Not good. Not good at all. That’s probably an understatement when describing what happened in the UK markets this week. All the indexes fell.
| One week price change | P/E ratio | Dividend yield | |
| FTSE All Share | -5.2% | 11.6 | 3.97% |
| FTSE 100 | -5.3% | 15.1 | 3.52% |
| FTSE 250 | -4.6% | 10.7 | 3.91% |
| FTSE Small Cap | -3.2% | 7.9 | 5.07% |
| FTSE Fledgling | -2.0% | 10.9 | 4.52% |
| FTSE AIM All-Share | -4.0% | 16.3 | 2.67% |
The FTSE 100 was the worst affected falling 5.2%. A heat map of the largest 100 (ish) companies in the UK is a sea of red. What’s notable is the weighting towards financial, particularly bank stocks and also energy, and how badly these stocks performed.
The fall out from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank spread right across the global financial system. It was not just bank stocks that took a hit. In the UK not a single industry group managed to book an average gain this week. The oil price crashed and natural gas slumped. That is never good for oil and gas majors. It was the energy industry that performed the worst on average in the UK markets, followed by consumer cyclicals and basic materials.
Winners and Losers
Some stocks listed on the London Stock Exchanges main market did rise this week. The top five gainers were:
- Costain, a construction and engineering company was up 8.8%;
- Hostelword, a software & IT services business was up 8%;
- Robert Walters, a professional & communications services company was up 7.31%;
- Hyve, another professional & communications services outfit rose 6.58%;
- Bloomsbury Publishing, unsurprisingly a media & publishing company finished the week up 5.2%
The main markets five top losers were, predictably mostly financial or consumer cyclical stocks:
- The Gym Group was down 23.9% this week, and it released annual results yesterday;
- Amigo Holdings, banking services, down 22.7%
- Prudential, an insurer, down 18%
- SLF realisation fund, down 17.1%
- Man, investment banking and services, down 16.8%
P/E or not to P/E ratio
It is interesting to note that value stocks suffered greater falls on average this week. The average P/E for the FTSE All Share is 11.6. Looking at the average one week price change fro stocks with one year forward P/E estimates less than or equal to 11.6, the value stocks, and those greater than 11.6, the growth stocks gives the following results:
- value stocks down 5.3% on average
- growth stocks down 3.5% on average
One year forward consensus estimates should not—unless updated rapidly—be affected by short term price movements, so I am not worried about that influencing the averages.
Most shorted UK stocks
The short sellers have not jumped on financial stocks this week. The most shorted UK stocks are still mainly retailers, as they have been for some time, and most of the names have beeb there for some time. The top twenty looks like this:
| Name | Reported Net Short Position |
| Ocado | 6.37% |
| ITM Power | 5.88% |
| ASOS | 5.50% |
| Boohoo | 5.06% |
| Kingfisher | 4.93% |
| Moonpig | 4.74% |
| Metro Bank | 4.10% |
| Hammerson | 4.03% |
| Naked Wine | 3.96% |
| abrdn | 3.91% |
| THG | 3.83% |
| Victoria | 3.80% |
| EMIS | 3.50% |
| Petrofac | 3.38% |
| Cineworld | 3.29% |
| Hargreaves Lansdown | 3.02% |
| Sainsbury | 2.87% |
| Primary Health Properties | 2.79% |
| Harbour Energy | 2.75% |
| Jupiter Fund Management | 2.73% |
The Storied Investor 