Portfolio Changes

[1nvest]

small business failure (our tenants) do look to be increasing. (A tenant of over 20 years standing is packing up, another, a shop I use, is closing, family business run there since 1958. Life looks to be getting a tad nasty out in the economy.

A Sunak'ered economy (disincentives, flight of capital, 50 shops/day closed in 2002). But on the plus side - does make former banana republic economies now look sleek. Sadly with Labour being the UK's best hope ...

[Dod101]

My logic is to try buying with blood on the streets and the other comfort is that it is always darkest just/before the dawn.

There is also an item in the papers this morning reporting that a new analysis suggests that the industry regulator could afford to leave the price cap for energy bills at £2,500 for a typical household rather than increase it to £3,000 pa in the spring since wholesale prices are falling back quite substantially following the mild winter and the consequent healthy gas storage stocks in Europe. This would lower the pressure on Government finances.

Dod

[Bouleversee]

My logic is to try buying with blood on the streets and the other comfort is that it is always darkest just/before the dawn.

There is also an item in the papers this morning reporting that a new analysis suggests that the industry regulator could afford to leave the price cap for energy bills at £2,500 for a typical household rather than increase it to £3,000 pa in the spring since wholesale prices are falling back quite substantially following the mild winter and the consequent healthy gas storage stocks in Europe. This would lower the pressure on Government finances.

Dod

The fact that fuel prices are coming down should help businesses as well.

I hope to goodness UK prices do recover as the huge profits I was making on some of my holdings have in most cases all but disappeared, inc. SMT which had shot up in the short time I had held it, Persimmon, Greggs, Next , Victoria, James Fisher, WH Smith, etc. Needless to say, the big losers are still big losers. I have rather lost confidence in buying anything so have a fair amount of uninvested cash. Gifting an spending seem rather more appealing a.t.m. though I shall require quite a chunk for house maintenance and renewals, not to mention energy costs. Quite a number of my holdings are paying small or no dividends as well.

[Itsallaguess]

I hope to goodness UK prices do recover as the huge profits I was making on some of my holdings have in most cases all but disappeared, inc. SMT which had shot up in the short time I had held it, Persimmon, Greggs, Next , Victoria, James Fisher, WH Smith, etc. Needless to say, the big losers are still big losers.

I have rather lost confidence in buying anything so have a fair amount of uninvested cash.

I do really mean well B, when I say that having followed your investment-related posts with interest for many years on these boards, I can't think of anyone else at all that would be more suited to collective investments like Investment Trusts, rather than continuing to pursue the rotten luck you often seem to have with your single-share holdings, and I'd recommend perhaps making 2022 the year that you look at those collective-investment options a lot more seriously...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[Dod101]

I hope to goodness UK prices do recover as the huge profits I was making on some of my holdings have in most cases all but disappeared, inc. SMT which had shot up in the short time I had held it, Persimmon, Greggs, Next , Victoria, James Fisher, WH Smith, etc. Needless to say, the big losers are still big losers.

I have rather lost confidence in buying anything so have a fair amount of uninvested cash.

I do really mean well B, when I say that having followed your investment-related posts with interest for many years on these boards, I can't think of anyone else at all that would be more suited to collective investments like Investment Trusts, rather than continuing to pursue the rotten luck you often seem to have with your single-share holdings, and I'd recommend perhaps making 2022 the year that you look at those collective-investment options a lot more seriously...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

I would endorse that (except of course for 2023 )

Dod

[Bouleversee]

I hope to goodness UK prices do recover as the huge profits I was making on some of my holdings have in most cases all but disappeared, inc. SMT which had shot up in the short time I had held it, Persimmon, Greggs, Next , Victoria, James Fisher, WH Smith, etc. Needless to say, the big losers are still big losers.

I have rather lost confidence in buying anything so have a fair amount of uninvested cash.

I do really mean well B, when I say that having followed your investment-related posts with interest for many years on these boards, I can't think of anyone else at all that would be more suited to collective investments like Investment Trusts, rather than continuing to pursue the rotten luck you often seem to have with your single-share holdings, and I'd recommend perhaps making 2022 the year that you look at those collective-investment options a lot more seriously...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

That's what I decided to do last year and bought SMT which rapidly shot up, so I topped up and it continued to rise, plus another one from the same group whose name escapes me a.t.m., and I had Patient Capital Trust, which has proved to be a disaster. I am usually quite good at picking shares to buy; where I fall down, unlike Dodd and TJH and others, is not selling the damn things when they have shot up. Persimmon, for example, had made me a lot of profit and had it not been for events, dear boy, I daresay would have continued to do so. How could I know that Covid would arrive and Putin would declare war and energy prices would rocket? Or that James Fisher, after doing so well for so many years, would go into dramatic reverse? However, I think many of those long term holdings will eventually recover and it's the ones I picked up from these boards which are unlikely to do so. I do have a few other trusts which I have held for some time which have not done any better than my own picks over all and if you look at Citywire's performance table for trusts last year, most of them were unremarkable. It's not long since everyone was piling into Chinese shares and trusts but I'm not sorry I didn't do that. And I can't forget that I had 2 complete wipe outs with trusts or funds many years ago.

My other problem is lack of time and energy to keep up with events and the stupidly large number of holdings I have but I do think luck plays a big part these days, not to mention algorithms and shorters and even with my do little approach, I have more than enough to see me out so I'll just keep my fingers crossed and try to cash in a proportion of any dramatic gains I get in the future. I did use to sell half in years gone by when I had fewer to keep an eye on and a much smaller garden. My Clarkson's are doing well at the moment so I'll keep an eye on them, The housing market will take rather longer, I fear. I just wish companies like Arm, which did very well for me, wouldn't get sold to foreigners. It doesn't thrill me that China has large stakes in so many of our companies. I have never forgotten my father telling me, as a small child, that China would rule the world one day.

Happy New Year to all.

Bouleversee

[Charlottesquare]

I hope to goodness UK prices do recover as the huge profits I was making on some of my holdings have in most cases all but disappeared, inc. SMT which had shot up in the short time I had held it, Persimmon, Greggs, Next , Victoria, James Fisher, WH Smith, etc. Needless to say, the big losers are still big losers.

I have rather lost confidence in buying anything so have a fair amount of uninvested cash.

I do really mean well B, when I say that having followed your investment-related posts with interest for many years on these boards, I can't think of anyone else at all that would be more suited to collective investments like Investment Trusts, rather than continuing to pursue the rotten luck you often seem to have with your single-share holdings, and I'd recommend perhaps making 2022 the year that you look at those collective-investment options a lot more seriously...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

That's what I decided to do last year and bought SMT which rapidly shot up, so I topped up and it continued to rise, plus another one from the same group whose name escapes me a.t.m., and I had Patient Capital Trust, which has proved to be a disaster. I am usually quite good at picking shares to buy; where I fall down, unlike Dodd and TJH and others, is not selling the damn things when they have shot up. Persimmon, for example, had made me a lot of profit and had it not been for events, dear boy, I daresay would have continued to do so. How could I know that Covid would arrive and Putin would declare war and energy prices would rocket? Or that James Fisher, after doing so well for so many years, would go into dramatic reverse? However, I think many of those long term holdings will eventually recover and it's the ones I picked up from these boards which are unlikely to do so. I do have a few other trusts which I have held for some time which have not done any better than my own picks over all and if you look at Citywire's performance table for trusts last year, most of them were unremarkable. It's not long since everyone was piling into Chinese shares and trusts but I'm not sorry I didn't do that. And I can't forget that I had 2 complete wipe outs with trusts or funds many years ago.

My other problem is lack of time and energy to keep up with events and the stupidly large number of holdings I have but I do think luck plays a big part these days, not to mention algorithms and shorters and even with my do little approach, I have more than enough to see me out so I'll just keep my fingers crossed and try to cash in a proportion of any dramatic gains I get in the future. I did use to sell half in years gone by when I had fewer to keep an eye on and a much smaller garden. My Clarkson's are doing well at the moment so I'll keep an eye on them, The housing market will take rather longer, I fear. I just wish companies like Arm, which did very well for me, wouldn't get sold to foreigners. It doesn't thrill me that China has large stakes in so many of our companies. I have never forgotten my father telling me, as a small child, that China would rule the world one day.

Happy New Year to all.

Bouleversee

There is always eggs and baskets to consider; perhaps spreads your IT investments around by geography/sectors , so if you say have SMT re Tec also maybe have one or two North American facing trusts , maybe an Indian focused trust (I do not have) , a Chinese one perhaps, an Asian one, maybe a couple UK FTSE facing or a European Trust etc.

Also maybe try market sector niches (mining/property/renewables etc)

Whilst I do play around with my share individual holdings (currently Bellway, BHP,BAT,HSBC,Imp, L&G,Shell,Smith DS, Springfield, Unilever) I do tend to mainly leave my ITs alone:(Except Polar and a couple of others which displeased me in times past and got heaved)

Ab Asian
BRock Sustain Am Inc
Berkshire (I view as an IT though it is not)
BRock Wrld Mine
Edin Invest
European assets
Fidelity Spec Sit
Hend Far East
Hipgnosis
JPM G&I
Middlefield Canada
Murray Int
North Am IT
Schroeder Oriental
Scottish Mortgage
Vina Capital

Not all ITs are same size re sum invested, the big funds that are broad like Murray get more money (3x) than say Vina(1x) that is more single country targeted (Vietnam), Re ITs I sort of work on three sizes of holdings (3x,2x,1x), most are 2x

I tend to pick up individual shares with odd available funds so these can be anything, so say Shell/Unilever 5 times the size of Springfield, 2.5 times the size Bellway, bigger beasts get more money (though I have been cautious with B Tob and Imp(sector risks) and L &G and HSBC are half Shell/Unilever (because I cannot understand financial sector accounts so am a tad cautious)

I tend to have maybe more Asia/North America facing than most would but that is just my view on longer term world economics (I do not see great UK/Europe growth over next 10-15 years and whilst I might buy something African and something South American these will be smaller investments)

The mix is skewed, 75% of portfolio value is currently in ITs (as I define) and 25% in individual shares.

If you ignore the individual shares (and I probably ought) you can spray the funds around the world in targeted ITs and then sit back and pretty much forget.

[funduffer]

If you want a diversified IT income portfolio, then look no further than the fine one that mickeypops has created:

viewtopic.php?f=56&t=35540&p=521706&hilit=mickeypops#p521706

It covers UK equities, international equities, private equity, bonds, property and infrastructure.

He has covered all the bases as far as I can see.

FD

[Dod101]

I started this thread on 3 January and commented on Gleeson. I mentioned that it was double or quits time. I doubled and bought at £3.478. They announced their interim results this morning. The results are down against a year ago and the interim dividend has dropped from 6p to 5p but I am pleased to say that the share price is up again this morning and is now at £4.57. The results are quite optimistic as I would have expected. This is a conservative and well run company and I will keep my holding unchanged.

Dod