The UK 100 looks set to close 1% to the bad this week, maintaining its downtrend from late last week. However, it would be grossly unfair to leave you thinking only negatives as we move into the weekend. Even if the media does its best in tomorrow’s papers to focus on the handsome group of stocks that gave up 5-10%. Because that’s between the beginning of the week and the end.

There some very attractive range-trading opportunities on offer over the course of this week, between the UK Index ’s lows of 6640 and the highs of 6750. We had four or fixed index moves of 100pts or better available for you to make money from. Furthermore, a down week for the index doesn’t necessarily mean that all 100 of its components had a tough time of it. We know that quite a few did, but several big names actually posted gains of 3% or better. One has even put on a whopping 11%. In fact, we may be set for an index loss this week but digging a little deeper we find that around 35% of members will finish the week with their heads above water, even if certain amongst them are very close to breakeven.

My point here is that while the media may concentrate on markets being down for the week – its more sensational to talk about RBS (RBS) -11%, EasyJet  (EZJ) -9% and both Next (NXT) and Marks (MKS) -8.5%- that doesn’t necessarily mean that every stock has lost ground. This can of course happen, particularly when there is some major news or event that disrupts markets, but we tend to find that there is at least one outlier posting gains or at least outperforming, that is posting much smaller losses than the rest.

This weekend’s financial press is sure to concentrate on the Bank of England’s decision to hold fire on any more rate cuts or stimulus until much later in the year, November perhaps, thanks to the economy holding up pretty well post Brexit. Investors have become much more relaxed about things with actual divorce from the EU still at least 2 years away. And Central bank policy for many remains the only game in town to keep the proverbial ball in the air.

Which is why we’d rather focus on the fact that supermarket Morrisons (MRW) has seen its shares climb by over 10% this week after strong first half results showing consensus beating sales growth of 2% in Q3 and higher net profits, at odds with some competitors who are struggling with a high competitive environment. Also good to see and hear was lower debt, a nice dividend hike for income seekers and management seeing no adverse impact from Brexit. This cocktail of positives helped the shares break above 2yr shallow falling highs this week which could open the door for a northerly journey back towards the 300p range from whence they fell in late 2013. Is Morrison the next sector darling, while bigger rivals Tesco and Sainsbury suffer?

Another positive that may be missed is shares in publisher and exhibitions company Informa (INF) are 4.5% higher despite it spending £1.18bn to acquire US rival Penton Information Services. Normally a share price will drop when management gets out the cheque book. There are risks that it overpays, the deal might collapse or the tie-up simply might not work. Shareholders are thus displaying confidence in the logic of the acquisition that it will deliver from the off. Positive news on drugs explain advances of around 6% for both AstraZeneca (AZN) and Shire (SHP) taking them to fresh September highs, the latter with a decent breakout.

So rather than read all about this in a weekly resume on a Saturday morning, when it is too late to react, why not get access to our research to stay abreast of such things as and when they emerge. We could have told you about good results from Morrison when they came out at 7am yesterday, before the shares jumped higher. Let us help make sure you don’t miss next week’s biggest opportunity. Enjoy your weekend.

Mike van Dulken, Head of Research, 16 Sept