The Active List in peak form

A year of infatuation with all things AI has bent share-price momentum in odd ways across European equities. Even as the fever finally seems to break, the Active List has had to choose among stocks whose momentum was supportive (and treacherous), but whose valuations put them beyond reach on fundamentals. Every winning streak needs a lucky break. Ours was AlphaValue’s broad coverage of metals and mining, which offered a way to play the AI bubble, if very indirectly, and to profit from fossil-fuel inflation feeding into metals valuations. 

Anchored in fundamentals, AlphaValue is cautious by construction. and will always prefer a Novartis to a VAT. That caution is paying off as we write. The Wolters Kluwers of this world are at last staging a well-deserved comeback. 

Tomorrow, naturally, will be different. In the meantime, here is the current Active List. As necessary reminders, performance is measured with 4% weight given each day to each of the 25 stocks (i.e. gains are not capitalised as weightings are reset daily). No allowance is made for real-world trading frictions, which we reckon would shave about 0.5% off performance. Holdings are reviewed every Monday and published at Tuesday’s open.