April 2025 – balmy weather, barmy markets

Better late than never, I’m doing a quick update on April. More for the record than because anything particularly notable happened in the portfolio, ignoring the mid month gyrations.

It was a lovely month, April. I did a bit of travelling, but the UK had generally lovely spring weather – as the photos illustrate. I find a consequence of having both the Dream Home in London, and the Coastal Folly is that when the weather is lovely I can really begrudge being in London – a relatively new feeling for me I must admit.

As I write this, it’s almost the end of May, so rambling around April market performance doesn’t feel like it’s going to be of much interest to anybody. In fact with a week of May to go, the S&P has recovered from the Trump TariFFS episode. The key point is that Trump announced a u turn / 90 day pause in his tariff plan, which the markets took as a reason to return to normal. Go figure. Since when has Very Bad News in 90 days’ time been discounted away to practically zero?

That said, VWRL – World Equities – hasn’t reached its January peak again.

Overall April was quite a tumultuous month in the markets, for well documented Trump-related reasons. But with a few weeks’ hindsight you can see the month generally ended down a bit, with the exception of Australia – where the signs that Trump Always Caves and the prospect of an imminent defeat of the slightly-Trump-esque Dutton in the general election both boded well for the ASX 300.

Bonds ended up, for reasons I can’t remember – though I think that signs that interest rates are continuing to fall (except for the USA) have been a boost.

My portfolio was down about 2% in the month. This is about 0.6% worse than my weighted markets moved. Knowing I have bounced back quite a bit in May – at the time of writing – I’m not going to dwell on it too much.

I haven’t had much activity in the portfolio.

The big ‘news’ for us UK investors has been that April saw the start of the new UK Tax year, which means a fresh set of ISA allowances to play with. I’ve managed to fill my ISA boots already, thank goodness, giving me a bit of an opportunity to buy into a slightly fallen market.

I remain tactically underweight US equities, and tactically overweight UK / International Equities. My borrowings are slightly more GBP concentrated than my target. I’m slightly more leveraged than I’d like to be – reflecting borrowing money last month to buy on some dips, and the slight decline in the value of my portfolio. I’m comfortable with my posture and glad I have been relaxed and calm through the Trump mayhem.