These are unnerving times for UK share investors. It’s not just spiking Covid-19 cases globally and the introduction of new lockdowns that are damaging market confidence. The threat of an economically catastrophic end to the Brexit transition process also looms large. And more immediately, a chaotic end to the US election this week threatens to keep stock markets under pressure too.
I’d like to tell you that I’m not worried about the current macroeconomic and geopolitical environment though. Nor am I concerned about the prospect of another stock market crash. I invest in UK shares for the long term, and as a result I’m prepared for share price corrections like the ones we’ve already seen in 2020.
Keeping the faith with UK shares
History shows us that stock prices always come roaring back following severe price corrections. Whether it be economic crises, world wars, even previous pandemics, stock markets can be relied on to bounce back strongly. This doesn’t only mean that patient investors like me have nothing to fear. It means that those who are brave enough to buy UK shares after a crash can make a fortune in the process.
It took just nine years for the FTSE 100 to double in value after it slumped during the 2008 banking crisis. Other major UK share indices also rocketed from the lows they hit a decade ago. And as a consequence, a great many British investors made a fortune in the process. Many even became millionaires by using tax-efficient investment vehicles like Stocks and Shares ISAs.
This is why I have continued to buy UK shares in my own ISA. The Covid-19 crisis means that the exact timing of the global economic upturn is difficult to predict. But the recovery will happen, and long-term investors can expect to make a packet as corporate profits improve, market confidence returns and share prices rise again.
A FTSE 100 firecracker
Bunzl (LSE: BNZL) is one UK share I consider to be too cheap at current prices. I already own this particular stock but I’ll be looking to add more to my ISA if its prices fall in the coming days and weeks. It’s already dropped by mid-single-percentages during the past month.
As I type the FTSE 100 share trades on an undemanding forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 16 times. And this makes it look too cheap by half, to me. Underlying sales at the support services provider leapt 8% in the three-and-a-half months to mid-October. Strong sales of its Covid-19-related products like masks, disinfectants and gloves have kept income tracking higher.
Investors can expect sales of this UK share’s goods to keep trekking higher even after the pandemic passes. Why? Well Bunzl supplies a vast catalogue of essential products to a wide range of industries across the globe. As a consequence it has little to worry about from any long economic downturn. And over the long term, I expect its acquisition-led growth strategy to continue delivering delicious shareholder returns.
