Damien’s February 2026 portfolio review – Going for gold

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 data 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.

Since my last portfolio review, my portfolio has dramatically extended its lead over its benchmarks (see above) and sits at another new all-time high. The chart below shows just how strong the portfolio's performance has been over the last month. While the average professionally managed multi-asset fund has fallen in value since my last portfolio review, my portfolio has risen 1.89%.

Looking at the individual funds within my portfolio (see table below), iShares Physical Gold ETC was once again among my top-performing holdings over the last month, as was Artemis Global Income. It is also pleasing to see Premier Miton Multi-Asset Growth & Income, which I added last month, performing well. At the other end of the scale, T. Rowe Price US Large Cap Growth Equity struggled again as investors continued to move out of US growth stocks and the AI-investment theme, in search of better value opportunities elsewhere.

Name	% return over the last month (since January review)
iShares Physical Gold ETC CHF in GB	7.22
Artemis Global Income I Inc TR in GB	5.69
Premier Miton Multi-Asset Growth & Income C Inc GBP TR in GB	4.14
Artemis SmartGARP European Equity I Acc in GB	3.26
Man Japan Core Alpha C Professional Acc in GB**	2.83
Invesco Asian (UK) No Trail Acc TR in GB**	2.18
Ninety One UK Special Situations I Acc GBP in GB	1.65
Fidelity Global Dividend W Inc TR in GB	0.9
abrdn High Yield Bond Ret Acc GBP in GB	0.77
Schroder Strategic Credit Z Acc in GB	0.25
abrdn Strategic Bond A Acc in GB	-0.02
T. Rowe Price US Large Cap Growth Equity C Acc in GB	-4.58

But the performance numbers mask what has been a volatile start to the year, particularly for gold. The chart below shows the performance of the funds within my portfolio since the start of the year. You can see how the parabolic rally in gold caused my holding in iShares Physical Gold ETC to rally by more than 20% when the price of gold broke above $5,600 per ounce. The subsequent pullback and stabilisation in the price of gold are responsible for the volatility in my portfolio's performance, as a whole, at the end of January. You can see this in the chart above. It's unusual to see one holding have such a significant impact on a portfolio's performance, but that's because it's also rare to see a fund rise more than 20% in just a matter of weeks. Nonetheless, my gold holding is still up over 12% so far in 2026.

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 grey 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 Code
abrdn High Yield Bond	12.5	Lower	Sterling High Yield	GB00B79RR984
abrdn Strategic Bond	4.5	Lower	Sterling Strategic Bond	GB00BWK27X12
Artemis Global Income	14.5	Medium	Global Equity Income	GB00B5N99561
Artemis SmartGARP European Equity	7	Medium	Europe Excluding UK	GB00B2PLJD73
Fidelity Global Dividend	6	Medium	Global Equity Income	GB00B7778087
Invesco Asian (UK)	9	Higher	Asia Pacific Excluding Japan	GB00B1W7HW60
iShares Physical Gold ETC	8	Medium	Commodity & Energy ETF	IE00B4ND3602
Man Group Man Japan Core Alpha	7	Higher	Japan	GB00B0119B50
Ninety One UK Special Situations	11	Higher	UK All Companies	GB00B1XFJS91
Premier Miton Multi-Asset Growth & Income	8.5	Medium	Mixed Investment 40-85% Shares	GB00B78H4K93
Schroder Strategic Credit	7	Lower	Sterling Strategic Bond	GB00BJZ2ZC09
T. Rowe Price US Large Cap Growth Equity	5	Higher	North America	GB00BD5FHW12

That means that three funds are on the red list this month, having fallen out of the BOTB and BFBS tables, namely:

• Schroder Strategic Credit
• Ninety One UK Special Situations
• T. Rowe Price US Large Cap Growth Equity

Overall, my portfolio continues to perform extremely well in the current market conditions, and its strong start to 2026 continues. Year to date, my portfolio is up a staggering 5.1% in little over a month. Not to labour the point, but only 5 funds out of a possible 273 within the IA Mixed Investment 40-85% sector have outperformed my portfolio so far this year. Ultimately, it just demonstrates how my portfolio is working well in the current environment.

So, once again, there is no need for large-scale changes. Regular 80-20 Investor members will know that I tend to only make changes to those funds that fall into the red list. Despite the strong start to the year, not everything is working well within my portfolio. Last month, I reduced my exposure to T. Rowe Price US Large Cap Growth Equity in favour of boosting the other equity holdings in my portfolio. As the earlier performance table demonstrates, that was a wise choice, but my only regret is that I only sold a quarter of my T. Rowe Price US Large Cap Growth Equity holding. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and it demonstrates that you won't get every investing move right. In this case, the decision was right, but my conviction wasn't.

Since that time, T. Rowe Price US Large Cap Growth Equity has continued to fall as US tech stocks struggle. The chart below shows the performance of the fund since I originally started investing in it. It's safe to say that although the fund has significantly outperformed its peer group average, its momentum has faded. Momentum may return to the US tech sector, but hope is never a good investment strategy and as such, I plan to completely sell out of the holding and invest elsewhere.

I will take the opportunity to also reduce my portfolio's US equity exposure to bring it closer to that of the BOTB. To achieve this, I will invest the sale proceeds into a globally diversified fund. The recent rotation out of growth stocks in favour of value stocks has resulted in several value-focused funds featuring in the 80-20 Investor tables. When looking at the BOTB, one such fund is T.Rowe Price Global Value Equity, but it isn't available on the investment platform I use. Looking at the other global funds in the BOTB and BFBS tables, Artemis SmartGARP Global Equity and M&G Global Strategic Value were among the funds I initially considered. Either would have been a viable choice, but I will opt for M&G Global Strategic Value as it is genuinely managed differently from the other global funds that I hold, with a lower US equity exposure, a value focus, and the lowest max weekly fall number of all the global funds in the 80-20 Investor tables.

Looking at the other two funds on the "red list" this month, I have decided to maintain both of them. Schroder Strategic Credit has outperformed abrdn Strategic Bond, which was a recent lower-risk addition to the portfolio, while Ninety One UK Special Situations continues to benefit from a resurgence in the share price of Rolls-Royce. Having said that, I will keep both funds under review.

It's good to see that Fidelity Global Dividend, which was given a stay of execution last month, rewarded me by returning to the BFBS tables. Also, the performance of Premier Miton Multi-Asset Growth & Income versus the fund which it replaced last month has been stark, as shown in the chart below. While the timeframe is short ,it is still good to see the fund already having a positive impact on my portfolio's returns.

 

One final topic I want to cover is my gold holding. The stellar rise in the price of gold means that my holding has more than tripled in value since it entered my portfolio back in 2020. My weighting to gold started at 5%, but has since risen to around 8%. The reason that it isn't larger than 8% is that my other holdings have also grown over time. I have been asked whether I would reduce my gold holding at some point, given its increased weight in my portfolio. In reality, I would most likely consider reducing my exposure to gold once it made up over 10% of my portfolio. That's because my original research on "how much gold you should hold" suggested that 5-10% was a sweet spot, with anything higher potentially increasing your portfolio's volatility. So for now, my gold holding will remain as it is.

So to summarise, the fund switch I am making this month marginally reduces my US equity exposure. I am aware that my asset mix is slightly underweight in emerging market equities compared to the BOTB, but given my portfolio's recent performance I see no immediate need to change things unnecessarily.

Fund switches

This month I will make the following fund switches:

• 100% out of T. Rowe Price US Large Cap Growth Equity and 100% into M&G Global Strategic Value

My portfolio now looks like this:

Fund	Allocation	Risk	Sector	ISIN Code
abrdn High Yield Bond	12.5	Lower	Sterling High Yield	GB00B79RR984
abrdn Strategic Bond	4.5	Lower	Sterling Strategic Bond	GB00BWK27X12
Artemis Global Income	15	Medium	Global Equity Income	GB00B5N99561
Artemis SmartGARP European Equity	7	Medium	Europe Excluding UK	GB00B2PLJD73
Fidelity Global Dividend	6	Medium	Global Equity Income	GB00B7778087
Invesco Asian (UK)	9	Higher	Asia Pacific Excluding Japan	GB00B1W7HW60
iShares Physical Gold ETC	8	Medium	Commodity & Energy ETF	IE00B4ND3602
M&G Global Strategic Value	4.5	Higher	Global	GB00B6173L33
Man Group Man Japan Core Alpha	7	Higher	Japan	GB00B0119B50
Ninety One UK Special Situations	11	Higher	UK All Companies	GB00B1XFJS91
Premier Miton Multi-Asset Growth & Income	8.5	Medium	Mixed Investment 40-85% Shares	GB00B78H4K93
Schroder Strategic Credit	7	Lower	Sterling Strategic Bond	GB00BJZ2ZC09

 

My Portfolio asset mix

My portfolio asset mix still has approximately 64% exposure to equities. Last month's figures are shown in brackets.

• UK Equities 14% (14%)
• North American Equities 8% (11%)
• Asian Equities 10% (9%)
• Emerging Market Equities 5% (5%)
• Japanese Equities 9% (8%)
• European Equities 12% (12%)
• Other International equity 6% (5%)
• Commodities and energy 8% (7%)
• UK Fixed Interest 5% (5%)
• Global Fixed Interest 19% (20%)
• Cash 0% (0%)
• Alternative Investment Strategies 4% (4%)

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	18
abrdn Strategic Bond	7
Artemis Global Income	22
Artemis SmartGARP European Equity	10
Fidelity Global Dividend	9
iShares Physical Gold ETC	12
Premier Miton Multi-Asset Growth & Income	12
Schroder Strategic Credit	10

 

Higher risk

Fund	Allocation %
Artemis Global Income	20
Artemis SmartGARP European Equity	9
Fidelity Global Dividend	8
Invesco Asian (UK)	12
iShares Physical Gold ETC	11
M&G Global Strategic Value	6
Man Group Man Japan Core Alpha	9
Ninety One UK Special Situations	14
Premier Miton Multi-Asset Growth & Income	11