Category: Investment returns

I started this blog barely three months ago, and no sooner have I started it than my portfolio has just seen two of the worst months since I started tracking it systematically over three years ago.  June saw my invested portfolio drop almost 4%; I had a partial rebound in July, but now August has seen me drop by 4.4%.  My annualised percentage over 2.5 years has dropped from 12% to 9.8%, my maximum drawdown (peak to trough) is now -6%, and my Sharpe ratio (a measure of return for a constant level of risk/volatility) has dropped from almost 2 to close to 1.  Maybe my new blog has jinxed the global markets….

… and if it has, maybe I should start another blog.

In fact I am pretty thrilled with August.  My invested portfolio is down 4.4%, yes, but in fact this is great news for two reasons.

Continue reading “What a mess this blog has got us into – my Aug ’15 investment returns” →

Reminders of that old Chinese curse – ‘may you live in interesting times’ – are filling the financial pages/blogs/chatosphere at the moment.  The consensus is that a fall by the Chinese stock market of over 30% is a massive sneeze, and when China (with 15% of the world economy) sneezes, the rest of us are due for a cold.  And yet, and yet, I don’t buy it.

Seeing FTSE-100 below 6000 and my portfolio page full of red ink (did you know that in China red means price increases?) is quite a jolt after months of very little turbulence in the UK/US stock markets.

Many better bloggers than me are adequately covering the key points – have a plan, stick to it, and if anything this correction is a buying opportunity.  So while I may be cursing that August is my lowest month for dividends, and my tradeable cash reserves are empty, there is nothing to see here so why not move on?

Continue reading “What have the Chinese ever done for us?” →

In the 100+ investments that I can track in detail*, half a dozen made annualised returns of over 60% from 1/7/12 to 1/7/15.  In this post I’m going to examine these six investments in detail.

Under normal conditions, >60% p.a. returns can only come from active investments, not passive ones.  As such, these positions were all small – unfortunately, but sensibly.  But with such high returns, there are two questions I’m asking myself:

1. How sensible was my logic, with hindsight? Was this skill, or was it luck?
2. Should I have taken much bigger positions? Or would this have been just rank speculation?

Let’s look at these six investments in no particular order.

Continue reading “Anatomy of a portfolio’s excellent returns” →