July seems to have passed by pretty quickly. We’ve seen a small bout of market volatility, but this has quickly reversed. The only real impact on SIF was the opportunity to add Character (LON:CCT) and Drax (LON:DRX) to the portfolio at what I hope will prove to be attractive valuations.
As it’s the last week of the month, it’s time for my regular monthly review of the portfolio. I’ll start with a look at SIF’s performance. I’ll then review those stocks that have been in the portfolio for at least nine months.
Two companies qualify for review this month:
Tatton Asset Management (LON:TAM) - this financial services firm has now been in SIF for a year, during which it’s delivered a total return of 70%. Does it still pass my screening tests?
Robert Walters (LON:RWA) - it’s been a good year so far for recruitment stocks, including this white-collar specialist. I’ve been taking a look at the latest trading update from the firm.
For new subscribers who aren’t familiar with how SIF works, I included a brief summary of the screen-based system I use to run this portfolio in my June review. I hope this answers most of the obvious questions - if not, please feel free to ask any questions in the comments below.
SIF Folio: July performance update
SIF largely avoided the (minor) volatility seen in the wider market in July:
(SIF = blue, FTSE All-Share Index = grey)
The portfolio has maintained its lead over the market. SIF is up by around 20% for the year-to-date, compared to about 10% for the index:
The portfolio’s cash weighting has risen from 22% to 29% over the last month, as I’ve sold more stocks than I’ve bought:
I prefer to have some cash available, to ensure I’m always able to open new positions without ever being a forced seller. However, the current cash weighting seems higher than necessary to me, so I’m making a change to my position sizing rules.
Position sizing: All SIF holdings are equally sized at purchase and are not normally rebalanced, so I use a…
