After another relentless 10% increase in the Robert Walters share price over the past few weeks, the appearance of Christmas decorations, anxious thoughts about what present to buy my wife and panic as year end approaches, my mind turned to how recruitment shares have performed so far in 2010.

According to my Bloomberg screen, the average European staffing agency experienced a 19% year to date increase in its share price but the spread in performance has been astonishingly wide. Two companies stand out at the top of the leader board – Impellam (+221%) and Staffline (+176%) with the bulk of their outperformance emerging after positive trading updates in the autumn and summer. Empresaria (+65%), Robert Walters (61%), Hydrogen (+61%) and Harvey Nash (+55%) are also comfortably nestled in the top half of the league.

The foot of the table is led by Healthcare Locums which, aside from enhanced volatility in March and April, has more than halved in 2010 in a steady downward drift from 284p.

Meanwhite in the UK, Staffline, a blue collar industrial specialist primarily in the food processing and manufacturing sectors, flagged to investors that it expected profits would be significantly ahead of current expectations

Recent company trading updates have maintained the positive tone established by Hays, Michael Page and Robert Walters in early October.

Manpower’s Q3 profits were 30% ahead of consensus expectations and its guidance for the final quarter was particularly strong. According to Jeff Joerres, chief executive, “the trends continue to be strong for our industry, and we continue to hear and experience encouraging signs from our clients”.

Meanwhile, in the UK, Staffline, a blue collar industrial specialist primarily in the food processing and manufacturing sectors, flagged to investors that it expected profits would be significantly ahead of current expectations.

So, among surging stock markets and positive trading updates, it was perhaps surprising to see that three senior directors at Michael Page sold around one-third of their shares in late October.

Directors’ buying and selling is often monitored by investors as a potential indicator of future share price movements. Indeed, we reckon Michael Page’s [Steve] Ingham, [Stephen] Puckett and [Charles-Henri] Dumon have a pretty impressive track record – they last sold at 560p in April 2007, about a month before Michael Page’s share price peaked at 600p. Over the next two years, the share price fell by over two-thirds. Let’s hope they are just raising cash for a bigger Christmas turkey this time.

Kean Marden, head of support services equity research, RBS global banking & markets NV, the Royal Bank of Scotland