Investment returns – FIRE v London

Mar ’26: Iran clobbers markets

2026-04-122026-04-12 FIRE v London1 Comment

In March the rain stopped. We started March with North London already having seen 2x its usual rainfall for this point in the year. And thankfully in the middle of March, it stopped. As I write this I have actually needed to start watering the garden, something that felt a very remote prospect a month ago.

I’ve had quite a bit of travel in March. Some travel to the south coast. And some travel to the Alps.

Meanwhile out in the wider world, the US and Israel have been hard at Iran. I’m not going to comment on this madness except for what it’s done to the markets.

Markets in March

The market most impacted by the Iran war is the energy market. Diesel prices are up sharply; jet fuel is in short supply, and regular unleader is up significantly too. Americans, with lightly taxed fuel, are seeing a sharper increase (there is some justice in the world). Here in the UK unleaded has gone from c.£1.37/ltr to £1.57/ltr; this is a spike but not the end of days.

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Feb ’26: Before Iran

2026-03-16 FIRE v London4 Comments

So, for the avoidance of doubt, the end of the month is the last trading day of the month. Which for February, meant Friday February 27th.

The fact that the Israelis and the Americans invaded Iran on February 28th is going to impact March, not February.

Which is just as well because I had quite a lot of activity in February.

Simplifying the portfolio, pt3

While the weather in the UK was pretty unremittingly miserable, I found myself rearranging quite a few of the portfolio’s deckchairs.

One of my longstanding and most thoughtful readers made a comment on my blog recently that resonated with me. @Grasmi is a Brit who has emigrated abroad – to Australia, so far as I can gather. He is a bit further ahead of me on the path to portfolio enlightenment, and here is what he said:

I vastly simplified my portfolio years ago. I’m down to 8 positions now (7 ETF’s and BRK – so basically 8 ETFs). Never looked back. Less levers to pull = less stress and “busy work”.

After doing the cleanup a long time back, over time you basically “can’t” fiddle any more due to CGT… which is a lot of ways is quite freeing. There’s always a temptation to do something, but once you’ve got large accumulated CG’s in a simple portfolio, that urge goes away. Any change you make needs to make back the cost of any CGT bill (for me this is 20-30%+) just to break even, so I’m very reluctant to make any changes.

Longtime readers will know I went through a concert effort at simplification back in 2020. What I’m left with is about 90 unique holdings held across 9 brokers (6, really; 3 of them are offshore bonds/equivalent that I barely touch and don’t need to file tax reporting on). As at the end of 2025, only 64 of these holdings were in unsheltered accounts – i.e. accounts that need tax filing.

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Jan ’26: Greenland saga doesn’t disrupt tax bill

2026-02-082026-02-08 FIRE v London2 Comments

January media seemed dominated by Greenland and Davos. As part of my efforts to avoid amplifying unstable narcissistic media-whore leaders, I haven’t got much to comment about. London has been pretty wet and miserable, as is January’s reputation.

Meanwhile, markets were up quite a bit in January, for those of us measuring in GBP. This is despite widespread mayhem over Greenland – which the markets shugged off – albeit with a mid-month wobble.

My target allocation’s markets grew 2.4% on a constant currency basis. But their currencies fell by 1.4%, meaning my benchmark rose 1.0%. Against that my actual portfolio was flat. I am a little bit underweight USA equities, and a little bit overweight International equities, which in theory is not a bad tactical position to be in. In any case, I took a couple of hits on larger individual holdings.

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