eyeQ: a lot of bad news already in this stock’s price
Experts at eyeQ have used AI and their own smart machine to analyse macro conditions and generate actionable trading signals. It’s spotted a cheap share, but is it cheap enough?
13th January 2026 11:04
by Huw Roberts from interactive investor
“Our signals are crafted through macro-valuation, trend analysis, and meticulous back-testing. This combination ensures a comprehensive evaluation of an asset's value, market conditions, and historical performance.” eyeQ
- Discover: eyeQ analysis explained | eyeQ: our smart machine in action | Glossary
PageGroup
Macro Relevance: 61%
Model Value: 232.18p
Fair Value Gap: -5.34% discount to model value
Data correct as at 13 January 2026. Please click glossary for explanation of terms. Long-term strategic model.
2026 has not started well in terms of UK economic data. This morning, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) survey was downbeat on retail sales, and yesterday the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC)/KPMG survey suggested employers were cutting back on hiring.
Recruiter PageGroup (LSE:PAGE) has released a trading update which seems to echo that latter point. It says that both permanent and temporary recruitment declined at the end of last year. The overall picture they paint is one where fears around the Budget and the cost of hiring is putting employers off taking additional workers on.
So far, so underwhelming. It is worth noting eyeQ’s model for PAGE where we’d observe two things:
Model value is actually moving sideways to higher. Broad macro conditions are actually a very modest positive for the share price. That’s because on our metrics financial conditions matter more than economic fundamentals. Yes, economic conditions aren’t great, but credit spreads remain tight and, while markets remain in “risk-on” mode, these positives slightly offset the bad news.
PAGE screens as around 5% cheap to macro. That’s not quite enough for a bullish signal, plus macro relevance is below our 65% threshold for a regime. But it does suggest that a fair amount of bad news is already in the price.
It’s easy to get sucked into the doom-and-gloom view on the UK given mainstream financial reporting - the news flow is pretty downbeat right now. But remember eyeQ uses a smart machine to focus on the maths and strip away the emotional side of investing. A little objectivity can add a lot of value to your investment process.
Source: eyeQ. Past performance is not a guide to future performance.
Useful terminology:
Model value
Where our smart machine calculates that any stock market index, single stock or exchange-traded fund (ETF) should be priced (the fair value) given the overall macroeconomic environment.
Model (macro) relevance
How confident we are in the model value. The higher the number the better! Above 65% means the macro environment is critical, so any valuation signals carry strong weight. Below 65%, we deem that something other than macro is driving the price.
Fair Value Gap (FVG)
The difference between our model value (fair value) and where the price currently is. A positive Fair Value Gap means the security is above the model value, which we refer to as “rich”. A negative FVG means that it's cheap. The bigger the FVG, the bigger the dislocation and therefore a better entry level for trades.
Long Term model
This model looks at share prices over the last 12 months, captures the company’s relationship with growth, inflation, currency shifts, central bank policy etc and calculates our key results - model value, model relevance, Fair Value Gap.
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Disclosure
We use a combination of fundamental and technical analysis in forming our view as to the valuation and prospects of an investment. Where relevant we have set out those particular matters we think are important in the above article, but further detail can be found here.
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