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Your Money > Investing Comment Articles > More questions than...
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By Richard J Hunter, Hargreaves Lansdown
As we have seen over the last month, global markets' reaction to the uncertainty of the credit crunch has resulted in a mark down of share prices, almost across the board. With such a widespread fall, however, a number of anomalies often arise as share prices can be marked down indiscriminately regardless of their exposure to the current problems. There are, therefore, a number of things which should have happened and a number of things which have happened but could be overdone. First of all, given the nature of the global uncertainty, it is reasonable to expect that financial stocks would have taken something of a battering. Indeed, since mid-July when the Dow Jones in the US was testing new peaks, the General Financial sector in the UK has given up nearly 13%, as against the fall in the FTSE100 which has been nearer to 6.5%. Within the UK banks, HSBC - which was the first to put its head above the parapet and mention its exposure to the US sub-prime market some months ago - fell just 0.7% during the period. Meanwhile, other UK banks - who may yet be proved to have limited exposure - were less fortunate, with the likes of HBOS dropping nearly 10% and Lloyds TSB shedding over 4%. In times of market turbulence, investors often look towards defensive shares. This is not to say that these shares are immune, but in general they are likely to fall less sharply than some of their counterparts. Indeed, a number of sectors played to this rule - in the pharmaceutical sector (and despite its recent difficulties) GlaxoSmithKline fell just 0.2%, in tobacco, British American Tobacco was up a similar amount and of the utilities, for example, National Grid added 1.1%. Other falls have perhaps been easier to explain. The very recent 10% drop in the oil price from its highs of around $78 per barrel to the current $71 has taken the prices of the oil majors along with it - BP has dropped 10% and Royal Dutch Shell 11%. However, it is the broad brush approach with which shares can be marked down which in itself can throw up investment opportunities. Much has been made of the concerns of "financial contagion" arising from the problems in the US sub-prime sector, whereby other financial instruments and indeed asset classes can become "infected" by the general malaise. Meanwhile, quality companies of yesterday are still quality companies today. Corporate earnings remain strong and an increasing quality which many of them share is a diversified business, particularly in geographical terms, whereby they can withstand performances in various economies which may well be at different points in their cycles worldwide. It may be worth bearing in mind - and some of the last month's share prices movements have borne out - that contagion strikes down the innocent, as well as the weak. The question now is whether and how quickly those companies can show a recovery.Useful links: Useful links: |
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