Category: Investment returns

Life somewhat returned to normal in June.

By normal I mean the tariff war resumed, Brexit chaos continued, European political dysfunction filled the newspapers  and so forth. The US and Europe now have tariffs against each other on steel and Harley Davidsons.  But more dangerous escalation looms – with Trump clearly gearing up to impose tariffs on German European cars.

From a market point of view the big loser were major exporting markets.  In my world, this meant ‘International’ equities, which lost 2.5%, even as the Euro rose a little against the pound.  UK/US equities dipped slightly too.

On a much brighter note, Australian equities jumped, which I think was due to large electoral bribe tax cut passing both houses of parliament.  Bonds rose slightly, in line with their long run average.

The second windfall that I was expecting in June still hasn’t arrived. Just as well I hadn’t spent it yet; even with ‘liquidity events’ the liquidity can feel like treacle, not water.

Continue reading “June 2018: The liquidity of treacle” →

May was a pretty extraordinary month for my finances.

In the wider world, the most obvious newsflow appeared to be about Italy’s attempts to form a populist government, and the tariffs/trade war begun by Trump in the previous month. This led to the European currencies falling against the ‘Pacific’ currencies (USD and AUD is what I care about).

The FTSE-100 rose almost completely to compensate for the drop in the pound, as it often does. Eurozone stocks however fall slightly, in what was a marked shift versus UK stocks.  And US equities rose slightly, which I think was a mixture of higher oil prices, further tech boom, and generally a sense that Trump is making some progress.  Bonds barely moved.

But in my little bubble there was a lot more news than this.

The most dramatic news for me was in one of my illiquid holdings, where an offer to buy it has just come through unexpectedly, at a significant price premium to what I had valued it at.  This is a significant holding for me, so the price premium is worth six figures. However, it is in a pot which includes my legacy private banking holdings, and I don’t include in my ‘invested portfolio’ tracking, so you won’t see this significant uptick in my monthly returns tracking.

Secondly I have had confirmation that I can expect the second of two windfalls I wrote about a couple of months ago to arrive later this month. This will add a useful sum to the invested portfolio. Between them, all these bits of good news increase my returns, or increase my portfolio, or both.

Overall I have had three unanticipated ‘exits’ within about one month.  This will significantly reshape my portfolio. When exits are as rare as hen’s teeth, I feel blessed.

Continue reading “May 2018: Exits behaving like buses” →

April saw a marked change in the dismal stockmarket performance this year. How come?

It’s not every month that a 60+ year war appears to have concluded.  I’m all in favour of wrapping up these geopolitical loose ends, but I don’t think my portfolio cared that much about the history being made in Korea.

Tech has had a good month.  Trump has been momentarily distracted from Amazon-bashing; Netflix reported strong growth; so did Google, and so on. My small Tech portfolio was up 8% on the month.

Trump has also had, dare I say it, a relatively good month on his trade bashing.  Sentiment is starting to move in his favour on this, at least in what I read, helped by the sense that some important tariffs may fall under his assault on China/etc.  Shareholders of Boeing, anything Russian etc haven’t had much fun but the rest of us have got plenty to celebrate.

Overall equities in most markets were up.  FTSE gained almost 6% on the month.  The US dollar rose 2% and its stock market climbed by more than that.  Other main equity markets that I track – notably Eurozone and Australia – gained 4%.  At this rate the stock markets have almost recovered the losses so far in the year.

Bonds dropped but only slightly. Overall the blended markets I track rose by 5% in April; 4% in constant currencies, and a 1% uplift provided by the USD.

Continue reading “April 2018: All eyes on Asia.” →