Damien’s July 2024 portfolio review – More all-time highs

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 continues to push higher and sits at a new all-time high while extending its lead over its benchmarks. The chart below shows how my portfolio significantly outperformed its benchmarks since my last review a month ago, which is great to see.

Turning my attention to how individual funds performed over the last month, as you can see from the table below, only two funds from my portfolio did not make money over the last month.

Name	% return over the last month (since June's review)
T. Rowe Price US Large Cap Growth Equity	5.80
Liontrust India	4.88
Artemis Global Income	3.58
Artemis US Select	3.25
iShares Physical Gold ETC	2.10
BNY Mellon Multi-Asset Balanced	1.20
Fidelity Index Japan	1.19
Ninety One UK Special Situations	0.96
Schroder Strategic Credit	0.73
abrdn High Yield Bond	0.61
Thesis TM Tellworth UK Select	0.07
WS Saracen Global Income and Growth	-0.84
Janus Henderson European Mid and Large Cap	-1.82

Liontrust India was among the top performers once again, joined by those funds with significant US equity exposure. At the other end of the scale my sole European equity fund struggled, however it only accounts for around 5% of my total allocation so the impact was muted. Interestingly, while the performance of Janus Henderson European Mid and Large Cap (which I only added last month) was disappointing, the fund it replaced (Artemis European Select) fared marginally worse, falling -1.91%.

Meanwhile, WS Saracen Global Income and Growth endured another tricky month due to the fund having almost 50% exposure to European equities, unlike most global income funds. Those of you who have been reading my newsletters will be aware of how political instability emanating from France has negatively impacted European equities of late.

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	Lower	Sterling High Yield	GB00B79RR984
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
Janus Henderson European Mid & Large Cap	5	Higher	Europe Excluding UK	GB00BJ0LFG67
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

There are only two funds that have fallen out of the BOTB and BFBS tables this month (and are coloured in red). Perhaps this shouldn't be a surprise given how well my portfolio is performing in the current environment. The two funds in question are:

• BNY Mellon Multi-Asset Balanced
• WS Saracen Global Income & Growth

You may recall that last month Thesis TM Tellworth UK Select was in the 'red list' and was given a stay of execution as it was the top-performing lower risk fund within my portfolio during April/May. That proved a wise move as the fund has reentered the BOTB this month, something that I anticipated was likely.

BNY Mellon Multi-Asset Balanced was also given a stay of execution last time around. BNY Mellon Multi-Asset Balanced is a fund that only recently dropped off the 80-20 Investor consistent funds list (and it only narrowly missed out on being included) but its recent performance has remained strong. The fund remains in the top quartile of the performance tables over almost every timeframe for the Mixed Investment 40-85% Shares sector. Yet again none of its peers make the BOTB list this month and those that make the BFBS list are either not available on my platform or have not outperformed the fund over the short term. The chart below shows just how much the fund has outperformed its sector average over the last 3 months.

As long-term 80-20 Investor members know, I don't make knee-jerk reactions and while I am looking to potentially replace BNY Mellon Multi-Asset Balanced it continues to perform well. So again, I will leave it be, especially given the performance of the portfolio as a whole. There really is little need to make unnecessary changes.

The only other 'red' fund this month is WS Saracen Global Income & Growth. The fund has only dropped out of the BOTB and BFBS tables this month, and while I might usually look to give it time, its performance over the last two months has been disappointing as shown below. While it was one of only two funds within my portfolio to lose money over the last month, it was the worst performing fund the previous month, having fallen over 4%. As such the poor performance versus its peers is showing little signs of turning around and the fund is the biggest drag on my portfolio's performance at the moment.

I have therefore decided to make a like-for-like switch, replacing it with Aviva Global Equity Income from this month's BOTB.

It means that the asset mix of my portfolio remains largely unchanged, which I am happy with. For the moment my asset mix differs from that of the BOTB, which this month has taken on some emerging market exposure and more US equity exposure at the expense of European equity exposure. However, I am happy to let things run for a bit before making any more changes.

Fund switches

100% out of WS Saracen Global Income & Growth and 100% into the Aviva Inv Global Equity Income

My portfolio

My portfolio looks like this:

Fund	Allocation	Risk	Sector	ISIN
abrdn High Yield Bond	14	Lower	Sterling High Yield	GB00B79RR984
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
Aviva Inv Global Equity Income	10	Medium	Global Equity Income	GB0030441918
Fidelity Index Japan	5.5	Medium	Japan	GB00BHZK8872
iShares Physical Gold ETC	5.5	Medium	Commodity & Energy ETF	IE00B4ND3602
Janus Henderson European Mid & Large Cap	5	Higher	Europe Excluding UK	GB00BJ0LFG67
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	11.5	Higher	North America	GB00BD5FHW12
Thesis TM Tellworth UK Select	5.5	Lower	Targeted Absolute Return	GB00BNY7YM73

 

My Portfolio asset mix

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

• • UK Equities 14% (12%)
  • North American Equities 26% (25%)
  • Asian/Emerging Market Equities 7% (6%)
  • Japanese Equities 8% (7%)
  • European Equities 12% (13%)
  • Other equity 0% (2%)
  • Commodities and energy 5% (5%)
  • UK Fixed Interest 5% (4%)
  • Global Fixed Interest 18% (18%)
  • Cash 1% (1%)
  • Alternative Investment Strategies 4% (7%)

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 Global Income	15
Artemis US Select	7
BNY Mellon Multi-Asset Balanced	11
Aviva Inv Global Equity Income	13
Fidelity Index Japan	8
iShares Physical Gold ETC	8
Schroder Strategic Credit	11
Thesis TM Tellworth UK Select	8

 

Higher risk

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