.. of mine has been a series of very small bets against there being a UK General Election in 2007. There were a number of senior politicians who thought there would be an election. Let me list them:
Prime Minister, Gordon Brown
Education Secretary, Ed Balls
Ed Milliband
Douglas Alexander
Well, it's only £200, but the frustration to these socialists is worth so much more to me.
4 December 2007
Gloomy November
It's been a rotten month for my portfolio. Financials and smaller companies, where I'm overweight, have been badly hit. The figures for 2007 as at end-November:
This looks likely to be my first year of relative underperformance since 1998. No whingeing, it's my fault. The credit crisis has intensified and the Governor of the Bank of England has warned recently of the dangers of a sharp correction in share prices (but he was probably looking at the general level of the UK market, as measured by the FTSE100 and hadn't noticed that there has already been a sharp correction suffered by smaller companies).
My recent strategy, due to scepticism about the strength of the UK economy after 10 years of tax-and-spend socialism under NuLabour, has been to reduce UK exposure, especially to the shares of retailers, and to increase overseas holdings. However, some sectors, such as real estate and and non-residential construction and quite a few smaller companies appear to me to have become oversold. This has led me to purchase: more Kier, Land Securities, and T.Clarke. There are quite a few smaller companies with yields above 5% and P/E ratios below 10 where I'll be looking for bargains as funds become available.
Me -4.4%
FTSEAllShare +4.7%
FTSESmallCos -9.8%
This looks likely to be my first year of relative underperformance since 1998. No whingeing, it's my fault. The credit crisis has intensified and the Governor of the Bank of England has warned recently of the dangers of a sharp correction in share prices (but he was probably looking at the general level of the UK market, as measured by the FTSE100 and hadn't noticed that there has already been a sharp correction suffered by smaller companies).
My recent strategy, due to scepticism about the strength of the UK economy after 10 years of tax-and-spend socialism under NuLabour, has been to reduce UK exposure, especially to the shares of retailers, and to increase overseas holdings. However, some sectors, such as real estate and and non-residential construction and quite a few smaller companies appear to me to have become oversold. This has led me to purchase: more Kier, Land Securities, and T.Clarke. There are quite a few smaller companies with yields above 5% and P/E ratios below 10 where I'll be looking for bargains as funds become available.
9 November 2007
Two steps forward, three steps back
This title might summarise a horribly difficult late-summer and autumn period for me, where I have made some bad mistakes. Worst has been following quite heavy share purchases by directors of Northern Rock. This alone has lost me more than £10k - my largest ever losses on a single share. My purchases of financials has also proved too early and cost me dearly. My outperformance of the (pathetic) FTSE has disappeared making this my worst year since 2001. As at 2nd Nov:
I should add that I am more pessimistic about the UK economy than hitherto. It is being emasculated by the creeping (creepy) socialism and rampant (and intolerant) political correctness of the Labour government. I was happy to see Gordon Brown and Ed Balls exhibit their idiocy over the election-that-never-was. At least I made some money on betting against there being an autumn election. I have also bet on the UK election being postponed until 2010.
Unfortunately, this all imples two-and-a-half years more damage being inflicted by these high-spending clowns. Against this background, I have recently invested more in overseas markets and reduced holdings in shares dependent on the domestic UK market.
Me - 5.6%The reduced market values of UK banks now seem to far exceed even a worst-case scenario of sub-prime infection - see here. So I have continued buying. In the short-run this has been painful.
FTSEAllShare - 6.4%
FTSESmallCos - -1.5%
I should add that I am more pessimistic about the UK economy than hitherto. It is being emasculated by the creeping (creepy) socialism and rampant (and intolerant) political correctness of the Labour government. I was happy to see Gordon Brown and Ed Balls exhibit their idiocy over the election-that-never-was. At least I made some money on betting against there being an autumn election. I have also bet on the UK election being postponed until 2010.
Unfortunately, this all imples two-and-a-half years more damage being inflicted by these high-spending clowns. Against this background, I have recently invested more in overseas markets and reduced holdings in shares dependent on the domestic UK market.
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