In January my US dollars will become available. I plan to invest these in non-sterling assets, mostly denominated in US dollars. In the meantime, I can expect a few dribs and drabs here and there, but nothing dramatic.
My reserves of cash aren't huge right now. I can afford to increase my portfolio by perhaps 20% between now and January. That's a little more than half the rate I was investing over the first half of the year.
Recent market movements
The move in the wider market have been good for my portfolio. Particular highlights over the last 3 months:
- Bond doubled. Quadnetics were up 40%, Maxima 20%.
- LLPF are up over 50% since purchase.
- RBS and Barclays continued their strong runs to be up around 40% each.
Shame my US$ fell 10%, but overall I was well in profit.
Prospective trades
At the right price:
- Offload my Lloyds shares to eliminate the concentration of risk I have (given my large holdings of LLPF). Invest the proceeds in GSK, bringing my holding up to ~5% of my portfolio.
- Sell my last remaining RBS shares, add some cash to the proceeds, and then bring my holdings in BAT and NG up to around 5% of my portfolio each.
- Sell my Zirax shares and use the capital loss to reduce my taxes this year.
- Invest further in IAPD, IDVY, IEEM, bringing each of them up to ~10% of my portfolio.
That would account for 2-3 months worth of my investment budget.
Update 24/07/09
I've executed some of my plan:
- I've got out of my Lloyds Ordinaries at 78.5p, and invested the proceeds in GSK at 1164p. GSK is now 5.2% of my portfolio.
- I sold out of RBS at 42.4p and invested in BATS at 1796p and NG at 566p. They are now each 5.4% of my portfolio.
- I've decided to leave my Zirax shares alone for now. I think they are undervalued, and I can sell them anytime before the end of March 2010 and still get the benefit of the capital loss.
- I'll leave IEEM, IAPD and IDVY for now. Depending on whether I find other opportunities worth investing in, I may wait until January before investing further.
My portfolio breakdown is now as follows:
BRK-B: 9.6% of stock/bond portfolio (excluding currency)IEEM.L: 8.8
IAPD.L: 8.4
IDVY.L: 7.3
NXT.L: 6.8
LLPF.L: 6.4
DGE.L: 6.3
SLXX.L: 6.2
GNK.L: 5.8
NG.L: 5.4
BATS.L: 5.4
GSK.L: 5.2
TSCO.L: 5.0
BDI.L: 3.6
BARC.L: 2.7
MXM.L: 2.2
QDG.L: 2.0
CPT.L: 1.7
ZRX.L: 1.3
Here's the breakdown by asset class (including currency):
USD: 31.9% of total portfolio (including currency)
Large UK Shares: 25.6
Small UK Shares: 8.7
UK Bonds: 8.5
Large USA Shares: 6.5
Large Emerging Shares: 6.0
Large Asia Shares: 5.7
Large Europe Shares: 4.9
Small Europe Shares: 1.2
Small Emerging Shares: 0.9
So my portfolio is 42.8% in UK assets, 38.4% in US assets, 18.9% in Europe/Asia/Emerging assets. But bear in mind that a lot of my UK assets are actually international companies, e.g. GSK, BATS, DGE.