Hello everyone, happy new year and welcome to the 20s! From an investment perspective 2019 was another volatile one, but unlike 2018 at least the markets finished with a flourish, with the UK in particular benefiting from a significant festive boost following Boris's majority in the election.
The FTSE Allshare total return (including dividends) during 2019 was 19.17% (according to www.ftserussell.com/products/indeces/uk ). Not too shabby. Handily my ISA portfolio trumped that by a whisker posting 19.93% (NB this figure is net of all fees).
As always, for the sake of simplicity, any shares bought using "fresh" capital (i.e. monies not from re-invested divs or sales of existing holdings) have been discounted from the return.
My top 5 performers over the year were CMG - +88.9%, AAPL +85.9%, GOCO +50.3%, RMV +44.3% and BKG +40.3%
Bottom 5 were DPEU -47.7%, IMB -21.5%, AA -21%, CARD -18.5% and FEET -7.56%
My US stocks notably provided a tailwind (US indices did very well last year), but as over 70% of the portfolio is UK listed I feel that the Allshare TR is still a valid benchmark.
Here's how things currently stand:
Rank | Ticker | P'folio % |
1 | FCSS | 6.91% |
2 | BRK.B(US) | 6.33% |
3 | IGG | 4.82% |
4 | FEET | 4.50% |
5 | BATS | 4.29% |
6 | IMB | 3.84% |
7 | GOOG(US) | 3.74% |
8 | ULVR | 3.56% |
9 | SBUX(US) | 3.56% |
10 | VVAL | 3.43% |
11 | MYI | 3.29% |
12 | DGE | 3.20% |
13 | RTN | 3.16% |
14 | LLOY | 3.14% |
15 | IGR | 2.90% |
16 | PEP(US) | 2.75% |
17 | DIS(US) | 2.67% |
18 | LGEN | 2.66% |
19 | AAPL(US) | 2.55% |
20 | FLTR | 2.22% |
21 | DOM | 2.19% |
22 | GSK | 2.15% |
23 | RB | 2.09% |
24 | SGE | 2.01% |
25 | AA | 1.88% |
26 | IHG | 1.76% |
27 | CMG(US) | 1.64% |
28 | AUTO | 1.39% |
29 | PM(US) | 1.21% |
30 | MONY | 1.11% |
31 | RMV | 1.08% |
32 | GOCO | 1.06% |
33 | BKG | 1.06% |
34 | MO(US) | 1.05% |
35 | PZC | 1.04% |
36 | AMZN(US) | 1.03% |
37 | AZN | 0.99% |
38 | MARS | 0.67% |
39 | CARD | 0.42% |
40 | DPEU | 0.35% |
41 | Cash | 0.29% |
There has been very little turnover (trading) since last year, I jettisoned my holding in the F&C Commercial Property Trust and have top sliced CMG a little, and have also added a small holding in Amazon.com, but aside from that, the only other portfolio activity has been to top up existing holdings.
Doing nothing helps keep costs to a minimum, and thus I endeavour to keep turnover as low as possible. I am reasonably confident that the majority of my holdings should do well on a 5 year time horizon and I intend to hold each for at least this duration. They all have relatively strong economic moats which hopefully shall withstand the test of time, but obviously I must re-evaluate each holding periodically in light of prevailing circumstances.
Performance over the past few years has moved relatively in sync with the index, which is quite surprising as there isn't really that much benchmark overlap. Rolling 5 year portfolio growth is 49.96% vs 43.8% for the All-share. It's been quite a while since I've outperformed the index by more than 5%. Not since 2013 to be exact. Having 41 holdings does diversify risk and volatility, but it also appears to bring a degree of mediocrity.
Notably my top ten holdings by portfolio weight at the start of 2018 have all detracted from performance during the last 2 years, my (slight) index outperformance over this period has been generated by a lot of smaller holdings stepping in to do the heavy lifting.
The tobacco sector, to which I am overexposed, remains very unloved, and also my overseas Investment Trusts have not fared well. With luck, a reversal of fortunes in these areas could see a marked improvement in overall relative performance.
The valuations/yields of big tobacco companies seem absurd to me, and most are forecasting dividend hikes over the next few years. The regulation of vaping in the US will massively benefit big tobacco as regulation acts as a barrier to trade to smaller companies and should mean that the oligopoly of nicotine delivery remains intact. Imperial Tobacco (IMB) seems a lame duck in the sector and is the only one I haven't added to in 2019, but priced at a forward PE of 6.86 and a forecast dividend yield of 11.1% it still looks decent value. Notably IMB recently started quite a large share buyback operation which should add value to the outstanding shares given the current market price.
There are a number of holdings that I am quite excited about, but to review them all would make this a very long post. If anyone would like me to comment on a particular holding please let me know below or DM me on twitter @mattbird55.
In other news my "Adventurous" pension, which is invested in a mix of active and passive open-ended funds finished up +17.6% which is relatively disappointing in comparison to benchmark, yet I am still above the IA Global Index since inception. Unfortunately I did hold a bit of Woodford Equity Income which was a huge disappointment, but luckily this was offset in part by stellar returns from Slater Growth (+36%), Buffettology (+25.5%), Fundsmith Equity (+24%) and a US tracker amongst others. The Slater Growth return seemed quite prescient following my interview with him in December last year (scroll to bottom of this link to view:- https://www.falcofinancial.co.uk/model-portfolios )
When I have a little more time I intend to evaluate my ISA portfolio metrics as I did last year, I will post findings from that at a later date, but In short not much has changed materially.
Until then, all the best.