During the year I:
- Sold F.W.Thorpe, at an overall profit of 73%.
- Sold my iShares corporate bonds (just a place to park cash, they paid 3-4% per year).
- Moved to a Norwegian broker.
- Invested in some dull funds, which I haven't bothered to report here.
- Bought a very small number of Plus 500 shares at the end of the year, after their share price plunged precipitously.
I continue to hold Berkshire Hathaway and Natwest Preference Shares, as I have done for several years.
The story of the year is all about currency movement. In sterling terms I'm up 27.5% over the year. In US$ it's a mere 7%. And in the currency I care about most, NOK, it's only 4%. I should be thankful I'm even in profit at all - with half my portfolio in sterling-denominated fixed income investments I was not well-placed for Brexit. Thankfully Berkshire Hathaway rode to the rescue - up 25% in USD terms and almost 50% in sterling.
As a result of all that, Berkshire are now more than 75% of my portfolio. That's OK, I think my money is safe there.
What will 2017 bring? I may make some small trades, but it's likely to just be playing around the edges. I don't plan to sell BRK-B or NWBD. If the market plunges then I may invest some new cash, but it would need to look significantly cheaper than it does now.
Comparing myself to the FTSE 100 seems increasingly pointless, but for the record I beat it handily: http://www.ftse.com/products/indices/uk reports the FTSE 100's total return was 19%. A more realistic comparison now is to compare my US$ return with the MSCI World index (with reinvested dividends). That returned 8.15% in 2016, according to http://www.indexq.org/index/MSG001.php, so I slightly underperformed.
