I thought it might be good to share something about my objectives and my investing style. I hope you find it of interest and generates some discussion as I think Moneyam needs something more at the moment.

I work full time so I’m an investor now. In general I do have time to check the markets during the day but there are days when I’m in meetings for hours on end and it’s not appropriate. This works well for me as stops me over-trading. I suspect I would make less if I sat at a computer all day trying to invest.

Please feel free to discuss you trading style and reflect on how I could improve what I do.

I have two pots. The first pot is my SIPP and I therefore consider I must invest this with extreme caution. I consider a return of 5-10% as acceptable and any more as a bonus. The second pot is my trading pot where I take more risk. I am looking for 10+% plus a year from this. I only invest in UK equities. I no longer trade CFD’s or spreadbets due to the nature of my job, although many years ago I made a living day-trading.

My performance over the last 6 years is as follows:
2010 -0.3%
2011 -34.8% (too little diversification, bad timing and not very pleasant)
2012 +70.7% (umm – too little diversification –just got the timing wrong on the previous years purchases)
2013 +36.8% (umm – still too little diversification but what do you do when you’re in the right trades??)
2014 +5.5% (diversification getting better but my biggest share-holding hurt me badly)
2015 +5.5% so far

I have a very simple trading style. My primary objective is to sell equities when Ftse is high and buy when it is low i.e. I choose my entry and exit point depending on whether Ftse is overbought or oversold. The choice of share is secondary.

I often buy stocks in a clear downtrend on chart support points when Ftse is beaten up on the premise that Ftse will turn up in a short time frame setting up a bounce for the stock. These stocks will generally also have attracted me because of fundamentals, dividends or I believe they are significantly oversold. I also like recovery stories with long circulating bid rumours. Sometimes I buy stocks after research leads me to believe the share is significantly undervalued – this can be very profitable but usually a great amount of patience is required.

So, to explain in more detail this year as Ftse moved up early in the year I started selling heavily as Ftse reached 6700. By the time it reached its peak I was 91% in cash. As it headed back down again in June I started buying again at 6700 and by the end of June as Ftse was around 6500 I was 95% invested. Clearly I haven’t called this that well this year based on the evidence but I’m comfortable about it as doing something was better than doing nothing. Ftse is down 3.8% year to date and I’m up 5.5%. I suspect most people would be pretty happy with that – I am.

Here is my portfolio. It’s quite unbalanced and deliberately so. It breaks a load of rules with regard to diversification
24.3% - Sorry but I can’t share this stock with you yet as it’s not that liquid and I’m still acquiring stock. I’ve done my research and honesty believe a doubling of share price in three years would be a really poor outcome.

14.8% RBS. Most of these I have acquired between 337 and 362 although I have a few from 307. Already sold a few from 307 last week and if I can get somewhere between 339 and 342 next week they will be gone too. Earlier in the year they were trading at 400 and there were no sellers in sight as it trudged up day after day from 380 to 400. I’m of the view that this will come back over time as the government require the banks to be strong and make profits so we don’t have another crisis. I intend to hold all of these for a while (except for the few I’m selling next week) and start off-loading around 385 and see what happens from there

8.3% RDSB. Like many PI’s I’ve got drawn in by the dividend and most of these were bought between 1845 and 2025. I have a few at 1598 from last week which I honestly thought would be far higher given the rise in oil this week. I think oil has a bit higher to run yet and I’m looking to sell the ones from 1598 soon as I’ve got a few too many. Not sure what to do about the rest but the dividend of around 6% helps.

6.3% VSVS. Provides products to the steel industry. I’m in this as I think there is/will be global move away from concrete to steel due to construction costs and environmental issues. I bought these a few months ago and I’m a few percent down at the moment which is pleasing given general state of Ftse. The share register is interesting and the price activity over the last few weeks intrigues me and I have a “feeling in my waters” we may see some rumours around this stock over the next few months.

6.1% HSP – Hargreaves Services. In some ways I wish I’d never heard of this stock and I’m 14% down on them at the moment although it was far worse. This is a case of me doing research, working out its undervalued and buying on the expectation others would realise this too. The market can remain irrational for some considerable time when it has a mind to! It got really bashed around recently on a trading update and then bounced significantly on its interims. Since it delivered what it would said it would in the trading update nothing ceases to surprise me any longer.
Surprisingly it fell last week as oil rose. Offering a 9% dividend with two-thirds of this already declared for next month. I’m hoping to scale back on this in the near future and if not I’m fairly relaxed due to the dividend

5.8% PFL. Premier Farnell. Famous for the Raspberry Pi although that’s not why I bought it. I bought about two-thirds between 170 and 180 because of the chart and I thought the euro would strengthen (which has proved to be correct but hasn’t helped). The other third I bought last week at 119 and if I can get somewhere between 133 and 138 next week I’m selling. They may go for less. I don’t really want this many and I’ve got my eye on a few other things (HMSO around 620 looks a much better place to be). 8% dividend if it can afford to maintain it which the city boys seem to doubt. I’m of the view it has sufficient cash to pay this for the moment but I guess won’t be surprised if it’s cut. We’ll know soon enough

5.8% SFR. Severfield. Steel again. I like the man in charge. I bought at 69p and it held up well until the last couple of days of the recent FTSE fall. It hit a brickwall at 70 and a huge amount of shares have changed hands there. It had just crept over when the ftse carnage started. It’s fallen to the current price on very little volume so hopefully it will bounce back on similar. Happy to hold as comfortable enough with where this is going long term

4.8% Weir. Industrial with large exposure to US shale industry. Has been bashed down and I bought in at 1725-1825. Got some more last week at 1264 so those are getting sold any day now as I’ve got enough of these and I don’t believe in averaging. Every trade should stand on its own. The dividend is just over 3%. There were takeover rumours earlier in the year when the price was around 1700 so I’m hoping they will get resurrected. I’m happy to hold the rest for a while and see what happens

4.4% SPHR. Sphere Medical. This is speculative part of my portfolio. The share that will make me rich or I’ll lose all my money on it. 10 bagger or bust! It makes blood gas analysers for an intensive care setting without drawing any blood from the patients and provides instant results. Pretty good as I understand in ICU up to 19 blood tests can be required a day from patients. I imagine its pretty good for paediatrics too where babies don’t have loads of blood to start with. The product is launched and is at an early stage in the sales curve. This was Neil Woodford’s first investment from WPCT and he continues to add to his holding. Shares are very tightly held. An upgrade to the analyser is on its way which is hoped will significantly change the sales profile. I can talk endlessly about this company if anyone is interested which is a really bad sign as I’m too attached to it.

3.5% INTU. Property. I have a small profit on this despite buying months ago and Ftse being bashed around. I guess I’m looking for a 10% rise and to collect the dividends as I go. Very safe.

3.3% TATE. I’ve got a small profit on this too. Trade hasn’t gone as well as planned and I’d like to start reducing if it goes up as little as 3%

3.1% Another nameless stock I’m afraid. Quite illiquid and I haven’t decided if I’ve finished accumulating or not. I’ll only be taking a little more if I do.

2.9% LLOY. Who wouldn’t have Lloyds in their portfolio? Some dividends and good potential for growth. Share price a bit disappointing of late but I bought this at 39p so it owes me nothing.

1.9% STAN. Bought most of these at 737 last week although the rest are dire and out of the money from 890. I’m not feeling comfortable with them. Not sure what to do which means I’ll probably let them go and then watch the stock fly

1.4% BG. Held these from 820 from before the bid and just watched. Part of the reason I need to reduce my RDSB

1.2% CSG. Cyril Sweet Group. Bought at 22p so basically flat although I had the chance to sell higher. Quite speculative.

0.6% BP The only thing I can say about this is that having bought at 484 I didn’t buy any more on the way down. The dividend eases the pain ;-) Actually I did once buy some more on the way down but I had the sense to get out for a tiny profit on them.

0.6% AV. Bought at 498p a few months ago and this is all that’s left after selling four fifths higher up, so this has been good to me

0.5% FENR. 12% down on this although it’s bounced. Not much to say – not my best trade. The dividend is good.

0.5% HSBC. Out of the money on this. Could have done better.

0.1% Cash – I’m fully invested with Ftse at 6200 as I write today. Whilst I may rotate my stocks around a bit as there are some bargains out there right now I’ll in general be staying fully invested until Ftse hits 6500. I’ll reappraise then. I may change my mind depending on the mood of the market

CTO is a big % - but IMHO ( WhaddIKnow), there is no upside. CTO just plod along - it's unlike Biotech where they plod with some "potential" - my OXB is a large % and just maybe they've put the Begging-Bowl away, with 2-income streams of Products using their Lenticular...thingy. This has massively increased the "potential" as it's (almost) visible...whilst it has somewhat reduced two Risks, 1=Run out of money. 2=Drug-Trial failure . . . both of these are harmful for investors.... but back to CTO - I just don't see any huge upside, unless you are hoping for the sp to raise its head above yr averaged price. Even if a BIG Build is ann. by UK-Gov.... what % will CTO get and it will be years before construction starts. IMHO. CTO should be into Robotics, so they can work 24/7 with a much smaller skill-set....I don't hold.
You have LLOY - (& I) which may do well, but Bankers are never going to be trusted again - and there are Internet juniors snapping. BP is in a reducing market -except their purchase of the Electric Charging Co (last week), which may have been "Brilliant" ...as their foray into Solar has been so long ....everyone's forgotten.
Good Luck.

Monthly update - July was another frustrating month with reporting season underway. I am now 2.6% up for the year and most of my shares are stuck in a rut slowly falling as Brexit and trade wars issues roll on and on.

I have a few which seem to be just falling and falling (INTU and MARS) where the downtrend line is beginning to annoy me. MARS surely can't fall much further as the dividend yield has hit 8.13%, INTU could fall more although it's now supported by a dividend yield of 8.39%.

Looking forward for August I have results for 3 big holdings coming up. RBS I'm not sure about. CTO's and NMD I'm pretty confident about. CTO is most important to me as it's my biggest holding. The results will at worst definitely be in line and the interim dividend raised by 16%.

I am trying to decide what to do about my unbalanced portfolio. The lack of commodities has hurt it's performance over the last year as I sold out all my RDSB some time ago.





Hangon - you made some observations on CTO. Part of the struggle with the share price is that their is little analyst coverage given the market cap of £35m and it's bundled into the construction sector. Whilst it's true they do the largest high profile projects in the UK particularly in London, they are diversifying away from this towards higher margin products where they compete on skills and reputation rather than price. It also smooths out the economic cycle.
My trade isn't based on government or private sector spending in construction although that would nice. It's more about leveraging the brand into FM and tech heavy areas where the margins are better and there's repeat business.

Examples here:
http://www.tclarke.co.uk/news/an-interview-with-eton-associates-director-jamie-ward
http://www.tclarke.co.uk/news/tclarke-climate-solutions-the-complete-service

for myself, i was very happy to note that my sipp gain over the last fiscal year was almost exactly 25%

for the current fiscal year, i can't easily work it out as regular pension contributions are added every so often, but looks like about 12% which is fine by me

i had some smallish new funds in my sipp so bought NMC (new) and topped up AAPL and GOOG

though NMC is quoted on LSE it's really an M/E stock of course and the other two are (obviously) NAS

as things stand, I see no reason to buy into (more) UK stocks

I've had better days.

I am still here!

So that's OK.

8-)

For who, ha! ha!------------ Only joking Fred and when put like that it puts everything into perspective, that's why I can still manage to laugh when I look in the mirror.

August was a much better month. I'm now 6.5% up for the year, which is a decent improvement from last month considering FTSE was down again.

CTO my largest holding was up 3.5% on interim results but the star was NMD, my second biggest holding which was up 38% in the month again on interim results.

Everything else with the exception of PCF was down which reflects attitudes towards anything Brexit related at the moment.


As the construction stocks go up and nearly everything else goes down or is flat my portfolio becomes more and more skewed to construction. I'm doing nothing about that except re-investing the dividends in non-construction stocks.

for myself, i am not putting any new money into uk-based stocks, either on my trading account or sipp

i cannot see ftse or even dax doing anything better than treading water for quite some time, though there are inevitable bright stars like FEVR which continue to shine

on the trading front, i am tempted to bank some of my thumping profits in FEVR and just possibly put at least some of that into DGE, as that is a decent sector and the company has strong overseas earnings

other than that, any additional sipp money is being invested in AMZN, AAPL or GOOG

Another couple of months go by and at the end of October I'm now 4.4% up for the year. Against a FTSE which has been crapping itself for the last 6 weeks or all year really I consider that a result yet 4.4% doesn't meet my aspirations.

Looking back at post 88 I said I needed 5% a year would erode my capital until the kids complete University and thereafter 5% would do. When I wrote this I really thought I could make 7.5-10% a year on average and which would of covered the gap. There is a couple of months to go and hopefully the Santa rally will help out.

I'm pretty comfortable with my portfolio and not looking to do much with it except add some more bonds for fixed yield. That's a challenge though as there is not much available at a rate I like.

Sad to say I've not really been in tune with the market this year. My view on the macroeconomic picture has not matched what equity prices have actually done. I'm not sure what to think. Who would of though Aviva at 415 for instance? That sort of price was never on my radar and either that was the opportunity of the decade on Aviva or I'm so out of touch it could go back there. I'm not sure. Whatever time will only tell if my entry at 439 was a good one.

I have one remaining issue in my portfolio which I don't know what to do with. INTU. Subject to a potential takeover. I need the mooted takeover price for breakeven. No offer has been made yet though. It's trading at a 7.5% discount to the possible takeout price. If it closed to 5% I'd probably sell a few to reduce my risk. It's becoming apparent that isn't going to happen. My reading of the situation is that there will be a higher offer but Mr. Market doesn't appear to agree. He was wrong last time though and the price has already readjusted for that. And there-in lies my issue I've had all year. My reading of the situation is probably right but the market reads it differently.

Finished up 3.3% for the year. Made some good decisions, made a couple of really bad ones. Largest two holdings CTO and NMD up on the year. PCF did well. Everything else a pile of poo.

I'm happy with that with the overall market performance with 2018 being the worst year since 2008. Nevertheless, it is insufficient to provide me with the level of income required should that rate of return continue for the next 30-40 years as inflation will eat away at my real income.

I end the year with my portfolio still very badly balanced. CTO is now 51% of my portfolio so no real progress in reducing it. On the other hand it was up about 12% in the year including dividends so it did me proud. NMD up from 8% to 12% as the share price went up 50%. I have nothing else over 5%

One good thing I've done is increase the amount of fixed interest (bonds and other fixed interest instruments) from 5% to 10%. I plan to increase to 15% by the end of 2019. I've spent alot of time working on this and enjoyed it.


The finance is easy to discuss but emotionally I found the year very difficult. It felt like I was fighting the market for the last 9 months and not much I did in 2018 went well. All my profit came from trades placed in previous years. I failed to recognise:
a) just how badly our politicians would progress Brexit
b) that Trump would be even more aggressive over trade wars than seemed possible even for him.

I have completely given up day-trading now which I loved very much. That was quite a wrench. Although I was making a little bit, it wasn't very much and it was interfering with my investment decisions. An era in my life over.

I hope 2019 will be better. The politicians could make it so. Regrettably I have little faith in them.

unless you are very knowledgeable and have very sophisticated software, day trading has to be one of the finest ways of losing a fortune

for myself, i have a small CFD trading portfolio which is very well up on the year, though i must own up to some nasty unrealised losses

as for sipp, that was showing a wonderful performance from april through september, but assuredly it will have given back an awful lot of that, though i haven't bothered to calculate it

i rarely sell sipp stocks - only right or wrong a long time after the event of course - but for the last 4 months or so, i have just allowed cash from divis and contributions to accumulate

to be honest, i currently find it hard to be enthusiastic about any uk stocks
however, when the spirit moves me, i may add to holdings of potential "special sits" stocks" and maybe a bit more in usa and/or JIL (india fund)