Hill & Smith Shares Hit a New 52-Week High

Hill & Smith Holdings (LON: HILS), an engineering and construction group in the FTSE 350, rose to a new 52-week high in early trading today, touching 3310.0p by 08:11 in London. The stock had been trading between 3173.08p and 3330.0p so far in the session, which is still in progress.

The shares were up 5.41% on the day, taking them above the previous 52-week high of 3220.0p that had marked the stock’s upper limit for the past year. The move puts Hill & Smith comfortably clear of that earlier ceiling, with the session high so far running almost 3.4% above it. In doing so, the stock has pushed its 12-month trading range higher, resetting the upper boundary investors have used as a reference point for where the shares have traded over the past year.

Turnover so far in the session stands at 25,875 shares, against a 20-day average of 181,423. With the session still under way, that comparison is necessarily partial rather than a full-day reading, and it should not be read as a sign of thin or quiet trading; a large share of the day’s volume is still to come.

How unusual this is

Measured against the stock’s own trading history, this is a significant move: over the past six months of sessions, today’s gain ranks as the second-largest single-session percentage move Hill & Smith has made, behind only one larger daily rise in that period. It is also a fresh occurrence for the stock: this new 52-week high has not been recorded for Hill & Smith at any point in the last 20 sessions, underlining how far today’s move stands out from the stock’s recent run of trading.

The move takes Hill & Smith Holdings clear of the 3220.0p level that had stood as the stock’s high for the past year, with the shares now trading above that mark for the first time in the period covered.