Shares Tips of the Year for 2010 up 37.1%

Our Tips for 2010 portfolio is sprinting to next month's finish line with a fantastic 37.1% average return to date. This compares with just a 12.0% improvement in the FTSE All-Share over the same period.

Shares' journalists each picked three companies a large cap, mid-cap and small-cap in the belief they would thrive in 2010. We published the ideas in our Christmas issue (Shares, 23 Dec '09) and it has been one of our best performing Tips of the Year portfolios in many years.

Fuel cell specialist AFC Energy (AFC) has been our runaway success. The shares have ripped up by 540% to 64p since our technology correspondent Jessica Furseth wrote up the company's merits at 10p. Investors have welcomed progress with Australia coal-to-gas group Linc Energy (LNC:ASX) which has been testing AFC's fuel cells this year. It exercised an option last month (12 Oct) to have worldwide exclusive rights to use AFC's technology for underground coal gasification. That provides a royalty stream to AFC, which has historically burned rather than generated money.

Avocet Mining (AVM) , also a running Play of the Week, has surged by 142.2% to 206.5p since editor Russ Mould put up the gold producer at 85.25p. A change in management and geographical focus has been welcomed by investors while rising gold production has also helped to keep a shine on the share price.

Chemicals group Victrex (VCT) was flagged as a recovery play after a difficult year in 2009. A strong rebound in sales volumes has helped push the shares up by 56.6% to 12.67 since we highlighted them at 809p.

The other great performer has been London Mining (LOND), an iron ore and coal miner with assets around the world including China, Greenland, Saudi Arabia and Colombia. It is up 55.4% to 317p since Dan Coatsworth identified the 348 million cap as a potential winner. The key here has been progress in Sierra Leone where it expects to start maiden iron ore production next year.

Fourteen of our 21 tips are still running. We use a standard 20% stop loss to protect our portfolio in case of negative events. This is why we have lost seven of our trades, as they dipped below this cut-off point. In several cases, it made the difference between losing only a small part of our money rather than nearly everything, as demonstrated by nightclub operator Luminar (LMR). We thought all the bad news had been priced into the stock when we bought at 47.5p. We were clearly wrong, as the company continued its run of bad luck. Management even blamed snow for keeping punters away over Christmas when it issued a profit warning. A new chief executive has since failed to improve the business. We got out at 38p; the stock subsequently hit a low of 8.75p on 16 June.

Elsewhere, our 570p tip on British Sky Broadcasting (BSY) has received strong support from takeover action, which has propelled the shares 26.1% higher to to 718.5p. Standard Chartered (STAN) is up 24.5% to 19.46 despite a 3.3 billion rights issue in October. The stock has been boosted by strong trading across the bank.

Tom Sieber tipped Beazley (BEZ) at 101.2p as the non-life insurer traded on a low valuation. It had a good profits track record but its rating was pulled down after income fell in 2009. It has subsequently risen 19.7% to 121.1p after a revival in earnings growth and last months 158 million takeover proposal for rival insurer Hardy Underwriting (HDU), although this was immediately rejected.



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Bullshare - Bit baffled, subscribed as above and recieved an e-mail stating my debit card had been charged 02.82GBP ? Left message on answer machine @ 1154 recieved no reply? Another glitch just discovered, I am an Active subscriber but have just discovered that I cannot access heatmaps ( notice comes up, update to Active) DOHHH. Will ring moneyam.

Bullshare - Just spoken to moneyam, apparently for some reason Active membership was canceled and I was charged 2.82 the difference being the charge for Active made up to 13 for Shares magazine. So No longer an Active subscriber, just Shares. Pants system:O)

Send me a fiver Chris , mine are up more than theirs :-)

What were the worst performing share tips Mike?

Just for journalistic balance you understand :-)

Dil - Think I've lived in Scotland for far to long, even though the tips are shixx, 13 copies for 13 seemed a good deal :O) At least I've got my Active account back, just 2.82 down and no Shares mag, marvelous! Who's the mug here?

In fairness we can't get it round here but I bought one copy last December in the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff when visiting my mum and they tipped Xcite (XEL) at about 40p (now 235p).


pt , they probably still ramping MDX , Bullie had his pension fund on it :-)

chris,

I will make sure you get set up on the 13 week trial (you should receive your first copy within 14 days).

Shares online access has been added to your account so you will have shares access along with your active service.

The problem arose as the system should have prompted you to call us so we could make the necessary changes manually to your account instead of automatically upgrading you as it did. Apologies for that and I have asked the tech guys to take a look into it.

Ian

Cheers Ian.

Could you post the main tips when you receive them Chris save me subscribing.

Cheers :-)

:-)