Newspaper and magazine share tips

By This Is Money
Updated: 11:52 EDT, 19 June 2009

Each week we round up share tips from national newspapers and investment magazines. For the Mail on Sunday's stock picks, read the Midas column

Tips: All the latest share tips from newspapers and magazines.

FRIDAY

The Daily Telegraph

ETF Securities Agriculture's (AGAP) shares have slipped 7% since June, investors can expect this exchange-traded commodity to be volatile. However, there is no stamp duty to pay and there is a 0.49% annual management fee. Buy.

Equipment hire group Ashtead had a tough 2008 – and 2009 is going to be difficult too. Roughly 80% of its business is in the US, with the remaining 20% in the UK. The shares are a hold.

The Times

GKN is not the sort of company to tap shareholders in a hurry, but yesterday's rights issue is unusual in respect of its size. At £423m, the sum being raised is half of GKNs stock market value and the biggest cash call in the FTSE 250 this year outside of the property sector. At 119.5p, take up the rights.

Investors Chronicle

WM Morrison has had better sales growth than its rivals, a high proportion of property freehold and is defensively placed for lean times. Despite having a thin dividend yield compared to its rivals and profit margin below Tesco it has maintained a modest debt pile. Buy.

National Grid has predictable revenues and dividends and is likely to upgrade the UK's power grid. Despite a rising debt and rumour of a rights issue the shares are a buy.

THURSDAY

The Times

RPC stands for rigid plastic containers. But this small-cap packaging group has become far more flexible than of old. The company is a much-improved business in a difficult sector. At 170p, up 5p, or eight times earnings, and yielding 5.5%, hold on.

Alexon, the small-cap fashion retailer, has sold Bay Trading – the discount chain that was recently put into administration – alleviating a lot of Alexon's recent woes. At 50p, or ten times current-year earnings, and the shares up fivefold from their February low, it is too soon to call the turn. Avoid.

The Daily Telegraph

Lonrho is now valued at just £62m but everything is now in a place for significant growth over the medium term. Investors should not put a great deal of money in the shares and regard them as a longer-term speculative buy, but the stance on the shares is positive. Buy.

Rolls-Royce announced this week at the Paris Air Show that it has secured significant new orders. The shares are yielding 4.3% and trading on a December 2009 and an earnings multiple of 9.9 times. The share remain a buy.

Shares Magazine

British American Tobacco, the manufacturer and distributor of tobacco products, has been ignored by rising markets leaving its share price undervalued. Buy ahead of an anticipated market move back to defensives. Buy.

WEDNESDAY

The Daily Telegraph

The recent fall in National Grid's share price is perplexing, especially since the company has guaranteed an 8% rise in its dividend payments all the way to 2012. The shares are now trading on a March 2010 earnings multiple of 9.3 and remain a buy for their solid, safe dividend.

First-quarter results from Supermarket group Tesco were very good and while sales growth at Sainsbury's is likely to be higher it is Tesco who is having the international growth. The shares, trading at 329¾p, are a buy.

The Times

Whitbread said that is Premier Inn chain suffered a 7.9% slump in like-for-like sales in the 13 weeks to May 28. Despite this, Whitbread's shares, off 3p to 847.5p, have risen 22% since March but at 11 times full-year earnings are still trading at a discount to hotel peers. Hold.

Love or loathe Ted Baker's clothes, its shares have outperformed its nearest rivals in the last 12 months. Total sales for the 19 weeks to June 12 were up 7.6%. At 370p, down 5½p, or 13 times earnings, hold on.

TUESDAY

The Times

Shareholders in Scott Wilson, the consulting engineer, will have to wait a fortnight for full-year figures that will show exactly how well it is coping with the construction downturn. At 68¾p, up 2¾p, the shares trade at less than four times next year's earnings, against an average of six times for its rivals, and yield more than 5%, a rating that leaves it vulnerable should its sector start to consolidate. Hold.

Shares in Ten Alps, the factual media company that Bob Geldof co-founded, have gone nowhere since it floated on AIM eight years ago. The shares at 26¾p, up 1p, or six times current-year earnings, means there is little reason to believe that the shares are about to find the momentum they have lacked previously. Pass.

The Daily Telegraph

Unilever shares have been very volatile since the Daily Telegraph first tipped them in November at £15.03 – and they remain below that level. Everything is in place for the company to confound the cynics and show good volume growth over the next few years. The shares are a buy.

Last week The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act announced it will impose bigger health warnings on packets, similar to those in the UK, ban flavoured cigarettes and limit advertising. The shares are currently trading on an earnings multiple of just under 10 times and yielding 4.7%. The shares remain a buy.