It’s been a while since I posted here, mostly because I have remained passive since becoming busy with other things like writing a series of novels (I enjoy it, but it’s a lot of work). But with the crazy world right now, I thought it was worth gathering my thoughts because I have been more active this year than before due to necessity. Here is my performance chart since starting the blog. You can see how performance has gone since I stopped watching my portfolio closely in 2016/2017. My focus has now become more ‘buy and hold forever’ for this reason. But currently, not enough of my portfoli ..read more

This morning SCS Group released their preliminary results for the year. They were very good, with both revenue and profits up on a like for like basis compared to the previous year. The company had cash of £58m and free cash flow of £16m for the year, which is extraordinary considering the market cap is £94m. So you might be wondering why I sold. It was due to the profit warning at the end of the announcement. “Since the start of the current financial year, trading conditions have been more challenging, with like-for-like order intake falling 7.6% for the period from 28 July 2019 to 29 Septem ..read more

This is a quick update to say that InvestingSidekick.com has had an update to the appearance. I hadn’t planned it but the website got compromised and a redirect to a malicious website was planted within the theme. Thankfully all my content and data was stored securely outside so has been unaffected, but it did mean I had to remove all the theme files and start again. I changed all the passwords and upped security etc, but unfortunately my backups hadn’t completed correctly so my old theme was essentially gone. Hence you’ll notice it looks different as I have used a different, pre-made appearan ..read more

I just realised I never posted my H1 2018 portfolio review even though I had written it, so I’ll combine it with an H2 report. 2018 has been a year to forget for me, not just because of poor performance of the stock markets, but personally has had a lot of downs. There have been good moments though and I have to keep that in mind. One of those, I guess, was the markets in the first half of the year. Headline performance H1 2018 overview My holdings returned 0.9% from Jan-June 2018 versus 3.5% for the FTSE All share tracker and 4.3% for the S&P tracker. Not great but not bad either. I don’t ..read more

I bought shares in Gattaca (GATC:LN) over a year ago but never did a proper write-up on the company. The shares have been one of the worst performers in my portfolio, and after the company issued a profit warning earlier this month, the shares were predictably hammered. I was down 43% on the position so it was time to do a proper analysis of the company and see if my thesis has changed. The company Gattaca, formerly Matchtech Group plc, is a human capital resources business dealing with contract and permanent recruitment in the private and public sectors. Gattaca provides outsou ..read more

I thought I’d share this interesting little hedge that I’d considered a few weeks ago but never made (unfortunately). A trader friend of mine mentioned in December that I take a look at the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) if I wanted to hedge my portfolio. For those of you not familiar with it, this is a definition from Investopedia: The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) is a measure of expected price fluctuations in the S&P 500 Index options over the next 30 days. The VIX, often termed as the “fear index,” is calculated in real time by the Chicago Board Options Exchan ..read more

An update of my portfolio. I’ve sold a couple of positions in my portfolio in the last week. Pental (PTL:AU) The first is in Pental, which posted a poor outlook a while ago and I’ve been in two minds whether to continue to hold. On the one hand, I don’t think the company faces catastrophe and should continue to make decent profits. But my original thesis valued the company based on growth in revenues and profits, and I don’t really see where this is going to come from now. The brands it holds don’t seem to command the same margins and returns on equity that things like Colgate command for exam ..read more

Today I finally closed one of the most frustrating positions in my portfolio for a profit, Goldplat (GDP:LN). This company has been a continual disappointment throughout the 6 years I’ve held it, repeatedly running into operating problems which turned a profitable business into a loss making one in recent years. Goldplat is not (just) a gold miner. Most of its operations are recovering gold from waste products. As such, I originally thought of it as a useful hedge against economic meltdown, as it benefits from a rising gold price, but also can (in theory) make profits during low gold price per ..read more

This morning SCS Group released their preliminary results for the year. They were very good, with both revenue and profits up on a like for like basis compared to the previous year. The company had cash of £58m and free cash flow of £16m for the year, which is extraordinary considering the market cap is £94m. So you might be wondering why I sold. It was due to the profit warning at the end of the announcement. “Since the start of the current financial year, trading conditions have been more challenging, with like-for-like order intake falling 7.6% for the period from 28 July 2019 to 29 Septem ..read more

This is a quick update to say that InvestingSidekick.com has had an update to the appearance. I hadn’t planned it but the website got compromised and a redirect to a malicious website was planted within the theme. Thankfully all my content and data was stored securely outside so has been unaffected, but it did mean I had to remove all the theme files and start again. I changed all the passwords and upped security etc, but unfortunately my backups hadn’t completed correctly so my old theme was essentially gone. Hence you’ll notice it looks different as I have used a different, pre-made appearan ..read more