More defensive, dollar earners have excelled so far in 2019 as investors take advantage of the sell off in 2018.

An apt place to find evidence of this is the Top Stock Picks for 2019 released by Frederick & Oliver shortly before Christmas.

When selecting their share picks for the coming year, the London-based stockbroker set out to provide stability to a portfolio of shares in a year that is likely to be dominated by uncertainties from Brexit and a global tightening in central bank monetary policy.

The strategy Fredrick & Oliver outlines involved a focus on shares that earned revenue in dollars or those that possessed ‘defensive’ attributes.

This would provide a natural defence against any wobbles in sterling and also ensured relative stability of cash flows though dividends at a time when volatility increased.

The inverse relationship between GBP/USD and the FTSE 100 has been a key theme since Brexit and this is likely to continue as we move towards the official leave date and the subsequent trade negotiations.

At the time of writing this has proved to be a deft move with their selections returning an average of 4% from the time of publication at the end of last year.

An example of the shares included in the report is FTSE 100 precious metals miner Fresnillo, up 18%.

Download the Top Stock Picks for 2019 report below for a full breakdown of the shares included.

In addition to the careful selection of a range of UK listed equities forming Frederick & Oliver’s Top Stock Picks for 2019, there was also the recognition of value in the US technology sector.

This formed the basis of a research paper on the sector which analyses the so called ‘FAANG’ shares. These are Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Alphabet (parent company of Google).

These shares have drove stocks market momentum through 2018 but were heavily sold towards the end of the year, creating key buying opportunities for a number of the FAANG shares.

Frederick & Oliver rated each of the shares in the sector buy or sell with the tips providing a cumulative 44% return at the time of publishing this article.

With many of the shares well below all time highs, there could well be further to go in the world’s largest technology companies.

Download the full report below to discover which FAANGs earned a buy rating and the ones rated a sell.