Rolls-Royce shares have been among the most popular retail stocks over the past year. There’s good reason for this, given the strong share price gains. However, other FTSE 100 shares also have a strong outlook for the coming year. In fact, I believe this one could be an even better idea than Rolls-Royce. <\/p>\n
A positive outlook <\/p>\n
I’m talking about St. James’s Place (LSE: STJ). From the current share price of 1,151p, the mean 12-month share target from analysts is 1,644p. This represents just under a 43% gain. Of course, we can’t say for certain whether the target will be hit. The experts have done their research, but their view is subjective. <\/p>\n
Yet clearly the contributors expect that the stock will trend higher. The analysts at Deutsche Bank expect it to hit 2,050p, and this is the highest forecast at the moment. <\/p>\n
Beyond the headline figures, the next step is view the outlook and see why the stock could outperform over the next year. <\/p>\n
Why it makes sense <\/p>\n
The stock is down a modest 4% in the past year. But look underneath the bonnet and there’s still plenty going right. Gross inflows held steady at \u00a310.5bn and client retention actually improved to 95.4% in the latest results. Most impressively, funds under management (FUM) reached a record \u00a3240.8bn, up from \u00a3220bn at the end of 2025. <\/p>\n
That’s important because much of the firm’s revenue is ultimately linked to the assets sitting on its platform. Growing FUM should therefore translate into higher income over time. <\/p>\n
I’m also encouraged by shareholder returns. Management intends to distribute 70% of adjusted post-tax profit for 2026 through dividends and buybacks. For the first half, it announced a 6p dividend alongside \u00a3128.1m of buybacks. The current dividend yield of 1.56% isn’t anything to to shout about, but it’s definitely a start. <\/p>\n
Looking further ahead, the numbers get particularly interesting and tie back into the analyst forecasts. Consensus has adjusted post-tax profit, increasing from \u00a3445m in 2026 to \u00a3552m in 2027 and \u00a3667m in 2028. The dividend is forecast to climb from 23.5p this year to 30.5p and 38.1p, respectively. So part of what should drive the share price higher is the boost to earnings. <\/p>\n
Risks to note <\/p>\n
Of course, there’s no free lunch here. Weaker financial markets could reduce FUM and fee income. Regulatory scrutiny will always remain a concern, and the UK market is sensitive to it. However, even with these concerns, I do believe that the stock could outperform Rolls-Royce, and the broader FTSE 100, over the next year. Even though I can’t say for certain if it’ll rise by 43%, I believe it’s going to trend higher. On that basis, I’m seriously thinking about buying the stock and think investors who agree with me could consider doing the same. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rolls-Royce shares have been among the most popular retail stocks over the past year. There’s good reason for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[20731],"tags":[1238,48510,35937],"class_list":["post-119205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rolls-royce","tag-rolls-royce","tag-st-james","tag-st-jamess-place"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/117229376127381692","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}