Remarkable turnaround in the fortunes of the hopeless cases portfolio

Those of you who regularly take a quick peek at my blog may remember that just for a bit of fun, back in August 2011, I picked eight well-known companies whose fortunes, and subsequently share prices, had taken a turn for the worse.

I decided to compare the portfolio of these eight companies to the performance of the FTSE-250 over an unspecified (yet to be decided) time period. In the last update in November 2012, the FTSE-250 had risen by around 21% whilst the 'hopeless' portfolio had declined by 14%.

However, largely due to the remarkable turnaround in the Thomas Cook share price, the performance of the 'hopeless' portfolio has now shot up to a 25.4% gain against a now 41% gain in the FTSE-250.  Meaning that, although the FTSE-250 is still the leader by a considerable margin, the gap has narrowed.

Since November, Thomas Cook's shares have risen from 22.5p to yesterday's price of 115.5p, a massive 413% gain. If you timed your purchase well with this one then that's a fantastic return in less than five months. Even in August 2011 with the price at 43.55p, if you have kept your nerve and held on then that's a very healthy 165% return. Is there more to come? We shall see.

Another terrific performer is ITV which has risen from 55.85p to 131.2p (a 135% gain).

As reported in my last update, Game Group was the major casualty whilst Man. Group is still about 50% down on it's price at the time, despite it perking up from it's all time lows.

Aviva, C&W worldwide and Vodafone have all posted modest gains and C&W worldwide was bought out by Vodafone for a 10% gain.

I have decided to re-invest the gain from C&W worldwide into Aviva at it's current price of 326.2p. Why Aviva? Well given the recent rises in large/medium cap. shares it was difficult picking an obvious dog, but Aviva shares did take a recent hit with dispappointing results and a dividend cut.

I don't and haven't held shares in any of these eight companies, since I tend to concentrate on small and micro-caps, but well done to all those who invested in ITV and Thomas Cook, particularly if you caught them at their lows. Timing is crucial!

On a totally separate note, I notice that the ASOS share price currently stands at £31.84. It's a constant reminder about why I love micro-cap investment, and featured in my first blog post:-

http://michae1mouse.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/magnificent-micro-caps.html

That £5000 would now be worth  £1,028,000. Whilst ASOS is an exception in terms of its remarkable success story, there are fantastic gains to be made from micro-caps. Interestingly, I also wrote a blog about why I don't short stocks, outlining that they can continue on very high multiples of earnings for considerable lengths of time. ASOS is one such stock and currently stands (if ADVFN's figures are correct) on a p/e ratio of 255. Ummm..........