monabri wrote:As a newbie Hyper I bought into Interserve, Connect Group and Carillion ...All in the "Support" sector, all with wonderful high yields and many positive reports (TMF , Stockopedia, Daily Mail broker summaries) . All 3 have taken a good kicking recently with Carillion apparently being the most shorted company in the FTSE, Interserve being a basket case who can't even appoint a replacement for Mr Ringrose calling for a teleconference 1 week before reporting...My message would be avoid anything in the "support" sectors.
The "Support Services" sector is a bit of a catch-all. I have CLLN which I put in the Building/Construction sector with Taylor Wimpey (TW.), plus Compass (CPG) and DS Smith (SMDS). One is a caterer and the other a packaging manufacturer. Rentokil, (RTO) the rat-catchers, were also in this sector. Can you see any connection?
I have had other sectors in the past, like Transport with the then British Airways (BAY) and Stagecoach (SGC). Airlines and bus companies, with a bit of rail franchising thrown in. Chemicals was ICI and BOC, later Yule Catto, now Synthomer (SYNT) replacing ICI. Oddly RTO relaced BOC when that was taken over. All now gone.
In my view you have to consider sectors with a critical eye, and if you can, differentiate between the sub classes, like Life Assurance, General Insurance and Insurance Brokers. That way you can avoid direct duplication.
TJH