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M&Ms portfolio review December 2019

A helpful place to also put any annual reports etc, of your own portfolios
TheMotorcycleBoy
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M&Ms portfolio review December 2019

#274040

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » December 30th, 2019, 5:26 pm

Hi,

This time last year Mel and I had been investing since March of 2018, and since it was the end of the year I decided to extract a snapshot of the combination of our two ISAs and post it here. One of the suggestions I received from several people was to unitise our portfolio. A few people gave me tips on how to do this, so after initialising our consolidated portfolio at £1.00 per accumulation unit (we don't draw income, so I decided not to calculate income units) I now calculate the new unit price on the last weekend of each month, and generate reports on the holdings in general. As we've now had a complete year since I last shared this I decided to post again with how our portfolios are currently doing. Here are our current holdings firstly sorted by P/L:


Again by market value of each holding:


Alas yes, we are very "overweight" in ULVR shares. I very stupidly topped up a while back when they were about £50 per share (yes I know, very silly!), and then when they fell to £42-43 I averaged down and bought again. So I'm certainly not planning on topping them up again for another year or so!


So overall, using my approximate per-month unitisation, our portfolio has returned about 22% this year.

The losers
Unfortunately, not all my decisions from earlier on were necessarily, good ones, in my opinion. I had bought into Burford Capital (BUR) 3 times (fortunately never at more than 1497p), and this was another lesson in inadequate research, after BUR were exposed by the short seller Muddy Waters as being somewhat of a smoke and mirrors band. We had also bought 3 separate tranches of Imperial Brands (IMB) stock in since 2018. We reasoned that the diversity which they added was good, and were somewhat fooled by IMB's investments in MJ as being more significant. However, my viewpoint on the industry as a whole, has altered since our first purchase, and hence we ended up selling out in 3 sales at between 35%-40% loss IIRC.

Other disappointments
In addition we completely sold out of Zytronic (ZYT). Buying this in the first case was probably a rooker error. I was tempted by them having a decent yield (about 5-6%) and being cash-rich. But I knew nothing about illiquid AIM stocks being brutal, when they profit warn. We were also building a reasonable holding in Advanced Medical Solutions (AMS). I still believe these guys are a good firm, but I'm now thinking that their products (wound care) are somewhat commoditised, and I hadn't considered how hard they would find making it in the US, and realised that this should have an influence on my buy pricing. After they profit warned, I spent sometime reading their last couple of communications (RNSs and ARs) and reading around (e.g. ADVFN), and figured that I would cut back 70% of the holding (this amount may have been a bit drastic, but I'd recently been BURned by the AIM mentioned in my last paragraph.

Top slicing and silly sales
I must admit I foolishly top-sliced about 15% of our MSLHs holding at 702p. Yes this has since travelled to 871p, making it a "bagger" in one of our ISAs. I'm only happy that I didn't slice anymore, and that I did manage to reinvest the capital returned into reasonable sane alternative stocks. My next silly sale, was selling out of National Grid (NG.) at about 841p. Yes like a great many, I was concerned by Corbyn-Mania!! Fortunately I did redirect the funds at my first ITs Polar Capital (PCT) and Greencoat Wind (UKW) both of which have performed since purchase.

Other news
We have also sold out our Legal and General Undated bonds at only a £8 nominal loss, and we sold out of our 72NS BT Group bonds, after slowly realising that many of the "investment strategies" books we'd digested were probably written in the bygone days when half decent bonds could yield significant returns. Our current plans with our remaining 3 small bond holdings is just to quietly let them mature and pay out.

Generally, trying to add more, hopefully decent quality stocks mainly those promising some growth and income, but also looking at any stocks which I believe have "value" possibility too, i.e. look oversold or have just had a new lease of life and will pick up.

Finally, I'm trying learn lessons from what I think I've most noticeably done wrong so far, here goes:

  1. Avoid under capitalised AIM stocks
  2. You can't do too much research
  3. The trend is your friend
  4. Try to wait until falling knives have finished dropping
  5. Don't sell as much!
  6. But sometimes you've got accept when you got it wrong and have to cut out a loss
Matt and Mel

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Re: M&Ms portfolio review December 2019

#274191

Postby simoan » December 31st, 2019, 12:05 pm

Well done, Mel & Matt. A good year but it was so very easy to make money in 2019 compared to 2018 - all boats were floating... even government bonds! Not all years will be like 2019 and a monkey throwing darts at the share page of the FT would have made good returns. So it's not a good idea to start thinking you're investing geniuses and it's good to review what you might have done differently looking back - you learn more from your mistakes than what you got right but should not totally ignore the latter. Investing is not about getting it right all the time. If 55% of your buy/sell decisions are right you will make good returns in the long run. You need to look at the bigger picture and ignore short term noise.

As an example, I think it's far too soon to be beating yourself up for things like buying Unilever which will likely be a sound long term core holding. And top slicing shares that rise to beyond what you see as their intrinsic value is a known winning strategy - you just have to accept you do not have a crystal ball about the future trajectory of the share price and try not to anchor on the price you sold at, you can always buy back at a higher price if the story changes. Each time I read your posts I see some evidence of price anchoring. You need to try and negate this as much as possible. Your task in 2020 is to read some behavioural economics books... Kahnemann & Tversky, Richard Thaler, Dan Ariely etc.

BTW I'm not sure your annualised return calculation is correct because I don't believe a unitised approach is giving you the annual return you are looking for. If it's important to you then I think you really need to use a IRR approach. I keep things much simpler and a single years return from 1st Jan to Dec 31st seems totally arbitrary to me. Besides, comparing my returns to anyone else is of no interest given that it's meaningless without knowing the risk adjusted return. Good if you like willy waving contests though - apologies to Mel!

Happy New Year!
Si

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Re: M&Ms portfolio review December 2019

#274195

Postby YeeWo » December 31st, 2019, 12:40 pm

simoan wrote:Well done, Mel & Matt.
Indeed, well done. Like me, i'll publish tonight, you've probably not beaten The Index though. This isn't the bee-all of course, but is something I reflect on........
simoan wrote:BTW I'm not sure your annualised return calculation is correct because I don't believe a unitised approach is giving you the annual return you are looking for. If it's important to you then I think you really need to use a IRR approach. I keep things much simpler and a single years return from 1st Jan to Dec 31st seems totally arbitrary to me. Besides, comparing my returns to anyone else is of no interest given that it's meaningless without knowing the risk adjusted return. Good if you like willy waving contests though - apologies to Mel!
I do an annualised 1st Jan to Dec 31st % return for comparison with the index purposes and then XIRR calculations for each stock ab initio. Good Luck All, HNY!

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Re: M&Ms portfolio review December 2019

#274198

Postby simoan » December 31st, 2019, 12:49 pm

YeeWo wrote:I do an annualised 1st Jan to Dec 31st % return for comparison with the index purposes and then XIRR calculations for each stock ab initio. Good Luck All, HNY!

Yes, a unitised approach is fine if you want to compare performance with investing in a fund, such as an index tracker, or even maybe the likes of Fundsmith. Good luck with beating the risk adjusted returns of the latter btw!

All the best, Si

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Re: M&Ms portfolio review December 2019

#274203

Postby monabri » December 31st, 2019, 1:01 pm

I see individual investments in strong US/UK/Euro companies (based on financial measures) along with a couple of generally US focused collectives (PCT, Fidelity).

I wonder if there is any merit in strengthening holdings in Asia (China/South Korea/HK) via collective investments? The US has been on a roll (fully valued , over valued ?) but China is investing heavily in all areas of technology and shipping out the low tech manufacturing to Vietnam.

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Re: M&Ms portfolio review December 2019

#274207

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » December 31st, 2019, 1:12 pm

Hi Si,

First off, thank you very much for spending the time to sit down and write up this commentary! I really value what you and all the others here say, and it's only right to say that we would have taken a lot longer to get here had it not been for chatting to you peeps.

simoan wrote:Well done, Mel & Matt. A good year but it was so very easy to make money in 2019 compared to 2018 - all boats were floating... even government bonds! Not all years will be like 2019 and a monkey throwing darts at the share page of the FT would have made good returns.

I totally agree. This year has turned out to be so much different to 2018. I noticed over the spring and especially over the past couple of months the boats have really risen. I was actually looking forward to the same negativity as this time last year, and get a chance to top-up on one or two faves.

So it's not a good idea to start thinking you're investing geniuses

Hell no! I certainly don't want to get a false sense of security. I agree with one or two (probably you? and dspp and ody) earlier comments I've heard from here, about how tough it can get.

and it's good to review what you might have done differently looking back - you learn more from your mistakes than what you got right

You are right in that. The need to really do the research, is something that is being hammered home. For example buying BAG based on an evening's rushed research, was silly and I think that more deliberation would have made either me either buy it at lower price or perhaps not at all. Likewise I should have reviewed AMS and ZYT more as businesses and trying to 1) figure out what they were attempting to achieve and 2) whether they had a fighting chance of making it.

As an example, I think it's far too soon to be beating yourself up for things like buying Unilever which will likely be a sound long term core holding.

Thanks - yes this one is almost certainly a keeper! I just need to beware of that type of thing, mainly as a note to myself not to overexpose to a particular firm/area etc.

And top slicing shares that rise to beyond what you see as their intrinsic value is a known winning strategy - you just have to accept you do not have a crystal ball about the future trajectory of the share price

Very true. I guess it's a long game on these things, and part of me now views this strategy also as a risk balancing action too, i.e. protecting one's self against a reversal of firm's market valuation. (My rationale for not topslicing GAW aswell as MSLH, is that I see Games as a more global play, and MSLH not only would have a very hard time in porting their operation abroad, furthermore I've watched a recent analyst meeting where the CEO and CFO more or less ruled this out).

and try not to anchor on the price you sold at, you can always buy back at a higher price if the story changes. Each time I read your posts I see some evidence of price anchoring.

I know, I know. The part is so hard. Price anchoring stopped me topping up more NXT (in the 50s), MSLH (in the 5s) and GAW (in the 40s). I really not understand my buying emotions sometimes:

  1. On opening a position - sometimes I'm too fearful to get in and buy (I blame Buffett for this!), sometimes I'm too eager and too adrenalised and just dive straight in!
  2. On topping up, you are dead right I price anchor too much
  3. The above point 2. seems have an exception clause built for BVXP and ULVR for some bizarre reason :lol: , at 30,32,37 and 40,41,43,50 respectively
You need to try and negate this as much as possible. Your task in 2020 is to read some behavioural economics books... Kahnemann & Tversky, Richard Thaler, Dan Ariely

Hmm.. Yes thanks I might start a book thread sometime and requote you if you don't mind. That is, so that you can confirm/deny the titles/links that Amazon throws up.

Happy New Year!

Try stopping me, the girls are making a chocolate brownie and orange cream trifle! You have a good one yourself!

Matt

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Re: M&Ms portfolio review December 2019

#274211

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » December 31st, 2019, 1:38 pm

monabri wrote:I see individual investments in strong US/UK/Euro companies (based on financial measures) along with a couple of generally US focused collectives (PCT, Fidelity).

Yeah, I see where you are going with that one ;) FWIW I did consider buying Yamaha (motorbikes and musical equipment) stock. But was very disappointed to find iWeb do not have access to the relevant market. I would gone full throttle on analysis on Yam had it been otherwise.

I wonder if there is any merit in strengthening holdings in Asia (China/South Korea/HK) via collective investments? The US has been on a roll (fully valued , over valued ?) but China is investing heavily in all areas of technology and shipping out the low tech manufacturing to Vietnam.

Thanks, I may well search/post onto the relevant board here for some ideas on that one some time.

Matt

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Re: M&Ms portfolio review December 2019

#274246

Postby simoan » December 31st, 2019, 4:15 pm

TheMotorcycleBoy wrote:
You need to try and negate this as much as possible. Your task in 2020 is to read some behavioural economics books... Kahnemann & Tversky, Richard Thaler, Dan Ariely

Hmm.. Yes thanks I might start a book thread sometime and requote you if you don't mind. That is, so that you can confirm/deny the titles/links that Amazon throws up.

OK. Here are a few book suggestions for starters (in no particular order):

1. Kahnemann & Tversky: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thinking-Fast- ... 0141033576

2. Dan Ariely: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00 ... tkin_p1_i1

3. Richard Thaler: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Misbehaving-Be ... KAACHKB1Q2

And for good measure, a book that has been really important for me and greatly reduced my contributions to public forums - see chapter 3 on the power of commitment and consistency :)

4. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Influence-Psyc ... N2Z7D9KZM5

Happy New Year, Happy Reading!
Si

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Re: M&Ms portfolio review December 2019

#274331

Postby 77ss » January 1st, 2020, 12:20 am

monabri wrote:....
I wonder if there is any merit in strengthening holdings in Asia (China/South Korea/HK) via collective investments? The US has been on a roll (fully valued , over valued ?) but China is investing heavily in all areas of technology and shipping out the low tech manufacturing to Vietnam.


You might like to look at JMC (JPMorgan Chinese Investment Trust plc) for China/HK/Taiwan.

A good TR record, and in their recent finals they have announced the intention to up the dividend to 4% (based on NAV).

I bought some earlier this year. DYOR of course, and good luck!

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Re: M&Ms portfolio review December 2019

#274377

Postby monabri » January 1st, 2020, 10:14 am

Recent discussion on JMC.

viewtopic.php?p=271545#p271545

(I've actually made a top up last week).

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Re: M&Ms portfolio review December 2019

#274570

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » January 2nd, 2020, 11:38 am

Thanks for JMC comments people.

Another question/query. Any comments re. portfolio size? My portfolio is starting to get quite populous. I've added Hollywood Bowl (BOWL) since my OP, so now excluding cash have 41 separate financial instruments.

I can then reduce this list by my 3 bonds (International Personal Finance, Tesco Personal Finance, Premier Oil) since 1) fixed yield instruments are no longer seen as a significant contributor whilst risk outweighs very meager returns. I can probably also reduce this list by another 1 (the World index tracker, and 2 ITs), since hopefully the World index will take care of itself and it's manager (Fidelity) should be fairly low risk.

This now leaves 35 straight equities, and 2 ITs. Which is quite a lot of different entities to attempt to monitor - i.e. know when to cut loss on, or know when to top up.

Do any people have any views on this? Into the mix I'm thinking:

  1. If I take my eye off the ball and keep adding new holdings I run the risk of just becoming a M&M index tracker
  2. Some of the well renowned managers (Smith, Ashworth-Lord, Train) run very concentrated portfolio
  3. In Lynch's "One up on Wall Street" the author states himself as holding up to 1400 different stocks!
  4. I'm overthinking this

Views welcome!
Matt

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Re: M&Ms portfolio review December 2019

#274579

Postby dspp » January 2nd, 2020, 11:53 am

simoan wrote:
TheMotorcycleBoy wrote:
You need to try and negate this as much as possible. Your task in 2020 is to read some behavioural economics books... Kahnemann & Tversky, Richard Thaler, Dan Ariely

Hmm.. Yes thanks I might start a book thread sometime and requote you if you don't mind. That is, so that you can confirm/deny the titles/links that Amazon throws up.

OK. Here are a few book suggestions for starters (in no particular order):

1. Kahnemann & Tversky: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thinking-Fast- ... 0141033576

2. Dan Ariely: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00 ... tkin_p1_i1

3. Richard Thaler: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Misbehaving-Be ... KAACHKB1Q2

And for good measure, a book that has been really important for me and greatly reduced my contributions to public forums - see chapter 3 on the power of commitment and consistency :)

4. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Influence-Psyc ... N2Z7D9KZM5

Happy New Year, Happy Reading!
Si


I haven't read Dan Ariely's book, but he was one of my professors back in the day and I can very much recommend listening to him carefully. You'll have to make your own mind up about the validity of what he says of course.

regards, dspp

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Re: M&Ms portfolio review December 2019

#274599

Postby simoan » January 2nd, 2020, 1:15 pm

dspp wrote:I haven't read Dan Ariely's book, but he was one of my professors back in the day and I can very much recommend listening to him carefully. You'll have to make your own mind up about the validity of what he says of course.

regards, dspp

Lucky you! He's an impressive individual, especially given the psychological effect his recovery from severe burns must have had on his life. I would highly recommend at least the first book to anyone because most people will recognise instances in life when they acted Irrationally under the impression they were being perfectly rational. There are many points where you will recognise things you have done yourself! Of course, he backs it up with results from real-life experiments too...

All the best, Si

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Re: M&Ms portfolio review December 2019

#274605

Postby TUK020 » January 2nd, 2020, 1:49 pm

TheMotorcycleBoy wrote:Thanks for JMC comments people.

Another question/query. Any comments re. portfolio size? My portfolio is starting to get quite populous. I've added Hollywood Bowl (BOWL) since my OP, so now excluding cash have 41 separate financial instruments.

I can then reduce this list by my 3 bonds (International Personal Finance, Tesco Personal Finance, Premier Oil) since 1) fixed yield instruments are no longer seen as a significant contributor whilst risk outweighs very meager returns. I can probably also reduce this list by another 1 (the World index tracker, and 2 ITs), since hopefully the World index will take care of itself and it's manager (Fidelity) should be fairly low risk.

This now leaves 35 straight equities, and 2 ITs. Which is quite a lot of different entities to attempt to monitor - i.e. know when to cut loss on, or know when to top up.

Do any people have any views on this? Into the mix I'm thinking:

  1. If I take my eye off the ball and keep adding new holdings I run the risk of just becoming a M&M index tracker
  2. Some of the well renowned managers (Smith, Ashworth-Lord, Train) run very concentrated portfolio
  3. In Lynch's "One up on Wall Street" the author states himself as holding up to 1400 different stocks!
  4. I'm overthinking this

Views welcome!
Matt

Matt,
about a year ago, I was concerned with a similar sprawl of holdings, and decided that I needed to think about the portfolio diversification and risk in terms of allocation per sector rather than at an individual share holding level.
I started using the excellent HYPTUSS spreadsheet available fro the Lemon Fool financial software section, courtesy of IAAG & Kiloran. which usefully can assess the concentration per sector/supersector. It also helps to track share weighting vs median, and dividend vs median. Probably nothing you can't do on your own with a spreadsheet, but the tool makes it easier.
I am also adopting a topslice/topup methodology which is a crude facsimile of TJH's approach. The combination of all of these helped me to tidy up my portfolio, prune some holdings, and rebalance.

One minor point is that I have used a few more ITs to get more targeted diversfication - Far East, Infrastructure, Microcap etc.
tuk020

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Re: M&Ms portfolio review December 2019

#274607

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » January 2nd, 2020, 2:03 pm

TUK020 wrote:
TheMotorcycleBoy wrote:Thanks for JMC comments people.

Another question/query. Any comments re. portfolio size? My portfolio is starting to get quite populous. I've added Hollywood Bowl (BOWL) since my OP, so now excluding cash have 41 separate financial instruments.

I can then reduce this list by my 3 bonds (International Personal Finance, Tesco Personal Finance, Premier Oil) since 1) fixed yield instruments are no longer seen as a significant contributor whilst risk outweighs very meager returns. I can probably also reduce this list by another 1 (the World index tracker, and 2 ITs), since hopefully the World index will take care of itself and it's manager (Fidelity) should be fairly low risk.

This now leaves 35 straight equities, and 2 ITs. Which is quite a lot of different entities to attempt to monitor - i.e. know when to cut loss on, or know when to top up.

Do any people have any views on this? Into the mix I'm thinking:

  1. If I take my eye off the ball and keep adding new holdings I run the risk of just becoming a M&M index tracker
  2. Some of the well renowned managers (Smith, Ashworth-Lord, Train) run very concentrated portfolio
  3. In Lynch's "One up on Wall Street" the author states himself as holding up to 1400 different stocks!
  4. I'm overthinking this

Views welcome!
Matt

Matt,
about a year ago, I was concerned with a similar sprawl of holdings, and decided that I needed to think about the portfolio diversification and risk in terms of allocation per sector rather than at an individual share holding level.
I started using the excellent HYPTUSS spreadsheet available fro the Lemon Fool financial software section, courtesy of IAAG & Kiloran. which usefully can assess the concentration per sector/supersector. It also helps to track share weighting vs median, and dividend vs median. Probably nothing you can't do on your own with a spreadsheet, but the tool makes it easier.
I am also adopting a topslice/topup methodology which is a crude facsimile of TJH's approach. The combination of all of these helped me to tidy up my portfolio, prune some holdings, and rebalance.

One minor point is that I have used a few more ITs to get more targeted diversfication - Far East, Infrastructure, Microcap etc.
tuk020

Many thanks TUK,
OOI how many straight stocks and ITs do you now hold?
Matt

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Re: M&Ms portfolio review December 2019

#274610

Postby SalvorHardin » January 2nd, 2020, 2:15 pm

TheMotorcycleBoy wrote:Another question/query. Any comments re. portfolio size? My portfolio is starting to get quite populous. I've added Hollywood Bowl (BOWL) since my OP, so now excluding cash have 41 separate financial instruments.

I can then reduce this list by my 3 bonds (International Personal Finance, Tesco Personal Finance, Premier Oil) since 1) fixed yield instruments are no longer seen as a significant contributor whilst risk outweighs very meager returns. I can probably also reduce this list by another 1 (the World index tracker, and 2 ITs), since hopefully the World index will take care of itself and it's manager (Fidelity) should be fairly low risk.

This now leaves 35 straight equities, and 2 ITs. Which is quite a lot of different entities to attempt to monitor - i.e. know when to cut loss on, or know when to top up.

Having a lot of individual holdings is a very good way to learn. There's nothing like having your own money invested in a company to make you pay attention to what that company does. It's what Nassim Taleb (author of "The Black Swan") calls "Skin in the Game" (is the opinion of pundits who won't put their money where their mouth is really worth all that much?).

By having a lot of different holdings you will learn much more about how businesses operate, sectors and company valuation than say if you'd put the lot in two or three tracker funds. Much of what I have learned over the years about various sectors of the economy is because at some time I owned shares in companies in those sectors (or closely monitored companies). This knowledge is still very useful today when it comes to investing.

I hold 17 operating companies (it used to be a lot more) and 15 investment trusts. The investment trusts don't require much work and I could closely monitor more operating companies, but I find that having a few large holdings concentrates the mind wonderfully. My top 5 holdings make up almost 35% of my portfolio (Disney, Union Pacific, Brookfield Asset Management, Berkshire Hathaway and Finsbury Growth & Income IT).

Ignore those who say that private investors cannot beat the market. The academic underpinning for that assumption is efficient market theory; something which has been undermined by behavioural economics, as you will see when you work through the recommended behavioural economics books :D (people are not the rational utility maximising super-efficient information processors that efficient market theory requires them to be).

There are several excellent podcasts on EconTalk with Nassim Taleb. Here's one of the "Skin in the Game" podcasts:
https://www.econtalk.org/taleb-on-skin-in-the-game/

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Re: M&Ms portfolio review December 2019

#274618

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » January 2nd, 2020, 2:47 pm

SalvorHardin wrote:
TheMotorcycleBoy wrote:Another question/query. Any comments re. portfolio size? My portfolio is starting to get quite populous. I've added Hollywood Bowl (BOWL) since my OP, so now excluding cash have 41 separate financial instruments.

I can then reduce this list by my 3 bonds (International Personal Finance, Tesco Personal Finance, Premier Oil) since 1) fixed yield instruments are no longer seen as a significant contributor whilst risk outweighs very meager returns. I can probably also reduce this list by another 1 (the World index tracker, and 2 ITs), since hopefully the World index will take care of itself and it's manager (Fidelity) should be fairly low risk.

This now leaves 35 straight equities, and 2 ITs. Which is quite a lot of different entities to attempt to monitor - i.e. know when to cut loss on, or know when to top up.

Having a lot of individual holdings is a very good way to learn. There's nothing like having your own money invested in a company to make you pay attention to what that company does. It's what Nassim Taleb (author of "The Black Swan") calls "Skin in the Game" (is the opinion of pundits who won't put their money where their mouth is really worth all that much?).

By having a lot of different holdings you will learn much more about how businesses operate, sectors and company valuation than say if you'd put the lot in two or three tracker funds. Much of what I have learned over the years about various sectors of the economy is because at some time I owned shares in companies in those sectors (or closely monitored companies). This knowledge is still very useful today when it comes to investing.

Many thanks for this recommendation,

TBH, I'm quite fortunate in so far as I actually find the research (qualitative and quantitative) quite interesting. I think lots of my workmates think it's all bit much, but there are one or two who are (fortunately) more than happy to join me in debating and discussion some of my ideas. Indeed chatting to such folk (and some peeps here) helped me in dropping my scepticism in making a MSFT (Microsoft) investment.

I hold 17 operating companies (it used to be a lot more) and 15 investment trusts. The investment trusts don't require much work and I could closely monitor more operating companies, but I find that having a few large holdings concentrates the mind wonderfully. My top 5 holdings make up almost 35% of my portfolio (Disney, Union Pacific, Brookfield Asset Management, Berkshire Hathaway and Finsbury Growth & Income IT).

Definitely agree with you on the trusts. Particularly pleased with your earlier recommendation of PCT to me. This has about 7 people managing so hopefully diluting "single manager" risk.

Ignore those who say that private investors cannot beat the market.

Will do!

The academic underpinning for that assumption is efficient market theory; something which has been undermined by behavioural economics, as you will see when you work through the recommended behavioural economics books :D (people are not the rational utility maximising super-efficient information processors that efficient market theory requires them to be).

There are several excellent podcasts on EconTalk with Nassim Taleb. Here's one of the "Skin in the Game" podcasts:
https://www.econtalk.org/taleb-on-skin-in-the-game/

Well I've done it now. Just ordered the following cheapo used books:

1. Predictably irrational
2. Influence: the psychology of persuasion
3. Skin in the game
4. The Black Swan

Gotta get out of the study, and start reading this afternoon,
Matt

TUK020
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Re: M&Ms portfolio review December 2019

#274623

Postby TUK020 » January 2nd, 2020, 3:13 pm

TheMotorcycleBoy wrote:Many thanks TUK,
OOI how many straight stocks and ITs do you now hold?
Matt


29 shares (mostly the hyp usual suspects)
9 ITs: CTY, FCIT, HFEL, HICL, LAND, LWDB,#MYI,
RMMC, TMPL
2 ETFs: PHAU, L&G Global100

Roughly
70 % in shares
25% in ITs
5% in ETFs

Held approx 60% in a SIPP, 40% in an SS ISA.


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