UK 19:23 Sunday, 4 October 2026
Breaking news and expert analysis on fast-moving AIM and LSE listed shares
Johnson Mattey (JMAT) has performed badly in recent times and its share price has steadily been declining, but I still think that this company has potential.
The share price of Johnson Matthey (JMAT) has been in the doldrums for some time now, and although it has improved a bit from the lows it saw around the release of its last set of financials, it is still suffering from the impact of low platinum group metal prices.
I have bored you all before, such as back in early September, about why I am such a lover of (now) FTSE 250 company Johnson Matthey (JMAT). And, whilst the shares may be down by about 25% during the last year, the reason I have tripled my holding is nothing to do with the company’s now over 5% dividend yield, it is all about “catalysing the net zero transition to drive sustainable value creation”, among other matters…
The first day of a new month is always busy for me, as (boring) personal pension fund investors like myself are always all-over full month performance numbers and the like. And as it is a Friday, the school year has not started yet in the UK and the US is just about to have a three-day weekend, I thought I might be struggling a bit to find a company to write about. And then I saw Johnson Matthey (JMAT) shares up over 10% today.
The last week of the first half of a year always has a few excitements, but for larger cap corporate names it is pretty popular for Capital Markets Days. If it gets a bit quiet later this week, then I might write up a few further thoughts on Imperial Brands (IMB), but initially I wanted to talk about Johnson Matthey (JMAT) and its CMD yesterday.
I have been really quite pleased with my pension fund performance over the last eighteen months or so. Thanks primarily to a couple of rather good tobacco sector performers, despite me never being a smoker, last year I made some money. And this year has been absolutely fine too. Don’t worry, I am not sad enough to try to become an institutional fund manager again and it is also not as if I have not had any investment disappointments. Believe me, anyone who claims they are more than an eight out of ten investor is a liar in my opinion (and if you are regularly more than seven out of ten, then I assume you are appearing on the front page of some business newspaper or equivalent). As for this year, one of the reasons why I am not a regular seven out of ten (or more) investor is associated with Johnson Matthey (JMAT).
It is far from being a boring day today. It is no surprise for me to see shares in De La Rue (DLAR), which institutional investors and brokers used to call “Danny”, pulling back nearly 20% given that it is still struggling to make proper profit and free cash flow. Meanwhile, Halfords (HFD) shares might be down 4% today (and over 40% year-to-date) but seeing the stock at a c. two quid share price strikes me as a bit cheap. Perhaps more on it another time, but today I want to chat about Johnson Matthey (JMAT).
Hello Share People. The Footsie jumbo Johnson Matthey (JMAT) has had a hard time of it of late. Both myself and my much brainier colleague Chris Bailey have commended the company to you in the past. But it’s yet to sparkle. Never mind, I think the shares have been oversold, given the better times that seem to be ahead.
I was reading the other day that 60/40 investors (60% equities and 40% bonds) in the United States have so far this year had their 1937. No surprise then that any investors who have only seen (or remember) the “everything is awesome” views of the last twelve or so years are a bit worried. Of course, those of us who remember the world before 2010 know there are always plenty of periods of volatility in the world’s financial markets. People should try and relax a bit more however. After all putting all your money under your bed or into a new and more expensive house is far from smart either. Anyhow - as far as your pension fund goes - when people are getting fearful (greedy) then you should be getting greedy (fearful).
You may remember I wrote in February about Johnson Matthey (JMAT) that, whilst it “is 204 years old and out of the FTSE 100”, it is also “far from boring”. So what did I make of today’s pre-close full year trading update?
