Ed Page Croft

I studied the last ten years of UK stock market history to identify the top 🔟 multi-baggers. I wanted to assess their common traits to raise the odds of buying potential multi-baggers over the next decade. Here's a 🧵 with some key insights. 1/

Would be a more exciting release to offer terminal sidebar in Obsidian so you can more easily use Claude Code etc on notes. I've moved to Zed for PKM for this reason. Most people don't like seeing md files - but obsidian would be a v popular way in given wysiwyg. Am sure you know all this though.

1. install Obsidian 1.12 2. enable CLI 3. now OpenClaw, OpenCode, Claude Code, Codex, or any other agent can use Obsidian

86% of our subscribers beat or matched a strong UK market in 2025. But it wasn't the returns that impressed us most in our latest Subscriber Performance Survey. It was something much more valuable than pure profit... 🤔 🧵

@reb40 @Stockopedia Thank you and great to see you !

Great to listen to ⁦@edcroft⁩ of ⁦@Stockopedia⁩ on ‘How to Pick the Best Value Stocks in the UK Market’ Completely agree on those magic words ‘ahead of expectations’ 👌🏼

@W13Ken @Stockopedia @BrilliantLeader Yes - it's plotted under the share price chart on the StockReports

@Stockopedia @BrilliantLeader Interesting 🤔. Do you plot the StockRank and QVM movements for each stock in charts across the year? This would help show when thresholds had been passed.

📉 How a simple rule could have saved you from Warpaint’s 54% collapse… Today, Warpaint London (#W7L), issued its second profit warning of 2025: • Profit before tax: £6.4m (-41%) • EPS: 8.5p (-13%) • Guidance cut for FY25 • Share price down ~20% today But investors who followed the 90/70 StockRank rule could have avoided the pain. 🧵

I'll be writing up some new insights next week on this topic on @Stockopedia which explains why this happens. So stay tuned. In the meantime, if you missed my thread from yesterday - here's more on this topic. x.com/edcroft/status…

Share prices tend to continue to drift in the direction of the surprise over 6 months or more. You also see a tendency for stocks to announce multiple "ahead of expectations" announcements after their first. Here's an example from Greencore in 2024:

As trading statement season continues, it's important to understand the power of the "drift". This is the tendency of share prices to continue in the direction of earnings surprises. Resarch by Brandt et al "Earnings Announcements are Full of Surprises" illustrates

@RicGains Yes - after.

@edcroft Ed, great study. Are these returns AFTER the close on Day One, or do they INCLUDE the day of the news?

It's Trading Statement season. What should you do if a company announces ahead or below expectations? I've rummaged through 2,699 trading statements in the last 2 years to find out... Here are some key insights: 📈👇

@damianbcannon @damianbcannon - yes the 6 month return excludes the first day. It's from that day's close onwards. It backs up the findings from a paper I wrote up before Xmas - which says that the "earnings announcement return" (EAR) is a better predictor than earnings surprise (SUE).

@edcroft Interesting. I take it that you're excluding the first day rise/fall from the following six months? If so it suggests that the price reaction is a better signal than the narrative. Although microcap, low liquidity stocks might skew this analysis?

Two stocks that jumped 20% plus in the last week are McBride #MCB and Reach #RCH Will they or won't they experience the same levels of drift?

2. “Ahead/Below Expectations” Phrases Matter Companies reporting “significantly ahead of expectations” on average jump the most on the day, and they experience the strongest continued share price drift in the same direction.

@Whole_wit Given the media are saying he's unlikely to serve time, ChatGPT seems quite opinionated, dare I say biased, on the topic!

@edcroft Haha 😀 Good one! First decent use of AI👍

Well I guess that settles it....

@lesguersten Yes - this is more the "compounding portfolio" approach, rather than "individual compounding stock" approach. If you can pick stocks like Munger, then higher concentration works.

@edcroft Tighter range of outcomes - limited downside but limited upside also. Not the Munger approach- owning BRK & CostCo. Big Winners he knew inside out.

I'm always interested in the question "how many stocks should you own?" This chart is from one time period (April 2017 to April 2018), but it's indicative. < 5 stocks - massive variability 10 stocks - much diminished downside 20 stocks - tighter range of outcomes

This was a period in which the FTSE All Share fell by 2.5%. You could take any cohort (or all stocks in the market) and you'd see a similar kind of spread. All would have an upside skew (you can only lose 100%, but can double/treble in an individual stock). For low ranked shares you'd see much wider variability on upside and downside, but with the average returns lower.

@edcroft Presumably this would be symmetrical about the zero line if you had ALL the shares in the index and this is really showing the advantage of Stocko's 90+ ranked shares?

@PensionCraft @ramincharles - it was such a good chat. I had a listen yesterday, we covered so much ground! Thanks for having me on as a guest🙏

@edcroft It was great to have you on the podcast Ed, Michael & I both enjoyed chatting with you!

I had a great nerd-out on beating the market with @pensioncraft in this podcast published yesterday. My experience, QVM, buybacks, dilution, avoiding mistakes, portfolio construction, liquidity, Magnificent 7, indexing, mastery and more. Listen here: many-happy-returns.captivate.fm/episode/buildi…