QSP In April
QSP beat the market again in April, making it three months out of four in 2016 that the strategy has done so. QSP showed impressive growth of 3.92% for the month, in comparison to the Russell 2000 which only grew by 1.51%.
We are now a third of the way through 2016 and QSP is currently up 1.81% to date, in comparison to the Russell 2000 actually being down by -0.44%. We expect QSP to capitalize on the excellent start to the year and finish beating its benchmark by the end of 2016.
Listed below are the top five performing stocks in April for our QSP strategy:
5. Select Medical Holdings (SEM) +13.29%
Select Medical Holdings, an acute care provider, made the news in April for the decision to sell its contract therapy unit for $65 million in cash.
They will announce their first quarter 2016 results on May 5th.
4. KRONOS Worldwide (KRO) +16.26%
KRONOS Worldwide is known for manufacturing titanium dioxide which is the most effective whitening agent which currently exists worldwide. It is used across a broad spectrum of good we encounter in our everyday lives: paper, toothpaste, your computer mouse, and many more besides.
Their next annual conference is scheduled for October and will be held in Düsseldorf, Germany.
Titanium dioxide is widely used across a multitude of products.
3. Israel Chemicals (ICL) +20.01%
Last month Johanan Locker was appointed as the next chairman of Israel Chemicals last month following the resignation of former chairman, Nir Gilad. Perhaps due to that, the company broke their 50-day moving average.
They will announce their first quarter 2016 results on May 18th.
2. Yandex (YNDX) +33.62%
Russia’s most visited website was upgraded in April by Goldman Sachs from neutral to buy early in the month before posted their first quarter results a couple of weeks later. Adjusted net income was up 41% over the previous year and revenue also jumped by 34% over the same time period.
Yandex COO, Alexander Shulgin, said: “We continue to invest aggressively in our three business units—Yandex.Taxi, Classifieds and Yandex.Market—to accelerate their growth in 2016. Going forward, we will share more financial information on these units to provide shareholders with greater visibility into their performance.”
1. Denbury Resources (DNR) +73.87%
Our large-cap value strategy QVP was dominated by energy companies in April, and it’s an energy company which also heads the list of top performers for QSP as well.
The Texas-based firm also selected a new chairman this past month, John Dielwart. This was prior to announcing a 30% reduction in their borrowing base to $1.05 billion. This news, coupled with rallying oil prices, saw Denbury’s stock price massively increase.
Get in touch if you’d like to learn more about our QSP strategy and our work here at Kruse Asset Management.
