Its October already!! An insight into another Private Investors' portfolio...

21st Oct '20 by InvestorJohn

10 comments 2885 reads

So much for giving an update in August! Hope you all had a nice summer and remain safe and well?

It has been busy, busy for me and there always seems to be something better to do than to update things here! Spare time has been spent on research and maintaining my portfolio in general, as well as working full time.

I won't waste any time talking about Coronavirus as I am sure you will have heard enough about it for today!

I am posting this update on Stockopedia for the first time to let more people see what I am up to, sometimes it is nice to see how someone else does it and what way they are thinking...

None of this is advice or recommendations.

Summer/Q3 summary

Number of Holdings 33 at time of writing (Down 4 since last update in May)
Calendar YTD +3.3% (Up 15% since last update)
Buy Trades 19 ( 16 Top ups & 3 New Holdings)
Sell Trades 5
Takeovers 2

I am working towards reducing my number of holdings back down to weed out any low conviction holdings and any that are just too small to move the dial on overall portfolio performance. I read an interesting article which suggested that 20-25 stocks was about as high as you should go to be diversified and although I do agree, I have always found it hard to achieve. How many stocks do you hold?

I had added a few more in the COVID crisis as starter positions but need to consolidate again, down to a maximum of 30 Holdings and as mentioned ideally 25.

Looking at what I have been buying you will see that I have been trying to build positions in stocks that I already own and believe in. There has been some that I have been able to buy at better prices and some as usual that I am averaging up on as the story and performance progresses.

June

BUYS - CHH, VLG

In June I bought some Churchill China (LON:CHH) at £10.74 on the hope that Covid would be defeated by now... It was a play on the revival of the hospitality sector. I have always admired this company as a quality pick with ROCE and Operating Margin always in double digits and…

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Howard Adams

21st Oct '20

Hi Investor John

An interesting write up, thank you.

As a matter of interest, you pointed out 'This has taken quite some time to pull together'.

In doing this review did you identifying any new ideas which had been lurking around but your review bought them into focus?

Did the review catalyse you to take different actions on your holdings beyond what your normal investing procedures led you to do?

I guess in short, I'm asking, what actions did the writing up lead you to do, which you would not normally have done?

Regards

Howard

InvestorJohn

Hi Howard thanks for the comment,

In answer to your question it didn't change anything but forces me to review what I am doing and be more disciplined.

It has however taught me to make a note each time I trade, so I enter a note on the trade entry that then helps me detail my thinking at the time of buying or selling - as a result if I cant write a quick comment on the trade then why place the trade at all?

Best regards,

John

MiserableJacktPotato

I regularly have that "what on earth was I thinking when I bought these"! :) Top tip add it into the transaction notes at the time, thanks for that.

MGrundy

26th Oct '20

Thanks for sharing all of this insight! As a newbie to investing, it's good to see the makeup of other part-time investor portfolios and the amount of buying and selling done. Honesty about the losses is great to see too.

I currently hold 8 positions and aim to get to around 15 over the next 6 months.

Thanks for the feedback! You can check out previous updates and rationale on my website...

Nit A

27th Oct '20

Hi InvestorJohn,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. It looks like you have got good size of holding on LON:BOO. Looking at last weeks fall, are you still bullish on it?

Thanks

29th Oct '20

Yes still bullish on Boohoo (LON:BOO) for now... of course I note the bad press recently but still think that people will vote with their feet and that the BooHoo policy of "stack em high sell em cheap " will resonate with the cash strapped consumer who knows nothing about ESG

The price movements don't worry me, some insurmountable scandal would...

Robo_Steve

20th Nov '20

oh wow, finally found someone else holding IDHC I'm pretty new to equity markets so take my thesis with a pinch of salt https://docs.google.com/docume...

I agree with your comments, i think its macro sentiment keeping the price down, their most comparable business like Dr Lal in India trading at close to 90x earnings

Momoko Miyamoto

14th Jun '21

Wanted to ask you if you had difficulty in building your position in Integrated Diagnostics Holdings (LON:IDHC) , I could only get a quote for 1k online with AJBell and they wouldn’t even let me place a limit order. Eventually dealt over the phone but had to pay over the spread.

18th Jun '21

I hadn't seen any problems at all! All bought through Hargreaves Lansdown

Its October already!! An insight into another Private Investors' portfolio...

Summer/Q3 summary

June

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InvestorJohn

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