Tag: personal-finance

May ’26: Angelic timing

FIRE v London3 Comments

May was an enjoyable month. I kept reasonably busy, as well as doing a bit of travel around the UK. I visited King Charles’ Poundbury for the first time, as well as the south coast and the Cotswolds for a weekend.

Meanwhile, the news has been dominated by Trump’s Iran war, and in the UK Labour’s leadership dramas – now heightened with a forced by-election (“the most consequential in British history”) in Makerfield.

Markets in May

Tech stocks did well in May – both in the USA and in Asia (where silicon stocks are flying). My ‘international’ benchmark is half Asia/Pac and half Europe; Asia/Pac was up over 10%, while Europe rose ‘only’ 4%. Poor old tech-less UK and Australia equities rose only 0.7% and 0.4% respectively, though at least their bonds provided some consolation.

My portfolio buys a property

As I mentioned last month, I have been helping to complete on a property transaction – which went through in late May. I now co-own another property, sigh.

I had expected to borrow around £1m for this purchase, via my margin loan, but at the last minute I had a very welcome surprise: literally the Friday before the property transaction completed, an angel investment I made over 10 years ago was sold, netting me almost exactly £1m – entirely tax free (as it was made under the UK angel investing tax break EIS).

I have taken the opportunity to top up my ISAs to the £40k annual maximum and make a couple of significant charity donations too – something I try to do when I receive tax-free angel windfalls.

As a result my margin loan has expanded only slightly, and my total investment portfolio size has barely changed – and by among within the monthly volatility I experience. As a reminder – my investment portfolio excludes illiquid investments, so I do not count either properties nor angel investments within it – only investments in liquid, tradeable securities.

My interest costs (the pink columns in the chart below) are up due to the loan expansion, though my Loan-to-Value ratio (the solid green line) has not moved much (thanks to the >10% increase in the portfolio value over the last two months).

Having been long on cash before this property transaction, my portfolio has now returned almost to the target level of leverage. It is a little bit out of kilter on the geographic exposure though – with recent US gains making me overweight on US equities (and the US in general), and the takeover of a median UK holding for cash leaving me underweight on UK equities (and the UK/GBP too).

In the meantime my investment portfolio (that portion not being used to buy property) rose again in May. this time by 4.3%. Slightly less than the market-weighted benchmark which rose 5%, after an April in which my portfolio beat the market by over 1%.

Appendix: Press clippings

Mar ’26: Iran clobbers markets

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

FIRE v London5 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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