If you are a fund or stock investor what a cracking year its been! Despite the fact trade wars, brexit and a bunch of other global uncertainties this year markets have done fantastic! Especially in comparison to 2018 which had two major corrections at the start and the end of the year destroying gains.
I end this year with an annualised return of 9.25%, which exceeded many of my expectations.
My top investments have been
Fidelity Funds Global Technology (25.68% annualised return)
JOHCM UK equity income (10.5% so far, no annualised as I havenât been in it a year yet)
Axa Framlington Global Technology (18.74% annualised return)
My worst has been
Jupiter Absolute Return fund (-4.04% annualised)
Merian Asia Pacific (-0.23% annualised)
Baillie Gifford Japanese (-1.01% non annualised)
Iâm hoping with china/America comming to a deal next year with Brexit finally coming to the beginning of an end there may be some more potential for growth. But world wide economies are slowing, how long can stimulus in the world markets keep it moving?
I read a load of books on not stockpicking, but Iâm doing it anyway as I enjoy the getting involved. My annualised return is around 19% but itâs unfair to compare as Iâve had to time weight it as it has been running a full year.
My best was ASI UK Smaller Companies (+47%) - sadly I didnât have much invested here though. Most of my investment was in a Ftse 100 / 250 and s&p 500 tracker, which have all done pretty well.
phildawson
(Sorry, I will have to escalate this.)
7
I did a quick look back at Stock ETFs over the last four years that FreeTrade has available and 39/40 have been good.
Technology being the winner and S&P 500.
As for it can it continue I think it will dip but itâs always going up over the long run.
I think technology will steadily become a part of everyones lives and far from plateauing so a good thing to bet on, that and health care.
In my case, the year looks very positive, though with some of the investments, thatâs because theyâd done pretty poorly the previous year. For example, Lloyds, is up 22.5% since Jan 2019, but down 7.7% since Jan 2018. Ditto Vietnam Opportunity Fund is up just 0.3% in 2019, but down 8.4% since I bought it.
My investments that performed the best this year were Apple (+85.9%), Bailie Gifford Japan (+20.6%) and Amazon (+15.3%).
My investment that performed the worst was Den, which I invested in on Seedrs, and looks like itâll be liquidatedđ.
Iâve had a terrible year. Bought Bushveld Minerals and Beyond Meat at the top, and both have collapsed. Also had Patisserie Valerie (luckily not much) and Defenx, who have just delisted for 3p a share (I bought a lot at 28p). Only Microsoft and Apple have done well, although most of the Apple gains only got me back to where they were before the Oct 2018 crash.
Stocks and shares trading is beyond me lol
I have been buying physical gold, second hand jewellery, the odd gold coin, scrap etc (albeit in very small amounts) for the last 10 years.
I have managed to buy when low and sell when high, at least most of the time.
Buy from ebay, etc and then sell to gold refiners, using the money to re-invest when the prices are favourable.
Whilst this has not made me a fortune, I have made a little more (I think) than I would have putting the cash into a savings account.
The part of the business that most interests me with Amazon is Amazon Web Services (on which I believe much of Monzoâs infrastructure runs). However, impossible to invest in that part of business without investing in Amazon overall.
You have to decide whatâs important to you. I donât invest in companies that I perceive to have solely a detrimental impact on society. In particular tobacco and gambling & gaming. However, the impact of other types of companies and industries is more nuanced.
I would tread carefully this year, recession risks are still elevated and the only thing supporting this market is the Fed Not QE-QE programme. You wonât be seeing a return like 2019 if you are simply long various equity funds.
I suppose it depends on your trading strategy too. I have a fairly large lump sum I want to throw into an Equities ETF. I want to see a pull back before investing this lump sum because everything just seems too high.
Yeah thatâs a fair point. I agree about buying on a pull back, rather than at these levels. Commodities are historically undervalued, too, so perhaps look at some mining-related etfs, could be a good diversification.
Yes I think we might see a weakening of the USD through 2020 (although the election will come into play) and commodities should become cheaper. Oil is one I think that could do well.
Actually, come to think of it, it wasnt quite the top. Beyond Meat in particular continued to climb quite sharply, but eventually collapsed. Hopefully 2020 will be better though!
Again I donât know how anyone can sleep at night investing in extractivist industries in the twenty first century. You would almost literally have the blood of children on your hands.