The Openbook Top Stocks Portfolio: +17.5% in Five Months

The Openbook Analytics Top Stocks portfolio has been running since the start of the year. Five months in, here's an honest look at how it's doing — the good and the bad.

It's up 17.5%. Its benchmark, the FTSE All-Share, is up 4.3% over the same period — so the portfolio has returned roughly four times the index.

How it's built

The portfolio is twenty UK-listed companies, equal-weighted, bought at the start of the year and held since. No rebalancing, no trimming winners, no averaging into losers. Every position started with the same stake, so the result reflects the picks rather than how we sized them.

What drove it

Out of twenty holdings, fourteen are up and six are down. The average winner has gained 27.7%; the average loser is off 6.2%. That asymmetry — bigger wins than losses — is the engine behind the return.

The standout is Filtronic, up 121.6% — more than a double. At the other end, the worst position is Associated British Foods, down 14.3%.

Meet the twenty holdings

Here's the full roster, with a line on what each company does. The portfolio is equal-weighted, so every name started with the same stake.

• Filtronic (FTC) — Designs RF and microwave hardware for aerospace, defence and telecoms. The portfolio's standout, up 121.6%.
• Keller Group (KLR) — The world's largest ground-engineering contractor, building the foundations beneath major construction projects.
• Ashtead Technology (AT) — Rents subsea survey, inspection and testing equipment to the offshore energy and wind sectors.
• Helios Towers (HTWS) — Owns and leases mobile-phone towers across Africa and the Middle East.
• Ramsdens (RFX) — Diversified consumer financial services: foreign exchange, pawnbroking, jewellery retail and precious-metals buying.
• Hunting (HTG) — Manufactures precision components and equipment for the global energy and drilling industry.
• M.P. Evans (MPE) — Owns and operates sustainable palm-oil plantations in Indonesia.
• Yu Group (YU) — A fast-growing challenger supplier of gas, electricity and water to UK businesses.
• Serabi Gold (SRB) — A gold producer with mining operations in Brazil.
• Concurrent Technologies (CNC) — Designs rugged embedded computer boards for defence, aerospace and industrial systems.
• Inchcape (INCH) — A global automotive distributor, handling vehicles and parts for manufacturers across dozens of markets.
• ASA International (ASAI) — A microfinance lender providing small loans to low-income entrepreneurs across Asia and Africa.
• Mitie (MTO) — The UK's largest facilities-management company: security, cleaning, engineering and maintenance.
• ITV (ITV) — The UK's biggest commercial broadcaster, spanning free-to-air TV, the ITVX streaming platform and ITV Studios production.
• AstraZeneca (AZN) — The FTSE 100's largest company and a leading global biopharma group, anchored by its oncology franchise.
• Drax (DRX) — A UK power generator built around the biomass-converted Drax station and renewable generation.
• SigmaRoc (SRC) — A construction-materials group quarrying aggregates and producing lime across Europe.
• Tristel (TSTL) — Makes chlorine-dioxide infection-prevention and medical-device decontamination products for hospitals.
• Associated British Foods (ABF) — The diversified group behind Primark, Twinings and British Sugar. The portfolio's weakest position, down 14.3%.
• Prudential (PRU) — An international life and health insurer focused on the fast-growing markets of Asia and Africa.

The part I find most useful

What stands out to me is how much rode on a handful of names. The top three holdings account for nearly 60% of the gains. That's the kind of thing that's easy to miss when you only look at the headline number — and being able to see it clearly is exactly what we built the platform to do. A portfolio can look healthy on the surface while leaning heavily on one or two positions, and knowing which is which changes how you think about risk.

The honest caveat

Concentration cuts both ways. The same few names that drove the return could just as easily drag it, and five months is a short window — the small and mid-cap names that led hardest are the ones that move most in both directions. I'd judge this portfolio on a full year and a proper drawdown, not on a strong opening run. But as a first reporting period, the breadth (70% of positions up) and the discipline of equal weighting are exactly what I wanted to see.

I'll keep posting these updates as it runs.

See it yourself

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Educational information only. This is not personal financial advice. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. The value of investments can fall as well as rise and you may get back less than you invest.