Last year was a difficult one for UK blue-chips but there were some companies still able to post double-digit returns for shareholders, FE data shows.
The FTSE 100 has lagged its international peers for a number of years owing to concerns such as the country’s planned departure from the EU and ongoing political uncertainty.
The index was hit hard in various sell-offs of 2018, where concerns centred on global trade and lacklustre growth, falling by 12.48 per cent over the course of the year. This loss eased to an 8.73 per cent drop when income payouts were included (total return).
However, the fact that the index had a negative year does not mean every stock ended 2018 in the red. FE data shows 32 stocks on the FTSE 100 made a positive total return, with half of these in double-digit territory.
Share price and total returns in 2018
Source: FE Analytics
Online delivery platform Ocado, whose share price return and total return in 2018 is shown in the above chart, was the year’s best performer after making 98.94 per cent.
Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “Ocado shareholders have seen their investment almost double over the course of the year as the online supermarket has signed significant deals to license out its technology to overseas grocers, most notably Kroger in the US.”
The effect of Ocado’s deal with retail giant Kroger, which is one of the world's biggest grocery chains with annual sales of $122bn and will exclusively use Ocado's technology in the US, can be seen in the chart. The company’s shares rose 44 per cent when the deal was announced in May.
In second place is Russian steel miner Evraz with its 67.77 per cent total return. While all of Ocado’s 2018 return was from its appreciating share price, the miner rose 41.32 per cent in price terms with the remaining performance coming from dividend payouts.
Evraz is a vertically integrated steel, mining and vanadium business that has operations in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, the US, Canada, the Czech Republic and Italy. It is among the top steel producers in the world.
Educational content supplier Pearson appears in third place with a 30.37 per cent total return; in share price terms, the stock was up by 27.50 per cent in 2018.
Source: FE Analytics
The company is going through something of a turnaround story after issuing profit warnings in 2017 that caused its shares to fall 62 per cent from their peak in 2015. The past year has seen Pearson make progress in cost-cutting and it has unveiled a strategy to move away from traditional print text books towards digital learning.
Two pharmaceutical companies are in fourth and fifth places: Astrazeneca with a 19.26 per cent total return (up 14.68 per cent in share price terms) and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) with a total return of 19.04 per cent (12.76 per cent in share price returns).
GSK’s shares had a last-minute jump in December when the firm announced plans to merge consumer healthcare units with US rival Pfizer. The merger will deliver cost savings of £500m by 2022 and is part of chief executive Emma Walmsley’s strategy to restructure the business.
Helal Miah, investment research analyst at The Share Centre, said: “We, along with other major investors, support the management’s view that the deal will allow GSK to be a more focused group for developing pharmaceuticals and vaccines.”
Experian, the consumer credit rating agency, came in sixth with a total return of 18.66 per cent, 16.44 per cent coming from share price gains.
The firm announced plans to acquire rival ClearScore for £275m, although the Competition and Markets Authority’s provision findings at the end of 2018 cast a shadow over the deal by saying it could hamper the development of digital products that help customers understand personal finances.
In a challenging year for markets, however, the FTSE 100 did contain plenty of names that left their shareholders nursing losses. The 10 stocks with the biggest falls can be seen in the table below.
Source: FE Analytics
British American Tobacco tops it after dropping with a 50.18 per cent decline in its share price, which is eased slightly by dividend payouts to a 47.17 per cent total return.
Hargreaves Lansdown's Khalaf said: “The biggest FTSE 100 decline has been felt by British American Tobacco, whose shares have halved this year, as the US regulator proposed a major crackdown on menthol cigarette sales.”
Meanwhile, Standard Life Aberdeen lost ground as the funds managed by the merged asset management giant struggled, especially Aberdeen’s emerging markets offering and Standard Life Investment’s Global Absolute Return Strategies (GARS) fund.
Micro Focus International fell in the opening quarter of 2018 after it issued a profits warning and chief executive Chris Hsu resigned. Its shares have risen since their crash in the first quarter but ended the year well below where they started it.