Dogs Nightmare and Random Shares update

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I didn’t get round to doing my quarterly update for my experimental Dogs of the FTSE portfolio so thought I’d do a first ‘trimester’ update instead.

Suffice to say that the poor mutts really don’t look too healthy, mostly milling about negatively in turmoil.

Evraz plc in particular is looking extremely woeful, showing a massive loss since this portfolio start, despite showing huge gains in the previous year.

ITV leads the pack with a semi-decent gain but for how long!?

That said, the FTSE 100 Total Return was minus 1.3% over the same period so the Dogs aren’t too far behind with a loss of 1.83%, when you include dividends received (loss of 4.7% without dividends).

But it’s still early days yet, anything can happen in 8 months – yes, I know it could get worse but I’m being opimistic so see the future as being bright(ish)! In the meantime, I shall continue to collect their dividends.

As I’ve mentioned previously, this is not a strategy I would recommend to anyone, this is my own fun experiment, although I can’t say it’s a lot of fun looking at all the red numbers right now.

Cheerful Randomness

To cheer myself up, I will take a look at my Random Share Portfolio, which I first mentioned here.

This portfolio is made up of free shares awarded to me whenever someone signs up via my Freetrade affiliate link, bagging themselves a free share in the process. Link is here* if you are interested.

Here are a couple of the recent free random shares I’ve been awarded.

And here’s what the full portfolio currently looks like:

Still waiting for that Tesla or Netflix share to drop haha, but the fact is, I’m well happy with all my free shares. Most of them are ones I would never have considered buying, only because I wasn’t even aware of them.

I was particularly happy to receive shares for IShares S&P Global Clean Energy ETF (INRG) as I didn’t know there was such an ETF, never mind that it was available on Freetrade.

INRG tracks the performance of an index composed of 30 of the largest global companies involved in the clean energy sector. I think I will add to this as I’d like to increase my holding of more environmentally-friendly investments bit by bit.

Am still undecided as to what I want to do with this portfolio, ie sell or keep the shares.

For now, I think I’ll just leave them (mostly) and maybe decide on what to do in the new year. Although I missed out on the Aston Martin £10/per share payout because I didn’t reach the minimum criteria (only 1 share!) so I may get rid of that one soon.

Anyone with any thoughts on which ones I should get rid of and why?

*referral/affiliate link

10 thoughts on “Dogs Nightmare and Random Shares update”

  1. I love your free shares portfolio – truly diversified!
    I think that you should just hold them in perpetuity – I know that the dealing fees are low/no existent but it could be fun just to build them up over time.
    23 referrals might just be the tip of the iceberg! You could end up owning the world.

    I myself bought 8 shares in SSE by accident (don’t ask) and I’ve decided to hold them. So far, I’ve received a 6% dividend and the shares are up about 25% in the last 3 months.
    If only the rest of my stock picking was as good as that!

    • Hi GFF

      I know, it’s so random, I love it!

      I think I will hang onto them, bar the odd sale (eg Aston Martin) and I’ll use those funds to purchase another of the random ones.

      Haha, trying to work out how you bought 8 shares in SSE by accident but having suffered from ‘fat finger syndrome’ before, I think I can understand!

      Great returns anyway, perhaps you need to buy more stocks ‘by accident’!

  2. Love these Dogs and Free Shares portfolio updates Weenie 🙂

    I would keep the free shares portfolio as it is, it can be a good fun to see it grow over time.

    I don’t know many of those companies, but I you were to sell some I would consider Aston Martin. A car company making loses at the current high levels of consumer confidence and spending doesn’t look too good for the future. Also their current liabilities are 815,400 and cash and cash equivalents 118,900, boohoo!

    I don’t know what the Boohoo Group is but I would probably sell that one too during Halloween XD

    • Glad you enjoy the update, Tony.

      As mentioned earlier, I think I will keep the portfolio (mostly) as I want to see how it will grow.

      I will be getting rid of Aston Martin (probably today) and will replace with another of the randoms.

      Haha, Boohoo are an online fashion retail group – never bought from them myself but I see various deliveries for the young girls in the office so I guess they are popular so I will hang on for now!

  3. Pingback: The Full English Accompaniment – Pensions problems show societal flaws – The FIRE Shrink

  4. HI Weenie
    Great update, really interesting, I was drawn to ‘S&P UK Dividend Aristocrats’ and had to google that to find out more about it! I don’t have individual shares outside of Royal Mail, but its all been a bit of a poor show this month for my investments – I can’t just invest and forget though, I like checking in too much!

    I am finding it difficult to find time to blog too, have a few half written posts which i need to get on with!

    Booked us for Friday 29th November, The Bank on Mosley Street 6pm. Posted in Financial Independence UK

    • Hi Squirreler

      Glad you found this interesting and understand that it’s hard to not keep checking your investments! I was like that for a long time! . Whilst I don’t check daily any more, I still think I check more often than I should!

      Hmm…something’s come up and I might be double-booked for Fri 29th November! I will see if it’s possible for me to shift the other appointment. If not, I’ll see if I can show my face briefly at the meet up. At any rate, I will promote the meet up on the blog!

  5. Hey Weenie,

    Based on your previous dogs updates, sometimes they’re up, and in this post’s case sometimes they’re down. Same as all shares! It’s fascinating to see how they’re doing as time progresses.

    I love the fact that your random freeportfolio from referrals has grown to a value of over £100! That’s not to be sniffed at! I hope you don’t sell most as I’d be interested to see how this portfolio does over time!

    I must try to travel up for one of the FIRE meet-ups sometime, or arrange one closer to the Midlands!

    Corinna

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