Stock Watch 29 March 2010

The Share Centre’s top 5 customer buys from the last 7 days:

1. Lloyds Banking – Lloyds update encouraging for investors.
2. RBS – Banks still finding favour.
3. Desire Petroleum – Investors won’t be pleased with announcement made 29 March, poor drilling results.
4. Aviva – Aviva looking a better option than Prudential at the moment.
5. National Grid – Investors are now deciding that the time is for security and yield.


The Share Centre’s top 5 shares to follow:

1. Tesco lower Risk – International operations and lead position in the UK should continue to reward investors.
2. National Grid Lower Risk – Solid yield and stability of share price.
3. Arm Holdings Medium Risk – Chip maker worth having a closer look at.
4. Cairn Energy Medium Risk – Results made good reading last week, still room for improvement.
5. HMV Higher Risk – Retailers starting to see an improvement in trading, HMV should benefit.



Ratio of buys to sells = 68:32 %

Top 5 most searched for companies on www.share.com


1. Barclays
2. RBS
3. Lloyds
4. Opsec Security
5. Aberdeen Asset Management


The Share Centre’s Share of the Week
Company: HMV   
Share price:  86.70p   
Sector:  General retailers
Recommendation:    BUY
Risk category:    High
Investment class:Balanced


Opinion:
The retail sector is having somewhat of an upsurge at the moment and we believe that HMV could become part of that. In late March HMV issued an update on its new strategy going forward and this was received very positively.

HMV will look to utilise the fact that they are the last remaining high street entertainment specialist after Virgin and ZiZi went into administration. Also HMV will be entering into the ‘Live music’ market through a broader live music and digital presence, after its purchase of Mama Group for £46 million last year and joint venture with digital media group 7digital. Mama was the U.K.'s second largest multiple venue operator.

HMV wants to open up to three new live music venues each year to continue growing in the live music market, which it expects will be around a third larger than recorded music by 2012.

Trading at its books store Waterstone’s has proven to be tough but by staging more local promotions and increasing non-book sales HMV hope to see a return to fortune.

HMV have set an ambitious goal to become debt free by 2013; current levels stand at £88 million.

At the current price HMV does look reasonable value. This is one for the brave, but we feel a risk worth taking.


THIS DATA IS PROVIDED BY GRAHAM SPOONER, INVESTMENT ADVISER AT THE SHARE CENTRE. THIS IS NOT INTENDED TO CONSTITUTE AN OFFER OR AGREEMENT TO BUY OR SELL INVESTMENTS.
 

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2010-03-30 12:00:34 © Moneyextra.com