Thursday 18 October 2012

My Investment Portfolio




It's been a while since I last posted on here. From now on the blog will focus on my investment portfolio and the buy/sell decisions surrounding it's contents. I will also talk more about my investment philosophy and the reasoning behind each of my trades.

To start let's look at my current portfolio. This portfolio comprises all of my long-term investments. It doesn't include emergency fund cash, short term savings or balances in bank accounts I use on a day to day basis. This long term portfolio is primarily for funding my retirement. Money cannot be withdrawn until then but new money will be added each month.

The table below shows the current weightings of my portfolio:


Investment
Weighting
ishares EUROSTOXX50 ETF (EUE.L)
51.3%
ishares Asian Property (IASP.L)
16.6%
Cash
9.6%
Other Pension Funds
5.6%
DJ-UBS Natural Gas ETC (NGAS.L)
5.2%
Zopa Lending
5.2%
ishares Far East (ex Japan) Small Cap ETF (ISFE.L)
5.2%
Gold
1.3%


ishares EUROSTOXX50

This ETF makes up over 50% of my portfolio. I'm reluctant to add further to it but I see European stocks as looking good value at the present moment.  The yield is a decent 3.9% and the expense ratio is a reasonable 0.35%. Including income the fund is up almost 15% so far this year.

ishares Asian Property

This is the highest yielding property fund in ishares stable of REIT ETFs with a yield of 3.8%. It's price action this year have been very strong and is currently up almost 30%.

Cash

Currently holding a bit too much cash. My thinking at present is a three way split between ISFE.L, Zopa, and Natural Gas (NGAS.L) in the coming days or weeks.

Other Pension Funds

These are other pensions funds that I have that mainly contain actively managed mutual funds. As they only make up a small percentage of my portfolio I won't go into any great detail about them.

DJ-UBS Natural Gas ETC

As mentioned here on the 23rd of July with the break out of natural gas to the upside this has been the main commodity play I have been focusing on. I see a lot of potential upside especially with the positive price action and current uptrend. The fund is up 20% in the last 6 weeks but still hovering around the breakout level of July.

Zopa Lending

I use this as a way of diversifying. Current rates are fairly low but the majority of my loans were made in the last 2 or 3 years at higher rates. I will add to it mainly in the long term A* markets where the default rates are low. As I said the current rates are a bit disappointing but it does produce a steady stream of income.

ishares Far East (ex Japan) Smaller Companies

This is my newest position which I entered about 2 months ago and currently looks the best prospect in equity. As it could be seen as a fairly risky fund I will limit the amount the portfolio will invest into it at below 15% of total capital.

Gold

One of my oldest holdings. A collection of gold coins which I purchased several years ago and am sitting on an approximate profit of 90% on my average purchase price.


Dividing up the holdings above gives the following portfolio structure based on asset classes:

A 62% total stocks holding (EUROSTOXX, Far East (ex Japan) Small Caps, and the Pension funds) is reasonable at current valuations. The high cash holding will be invested soon. Bonds includes Zopa lendings. Real Estate is obviously the Asian Property fund and commodities is the gold coins and Natural Gas ETC.




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