My top 5 shares by weighting

I thought it would be interesting to share my top 5 shares by portfolio weighting, not conviction, from biggest holding to smallest:

• 3i (LON:III)
• BAE Systems (LON:BA.)
• Diploma (LON:DPLM)
• Cranswick (LON:CWK)
• Bloomsbury Publishing (LON:BMY)

They're the biggest for a variety of reasons. 3i because I tried to trim the number of shares in my portfolio, so I invested a larger amount. Bought Oct 2022 1139p. Now 1772p. I got lucky in the timing of this. This is a point to bear in mind. Sometimes the shares just went up a lot, which puts them in amongst the highest holdings.

BA. systems I bought in Nov 2012 at 575p. It was a Stockopedia high rank that made me select them. Then Ukraine happened, and the price is now 990p. I had a look at BA.'s performance over 20 years. It returned about 10.7% annually, compared to the ASX (FT All-Share of 4.0%). If you throw in a dividend of around 3%, you would have been getting around a 14-15% return over 20 years. Amazing for such a high-profile business that is on everybody's radar, if you'll forgive the pun. The shares have come off the boil lately, presumably for some profit-taking. In April prelims they said that they has a record order intake. I think that countries will be reviewing their defence spending in light of the Ukraine conflict, so I think the shares have further to go. Stockopedia has its PE on 16.2, which I regard as by no means as overrated. I'm tempted to think that this is a good buy-and-hold share.

DPLM is a good quality share that I bought back in Dec 2015 at 717p. Perhaps its quality isn't as good as when purchased, but I continue to hold. Price today is 2698, so obviously this has been a good winner for me.

CWK I bought in Sep 2022 and Dec 2022. Shares are up 6%, so I've nothing to add here.

BMY I bought in Jan 2022 based on Stockopedia stock ranks. I've no particular conviction in it. Its ROCE is not high, so I'm not ultra keen on it. It's been increasing its divvies by 10% annually over the last 5 years, which is nice. The stock rank is declining, so I had half been thinking of selling it. There seems to be some buzz about the author Sarah J Maas, who is a New York Times bestseller. So anyway, I'll stick around, see how it goes, despite the declining stock rank.

I won't go through the entirety of the rest of my portfolio, but just give some highlights below.

IG group (LON:IGG) is a share I'be had since Feb 2018 at 766p. It is a nice share platform, BTW. The price is now 727p (down 5%), making it the only share I've owned for at least 5 years that is actually down. I still think it's a good company, so I continue to hold. In comparison, the ASX is up around 6%.

I own some HALEON (LON:HLN), which is a spinoff, so it I wanted to see how that went. Recent, small, new, additions to my portfolio are Bioventix (LON:BVXP) and Renew Holdings (LON:RNWH). Bioventix is a little bit speculative, with a lofty valuation. So it's important not to do my nut on this. Dividends have been growing at nearly 20% pa over the last 5 years, and it earns juicy returns on capital. This is kind of one to monitor, and maybe add or curb enthusiasm depending on how things go.

My thinking currently is to take a longer term view to holding shares. Prior to a few weeks ago I used stockranks almost exclusively, reviewing on a monthly basis. Now my view is more towards not sweating the stockranks, but having a holding period of 5 years, with minimum exceptions. You need fairly good quality shares for that, with decent returns on capital and light debt. I like to check to see that a company is paying divvies and has been raising them by about 5% over 5 years. I still expect to make mistakes, which is why I consider diversification to be important.

I'd be interested in hearing what your top 5 shares are.

One last parting word: if I could only own one company with a UK listing, it would be Unilever (LON:ULVR)