Scores on the Doors

31st Dec '21 by GloucesterBob

27 comments 1844 reads

As the stockmarket is officially closed, how did we all do this year?

Overall I believe a testing time for many, especially for us small cap folk, but I know a friend of mine who went all in on TESLA was up over 50% this year, but a tadge risky for my liking, I like to sleep at night,

Percentages only, as money amounts is a tad vulgar IMHO. I list last years as a comparison and also what my work pension went up, to see how "DIY" did against fund managers.

2020 2021
SIPP 39% 7.7%

Work 11.1% 16%

Happy New Year to all.

GB.

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About the Author

GloucesterBob

Premium Member

27 comments

Snowbum

1st Jan '22

Overall, I've ended the year approx. +9% across the board.

My lessons from the year are to use less leverage in the trading account and to have more belief in high conviction stocks; some diworsification has unfortunately occurred at times throughout the year!

BnB

1st Jan '22

A very volatile year for my portfolio away from Europe where my holdings characterised by quality growth returned a very satisfactory 30%. In the UK I managed 12% with the year of two halves experienced by so many. The kick in the teeth came in the US, which is my largest allocation, where the end of year sell-off in growth stocks - a third major correction in a year of low volatility for indices overall - took my performance from 20% down to 4% in a matter of weeks. Chastening compared to the near 30% return in the major US benchmarks. I like the US companies I own, I just don’t like the share performance!

doug2500

3rd Jan '22

Looks like +23% for me. Finished at a high point for the year too. But then I only calculate quarterly so may have been higher at some point in the summer, I'm not sure. Also Fundsmith is my no.1 and it finished almost at it's peak I think.

Been more or less fully invested all year and had very little activity. Only sold a rump holding in polypipe and bought a couple of starter positions.

Anthony127

3rd Jan '22

I managed to advance by only 9.38% in 2021. I use the FTSE 100 as my benchmark for performance and was disappointed to be soundly beaten this year.

Some of my investing themes didn't quite work out i.e. the commodities super cycle is definitely stuttering and athletic leisure is definitely being impacted by the supply chain issues.

It is always interesting to analyse and record annual performance. Nevertheless as a long term investor I think progress should be assessed over the business cycle and I remain hopeful.

Happy New Year to all of you.

Whitbourne

3rd Jan '22

Thanks GB for initiating this thread, really interesting to compare everyone's performance.

I was happy to finish the year at 26.3% up, having peaked in May and again in the first week of September (like many others) at over 40%. It was a volatile and sometimes worrying year with big pull-backs on no news. I should say that the performance figures on Stockopedia don't agree with my spreadsheet, which uses unitisation to account for new investments made. The Stocko chart seems to over-state performance.

Reflections on the year - I should be more willing to sell when my instincts (and the valuation) tell me to. Tremor International (LON:TRMR) is my largest holding, down from 830p in May to 550p now, it would have made a big difference. On the other hand, the performance just keeps getting better even as the price goes down. The same applies to Spectra Systems (LON:SPSY) and in those circumstances, it's right to keep holding for as long as the investment case stays intact.

Second lesson is to think really hard about position sizing and not feel the need to go all-in unless there's a clear mis-pricing, in which case 'back up the truck' as Paul would say. That's rare, though, it might happen just a few times a year.

The third lesson is patience. Some of my holdings just did nothing all year, despite the business performing as hoped. That's natural with small-caps, you can't predict when (if ever) the market will catch on, but when it does the move up can be suden and if you're on the sidelines it's often too late. so I am happy to keep holding, for example, Optibiotix Health (LON:OPTI) or Morses Club (LON:MCL) and let the results speak for themselves in due course.

Wishing everyone well for 2022!

ISAallowance

3rd Jan '22

I finished with +30.33%, having peaked at +31.73% in early September. This is with over 70 holdings, predominately UK small caps, and no holding was ever over about 7% of portfolio during the year. Almost all my holdings are profitable - I have hard written limits about pre-profit and pre-revenue stocks, and never get near those limits anyway. There was no significant leverage involved (I have a Spreadbet and CFD account for educational purposes and preparation for the next crash, but they're tiny compared to my ISAs and SIPP). My best account was my quant stockranks ISA, +40%. My best account since starting is still my "best ideas" ISA, +23.65% CAGR over the last 6 tax years, although the quant ISA runs it close.

I was very happy with last year, but did make a number of clear unforced errors during the year. In particular I switched a top-10 position from Ig Group (LON:IGG) to Cmc Markets (LON:CMCX) at about £4.70 for CMCX due to misgivings about the Tasty Trade acquisition and higher confidence in Cruddas' statement that CMCX would take the UK non-leveraged market by storm, since when the price has (predicably in hindsight) collapsed with the return-to-office, whereas IGG is only about 5% lower than my sale price.

I also finally initiated positions in Boohoo (LON:BOO) (small) and Asos (LON:ASC) (medium) way too early for the falling knife, both of which are now > 50% underwater.

And finally, I didn't sell Bioventix (LON:BVXP) in the £40s early in the year when there were significant value opportunities to switch to, instead selling out half in the £30s following the results. That had been a top-10 position for years, so that error hurt, and the sale could yet turn out to have been an error.

What went well was a broad-brush exposure to value, in particular a whole basket of stocks that started the year at a discount to tangible book value. Also some of my larger growth stocks did well, particularly when I top-sliced into clear strength - Sdi (LON:SDI), Creightons (LON:CRL) and Somero Enterprises Inc (LON:SOM) were all standouts.

And although I talk about "errors" above, in reality investing is all about operating within an uncertain environment, so hindsight errors are not really errors, but learning points. I haven't yet done the sales vs. replacements comparison for the year just gone, but in years past each year my replacements on aggregate have beaten the sales, so can't beat myself up too much about the individual errors.

Anyway, 2022 is another year, and another spreadsheet showing a clean zero. I'm not very confident about the new year, but I wasn't confident at the start of 2021 either, feeling that the 2020 recovery from COVID would stutter during 2021, so all I know is that I know nothing about what the market will do. I'm also very aware that I've essentially been a UK small cap investor during a long bull market in UK small caps, and at some point everything will get a lot harder.

Here's to next year, GLA!

danjamesbaker

4th Jan '22

My portfolio's performance was significantly poorer than most, returning just 4.3% versus a benchmark return of around 18% from the FTSE All-Share. Performance was pretty good YTD to September (+12.4%) but the selloff in Boohoo (LON:BOO) and and Parkmead (LON:PMG) meant I lost 8% in Q4.

My best performing allocations over the year were to private equity (+27%) and infrastructure and real estate (both +18%). PE gains were driven by Chrysalis Investments (LON:CHRY) which, despite significant issues post-IPO with Thg (LON:THG) saw significant NAV growth through Klarna and Starling Bank, their two biggest holdings, and Frontier Ip (LON:FIPP) , where their biggest portfolio holding £EXAI listed in the Summer. Infrastructure was boosted by John Laing being acquired by KKR (after 6 years of investing, my first takeover) and Real Estate saw significant gains across Conygar Investment Co (LON:CIC) , Ediston Property Investment (LON:EPIC) and Empiric Student Property (LON:ESP) . REIT's are an area where I continue to see undervaluation going into 2022 with both Ediston Property Investment (LON:EPIC) and Empiric Student Property (LON:ESP) sitting on 10-15% discounts to NAV despite NAVs now starting to grow again. In the case of Ediston Property Investment (LON:EPIC) , they have sold off all of their office exposure and switched focus solely to retail warehouses, where tenants have continued to paid rent as they can stay open during lockdown due to the size of the stores/essential nature.

Worst performing were online retail exposure (solely Boohoo (LON:BOO)) and healthcare and pharmaceuticals, where one of my biggest holdings Arix Bioscience (LON:ARIX) lost just under 30% in the year. Biotech stocks have had a terrible 2021 and the company's public holdings fell significantly but there's some important milestones for their portfolio companies in 2022 as well as a significant cash pile to be used/returned to investors. Finally I also sold Loopup (LON:LOOP) at a 35% loss, a silly mistake when I decided not to sell in the 200p region despite uncertainties around the product against the likes of Teams and Zoom.

Finally, a few new holdings this year from IPO's which I'm looking forward to updates from in 2022 - Life Science Reit (LON:LABS) , Pantheon Infrastructure (LON:PINT) and Cordiant Digital Infrastructure (LON:CORD) . The infrastructure trusts should given some inflation protection and Cordiant Digital Infrastructure (LON:CORD) have already acquired their first investment in the Czech Republic, whilst Life Science Reit (LON:LABS) have purchased multiple laboratory/office assets in the 'Golden Circle' already. I also invested in Tmt Investments (LON:TMT) in December with the share price sitting at a >10% discount to NAV (was previously at a >30% premium in October) with the company performing well in 2021 thanks to the IPO of £BLZE and marking up of the Bolt investment.

Rusty2

4th Jan '22

FTSE All Share was up 14.5%.

Effortless Cool

4th Jan '22

18.6% including dividends, according to Roland on his SIF thread.

Including dividends is the superior comparator.

Rusty2

4th Jan '22

Only if you include dividends, I think most people are quoting ex dividend figures.

Effortless Cool

4th Jan '22

And ex-dividend figures are a less accurate basis on which to measure performance, so why would anyone want to use them?

doug2500

4th Jan '22

My figure was total return. I would expect that's the most common figure to use because ignoring other income, or costs, is just inaccurate.

Rusty2

4th Jan '22

But all Stockopedia figures are excluding dividends.

Effortless Cool

4th Jan '22

That's one of the reasons that the Folios functionality is not fit for (this) purpose.

Vsihv

4th Jan '22

Finished the year at 6.5% (14% in 2020) - was around the 15% mark at end of May and went as low as 1% September/October time.

BOTB was a substantial loss, although was a big part of the 15% to May as well. AVON was another one and quite a few errors of omission & general stupidity.

https://vsihv.blogspot.com/202...

bryans1311

4th Jan '22

I’ve decided to do the scores on the doors for 2022, today. Up just over 1.2% today which compounded for the rest of the year is about 1900%. Such an easy game, this trading lark! :)

BnB

4th Jan '22

Not so easy. Down 6% in two days (brutal US growth sell-off continues).

Snowbum

5th Jan '22

Uranium stocks picking up though after the announcement by the EU :)

But I agree US growth could be struggling, market breadth is poor, could this be the start of the multiple contraction expected in a new age of rising inflation / tightening monetary policy?

I'm short the Nasdaq from the recent lower high it made on the daily tf, looks like a massive H&S reversal pattern could be unfolding, the 'head' could be completing just now....

Anyone for some chartistry!

All stated with the 'Traders Proviso' that of course it could well continue on its merry way higher still!

But.... every major correction must start with a pullback...

andrewdb

5th Jan '22

SIPP: 17.1%

As EffortlessCool notes, this is a total return based calc outside the stocko tool as that is closer to real life because dividends etc.

Basically runs off all the transactions in the SIPP . Includes all purchase / sale / platform fees (you would be surprised how that adds up if you buy / sell a lot - i do not anymore), dividends / corporate actions, shares / units valued at bid price (what I would get if i sold)
Has an advantage that I have an external record of all cash movements and stock holdings outside the provider, just in case.

Just realised it does not include the cost of Stocko... ... but there are limits, would prefer to be roughly accurate than exactly inaccurate.

Mistakes for the year:

Held chinese Inv Trusts bought at a low (good) in '20. Sold some near the top in '21 (good), Held as they dropped over 50% (bad)

Held (Hold) Boohoo (LON:BOO) and N Brown (LON:BWNG) despite seeing the notes on the legal case / bad publicity / entire 'online clothing sector' being derated

Held Concurrent Technologies (LON:CNC) and seen it drift down, though it seems to have risen today (5/1)

I think I am undertrading.

Snowbum

3rd May '22

I continue to hold this short position on US large cap tech, the bottom doesn’t yet seem to be in imo.

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Scores on the Doors

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GloucesterBob

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