Category Archives: Selling

“Lockdown” Dogs of the FTSE + Random Shares

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21

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, in accordance with the strategy:

Eight Dogs Set Free (Sold):

  • Evraz plc (EVR)
  • Imperial Brands Group (IMB)
  • Persimmon plc (PSN)
  • Direct Line Insurance Group (DLG)
  • Aviva plc (AV)
  • HSBC Holdings plc (HSBA)
  • ITV plc (ITV)
  • BT Group plc (BT.A)

Total received from sales = £1,518.96

Total Dividends received = £185.26

Loss from original investment = £295.78 (14.7% loss) – ouch!

It was horrible pushing the ‘sell’ button to ditch those stocks at a loss but I am committed to the strategy so did it in an ‘unemotional’ way (although in my mind, I was screaming “Noooooooo!”)

Also, it was really difficult swalllowing the 3 x £9.95 trading fees (three of the Dogs were still with AJ Bell).

Ok, next, in accordance with the strategy:

Eight New Dogs Rounded Up (Bought): 

  • National Grid (NG)
  • Rio Tinto plc (RIO)
  • United Utilities Group plc (UU)
  • M&G plc (MNG)
  • Phoenix Group Holdings plc (PHNX)
  • BHP Group plc (BHP)
  • Vodafone Group plce (VOD)
  • Anglo American (AAL)

Hmm…pretty much miners, insurance and utiilities.

The first three are Dogs which made an appearance back in my 2018 portfolio – can these old Dogs be taught new tricks in this current market climate?

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!

 

Dogs of the FTSE 2019/20 – final update + Random Shares

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13

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]

Return of the Dogs!

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21

I can’t think of a better time to post about my Dogs of the FTSE experimental portfolio, just as the markets are apparently tanking!

Is this just a blip, or the beginning of the inevitable end of the bull run?

Whatever, I’m still investing and I intend to document the bad times as well as the good times.

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]

Note that this is my ‘fun’ portfolio and represents less than 2% of my Future Fund.

Here’s how my last portfolio finished in Feb 2019:

Full end of 12-month update is here if you’re interested.

There was a delay in setting up the next portfolio as I had to wait for the 2019 tax year to commence to open my new ISA with a new provider.

So in June, I went about setting up my Dogs of the FTSE 2019/20 portfolio! Been a bit busy so this post has been languishing in my drafts!

So, in accordance with the strategy:

Six Dogs Set Free (Sold):

  • Marks & Spencer Grp plc (MKS)
  • National Grid (NG)
  • Rio Tinto plc (RIO)
  • Royal Dutch Shell plc (RDSB)
  • SSE plc (SSE)
  • United Utilities Group plc (UU)

Total received from sales = £1,333.20

Total Dividends received = £175.90 (note I continued to receive divis until I sold in June)

Profit/Loss from original investment = £57.94 (3.9% gain)

It was not easy at all pushing the ‘sell’ button for some of those but I am committed to the strategy.

Also, it was hard swalllowing the 6 x £9.95 trading fee (with AJ Bell) – if not for the fees, I would have doubled my profit/gain and this is the main reason why I moved to another provider, where the fee for buying/selling will be a big fat zero.

Next, in accordance with the strategy:

Six Dogs Rounded Up (Bought): 

  • Standard Life Aberdeen (SLA)
  • ITV plc (ITV)
  • Aviva plc (AV)
  • British American Tobacco plc (BATS)
  • Direct Line Insurance Group (DLG)
  • HSBC Holdings (HSBA)

I’m not timing the market, just bought at whatever the price was in June.

So here’s how the Dogs of the FTSE Portfolio 2019/20 looks as at today:

Best of breed or mangy mutts? All pretty much looking like they’re the latter right now!

Over this same period, the FTSE 100 Total Return was minus 1.46% so the Dogs are lagging a bit on -5.10% including dividends.

I’m not sure I can do quarterly updates as before – perhaps half-yearly updates on how this portfolio is doing.

Random Shares Portfolio

I’ve been testing Freetrade’s free share referral scheme and now have a bunch of free shares, thanks to those who have clicked on the link and topped up their accounts – hope you were all allocated decent free shares in return.

When I get round to it, I’ll provide an update on what random shares I was awarded and how they are getting on.

If anyone would like to try out Freetrade’s app and bag a free share in the process, drop me a note via @QuietlySaving or my Contact Form.

The free share referral scheme will be rolled out to all shortly, which will allow all Freetrade account holders to be able to refer.

And finally….

Possible Blog Delays in Future…

D-Day is imminent, my living situation will be completely changed from this weekend.

I’m feeling both excitement and dread. And rather stressed.

I have no idea how I will be able to continue to post regularly and keep my blog secret from my family so don’t know when I’ll be able to post again.

I hope I’ll work something out.

Dogs of the FTSE 2018 – final update

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17

Just a quick update to say that I’ve reached the twelve-month mark for my 2nd experimental Dogs of the FTSE portfolio.

So how did the mutts perform with the markets going all pear-shaped towards the back-end of last year?

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 2018 portfolio looked after a year (as at 11th Feb 2019):

 

A very decent 8.77% gain, but if you include dividends, this becomes a mighty 16% gain for the entire portfolio! Nice!

Over this same period, the FTSE 100 Total Return was minus 2.02% so woo hoo, the Dogs romped home this year! 🙂

Ok, so most of the gains were from just one stock (Evraz) but with some other gains (eg National Grid and United Utilities), the small losses made little impact on the portfolio.

What’s Next?

I do intend to run a 2019 portfolio, or rather a 2019/20 portfolio but there will be a slight delay, because I’m going to wait til next tax year as I plan to use a different ISA account for this experiment.

So for now, I will just hang onto all the Dogs for a while longer and sell/buy when I am able to.

The Dogs will return in April!