Shares Offering Everything for a Bear Market

LONDON -- When markets are down, investors can afford to be a lot more choosy.

Last October, with the FTSE 100 (INDEX: ^FTSE) at 5,128, I ran a series of mechanical screens aimed at finding shares offering a little bit of everything. Specifically, I was looking for favorable price-to-tangible-book value, yield, and price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios to generate some prospects to have a closer look at.

The minimum prospective yield of 5%, a P/E maximum of 12, P/TBV of 1.2, and a PEG ratio of 1.2 to factor in at least some growth generated these candidates in order of descending market capitalization:

Companies finding themselves on such a short list are usually there for a good reason. But the basics tend to suggest they're undervalued and worthy of a closer look. Overall, the mean average improvement was more than 6%, versus the FTSE's 4.7% over the same period. But this doesn't factor in dividends, and most on the list paid out over the period.

The best two performers were Fiberweb, a company recently covered by Stephen Bland, and Molins, still a constituent of Stephen's value portfolio. The laggard was dry-bulk vessels transporter Hellenic Carriers.

So it's not a bad performance, particularly if you avoided Hellenic Carriers, most of whose book value lies in depreciating vessels. Obviously, almost all the shares on the list have been substantially higher over the period, in line with market sentiment.

Where today?
Repeating the same experiment today gives us just six companies of different shapes and sizes. By descending order of market capitalization, they are as follows:

These are simply figures generated by mechanical screening (using a combination of Morningstar and Digital Look tools). In other words, they're only a starting point for further research.

It's interesting to see HSBC making the "short" short list, but the PEG ratio will be far higher in reality. I'll be taking a closer look at all six companies over the next week or so, and I will follow up on any that look particularly interesting.

Absolute minnow Fletcher King, the property services group, is valued at just 2.3 million pounds at 25 pence. It seems a good value all-around to me, but it remains far too small for comfort for many private investors.

Finally, let me finish by adding that more share ideas can be found within this Motley Fool report: "8 Shares Held By Britain's Super Investor." The guide reviews the investing approach and portfolio of City dividend legend Neil Woodford and is free to download today.

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Further investment opportunities:

• The One UK Share Warren Buffett Loves
• Eight Stocks Held By Britain's Super Investor
• The Market's Top Sectors