Trading statements

It's been quite a week for trading statements on the London stock market - many of them, and quite a number signalling profits exceeding market expectations: Colefax (wallpapers), Fletcher King (real estate, surveying), and Tribal spring to mind. Difficult to jump on board all three, but I got on the Tribal bus, despite it rising by over 10% as soon as the news hit the market. Also interesting to see that directors increased their holdings in Victoria (VCP) ... may have to buy more of those.

A down week for the FTSE100 (minus 0.84%), and one of those weeks when I beat the market by best part of 2%. Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has been marked down on possibility of hostile bid for ABN Amro (silly, surely, to offer shares when PE of RBS is much lower than target company).

2007: a difficult, but good, first quarter

Quite a lot of profit disappointments and negative trading statements, and I spent the first few weeks underperforming the FTSEAllShare. And yet, I've had a good quarter: at 30 March my portfolio had made 7.0% capital gain compared to the FTSEAllShare's 1.96% and the FTSESmallCo's 2.76%. That's over £32,000 (nearly $60,000) ....* Quite a chunk of the gains are due to strong gains in Character Toys and Coffee Republic ... plus a takeover for E.Wood, one of my top-ten holdings, effectively brought me nearly an extra £5,000 before breakfast one March morning.

* There's none for that greedy bloated socialist Gordon Brown (and I've gifted quite a lot of it to relatives and some friends) ... and, given our stupid inheritance/death tax rate of 40%, I've got nearly half a £million to spend at 40% off!