Fundamental AIM portfolio constituent, Jarvis Securities, announced a 69% increase in its second quarterly interim dividend to 11p, reflecting continuing strong trading for the stock broker as it benefits from the volatile environment. While the full year forecast dividend remains unchanged at 30p, equating to a yield of more than 5%, the suggestions are that this may be materially lifted if trading continues to be strong, as seems likely.

The share price of Halfords has continued to climb from March lows. As a provider of essential services, the UK’s leading provider of motoring and cycling products has remained open during the lockdown period, albeit under more restrictive conditions. The stock market is clearly encouraged by Halfords’ essential status pushing the shares back to September 2019 levels.

New arrivals to AIM over the past few months have had very different experiences, with one benefiting from the challenging corporate environment but others not so lucky.

The share price of Brickability Group, a distributor of construction materials, languishes well below its August 2019 IPO price, which looked reasonable value at the time, although plenty has happened since. As the construction sector gets back to work and with a more diversified offering than before, the group should be well-placed to progress.

Inspecs Group, the designer and manufacturer of eyewear frames, arrived on AIM in February and has seen its shares fall 12% from the IPO price. Thankfully the group’s factories in China and Vietnam are now almost back to full production capacity, although most of their retailer customers have been forced to close during the lockdown, with opticians among the first to be closed due to the close proximity to their customers.

Contrastingly, FRP Advisory Group, one of the UK’s largest restructuring firms, has seen its shares soar over 60% since arriving on AIM in March. Its services should unfortunately continue to be in high demand as the corporate world struggles.

Focusrite, the global audio products group and another constituent of our AIM portfolios announced in-line results for the six months ended 29 February 2020. Consumer demand for some of its products has been high, especially via ecommerce, while demand for others has been affected by the lack of live music events. The timing of acquisitions made not long before the pandemic struck wasn’t ideal, but this remains a nice business delivering attractive margins.

Sage Group, a constituent of our general portfolios, announced interim results which highlighted the considerable resilience of accounting software in the current climate. Organic revenue rose 5.7% to £935m with recurring revenue up 10.3% to £826m, representing 88% of the total. With cash continuing to flow and plenty of available liquidity, the group is easily able to commit to an interim dividend of 5.93p per share, up 2.5%.

Dart Group, which operates airline Jet2.com as well as smaller logistics business Fowler Welch, announced that it has put in place a £300m commercial paper programme to access the government’s COVID Corporate Financing Facility. The facility will be used to provide standby liquidity, should that be required, and is currently unutilised. Executive Chairman and 36% shareholder Philip Meeson commented that, together with the fully drawn bank facility of £100m, these two sources of additional liquidity will provide the Group with sufficient firepower to deal with the present disruption. The company continues to be encouraged by the volume of customer bookings for summer 2021 and their associated pricing. Dart is a constituent of many of our AIM portfolios and we continue to believe that the group’s Jet2 businesses will come out of the crisis in far better shape than many.

To keep up to date with the coronavirus impact on these and many other companies please visit our associates Investor’s Champion.

Have an excellent weekend

An excellent article today in the Wall Street Journal ‘Why Are Markets So Volatile? It’s Not Just the Coronavirus’ commented how the stock market is now dominated by computer-driven investors that rely on signals such as volatility and momentum

Since the mid-February market peak, the Dow Industrials have closed more than 1,000 points lower on six trading days and rebounded at least 1,000 points four times, not seen since 1929. Adding to those moves, and potentially hastening them, are technical factors that have little to do with how investors feel about the outlook for companies, earnings and the economy.

In a dramatic shift since the financial crisis, the market today is dominated by computer-driven investors whose machines react to a series of technical and other factors, as well as by more-traditional investors who rely on reams of fast-flowing data. On many days, forces such as the market’s volatility and momentum, derivatives activity and the market’s liquidity—how easy or difficult it is to get in and out of trades—can help drive trading.

As long -term investors, we invest in companies based on their fundamental attractions and have little interest in apparent short-term trading opportunities, which only serve to enrich the brokers.

The clue is in our name!

The indiscriminate sell-off in global equities due to the spread of the coronavirus has, not surprisingly, resulted in material weakness across Fundamental portfolios in the current quarter.

As is usual in these circumstances, the selling has been indiscriminate and even companies considered traditional safe havens have seen their share prices fall. Smaller companies as always have felt the brunt of the sell-off, as have those businesses most directly affected by the impact of the virus.

Diageo, the global drinks group and a constituent of our Ultimate Stocks portfolio, has warned how the virus is affecting its business with global sales now expected to be between £225m and £325m lower than they would have been otherwise. Though meaningful, that’s relatively small in the context of a business which generated sales of £12.8bn last year.

Apple, a long term portfolio holding, previously warned that it would fail to meet its quarterly revenue target of $63-67bn due to temporarily constrained supply of iPhones and a dramatic drop in Chinese shoppers.

Airline, hotel and leisure sectors have been hardest hit with the share prices of portfolio holdings easyJet, Dart Group, Hostelworld Group and Booking Holdings suffering material falls over the past few days. The proposed IPO on AIM of Meininger Hotels, a European hotel and hostel operator, could certainly prove challenging in the current climate.

Portfolio holding Walt Disney Co has also seen its shares slide as its theme parks in Hong Kong and Shanghai have been temporarily shut down. News that Bob Iger, its highly-regarded CEO of the past fourteen years, is also retiring sooner than expected (although he had already extended his stay) also came as a surprise.

Long term holding Microsoft is dealing with the outbreak by donating generously to the recovery efforts in China. That includes RMB 40m worth of products, services and solutions to equip frontline hospitals and medical workers, as well as providing free cloud services to mitigate the impact of the outbreak for businesses and students.

In the gloom of the stock market rout it was pleasing to see price comparison group Moneysupermarket.com report excellent results with a 9% increase in revenue and 10% increase in profits as it reaped the rewards of a diverse product offering. This business continues to display many of the characteristic we look for in an exceptional company.

At the smaller end of the scale, the share price of Ramsdens has also been particularly weak. This company has been enjoying strong growth from its foreign exchange offering which will clearly suffer in the short term as fewer people travel from UK. However, it will also be a beneficiary of the soaring gold price which has climbed to its highest level in seven years.

If there is one positive from the outbreak of the coronavirus, it is that global healthcare systems have been alerted to the need for better contamination control. It’s hardly surprising therefore, that the share price of legacy AIM portfolio holding Tristel, a specialist manufacturer of infection prevention and contamination control products, has climbed to new highs over recent weeks. While it could be a big long-term winner from greater investment in global infection prevention, the share price appears to have become a little over-heated. You can read a full commentary on Tristel’s progress from our associates Investor’s Champion here.

We remain happy with our selection of excellent companies, which will continue to generate growing profits and cash for many years to come. Contrary to what is implied by the current sell-off, they certainly haven’t all turned into bad businesses overnight.

With the US stock market having recently scaled all time highs, a pause in our opinion was long overdue and we view a correction at this point as beneficial to the long-term health of stock markets.

Equity investment should be viewed as a long-term exercise and, unless investors have a near term requirement for cash, see no reason to run for cover at the first sign of short-term difficulties.

We anticipate further weakness in global equities over the coming weeks as the coronavirus spreads inexorably around the world, as unfortunately seems likely. However, human nature is such that, when things ultimately settle down, people will be keen to get out and enjoy life once more. Where applicable, we will therefore look to buy and add to selective holdings as opportunities arise.