I left Britain. Only 5 UK stocks made my cut.

Look, I don't usually look at UK stocks. But these are the five that if I had to buy them and only hold them, these are the ones that I would pick. And we're looking at it from a factor perspective, so each one is in there for a different reason. One's value, one's quality, one's growth, one's momentum and one's defensive.

• I've run all five through the same five layers I use for everything I buy, Qualify, Enter, Size, Manage and Exit, and written down what would make me wrong on each.
• You get the actual percentages.
• There's one I'd only buy half of for now. The other half waits for its results on 17 November.
• And they all make a big chunk of their money in dollars while you're buying them at UK prices. Lovely, until the pound or US tariffs or US drug pricing bite, and I go through those too.

The five UK stocks I'd buy with a gun to my head

According to New Financial, UK pension funds now have 4.4% of their money in UK equities, down from over half 25 years ago. And CRH, Ferguson and Ashtead (now Sunbelt Rentals) have all moved their main listing to New York.

I'm not writing the UK off. I bought the TG61, the 2061 gilt, just to have a proper opinion on UK debt.

I'd still buy UK shares if you can be super super selective about what you're actually investing in. The problem is that I don't see many more firms listing who will be exciting and wanting to expand in the future, and who will trade at an exciting enough valuation based on future earnings.

So at the moment we're left with firms that have extreme relevance, but this can be a benefit because of that selection criteria. You're limiting your choices, so you can only be selective.