Saturday 30th July 2022

 It has been a very difficult 6 months for the world: war, famine, climate catastrophe, inflation - and it's not over yet.

The SIPP Portfolio is down: no surprise there! 

Value of Equities = £266,877.60

Value of Cash = £4,186.22

TOTAL = £271,068.82

On the 1st January, the total value was at £309,757 and in the previous 4 months (1st Sept - 31st Dec) UK equities had been looking flat: no impetus, and nothing on the horizon to produce a better return.  In hindsight, I should have trimmed back at least my UK equity exposure.

Selling Diploma (DPLM) for an average of 2900 in January was a good move, as the SP dropped below 2250 and now looks to be on a recovery mode. And selling GB Group (GBG) for an average of 695 was another good move, as the SP dropped to just under 400 in early July. This is another company that "could" be on a recovery mode, but looks very cheap now and ripe for a takeover bid.  It's highly likely that I will take-up shares in both of these companies in August. 

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.