Adventures in Equities: Feb 2011: Portfolio update.

Sunday 6 March 2011

Feb 2011: Portfolio update.

Well thats February over with.

Lots of migraine inducing news around on a global front: with Libya, oil prices, and economic recovery; and domestically: interest rates and inflation.

Thankfully, markets did stage a minor rally towards the end of February, but I am guessing this to be only a temporary relief from the issues, and that the situation will likely remain volatile for quite some time, given that Libya has not yet reached what is probably an inevitable outcome, and further tensions continue to simmer across other middle eastern states including Saudi Arabia.

Unfortunately, with so much potentially drawn out uncertainty, it looks like we might not see the end of tax year rally which I had been hopeful for. Typically this would have been driven by new ISA products (marketed to latest investment trends, investor fears, and daylight robbing interest rates on account), and fund managers addressing portfolio performances and crystallising losses.

Instead, it might be that the best I can hope for is a consolidation of the markets' 2.5 year highs as we meander aimlessly into the mid year "doldrums" when markets do seem to trade sideways for much of the time.

Although it is not much of an upside, I had been expecting to report a loss in the month but that now appears to have been dragged into March (if I ran an update of the Virtual portfolio today it would show a fall in value of approx. 2.5%).

Regardless the Virtual portfolio increased in February by a wafer thin 0.13% against a bounce in the FTSE of 2.24%.

YTD the 2 measures are an almost identical 1% ahead.

Looking a little deeper, a whole 1% underperformance is due to Rolls-Royce and the 29% weighting it holds within the portfolio. In turn, Cisco's 1.95% weighting has contributed 0.25% of underperformance which highlights some of the risks associated with having imbalanced holdings in one's portfolio. They work well when going up but less so when falling (so make sure you are only overweight on the winners!).

Anyway, some explanations of the numbers:

- % holding is the weighted proportion by value that each investment holds as part of the overall value.

- Forecast div. yield is based upon consensus estimates if held for the next 12 months

- 1 month % gain is 31/01/2011 to 28/02/11 exc. dividends

- YTD % gain is 31/12/10 to 28/02/11 exc.dividends

- Dividends are added to cash prior to investment.

Two transactions have also taken place as detailed in the earlier post (Portfolio housekeeping and additions:) which has resulted in Tesco coming in and Talk Talk going out (Growth).


		Forecast	1 month	YTD	Overall
	% holding	Div. yield	% gain	% gain	% gain
R-R	29.01%	2.77%	-3.29%	-0.96%	27.61%
National Grid	17.87%	6.37%	3.35%	3.25%	5.20%
Invesco Perpetual High Inc.	6.84%	0.00%	1.50%	-0.53%	11.46%
Aviva	5.63%	5.49%	5.33%	18.68%	24.22%
BP	5.15%	3.98%	2.03%	6.26%	13.65%
Apple	3.94%	0.00%	1.39%	5.00%	79.20%
IG Group	3.38%	4.36%	-0.84%	-12.12%	48.97%
BG Group	3.11%	0.98%	6.82%	15.47%	37.29%
Centrica	3.04%	4.34%	6.31%	2.56%	7.69%
William Hill	2.54%	4.48%	5.67%	12.36%	12.17%
Morrisons	2.48%	3.35%	3.86%	3.18%	9.39%
Scottish and Southern	2.43%	5.98%	6.90%	1.14%	7.65%
Microsoft	2.39%	2.00%	-6.64%	-8.72%	5.88%
BAE Systems	2.34%	5.60%	-3.83%	-0.33%	3.03%
Tesco	2.30%	3.56%	1.32%	1.32%	1.32%
Cisco	1.95%	0.00%	-14.53%	-12.03%	-13.67%
Cash	5.61%	0.00%

	100.00%	3.37%
			1 Month	YTD	14 Months
Virtual Portfolio gain (incl. Div)			0.13%	1.85%	28.76%
FTSE gain (excl. Div.)			2.24%	0.39%	10.74%
- 1 month gain 5862.94 - 5994.01
- YTD gain 5971.01 - 5994.01
- 14 month gain 5412.88 - 5994.01

Transactions:
10/02/2011	Sold	Talk Talk @ 147.3p
10/02/2011	Bought	Tesco @ 399p