Out-of-favour stocks with quietly accelerating earnings

Raspberry Pi

Stock prices can move around quite a lot in the short term, usually driven by emotional factors and popular narratives. 

This is one of the reasons why stocks trend, both up and down, with strong/weak price momentum creating a positive feedback loop, leading to further gains/losses. 

However, it is always worth remembering investor Terry Smith’s sage observation that in the long run stock prices follow profits, not the other way around. 

These opposing dynamics mean that, at some point stock prices can move so far away from their underlying value that the risk/reward proposition becomes potentially worthy of further research.  

What are we looking for?  

With this framework in mind, we thought it might be useful to create a stock screen which identifies stocks trading close to their 52-week lows, where analysts have revised their earnings estimates upwards over the prior quarter.

It is worth pointing out that just because a stock is trading at a new low for the year, doesn’t mean it can’t keep falling.

However, if consensus earnings estimates are moving in the opposite direction, it suggests the share price may have overshot to the downside.

Using Stockopedia, we have created the following table featuring UK companies valued at more than £400 million which are trading close to their 52-week low.

We have added a column of earnings revisions to identify those names which have seen the largest upward revisions in the last quarter.

What jumps out is the number of stocks on the list caught up in the recent sell-off related to Anthropic’s release of an AI tool which could displace services provided by existing companies operating across legal, software and data services.

For the purposes of this article, we are going to ignore these names due to the increased uncertainty.

Names under pressure from this emerging narrative include accounting software company Sage, insurer Admiral, Autotrader, the London Stock Exchange, Experian, Pearson and Relx.  

 

Why Raspberry Pi shares have struggled

Low-cost, high performance computing company Raspberry Pi has seen its shares drop from over 700p to plumb new lows around 270p in recent weeks. 

It has been a rough journey for investors after a high-profile IPO (initial public offering) in June 2024 saw the shares surge to more than 780p in early 2025. 

The primary reason for the sell-off has centred on the rising cost of memory chips used in many of Raspberry Pi’s products, with ongoing supply chain issues. 

This is largely driven by vendors diverting manufacturing capacity to meet the surge in AI data centre investment.  

The latest US earnings season revealed that big technology firms are projecting more than $600 billion worth of spending in 2026 to build out data centres and cloud services. 

Surprisingly, against this backdrop, Raspberry Pi issued a positive trading update on 13 January with the board confirming it expects adjusted 2025 EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation) to be ahead of market consensus, at not less than $45 million. 

Consensus analyst earnings forecasts have increased by around a fifth over the last three months suggesting the company’s positive trading update caught analysts by surprise.  

What’s put Intertek on the back foot? 

Product testing and quality assurance group Intertek is trading close to 52-week lows with the shares underperforming the FTSE 100 by around a third over the last year. 

Slowing organic sales growth which missed consensus estimates and lagging the stronger performance from European peers such as Bureau Veritas, has been behind this weak showing. 

In a November 2025 trading statement, the company said it was well-positioned to deliver 2026 mid-single digit revenue growth and margin progression towards its 18.5% target, alongside strong cash generation. 

Some analysts have pointed to a disconnect between weak investor sentiment and a quality business throwing off strong cash and maintaining a dividend yield of around 3.5%. 

Consensus earnings estimates have increased in the last three months after spending several months in a decline.  

Leadership change weighs on Convatec stock 

Despite receiving upward earnings revisions for the last few months, wound care specialist Convatec has seen its shares languish near 52-week lows. 

Like many global medical device makers, Convatec has suffered a hit to margins from US tariffs, but an equally important factor weighing on the shares was the change in leadership following the unexpected passing of CEO Karim Bitar in late 2025. 

Bitar was the architect of the firm’s successful turnaround. The transition to new CEO Jonny Mason has been swift and he gave a positive outlook for 2026, projecting 5% to 7% organic sales growth and double-digit EPS (earnings per share) growth.  

The company confirmed it remains on track to reach mid-20% operating margins by 2026/27 and maintained a progressive dividend policy. Convatec is scheduled to release full-year results for 2025 on 25 February 2026.

Martin Gamble: Shares and Markets Writer

Martin Gamble is Shares and Markets writer at AJ Bell. He was previously the Education Editor of Shares Magazine. He has been with the business since 2019.

Martin graduated from the University of Kent in...

Martin Gamble

These articles are for information purposes and should only be used as part of your investment research. They aren't offering financial advice and past performance is not a guide to future performance, so please make sure you're comfortable with the risks before investing.