Portfolio tracking spreadsheet: v2.0 release notes

FIRE v London35 Comments

This post is a sequel to my Investment Tracking Spreadsheet post of three years ago.  A number of readers have found the spreadsheet (‘example portfolio returns tracker’) outlined in that post helpful, so it’s time to bring it up to date. 

Since I wrote that post I have in fact been using a Google Sheet as my ‘day to day’ portfolio tracking tool, which gives me live prices on most of my holdings.  My tracking Google Sheet uses the very same FIRE v London example workbook as its master ‘database’, so the security data (tickers, expense ratios, etc) is updated fairly regularly. 

I have taken advantage of the long Easter weekend to release an updated public share tracking spreadsheet (here) which supports live prices.  The difficult bit is that it handles both equities (via GoogleFinance) and also funds (as listed on Hargreaves Lansdown). 

The spreadsheet is still read only, but you can make a copy (either download a copy in Excel, or make a copy in Google Sheets) to edit yourself and make your own portfolio tracking tool.  All appropriate disclaimers apply – use at your own risk.

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Mar 2020: Q1 post mortem

FIRE v London3 Comments

What a brutal month. We moved from ‘crumbs, Italy’s borders are shut’ to ‘whoa, we’re all under house arrest’ in only a few days. The start of March is hard to remember.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson Announces UK Coronavirus Lockdown ...
The Prime Minister demonstrating Covid-19 to us all

I’m glad I managed to get a few days skiing done earlier in the season – now I have three overseas trips cancelled and don’t expect even to leave London for potentially months.

As lockdown loomed, I found myself shocked to be asked “are you staying in London? Or getting away?” by several people. OF COURSE I’M STAYING IN LONDON. In my Dream Home, silly. In fact some friends who had decamped to Cornwall have recently returned to London saying they really hadn’t appreciated how much better to be marooned here than there.

Market meltdown

But turning to the markets, they have had an absolute whipping this month. The fastest decline ever. And, wow, the volatility. Normally liquid ETFs had pronounced spreads, and one of my online brokers resorted to manual trading on a frequent basis. Yet, with all said and done, the damage isn’t yet quite as bad as it feels.

Having caught a cold in February, world markets developed a very nasty flu in March. All equity markets fell. And fell very rapidly. Equities were down around 18%, across the piece.

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The worst crash in history: the view from the front seat

FIRE v London17 Comments

It seems reasonable to think that this is the worst market crash in history. Stock markets are a relatively well-documented phenomenon since their invention only a couple of dozen generations ago, and the data seem clear.

And I was there.

I’ve been actively following this crash every day the markets traded. And I’ve been trading too. Ouch. This post is deliberately something of an ermine-esque ‘reflections from the front’, recording some of my thinking/recollections, as they occur to me and while they are fresh.

Wasn’t January a long time ago?

I remember reading about the Coronavirus in January. I was travelling through Hong Kong myself that month. The virus hadn’t reached HK; it was a story in the business pages about China.

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