The FTSE is up 45% in six months, closing above 5,000, but which shares have set the pace?
The FTSE 100 closed above 5,000 this week -- 5,004.3 to be precise -- for the first time in nearly a year.
By a strange coincidence, it's also six months to the day since the nadir of the bear market. These four indices all marched in lockstep to their respective (intra-day) bear-market lows on the same day, 9th March, but just look at how they've bounced back since then:
| Index | Six-month gain |
|---|
| FTSE 100 | 44.6% |
| FTSE 250 | 59.4% |
| FTSE Small Cap | 72.2% |
| FTSE All Share | 46.7% |
Before getting too excited about the small caps, though, bear in mind that they suffered the most during the preceding carnage.
So who are the winners?
Twenty members of the FTSE 100 have more than doubled in value during the past six months:
| Company | Six-month gain | Market Cap (£m) | Price (p) |
|---|
| Barclays (LSE: BARC) | 497% | 40,445 | 367 |
| Kazakhmys (LSE: KAZ) | 311% | 5,791 | 1,082 |
| Vedanta Resources (LSE: VED) | 259% | 5,140 | 1,884 |
| Lloyds Banking Grp (LSE: LLOY) | 226% | 28,846 | 106 |
| Legal & General Grp (LSE: LGEN) | 217% | 4,267 | 73 |
| Xstrata (LSE: XTA) | 203% | 26,514 | 904 |
| Old Mutual (LSE: OML) | 201% | 4,897 | 93 |
| Royal Bank of Scotland (LSE: RBS) | 199% | 32,074 | 57 |
| 3i Group (LSE: III) | 183% | 3,014 | 311 |
| Prudential (LSE: PRU) | 169% | 14,059 | 557 |
| Wolseley (LSE: WOS) | 147% | 4,147 | 1,461 |
| Eurasian Natural Res. (LSE: ENRC) | 137% | 11,236 | 873 |
| Aviva (LSE: AV) | 127% | 11,011 | 402 |
| HSBC Holdings (LSE: HSBA) | 117% | 114,620 | 661 |
| London Stock Exchange (LSE: LSE) | 117% | 2,169 | 802 |
| Anglo American (LSE: AAL) | 105% | 26,935 | 2,046 |
| Petrofac (LSE: PFC) | 103% | 3,278 | 949 |
| Liberty International (LSE: LII) | 102% | 3,063 | 542 |
| Invensys (LSE: ISYS) | 102% | 2,434 | 302 |
| ICAP (LSE: IAP) | 101% | 2,813 | 430 |
Data Source: Digital Look
Clearly the banks and miners have done particularly well. Anyone brave enough to invest in Barclays (LSE: BARC) at the right time, and is still holding on, would now be sitting on six times their original investment. Even the train-wreck that was Royal Bank of Scotland (LSE: RBS) has tripled since March.
And the losers?
It's been hard to lose money recently, as the rising tide has lifted nearly all boats. In fact, only three constituents of the current FTSE 100 have fallen in value:
| Company | Six-month loss | Market Cap (£m) | Price (p) |
|---|
| Reed Elsevier (LSE: REL) | -3.0% | 5,682 | 469 |
| BAE Systems (LSE: BA) | -2.9% | 11,576 | 327 |
| RSA Insurance Group (LSE: RSA) | -0.2% | 4,236 | 126 |
Survivorship bias
The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that Petrofac (LSE: PFC) on our leader board wasn't actually a member of the FTSE 100 back in early March. It only joined a couple of weeks later, and we should really be looking at the companies that were members of the index on that date
From that early-March cohort, five companies have dropped out of the headline index and not yet re-entered, and to be fair, most of those have done pretty well, too:
| Company | Six-month gain/loss | Market Cap (£m) | Price (p) |
|---|
| First Group (LSE: FGP) | 104% | 1,949 | 404 |
| Tate & Lyle (LSE: TATE) | 81% | 1,909 | 416 |
| Whitbread (LSE: WTB) | 69% | 2,158 | 1,232 |
| Amlin (LSE: AML) | 7% | 1,886 | 382 |
| Drax Group (LSE: DRX) | -1% | 1,725 | 473 |
And of that bunch, it was announced on Wednesday that Whitbread (LSE: WTB) will make a re-entry to the FTSE 100 in the September re-shuffle -- stay tuned for more details of that.
Where now?
All those gains are in the past, of course, and the big question now is whether the market can sustain these levels and continue to make progress. I'm no market timer, but you'll find plenty of opinions on our discussion boards. What do you think? Give your opinion in the comment boxes below.
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