SIPP value as at 1st January 2022

 Happy New Year!

For sure, 2021 has been a year to remember. This time last year, the SIPP value was £254,298 - so after deducting the annual contributions of £12,000 the total growth in the year has been £43,459 or 17.08%

The sole transaction in the month of December was the sale of Chelverton UK Equity Growth (I was using another quoted Chelverton fund - SDV - to identify the holding). The reason for the sale was that the UK market appears to have lost impetus, and while some investment houses are "bullish" about UK equities - I'm not. Things could all change should the current Prime Minister (or Government) be replaced, but with the current incumbents remaining in-charge confidence is low. An illustration of the weakness of UK equities is shown in the BlackRock Smaller Companies IT (BRSC) graph for the past 12 months (see below).  Up until the end of August the SP was growing rapidly -then September was a bit of a disaster.

I've moved the funds into the infrastructure Investment Trust 3i Infrastructure, which while not being a likely growth investment, is more of a defensive investment against future downturns. 

It hasn't all been doom & gloom, look at the SP performance of Diploma (DPLM) - up 52% during the 12 months of 2021; and while this company was also affected by the September dip, the recovery has been greater than the loss.

The star of the portfolio continues to be Segro (SGRO) - see the 12 month chart below.

My initial purchase of Segro share was in August 2014, when I bought 900 shares at 356p, and they are now 1431p - phenomenal performance and it appears to show no signs of stopping any time soon.

By this time next year, I'm setting target value of over £360,000 for the SIPP; fingers crossed I will achieve it.

SIPP value as at 1st December 2021

 One month on from the birthday blog and it has been a period of consolidation.

Unfortunately, a new variant of Covid has developed and that has put a dampener on the markets, taking a bit of the froth of the recent growth away.  Fingers crossed, we don't go into another spiral of falling values that hit the markets in Feb-March of 2020; but maybe the markets are more resilient now?

It's not a time to be doing anything drastic (just yet), and I'm on the lookout for where the next direction is coming from - so you may see a few share purchases in the next few months as I endeavour to reposition the SIPP portfolio for more growth.

The Birthday Blog - 62yo on Monday 8th November

 It is that time of year again: the Birthday Blog!

The plan is to "retire" on my 66th birthday on 8th November 2025, as that's when I can draw on my UK Old-Age Pension. About 5-years ago, my plan was to carry on working for as long as possible; but - probably due to Covid - I've decided that I'm going to give-up full-time work at the earliest opportunity and enjoy living rather than working.  I've still the same blog photo: taken at the time of my 50th birthday - maybe this is the time to change it.

This time last year, the SIPP value was at £243,147 - the SIPP had made a terrific recovery from the depths of despair surrounding the impact of Covid, and I was confident about the coming 12 months.  As per the table below, the value of the SIPP at close-of-business on Friday 5th November was £307,654 - and increase of £64,507.

As £12,000 of that increase was my own monthly contributions, that indicates a growth of £52,507 or 21.59% - an absolutely brilliant result even if I say say myself.  

I've smashed my target value of £291,000 for the year, and I'm 2-months ahead of my year-end target of £300,000.  You may notice that I have reduced the number of holdings from 13 down to 10, and in doing so I've increased the value of my "plays". 

The above graph doesn't show the value of the SIPP but only the value of the investment holdings not including cash.  The reason for the recent uplift is that after a period of holding +10% of cash, I'm now fully invested.  

Having broken the target for the year, I will recalculate the target for 8th Nov 2022, and (based on the final value achieved for 2021 on 31st December) will recalculate for the year ending 31st December 2022.

SIPP Value as at 1st Octber

Not the greatest month for the SIPP, as the value has gone down from £303,518 to £287,581 which is a drop of 5.25%.  

From the top, the changes are:-

Share                Prev Value            Current Value         Change £             Change %

BRSC                 £31,854                £30,362                    £1,492                (4.68%)

DPLM                £14,699                £13,804                    £895                   (6.08%)

GBG                  £24,146                £23,012                    £1,134                 (4.70%)

HGT                  £33,227                £31,919                    £1,308                 (3.93%)

IEFM                £29,728                £28,245                    £1,483                  (4.99%)

KWS                £41,486                £38,324                    £3,162                      (7.62%)

SDP                    £21,567                £20,803                    £764                    (3.52%)

SDV                    £29,658                £29,652**                £6                        0.00%

SGRO                £32,599                   £30,383                £2,216                    (6.80%)            

VUSA                £30,142                £29,166                    £976                        (3.24%)

SIPP Value as at 28th August 2021

 What a month!

Even though I've not added this months bi-monthly contribution to the portfolio (pay-in £1000 a month in installments of £2000 every-other month) the portfolio has cracked through £300,000 in value.

Progress has continued unabated, with BlackRock Smaller Companies (BRSC) is up nearly 6% in the month; and Keywords Services (KWS) also up over 5%. Reducing my holding in VUSA and moving the money into Redde (REDD) was possibly done a bit too early, as VUSA is up 3.60% in the month.

Schroders Asia (SDP) has pulled back from a recent low but is still in a negative position.  The discount has been widening recently, but this investment trust is usually a good long-term play, and I will be exploring ways to increase the holding to 10% of the SIPP portfolio.

The month was a milestone for me outside the SIPP too, as my general investment portfolio of SIPP, ISA and general investments topped £500k, which - considering in April 2010 I had only a little over £300 to my name after 9 months of unemployment - I think is a tremendous achievement.

The current (as at 3rd September) 50-day moving averages are:

BRSC =  2050p

DPLM = 2995p

GBG = 865p

HGT = 385p

IEFM = 802p

KWS = 2800p

REDD = 422p

SDP = 600p

SGRO = 1210p

VUSA - 6150p

SIPP value as at 31st July 2021 - annual target hit 3 months early!

 What a month for the SIPP - it has already hit the value target for the year of £290,000 and that's 3 months early and with another £4,000 of monthly contributions yet to be paid in!  Remember, the value of the SIPP on 1st November (9 months ago) was £243,127 and my contributions since then have been £8,000 - so essentially £39,000 of capital growth in 9mths on £243,000; that's about 20% pa.

The target I set was based on maintaining the growth rate since I started managing the SIPP myself of 12.90%pa.  If I can hold onto and/or build on these gains between now and 1st November then I will have increased the overall growth-rate.

Performance has been tremendous: gains from GBG; HGT; IEFM; SGRO, VUSA; and a massive gain from KWS (this has to be a FTSE100 company within 3 years). 

The only loser in the period was SDP: Schroders Asia Pacific (IT) Fund which has been affected by the recent decisions of the Chinese government (pretty much out of the blue) to be "critical" of the major China-based internet companies. Also, the discount on this investment trust has grown to about 10%. In the hope of a reverse of fortunes on this holding, I have sold £7,000 of IEFM and moved the proceeds into SDP - it may be a good move, or it might not, time will tell.

Diploma (DPLM) has gone sideways for the past 3-months, after improving nearly 200% from 1st Jan 2018; and I'm thinking this is the time to take my profits and move into something else with more positive momentum.  Overall, I am a momentum investor: that's the one investment principle that has shown consistent positive results - what goes up, keeps going up (and what goes down, keeps going down).  So, I'm looking at companies whose SP's have improved over 10% in the past 3 months and have a market value of between £1bn - 3bn.

GB Group (GBG) is also going sideways - slightly - but I'm confident that the SP of this company will break through 1000 this year: and I expect this will come with a takeover bid from an American company - and that could mean a price of over 1500 could be seen in the next 12 months.

SIPP on 6th July 2021

 

The SIPP is looking good as we enter the 2nd-half of 2021.

Smaller Companies (BRSC) has overperformed and is now 10.70% of the portfolio value: this is a "benchmark" holding at 10% of the portfolio.

HGT which is my "private equity" investment trust is also over performing, and is 10.80%. 

There's a couple of holdings which are under-performing: SDP (Asia/Pacific) isn't doing well, and I'm not sure if this is a buying opportunity or time to cut & run and move the funds into something else.

Chelverton UK Equity Growth is just under 10% (I'm using another quoted Chelverton fund SDV to identify the holding above), but I'm not unduly worried about this holding.  I'm more worried with my European Momentum ETF (IEFM) which appears to be going sideways.

The IT holdings GBG and KWS are well down on their 12-month highs but both have serious upside potential - so no worries there for me.

Segro (SGRO) goes from strength-to-strength and is one of the best share purchases that I've made in 10 years of managing my own pension - just wish I'd found this company earlier and had the conviction to invest more of my SIPP.

The S&P500 investment trust managed by Vanguard (VUSA) is up 9% which is tremendous considering a 3rd of my holding was purchased in mid-April just 3-months ago.

So, all looking good and I will probably just undertake a small amount of rebalancing.