Last year I was able to report that my Monsters of Momentum screen had managed to generate strong outperformance for the fifth year in a row and in every year since I first ran it in 2011. But despite five years of market-beating returns I was sceptical about placing too much faith in the screen's ability to continue to repeat the trick. Well, the performance of the strategy over the past 12 months has certainly provided some justification for my doubts.
The 18 stocks selected by the Monsters of Momentum screen this time last year have delivered a starkly negative total return of 13.1 per cent compared with a positive 9.6 per cent from the FTSE All-Share, which is the index from which shares are chosen.
2016 PERFORMANCE TABLE