Lesser gains came from elsewhere helping to negate the falls in Tesco, BAE, GE, and Apple.
Bizarrely R-R recorded a flat month end to month end performance.
A small, but regular, dividend came in from GE, and the William Hill rights issue was completed with the additional shares now listed and the share price already stabilising above £4.
As ever, keeping it there, and the measure of success for recent acquisitions is the company managing to maintain growth and profitability. Cashflow will be particularly important given the weakening of the balance sheet and additional shares issued.
A 2.57% gain in the month and 15.14% year to date is heady stuff after just 4 months of the year though.
The FTSE itself has recorded 0.29% in the month and 9.03% for the year to date.
The most significant transaction for my portfolio in April has come with the purchase of a position in Imperial Tobacco which for many years has been a taboo industry for me but given that successive Government's have continued to show an addictive reliance on the tax revenues from this industry it is unlikely to be outlawed anytime soon leaving the choice to smoke, or not to smoke down to the consumer.
My preference would have been to purchase the expected extra growth that greater exposure to emerging markets brings to British American Tobacco but instead have settled for the valuation discount in Imperial with its greater exposure to Europe and higher debt levels from acquisitions prior to the credit crunch.
As it is I have bought into this discounted valuation, and 5% yield, coupled with an outside chance of takeover.
Debt levels shouldn't be of any concern given the company's strong industry typical cashflows.
I've also taken another bite at Apple but not yet added this to my portfolio as I'm undecided whether to add additional funds to what has been an unchanged base since I started the portfolio updates.
My portfolio's forward yield, at 3.46%, has dropped quite a bit though, given the cut to Aviva's dividend and the surge in my portfolio's value this year.
The dollar has also given up a little of its gains and at the end of April settled at around $1.55 to the pound.
| Merchant Adventurer's Index | ||||||||||||||||||
| Forecast | 1 month | YTD | 28 mth | |||||||||||||||
| Price | % holding | Div. yield | % gain | % gain | % gain | |||||||||||||
| R-R | 1130.00p | 36.12% | 1.92% | 0.00% | 29.36% | 81.38% | ||||||||||||
| National Grid | 819.50p | 17.44% | 5.01% | 7.12% | 16.57% | 48.19% | ||||||||||||
| Aviva | 305.10p | 8.66% | 5.35% | 3.00% | -18.20% | -9.70% | ||||||||||||
| BP | 466.40p | 4.93% | 4.96% | 1.41% | 9.79% | 1.90% | ||||||||||||
| Apple ** | $442.70 | 4.84% | 2.07% | -2.15% | -13.52% | 17.02% | ||||||||||||
| William Hill | 426.00p | 4.69% | 2.73% | 22.68% | 29.33% | 131.30% | ||||||||||||
| IG Group | 538.50p | 4.68% | 4.10% | -0.84% | 19.67% | 12.84% | ||||||||||||
| General Electric ** | $22.27 | 2.26% | 2.94% | -5.50% | 10.48% | 46.61% | ||||||||||||
| Centrica | 371.00p | 2.25% | 4.67% | 0.90% | 11.21% | 11.88% | ||||||||||||
| Microsoft ** | $33.09 | 2.12% | 2.32% | 13.16% | 28.90% | 19.02% | ||||||||||||
| SSE | 1557.00p | 2.08% | 5.42% | 4.92% | 9.80% | 27.10% | ||||||||||||
| Vodafone | 196.20p | 1.84% | 5.28% | 5.14% | 27.03% | 21.76% | ||||||||||||
| BAE Systems | 375.50p | 1.81% | 5.43% | -4.77% | 11.46% | 13.79% | ||||||||||||
| Morrisons | 292.10p | 1.78% | 4.36% | 5.76% | 11.06% | 9.16% | ||||||||||||
| Imperial Tobacco | 2300.00p | 1.54% | 5.05% | 0.29% | 0.29% | 0.29% | ||||||||||||
| BG Group | 1084.50p | 1.53% | 1.65% | -3.94% | 7.11% | -16.32% | ||||||||||||
| Tesco | 366.15p | 1.41% | 4.14% | -4.04% | 8.97% | -8.21% | ||||||||||||
| Cash | 0.01% | 0.00% | ||||||||||||||||
| 100.00% | 3.46% | |||||||||||||||||
| 1 Month | YTD | 28 mth | ||||||||||||||||
| Virtual Portfolio gain (incl. Dividends) | ||||||||||||||||||
| - 1 month gain 1784.42 - | 1893.55 | 2.57% | ||||||||||||||||
| - YTD gain 1644.62 - | 1893.55 | 15.14% | ||||||||||||||||
| - 28 month gain 1264.20 - | 1893.55 | 49.78% | ||||||||||||||||
| - 40 month gain 1000.00 - | 1893.55 | 89.36% | ||||||||||||||||
| FTSE gain (excl. Dividends) | ||||||||||||||||||
| - 1 month gain 6352.95 - | 6430.12 | 0.29% | ||||||||||||||||
| - YTD gain 5897.81 - | 6430.12 | 9.03% | ||||||||||||||||
| - 28 month gain 5971.01 - | 6430.12 | 7.69% | ||||||||||||||||
| - 40 month gain 5412.88 - | 6430.12 | 18.79% | ||||||||||||||||
| Transactions: | ||||||||||||||||||
| 02/04/2013 | Rights | William Hill @ 2.45p per share | ||||||||||||||||
| 26/04/2013 | Buy | Imperial Tobacco @ £22.677185 | ||||||||||||||||
| 29/04/2013 | Div | GE @ 14.46c per share | ||||||||||||||||
| Notes: | ||||||||||||||||||
| * US Dividends are adjusted for exchange rate and 15% withholding tax | ||||||||||||||||||
| ** Sterling : Dollar exchange rate = £1: $1.553 as at 30/04/13 | ||||||||||||||||||
Chart wise the start to this year continues to be strong and almost straight lined in 2013 despite the FTSE's performance flattening over the last 3 months.
 |
| Click to enlarge, close to return. |
So an interesting start to the year, and even more so given that the FTSE has started to flatten.
Still little signs of a global recovery though, and we haven't heard too much from Europe recently either, but the region still has huge problems and it remains a spinning coin as to whether the Euro "experiment" will survive the current situation without some kind of membership revisit.
The EU itself seems a million miles away from the original common market concept.
It might not have been easy to foresee the credit crunch, and many would have chosen to ignore the signs, particularly as it grew like some great pyramid scheme, but the current EU problems in managing a huge region of diverse multi-speed economies with the full spectrum of strengths, weaknesses, and prospects were all too predictable.
Still, a storming start to the year though!
Earlier posts:
- March 2013: Portfolio Update.
- February 2013: Portfolio update.
- January 2013: Portfolio Update.
- December 2012: Portfolio Update (2012 Year-end).
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