30 March 2006

Two interesting landmarks

.. were passed today. The first: my portfolio passed the 700% increase mark since 1 January 1999 (FTSEAllShare up 16.71% for this period). The second: my portfolio has increased by more than £50,000 this year.* Thus far, things are going well this year - up by 13.7% whilst the FTSE has barely made 8%. Of course, this year's gains could largely disappear in a few weeks if the market turns nasty. I'm about 6% cash, and have quite a bit more oils than at the start of the year. Strongest performers this year have been Blue Planet World Wide Financials (BPW) ... sold out on 82% increase .... Daniel Stewart (DAN) ... up 52% ... Soco Oil (SIA) .. up 38.7% ... European Motors (EMH) ... up 40%.**


* Not much by a Wall Street whizz-kid's standards, but a lot, lot, more than I used to make ... and now I no longer have to mix with any more dull puritan, and tax-addicted, socialists in academe.

** If only I didn't have to hold "shares" in the bloody awful British government led by the actor, Blair, and that dour Scottish tax-and-spend monster (and bungler) Gordon Brown.***

*** He is to economics what Doctor Quack is to medicine. Like a greedy baby, he regularly vomits up - in his case, some incredible scheme involving lots of bureaucracy and a stunningly naive objective: his latest, to distribute "free" computers to home employees (earlier it was rural area!) has just bitten the dust. He can't, as the law stands, touch my £50,000 gains, but this greedy tax-guzzler has started to introduce retrospective taxation (such contempt for the rule of law is a sure way to start flushing a country down the toilet).

1 March 2006

First eight weeks

Getting better - outperformed the FTSE AllShare by nearly 3%, and have edged above £30,000 total gains for the year so far. This despite a massive fall in one of my largest holdings - Northern Recruitment Group - to which I've responded (typically) by buying more.* However, I've been much assisted by the steady and strong rises experienced by my largest and 3rd largest holdings, Highway Insurance and SCS Upholstery. The latter was an interesting example of where a significant purchase of shares by SCS's Finance Director at a low-point of about 305p in late-July 2005** has been followed by an above 55% rise in price to 475p within 7 months.


* Investment tip - if some investment professional tells you never to average down .. then, they're rubbish ... the type who'll always advise to buy high and sell low (it's better the other way round!).

** I, of course, topped up substantially upon this news (that was the buy low part! ... I haven't sold any, yet).