5 Unstoppable FTSE 100 Stocks To Buy Now

Last Updated October 18th 2021

5 Min Read

It’s no secret – the FTSE 100 is proving itself one of the world’s most interesting indexes of 2021. Sometimes the FTSE can look a bit too ‘old school’, or traditional, for some investors. In comparison to the S&P 500 or the Nasdaq, the FTSE is certainly heavy on so-called ‘old industry’ stocks. Banks, oil companies, weapons manufacturers and tobacco producers may all have had a great part to play in the twentieth-century economy, but not everyone believes they will be as central to the financial markets of the 21st century.

However, the FTSE is currently purring along very nicely and has recently hit a 19-month high. Here we take you through 5 FTSE 100 picks that look very attractive right now.

Top 5 Unstoppable FTSE 100 Stocks:

Ryanair
BP
HSBC
Rio Tinto
Barratt Developments

1. Ryanair

With numerous locations being removed from the extremely unpopular ‘red list’ which prohibits travel, Ryanair’s stock has seen a significant uptick in attention. As one of the major established budget, low-cost airlines serving European customers before Covid, it is unsurprising that Ryanair is finally starting to look like a good investment proposition again. Added to the opening up of more travel routes, the fact that Ryanair’s share price was battered so considerably over the last 18 months means you can buy now at a heavy discount to what it would have cost you in more normal times.

Ryanair has recently released a slew of good news, most importantly that its traffic hit a respectable 10.6 million passengers in September 2021, and this was across a total of 69,500 flights. This was more than double September 2020’s 5.2 million passengers. As such, investors seem to be taking this as a full return to normal after the catastrophic past two years of almost no international travel. This equates to a load factor of 81% versus a load factor of 71% of a year ago. Ryanair accordingly look cheap today compared to where the stock might well be in a years’ time.

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2. BP

Energy prices are soaring across Europe right now. This is a complex case involving labour shortages in key strategic sectors, as well as Brexit and Covid related disruption. However, the beneficiaries right now are the energy producers seeing a dream combination of rising demand at a time when they have more than enough excuses to raise prices faster than inflation. BP is already up near its 52-week high, having gained around 40% this year. However, the factors leading to rising energy prices are unlikely to abate any time soon, and BP look like they will have a great year of trading ahead of them. Whilst for the long run these kinds of stocks promise little as the switch to a greener future accelerates, as Warren Buffet has noted on numerous occasions, over a short to medium-term horizon they still look like a great companies!

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3. HSBC

The collapse of Evergrande posed a major challenge for HSBC. As one of the Western banks most exposed to the Chinese market, HSBC could have been rocked by the reverberations from the implosion of the giant housing developer. However, HSBC seems to have been able to ride out the turbulence. Essentially, the verdict investors seem to have reached is that HSBC is more exposed to the Chinese property markets than most other Western banks, but HSBC seems to have enough distance between itself and the whirlpool of failed debt repayments opening up around Evergrande.

Truth be told, in the long run HSBC’s unique presence and brand awareness in Asia in comparison to other Western banks will turn out to be a strong point. As the region continues to grow and demand for financial services naturally rises along with average incomes, HSBC will have a significant head-start over other rivals. HSBC’s share price is nothing if it isn’t volatile, but the long-term growth prospects combined with a healthy dividend yield of around 5% make it another FTSE top pick for today.

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4. Rio Tinto

Mining giant, Rio Tinto, has been another beneficiary of rising resource prices of late. Rising aluminum and copper prices helped push several FTSE 100 mining companies higher, in a similar way to oil prices hitting more than $80 a barrel giving a lift to oil stocks like BP. However, the reason Rio Tinto look so much more exciting than some other tired old miners, and why they look like more of a long-term buy rather than just a short-term speculative play, is their innovation. Rio Tinto shares rallied as much as 2.3% on Thursday, after announcing that it is developing an innovative new technology that will be able to deliver low-carbon steel.

Rio Tinto argue that the technology, which uses sustainable biomass instead of coking coal in the steelmaking process, could soon become a cost-effective option in cutting industry carbon emissions in the future. This announcement was the culmination of over a decade of intensive research and development spending. This allowed Rio Tinto to develop the laboratory-proven process that combines the use of raw, sustainable biomass with microwave technology to convert iron ore to metallic iron during the steelmaking process. The patent-pending process, one of a number of avenues the company is pursuing to try to lower emissions in the steel value chain, is now being further tested in a small-scale pilot plant.

If Rio Tinto have succeeded here, then there is no limit to what the stock could go to. The 21st-century economy needs materials and resources, and if they can be produced in a green and environmentally-friendly way, then the companies who lead in this will surely see revenues and profits soar.

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5. Barratt Developments

There are few investments you can trust like bricks-and-mortar, and therefore it is unsurprising that we are ending this list of top FTSE 100 performers with a home builder. Barratt Developments wowed their AGM by releasing stellar sales data showing how the UK new homes market was bouncing back strongly from the subdued previous year. Barratt Developments have a broad portfolio of property projects underway, and the stock price roses 4% on the day the healthy sales and revenue data was released. UK housebuilders expect 2021 to be a good year, and are looking ahead to a great 2022 when demand is expected to continue to rise.

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Unstoppable FTSE 100 Stocks

All 5 of these FTSE 100 stocks are currently on good runs – there are as we have seen strong reasons to think they can continue. There are, of course, headwinds for the FTSE 100, but each of these stocks have something that make them look like a buy today.