One of the things I’ve learned from writing a stock screening column for nearly a decade is that sometimes screens need to adapt to survive. That’s certainly been the case during the Covid-19 crisis when much of the fundamental data I use to screen stocks has received a substantial one-off hit. While Covid has forced me to alter many of the screens I monitor for the first time, it is nice to be reviewing a screen this week which has profited from change in the past: my High Quality large-cap screen. Hopefully the changes I’m having to make to it this week will prove as advantageous as the changes made previously.
The screen has had a storming 12 months (see table) helped by investors flocking to quality shares. This builds on strong returns in the prior eight years that I’ve run the screen. The cumulative total return since 2011 now stands at 392 per cent compared with 69 per cent from the FTSE All-Share. While the screen results are intended as a source of ideas for further research rather than off-the-shelf portfolios, if I add in an annual 1.25 per cent charge to reflect real world dealing costs the cumulative total return drops to 339 per cent
12-month performance