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My Current Portfolio

A helpful place to also put any annual reports etc, of your own portfolios
dspp
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Re: My Current Portfolio

#87074

Postby dspp » October 9th, 2017, 10:38 pm

Hariseldon58 wrote:It’s notable that many mix the HYP and IT’s , Funds and ETF’s but I am curious, what is the reason to hold 10 or 15 individual companies at all ? Within otherwise well diversified portfolios,


1. Personally I hold 30-35 companies as well as the "well-diversified" collectives.
2. But occasionally if one thinks there is special sauce out there one has to load up on the risk to go after that sauce.

regards, dspp

BreakoutBoy
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Re: My Current Portfolio

#87088

Postby BreakoutBoy » October 10th, 2017, 4:32 am

Hariseldon58 wrote:Apart from Berkshire Hathaway, which is far more than a single business, I don’t really see the point in holding individual shares compared to the Fund/ tracker / Investment Trust , the saving in running cost is scant compensation for the lack of diversity and admin involved. For some it becomes a hobby and a few clearly have done well out of it but most of us are going to better off in a collective.

I did some research in 2016 on my 35 share HYP from 2006-2008 , which I sold out of in 2008, in 2016 I did the total return comparison on a no tinker basis with the FTSE100, City of London and my actual portfolio ( more global and in the latter years mostly passive )

The conclusion was that I was a dreadful stick picker , slightly underperforming the FTSE100, significant underperformance of City of London and a huge underperformance of my actual portfolio. I doubt if I was alone in being a lousy stick picker...

It’s notable that many mix the HYP and IT’s , Funds and ETF’s but I am curious, what is the reason to hold 10 or 15 individual companies at all ? Within otherwise well diversified portfolios,


I absolutely wholeheartedly agree. I think HYP is a viable but a flawed way to invest, and I could have better investment returns since starting had I been 100% in collectives. The major source of any underperformance was my selection of CLLN, ALY and PSON which with hindsight look crazy. Why did I get those wrong? Well I was blindly adding sectors despite their secular decline like a good HYP-er and I was chasing yield over a solid balance sheet. What I was adding was riskier players that were declining, badly. The lesson for me was for individual shares, several years worth of data need to be plotted and falling interest cover needs to be identified, together with a close look at intangibles and adjustments.

In defence of individual shareholding: my first several picks were spectacularly successful, with RIO up 125%, RDSB up 80%, and HSBC up 70%. It seems obvious with the benefit of hindsight that the commodities bust was overdone and the miners were offering value at that point in the cycle. Likewise the beaten-up banking sector looked like a risk worth taking in early 2016. An no doubt similar opportunities will be thrown up in future, and I want to be able to take advantage of them.

Hariseldon58
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Re: My Current Portfolio

#87566

Postby Hariseldon58 » October 11th, 2017, 7:22 pm

DSPP
No offence meant, there are clearly some excellent HYP stock pickers , my thoughts are that most people probably are at my level, ie not very good and less competent than the professional managers, of whom, some are good but many are less than great.

Diversified , low cost collectives on the hand can do very well for a normally intelligent amateur. (My preference is ETFs and some ITs but it’s a case of choose your own preferred collective.)

I feel the HYP is a small subset of the U.K. market which in turn is a small subset of the World market and in limiting the scope of ones investments to U.K. listed stocks, is losing sight of many other, often more attractive investment opportunities.

BreakoutBoy
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Re: My Current Portfolio

#88003

Postby BreakoutBoy » October 13th, 2017, 3:23 pm

A quick bit of portfolio business: An automatic reinvestment that I had set up months ago and completely forgotten about triggered and bought some more VWRL with some of September's bumper accumulated dividends. Not great timing just as the price had powered past 62 quid (my usual practice is to aim to buy below 60).

I have now disabled the auto-buy, as left to my own devices I would have preferred to accumulate cash until month end.

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Re: My Current Portfolio

#88410

Postby BreakoutBoy » October 15th, 2017, 4:20 pm

I have been playing with the Bogleheads Returns Google sheet to work out an XIRR for the portfolio.

The difficulty of measuring this this is apparent in the decisions of what to include: If we count the return on the actual cash money invested then the "Trailing investor return (money-weighted return, internal rate of return)" is 30.9%. However that includes a whole bunch of basic tax rebate in the SIPP portion of the portfolio. And ignores the higher rate rebate I obtain through Self Assessment.

If one wants to know the success of investment strategy then one would ignore the effects of tax rebates. However, tax is real, and tax rebates represent a real return on the cash I assign to invest in a tax wrapper like a SIPP. So I am content to include the rebate as an investment return, because it allows a true comparison with the alternative course of action which is to leave the money piling up in a savings account.

tjh290633
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Re: My Current Portfolio

#88441

Postby tjh290633 » October 15th, 2017, 9:26 pm

Going back to the time when PEPs could reclaim the tax deducted from dividends, I always included the tax reclaimed in the income received, and it contributed to the IRR calculation. More recently the dividends from REITs suffered tax, also reclaimed until the manager arranged to receive them gross.

Nowadays I feel no need to include the tax which I do not pay by virtue of them being inside a tax shelter.

TJH

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Re: My Current Portfolio

#88713

Postby BreakoutBoy » October 16th, 2017, 9:53 pm

On another tax matter I just discovered this little zinger from my broker:

"A W-8BEN form is not required for US investments held within a SIPP as the IRS recognises our SIPP as a qualifying pension scheme and all qualifying US dividends and interest are automatically paid to you free of any withholding tax."

Wow. AJ Bell Youinvest have come up trumps again: I have held back from buying US shares due to the tax complications and had just filled out a W-8BEN for my ISAs. Now I know that the SIPP is effectively 0% dividend taxation on US shareholdings, the simplest course of action is probably to weight any US holdings towards the SIPP.

I have long craved owning Coca-Cola shares, 3M shares and all sorts of other US global giants. Now I find I can do it without incurring withholding tax!

torata
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Re: My Current Portfolio

#88752

Postby torata » October 17th, 2017, 1:10 am

BreakoutBoy wrote:"A W-8BEN form is not required for US investments held within a SIPP as the IRS recognises our SIPP as a qualifying pension scheme and all qualifying US dividends and interest are automatically paid to you free of any withholding tax."

Wow. AJ Bell Youinvest have come up trumps again.


Thanks for pointing that out, I'd never noticed and as you say, it does open up the investing universe with less hassle.

Here's the actual link: https://www.youinvest.co.uk/our-services/international-dealing about half way down

torata

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2017 results

#107133

Postby BreakoutBoy1 » January 1st, 2018, 10:47 am

As 2017 draws to a close I have calculated the YoY total return for the portfolio: I use the Bogleheads returns calculator.

The result: Year on year my total return with dividends reinvested has been 23%.

This result includes a small basic tax rate rebate on Sipp contributions as an investment profit accounting for around 7% of total return, but excludes cash contributions. I wanted to be able to compare the effect of stock market investment vs the alternative course of action open to me which would be consumer spending or remaining in cash, in part to have some decent data to persuade my risk-averse better half to invest in equities.

ADrunkenMarcus
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Re: 2017 results

#107161

Postby ADrunkenMarcus » January 1st, 2018, 3:37 pm

BreakoutBoy1 wrote: I wanted to be able to compare the effect of stock market investment vs the alternative course of action open to me which would be consumer spending or remaining in cash, in part to have some decent data to persuade my risk-averse better half to invest in equities.


I tend to find some of the most 'risk averse' people are taking considerable risk. I know someone whose savings have been sat in cash, in an easy-access account for the best part of a decade now, shrinking every year in real terms as inflation outpaces the interest received on their cash. And, those cash savings are in sterling which has weakened considerably compared to other currencies!

Yet they seem to think their savings are 'safe' because they always know - to the penny - how much is in their account...

Best wishes


Mark.


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