Time for another progress update on my latest Dogs of the FTSE experimental portfolio which was set up in June.

Sadly, I wasn’t able to time it when everything hit rock bottom in March but who can time the market, in any case?

Bad timing or not, I continue to follow the strategy as an experiment and have been documenting the bad times as well as the good.

Here’s a reminder of the Dogs of the FTSE strategy (which is based on the US Dogs of the Dow strategy):

1. Choose the ten FTSE 100 shares with the highest yield (subject to my criteria*)
2. Invest equal amounts in all ten shares
3. Hold for a year (give or take a week)
4. At the end of the year, sell the ones no longer in the top ten, replace with new shares with highest yield
5. Repeat from step 3

[*criteria being that shares already in my portfolio are not included, nor any where a dividend cut has been announced]

Note that this is part of my ‘fun’ portfolio and represents less than 1.5% of my Future Fund – it is not what I do as a main investing strategy. All dividends received are reinvested.

Signs of Life

Finally, some good news to share – the mutts are showing some stirrings of life!

Big upticks in November had most of the Dogs showing some gains, although a few persist in wallowing in the red.

Who knows what a deal/no-deal Brexit will bring or whether mass vaccination will miraculously stop the virus in its tracks and kick-start world economy again, but it will be interesting to see:

Over the same period, the FTSE 100 Total Return was 8.07% so the Dogs are doing worse at 6.91%.

However, if I include dividends received, it’s a gain of 9.80%, so not bad really.

The pooches still have around 6 months to stay the course – I’ll do another update in a few months’ time.

Random Shares

My Random Share Portfolio is made up of free shares awarded to me whenever someone signs up to Freetrade* via my affiliate link, bagging us both a random free share (worth between £3 and £200) in the process.

Out of the Champions League but in my portfolio

Here’s the full portfolio.

I’ve kept most of the shares, occasionally selling when the odd one or two gain by >20% (quite a few did in November).

The money from sales of such shares have been invested into my Winter Rock Associates Fund 😉

Freetrade will imminently be offering SIPPs as well as ISAs (my current S&S ISA is with them).

For a flat fee of £9.99 per month, this seems quite competitive compared to other brokers’ SIPPs, especially when you factor in no trading fees for buying or selling. Comparison here if anyone is interested.

Anyway, thanks to all who have signed up via my link in the past – hope you all got a decent free share!

See you on the Other Side!

I haven’t got anything to write about between now and the end of the year – perhaps I’ll use this time to think about my goals for next year, although these will probably be similar to the ones I set for 2020, only not so ambitious!

So I may as well take this opportunity to say I hope that everyone has as safe and as happy a Christmas/festive holiday as they can under the circumstances and here’s to 2021 being a better year for all of us!

My latest Dogs of the FTSE experimental portfolio was set up in June, so it’s time for an update on its progress – a shame I wasn’t able to time it when everything hit rock bottom in March.

Bad timing or not, I continue to follow the strategy as an experiment and will be documenting the bad times as well as the good (mostly bad, these days!).

Here’s a reminder of the Dogs of the FTSE strategy:

1. Choose the ten FTSE 100 shares with the highest yield (subject to my criteria*)
2. Invest equal amounts in all ten shares
3. Hold for a year (give or take a week)
4. At the end of the year, sell the ones no longer in the top ten, replace with new shares with highest yield
5. Repeat from step 3

[*criteria being that shares already in my portfolio are not included, nor any where a dividend cut has been announced]

Note that this is part of my ‘fun’ portfolio and represents less than 1.5% of my Future Fund – it is not what I do as a main investing strategy. All dividends received are reinvested.

Wobbles

The stock market has been wobbling a little these past couple of months, reacting (or not) to world events, and my Dogs don’t appear to have done too well. Only 3 are in positive territory, the others are looking quite sorry for themselves:

Over the same period, the FTSE 100 Total Return was -6.22% so the Dogs are doing slightly worse at -6.76%.

However, if I include dividends received, it’s a loss of -4.09%, which is marginally better but still rather rubbish.

Well, the mangy mutts still have around 9 months to turn themselves around – I’ll do another update in a few months’ time.

Random Shares

My Random Share Portfolio is made up of free shares awarded to me whenever someone signs up to Freetrade* via my affiliate link, bagging us both a random free share (worth between £3 and £200) in the process.

A couple of recent free random shares I received

Here’s the full portfolio – it’s gotten a bit too big to do a full copy and paste.

I’ve kept most of the shares, occasionally selling when the odd one gains by >20%.

The money from sales of such shares have been invested into my Winter Rock Associates Fund 😉

Thanks to all who have signed up via my link in the past – hope you all got a decent free share!

My last update on my Dogs of the FTSE experimental portfolio showed just how badly this strategy can perform in certain markets.

Whatever, I’m still following the strategy as an experiment and I intend to document the bad times as well as the good.

As another reminder, here’s the Dogs of the FTSE strategy:

1. Choose the ten FTSE 100 shares with the highest yield (subject to my criteria*)
2. Invest equal amounts in all ten shares
3. Hold for a year (give or take a week)
4. At the end of the year, sell the ones no longer in the top ten, replace with new shares with highest yield
5. Repeat from step 3

[*criteria being that shares already in my portfolio are not included, nor any where a dividend cut has been announced]

Note that this is my ‘fun’ portfolio and represents less than 1.5% of my Future Fund.

New Pooches

Time to set up my new Dogs of the FTSE 2020/21 portfolio!

So here’s how the Dogs of the FTSE Portfolio 2020/21 looks as at today:

Best of breed or mangy mutts? Pretty much looking like they’re the latter right now but it’s early days yet!

I think I should still manage quarterly updates as before so those interested can see how the portfolio is doing.

At least finally, the entire Dogs portfolio will now be on Freetrade, so I can buy and sell without any fees.

Random Shares

Speaking of which, my Random Share Portfolio is made up of free shares awarded to me whenever someone signs up to Freetrade* via my affiliate link, bagging us both a random free share (worth between £3 and £200) in the process.

Two free shares I received recently

Here’s the full portfolio – it’s gotten a bit too big to do a full copy and paste.

Own a Piece of Tesla!

To celebrate Freetrade’s 200,000th customer, anyone signing up to Freetrade before the end of the month via my link* will get the chance to receive a piece of Elon Musk’s company for free – each share is currently worth just under £1,300!

All you need to do is sign up via my link, fund your account with £1 and complete a    W-8BEN form (to declare you don’t pay US taxes).

Good luck! 🙂

Thanks to all who have signed up via my link in the past – hope you all got a decent free share!

Until next time – hope you’re all keeping well, keeping calm and still investing!

After an awesome 2018/19 when my 2nd experimental Dogs of the FTSE portfolio romped home with 8.77% gains (16% including dividends), I was stupidly quietly confident that they would do the same again for 2019/20.

Sadly, like everyone else, I hadn’t counted on the pandemic.

Plague Dogs

So one year on and my 3rd experimental portfolio has been quite a disaster, to put it bluntly.

As a reminder, here’s the Dogs of the FTSE strategy:

1. Choose the ten FTSE 100 shares with the highest yield (subject to my criteria*)
2. Invest equal amounts in all ten shares
3. Hold for a year (give or take a week)
4. At the end of the year, sell the ones no longer in the top ten, replace with new shares with highest yield
5. Repeat from step 3

[*criteria being that shares already in my portfolio are not included, nor any where a dividend cut has been announced]

Here’s how the 2019/20 portfolio looked after a year (as at 8th June 2020):

Ouch – look at all the red numbers!

An overall loss of -20.09%;  -15.46% if you include dividends paid out.

Over the same period, the FTSE 100 Total Return was -9.60%.

Only one of the Dogs showed showed any significant profit (Persimmon) so a woeful performance overall.

What Next?

It’s always been my intention to run this as a (minimum) 5-year experiment so the Dogs will be back for their 4th outing very soon.

There’s likely to be a brutal culling – mangy mutts hopefully replaced by Dogs with a bit more pedigree!

I’ll get this new portfolio set up soon, so will do an update in a couple of weeks.

Random Shares

My Random Share Portfolio is made up of free shares awarded to me whenever someone signs up to Freetrade* via my affiliate link, bagging us both a random free share (worth between £3 and £200) in the process.

Here’s the full portfolio – it’s gotten a bit too big to do a full copy and paste.

One of the free shares I received recently

Thanks to all who have signed up via my link – hope you all got a decent free share!

I’ve actually sold a couple during the recent market recovery (whenever any showed >40% gains) and replaced them with more random shares.

Until next time – keep calm and carry on investing!

[*affiliate link]