What worked in the stock market in 2015

2015 turned out to be a year of very mixed fortunes for UK investors. A sluggish performance by the blue chip FTSE 100 index - down by around 4.5% - told a tale of depressed commodity sectors and sliding prices at giants like Pearson, Standard Chartered and Rolls-Royce. Small and mid-cap indices did better but they weren’t immune from the occasional accounting scandal, alleged fraud and disastrous IPO. But there were great gains to be had in the right parts of the market.  Here’s a quick look back at some of the winners and losers in stocks and approaches in 2015.

WinnersSuccessful IPOs: Fever-Tree DrinksKnown for its high-end tonics and mixers, Fever-Tree Drinks floated on the Alternative Investment Market in November 2014. But the success has been the price gain through 2015 - rising by a staggering 244%. What makes that all the more remarkable is that Fever-Tree was one of a number of ‘dreaded’ private equity-instigated floatations. Often heavily indebted and sold a frothy prices, this type of IPO has been a disaster on many occasions (see HSS Hire below). But Fever-Tree has so far flourished as a public company. Private equity...