Damien’s April 2024 portfolio review – Going strong

The background to my portfolio

Back in March 2015 I decided to invest £50,000 of my own money using 80-20 Investor. The purpose was twofold, firstly to show how you can use 80-20 Investor to invest and outperform the market with only a few minutes effort every now and then. Secondly, no other investment commentator, journalist or research provider invests their own money for fear of failing. This is a sorry state of affairs and is precisely why I committed to openly running my own portfolio for 80-20 Investor members to see.

Since then I have periodically changed my portfolio using the fund suggestions provided by the 80-20 Investor algorithm and associated research. I always disclose the changes at the time they are made.

Performance update

As is usual in my portfolio reviews, the chart below shows how my portfolio has outperformed since I started the challenge in March 2015. The green line is the performance of my portfolio while the red line is the benchmark showing the average return achieved by professional fund managers given the same asset mix. To accurately calculate this I have used the average return for each sector in which my portfolio invested. The blue line shows what the average multi-asset fund with comparable equity content achieved. In other words, the red line would show the extra performance added by just the asset mix of my portfolio (where I was invested i.e European equities etc) over picking a typical multi-asset fund (the blue line). While the green line (which is my actual performance) shows the impact of being in the right funds at the right time, as identified by the 80-20 Investor algorithm.

You can see how my portfolio has continued to push towards new all-time highs and has extended its lead over its benchmarks. The chart below shows the outperformance from my portfolio since my last review, a month ago.

 

My £50,000 portfolio is now worth £84,155 which equates to a profit of 68.31% after 9 years, which is a result I'm proud of. But as I keep reminding you it's not just the profit that is important, so is the management of risk over that time.

Turning my attention to how individual funds have been performing over the last month, the table below shows the performance of the individual funds within my portfolio since my last review. As you can see WS Saracen Global Income and Growth has continued to excel after a turnaround in fortunes during February. However, my gold holding produced a return of over 10% in the last month, which is incredible. This has been a result of investors anticipating interest rate cuts in the US as early as June. It is pleasing to see that only two funds lost money, namely Fidelity Index Japan and abrdn High Yield Bond but both remain in the BOTB following months of strong performance.

Name	% return over the last month (since March's review)
iShares Physical Gold ETC	10.27
WS Saracen Global Income and Growth	4.57
Ninety One UK Special Situations	3.82
Artemis European Select	2.36
T. Rowe Price US Large Cap Growth Equity	1.93
Liontrust India	1.78
Fidelity American	1.74
Troy Asset Management Ltd Trojan Global Equity	1.57
BNY Mellon Multi-Asset Balanced	1.02
Schroder Strategic Credit	0.68
Thesis TM Tellworth UK Select	0.22
Fidelity Index Japan	-0.09
abrdn High Yield Bond	-0.7

As usual, the table below shows which funds within my portfolio are in the current BOTB or BFBS tables and which are not. Those funds in blue are still in the BOTB while those in orange are not in the BOTB but remain in the BFBS list. Meanwhile, any funds in red have dropped out of both shortlists.

Fund	Allocation (%)	Risk	Sector	ISIN
abrdn High Yield Bond	14.5	Lower	Sterling High Yield	GB00B79RR984
Artemis European Select	5	Medium	Europe Excluding UK	GB00B6WFCR53
BNY Mellon Multi-Asset Balanced	8	Medium	Mixed Investment 40-85% Shares	GB00B8K9JZ06
Fidelity American	5	Medium	North America	GB00B8GPC429
Fidelity Index Japan	6	Medium	Japan	GB00BHZK8872
iShares Physical Gold ETC	5	Medium	Commodity & Energy ETF	IE00B4ND3602
Liontrust India	6	Higher	India/Indian Subcontinent	GB00B1L6DV51
Ninety One UK Special Situations	5	Higher	UK All Companies	GB00B1XFJS91
Schroder Strategic Credit	8	Lower	Sterling Strategic Bond	GB00BJZ2ZC09
T. Rowe Price US Large Cap Growth Equity	11	Higher	North America	GB00BD5FHW12
Thesis TM Tellworth UK Select	5.5	Lower	Targeted Absolute Return	GB00BNY7YM73
Troy Asset Management Ltd Trojan Global Equity	11	Medium	Global	GB00B0ZJ5S47
WS Saracen Global Income & Growth	10	Medium	Global Equity Income	GB00B5B35X02

There are five funds that have fallen out of the BOTB and BFBS tables and are coloured in red. They are:

• BNY Mellon Multi-Asset Balanced
• Fidelity American
• Troy Asset Management Ltd Trojan Global Equity
• Thesis TM Tellworth UK Select
• Schroder Strategic Credit

The first three listed were in the 'red' list last month too, while Thesis TM Tellworth UK Select and Schroder Strategic Credit are new additions. However, both of the latter two funds made the BOTB list as recently as last month so I will give them a stay of execution. Furthermore, bond funds as a whole have endured a difficult month, as yields have risen. This is demonstrated by the weak performance of abrdn High Yield Bond over the last month, so the alternative low-risk fund options are not that enticing. I will keep an eye on the performance of both funds going forward to ensure that the recent slump doesn't escalate. This is especially true of the abrdn fund as it is the largest constituent of my portfolio.

BNY Mellon Multi-Asset Balanced is a fund that has sat at the core of my portfolio since June 2023 and soon after its introduction it appeared in the Consistent funds shortlist. The chart below shows the fund's performance since the start of 2024 versus its peer group average. The fund had been among its sector's top quartile of performers going into March and, following last month's decision to keep it, the fund rallied strongly but dipped as we moved into the start of April. The fund currently accounts for 8% of my portfolio and I will keep an eye on it with a view to potentially replacing it in the future if the recent slump becomes entrenched. However, the overall performance of my portfolio has been strong in recent months so I favour pruning and tweaking the portfolio in stages rather than making large drastic alterations.

That then leaves me with Fidelity American and Troy Asset Management Ltd Trojan Global Equity. Both have made appearances in the red list in recent months, and while they have been steady performers within my portfolio, they have seldom topped my portfolio's monthly performance table. However, it's time for a change. That doesn't mean they have suddenly become bad funds but there are opportunities elsewhere with more momentum. You may recall that back in January I halved my exposure to Fidelity American, so this month I will finally remove it entirely.

But, as I expressed last month, Fidelity American has been a good diversifier within the US equity portion of the portfolio because it is underweight in some of the Magnificent 7 stocks, such as Nvidia. Therefore when choosing alternatives to Fidelity American and Troy Trojan Global Equity I have tried to find funds that wouldn't increase my overall exposure to US tech stocks while not drastically altering my portfolio's asset mix at the same time.

I have therefore chosen to replace the Fidelity American fund with Artemis US Select and switch Trojan Global Equity for Artemis Global Equity income, both of which have been regulars in the BOTB of late. The Artemis Global Equity Income has a lower US equity exposure than many of its peers and limited exposure to the Magnificent 7. It is also much more globally diversified containing emerging market, European, Japanese and UK stocks.

The fund switches will mean that my portfolio has a higher UK equity exposure than the BOTB and a marginally lower US equity exposure than the BOTB but this is something that I will review in the future. My overall equity exposure will increase and will be more in line with that of the BOTB.

Fund switches

The fund switches I plan to make this month are listed below, and affect 15% of my portfolio.

• 100% out of Fidelity American and 100% into Artemis US Select
• 100% out of Troy Asset Management Ltd Trojan Global Equity and 100% into Artemis Global Income

My portfolio

My portfolio now looks like this:

Fund	Allocation	Risk	Sector	ISIN
abrdn High Yield Bond	14	Lower	Sterling High Yield	GB00B79RR984
Artemis European Select	5	Medium	Europe Excluding UK	GB00B6WFCR53
Artemis Global Income	11	Medium	Global Equity Income	GB00B5N99561
Artemis US Select	5	Medium	North America	GB00BMMV5105
BNY Mellon Multi-Asset Balanced	8	Medium	Mixed Investment 40-85% Shares	GB00B8K9JZ06
Fidelity Index Japan	5.5	Medium	Japan	GB00BHZK8872
iShares Physical Gold ETC	5.5	Medium	Commodity & Energy ETF	IE00B4ND3602
Liontrust India	6	Higher	India/Indian Subcontinent	GB00B1L6DV51
Ninety One UK Special Situations	5	Higher	UK All Companies	GB00B1XFJS91
Schroder Strategic Credit	8	Lower	Sterling Strategic Bond	GB00BJZ2ZC09
T. Rowe Price US Large Cap Growth Equity	11	Higher	North America	GB00BD5FHW12
Thesis TM Tellworth UK Select	5.5	Lower	Targeted Absolute Return	GB00BNY7YM73
WS Saracen Global Income & Growth*	10.5	Medium	Global Equity Income	GB00B5B35X02

 

My Portfolio asset mix

My portfolio asset mix has approximately 65% exposure to equities. Last month's figures are shown in brackets.

• • UK Equities 12% (8%)
  • North American Equities 25% (24%)
  • Asian/Emerging Market Equities 6% (6%)
  • Japanese Equities 7% (6%)
  • European Equities 13% (11%)
  • Chinese equities 0% (0%)
  • Other equity 2% (7%)
  • Commodities and energy 5% (5%)
  • UK Fixed Interest 4% (4%)
  • Global Fixed Interest 18% (20%)
  • Cash 1% (2%)
  • Alternative Investment Strategies 7% (7%)
  • Property 0% (0%)

Damien's higher risk and lower risk portfolios

Using the logic described in my post: Update to Damien’s alternative risk portfolios I created hypothetical higher and lower risk versions of my portfolio below:

Lower risk

Fund	Allocation %
abrdn High Yield Bond	19
Artemis European Select	6
Artemis Global Income	14
Artemis US Select	6
BNY Mellon Multi-Asset Balanced	10
Fidelity Index Japan	7
iShares Physical Gold ETC	7
Schroder Strategic Credit	11
Thesis TM Tellworth UK Select	7
WS Saracen Global Income & Growth*	13

 

Higher risk

Fund	Allocation %
Artemis European Select	7
Artemis Global Income	15
Artemis US Select	7
BNY Mellon Multi-Asset Balanced	11
Fidelity Index Japan	8
iShares Physical Gold ETC	8
Liontrust India	8
Ninety One UK Special Situations	7
T. Rowe Price US Large Cap Growth Equity	15
WS Saracen Global Income & Growth*	14