The Lemon Fool

I've done a litte better than that. The FTSE100 is down about 6% for the year. Our funds - me and Mrs MP run SIPPs and Isas, plus employer DC schemes - are down 2.3% for the year when I exclude new savings. With the new money, we're down just 1.3% and I'm happy with that.

We are retiring at the end of April, when we will collect a considerable amount of tax free cash from our employers' DB schemes, so I'm happy to see markets stay flat until I can collect this and invest it at lower prices. Our retirement funds - excluding some DB deferred pensions we both have - are mostly invested in income focussed ITs.

Tell me about it!

Sea of red as FTSE set for worst quarter since 2011

1nv35t wrote:Good news if you're looking to add shares, not so good if you're looking to sell. So by the OP saying Bad Start To Year I guess they're selling.

Back then, the OP was looking at buying:

viewtopic.php?p=121184#p121184

I normally do not watch the "portfolio" value that closely but after this went and had a look. Based on January's figures. Febraury was -4.89%. March -2.42% down on February. So -7.31% on the year. Cannot give y-o-y as from April to June last year sold shares to fund project.

Good time to buy?

Raptor

1nv35t wrote:Good news if you're looking to add shares, not so good if you're looking to sell. So by the OP saying Bad Start To Year I guess they're selling.

If you already own a lot of shares and are buying only a few more, then you might not be that happy about lower prices.

On the other hand if you are sitting on a big pile of cash waiting for lower prices, then it would be good. But then how long have you been doing that for? Prices have been going up for nearly ten years now so you might have missed a lot of profits.

Lower prices are good if you are reinvesting accumulated dividends, with the objective of getting increased income. It's the old story, watch the dividends and not the prices.

An article in yesterday's Telegraph was predicting bumper increases in dividends in 2018. Can't spot it online at the moment.

TJH

tjh290633 wrote:
An article in yesterday's Telegraph was predicting bumper increases in dividends in 2018.

Can't spot it online at the moment.

I think it might be this one Terry -

Embattled investors will be rewarded with a bumper spring payday despite the worst quarter for global stocks in years. Dividends are set to soar to as much as $400bn (£285bn) in the coming months, easing the pain caused by a turbulent start to the year on markets.

Wall Street analysts estimate that dividends could climb to a monthly record of $174bn in May.

Payouts are expected to be driven higher by buoyant global growth and the savings generated from Donald Trump’s huge corporate tax cuts. Morgan Stanley calculated $400bn is set to be paid into investor accounts between March and May in what is typically a high season for dividend payments.

The investment bank argued that the payout will provide “some welcome (temporary) relief” for investors amid a surge in volatility on markets.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... et-misery/

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Itsallaguess wrote:

tjh290633 wrote:
An article in yesterday's Telegraph was predicting bumper increases in dividends in 2018.

Can't spot it online at the moment.

I think it might be this one Terry -

Embattled investors will be rewarded with a bumper spring payday despite the worst quarter for global stocks in years. Dividends are set to soar to as much as $400bn (£285bn) in the coming months, easing the pain caused by a turbulent start to the year on markets.

Wall Street analysts estimate that dividends could climb to a monthly record of $174bn in May.

Payouts are expected to be driven higher by buoyant global growth and the savings generated from Donald Trump’s huge corporate tax cuts. Morgan Stanley calculated $400bn is set to be paid into investor accounts between March and May in what is typically a high season for dividend payments.

The investment bank argued that the payout will provide “some welcome (temporary) relief” for investors amid a surge in volatility on markets.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... et-misery/

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

That's the one. Many thanks.

TJH

1nv35t wrote:Conceptually a companies value and hence its share price will drop by the amount of dividend transferred off its books (paid to you). Reinvesting dividends when prices are low is in effect no different to not having paid a dividend. Spending dividends instead of not reinvesting them when prices are low is in effect no different to selling low.

We are aware about what happens when a share goes XD, but remember that accumulated dividends are not necessarily invested in the source shares.

The more reliable and less opaque story is to look at total return, price and dividends combined. "Dividends are less volatile than price" is also another misconception, at times dividend values have declined more than share prices. Just a matter of which time period you opt to measure over.

That is no misconception, it is a fact. You have an odd concept of volatility.

TJH

Congratulations on your good recent performance. Have you posted a description of your portfolio somewhere? This would make it easier to get a sense of how comparable your results are with other peoples'.

I'm "up" an anaemic 2.58% YTD. The decline in Vodafone and Tobacco stocks the main drag on a YTD basis anyway. Bought some more Vodafone yesterday upon receipt of their huge dividend payout. As things stand today if I finish '18 up >5-6% I'll be really Glad. GLA!

My own overall TR performance on the year to date appears to be around 3.1% for my SIPP and 4.6% for my other investments, both largely IT and ETF based. The SIPP includes a fair number of wealth preservation elements (e.g. things like PNL / Ruffer, ZDPs, index linked gilts, etc), and these have dragged down its overall return this year.

Sat down to work out the monthly figures using the spreadsheet: Up a pleasing 1.6% investment return on the month, 8.6% YTD. I should just quit now while I am ahead of the annual 8% investment return target my FIRE plan calls for....

ap8889, I took a look at your portfolio (many thanks for the detailed listing), and I'm struggling to see where your 8.6% return is coming from. Your OEICs and ITs appear to have returned something close to this, but your ETFs and your Equities appear to have returned less.

I wonder if perhaps you are including your new savings / pension contributions as part of the return? I can see this would make sense for you, as you track your progress towards FIRE (I certainly tracked my total wealth each month while I was working and saving towards FIRE, and indeed still do), but it makes portfolio performance comparisons difficult...

Hi again ap8889, that explains it.

I had a somewhat different approach to the same need. To explain the outcome of my savings and investment activities to my partner, I usually just showed her the bottom line every few months, i.e. our total wealth growing over time. But for my own purposes, to monitor how my investments were performing, I treated pension tax refunds in the same way as my own contributions, so I would see the same return for an identical set of investments, no matter what wrapper they were in, e.g. SIPP, ISA, investment account. (At least in principle - timings of new investment money will in practice often be different in different types of account, for a variety of reasons.)

I'll take a closer look at the Bogleheads sheet, I might be able to use that myself. It would hopefully be simpler than messing about with XIRR in Excel, which I do once in a while to work out my overall return.

Darwin wrote:Tell me about it!

Sea of red as FTSE set for worst quarter since 2011

And we're back again at 7277 for the FTSE100!

that makes them cheaper to buy!

The Winners for the year: - - Jardine Lloyd Thompson is being taken over at £19.15 per share. AZN is exceptionally well run and has had some medical breakthrough. GSK/RR are both being restructured. Tate & Lyle New Purchase last week........
The Losers for the year: -
- Vodafone must be near bottom now, dividend (albeit expensively bought looks safe) and sale-and-lease back of masts, Indian & Australian restructuring should bare fruit going forward. New CEO @ BATS, last one "retired". Can see no logical reason beyond market-sentiment for decline at Inchcape.
- This year, so far, TR has been very poor although dividends received (albeit all reinvested) have been well ahead of 2017. I do like some of the rationale behind HYP, however "capital doesn't matter" doesn't appeal to me. 2018 may end up being the year were I console myself with increasing dividends and ignore capital. IF Vodafone and Tobacco stocks recover I'm very well positioned!!

Hope you're right about Vodafone, and that tobacco comes back - IMB are one of my biggest losers, which would have sounded ridiculous not so long ago.
Now if only the South African political situation would stabilise then my Pan African Resources gold shares would get back to normal (i.e. double), and if the UK political situation would stabilise then National Grid and SSE might improve. Petrofac getting rid of their SFO investigation would be nice too.

No idea what would help Inmarsat though

spiderbill wrote:No idea what would help Inmarsat though

Solar flare.............but then that would clobber the insurers

spiderbill wrote:
No idea what would help Inmarsat though

A takeover, it seemed to be a possibility a few months ago

RC

ap8889 wrote:So, a little late for this months report.

Possibly because it is depressing: down a further 2.7%.

My 12 month return is showing I am up 2.6 % which is crap, scant reward for the risks. But them's the breaks and that's the market at the moment. Gotta be in it to win it.

Oh well, maybe 2019 will be better!

Just console yourself with the fact that any new money and dividends will now go further- the only valuation that really matters is the one when you wish to start encashing the savings.

Must admit has not been a good year, each year I forecast where I hope to be at the end of the year, I tend to allow 7-8% uplift, 2018/2019 is certainly not going to make the target so the consolation is now that 2016/2017 managed it in spades and 2017/2018 was unspectacular but steady. (I work on tax years)