Monday 18 August 2014

Supermarket Woes!

Morrison @ 173.6p, +0.50p (+0.29%)
Tesco @ 246.25p, -1.75p (-0.71%)

Hugely disappointing to see my 2 supermarket holdings ploughing new lows, and each time I think they may be have reached the bottom they have continued to sink further, with continuing speculation that dividends cuts might yet be coming.

The Tesco perspective is based upon a typical, bring out your dead view, that an incoming executive might undertake to give himself a clean slate, release cash, and give themselves the best chance of enhancing their reputations.
I tend to disagree with 2 of those 3 drivers, and have obvious concerns about loyalty and creating a legacy.

Morrison's is an even bigger concern given the mismanagement of resources and lack of coherent strategy (except for catch up), that started with the last CEO Marc Bolland, who proceeded to jump ship for M & S before completing the task, succeeding in doing little more that introduce a change (for change's sake?), that appeared to focus on areas that Morrison's were omitting to compete with rivals, online offerings etc.

The biggest travesty of all being the temporary prop provided by a £1bn share buyback program that drew on Morrison's cashflow and borrowed more funds to do it.
Warren Buffett has spoken many times about the poor track record of company execs to manage share buybacks, often wasting spare cash to buy shares at historical highs rather than value enhancing lows, and that a direct return of cash is much the more honest of the options when a board has not real idea what to spend the cash on.

So whilst I have dithered and attempted to maintain my buy and hold strategy, I really need to decide if the supermarkets can merit a place in that strategy, currently it seems not.

They will come back one way or another and whilst I thought both my picks had individual strengths that would buy them time to turn things around it seems not to be the case and management of either seem to be missing grocery retail expertise.

I also hold the view that a recovering economy will see a more normal looking retail profile with the basics less of priority and a better experience proving a draw.
I also think the discounters margins and strengths will weaken as they themselves try to bridge the gap in customer shopping experience with the established brands. 
However, am I prepared to give my holdings that chance?


Monday 11 August 2014

July 2014: Portfolio Update.


OK, we're now into the second half of the year and things are still fumbling along in the year to date with my portfolio continuing to trail behind the FTSE100 in 2014, and continue in negative territory at -2.20% year to date.

Dividends for the month were healthy with Rolls-Royce's Final dividend hitting my account with a nice metaphorical thud.
Smaller contributions came from Tesco and GE.

A larger contribution will come in August courtesy of National Grid.

I also made a top up of my recent Barratt Developments investment.

Performance has been slightly different than previous years and clearly I have some underperformers in the likes of Morrison and Tesco, both part of the big four supermarkets supposedly under threat by an emerging discount supermarket sector.
I'm not sure I believe that to be true or certainly not that its a permanent change given the long felt effects of the credit crunch.
In fact I would expect the discounters to begin to fight to hold their newly expanded client base but that this in turn will increase costs and in turn add "frills" to the no frills experience. This could come in the form of new stores or refurbished stores so it will be interesting to see if they can maintain their margins and customer loyalty as the economy strengthens and brand marketing calls at shoppers.

Either way, it will take time for analyst and investor perception to change, given the entrenched explanation now in place. It may be right, it may be wrong but once embedded, it takes time and trending numbers to change perception.

For myself, it looks like I have given supermarkets too long a leash unless the longer term performance of the sector can prove this to be just a blip caused by a deep recession.

Additional underperformance factors in the current year are BG group, and Rolls-Royce and the strength of the pound which has added a discount to the valuation of all of my US holdings. A good time to buy more US holdings it seems.

As ever, news of global conflicts and concern as to the unknown outcomes have a macro effect on markets and my portfolio. 

So tabular performance is as follows:

Merchant Adventurer's Index
Forecast 1 month YTD 43 mth
Price % holding Div. yield % gain % gain % gain
R-R 1040.00p 29.91% 2.23% -2.71% -16.90% 58.42%
National Grid 855.00p 14.94% 5.06% 1.79% 8.50% 54.61%
Aviva 504.00p 11.75% 3.26% -1.27% 12.07% 49.17%
BP 484.00p 5.59% 4.83% -5.93% -0.83% 6.84%
Apple ** $95.60 7.03% 1.75% 2.08% 16.62% 55.50%
Vodafone 198.00p 2.15% 5.76% 1.54% -21.52% -21.52%
Verizon ** 3018.89p 1.57% 3.54% 1.25% 8.77% 8.77%
IG Group 610.00p 4.36% 4.20% 3.83% -0.97% 27.83%
William Hill 353.00p 3.19% 3.49% 7.62% -12.17% 91.66%
Imperial Tobacco 2571.00p 2.87% 5.44% -2.24% 9.97% 13.81%
BAT 3483.00p 2.62% 4.19% 0.14% 7.57% 3.84%
General Electric ** $25.15 1.92% 3.04% -5.04% -12.27% 52.27%
Microsoft ** $43.16 2.09% 2.23% 2.70% 12.75% 42.77%
BAE Systems 428.00p 1.70% 4.81% -1.13% -1.61% 29.70%
Centrica 309.00p 1.54% 5.69% -1.15% -11.13% -6.82%
SSE 1457.00p 1.60% 6.14% -7.02% 6.35% 18.94%
Morrisons 169.00p 0.85% 7.78% -7.85% -35.25% -36.85%
BG Group 1172.00p 1.36% 1.57% -5.10% -9.67% -9.57%
Tesco 258.00p 0.82% 5.44% -9.22% -22.84% -35.33%
Barrat Dev. 349.00p 1.24% 3.93% -6.61% -2.37% -2.37%
Cash 0.91% 0.00%
100.00% 3.49%
1 Month YTD 43 mth
Virtual Portfolio gain (incl. Dividends)
- 1 month gain   2105.28 - 
2092.15 -0.62%
- YTD gain         1644.62 -
2092.15 -2.20%
- 43 month gain 1264.20 -
2092.15 65.49%
- 55 month gain 1000.00 -
2092.15 109.22%
FTSE gain (excl. Dividends)
- 1 month gain   6743.94 -
6730.11 -0.21%
- YTD gain         5897.81 -
6730.11 -0.28%
- 43 month gain 5971.01 -
6730.11 12.71%
- 55 month gain 5412.88 -
6730.11 24.34%
Transactions:
03/07/2013 Div Rolls-Royce @ 11.9p per share
05/07/2013 Div Tesco @ 10.13p per share
23/07/2014 Buy Barrat Dev. @ 3.6318p
29/07/2013 Div General Electric @ 10.85p per share
Notes: 
*     US Dividends are adjusted for exchange rate and 15% withholding tax
**   Sterling : Dollar exchange rate = £1: $1.6887 as at 31/07/14



And the chart picture:

Click to enlarge, close to return.

Looking ahead I am planning to add new monies to my Portfolio and make additional investments ahead of the year end.
And, with little to encourage at the moment it would seem a flat year of performance is the best I can expect as I look to the year end.

Previous Posts:
June 2014: Portfolio Update.
May 2014: Portfolio Update.
April 2014: Portfolio Update.
March 2014: Portfolio Update.
2013 Dividends profiled.
February 2014: Portfolio Update
January 2014: Portfolio Update
December 2013: Portfolio Update.