Investment and trading platform firm IG Group revealed the benefits of the Trump-induced market volatility in a short trading statement released on Monday.

The FTSE-250 firm revealed that heightened market volatility, particularly during April, has driven client trading activity well above typical levels.

IG said it expects its full-year revenue and adjusted profit before tax to meet or slightly surpass the upper end of analyst consensus, currently projected at £1.05 billion and £516.3 million respectively.

In April, we explained why trading platforms such as IG always do well during periods of volatility. Dramatic market swings almost always increase trading activity, directly bolstering the revenue for brokers like IG.

IG Group also provided an update on its balance sheet management and announced a new credit facility that is designed to help the group make further acquisitions. IG recently completed the takeover of Freetrade.

IG Group shares were flat at the time of writing after rallying around 20% from post-tariff lows.

Autonomous vehicle technology company Guident has filed for its US IPO as the sector heats up amid the wider adoption of autonomous vehicles across the globe.

The Tekcapital portfolio company announced its intention to list on the NASDAQ at the beginning of the year. Many companies put off their plans to list amid heightened volatility caused by Trump’s trade policies, and today’s announcement comes after a sustained period of improvement in US equity markets.

Guident’s S-1 filing with the SEC has been made confidentially, which allows the company to keep commercially sensitive information private and gives them greater control over the timing of their IPO.

Information related to the IPO will be made public in the run-up to the IPO after a period of review by the SEC.

“The biggest advantage of confidential filings is withholding information from competitors for a few months, compared to a traditional filing that everyone could see,” said Jay Ritter, a finance professor at the University of Florida, to Forbes.

US tech giants, including Uber, Lyft and Airbnb, have opted to use confidential IPO filings in the past.

Tekcapital didn’t share any information relating to the IPO fundraise or valuation in today’s announcement.

“The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined,” the Tekcapital announcement read.

Guident’s IPO filing has been announced against the backdrop of rapid expansion across the autonomous vehicle industry. Notable recent developments include Uber’s investment in WeRide to expand AV taxi operations into 15 more cities globally and Waymo’s plans to add 2,000 more vehicles to its fleet through 2026.

The FTSE 100 jumped on Friday as investor confidence received a shot in the arm from the US/UK trade deal, even if it leaves the UK in a worse position than before Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’.

London’s leading index was trading 0.4% higher at the time of writing.

“Yesterday’s UK-US trade deal happened just before the UK market closed which meant quite a few investors won’t have had time to soak it all in and adjust portfolios accordingly,” said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell. 

“The FTSE 100 shrugged off the event in the heat of the moment, but advanced 0.4% in early trading on Friday as investors belatedly celebrated the agreement.

“Notably, the FTSE 100 top risers’ list was full of UK-listed stocks that do business in the US, such as retailer JD Sports, rat catcher Rentokil and industrial groups Smiths and Spirax.

“The trade deal was smaller than expected but strategically significant as it puts the UK in the friend zone for the US, a status whose importance shouldn’t be underestimated.”

As alluded to by Russ Mould, those stocks most heavily impacted by the introduction of Donald Trump’s tariffs put in the strongest performances on Friday.

JD Sports shares were ravaged by Trump’s tariffs due to its exposure to the US and a supply chain woven into the economies of the countries slapped with the highest tariffs. JD Sports shares were 2% higher on Friday and have rallied around 30% from their post-tariff lows.

IAG gained 2% after beating Q1 profit expectations on strong performance in North Atlantic services during the period.

The general uptick in investor confidence helped lift cyclical sectors on Friday. Miners Glencore and Anglo American were on the leaderboard, while oil majors Shell and BP added a notable number of points to the index as oil price rose.

“Brent is trading near 64$ pb up from the upper 50s level as cautious optimism kicked in from the demand side with relatively improved market sentiment on the back of high-level trade negotiations, US vs China, and the US-UK agreed trade framework,” explained Ahmad Assiri Research Strategist at Pepperstone.

Airtel Africa was the FTSE 100 top riser as the stock rebounded from a sharp sell-off yesterday.

by Ed Croft, Founder & CEO of Stockopedia

If you’re anything like me, you probably didn’t start investing with a perfectly thought through plan. You may have looked at fund managers and thought you could do better. Maybe you invested in funds, but were disappointed by the results.

You wanted more control, higher returns, a bit more risk.

So you started picking shares.

And that’s where the trouble begins.

Stage 1: The Gambler – betting on a big idea

This is how many of us start. We come across a share tip, from a broker or a bulletin board, maybe an overconfident YouTuber. We find a convincing idea. We want in.

Sometimes it works, but often the theme has already played out by the time you buy in. You don’t even know you’re late.

This isn’t investing. It’s gambling on hope, which too often ends with a loss – yes of capital, but also of confidence, which can be hard to rebuild.

Stage 2: The Follower – trusting authority

After a few bets fail, you smarten up. You start following people who actually know what they’re doing. People you respect. Premium content. Expert Newsletters. Communities of proven investors.

This is definitely a step up. The very best investing insights are often shared by real investors, investing their own money. But even here, there are traps.

Because following others isn’t the same as doing analysis. You risk just buying the story.

We are all hard-wired to believe in stories. They are how we make sense of the world. We seek story arcs in our investments – a viable turnaround plan, a heroic new CEO, a market that must be disrupted. But Nassim Taleb warned of the “narrative fallacy” in Fooled by Randomness – we see patterns where they really don’t exist, stories where there’s only noise.

So if you find yourself, or the experts you follow, projecting a Hollywood ending onto your favourite share, while ignoring the red flags – buyer beware. It really can pay to be a sceptic.

Story stocks vs the statistics…

For some reason, companies that are pre-profit, or pre-revenue are even easier to project narratives onto. At Stockopedia, we’ve tracked the performance of blue-sky “story stocks” that so often dominate attention. Stocks like Sirius Minerals – that tens of thousands lost money in.

And we found roughly three-quarters of them lose money in a typical year.

We all want believe our favourite share will be a lottery win, but the stats just don’t back it up. Only 5% of pre-profit story stocks end up doubling or tripling in a year.

Stage 3: The Researcher – digging deeper

So now you take your investing seriously. You learn to read financial statements. You source broker research and annual reports. You study investing books and create spreadsheets.

You are doing the real work now. You feel smarter. But even now there’s a catch – doing more research doesn’t guarantee better results.

There’s a study from 1973 by Paul Slovic. He asked horse racing experts to predict winners when given increasing amounts of data. At up to five data points on each horse, their accuracy improved. Beyond that? Their confidence kept increasing, but their accuracy completely flatlined.

It’s a hard to swallow truth – more research makes us more confident, not more correct.

So if you find yourself doing hours of research and becoming more and more convinced in your convictions – just remember that confirmation bias can be really expensive.

I’ve been there. In 2008, just before the financial crisis, I had 50% of my portfolio in a single AIM-listed biometrics stock. I’d done the work: bought the product, built the DCF, met the CEO. I “knew” it would multibag. Just give me ten minutes with my younger self and I’ll save him hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Stage 4: The Craftsman – turning insights into rules

So when you’ve done your fair share of gambling, following, and over-researching – you may reach a point where you stop asking “what do I think about this stock?” and start asking “what really works in the market?”

It’s a subtle shift, but it’s everything. Most of the great investors made this shift. Graham. Buffett. Slater. O’Shaughnessy. They didn’t just gather information – they defined investment criteria based on the evidence of what really works.

Because when you start researching what really works – across all markets in history – there are only a few core return drivers that consistently pay off.

• Quality – good, profitable stocks tend to outperform unprofitable, junk.
• Value – cheap stocks (versus earnings or assets) tend to outperform expensive stocks.
• Momentum – shares with positive price and earnings trends tend to outperform.

Not every stock with these characteristics succeeds, but on average investing in shares with these key characteristics shifts the odds in your favour. The study below is by Fama & French – Fama won the Nobel Prize for validating these insights.

Understanding this is where the shift happens.

The Craftsman moves from stock-picking based on opinion, to rule-building based on evidence.

These three characteristics, which we call QVM, are measurable for every share. And when something can be measured, then rules, criteria and checklists can be built on them. They can be the basis of a sound, repeatable process.

Even Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s partner, and one of the wealthiest stock market researchers that ever lived once said:

“No wise pilot, no matter how great his talent and experience, fails to use his checklist.”

Because what sets the best investors apart isn’t how much they know about their investments – it’s how they turn their knowledge of what really works into a repeatable process.

What’s next?

This first article is really about recognising the journey that many of us investors go on – from gambler to follower to researcher to craftsman.

In the next article of this four article series, I’ll show you how to start turning the QVM return drivers into practical rules you can apply to improve your investing.

And if you want to know more about building a rules-based process that works – we will be hosting a webinar on the 22nd May. You can sign up here.