With the likes of Diageo, Tesco, and Unilever, the UK has some great dividend stocks. But I think there might also be some outstanding opportunities outside the FTSE 100.

Renew Holdings (LSE:RNWH) is a collection of businesses that maintain the UK’s water, electricity, and rail infrastructure. And I think there’s an awful lot to like about the stock.

Infrastructure 

Renew’s operations involve maintaining, replacing, and upgrading, things like rail tracks, transmission lines, and water pipes. And there are a lot of attractions to being in this industry.

The UK’s infrastructure is critical to it functioning. As a result, there’s significant funding committed to the markets the firm operates in and this is protected by regulation. 

On top of this, the projects it engages in require a lot of specialist knowledge and technical expertise. This creates a significant barrier to entry for potential competitors.

Despite this, Renew does have competitors, including Balfour Beatty, Kier Group, and Costain. All of these are significantly larger than Renew, giving them advantages that come with scale.

Renew however, differentiates itself by focusing on maintenance instead of new builds. As a result, it has deep expertise in the distinctive requirements associated with ongoing repairs.

The firm has a decentralised structure, with subsidiaries specialising in different areas, from repairing bridges to fixing pipes. And focusing on specific niches has generated great results.

Growth and dividends

Renew shares currently come with a dividend yield of around 2.75%. But the company only distributes around a third of the free cash it generates. The rest is reinvested into the business to fund growth. And a good amount of this has involved acquiring smaller companies over the last 10 years. 

This can be risky, but it has generated impressive results for Renew. Revenues have almost doubled in the last decade and earnings per share have gone from 9p to 53p.

Importantly, the company’s managed to maintain strong returns on equity over this period. That’s a good sign the firm’s doing a good job of generating growth with the cash it retains.

The stock’s down 25% since the start of the year and the big reason is the January trading update. Renew (without irony) reported that rail improvement works were subject to delays.

The firm reiterated though, that its customers remain committed to record levels of investment in rail infrastructure. That makes the drop in the stock look like an opportunity to me.

A stock to consider buying

Until recently, Renew Holdings wasn’t on my radar at all. But while it doesn’t operate in a particularly high-octane industry, I think it looks very attractive as a business.

Maintaining the UK’s infrastructure is non-optional and spending is committed by regulation and this should give the company plenty of opportunities for future growth. Renew has grown impressively over the last 10 years and I don’t see a big change on the horizon.

So I’m getting ready to take a closer look at this stock.

Fund managers have been rotating into FTSE 100 shares over the last month. But I think Unilever (LSE:ULVR) could be set to outperform the index over the next year.

The firm is in the middle of a substantial restructuring process. And this could significantly boost its growth prospects over the long term. 

Restructuring

Over the last 15 months or so, Unilever has been taking the view that less is more. Its belief is that its growth of its strongest lines has been stunted by some of its weaker ones. 

Rather than trying to figure out how to get more from these underperforming divisions – most notably ice cream – the company has decided to divest them. And this has worked well, so far.

Unencumbered by weaker product lines, Unilever reported sales growth of 4% in 2024 and an increase in earnings per share of almost 15%. As a result, the stock’s up 15% in the last year.

Despite the strong progress, the company isn’t stopping there. It’s looking to make further divestitures to continue its restructuring process and has appointed a new CEO to push things along. 

There are clearly differences in terms of performance across Unilever’s various divisions. The Foods unit managed 2.6% sales growth in 2024 while Beauty & Wellbeing achieved 6.5%.

My belief is that further divestitures will continue to push the share price higher over the next 12 months. But there are some potential issues that could get in the way of this thesis.

Growth

I like Unilever’s transformation prospects. But divestitures can only take the company so far – what’s really going to impact the share price is the performance of the remaining businesses.

Investors got a good illustration of this in February. The stock fell 9% when the firm reported slowing sales growth in the fourth quarter and anticipated a challenging start to 2025.

Importantly, there are some things Unilever can’t do much about. The firm’s expecting a weak trading environment in the near future and the risk is that this lasts longer than expected.

It’s natural to think the company is somewhat protected from economic downturns. And while this is true to an extent, it relies on customers choosing its brands over cheaper alternatives.

This might provide a limit to how far Unilever shares can go. But I think it will have enough to outperform the FTSE 100 over the rest of the year. 

The company’s strengths are well-known. And if investors can see enough signs of progress to conclude there’s more growth coming, I anticipate strong returns from the stock.

Long-term investing

Investing well involves more than just looking at what might happen in the next 12 months. But the ongoing changes at Unilever could set the firm up for long-term success.

Of course, this is my opinion and I could be wrong. But I think the stock’s worth considering – especially for investors looking for passive income. There’s a 3.25% dividend yield to start with and I expect continued growth to push this higher.

The ability to grow while returning cash to shareholders can be a formula for big returns. And Unilever might be a defensive stock, but its growth prospects shouldn’t be underestimated.

Many S&P 500 stocks have taken a big hit in 2025. According to my data provider, around 130 stocks in the index are currently trading 25% or more below their 52-week highs.

As a long-term investor, this market weakness excites me and I’ve been taking advantage of it. Here’s a look at an S&P 500 stock I bought earlier this week.

A new holding for me

The stock I’ve snapped up is Salesforce (NYSE: CRM). It’s a software company that specialises in customer relationship management (CRM) solutions and has a world-class customer base (around 90% of the Fortune 500 use its software).

I’ve taken a small position to start with, paying $268 per share. That’s roughly 27% below the stock’s 52-week high of $369.

Investing in the future

While Salesforce has had a lot of success with its CRM solutions in the past (it generates over $35bn in revenue annually from them today), it’s not the main reason I’ve invested here. What has lured me in is the company’s pivot towards AI agents.

AI agents are software solutions designed to autonomously perform business tasks that humans currently do. They can be used across a range of departments and industries, significantly enhancing efficiency for businesses.

I reckon the market for these agents is going to explode over the next decade. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff reckons the ‘digital labour’ industry could be worth up to $12trn.

Already, Salesforce is having success with its AI agents (which it calls ‘Agentforce’). Last quarter (ended 31 January), it closed more than 3,000 Agentforce deals.

Benioff says that the companies using them are experiencing “unprecedented levels of productivity, efficiency and cost savings.” So I believe there’s a real opportunity for the company here.

Our goal is to be the #1 provider of digital labour in the world.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff

Attractive valuation

Turning to the valuation, the stock is reasonably priced, to my mind. Currently, analysts expect Salesforce to generate earnings per share of $11.20 this financial year and $12.50 next.

That gives us a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 24, falling to 21 using next year’s EPS forecast. That’s not high for a world-class software company with recurring revenues and plenty of growth potential.

Plenty of risks

Of course, there are plenty of risks here. Looking ahead, the company is likely to face competition in the agentic AI space from the likes of Microsoft, ServiceNow, and other software companies so there are no guarantees that it will turn out to be a winner.

A global economic slowdown is another risk factor to consider. This could lead businesses to put a pause on software spending.

Tech stocks could also continue to be volatile. While the stock is nearly 30% off its highs, there’s a chance that it could keep falling.

These risks are why I’ve started with a small position in the stock. Over time, I’ll look to build up the position and grow my holding.

Many holdings in investors’ Stocks and Shares ISA portfolios will have dropped significantly last week. I know mine did!

There was hardly anywhere to hide, with FTSE 100 banks and US tech stocks getting hit equally hard.

Admittedly, it might seem more like a time to run for the hills rather than invest further money into a falling market. However, some stocks are starting to look extremely attractive for long-term investors like myself.

Here are two I see right now.

Amazon

The first stock is Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN). As I type, shares of the e-commerce and cloud computing juggernaut are down 28% in just two months!

This has nothing much to do with the company’s recent performance and everything to do with the developing US-China trade war. And there are risks here, to be sure. Many third-party sellers on Amazon source products from China. If high import taxes lead to higher prices for consumers, it might slow down its core e-commerce operation.

Longer term though, this is a company that I see getting ever larger. It holds a leading 30% share of the lucrative global cloud computing market through Amazon Web Services (AWS). Its online advertising business jumped 18% year on year to $17.3bn in the fourth quarter.

There are blue-sky opportunities developing in robotaxis and its soon-to-deploy satellite broadband constellation, Project Kuiper. Kuiper could one day become a rival to SpaceX’s Starlink business.

The valuation also suddenly looks attractive. The price-to-earnings ratio for this year’s forecast earnings is around 27, which is the cheapest that multiple has been for many moons.

In my eyes, this is one of the most attractive Big Tech buying opportunities to open up in quite a while. I currently don’t own Amazon shares, but I can see that changing in the near future.

A ready-made portfolio

If picking individual stocks like Amazon might seem a bit too risky, then investors could consider Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust (LSE: SMT).

This FTSE 100 investment trust holds Amazon as a top position in its portfolio, along with Instagram owner Meta Platforms, SpaceX, and Latin American e-commerce leader MercadoLibre.

In response to Trump’s tariffs, the trust’s share price has bombed more than 10% in just a few days.

The managers of Scottish Mortgage recently highlighted Meta and e-commerce software provider Shopify as examples of companies likely to benefit from the application side of the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution.

Shopify shares have been absolutely battered recently — down 28% in two days! So, as a Scottish Mortgage shareholder, I hope the managers are using this sudden market downturn to add to their highest-conviction holdings. That could work out very well, assuming the holdings continue to do well and recover.

Naturally, the brewing trade war presents risks, as the profits of many key holdings might be hit hard. This could dent the value of Scottish Mortgage’s portfolio.

However, the trust is now trading on a wide 11% discount to net asset value (NAV). Again, I think this FTSE 100 stock could prove to be a bargain at 843p a few years down the line, once the current mayhem is hopefully a distant memory.

I’m also tempted to buy more Scottish Mortgage shares if the selling continues.

Finding winning penny stocks can be quite hard. Apart from the general challenges and risks of investing in such small businesses, the lack of coverage among analysts and financial news makes them hard to discover in the first place. Yet with so much data being used to train AI models like ChatGPT, some investors have begun using these tools to discover under-the-radar companies.

So, with that in mind, I recently asked ChatGPT what it believes is the best penny stock currently listed on the London Stock Exchange. The answer: Kodal Minerals (LSE:KOD).

A winning penny stock?

At a market cap of £78m and a share price of just 0.392p, Kodal Minerals definitely meets the criteria for being a penny stock. Yet unlike many other micro-cap stocks in this category, Kodal’s shares have surprisingly been fairly stable.

Its beta – a measure of volatility versus an index like the FTSE 100 – is just 0.9. For reference, most penny stocks typically have a beta of around 2.5. Furthermore, over the past five years, the share price has actually gone up almost 900%.

So far, ChatGPT seems to be on to a winner. But what does this business actually do?

Digging deeper

Kodal is an exploration company focusing on developing lithium and gold mining projects across West Africa. According to ChatGPT, the firm is entirely debt-free and has just reached profitability in 2024. That’s a pretty rare achievement, especially for such a small business operating within the highly capital-intensive natural resources industry.

However, it seems that ChatGPT may have made a critical error here. Kodal doesn’t actually have any active revenue streams, so how can it be profitable?

In 2024, the firm reported net income of £27m. Yet on closer inspection, all of this came from a revaluation of its equity stake in a mining project that has yet to reach the production stage. In other words, the gain only exists on paper due to accounting rules. And it’s also why cash generated from operations was actually in the red by over £3.3m.

What about the debt-free balance sheet? It’s true that Kodal doesn’t have any outstanding loan obligations. Normally, that’s a sign of a healthy business. However, in this case, the likely cause is simply that debt financing is either too expensive or unavailable for the company. Don’t forget that taking on debt demands regular interest payments, which is pretty tough for a firm with no positive cash flows.

Instead, Kodal has been relying on equity financing, which is why the number of shares outstanding has more than doubled over the last five years. As previously mentioned, mining exploration and development is expensive, and extreme equity dilution shouldn’t be a surprise.

Is there any potential?

ChatGPT’s penny stock pick seems questionable in my eyes, not to mention exceptionally risky. But to Kodal’s credit, the business does have some exciting potential ahead. Just earlier this year, it achieved its first lithium concentrate production with its Bougouni project. And everything goes according to plan, commercial production could begin in 2025 as well, paving the way to a much-needed revenue stream.

Overall, I think Kodal is definitely a stock worth watching this year.

Thursday (3 April) wasn’t a good day for most FTSE 100 stocks. Overall, the index closed the day 1.5% lower. Investors didn’t react well to the overnight news that most of America’s trading partners will be subject to additional import taxes on goods entering the US.

Not surprisingly, there were some big fallers.

On the ropes

Standard Chartered was the worst affected. Its shares tanked 12.8% on fears that the bank, with heavy exposure to the Asian economies that face the biggest tariffs, could see a significant drop in earnings. HSBC (down 8.6%) wasn’t far behind.

As a result of a falling oil price, Shell and BP saw their stock prices sink.

JD Sports Fashion is Nike’s number one global partner and, following the acquisition of the Hibbett chain, has a large presence in the US. Most of the American sportswear giant’s products are made in the Far East. Due to tariffs, these will now become much more expensive for American consumers. The British retailer’s shares tumbled 8.1%.

But it wasn’t all bad news.

Becoming defensive

During times of volatility, utilities tend to attract the risk-averse investor.

With the demand for energy unlikely to be affected by import taxes, both SSE and National Grid rose approximately 4%.

Even United Utilities and Severn Trent, two of the largest companies in the UK’s beleaguered water industry, recorded similar gains.

Supermarket stocks did well too. Tesco and J Sainsbury don’t have any stores in the America and sell products that consumers generally buy regardless of global economic conditions.

Broadly speaking, all of these companies have steady and reliable earnings, meaning their share prices should be less volatile. While Trump’s tariffs wreak havoc on global supply chains, these FTSE 100 companies will quietly go about their business.

Quietly impressive

Another stock I think investors could consider during these difficult times is Next (LSE:NXT), the clothing, footwear, and home products retailer. Although it sells some of its products into the US using the Nordstrom platform, this accounts for a relatively small proportion of sales.

And whatever’s thrown at the company – recession, the internet, Brexit, Covid, inflation, high interest rates, and more — it seems to find a way to cope. During the year ended 25 January 2025 (FY25), the company reported a pre-tax profit of £1bn for the first time.

I’m particularly impressed with the way in which the company manages expectations. For FY25, it released four separate profits upgrades. All of them were small (£5m-£20m) but they were enough to please investors.

For FY26, the company’s already announced an increase in its expected profit before tax from £1.046bn to £1.066bn.

But the group faces some challenges. Fashion retailing can be tough. And due to the need to pay rent and rates, operating 457 bricks-and-mortar stores is expensive.                

However, Next has managed to embrace the rise of online shopping rather than view it as a threat. Just over half of UK sales come via the internet.

And there’s plenty of scope to replicate its business model overseas, although probably not in the US given the current climate. But above all else, I think it’s a well-managed company that should be able to deal with whatever the present occupant of the White House comes up with next.

UK shares have largely performed well over the last six months when looking at the FTSE 100. The UK’s flagship index has delivered close to a 5% total return compared to the 3% loss from the US S&P 500 over the same period.

Yet, not all British businesses are having a great time. Three examples of FTSE stocks that have taken a hit lately are:

• Ocado Group  – down 25%
• JD Sports Fashion – down 54%
• Vistry (LSE:VTY) – down 56%

Needless to say, these losses aren’t pleasant for shareholders. But sometimes, stocks that take a tumble can transform into incredible buying opportunities. Just take a look at what happened to Rolls-Royce. The engineering giant saw more than half of its market cap wiped out following the pandemic. Then it made a stellar near-800% comeback a few years later.

Taking a closer look

To determine whether a buying opportunity exists, it’s important to understand why the shares are seemingly in freefall in the first place. Ocado appears to be struggling with the high cost of transitioning into a robotics company. Meanwhile JD Sports is experiencing a cyclical downturn in demand for athletic footwear and apparel. But what about the worst performer on this list, Vistry?

Looking at its full-year results, Vistry reported a welcome 7% boost to revenue and home completions, which both grew to £4.3bn and 17,225, respectively. However, the trouble starts lower down on the income statement where operating profits collapsed by 44% and net debt essentially doubled from £89m to £181m. That’s a far cry from what investors were expecting, especially since management had promised to reach a net cash position in 2024.

Cash generation has once again been highlighted as a top priority for this enterprise in 2025. Whether that will materialise, investors will have to wait and see. However, the UK planning permission reforms being put forward by the government could serve as a welcome tailwind to get Vistry back on track.

A buying opportunity?

With the shares trading at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 8.7, the homebuilder is looking rather cheap. By comparison, its competitors are trading notably higher, with Barratt Redrow at 12, Bellway at 15, along with Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey at 13.

Providing that Vistry can get its cash generation problems sorted and the balance sheet moves closer towards a net cash position, investors appear to be looking at an attractive entry point. Even more so, given the Bank of England is expected to continue cutting interest rates in 2025, sparking fresh life in British homebuying activity.

However, as previously mentioned, management promised to fix the cash generation problems last year to no avail. And with other homebuilders delivering relatively better results, it suggests that competitive pressures may also be adversely impacting the business. As such, Vistry doesn’t look tempting and worth considering, in my view.

As for the other two businesses, they too have their challenges. So, be sure to do plenty of research digging into the risks as well as potential rewards.

After tumbling into correction territory, both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq have investors spooked by a potential US stock market crash later this month. There’s a lot of critical macroeconomic data coming out in April that could confirm investors’ worst fears, sparking a new round of sell-offs. Of course, this data could also reveal that the situation may not be as dire as everyone seems to think.

So, what’s behind the rising bearish sentiment? And what should investors do to prepare?

The impact of tariffs

The impact of US tariffs is hardly a new story in the headlines. However, April is the month when investors get to find out exactly how much short-term damage they might be doing to the US economy. The latest forecast from GDPNow anticipates a 2.8% contraction of US GDP in the first quarter of 2025. However, on April 30, the Bureau of Economic Analysis will release its GDP report for the first quarter. If it reveals worse-than-expected results, a stock market sell-off could follow.

Moreover, volatility could continue beyond April. As tariffs and short-term inflation rise, the journey towards lower interest rates could be extended. And the pressure on businesses with debt-heavy balance sheets may take longer to lift.

Should GDP continue to contract in the second quarter of 2025, a technical recession would officially hit America. And recessions come with lower consumer spending, lower growth, and higher uncertainty. Needless to say, that’s the perfect recipe for creating investor panic, especially for some US stocks trading at lofty valuations.

A rare opportunity

No one knows for certain whether the stock market will crash by the end of April. Personally, my hunch is that we’re more likely to see a steeper correction rather than a full-blown crash. Regardless, the strategy to capitalise on this volatility remains the same – conserve cash and create a shopping list.

By having some dry powder at the ready and a list of stocks already researched, investors can quickly deploy capital into potentially winning opportunities.

For example, one US business I’ve got my eye on is Toast (NYSE:TOST). The technology firm offers hardware and software that allows restaurateurs to manage operations. That includes ordering, payment processing, inventory management, ingredient price tracking, payroll, accounting, deliveries, and everything else needed to keep things running smoothly and headache-free.

The company earns the bulk of its revenue by charging fees on each transaction moving through its network. That’s a powerful growth engine when people are going out dining. But during a recession, when money is tight, growth is likely to slow for Toast, dragging down investor sentiment and, with it, the stock price.

Economic slowdowns are a risk Toast will always have to endure alongside intense competition. However, with a debt-free balance sheet and $1.4bn of cash & equivalents in the bank, the group appears to have ample financial flexibility to navigate the storm. That’s why if a stock market crash does materialise, I plan on buying more Toast shares for my portfolio.

The S&P 500 suffered its worst days since 2020 last week, while the FTSE 100 has also been sliding lower. In turbulent times like these, it can be tempting to reach for the sell button. But as billionaire super-investor Warren Buffett once rightly observed: “The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.”

In other words, massive market volatility is part of the investing cycle. But for those who stay calm and hold their positions — and consider buying high-quality stocks while they’re down — the long-term rewards can be significant. 

History teaches us this again and again. For instance, many high-quality stocks that crashed during the 2020 pandemic crash have not only fully recovered, but gone on to produce very strong returns.

Indeed, just buying an index tracker five years ago would have generated inflation-busting gains. The FTSE 100’s total return (including dividends) is above above 60% over this time, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 has soared nearly 140%. That is even after factoring in the recent sharp sell-off.

Certain individual stocks have done even better, and not just obscure hidden gems. Established blue-chips like Alphabet, Lloyds, and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway have all more than doubled. Meta Platforms, Rolls-Royce, and Nvidia are up 230%, 670%, and 1,450%, respectively.

Global tariff war threat

Right now, there is extreme fear developing due to the Trump administration’s steep tariffs placed on most US imports. This and the prospect of retaliatory import taxes is causing uncertainty for a lot of globe-trotting companies, both in the UK and America.

Of the many alarming headlines, one stood out to me. That was one from Bloomberg citing Bank of America, which said that an all-out global tariff war could mean an aggregate 32% hit to the S&P 500’s operating income.

Personally, I don’t think things will get that far. Many nations in Asia and elsewhere are likely to proactively offer concessions to mitigate the impact on their economies and maintain favourable US trade relations.

Portfolio repositioning

Having said that, it’s unwise to be blind to the risks. And while Buffett is fond of saying that his ideal holding period is “forever“, that didn’t stop him from selling down stocks over the past few quarters.

Similarly, I have been doing a bit of portfolio repositioning in recent weeks — though admittedly on a far smaller scale than Buffett! I sold shares in Greggs and Diageo (LSE: DGE), two consumer-facing firms where the short and medium-term outlook now appears challenging to me.

For global spirits giant Diageo, any spike in inflation from Trump’s tariffs will be a huge headache. The company has already been seeing weakness in places like Latin America, where inflation-weary drinkers have been trading down from its premium brands.

Tariffs will also likely place a burden on profits, which could even threaten the firm’s tremendous long-term dividend growth record. Revenue is forecast to be broadly flat this financial year (ending June), then grow just 2.7% next year.

Admittedly, Diageo owns world-class brands like Johnnie Walker and Tanqueray. Meanwhile, Guinness has been doing really well.

However, it can be a mistake to hang onto shares of a company just because it has great brands (Unilever springs to mind). So I’m looking to deploy this money elsewhere.

Seeking a passive income from the stock market is arguably one of the most popular financial goals. After all, who doesn’t love the idea of making money without having to lift a finger?

Leveraging an ISA also takes income taxes out of the equation, and given enough time, even a modest monthly investment can eventually transform into a six-figure salary. With that in mind, let’s explore how big a portfolio needs to be to unlock a £100,000 tax-free passive income.

Please note that tax treatment depends on the individual circumstances of each client and may be subject to change in future. The content in this article is provided for information purposes only. It is not intended to be, neither does it constitute, any form of tax advice. Readers are responsible for carrying out their own due diligence and for obtaining professional advice before making any investment decisions.

Let’s do some number crunching

In the world of personal finance, it’s often recommended to follow the 4% rule when withdrawing capital from a portfolio. The logic is to enable a nest egg to continue growing even though an investor is taking out funds. Using this rule, if an investor wants to earn a £100,000 second income, they’d need a portfolio worth £2.5m.

That’s obviously not pocket change. What if we stretch the rules a bit and withdraw 5% per year? In that case, the goal would be to build a £2m portfolio. Taking half a million off the target is nice, but that still leaves investors with the challenge of becoming a multi-millionaire.

Fortunately, when investing for the long term, this objective is more achievable than most would think. Setting aside £500 each month and investing it at 8% — the average return of the UK stock market – would translate into a £2m portfolio in approximately 42 years.

That certainly sets someone up for a nice retirement. But 42 years is obviously a long time to wait. So, how can investors accelerate the wealth-building process without putting in more capital each month?

Stock picking provides an answer

Instead of relying on a passive index fund, investors can take control of their portfolios and pick individual stocks to buy and hold. Is it riskier? Yes. But when executed well, stock picking can deliver game-changing results.

Take Ashtead Group (LSE:AHT) as a prime example. Today, it’s one of the largest equipment rental businesses in the UK, US, and Canada. But 30 years ago, the group was just a small business that noticed the significant benefits equipment rental had over ownership.

Investors who bought into Ashtead’s vision and held on have subsequently reaped an average 15.5% annualised return. And at this rate, the journey to £2m doesn’t take 42 years, but rather 26.

Today, jumping on the Ashtead bandwagon may still yield impressive results. The equipment rental market continues to grow, and management’s latest expansion into Canada opens up a whole new front of opportunity. However, double-digit annualised gains might be a tall order for an £18bn company. Don’t forget it’s not a small-cap nowadays.

There are also operational risks to consider. Higher interest rates have caused a significant slowdown in the construction sector in its core US market. And the group is hardly short on competition, with its chief rival, United Rentals, fighting to stay on top.

Regardless, this demonstrates that through stock picking, while the risks and volatility are higher, smart investors can potentially earn exceptional returns, unlocking exceptional passive income.