The Trading Log

[StepOne]

current position:

32% RDSB
19% BP
25% TOTAL/FP
24% uninvested

I expect to trim back the RDSB and BP a little in coming months if there's a sudden rally in oil or crash in GBP, or if something like BRK gets cheap or the Aussie dollar crashes or something.

"... or something".

[compscidude]

Moving roughly 6.25% of portfolio from RDSB to TOTAL SE (FP) at prevailing prices at time of this post.

RDSB : 966p

TOTAL : 26.82 EUR, forex: 1.110 GBPEUR


Reason for trade: RDSB has rallied up 10% further than Total in the last few days of trading, and on balance, I prefer Total as an energy company - less (net) debt, greater investment in renewables, potentially slightly less affected by Brexit (energy trading is a brexit issue, sadly).

[redsturgeon]

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[StepOne]

compscidude

SELL BRK-B.NYSE (Berkshire Hathaway) 20% of portfolio
SELL MYI.L (Murray International IT) 10% of portfolio

(Price at close, Friday 9th 2016).

Hi Comps,

BRK-B.NYSE up 40% since you sold.
MYI.L down about 15%, but including dividends would be slightly up.

Just wondered if you had a feel for why you got these trades wrong and whether you have changed your strategy?

Thanks,
StepOne

[Itsallaguess]

SELL BRK-B.NYSE (Berkshire Hathaway) 20% of portfolio
SELL MYI.L (Murray International IT) 10% of portfolio

(Price at close, Friday 9th 2016).

Hi Comps,

BRK-B.NYSE up 40% since you sold.
MYI.L down about 15%, but including dividends would be slightly up.

Just wondered if you had a feel for why you got these trades wrong and whether you have changed your strategy?

I think it's always good to revisit investment decisions StepOne, and I think it's also good to recognise peoples aptitudes in making them, and what their record in doing so looks like.

For instance, in this earlier Lemon Fool thread from 2016, Comps was claiming that December 2016 was a very risky time to be in the market, and every indicator he was looking at was screaming danger -

So I am ringing my 'danger' bell.

....

I am simply talking about the present danger of suffering from an almighty, investment-career-destroying crash, a risk which is higher than it has been since the year 2000, according to the Shiller PER understanding of overvaluation.

We are already looking now at an overvaluation of the US market which is worse than 2007. Do you remember 2007-2008?

Between 1920 and 1930 a lot of people made money. Then, they lost it, and it took twenty years to recover.

.....

If I was someone that was 100% committed to staying in the market no matter what, I would probably switch any US holdings I have into UK holdings, as the UK market seems less overvalued, given the weak pound and lack of historical records being set.

https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1631

I'm not sure if you've taken a look at how the US market has done since December 2016, and compared that to how the UK market has performed since that time?

Here's a couple of interesting charts from the time of those 2016 claims until close of play yesterday -



So we can clearly see that anyone following that idea to switch out of US markets and into UK markets in December 2016 would not only have lost the chance to make DOW gains of 43% over that period (which includes the impact of a global pandemic, let's not forget...), but would also have suffered from a terrible compounding loss of 15.5% by moving over to the UK market at that time...

If we look at how the S&P did over the same period, we can see that it did even better than the DOW, and has made gains of over 55% since December 2016, so that would be a potential 71% loss caused by switching out of the S&P and into the FTSE at the time -



I'm not quite sure that the ideas given at the time of that 'Ring Ring' thread could have been any more wrong in fact, and I'm happy to say that I was glad I completely ignored it at that time....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[Itsallaguess]

I did mean to provide a link to the source for the above charts, so here it is from Google Finance - https://www.google.co.uk/search?tbm=fin&q=dow&oq=dow

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[StepOne]

I'm not quite sure that the ideas given at the time of that 'Ring Ring' thread could have been any more wrong in fact, and I'm happy to say that I was glad I completely ignored it at that time....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Yes, since May 2015 my SIPP which is almost entirely in US and EU trackers, is up about 80%, roughly 30% of which is contributions, so a 50% rise since the bell rang (more or less, I don't have a Dec 2016 figure for my SIPP value to hand). Achieved by doing absolutely nothing.

Of course, like many people I believe I can do better through timing and stock picking, so I have my 'trading' ISA portfolio, which is down 58% over the same period. Luckily this portfolio is a small (and getting smaller!) part of my retirement planning.

One day I hope I will learn the obvious lesson

Cheers,
StepOne

[compscidude]

Last 24% was put into GSK about a week ago, but for the portfolio here the price will be whatever the price of GSK.L is at 9am Monday 11th January.

Buy, 24%, GSK.L, whatever the price is 9am Monday 11th January.

[compscidude]

Changed my mind on GSK not long after investing, decided to sell back on Friday afternoon when the price covered my stamp duty & trade fee. I think I have a better idea, less risk & more potential reward. More to follow.

Sold GSK back at 1409p (market close was 1414p). Buy price at 9am the other day was 1400p, sell 1409p, for ~£0 profit/loss after stamp duty/fee [1]. That part of the portfolio is back in cash.

[edit] [1] as far as this trading log is concerned

[compscidude]

Buying something, 24% of portfolio, but I have some friends who want to buy some too, it's a bit thinly traded and at a good price, so I don't want to draw attention to it.

I will reveal the mystery in a few days, for anyone who cares

MD5 checksum to prevent cheating with hindsight: 0b45e91c4942d5e65a7660ad5da3f639


p.s. Still wondering why this thread was merged long ago into 'trading my way to a million'. A million???? I'll be quite glad if I can buy a week's supply of fish suppers one day at the market maker's expense.

[Clitheroekid]

Are you still holding your RDSB / BP / Total shares? If so, you should be showing a decent return.