From June to December 2022, my wife and I built a mini-portfolio of 10 UK shares and seven US stocks. As we will receive a large cash windfall in two months, I have created a watchlist of more shares to buy.
Of course, we may also decide to increase our current company holdings. But the shares below are those we’d like to buy when the opportunity arrives.
My watchlist of shares to buy
For months, I’ve carried my stock watchlist around in my head, without writing it down. But then I remembered this amusing quote: “Mental note: physical notes are much better”.
Hence, it’s time I made a written note of which shares I aim to buy. Usefully, doing this in public for Fool readers makes it much more likely that my plans will actually happen!
To compile this list, I reviewed all my Fool articles since November 2022 to see which stocks I have been most bullish (upbeat) about. And the same shares kept popping up again and again.
So far, I have a total of 19 UK-listed shares to buy when I have spare cash. But that’s far too many to review in one article.
Also, my initial list included two tobacco stocks and two major oil & gas producers. My wife refuses to allow the former into our family portfolio, as she has seen the damage smokers suffer.
Furthermore, my better half prefers to allow some ethical dimension into her investing approach. She regards the oil supermajors as global polluters, so would prefer not to see them among our assets.
Five stocks I’m mad keen to buy
To cut to the chase, these are the five London-listed stocks that I’m most keen to buy at the moment (in A-Z order):
| Company | Sector | Share price | Market cap | One-year change | Five-year change | Why buy? |
| Anglo American | Mining | 2,437.5p | £32.3bn | -30.8% | +31.7% | Income |
| Glencore | Mining | 444.57p | £55.3bn | -8.2% | +15.1% | Income |
| Hargreaves Lansdown | Financial | 794p | £3.8bn | -10.3% | -58.0% | Recovery |
| M&G | Financial | 202.4p | £4.8bn | -4.3% | -10.1% | Income |
| Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust | Financial | 629.7p | £8.9bn | -27.8% | +23.8% | Recovery |
The final column of my table includes one-word explanations of why I want to buy these shares. For three companies — mega-miners Anglo American and Glencore, plus asset manager M&G — I aim to own these stocks for their market-beating dividend yields.
The two remaining shares — fund supermarket/investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown and the tech-heavy Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust — are both recovery plays. These stocks have seen their share prices collapse since late-2019 and late-2021, respectively.
Here’s what I hope
For these five picks to prove long-term winners, I’m hoping that three things will happen.
First, the global economy bounces back, either later this year or in 2024. This should boost demand for commodities, supporting my two mining companies’ stock prices.
Second, global financial markets stabilise and, eventually, resume their upwards climb. This should benefit both Hargreaves Lansdown and M&G.
Third, US tech stocks bounce back further from the bear market they entered in early 2022. This should help turn things around for tech fund Scottish Mortgage Trust.
Of course, I could be horribly wrong. Global growth could weaken further or even turn negative. Commodity prices could keep falling. And tech stocks might tumble again.
Still, finding shares to buy at fair prices has worked out for me so far!
