The Reluctant Investor

   2024 Review December 31st, 2024 2024  TLDR What I got right Beat #CGT benchmark again  Ended up with another positive YTD Reduced holdings count by 14 What I got wrong I still average down too quickly Still too many holdings Still need to embrace technical analysis Review Given the effort to manage our assets, it's somewhat dispiriting to see I've barely beaten the money-market fund I roll our ISA monthly yield into. But I console myself with the thought that I don't expect much more bond-proxy wealth destruction, we are reasonably diversified and the pf has generated a yield excluding interest of a record £76k. Unfortunately, the recent budget's IHT changes has meant a major upheaval for me as we are now accelerating the drawdown from our SIPPs over the next decade to gift it to our two children to avoid  a big IHT bill now that SIPPs are included in ones estate. It was always a ridiculous position created by the Tories by legislating such that they became a...

  2023 Review January 8, 2024 2023 Grinding out a 1-0 TLDR What I got right Not panicking as we YOLOed our way through 2 huge pullbacks  Adding to debt allocation on higher yields Avoided the huge losses on long-dated gilts which seem to be the pension-industry's equivalent of "No one ever gets fired for buying IBM" What I got wrong Not implementing risk-adjusted stop losses on what should have been dull income ITs Trusting inept managements' RNSs from the likes of #CSH and #DGI9 Still not properly scaling into all my adds and not taking longer to average down Review Having taken a 10% loss in 2022 my hopes were simply not to lose any more money in 2023. After a brief surge at the beginning of 2023 the combined portfolios of our ISAs and SIPPs struck a series of lower lows in April whilst we were on holiday, followed by a new low in July whilst in Iceland and yet another one in October whilst in Nepal. So the Santa rally well and truly rescued the final YTD positive f...

 2022 What a year that was This review is as much for me as for any readers who stumble across it. I also egotistically like to think it acts as a more accessible legacy for my heirs than the chaotic set of Tweets I've hitherto used to lay out my thinking. I've found it not only cathartic but useful to write a whole document which isn't something I do much of any more since retiring.  TLDR What I got right Not buying a Lambo after 2021 Reducing debt exposure as interest rates looked set to rise Spent 89 nights in our new camper van trying to YOLO Sat on hands for the most part What I got wrong Should've sliced more PE gains from 2021 Shouldn't have banked on the BoE not daring to raise rates Should've scaled into all my adds and taken longer on averaging down Shouldn't have added to RE Review I started 2022 at pretty much an ATH with total AUM across our portfolios at around £1 550 000. And yes, having a paper gain of almost £300k led to some pretty hubristi...