At the halfway point of the year
Well 6 months have flown by, and so far the returns generated in the portfolio reflect a “normal” investment year. If there is such a thing these days? The first quarter is usually strong, followed by a quarter of catch-up, which is reflected in the returns generated by our main portfolios so far this year. All portfolios remain on target to achieve their annual targets at this point.
What’s a “normal” year?
Veterans of our investment management service know that we generate the bulk of our returns in the 1st and 4th quarters of the year, with the 2nd and 3rd quarter usually only generating less than 25% of the years returns in total.
July to October should drift along nicely with little to show by way of returns, but hopefully without major wealth threatening dramas either. That said, July started with political meltdowns in France which potentially jeopardise the future of the EU as a trading block and of course the attempted assassination of a US President in waiting and the realisation that the current POTUS probably hasn’t been calling the shots for years. Political drama enough already!
Did we navigate the UK General Election in OK shape?
On the whole yes, but as always we could have done better in hindsight. We positioned for the likely result, which wasn’t exactly hard given every man and his dog also guessed the likely colour change in parliament. There was no shock in the markets as was expected by the UK shock index I referred to in my previous blog.
We expected a drop in Big Oils – Shell & BP (Labour’s Net Zero promises) and utilities UU, South West Water, Centrica etc. (The threat of nationalisation) – we have not held any of these shares for some time. However we did not position ourselves as heavily in social house builders eg. Vistry in particular and the others Barretts etc. as the FTSE 100 index does, which was perhaps a missed opportunity.
Continue reading “The First 6 months of 2024”
