Rehab Great Investment Race: The temperature heated up considerably in the Rehab Great Investment Race last month, with all but one of the seven players changing position and a new leader storming ahead of the pack.
With just one month remaining in the charity competition, first place at the end of April was well and truly held by Chris Reilly of Bank of Ireland Asset Management.
Mr Reilly knocked Irish Life Investment Managers (ILIM) off the top spot with a 4 per cent monthly gain on his investment in Pfizer and its associated dollar play.
This lifted his overall gain to 34.8 per cent, leaving him far ahead of the 25.9 per cent notched up to date by second-placed player, Hibernian Investment Managers (HIM).
Roy Asher at HIM achieved a 0.3 per cent monthly increase - a creditable performance in a very volatile market - on investments in DCC and UK housebuilder, Westbury. Having entered the month entirely in cash, Mr Asher said he chose DCC because of the uplift he thought would follow results issued a few weeks ago. Westbury meanwhile represented a bet that UK housing stocks had hit their bottom.
Close on HIM's heels at the end of April was ILIM, where Séamus Magner suffered a monthly decline of 5.2 per cent but managed to hold on to a 23.2 per cent overall gain.
The drop came as Mr Magner bought and sold BG Group (formerly British Gas), SAP, Nokia and ABN. He moved into May entirely in cash. Montgomery Oppenheim, led by Richard Dunn, stepped up from fifth to fourth position in April after posting a 1.9 per cent monthly increase.
The growth came as Mr Dunn spread his risk across five stocks in various sectors, including Grafton, Nokia and Chinese internet gaming company, Shanda Interactive. Deutsche Post and Ulster Television contributed his biggest gains.
Fifth position at the end of April went to Setanta Asset Management, where the vagaries of the market pushed James McSweeney's holding down by 4.7 per cent on the month.
Mr McSweeney was the race's most active trader, as he acted on his belief that recent market weakness had been a correction in a bull market as opposed to the start of a new bear market. His top picks were in insurance firms such as Allianz and Axa, and technology companies such as ASML and STMicro.
As May began, he was fully invested in exchange-traded funds based on the Brazilian and Mexican markets, US midcap shares and the Nasdaq. He also retained a position in Allianz.
A holding in Sandisk, the maker of memory for digital cameras, did Lance Graham at AIB Investment Managers no favours in April, helping to push the firm down from fourth to sixth position overall. The stock shed 15 per cent during the month, while the rest of Mr Graham's holdings - including copper miner Antofagasta and BMW - drifted down with the markets.
Holding on to seventh position in April was Standard Life, where Tony Hood's holding dropped back by 5.8 per cent.
