Newsletter – July 2024

• Why I Was Worried
• How I Rebalanced
• WTF (What’s the Fact?) – I’m not dead despite reports to the contrary
• Performance & Costs

Why I Was Worried
My portfolio had grown by over 17%, after fees & costs, in a year. That’s great right? Well, yes, but it is also worrying.

The average growth of company shares as a whole averages out at around 6% a year. So, 17% growth on the sort of broad, diversified portfolio that I have, is unsustainable.

In other words, that growth cannot continue. It is much more likely to come down than to continue growing at that pace. Folk in financial institutions refer to this as “a correction”.

Whatever you want to call it, I wanted to be ready. And that meant making sure that my portfolio reflects what all the big investment and banking houses think, on average, is a sensible choice of investments.

By having that updated allocation in place, my portfolio is better positioned to suffer less from a correction.

How I Rebalanced
Rather than trying to explain it, I’ve created a detailed, step-by-step video that you can watch here. Please share this with anyone whom you think might benefit from it. And please also consider subscribing if you think this content is useful.

WTF (What’s the Fact?)
I’m not dead, despite what Interactive Investor says.

Yes, I have investment accounts with a number of platforms (places where you can set up investments), one of which is Interactive Investor.

I was wondering why they had suddenly suspended trading on my account. After several phone calls and messages, the respondent was trying really hard not to answer my question as to “why”. Eventually, and rather sheepishly, she said, “well, looking at your account details, and having spoken to the appropriate team, it seems that the trading has been suspended, and, according to what I can see, from the screen in front of me, as I look at it now, er, we have your account labelled ‘deceased'”.

Me: So someone in the back office has cocked something up.

Respondent: We don’t know that yet.

Me: I think I can safely say that I’m alive at the moment. I tend to notice things like that.

Respondent: But we don’t know what the cause of the issue is.

Me: Well, I don’t think it had anything to do with me being dead.

Respondent: No.

The written response they sent later included the key phrase, “human error”, i.e., “cock up”.

The point to take away from this is that financial companies are not these clever, impressive forces that they try to portray themselves as being. They are flawed and, occasionally, crap; even the ones that are less bad.

So, if you haven’t already, consider getting a copy of “How to Invest Without Being Ripped Off”. It won’t help prevent people deciding that you’re dead somewhat prematurely, but it might help to prevent you seeing your money being taken by snake-oil salespeople whose only priority is their pockets.

Performance & Costs
My portfolio to date: +19.11% gross, +17.37% net (after costs).
Industry average (3,999 firms across 2023) +2.82% gross.