Although financial gloom is everywhere and President Trump is triggering a rumpus with his 'America first' approach, the UK stock exchange remains unfazed.

Despite a couple of wobbles last week - and more to come as Trump rattles international cages - both the FTSE100 and larger FTSE All-Share indices have been resilient.

Both are more than 13 per cent greater than this time last year - and near to tape-record highs.

Against this backdrop of economic uncertainty, Trump rhetoric and near-market highs, it's hard to believe that any exceptional UK financial investment opportunities for patient financiers exist - so called 'recovery' situations, where there is capacity for the share cost of specific business to rise like a phoenix from the ashes.

But a band of fund supervisors is specialising in this contrarian form of investing: purchasing underestimated business in the expectation that with time the marketplace will show their true worth.

This undervaluation may result from bad management causing business errors; an unfriendly financial and monetary backdrop; or broader problems in the industry in which they operate.

Rising like a phoenix: Buying undervalued business in the hope that they'll eventually skyrocket needs nerves of steel and unlimited perseverance

Yet, the fund supervisors who buy these shares think the 'problems' are understandable, although it might take up to 5 years (occasionally less) for the outcomes to be shown in far higher share rates. Sometimes, to their dismay, the issues show unsolvable.

Max King spent 30 years in the City as a financial investment supervisor with the similarity J O Hambro Capital Management and Investec. He states investing for healing is high danger, needs patience, a neglect for agreement investment thinking - and nerves of steel.

He likewise believes it has ended up being crowded out by both the expansion in low-cost passive funds which track specific stock market indices - and the popularity of development investing, built around the success of the huge tech stocks in the US.

Yet he firmly insists that recovery investing is far from dead.

Last year, King states many UK recovery stocks made investors sensational returns - consisting of banks NatWest and Barclays (still recovering from the 2008 global financial crisis) and aerospace and defence giant Rolls-Royce Holdings (booming again after the effect of the 2020 pandemic lockdown). They created particular returns for shareholders of 83, 74 and 90 percent.

Some shares, states King, have more to use investors as they advance from healing to development. 'Recovery financiers frequently buy too early,' he states, 'then they get tired and sell too early.'

But more significantly, he thinks that new recovery opportunities constantly provide themselves, even in a rising stock exchange. For brave investors who buy shares in these healing circumstances, outstanding returns can lie at the end of the rainbow.

With that in mind, Wealth asked 4 leading fund managers to determine the most compelling UK recovery chances.

They are Ian Lance, manager of investment trust Temple Bar and Alex Wright who runs fund Fidelity Special Situations and trust Fidelity Special Values. These two managers accept the healing investment thesis 100 per cent.

Completing the quartet are Laura Foll, who with James Henderson runs the financial investment portfolio of trust Law Debenture, and Imran Sattar of financial investment trust Edinburgh.

These two supervisors purchase recovery stocks when the financial investment case is engaging, however just as part of more comprehensive portfolios.

Can you make a fortune betting that shares in our biggest ... Why has the FTSE 100 hit record highs? INVESTING SHOW

How to select the best (and most affordable) stocks and shares Isa and the right DIY investing account

' Recovery stocks remain in our DNA,' says Lance who runs the ₤ 800 million Temple Bar with Nick Purves. 'The reasoning is basic. A business makes a strategic error - for instance, a bad acquisition - and their share price gets cratered. We purchase the shares and then wait for a catalyst - for instance, a modification in management or service method - which will change the business's fortunes.

' Part of this procedure is talking with the business. But as an investor, you should be client.'

Recent success stories for Temple consist of Marks & Spencer which it has owned for the previous 5 years and whose shares are up 44 per cent over the previous year, 91 per cent over the previous 5.

Fidelity's Wright states purchasing recovery shares is what he provides for a living. 'We purchase unloved business and after that hold them while they ideally undergo favorable modification,' he explains.

' Typically, any recovery in the share cost takes between three and five years to come through, although sometimes, as occurred with insurer Direct Line, the recovery can come quicker.'

Last year, Direct Line's board accepted a takeover deal from rival Aviva, valuing its shares at ₤ 2.75. As a result, its shares rose more than 60 per cent.

Foll states healing stocks 'are often big chauffeurs of portfolio performance'. The very best UK ones, pipewiki.org she states, are to be found amongst underperforming mid-cap stocks with a domestic company focus.

Sattar says Edinburgh's portfolio is 'diverse' and 'all weather condition' with a focus on top quality firms - it's awash with FTSE100 stocks.

So, recovery stocks are just a slivver of its possessions.

' For us to purchase a healing stock, it should be first and foremost a great business.'

So, here are our investment specialists' top picks. As Lance and Wright have actually said, they may take a while to make decent returns - and nothing is ensured in investing, especially if Labour continues to make a pig's ear of stimulating financial development.

But your persistence might be well rewarded for welcoming 'healing' as part of your long-lasting financial investment portfolio.

> Search for the stocks listed below, latest efficiency, yield and more in This is Money's share centre

WINNERS IN A POSSIBLE HOME BUILDING BOOM Marshalls is the country's leading supplier of structure, landscaping, and roofing items - purchasing roofing expert Marley three years back.

Yet it has struggled to grow earnings against the background of 'difficult markets' - last month it said its earnings had fallen ₤ 52million to ₤ 619 million in 2024.

The share cost has gone no place, falling 10 and 25 percent over the past one and two years.

Yet, lower rates of interest - a 0.25 per cent cut was revealed by the Ban > k of England last Thursday - and the conference of a yearly housebuilding target of 300,000 set by Chancellor Rachel Reeves may assist fire up Marshalls' share cost.

Law Debenture's Foll states any pick-up in housebuilding should result in a demand surge for Marshalls' products, flowing through to higher revenues. 'Shareholders could enjoy appealing overall returns,' she says, 'although it might take a while for them to come through.' Edinburgh's Sattar likewise likes Marshalls although, unlike Foll who currently holds the company's shares in Law portfolio, it is just on his 'radar'.

He says: 'Its sales volumes are still listed below pre-pandemic levels. If the Chancellor does her bit to re-

spark housebuilding, then it must be a recipient as a supplier of materials to new homes.'

Sattar likewise has an eye on builders' merchant Travis Perkins which he has actually owned in the past. 'It has fresh management on board [a new chairman and president] and I have a conference with them shortly,' he says.

' From a financial investment point of view, it's a picks and shovels approach to gaining from any growth in the housing market which I choose to buying shares in specific housebuilders.'

Like Marshalls, Travis Perkins' shares have actually gone no place, falling by 7, 33 and 50 percent over one, 2 and 3 years.

Another beneficiary of a possible housebuilding boom is brick producer Ibstock. 'The business has actually huge repaired expenses as an outcome of heating up the big kilns required to make bricks,' states Foll.

' Any uptick in housebuilding will increase brick production and sales, having an overstated benefit on its operating expenses.'

Lower interest rates, she includes, must likewise be a positive for Ibstock. Although its shares are 14 per cent up over the previous year, they are up a meagre 0.3 percent over two years, and down 11 and 42 percent over three and 5 years.

Fidelity's Wright has actually likewise been purchasing shares in 2 companies which would gain from an improvement in the housing market - cooking area supplier Howden Joinery Group and retailer DFS Furniture.

Both business, he says, are gaining from having a hard time competitors. In Howden's case, rival Magnet has actually been closing display rooms, while DFS competitor SCS was bought by Italy's Poltronesofa, which then closed lots of SCS shops for repair.

DFS, a Midas pick last month, has seen its share cost increase by 17 per cent over the past year, but is still down 41 per cent over three years. Howden, a constituent of the FTSE 100, has actually made gains of 6 percent over both one and three years.

Six lessons from the pandemic stock exchange era, by investing master TOM STEVENSON

FUND MANAGER WORTH MORE THAN ITS PARTS Temple Bar's Lance does not mince his words when talking about FTSE250-listed fund manager Abdrn. 'People are right when they explain it as a rather struggling fund management company,' he says.

'Yet what they often do not realise is that it also owns a successful financial investment platform in Interactive Investor and an advisor company that, integrated, justify its market capitalisation. In impact, the marketplace is putting little worth on its fund management organization. '

Include a pension fund surplus, a big multi-million-pound stake in insurance provider Phoenix - and Lance states shares in Abrdn have 'terrific recovery potential'.

Temple Bar took a stake in business at the tail end of last year. Lance is enthused by the company's new management team which is intent on trimming expenses.

Over the previous one and three years, the shares are down 3 and 34 percent, respectively.

OTHER RECOVERY POSSIBILITIES Fidelity's Wright states a recovery stock tends to go through three unique stages.

First, a company embarks on positive modification (phase one, setiathome.berkeley.edu when the shares are dirt cheap). Then, the stock market acknowledges that change remains in development (phase 2, reflected by an increasing share cost), and lastly the price fully shows the changes made (stage three - and time to consider offering).

Among those shares he holds in the phase one container (the most exciting from an investor point of view) is advertising huge WPP. Wright purchased WPP last year for Special Values and Special Situations.

Over one, 2 and 3 years, higgledy-piggledy.xyz its shares are respectively up by 1 per cent and down by 22 and 33 per cent.

'WPP's shares are inexpensive since of the tough marketing backdrop and issues over the possible disruptive effect of expert system (AI) on its earnings,' he says. 'But our analysis, based in part on talking with WPP clients, shows that AI will not disrupt its company model.'

Other healing stocks discussed by our specialists consist of engineering giant Spirax Group. Its shares are down 21 per cent over the past year, however Edinburgh's Sattar says it is a 'dazzling UK industrial company, global in reach'.

He is also a fan of bug control giant Rentokil Initial which has experienced repeated 'missteps' over its costly 2022 acquisition of US business Terminix.

Sattar holds both stocks in the ₤ 1.1 billion trust.