InvestingSidekick.com is almost 6 months old now, and the half way point of the year has passed. It seemed only sensible for me to post how my portfolio has performed in 2013 so far.
My portfolio is public here but I don’t state exact position sizes (apart from in individual posts on the companies) so these half yearly reports will be a way for people to see how my investment portfolio is doing. I was shocked when I calculated this, as I don’t monitor my aggregate performance at all due to my investments being spread across various brokers and accounts, it is simply too time consuming. But for the first 6 months of this year my portfolio made a 20% return versus 8.5% for the FTSE All-share Index, my preferred benchmark. I focus so much of my energy on looking for new investments and evaluating the businesses that I didn’t realise how well some of my holdings had performed!
Portfolio as at 1st January 2013
| Stock | Portfolio weighting |
|---|---|
| Amlin | 22% |
| Berkshire Hathaway | 6% |
| Cranswick | 10% |
| Deckers Outdoor | 10% |
| IBM | 7% |
| JD Sports | 7% |
| Arrow Electronics | 7% |
| Tesco | 24% |
| Walmart | 8% |
Changes during period
| Stock | Action |
|---|---|
| Arrow Electronics | Sold |
| Outdoor Channel | Bought |
| Tesco | Sold |
| Apple | Bought |
| Walmart | Sold |
| Argo | Bought |
| Avangardco | Bought |
| Renn Universal Trust | Bought |
| Tesco | Sold |
| Kentz | Bought |
| Outdoor Channel | Sold |
| Craven House Capital | Bought |
Dividends received from
JD Sports
Walmart
Cranswick
IBM
Argo
Apple
Amlin
I also deposited more cash in the portfolio which I have sitting on the sidelines. This increased the size of the portfolio by 16%.
Portfolio as at 30th June 2013
| Stock | Portfolio weighting |
|---|---|
| Amlin | 17% |
| Berkshire Hathaway | 5% |
| Cranswick | 10% |
| Deckers Outdoor | 11% |
| IBM | 5% |
| JD Sports | 6% |
| Kentz | 8% |
| Renn Investment Trust | 7% |
| Tesco | 3% |
| Apple | 4% |
| Avangardco | 11% |
| Argo | 6% |
| Craven House Capital | 6% |
Performance
I include the cash that was added to the portfolio during the 6 months as if it was cash in the portfolio at 1st January 2013. For the first 6 months of 2013 I made a 20% return versus 8.5% for the FTSE All-share index. This includes a 2% return I received in the form of dividends. First looking at my two biggest positions at the start of the year, my Tesco holding (which I have to admit affected my portfolios performance in 2012 although I was still able to make a decent 6% return overall). I managed to significantly reduce my Tesco holding at about breakeven, which gave me a roughly 15% gain on where the price was at 1st January. Amlin has also been a good performer with a 4% capital return as well as 4% returned in dividends.
The best performers in these first 6 months which have driven my 20% gain are Berkshire Hathaway (+28%), Cranswick (+36%) and Deckers Outdoor (+40%). These are among my oldest positions so it’s good to see them finally bearing fruit. A lot of my more recent positions (in fact all but 2!) are in the red but that is to be expected, I am happy to hold them all long term.
I also have to point out how the performance of the US dollar has helped my returns, through no skill on my part. Check out my recent hedging articles to find out how I plan to protect myself from adverse movements in the future.
The outlook
June has been a tough month for stocks, but my portfolio has held up well despite this. I am still a bit shocked by how it has performed as so many of my investments have not realised their true value (in my opinion) but this makes me even more excited as surely that means there are more gains to come! I plan on putting a lot more cash to work soon so my portfolio will be expanded again.
For regular readers of my blog, you may not recognise the Craven House Capital holding above. That’s because I haven’t yet published the article on it, but I will do this weekend and it’s a holding I’m very bullish on and still increasing the position size. Stay tuned to find out why.
Investing Sidekick
Founder of Investing Sidekick. Works as a research analyst and is an avid value investor, always searching for undervalued shares.
Wow! I envy your portfolio. I am a novice in investing, trading particularly, and following some blogs on trading like http://www.forexsignalprovider.com . Then I was intrigued to read about your articles. I wonder if you could share some tips on best practices in trading. Thanks!
Hi
I’m far from an expert in trading but I know bits a bobs. I’ve been to seminars with top Goldman Sachs traders so can tell you some of the things they have told me, I don’t know if they are true or not as I have never traded myself.
They say its harder to be profitable day trading than doing longer term trades, so betting on certain companies outperforming others, predicting when some companies will have good short term results and others not so good. They do it by scouring the news.
I know some guys that trade on technicals too, but it takes a lot of knowledge to have an edge over other people. They seem to make money from it but it took years of learning and figuring out what strategy worked for them. I would avoid paying for expensive ‘signal’ givers, most are just wasted money on things that you can read in a beginner textbook. Theres a lot of money to be made selling new traders fancy ‘systems’ which do nothing more than use very basic technicals which rarely work.