Some points to note:
- These are my personal investments. No investments made on behalf of my employers or their clients have been included.
- Some of the IRR calculations, mainly in the unrealised investments list, are distorted due to a short holding period. For example, Vodafone and Domino’s Pizza have each been held for less than a month, so quite small (and arguably random) share price movements have been annualised. As the investments are held for a longer period of time and then sold, the IRR’s will be more reflective of underlying performance.
- This table only includes investments held in my ISA and my SIPP. I also have a CFD trading account, though this was only opened in December 2010 and so the holdings have a very short track record. I will add these at a later date. For those that are interested, the additional holdings in this account are Apple, BP, British Land, Liberty Global and SINA.
- I got lucky with my investment in Wellington Underwriting plc. My view was that after taking a big hit from Hurricane Katrina, the global insurance industry was about to benefit from hardening underwriting conditions and declining claims. Wellington had exposure to a broad area of industry segments and was the cheapest of the LSE-listed Lloyds underwriters. Just a few months after I invested Wellington was acquired at a premium by its competitor Catlin.
- My investment in New Star’s Special Situation fund was a real mess-up as I was guilty of taking my eye-off-the-ball. While the performance of the UK stock market was mediocre during this period, I hadn’t been aware that the fund had entered a period of underperformence nor that serious management issues were developing at New Star. When I invested the fund was winning plaudits from the press, though performance soon deteriorated and it was closed-down a couple of years later. I knew I was investing with a young fund manager who was pursuing an aggressive strategy, I just failed to monitor him as I should have. Fortunately, the investment was a relatively small proportion of my portfolio.
- My earlier investments consist mainly of funds (including ETFs), while later investments include more individual shares. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, I started my portfolio almost immediately upon taking my first job, so I didn’t have sufficient funds to make purchasing individual shares worthwhile from a diversification nor a trading cost perspective. Secondly, my first role was with a investment management firm that focused on equities, an institution where the personal trading rules were quite stringent (sign-off from individuals on three different teams was required, among other hurdles). Consequently, it was relatively difficult to trade equities on an active basis.
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