Firstly, I hope eveyone is keeping safe and calm, washing their hands and not been caught short by the mad people stock-piling toilet paper, pasta and paracetamol.
Upon family advice, I’ve been making sure bit by bit that my essentials have been topped up since January, because they warned that there would be idiots who would be hording like it’s the apocalypse.
The stock markets continue to be in chaos, so it’s an interesting time to update my experimental Dogs of the FTSE portfolio. As someone who’s only really invested during a great bull run, I think it’s important to try to document the bad as well as the good!
My poorly mutts weren’t doing particularly well in my first update and things now look pretty dire. Only Persimmon (PSN) is seemingly doing well, still building houses despite everything that is going on in the world.
The FTSE 100 Total Return was minus 10% over the same period so the Dogs are doing worse at minus 16.33%. Even if I include dividends received, it’s a loss of 12.88%. Ouch!
Just one more update to go in June for this portfolio, probably not really enough time for the markets to recover and for my dogs to lick their wounds, but we’ll see. All I can do is to just collect the dividends and hope my losses will be at a minimum.
As I’ve mentioned previously, this is not a strategy I would recommend to anyone, this is my own fun experiment, although it’s really no fun at all looking at all the red numbers.
Cheerful Randomness
Like last time, 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. Freetrade is an investing app which (since 28th Feb 2020) allows you to buy and sell instantly for free. Link is here* if you are interested.
Might be an opportunity for those who want to take advantage of some cheap stocks and not have to pay a trading fee.
Anyway, here are a few of the free random shares I’ve been awarded since the last update:
And here’s what the full portfolio currently looks like:
Still waiting for that Tesla or Netflix share to drop, but as mentioned previously, 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’ve actually sold a couple of the shares (when they gained 50%) and just ploughed the cash into a random share I already owned.
I think I’ll just keep them (mostly) and see what happens.
Anyway, keep calm and carry on investing.
*referral/affiliate link
Just came from Lidl a while ago and half of the shelves empty. Eggs, toilet paper and pasta was almost all gone, I had to buy caged eggs!!!
I am about to finish a book named “The little book of big dividends”. It remarks that normally a stock paying a high dividend also carries more risk, and I think that is what your dog portfolio shows too. Looking forward to seeing how this fun experiment of yours develops.
The dogs may need the paracetamol more than us I believe. I’m loving your free shares portfolio. I exited Freetrade last month to reduce hustle, but really liked the app. Take care.
Hi Tony
Yes, the high dividend stocks often carry more risk but supposedly also some rewards (like the Dogs of 2018/19) but it’s only the riskiness showing right now! They certainly need some medicine right now but may yet get more poorly before they get better!
Ah, I didn’t pick up any eggs this weekend so will need to make sure I get some later this week.
Ouch! I haven’t felt brave enough to take a look at my own investments yet – especially now the oil price wars have hit the market! I think I’ll continue to hide under the duvet for a while longer, until some sort of calm predominates then I’ll reevaluate.
Hi Baldrick
I haven’t taken a look at the rest of my portfolio, will wait til the end of the month but imagine that it will be way down. Can’t see things calming down by then. Enjoy the comfort of your duvet! 🙂
I love that you kept on to most of your free shares. It looks like a proper little portfolio; it’s cool.
I’m ready to dump a load into funds and sweep up some of these individual shares but I’m hesitant about doing so just yet as I think this thing has a while to go yet. I’m thinking of doing a ‘dump’ every few weeks.
Yes, I think things will continue to go down but I’m not really changing my strategy, will just buy as and when I get the cash. Good luck with your ‘dumps’! 🙂
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