3: Royal Dutch Shell

Despite the weak (if now recovering) oil price, oil giant Shell is up 10 places on last year, its £35bn takeover of BG Group back in February apparently receiving the stamp of approval of industry rivals despite City fears that the price was too high. Demand for energy isn't going away and boss Ben van Beurden's bold expansionist strategy - buy assets while they are cheap, because they won't stay that way forever - looks as though it may be starting to pay off. In Q3, its CCS earnings attributable to shareholders were $1.4bn compared with a loss of $6.1bn for the same quarter a year ago.