Today I am looking at the share price potential of three FTSE risers.
Bank on the brink
Embattled banking play Standard Chartered (LSE: STAN) staged a remarkable double-digit turnaround last week, the stock price buoyed by better-than-expected Chinese trade numbers and a subsequent rise in commodity values.
However, I believe Standard Chartered’s share price ascent could prove nothing more than a dead cat bounce. The company’s turnaround strategy is still in its fledgling stages, and the prospect of worsening emerging market conditions could prompt further draconian action to mend the bank’s fragile earnings outlook.
Sure, the City may expect Standard Chartered to recover from losses of 6.6 US cents per share last year to punch earnings of 26 cents in 2016. But a subsequent P/E rating of 41.1 times is far too heady given the firm’s high risk profile, and in my opinion leaves the share price with little room for additional gains.
Poised for a material meltdown?
Metals and energy mammoth Glencore (LSE: GLEN) was also able to print further hefty gains last week as the commodities sector’s recovery continued.
Many of Glencore’s key materials, like copper, aluminium and nickel, struck multi-week highs between Monday and Friday. Still, I believe the vast supply/demand imbalances washing over resources markets means that current gains are built on little more than hot air.
Indeed, Thomson Reuters GFMS estimates that copper production rose 3.5% in 2015, up from 2.1% in the previous year. And global copper output is predicted to rise for the next three years as new capacity comes online, mirroring the problems being felt across most other major commodities sectors.
The City expects Glencore to recover from losses of 3 US cents per share last year with earnings of 6 cents in 2016. But while the business may be frantically slashing costs and hiving off assets to mitigate its murky revenues outlook, I believe a P/E multiple of 55.4 times is far too high given the colossal structural problems facing its core markets.
Driller drives higher
Like Glencore, I believe Enquest (LSE: ENQ) has little fuel to keep rising, as buoyant investor appetite comes back to Earth with a bang.
Brent prices struck four-month peaks around $45 per barrel in the run-up to Sunday’s much-awaited oil summit in Doha. But as I had previously predicted, the colossal political and economic considerations related to a production freeze proved too problematic for Saudi Arabia, Russia and the many of world’s other major producers to agree to an output cap.
And while an agreement would have been a step in the right direction, output cuts rather than mere freezes are needed to mitigate sluggish demand and give oil prices a robust peg of support. Indeed, the City expects Enquest — which has seen earnings slide during each of the past five years — to print losses in 2016 and 2017 as crude values drag.
With the firm also struggling under the weight of huge capex budgets — net debt surged 18% year-on-year in 2015, to $1.55bn — I believe the driller remains a risk too far at the present time.
