My 2020 review!! An insight into another Private Investors' portfolio and activity...

6th Feb '21 by InvestorJohn

14 comments 2382 reads

In Summary my overall portfolio is up by 24% for 2020 :-)
2020 is finally over and my YTD is +24% which I am very chuffed with since I was down 40% at one point in march! At one point I would even have been happy with breakeven!

My portfolio performance vs the FTSE All share

I hope all my readers and their families are all keeping well amidst the Covid outbreak, hopefully we can return to some sort of normality at some point this year...

Excuse the brevity and lack of detail here as it is hard to motivate myself to look back at what just happened, I reckon my time is better spent looking at the present and what I can do to maximise returns this year. This is an interesting quote...

Number of Trades

Buy Trades 70 - (That was for 14 New Holdings and 56 Top ups to existing holdings!) This gives a bit of a clue what I was doing amid the chaos ;-)

Sell Trades 13 (13 Different companies completely sold) This included 3 Takeovers in 2020

Again I have been adding capital to my portfolio throughout the year so this means I was buying into some new stocks and adding to existing holdings that were doing well and averaging up. This year was an unusual year in that amid all the chaos I was also averaging down because in some cases I was pretty sure the market was over reacting.

In general I remain fully invested at all times but at the moment I am holding off buying until we see a bit more turmoil in the markets. Early January has been quite smooth with momentum coming from Brexit deal, Vaccine news and also US news regarding their new president and his potential spending plans.

Broker Charges

Total Charges for the year came to £1040 - This was made up of £924 for dealing 83 times (Average £11.13 Commission per deal) and Platform fees of £120 less a whopping £4.15 of Interest! (That interest shows that I am usually fully invested!)

Most of my deals are via Hargreaves Lansdown at £11.95 the rest are Interactive Investor at £7.99

Dividends

Dividends received were around 1.8% on approximate average Cash invested at the end of the year (Ending Cash Invested + Starting Cash invested /2) Maybe there is…

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john652

10th Feb '21

interesting, more so for making you think about writing an annual review. Similar to a podcast recently about writing a brokers note before you buy a share, process & execution is everything!

Did you have a % of cash before March, do you hold a set %, im assuming you have a process as you had cash for 56 top ups?

Thanks

doug2500

Most of your charts look like they're from stockopedia, but where did you get the style analysis one from, the 9 squares? I used to get that when I had an account with TD Direct.

Rusty2

That is on Stockopedia, folio and then allocation.

DWit199

I can only find the style analysis on the old Stockopedia site.

11th Feb '21

Could be right, I only use the old site, too many things missing on the new site.

bradbox

Thanks for sharing this.

I have a similar trading approach to you (but automating stop losses rather than your naughty step).

I keep a portfolio transaction spreadsheet with some live pricing feeds and recently updated it to show what would have happened if I had kept the same positions (not sold and bought). It provides some interesting analysis. It would be interesting to see what would have happened to your portfolio if you reduced those 70 trades.

InvestorJohn

That is from the Old version of the site - I switch to the old site to grab that data and then switch back! Still waiting on Ed to put this feature in the new folio section...

Hi @john652 Yes its helpful to make a note at time of purchase on why you can justify your decision, and useful too to have a look back and do a sanity check...

I am typically almost fully invested - so less than 2% cash at any time in my portfolios. This is balanced by the fact that I run my own business so have a bit more cashflow and funds moving around.

This means I can allocate more funds (when available) from business profits to my portfolios when the market is offering me an attractive discount. Any spare funds are fed in each year a few times a year so that is how I keep topping up. Last year I hit it lucky to some degree because I sold a rental property (at a loss I might add) and the funds cleared to my account on the 18th of Feb 2020 just before all hell broke loose!

I have found that the automated version ends up frustrating me by selling out on short term movements and that it is better to give a bit of leeway

Of course this has also caught me out on occasion so I wouldn't condemn your approach at all!

Since I was adding to the portfolio last year it was hard to avoid some of the trades (56 of them were top ups)

Auto stop losses often take you out of shares that dip down, I have given up using them,last one was XP Power (LON:XPP)

They may work better in the us markets.

Last year I hit it lucky to some degree because I sold a rental property (at a loss I might add) and the funds cleared to my account on the 18th of Feb 2020 just before all hell broke loose!

The timing might have been lucky but it's not easy to get stuck in and start buying at a time like that so credit to you for that.

portugull

10th Mar '21

Thank you Investor John for your brilliant review for 2020. It really got me thinking and now I have done the same analysis for my Portfolio. It has made me realise last year I was overtrading.

At 31 December 2020 I had 32 positions. I bought 72 New Holdings compared to your 14. I added 41 times compared to your 56 times. I had 75 sells to your 13 with 2 takeovers CDM and RRE.

I use HL and Commission Charges were £1,613 an average of £8-49. Transfer Stamp Costs were £1 ,451 & Foreign Exchange Charges £632.

On 18th March 2020 I was 33% down but finished the year up 17% which I was very happy with given the volatility in Feb/March.

This year I am going to make a real effort to stick to a few fundamental rules and spend more time on research.

13th Mar '21

17% is a great return @portugull! If we could get those sort of returns year on year it would be amazing

I see we hold a similar number of positions at around 32...

You had a lot of turnover and I'm sure you will have seen some of those sells go on to perform well?

Maybe you are buying into other peoples ideas and then they are low conviction buys meaning you sell out at the first sign of trouble? Or is your stop loss too tight maybe??

Certainly food for thought but well done on a great return in such a difficult year!

14th Mar '21

Thank you Investor John for your reply yesterday. In answer to your question about some of my sells going on to do well you are so right. The most spectacular and infuriating was £BOTB. Sold Feb 2020 at 420p (3500 shares) for a 32% gain only to see the price soar to £35. Ouch! M&c Saatchi (LON:SAA) sold for 79p has doubled. Also Next Fifteen Communications (LON:NFC) sold at 372p now 642p up 72%.

I am certainly going to concentrate more on my high conviction holdings. Entain (LON:ENT) is a big favourite of mine because they are cleaning up in the USA due to States legalising gambling.

What you did in reviewing your performance was so helpful and also shows the importance of keeping meticulous records of all trades. Thank you again.

My 2020 review!! An insight into another Private Investors' portfolio and activity...

Number of Trades

Broker Charges

Dividends

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InvestorJohn

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