Damien’s June 2021 portfolio review – Slow summer

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, which is over six years ago. 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.

 

It's good to see my £50k portfolio once again sitting at a new all-time high. The chart below shows the performance of my portfolio versus its benchmarks during May. As you can see my portfolio outperformed its benchmarks and remains well ahead of its benchmarks over the long term.

If you recall, last time I made the decision to do nothing after the dramatic shift from growth towards value/cyclical assets, back in April, which has so far been rewarded. As my portfolio continues to outperform its benchmarks during the current sleepy summer market of recent weeks there is no compelling reason to make wholesale changes.

As is routine in my portfolio reviews, the table below shows which funds within my current portfolio are in the current BOTB or BFBS tables and which are not. Those funds in green 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.

Name	Allocation % (rounded)	Risk	Sector	ISIN Code
Artemis Global Growth	5.5	Medium	Global	GB00B2PLJP95
ASI Strategic Bond	15.5	Low	Sterling Strategic Bond	GB00BWK27X12
ES R&M UK Recovery	6	Medium	UK All Companies	GB00B614J053
Fidelity American Special Situations	5	High	North America	GB00B89ST706
Fidelity Global High Yield	8	Low	Sterling High Yield	GB00B7K7SQ18
Fidelity UK Smaller Companies	9	High	UK Smaller Companies	GB00B7VNMB18
Invesco Global Emerging Markets (UK)	7	Medium	Global Emerging Markets	GB00B3RW7S64
iShares Physical Gold ETC	4	Medium	Commodity & Energy ETF	IE00B4ND3602
JPM Natural Resources	5	High	Specialist	GB0031835118
Jupiter Income Trust	6	Medium	UK Equity Income	GB0004791389
Marlborough European Multi-Cap	3.5	High risk	Europe Excluding UK	GB0001719730
Premier Diversified Growth	10	Medium	Mixed Investment 40-85% Shares	GB00B8BJV423
Sarasin Global Dividend	8.5	Medium	Global Equity Income	GB00BGDF8F44
Schroder Global Equity Income	7	Medium	Global Equity Income	GB00B76V7M69

As you can see every fund is either in the BOTB or the BFBS tables, with the exception of Sarasin Global Dividend (just like last month) and ASI Strategic Bond. So again there is no reason to make drastic fund changes. Also, my exposure to gold is a long term position.

Last month I wrote how the Sarasin fund was on my watchlist and that I would look to remove it this month. The table below shows the performance of each fund within my portfolio since my last review, and while I don't place too much emphasis on a single month's performance figures, it shows how the Sarasin is still detracting from my portfolio's returns.

Name	% performance over last month
Marlborough European Multi-Cap	5.31
Fidelity UK Smaller Companies	3.36
iShares Physical Gold	3.04
Premier Miton Diversified Growth	1.07
Schroder Global Equity Income	0.97
Fidelity Global High Yield	0.56
ASI Strategic Bond	0.5
Invesco Global Emerging Markets (UK)	0.49
Fidelity American Special Situations	0.26
Jupiter Income Trust	0.23
ES R&M UK Recovery	-0.43
Sarasin Global Dividend	-0.64
Artemis Global Equity	-1.21
JPM Natural Resources	-1.66

As such I have decided to finally remove the fund from my portfolio.

Turning my attention to the ASI Strategic Bond fund, the chart below shows the performance of the fund versus its peer group average since I first invested in it back on 4th December 2020.

Clearly the performance is not disastrous by any stretch, in fact, it has outperformed most of its peers, but there are other low-risk alternatives that have performed more strongly. For example, the Fidelity Global High Yield fund, which is in my portfolio, is up over 3.88% over the same period. Other funds within the low-risk section from this month's BOTB are up even more. However, they are more volatile than the ASI fund due to their high yield and/or equity exposure.

Given ASI Strategic Bond's significant exposure in my portfolio and the fact that it's only just dropped out of the BFBS tables, I will maintain the ASI Strategic Bond holding for now. At the moment it is performing its role within my portfolio, being somewhat boring but dependable. The chart below puts the above moves in the ASI Strategic Bond into the context of how the equity portion of my portfolio has performed. You can see that it has offset any periods of equity market weakness while steadily growing over time. The fund will therefore sit on my watchlist going forward.

Fund switch

Following this review, I have made the following fund switch:

100% out of Sarasin Global Dividend and 100% into Wise Multi-Asset Growth - the Wise Multi-Asset Growth is a managed fund that invests in investment trusts with a value bias. It has been a regular in the BOTB for a number of months. The switch slightly reduces my equity exposure from 62% to 60% which reflects a slight reduction we saw in the BOTB this month. The fund has around a 60% exposure to equities. It also gives me exposure to alternative assets and not just straightforward equity/bonds. Overall the switch means that my portfolio's asset mix remains almost identical and in line with the BOTB. Of course the new fund's value bias does increase my portfolio's risk of underperformance if we see a downturn in value stocks performance versus that of growth stocks, but on the flip side the portfolio will benefit further from a continuation of the reflation trade.

My portfolio

My portfolio now looks like this:

Name	Allocation % (rounded)	Risk	Sector	ISIN Code
Artemis Global Equity	5	Medium	Global	GB00B2PLJP95
ASI Strategic Bond	15	Low	Sterling Strategic Bond	GB00BWK27X12
ES R&M UK Recovery	6	Medium	UK All Companies	GB00B614J053
Fidelity American Special Situations	5.5	High	North America	GB00B89ST706
Fidelity Global High Yield	8	Low	Sterling High Yield	GB00B7K7SQ18
Fidelity UK Smaller Companies	9.5	High	UK Smaller Companies	GB00B7VNMB18
Invesco Global Emerging Markets (UK)	7	Medium	Global Emerging Markets	GB00B3RW7S64
iShares Physical Gold ETC	4	Medium	Commodity & Energy ETF	IE00B4ND3602
JPM Natural Resources	5	High	Specialist	GB0031835118
Jupiter Income Trust	6	Medium	UK Equity Income	GB0004791389
Marlborough European Multi-Cap	3.5	High risk	Europe Excluding UK	GB0001719730
Premier Diversified Growth	10	Medium	Mixed Investment 40-85% Shares	GB00B8BJV423
Wise Multi-Asset Growth	8.5	Medium	Flexible Investment	GB0034272533
Schroder Global Equity Income	7	Medium	Global Equity Income	GB00B76V7M69

My Portfolio asset mix

My portfolio asset mix is as shown below which has around a 60% exposure to equities. The numbers in brackets are last month's equivalent figures.

• • UK Equities 23% (23%)
  • North American Equities 11% (11%)
  • Asian/Emerging Market Equities 5% (6%)
  • Japanese Equities 0% (0%)
  • European Equities 4% (5%)
  • Chinese equities 2% (2%)
  • Other equity 9% (9%)
  • Commodities and energy 9% (9%)
  • UK Fixed Interest 6% (7%)
  • Global Fixed Interest 16% (15%)
  • Cash 5% (5%)
  • Alternative Investment Strategies 10% (8%)

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:

Higher risk

Artemis Global Growth	6
ES R&M UK Recovery	8
Fidelity American Special Situations	7
Fidelity UK Smaller Companies	12
Invesco Global Emerging Markets (UK)	9
iShares Physical Gold ETC	5
JPM Natural Resources	6
Jupiter Income Trust	8
Marlborough European Multi-Cap	5
Premier Miton Diversified Growth	13
Wise Funds Limited TB Wise Multi-Asset Growth	11
Schroder Global Equity Income	9

Lower risk

Fund	Allocation %
Artemis Global Growth	7
ASI Strategic Bond	22
ES R&M UK Recovery	9
Fidelity Global High Yield	12
iShares Physical Gold ETC	6
Jupiter Income Trust	9
Premier Miton Diversified Growth	14
Wise Funds Limited TB Wise Multi-Asset Growth	12
Schroder Global Equity Income	10