If you haven’t paid in your full ISA allowance yet, you only have a few weeks left before you lose what’s left of it. Even if we can’t use the full £20,000, the ISA deadline can provide extra impetus for stashing away as much as we can.
That’s why I’ve built a list of shares to consider buying before the 5 April deadline. Today, I’m looking at three of them.
Insiders buying
One is Purplebricks (LSE: PURP). The online estate agent has been through its early growth boom and bust, and we’re looking at a 75% share price fall over the past 12 months. But people inside and close to the company have been buying heavily, and it’s been picking up strongly over the past couple of weeks.
What might push the Purplebricks share price higher? For the first half this year, the company recorded a disappointing operating loss. But its adjusted EBITDA loss was only small, and I’m hoping it can be overturned in the second half. If Purplebricks can turn a profit in the full year, I could see investors buying back in.
What are the risks? The big one, surely, is getting into the property business right now. Inflation is climbing, with energy prices through the roof. And interest rates are rising, making mortgages more expensive. But Purplebricks is still an ISA deadline candidate for me.
Buy oil?
BP (LSE: BP) has been on a white knuckle ride of late, with the hydrocarbon business falling out of favour. BP slumped when it announced its net zero ambitions. But the war in Ukraine and the shunning of Russian oil has shown just how dependent we still are on the black stuff.
The soaring oil price has strengthened the BP share price. With Saudi Arabia set to open the taps and boost world supply, that seems likely to drop back a bit. For now though, oil seems to be holding at around $100.
If I buy BP shares before the ISA deadline, I think my biggest risk is short-term uncertainty. BP is currently being driven, at least in part, by sentiment. And where the share price will land once the energy market stabilises again is anyone’s guess.
But I can’t help seeing BP shares as oversold in the rush to get away from those nasty hydrocarbons.
High-tech risk
I like the idea of a high-risk growth punt from time to time, with just a small amount of cash. So as my final possible investment choice before the ISA deadline, I’m looking at Darktrace (LSE: DARK).
The downsides? Well, the cybersecurity specialist has not turned a full-year profit yet. And it has attracted criticism from several observers who reckon they’re seeing too much style and not enough substance. Darktrace sponsors Formula One, so I can see what they mean. I’m not entirely convinced that’s the best way for a startup to be spending its money.
But the first half this year did bring a profit. And that gave the Darktrace share price a modest but welcome boost. Valuation metrics don’t make much sense in a turnaround year. But if this marks the start of growing profits for Darktrace, I can see the shares starting to look undervalued.