<p>I don&#8217;t consider myself to be an active trader. In a normal year, I&#8217;ll reinvest some dividends every few months and add some fresh money to my ISA in April or May. That&#8217;s usually it.</p>
<p>If I am feeling particularly energetic, I might sell a holding that doesn&#8217;t seem to cut the mustard anymore and reinvest the money elsewhere. Then I might need to lie down for a few years to recover!</p>
<p><!--more--></p>
<p>This year, by comparison, has been a hotbed of activity.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve been <a href="https://www.itinvestor.co.uk/2018/11/my-investing-strategy/">reshaping my portfolio</a> recently, trimming some larger positions that had become uncomfortably big and ditching a couple of laggards. In their place, I&#8217;ve been swapping in some investments with a more global outlook and others to produce a little more income.</p>
<p>However, when I listed everything I had bought and sold this year, I must admit I was a bit surprised quite how busy I&#8217;d been&#8230;</p>
<h2>Tinkering and tailoring</h2>
<p>Here&#8217;s a full list of what I bought and sold during 2018:</p>
<h3>January</h3>
<ul>
<li>Bought <a href="https://www.itinvestor.co.uk/2018/12/sizing-up-uk-small-cap-funds/">BlackRock Smaller Companies</a> with accumulated dividends.</li>
<li>Sold a residual holding in Berkshire Hathaway and invested in City of London Investment Trust, JPMorgan Global Growth &; Income and Murray International.</li>
<li>Continued with a monthly contribution to my pension that was invested in Lindsell Train Global Equity &#8212; this ran until October.</li>
</ul>
<h3>February</h3>
<ul>
<li>Consolidated a smaller pension plan I had into my SIPP, selling out of Invesco High Income and reinvesting in Fundsmith Equity as part of this process.</li>
</ul>
<h3>April</h3>
<ul>
<li>Bought Acorn Income Fund with some fresh ISA money.</li>
</ul>
<h3>May</h3>
<ul>
<li>Sold part of my holding in HGCapital (which was getting a little large for my liking) and reinvested the proceeds in Princess Private Equity. Both of these are private equity funds, but I wanted to split up my cash in this sector.</li>
</ul>
<h3>June</h3>
<ul>
<li>Sold part of my holding in a small-cap miner I&#8217;d held for ages and reinvested the proceeds in HICL Infrastructure.</li>
</ul>
<h3>July</h3>
<ul>
<li>Bought BlackRock Smaller Companies with accumulated dividends.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.itinvestor.co.uk/about-it-investor/">Started this blog</a>!</li>
</ul>
<h3>August</h3>
<ul>
<li>Invested some surplus cash I had in HICL Infrastructure, Murray International and JPMorgan Global Growth &; Income. Zero marks for timing!</li>
<li>Invested some accumulated dividends in Acorn Income Fund.</li>
</ul>
<h3>September</h3>
<ul>
<li>Sold the remaining shares in that small-cap miner and reinvested the proceeds in <a href="https://www.itinvestor.co.uk/2018/10/bluefield-solar-income-fund/">Bluefield Solar Income</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h3>October</h3>
<ul>
<li>Bought into the <a href="https://www.itinvestor.co.uk/2018/09/10-things-you-should-know-about-smithson-investment-trust/">Smithson new share offer</a>.</li>
<li>Bought into BlackRock Smaller Companies with accumulated dividends.</li>
<li>Invested some surplus cash in my pension, buying some Lindsell Train Global and Fundsmith Equity. Buying after that first big dip felt good for a week or two!</li>
</ul>
<h3>November</h3>
<ul>
<li>Bought a little bit more Smithson and Henderson Smaller Companies with accumulated dividends.</li>
</ul>
<h3>December</h3>
<ul>
<li>Received the tax relief on my earlier pension contribution, which was invested into Lindsell Train Global and Fundsmith Equity.</li>
</ul>
<p>As I am now unitising my portfolio to <a href="https://www.itinvestor.co.uk/2018/08/how-to-measure-your-portfolio-performance/">track its performance</a>, I can see I added roughly 10% to my main portfolio and 5% to my pension over the course of the year.</p>
<p>In retrospect, my timing when it came to adding that new money later in the year looks horrible. But I usually invest fairly quickly once I have made an allocation decision, so that&#8217;s something I&#8217;ll just have to live with. And I have had plenty of practice over the years!</p>
<p>I continue to believe attempting to time the market is a fool&#8217;s errand though. All else being equal, I think the earlier you can put money to work the better.</p>
<h2>More of the same in 2019</h2>
<p>There&#8217;s still some tinkering to do in 2019 I suspect, although I expect it will turn out to be a much quieter year in terms of overall activity.</p>
<p>I still have an oversized holding in <a href="https://www.itinvestor.co.uk/2018/09/the-caledonia-conundrum/">Caledonia Investments</a> that I&#8217;d like to trim and reinvest elsewhere. In addition, there&#8217;s a US stock that I may switch into investment trusts at some stage.</p>
<p>And I will probably add a little money to <a href="https://www.itinvestor.co.uk/2018/11/vcts-take-a-brave-leap-forward/">Baronsmead Venture Trust</a> when its latest fundraising offer opens in the next week or so.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ll continue to reinvest dividends when I can, too.</p>
<p>Overall, I&#8217;d say I feel a little happier with how <a href="https://www.itinvestor.co.uk/portfolio/">my portfolio looks now</a> compared to the start of 2018.</p>
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">Join the Money Makers circle</h3>
<p>I've teamed up with Jonathan Davis, the editor of The Investment Trusts Handbook, at Money Makers where I am now writing regular articles on trusts and funds.</p>
<p>For more details of what you get by joining as a member <span style="color: #0000ff;"><a href="https://money-makers.co/membership-join/"><strong>please click here</strong></a>.</span></p>

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<h2>Running the numbers</h2>
<p>For a while, I have tracked my main portfolio and pension separately. The latter has traditionally been the less active of the two when it came to investment decisions, so I wanted to see how they compared.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve recreated some performance statistics going back as far as 2010, but they have been more crudely calculated than the unitised method I now use.</p>
<table id="iti">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>Year</th>
<th style="text-align: right;">Portfolio</th>
<th style="text-align: right;">Pension</th>
<th style="text-align: right;">FT A/S</th>
<th style="text-align: right;">MSCI<br />
ACWI</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2010</strong></td>
<td style="text-align: right;">49.1%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">14.5%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">13.4%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">+16.2%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2011</strong></td>
<td style="text-align: right;">-20.7%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">-1.0%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">-3.5%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">-6.7%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2012</strong></td>
<td style="text-align: right;">11.6%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">12.5%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">12.3%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">11.0%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2013</strong></td>
<td style="text-align: right;">-4.2%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">23.8%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">20.8%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">20.5%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2014</strong></td>
<td style="text-align: right;">11.8%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">6.4%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">1.2%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">10.6%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2015</strong></td>
<td style="text-align: right;">4.3%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">6.2%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">1.0%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">3.3%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2016</strong></td>
<td style="text-align: right;">26.3%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">8.9%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">16.8%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">28.7%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2017</strong></td>
<td style="text-align: right;">14.3%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">13.6%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">13.1%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">13.2%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2018</strong></td>
<td style="text-align: right;">-2.1%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">6.3%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">-9.5%</td>
<td style="text-align: right;">-4.7%</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<hr />
<p>My portfolio was very different in 2010. Back then I was mostly a share investor. I still held a few investment trusts but not as many as I did in the 1990s.</p>
<p>It was my performances in 2011 and 2013, plus the arrival of small children, that led me to decide to focus on investment trusts once again.</p>
<p>As well as being too time-consuming, I felt that I was taking too much risk with my investments. A younger me wouldn&#8217;t have minded that so much, but the older me has become much more interested in keeping what I&#8217;ve already got!</p>
<h2>Assessing my performance</h2>
<p>The shifting nature of my portfolio over the years makes judging its success fairly subjective when it comes to choosing exactly what to compare it against.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve decided that I need to compare my performance to a global index as well as a UK one, given the <a href="https://www.itinvestor.co.uk/2018/11/go-global-or-go-home/">current make-up of my investments</a>.</p>
<p>I&#8217;d say 2014 was probably the first year my portfolio became &#8216;mostly global&#8217; and started to resemble the way it looks today. Taking that as a starting point, I am up 65% for my main portfolio which compares to 22% for the UK market and 60% for world markets (as represented by the Vanguard All-World ETF).</p>
<p>My pension is up 49% since 2014, but it was mostly UK-focused up until early 2016, half-global for a couple of years and then wholly global from early 2018.</p>
<p>If I add in 2013, which was a stinker for me, then my main portfolio is still ahead of the UK market &#8212; 58% vs 48% &#8212; but it substantially trails the global market&#8217;s 94%. My pension returned 84% over the last six years.</p>
<p>Looking ahead, if I can beat global stock market returns by a total of, say, 10% over rolling five-year periods then I would be more than happy. That would represent an annual outperformance of 2%.</p>
<h2>Winners and losers in 2018</h2>
<p>A number of my holdings helped my overall return this year &#8211; Fundsmith and Lindsell Train have both done well, as has Caledonia. The likes of Baronsmead and the infrastructure funds have also helped to steady the ship.</p>
<p>UK small-caps have been the main weak spot, but I&#8217;m still building this aspect of my portfolio up. I&#8217;m viewing it as an opportunity rather than a weakness that needs to be addressed.</p>
<h2>There&#8217;s value out there&#8230;</h2>
<p>I&#8217;m not one for making stock market forecasts, given they are utterly futile. That said, after the falls of recent months, valuations do seem to be fairly attractive.</p>
<p>The Bloomberg website has estimates for each main market index and currently shows the following:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>FTSE 100</strong> &#8211; 11.9</li>
<li><strong>S&;P 500</strong> &#8211; 15.4</li>
<li><strong>NASDAQ</strong> &#8211; 19.8</li>
<li><strong>Euro Stoxx 50</strong> &#8211; 12.7</li>
<li><strong>Nikkei 225</strong> &#8211; 14.5</li>
</ul>
<p>Of course, events might get in the way, and the profits behind these estimates might not come to pass.</p>
<p>The UK&#8217;s low rating does look pretty tempting &#8211; I&#8217;ve added City of London Investment Trust to my list of top-up candidates for dividend reinvestments.</p>
<p>Certainly, on a multi-year view, there seems to be a decent chance of equities making respectable progress from here.</p>
<h2>Thanks for reading!</h2>
<p>Thank you to everyone who has read this blog since I began some six months ago. It&#8217;s been a very useful exercise to write down my thoughts and see how they look in the cold light of day. I just wish I had started doing it sooner.</p>
<p>May 2019 be prosperous for you in every single way!</p>


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