2020 Review in brief

So 2020, was a year I didn’t really blog about (sorry for lack of these) mostly as I was flat out with non-investment related activities over the year.

That said, overall a success -> annual performance was good and outperformed my market “indicator”, #VVLSRE at on my main SIPP holdings, which is majority of my Funds under management. At this point (Jan 2020) I am 95% invested, 5% cash portfolio wide, however as per 2019 I have cash reserves I can add to both portfolios before April, and expect to do so, it’s just I have other uses for the reserves in meantim.

SIPP was +13% – To caveat I did add some money (around 20% of portfolio by weight) to portfolio in March following the covid downturn. This was planned to happen as my businesses outperformed in 2019, so allowed a larger business contribution that year. This luckily allowed “many” outperformance.

One sale, many purchases -> Purchased then SOLD #SONG (purchased Feb, sold Aug)-> as predicted would be flat after sale, mostly correct (total return ~ 14% over 6 mo). Correctly moved money to #LGEN (the purchase of this trance returned 45% alone)-> which given I have an average of under 200p I’m happy with holding (it’s about where I expect it now, but expect long term growth).

In terms of personal stock picking, I made the correct calls and was rewarded with EOY returns of +25% on > 3 purchases (#LGEN, #BARC, #PZC). I was reasonably happy with this.

Outformance mostly on IT’s -> Very happy with #FCSS purchases over last 2 years returning near 68% on the year. #SMT is now up 132% on my holdings as a whole -> major impact on Oil holdings (#BP), #NG. kept stable. I am still buying #NG. monthly -> as I have a feeling it will be a major part of portfolio returns in 2022->2030. Major detractors on portfolio were #MER, #HUR. I’m keeping #HUR purely as a lesson for not buying small shares you don’t understand. Thankfully the small losses here offset by the rest of portfolio.

Plans for 2020 for the portfolio >>> Continue adding to IT’s that have outperformed (#SSON, FEET, FCSS). I’m going to hold on adding Fundsmith for a few months as suspect smaller funds will dominate.

I’m also buying #JII monthly, along with #NG. And I’m tempted to add some more $BRK.B when the exchange rates make this attractive.

I also need to add more Chinese purchases, and considering adding the Bailey gifford fund to the #FCSS holding I already have, it’s just as former trades on premium at moment and latter usually at a discount, it’s better to add #FCSS for moment.

Performance graph (courtesy Sharepad) over year on SIPP -> Red is cashline (total Cash invested), Green is total portfolio value inc cash (*amounts removed) -> blue is my portfolio, and yellow shows what would have happend if all my money in a FTSE all share total return tracker. As you can see I’ve gone from trailing that particular benchmark to exceeding it (and you can see the fact the cash invested has gone up from a minimum in April to a max around now (95%). I did’t want to invest all the money I had added at once, so dripped it in slowly to catch any future dops.

ISA was +4% -> underperformance versus indicator, disappointing, but better than a “red” year. No positions SOLD during year. Why? Well ISA is mostly FUND + IT’s and my basket of these over the year underperformed, with one holding being -17.5% over the year. I was adding to these holdings during, and they are now “back” in profit since purchase (originally) in 2018/9 -> but down versus start of year. Hindsite was should have sold some of these for similar shares. ISA also held #HUR in a slightly heigher weighting than SIPP. I’m again not leaving this right now, the trading fees to exit the position would hardly justify the return. I havn’t inluded the graph here, but it’s similar to the SIPP, just not as dramatic.

I’m starting a position in ISA in #NG. as one of 3 single stocks I hold here. On ISA I have done better on stock picking this year, however, #AV. is still trading under my valuation and is still a red markert on the portfolio, ditto #LLOY.

New positions for year in portfolio -> #NG., #SAIN, #ULVR (none existed start of 2019).

The big risk factor in the portfolio is diversity from what I can gather from my analysis, I have hardly any asian or chinese stock in play here -> which I need to rectify in 2021. So I expect to add #FCSS here, along with #JII -> as well as build the #NG. and #ULVR direct holdings here. Why these? I am buying stocks direct to portfolio where I see them being long-term plays to 2030 onwards. I see both Unilever and National Grid being both decent bets for this period.

As ever keep up to date on my trades by following myself on twitter, it’s usually far more up to date than blog on my trades. Oh an as an aside, I’m not a very big investor, but my total FUM over all portfolios (including one I don’t blog about) passed 6 figures this year. Thats a major achivement given the same figure end of last year was just over half that. Yes new money was added and then dripped in monthly, but that only accounted for a small portion of the returns over the year. In hindsite my mistake was not investing ALL the money in end April, but I choose to drip in during the year -> my performance on both ISA and SIPP would easily be +20% more if I had been brave or perhaps reckless doing that.

November Review

Okay quickly it was a good one:

SIPP +1.7% – ISA +2.1%

Benchmark lifestrategy 80 was 1.2% in same, both portfolios beating passives! Nice to have a positive month. What is interesting is some of my “top performers” like BP have retracted in month, but DLG has finally recovered a large amount of it’s previous low, and it is no longer the worst performer in the SIPP portfolio (that honor passing to HUR).

I’ll post some more during this month (December) as I expect some election related positive’s — hoping for that at least.

October Portfolio Review

Benchmark Share (Vanguard Lifestrategy) was down -1.5% for the month. Mostly likely the recovery in GBP versus USD in the month. So how did the figures go:

  • SIPP -1.9%
  • ISA +0.76%

Overall SIPP suffered as I still have more USD focussed stock in there than GBP so wasn’t covered. Also BP (which makes up 10% of SIPP) has retracted a lot – this is a long term holding and I still am in profit (substantially) there – but it was responsible for 30% of the falls over last 2 months.

ISA done well (despite holding Lifestrategy as well as a 12.5% holding) – due to LLOY, AVIVA and SKG. (all of which comfortably outperformed the funds in the period). ISA I am looking to increase LLOY holdings.

SIPP is also holding 15% in Cash, ISA has a smaller cash holding (5%)- the SIPP in ISA is to buy likely 2 slugs at 7.5% each of portfolio in individual stocks to replace SSE – however, I still am holding for the currency headwind to allow me to purchase some direct US stocks (it’s technically better for me to do this in the SIPP as it can hold natural USD assets and keep the profit in USD). However, right now, I see GBP->USD at not my “entry” level to US (I’d be a buyer once we hit 1.35). In meantime SIPP is targetting non-US stock mostly due to the currency holdback we encountered here (which I technically predicted earlier which is why I’m holding cash and growing that % monthly until I see an entry point)..

Plans for next month : Increase flows into some of the assets that have had a fallback- as I do see them recovering in time. Exact stocks will be picked mid month, expect a post then.

End of Month update

On time this month at least!

  • ISA +1.4%
  • SIPP +2.7%

A retraction from the gains earlier in month, but still recovers a lot from August to get back on target – I need to calculate XIRR return – but will leave that for later.

Trades in month included:

  • Closing position in SSE as blogged about – and holding in Cash for Brexit possibilities in this month
  • Cash is now as of today at 12.3% of portfolio. I have been tempted by #MTRO but have held strong on this – as I suspect there will be better opportunity on existing (UK) holdings from the inevitable retraction if we leave on no-deal late October. This is honestly what I don’t get about the media reporting on fat-cats on Brexit making money – yes if you have a USD portfolio and GBP drops you make money on USD – but I think they are underestimating that people like myself are planning to invest in UK stock post-brexit if we do end up with No-Deal. I’m hedged with EU and US stock positions so if we get a deal, we should have across board rises.

New positions to start:

  • From this month I’m planning to start building a position in #NG.L on a monthly basis with 15% of net new investment funds going to this – ie National Grid – purely as a Value play – it’s subject to massive posturing if Labour get in at any point, however it’s ultimately a bet on that not happening given the current position from the Conservatives. I could be wrong – but I think this value play will repay well over the following years.

Hate to Jinx it & SSE sale

But so far this month the investments are going “well”. SAGA has recovered, many dividends paid, Mr Market making a recovery. We could have a massive recovery from last months losses, and an additional profit if I am at all correct.

So far interims are ISA +2% and SIPP +3%. This is a right now figure, but it’s encouraging given there are 2 dividends due today!

However in trades made this week I made my second SALE of 2019 – sold SSE for a small profit in SIPP – as you’ve probably seen I rarely sell my assets, preferring to build over time! (The sale works out at 15% profit over a 1 year term due to buying dips). The reasoning is the dividend cover is really poor in this share, and that has changed my valuation to below that at which it trades now. (I could be wrong, but I personally value a asset stripping selling company lower). With that and the election risks here, it wasn’t for me, and it has gone. I have kept it in the targets profile to re-add if it drops below my valuation (to then reevaluate valuation and buy if suited).

August 2019 – Normal market jitters

Performance (as I saw it at weekend):

  • SIPP -2%
  • ISA -1.5%

Apologies for rough nature of this – but expected really to have a retraction in August due to Brexit and market wobbles. Ref: Top-ups, followed normal 70/30 split, where 70% was targetting the new investments still (which should now be “cheaper) and 30% going to cash due to the current market conditions, where I’m hoping to make a trade soon-ish.

My large-ish position in BP in the SIPP was a large contributor to the SIPP drawback. Overall I’m not unhappy here, and will likely be targeting top-ups whilst BP is trading around 500p level – Oil varys in price, and this is more an reinvested income share than a capital growth one. I am not however topping up any US based (or higher percentage US based) business due to the current “poor” USD rate (BP benefits inversely from that).. For that reason both Vanguard Lifestrategy (which has a high US percentage) is not being topped up at moment.

Other “larger” shares in the run-up to Brexit that have passed my “buy” threshold are Aviva, Lloyds, and strangely Direct Line. The issue is I’m too highly concentrated in banking right now, so Aviva is the likely recipient of a top-up this month.

Reviewing all my holdings this morning one has shone out though in terms of out-performance over 12 months from my personal expectation – Capital Gearing Trust is doing a stellar job of increasing capital over last 2 years with very very low variance “movement”. If I find nothing better to do with the cash, I suspect the above 30% top-up cash will find it’s way to CGT by end of year. (CGT has the advantage I can sell it, buy another LSE share “quickly”), at the cost of stamp duty and trading costs alone. In general terms keeping my money in CGT has been better than leaving in the trading account or the bank.

Super quick July 19 Update

Overall portfolio performance in July: ISA +1.3%, SIPP +1.1%.

The benchmark was up 1.6% in the period, but is heavily US weighted (see final paragraph) – so this is expected as it is currency, not share price driving this.

Largest detractors in ISA/SIPP are my single shares, LLOY in particular causing them to be back into top-ups despite the high position size now in ISA (circa 10%). I still think in 5 year terms, and once the PPI problems behind them all banks will bounce a little (I mean we are talking $650 million of additional money for dividends potentially from 2020).

I’ve also changed top up strategy in past month temporarily to focus on non-USD traded elements, as I believe the current 1.2X position of USD is temporary and any top-ups will be greatly held back by this. So I am focusing on emerging market funds with “less” USD parity.

May 2019 Portfolio Performance

Okay a terrible month. May is terrible every year. I should just sell everything May first then buy back later.

But in seriousness – overall Portfolio is as below:

  • ISA +0.18%
  • SIPP -2.6%

Benchmark share is at -1.47% for month, so ISA beat that, SIPP was worse (again). This is likely down to the single share holdings growing in SIPP overall.

Top performing investments:

  • ISA: HUR +28.5% – I have to thank the twitter community for this pick, without which the ISA would be in severe negative territory
  • ISA/SIPP: CGT +1.98% – This one always seems to do well in May.
  • SIPP: MER +5% – Mears group Plc making a recovery to positive gains overall

And the Detractors, where to start:

  • SIPP: -29% Worse overall is SAGA – I wasn’t exposed to entire drop as purchased mid month – but on a monthly basis is awful
  • SIPP: BT.A -14.6% making a 2nd place..
  • ISA: LLOY -9.16% – worst here, still has an investment case, and will be topping up, but the single share levels of risk is now gettign to dangerous levels.
  • ISA: SKG -6.62% – similar except this is still in top up as have less exposure.

Overall though I’m happy with ISA perfromance, less happy with SIPP and have a big decision on what to do with the new holding SAGA. Cut losses, or increase percentage, and risk to ~ 7% of holdings.

Monthly Investments – Top ups

Regular monthly post on what I’ve “topped” up with inbound cash to the relevant pots via my monthly reinvestment (at low costs).

ISA:

  • LLOY – Lloyds Bank
  • AV. – Aviva
  • MRCH – Merchants Trust

SIPP:

  • DLG – Direct line group
  • FUEQUI – Fundsmith Equity
  • SSON – Smitson Investment Trust
  • FCSS – Fidelity China Special Situation Plc
  • CGXXQ – LF Miton European Opportunities
  • M1UB29 – Lindsell Train Japanese Equity Sterling Hedged Inc
  • PCOMKT – Merian UK Smaller Companies Fund Acc
  • SSE – SSE Plc
  • MER – Mears Group
  • Cash

As mentioned – I try to keep all my investments to a target, Mears is new as previously blogged about, so is always on top-up duties. I need to wind down the overall fund top-ups to half the monthly top-ups and add some new companies to the SIPP pot, SSE re-added as the price has dropped significantly, so it was eligible due to the averaging down. Vanguard top-ups are now also required in SIPP as the percentage has dropped below the 25% target.

I’ve also added a monthly cash top-up to allow more dynamic market moves without needing sales over the year ahead. I have missed out on a couple of items I predicted, and without a small “trading” reserve in the SIPP I can’t take advantage of these situations.

ISA wise Next month I expect to remove LLOY (unless it drops to 60p or less) in favour of SKG (as Lloyds is becoming too high a percentage of the ISA). (MRCH will remain as it’s a growing element to add to the fund). I am considering stopping AV. top-ups for moment as although price is attractive, I may have better gains elsewhere.