3 FTSE Shares Hitting New Highs

Published in Investing on 29 October 2012

Arbuthnot (LSE: ARBB) and Record (LSE: REC) are heading up.

The FTSE 100 (UKX) was so recently looking like it was on its way to beating its 52-week high of 5,989 points, but it's turned tail again and is down another 17 points today to 5,790 points -- but at least it has recovered a little from its bigger falls earlier in the day.

But however long it takes the UK's flagship index to hit a new high, there are still individual companies reaching new highs every day. We look at three..

Arbuthnot

A bank hitting a 52-week high? Yes, but it's not one of the high-street giants, it's Arbuthnot Banking Group (LSE: ARBB), which hit a new peak of 655p today, 10p (1.6%) up on the day. The firm, which runs the Arbuthnot Latham & Co private bank in London, has seen its shares more than double over the past year, from a low of 280p almost exactly 12 months ago.

And the shares are still on a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 12, with a forecast dividend of around 4%.

Record

Currency management firm Record (LSE: REC) reached a 2012 high of 27.15p today, before dropping back a little to 25.9p, but it's been a strange year. The share price crashed about a year ago, before rebounding on April's update ahead of June's full-year results, and then leaped again when a second-quarter update was released earlier this month.

Overall, the share price is pretty close to matching the FTSE over the past 12 months, though it has had a considerably more anxious ride. Forecasts suggest a dividend for the year to March 2013 of nearly 6%.

Are shares paying dividends like these good value? Ace dividend investor Neil Woodford likes dividend-paying shares, and he seems to be rather good at picking the best of them. The free Motley Fool report 8 Shares Held By Britain's Super Investor takes a look. Click here for your copy.

Big Yellow

Big Yellow Group (LSE: BYG) shares pushed up against their recent high of 347p, reaching 342p today, after a sustained climb from a low point of 218p last November -- that's a gain of around 57%.

The operator of self-storage facilities is also expected to pay a modest, but welcome, dividend of 3.2% for the year to March 2013, rising to 3.6% for the following year.

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> Alan Oscroft does not own any shares mentioned in this article.

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