Highlights from my portfolio 20/02/11

20th Feb '11 by Susan Marmor

9 comments 22422 reads

Last week was a nightmare. The LSE feed changes messed up my DDE feed and I struggled all week to know what was going on. Not only that but my alerts were firing everytime a trade was taken on a stock, so I had to work 10 times as hard to work out what was moving and what wasn't.

With hindsight, the best thing would have been to sit on my hands for a week but rightly or wrongly I didn't do that.....

So here we go:

African Eagle Resources (LON:AFE) - I bought because I think some [good] news will emerge.

Alterian (LON:ALN) markst time but if you google Alterian it's amazing what they are getting up to. Of course this has to be translated onto the bottom line but I'm hoping they just need more time.

@uk (LON:ATUK) - I bought a few as all the newsflow appears to be good. It's difficult to understand and impossible to value so I have just bought a few.

Avacta Group (LON:AVCT) is now up nearly 30% in my portfolio. Avacta’s primary aim is to equip biopharmaceutical developers and manufacturers with tools to get their products to market quicker and with reduced cost – reducing risk in the drug development process and optimising product performance. Avacta’s first technology product, Optim, and the Company’s expert services make this possible by permitting compounds to be analysed in much greater detail at an earlier stage in the drug development cycle than can currently be achieved, thereby providing timely identification of problems that can cause costly late stage failures or poor product performance. At the moment they are signing up distributors to sell Optim, the expectation is that there will be a signing in the US shortly.

Avia Health Informatics (LON:AVIA) is an AIM-listed developer and provider of clinical decision support systems. Last week it announced a further three further contracts for its Odyssey products. May be a slow burner. I bought a few.

Avanti Communications (LON:AVN) heaves down on every piece of good news.…

Unlock with Email

Unlock with Google

Already have an account?
Login here

Johan Silva

20th Jun '11

Your in way too many stocks. Two outstanding copper shares.

Susan Marmor

The list is not up to date.

Fangorn

22nd Jun '11

Whilst having exposure to so many stocks leaves one stretched on the keeping up to date front, in terms of diversification, her approach seems rather sensible.Perusing the advfn boards one gets the impression that most people are using concentrated portfolios(often of 1-3 stocks only) which in my view is highly dangerous.Particularly if they're all in the same sector as seems often the case.

Now whilst such an approach might yield greater returns in a booming market any retrace is going to see those with highly concentrated portfolios burned badly. Some will get their picks spot on, most will end up with non performers I suspect and lose alot of money. Even those that do pick the winners I can empathise with those who's highly concentrated portfolios consisted of say EO, NPE, XEL or Kefi, OTC, RRR. Much depends on timing of purchase and many still have decent profits in the likes of the above, but their total worth has been,in most cases reduced dramatically given the brutal retrace over the last few months.

At the end of the day it all depends on one's risk. tolerance and approach. I'd far rather adopt Smarm's diversified approach(miners,especially small ones are rather hit and miss and prone to either soaring or going bust) than have a highly concentrated portfolio of 1-3 stocks.But that's just me.

Hi Fangorn, welcome back.

I have around 25 stocks now and am about 50% invested. I prefer to be diversified because it avoids bubbles or exuberance. I've seen too many people bet and lose the house believing some silly hype they read on a BB.

For example, there is a current fashion for setting up investment vehicles for 'resource' stocks. Two that come to mind are Veridas and Crosby Asset Management. . The price of both stocks was ramped up to silly levels in the hope of a transformational deal. Now why would either buy assets at the top of the market and at a time financing is getting harder again? I am interested in neither stock but if I were, it would be for a tiny speculative bit of fun and not a house sized stake.

I've been taking a look at Crosby but can't seem to justify the current exuberant price.

Plenty of bargains out there for sure across the board. Just a question of spotting the value traps, of which i suspect there are many.

Tough old market to invest in at the moment. I see one of my favourites, Baobab, has dropped dramatically whilst I've been away.

Investors believe in the management to buy an asset that will make them rich. If only it were that simple. It's been interesting to watch. With the oil price as high as it is, and markets waiting for parts of europe to implode, I can't really see much m&a or asset buying myself, so I'm steering well clear. No doubt they will all ten bag. LOL.

Agree, if only it were that simple.

Am nibbling at high divi payers as and when the market falls out of bed. Main focus is Aviva, Rsa, Bae, Irv, Utilities(despite Neil Woodford being negative on the likes of UU,SVT,SSE and Co), Vod, CNA, HSD, BP, EMG and Mars. Commodities do form a large segment of my portfolio, but no greater than 35%(The majority of which is Oil and Gold focused rather than Copper, Iron ore)

Still reviewing Sarasin Agrisar for some agricultural exposure.

But am still, rather reluctantly, largely in cash.So not great news there but I'm expecting most assets, such as property,where I'm looking to buy for some rental value, and stocks to fall back significantly. Am expecting bonds to implode across the board in the not too distant future.

Decisions, decisions.

23rd Jun '11

I don't think Neil Woodford has had a great few years but I'm a big convert to divi stocks. NG. is a fav and imeven reinvest the dividends! So far so good. TEP is another excellent divi play, I hold most of mine at +5% yield.

We agree on bonds but I'm not so sure re the big fall in equties. Lehman collapse came as a shock, who isn't expecting Greece to default....can it have the same impact?

Bloomberg made the observation that S&P is falling against 18% profit gains....making it cheap. The question is whether growth has stalled or just hit a road bump.

Difficult to know how it will turn out...I am taking stops and am not really buying much. That said, I have bought more SNR, MRO and TEP!

S

The great thing about solid dividend paying blue chips(BP aside of course) is that you can tuck them away, forget about them on the whole, and reinvest those juicy yields. Agree on Woodford front performance wise(and current performance wont have been helped by Imperial Tobacco and falling spanish sales) but I suspect he will come into his own once there is a flight to defensives in the not too distant future.

I think the impact of Greece defaulting will trigger mass panic, purely on the presumption that Spain,Portugal,Ireland or Italy will be next. The more defaults, the greater the chance that the UK and France will be seriously impacted.And then it's game over imv.

There are however alot of companies that apparently have significant cash on their balance sheets.With falling asset prices I expect an upturn in M&A, particularly in Finance and Resource sectors.

TEP...that's had a very nice rise recently I see...

Highlights from my portfolio 20/02/11

Unlock the rest of this article with a 14 day trial

About the Author

Susan Marmor

9 comments

Unlock the metrics for all these stocks and more...

Unlock the metrics for all these stocks and more...