Category: Investment returns

Nov ’25: Coastal Folly loan repaid

FIRE v London1 Comment

Trump dominated the headlines again. This time partly due to some very biased editing by the BBC of a Panorama show about Trump before the US election.

There was also the omnipresent UK Budget. Which has had more than enough coverage. I did a ‘damage assessment‘ at the time and haven’t revised/updated my view since.

Back at home, the Christmas season started early. I found myself dining at two of London’s impressive skyscraper restaurants in one week.

I also managed a trip up to Oxford, where the Christmas lights were out in force.

Other London highlights included a performance of the Crucible in South London, and a dinner at George’s club in Mayfair.

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Oct ’25: Trim, trim & trim

FIRE v London1 Comment

October in the markets was one of those slightly giddy months. My portfolio crossed through a big number threshold, and kept going up.

The market stats don’t quite tell the whole story. On a constant currency basis, markets rose 2.8%. Non-UK currencies (AUD, EUR, USD) rose (versus the GBP) about 1.7% too. So my weighted benchmark rose 4.6%, measured in GBP. My (leveraged) portfolio‘s rise of 5.3% is roughly in line with that.

A 5% gain in one month is pretty extraordinary, but it does happen. While October was the best month since January 2023 (+6.6%), I have had 7 better months in the last 13 years.

However, what the market stats don’t show is what it really felt like in October.

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The stocks & shares ‘property’ portfolio, one year on

FIRE v London4 Comments

A year ago this week I sold my Modern Flat. And shortly afterwards, I reinvested £500k into a liquid stocks/shares portfolio with a property-like mandate. One year on, here’s a short review of the performance.

The portfolio has been set up to spit out £2000 pcm, which I take into general household expenses. This amounts to a 4.8% withdrawal yield on the £500k initial portfolio value.

What’s happened?

I ran out of money once, by about £100. As it happened, when that happened I ended up receiving a dividend on the 31st of the month which meant I had *not* in fact ran out of money, but by then I had already lent the portfolio the money to cover. I charged the portfolio £50 of interest costs for the trouble.

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