October was a very positive month for equity returns. I’ve just updated my portfolio returns page, and my invested portfolio rose in value by 4.0%. This doesn’t recover the losses of the last two months, but it certainly retrieves some of the portfolio’s poise: my 12 month return stands at +6.7%.
The coloured grid below shows the relative performance by sector for each of the last few months. You can see the equity markets are pretty correlated, but highly volatile; by contrast Fixed Income (and cash, obviously) are much more steady-as-she-goes.
The standout figures last month were equity returns in the USA and Europe, each up around 10%. By contrast the UK and Australia were up about 4% each. August saw similar moves, but down not up; September saw most markets continue to fall while the USA stabilised; the USA now tops the tree. Overall the market weighted by my exposure rose about 5.6%, which I lagged – disappointingly.
My overall performance masks a number of sudden movements within my portfolio. Google, Amazon, McDonalds and N Brown Group all had excellent months. Pearson had a terrible month. That’s equity investing for you.
I took the opportunity to close out my BWNG position and rebalance a bit out of UK Equities, which I am overweight in. I am not fully invested right now; I’m keeping some cash close at hand in case the market dips back down again.
FIRE v London 
Good idea to keep some cash handy. I’ve got a wish list of stocks as long as my arm… Waiting for the right prices i.e. Cheaper than what they are at present!
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What is the composition of your portfolio in terms of percentages? any logic of holding foreign currency in your portfolio considering low interest rates?
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Adnan – my portfolio composition is roughly speaking the target allocation I explain in my Investment Philosophy – https://firevlondon.com/my-investment-policy-statement/
You are right that holding cash/currency, in current low interest rate, has almost no logic to it. My target allocation of these is very low, and my actual allocation is even lower. Arguably I shouldn’t even show them in the investment returns grid, but they serve as a quite a nice ‘baseline’ (i.e. small positive return).
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