investing1234

The Beginning

I know all the general rules about a diversified portfolio but working with a relatively small sum of capital to begin with, I took the position that I would prefer not to spread myself thin over a dozen shares. I felt that the prices of the four individual shares (at the time), their characteristics and future prospects, all lent themselves favourably to focusing my embryonic portfolio on this core group. This idea of “concentration” might turn out to be an error but I still have the chance to bank some profit on any of the two bigger holdings (if there is a large downswing) and then diversify to potential targets amongst my watchlist. In effect I have done this by having a stop-loss for each of these (except Ruspetro) which I have move upward periodically as they have increased gain to insure against a major erosion of capital. In the case of Legal and General this concentration of my portfolio (34%) worked heavily in my favour with a 96% increase in value since purchase and a few rounds of dividends.

Positions held on May 20th 2017;  All shares purchased between May 2011 – May 2017

Share	Purchase Price	Sold Price	£ profit/(loss)
	Average Price Paid (pence)
Premier Food (LSE: PFD)	15	29 (2012)	£1250
Booker (LSE: BOK)	67.49	187 (2017)	£6990
Legal and General (LSE: LGEN)	93.39	236 (2017)	£9390
Barclays (LSE: BRC)	184.99	272.13 (2014)	£630
Tesco (LSE: TSC)	312.36	330.89 (2014)	£120
Psion (LSE: PON)	77.12	Motorola B/O	£240
Ruspetro* (LSE: RPO)	96.11	Delisted	(£2490)
Monitise (LSE: MON)	37	22 (2015)	(£250)
Beazley (LSE: BEZ)	239.2
Lloyds (LSE: LLOY)	83.37
ITV (LSE: ITV)	205.58
Accys Tech (LSE: AXS)	73.25
Trifast  (LSE: TRI)	223
Bloomsbury (LSE: BMY)	177.21

*speculative share purchase (see blog post on stop-loss)

2012-13 commentary. As mentioned elsewhere Ruspetro was a speculative purchase in my view, and I have averaged down (perhaps stupidly) to a paper loss of 34% at time of writing.  I know I probably should cut my losses here; but I am loath to take that loss at the moment as it represents only a small percentage of my capital deployed in the portfolio, and I still hold (albeit little) hope of clawing back more of my initial capital.

2014 commentary. After having started the year with the intention of adding to the portfolio rapidly, I added Beazley (BEZ:LN) and Monitise (MON:LN) however since then I have had to sell a percentage of the portfolio for home improvements. So out have gone Legal & General (LGEN:LN) Barclays (BARC:LN) and Tesco (TSCO:LN). With the prospect of having to purchase a new car this year as well. My stock market ambitions are likely to be limited to one or two further additions this year maximum.

2017 commentary. Back after a sabbatical, with some savings to invest a flurry of activity has taken place.

Author can be contacted: Investing1234@hotmail.co.uk

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