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Woodford cheers 'pleasing' stocks but still fears for profits
Markets
by Emma Dunkley on Jan 08, 2013 at 10:30
Neil Woodford has stood by his fears over profit warnings and used his latest update to investors to reiterate his concerns.
The manager of the Invesco Perpetual Income fund warned of downgrades to company forecasts even though he countered this with a belief there is a population of stocks that can ‘grow consistently’.
In his latest update, the A-rated manager noted companies that ‘pleased’ on the corporate news front during December.
BT Group, of which he holds 5.47% in his Income fund, announced a 15% increase in its interim dividend.
Reckitt Benckiser, which constitutes 4.88% of his fund, also ‘pleased investors’ with news of the $1.4 billion purchase of Schiff Nutrition.
But Woodford, who also runs the Edinburgh Investment Trust and open-end High Income fund, said: ‘There was disappointing news from Chemring as Carlyle Group called off its discussions about a possible takeover and Chemring announced a fall in its year end order book.’
December last year was a month of two halves for the UK stock market, Woodford said, falling down in the first part on the back of concerns over the US economy, the Greek debt crisis and reduction in eurozone growth.
Confidence was restored in the second part of the year as fiscal cliff fears eased and Europe's leaders agreed with the International Monetary Fund over a Greek bailout.
However despite the uptick in confidence and UK equity market’s strong performance last year, Woodford has continued to warn a lot of companies may suffer.
‘We expect further downgrades to forecasts of those companies more sensitive to the economic cycle, as the impact of the on-going crisis in Europe, a slowdown in US growth and persistent reduction in borrowing across the western world continue to limit the pace of global economic growth,’ he said.
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