Buy and hold, hopefully forever…
It was all going nicely this year until those pesky Greeks came along with their anti-austerity ideas and their democratic rights etc… Just kidding, the markets were long overdue a correction and it seems that is what we have. Whether it develops into more than that is anybody’s guess. In the meantime the broader market correction caused a […]
A small article in this Sunday Times’ Money section summed up a lot of what I think is wrong with the asset management industry. Having begun by stating that “it is early days yet for an investment trust marketed on the basis that it should be bought only on a 10-year view”, the column goes on immediately […]
It has been a while since my last portfolio update, so I thought I would post a quick page about what I have been up to. In terms of total return, I certainly can’t complain as the portfolio has brought in +5.7%. While that is pleasant enough, on the other side of the coin, I […]
The Voya Corporate Leaders Trust Fund was founded on one simple piece of logic – companies that prospered in the Great Depression could prosper in all economic and market conditions. The Trust’s founders therefore picked 30 of the strongest American corporations of that fairly grim time (1935) and bought them in equal amounts for their fund. The rule […]
A flattish-to-positive September is never a bad thing; this one yielded + 0.3% for the portfolio, but by the end of the month markets were beginning to show increased volatility. At the start of October this has been confirmed with price swings increasingly holding promise of lower prices to come in the near future. Bad […]
August was a strong month for the portfolio with a total return of over 4%. I don’t need to look to hard to find the main drivers of this, with Berkshire advancing by about 11% (in sterling terms) over the period. Furthermore, the gain was based on fundamentals, with Berkshire announcing early in the month […]
Another negative month (-1.53%) for the portfolio in July and the boring Sell in May and go away theorists are beginning to pop up with their trusty charts and musty data sheets. A lot of companies reported results in July, before their grand fromages depart for the Mediterranean. Of these, the most healthy for my […]
Market Neutral funds are one of the more seductive sounding products offered by the Asset Management sector; who would not be tempted by this? The investment objective is to achieve a positive return over a 12 month period in all market conditions. The thought of smooth, steady progress while markets zig zag around hysterically suffering periods […]
All good runs must come to an end and mine did in June with a negative return for the portfolio of -1.23% . I read somewhere yesterday that the FTSE is up about 45 points for the year and so it seems nothing much is happening anywhere else either. In the meantime, I suppose, the […]
There is a lot of chatter on the Web at the moment about the markets and the air beneath them. I can see in my own holdings that prices have risen but price to earnings multiples are also higher, which sadly means that they are not as safe as they were. At times like this it is […]