Our Great Ideas section includes our two best investment ideas every week and we are currently beating the market handsomely.

We run our list of stocks on a 12-month rolling basis and track the performance of the portfolio against the FTSE All-Share. The latest figures show us up 14% on average against a 4.4% advance for our measure of the FTSE All-Share, all excluding dividends (see ‘How it works’).

Our best performer among trades still running is cyber security play Sophos (SOPH) which has seen its share price double on growing interest in its market niche and robust operational performance.

More than 30 of our selections have delivered double-digit returns.

In this article, we give our view on the constituents in the portfolio which have issued news in the past few weeks and show some of our bbest performing ideas over the past 12 months and how they’ve performed.

How it works

After each edition of Shares, published every Thursday, we add the two featured Great Ideas stocks to the list and remove the two oldest picks (unless we’ve already taken profit on them or the trades have hit their stop loss).

In each article we record the share price of the stock featuring in Great Ideas and separately we record the index value of the FTSE All-Share on the day the story is published. This way we can compare the performance of the All Share over the same time frame.

The result is a rolling 12-month list of stocks. Readers should always conduct their own research off the back of article ideas in Shares and/or seek financial advice before buying any security. Past results are no guide to future performance.

Food provider on the move

We’ve enjoyed just over a 50% gain since saying to buy transport hub food operator SSP (SSPG) last October. The latest trading update (12 Jul) revealed 14.6% revenue growth for the three months to 30 June 2017 at constant currencies. The start of operations at Chicago Midway airport and success in India were notable highlights.

Although the shares are now highly rated on 25 times forecast earnings for the year to September 2018, we’re sticking with them for the time being.

We said in our original article on Avesoro Resources (ASO:AIM) in June that the gold miner’s second quarter results wouldn’t be that great; and that’s now been confirmed (11 Jul).

Don’t be put off by production figures coming in slightly below analyst forecast. This is a turnaround story which was always expected to start showing improvements on the production and cash flow side later in the year.

More robust half year results (11 Jul) from Amino Technologies (AMO:AIM) should be a source of satisfaction for shareholders.

Very strong on cash generation, Amino was bolstered by higher margin kit and services, lifting profit margins.

There are modest doubts about the timing of some large contracts in the second half. The shares remain below our 213.5p pitch level, but we remain firm supporters.

The full list, click to enlarge:

Shock cash call

News (5 Jul) of what ended up a £200m share placing by CityFibre Infrastructure (CITY:AIM) came as a shock.

The company had previously been scared off by diluting existing investors at what it sees as unattractive levels, yet the latest cash call was well supported.

Regulatory pressures and consumer demand mean now is the ideal time to really chase growth, the company believes, and we tend to agree. Buying internet service provider Entanet will give CityFibre more say in end-user take up.

Spending on IT across the NHS has been very limited for the past 18 months or so, even in the face of the WannaCry hacking attack. Therefore Kainos (KNOS) sealing a healthcare digitisation contract in Ireland is encouraging news (6 Jul).

The shares have been a successful trade to date, up from 198p in our feature at the start of January to 290p, equal to a 46.5% paper profit. We remain happy to let this trade run.

Pawnbroker, foreign exchange and precious metal dealer Ramsdens (RFX:AIM) took the AIM market by storm when it floated in February.

We identified the opportunity at 142p and it is currently up 6% on that level at 150.5p. The company’s full year results (7 Jun) show the strength of its FX offering and the company also beat forecasts that had already been upgraded.

It may be impacted by gold price fluctuations in its pawnbroking and metals business but still looks like it has plenty of scope for growth despite a recent cyber attack (11 Jul).

Still to convince on emerging markets

We felt emerging markets specialist asset manager Ashmore (ASHM) could profit from US president Donald Trump’s failure to get some of his key policies through Congress, which would see capital move from the US into developing economies.

We saw an opportunity at 360.7p but the stock is now down by 4.7% to 343.6p. Investors need to be patient.

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