Wed 5 Mar 2025) - Trade Wars, IPX, GAW, CPI, GFRD, BREE, NET, ENSI, BVC, SHI

5th Mar by Graham Neary

52 comments 5841 reads

Good morning all,

The AIM All-Share Index was down by over 2% yesterday, noticeably worse than the FTSE which was down 1.3%.

The S&P 500 was down c. 2% at one point but finished the day down 1.2%.

I was sorry to read the dismay in yesterday's comments section. It's always a test when values are deteriorating. My own portfolio also took a hit with the likes of BRK.B down 3% and IGG down 1.5%.

One of the ways I deal with short-term volatility is that I do not do any daily calculations of my portfolio value. I can see my progress over a month and year-to-date, for example, but I do not calculate the daily change in my portfolio, either in percentage or in absolute value terms. I do not want to know! This works for me but of course it might not work for everyone.

The reason for yesterday's slide: the Trump trade war has heated up with 25% duties on Canada and Mexico that came into force yesterday. Tariffs on China moved from 10% to 20%. And China retaliated with 15% tariffs of their own on certain products. Tit-for-tat tariff decisions seem increasingly likely, with Canada also retaliating against the US.

Some of the biggest movers on AIM were: BUR down 8%, SRC down 5.5%, JET2 down 5%, DATA down 5% and YCA down 5%.

1pm: all done for today.

Companies Reporting

Name (Mkt Cap)	RNS	Summary	Our view (Author)
Flutter Entertainment (LON:FLTR) (£37bn)	Final Results	Strong 2024. Players +13%, rev +19%. 2025 guidance: rev +13%, adj. EBITDA +34%.
Games Workshop (LON:GAW) (£4.5bn)	TU	Ahead of expectations. Strong trading across core business and licensing.	GREEN (Megan) It’s a short, sweet update today from the company which, to my mind, is the brightest light on London’s markets. It’s ticking all the boxes for a high quality stock and getting repeated bumps from expectation-beating updates. In a time when there is not a lot of positivity in global markets, GAW makes me happy.
Old Mutual (LON:OMU) (£2.3bn)	TU	“Solid” results. Headline earnings +10% to +30%
Quilter (LON:QLT) (£2.1bn)	Final Results	AUM +12% to £119bn after £4.8bn of net inflows.
Breedon (LON:BREE) (£1.5bn)	Acquisition and Final Results	Management hopeful that 2024 represents a floor in UK construction activity. Sales +6% boosted by acquisition.	AMBER (Megan) Another big bump in the…

Unlock with Email

Unlock with Google

Already have an account?
Login here

JohnDoe2378

5th Mar

Synectics (LON:SNX) down another 10%, beggars belief!!

Douglas1971

Synectics (LON:SNX) I hold. What sim I missing here stockopedia community? Over 10% drop just today?? Is there a big trade being unwind perhaps?

Synectics (LON:SNX) I hold. What am I missing here? Another 10% today. Is there a big trade being unwound somewhere??

gmtrader

I would guess it’s Whitehall selling though there has been no holding RNS for a while. The results were good imo and I see no reason to sell. As they say, the markets can be irrational.

Rusty2

Synectics (LON:SNX) yes, does not make much sense, ahead of expectations and upgrading next years profits, the share price l would expect to go up. I have bought some more.

GAZ

Yep no idea what's going on. Just bought some more as cannot see why this has dropped 20% in 2 days this after a beat on results.

Camtab

Frankly if the UK is selling any part of our defence industry at this time we must be bloomin stupid!!! All for a short term profit, i think some people need to wake up and see what is happening out there.

Sorry meant SNX.

I totally agree Ken. Hurrah for common sense!!

Simon Thompson in Investors Chronicle, has put out an update on Synectics (LON:SNX) today, l can't read most of it as l'm not a subscriber.

Revs8

Hi Ken. Buybacks vs dividends is clearly not a black and white argument. I think you sum up the situation perfectly. If the share price bottoms and turns around then the buyback was good value (because they were cheap) but if it continues down you have wasted cash.
I’m re-reading one up on Wall Street and Peter Lynch strongly advocates finding turnaround companies that are buying back shares. The trick is knowing if the company is turning the situation around.

If a company is doing well and share price is high, but the management is devoid of ideas how to deploy spare cash then I agree a dividend should be paid. However if the management can see a strong turnaround coming then a buyback at lower prices makes sense.

So maybe a buyback at Impax Asset Management (LON:IPX) is a sign of confidence that the management believe a higher SP is coming? Or maybe they have just run out of ideas how to turn the sp around? Who knows?

I don’t hold Impax Asset Management (LON:IPX) but now that Graham has highlighted them I’ve put them on my watch list. If they can stop the decline then the sp is remarkably low.

WTT

I’ve also added a fair bit as looks very good to me

ken mitchell

Graham. I realise that my buyback posts irritate a lot of readers and you too probably, and can understand frustration with my repeating their minus points. I wouldn’t have posted today but for your claim that the potential Impax Asset Management (LON:IPX) buybacks were exciting. Why are they so exciting?

As I posted this morning buybacks or no buybacks, if Impax Asset Management (LON:IPX) issue a profits warning because of further falls in AUM and increasing outflows the likely outcome is yet another share price fall.

Conversely a better than expected Impax Asset Management (LON:IPX) update with AUM rising along with surprise good news of inflows at last then surely the share price would soar?

I.e it doesn’t need buybacks for our shares to do well. What matters is the success or otherwise of the business.

If you or any readers here can see flaws in this post then please post to explain them. I.e the flaws in this post and not the case for or against buybacks which I agree has been argued to death.

(I do agree btw that if a Company does go for a buyback doing so when the shares look very cheap makes far more sense than what happens so often where Companies buyback regardless, and then sometimes cancel them when at last the share looks too cheap. That applied with Severfield (LON:SFR) this week where they started buybacks around 80p and cancelled them after a profits warning, at 27p).

Also agree that Impax Asset Management (LON:IPX) looks very cheap if at last this is the nadir for outflows etc.

The Ox 2906

There’s quite a lot of talk about Govt stopping any takeovers in defense sector.

jamesalastair

Market makers playing games flushing out stop gaps set too tight for the underlying volatility of the share perhaps?

Positive, 400p TP

Hang on in there. Markets will turn. Staying the game

way

The article has been posted on advfn for anyone who wants to read it.

6th Mar

Very difficult to do at the moment. Another 2% down on my portfolio today.

First, apologies Graham (if you see this) for my daft post in reply to yours yesterday which ended up repeating points already made.

What I really wanted to know (and this was all I should have covered in my reply yesterday) was simply why the potential IPX buybacks were exciting, as you didn’t explain why.

I hold Impax Asset Management (LON:IPX) , Polar Capital Holdings (LON:POLR) , Premier Miton (LON:PMI) Liontrust Asset Management (LON:LIO) and also M&G (LON:MNG) (who Report soon) and am losing on all of them except M&G and Polar (POLR only if excluding the big dividends) despite buying with my favoured tactic of buying after big falls and with luck near the lows.

I’ve just checked the 5 year share prices with disbelief. The falls are enormous. I haven’t checked but maybe one or more have gone for share splits? If they haven’t the falls are now extraordinary with arguably even the best of the 4 Polar Capital Holdings (LON:POLR) at 440p down 50% from the 2021 £8.80 peak. Dividend is 10.8%. Note Polar gets 99 for quality and 93 overall.

Impax Asset Management (LON:IPX) at 173p is down about 85% £14.72 and dividend is 16%, but their update yesterday made it clear that a cut is very likely with some of the money that saves probably going on buybacks. Impax gets 97 for quality.

Liontrust Asset Management (LON:LIO) at £4 is down about 80% from the £25 five year peak. Dividend cut ahead with 17% yield surely unsustainable? LIO gets 93 for quality.

Premier Miton (LON:PMI) at 52p is down 75% from the £2 peak and yield is 11.8% and 93 for quality.

Unless I’m missing something this surely suggests these quality shares all scoring 90+ for quality are way oversold now? I’m very tempted to average down.

Daily Stock Market Report (Wed 5 Mar 2025) - Trade wars, IPX, GAW, CPI, GFRD, BREE, NET, ENSI, BVC, SHI

Companies Reporting

Unlock the rest of this article with a 14 day trial

About the Author

Graham Neary

52 comments

Unlock the metrics for all these stocks and more...

Unlock the metrics for all these stocks and more...