Craven House Capital $CRV.L sold

Yesterday was quite a dramatic day for Craven House Capital ($CRV.L), the company announced it would delist from AIM and join the Specialist Fund Segment of the London Stock Exchange, along with securing funding for $150m of new capital priced at 1.25p per share. The stock exploded from around 1p to a high of 1.8p and has now stabilised at 1.4p.

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Revisiting Craven House $CRV.L

I haven’t look at CRV for a while, and it was recently covered by another blogger, Expecting Value, which takes the count now to two bloggers that have been skeptical of CRV. I thought I would write a post setting out my thesis again and particularly addressing the issue raised that CRV could be inflating the valuation of its balance sheet.

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Half year performance report H2 2015

It’s that time of year again, doesn’t time fly. I haven’t made many trades during the second half of the year, perhaps that is why it has been a good half year for my portfolio! It returned 7.5% in H2 2015 versus -3.4% for the FTSE All share tracker and -1.0% for the S&P tracker. Performance was driven mainly by my 34% holding in Craven House Capital (LSE:CRV), which was 16% up in the half year on good news that it has signed a deal to raise £30m in equity at a price of 1.25p per share. That is significant for a £6m market cap company. Excluding CRV my portfolio was up 3.6%, so still outerperformed.

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Half year portfolio review

Time sure flies, it’s time again for a half year review. I don’t put much weight on my half year results but it’s useful to keep track of what is going on. In many ways H1 2015 was a pretty dire 6 months for my portfolio, yet I managed a respectable 8.8% return compared to 4.5% for the FTSE All share tracker and 0.2% for the S&P 500 tracker.

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2014 review and portfolio update

It’s that time of year again, and hard to believe it’s been 2 years since I started this blog. Time sure does fly. The second half of 2014 in the markets has been very interesting, unfortunately for my portfolio that wasn’t a good thing. Overall my portfolio was down 10% in H2 2014 compared to -0.7%% for the FTSE All share tracker and +5% for the S&P 500 tracker. My portfolio is 75% in the UK so the FTSE is the closest benchmark, but given how easy it is to invest in the S&P and hedge currency I aim to beat both benchmarks.

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Portfolio Update

An update on my portfolio: I have bought a new position in a GDR listed in London, as well as anticipating an exit in a couple of positions, share prices permitting. I’ve also been reflecting on some of my investment decisions and where I am getting into bad habits.

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Technical Analysis for the Value Investor

I like to think of myself as open-minded, I try to not to let my pre-existing biases get in the way of learning new things and new ideas. But I also like to think of myself as a skeptic – unless someone can show evidence or proof that an idea is correct, I’ll have a hard time accepting it.

So when it comes to Technical Analysis you can see why I am of two conflicting minds. Like most value investors, I have a tendency to dismiss TA and just focus on valuation, but after attending some friendly get togethers with other investors in London I discovered there are people out there that have been using TA to make money for decades – maybe there is something to this TA after all?

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