The cut-off date for investors to maximise their ISA allowance for the 2018/2019 tax year is almost upon us.
If you haven’t yet made the most that this tax-efficient investment product has to offer, you’ve just over a month to do so. Not much time, sure, so let me give you a helping hand by suggesting two great FTSE 100 shares you should consider buying before April 6.
Profits treble!
Hiscox (LSE: HSX) is a company I’d be happy to load up on right now. It didn’t get off to the best of starts following its ascension to the Footsie in early December, but the insurance giant has fought back in February, its share price up 11% in the month to date.
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And brilliant full-year results released this week suggest it can continue its recent revival. The insurance market can be best described as challenging, but Hiscox has remained remarkably resilient despite big claims bills and volatile markets. Gross premiums written boomed 15% in 2018 to $3.8bn, and pre-tax profits subsequently more than trebled year-on-year to $137.4m.
In particular, the company’s thriving retail business provides plenty of reason for celebration. It commented that “we are growing well in our chosen retail segments, and our small market shares mean the size of the opportunity in retail remains immense.” Retail revenues have detonated in recent years and its growing position in the huge US marketplace leaves plenty of sales potential in the coming years.
City analysts certainly reckon Hiscox has plenty more in the bag and are tipping a 156% earnings uplift in 2019 alone, a reading that leaves it trading at dirt-cheap levels, in this case on a sub-1 PEG reading of 0.1.
This isn’t the only cause for celebration, though. With profits powering higher, the number crunchers are anticipating more chunky dividend growth, to 44.4 US cents per share, from 41.9 cents in 2018. A subsequent yield of 2.1% might not be the biggest on the market. But it’s still a white-hot income pick in my book, given the prospect of strong and sustained dividend expansion stretching long into the future.
Stateside star
Another FTSE 100 share worth buying ahead of the upcoming ISA deadline is Experian (LSE: EXPN). It’s making the headlines today after binning its planned merger with ClearScore on fears that the Competition and Markets Authority would block the move.
I’ve championed the credit score providers before on account off booming revenues in its North American marketplace and I was pleased, therefore, to see that January’s trading update showed improving momentum here. Organic revenues in this critical marketplace rose 12% between October and July, up from 10% in the half-year period.
City analysts are expecting earnings at the firm to rise 4% in fiscal 2019, leading to predictions of a 48 US-cent-per-share dividend, up from 44.75 cents last year.
A consequent yield of 1.8% may be healthy rather than spectacular though. With profits expected to keep booming (and by double-digit percentages in the next couple of years too), like Hiscox, I believe it’s a great income share to buy on expectation of big dividend increases in the years ahead.
