Every month, Citywire’s Top Rated Companies report highlights the best investment opportunities from around the globe, as chosen by the world’s best-performing portfolio managers.
There has been a tech takeover in May. The eight most popular stocks with Elite Investors – the top 3% of 10,000 managers monitored by Citywire – are all tech plays.
It’s a smart-money Magnificent Eight. Five of the companies hail from the familiar roster of US big tech stalwarts: Alphabet (US:GOOGL), Meta (US:META), Microsoft (US:MSFT), Apple (US:AAPL) and Amazon (US:AMZN).
Asia’s two chip-making giants Samsung Electronics (KR: 005930) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TW:2330) are also represented.
The most obscure tech play making up the world’s best portfolio managers’ eight favourite stocks is Vietnamese IT and software company FPT (VN:FPT).
Read more: FPT – the little-known stock that’s a top 10 tech pick for the world’s best investors
The smart-money Magnificent Eight
Source: FactSet. EPS = earnings per share. CAGR = compound annual growth rate. Forecasts based on next 12 months.
Two members of the group of tech stocks known as the Magnificent Seven fail to make May’s global top 10. One of them, chip designer Nvidia (US:NVDA), is nevertheless hugely popular with top managers. It is AAA rated and among the top 30 stocks in the Elite Companies database.
By contrast, electric vehicle (EV) maker Tesla (US:TSLA) remains only on an A rating in May and ranks 2,264th out of 6,087 rated companies based on its level of smart-money backing.
Contrarian favourites
May’s report is about much more than tech names, though. Take the top 10 consumer cyclical smart-money picks.
Over recent years, while EV makers have generally been fawned over by investors, traditional car makers have been hugely out of favour. However, six of May’s top 10 consumer cyclical Elite Companies either make cars or sell parts for them.
That includes two of Europe’s much-maligned legacy car makers, Renault (FR:RNO) and Volkswagen (DE:VOW3), which top managers currently massively prefer to Tesla.
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British companies have also been out of favour for several years yet have been conspicuously popular with the world’s best managers for some time. They are now starting to get wider attention thanks to a raft of takeover deals.
Big London-listed rating risers in May include Barclays (GB:BARC) and Jupiter Fund Management (GB:JUP).
Read more: FTSE beats S&P over three years – these are the UK stocks top managers are betting on
The biggest climbers up the Elite Companies rankings in May are led by Portuguese oil company Galp Energia (PT:GALP), which recently made a huge discovery offshore Namibia. It is followed by Swedish companies Addtech (SE:ADDT.B), which sells high-tech industrial products, and mining equipment group Sandvik (SE:SAND).
In this month’s report, discover:
