Damien’s March 2025 portfolio review – 10 years outperforming

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.

This month is a momentous one in the history of 80-20 Investor and my portfolio as it marks the latter's 10th anniversary. I don't know of anyone else who has run a portfolio live and publicly for that long and I certainly don't know anyone who has taught others to do the same.

When I started running my portfolio the aim was to show that you could apply the research and the algorithm behind 80-20 Investor successfully in the real world and manage your own money. I have certainly proved that.

The chart above shows the performance of my portfolio over the 10 years since I have been running it and its outperformance speaks for itself.

My portfolio even extended its outperformance over its benchmarks during what was a difficult month for investment markets as shown below.

After 10 years my original £50,000 portfolio is worth £90,015 (having dipped from £92,205 last month) which equates to a profit of 80.03% in 10 years, which is a fantastic result.

If my portfolio had been a fund residing in the Mixed Investment 40-85% Shares sector, over the last 10 years it would have ranked 35th for performance out of 143 funds - putting it in the top quartile. An amazing result, given that most of those that are ranked higher have much larger equity components than my portfolio. It goes to prove that ordinary armchair investors can outperform professional fund managers.

In fact, UK investors have invested over £51billion pounds with funds managers that have underperformed my portfolio over the last 10 years.

But, it's not just the profit that is important, so is the management of investment risk in order to achieve that profit.

My portfolio would also rank in the top quartile of the Mixed Investment 40-85% Shares sector for all of the key investing statistics, namely:

Alpha

Alpha is a figure which measures a manager’s apparent skill at picking winning investments versus their benchmark. Alpha is the excess return versus the return of a fund’s benchmark (i.e. the market). So a fund/portfolio with a positive alpha indicates that the fund manager has outperformed through skill. While a negative alpha figure would indicate underperformance. The higher the alpha figure the better.

Maximum Drawdown

This is the biggest fall experienced in a given week. My portfolio is among those funds with the lowest drawdowns. If you recall my portfolio outperformed throughout 2022 by protecting its value when bond and equity markets were tumbling.

Sharpe Ratio

The Sharpe Ratio is a measure of the excess return a manager is achieving for the risk they are taking. The higher the Sharpe Ratio the better. My portfolio has one of the highest Sharpe ratios.

Sortino Ratio

This is very similar to the Sharpe Ratio but places more emphasis on the manager's ability to manage on the downside. Again my portfolio ranks in the top quartile of the sector for this statistic.

Volatility

This is a measure of a fund's dispersion of returns, or in plain English the variability in those returns. Think of it as a measure of how much a building is prone to wobble. The more prone it is (the higher the volatility) the more it will sway in an earthquake. Not only is my portfolio in the top quartile for this statistic but only 15 funds out of 143 in the sector have a lower level of volatility than my portfolio.

Now...refocusing back on this month's portfolio review, the table below shows how individual funds performed within my portfolio since my last review in February.

Name	% return over the last month (since February review)
Artemis Global Income	2.72
Schroder Strategic Credit	0.36
abrdn High Yield Bond	0.12
Invesco Asian (UK)	-0.96
Ninety One UK Special Situations	-0.98
Man Japan Core Alpha*	-1.36
Premier Miton Tellworth UK Select	-1.41
iShares Physical Gold	-2.03
Aviva Inv Global Equity Income	-2.39
Barclays Global Markets Adventurous	-3.81
M&G Global Dividend	-4.31
Vanguard FTSE Developed World ex-UK Equity Index	-6.13
T. Rowe Price US Large Cap Growth Equity	-10.23

As you can see, it was a tricky month for investors, with some huge divergences in performance. US equities, in particular tech stocks, had a torrid time while funds with exposure to defensive stocks, as well as UK, European and Asian equities fared better. The catalysts, as explained in March's monthly newsletter, were principally the arrival of DeepSeek and Trump launching his trade war with the rest of the world.

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
Aviva Inv Global Equity Income	10	Medium	Global Equity Income	GB0030441918
Barclays Global Markets Adventurous	8	Medium	Flexible Investment	GB00B4YPY060
Invesco Asian (UK)	6	High	Asia Pacific Excluding Japan	GB00B1W7HW60
iShares Physical Gold ETC	6	Medium	Commodity & Energy ETF	IE00B4ND3602
M&G Global Dividend	5	Medium	Global Equity Income	GB00B46J9127
Man Group Man Japan CoreAlpha	3	Higher	Japan	GB00B0119B50
Ninety One UK Special Situations	4	Higher	UK All Companies	GB00B1XFJS91
Schroder Strategic Credit	8	Lower	Sterling Strategic Bond	GB00BJZ2ZC09
T. Rowe Price US Large Cap Growth Equity	10	Higher	North America	GB00BD5FHW12
Thesis TM Tellworth UK Select	5.5	Lower	Targeted Absolute Return	GB00BNY7YM73
Vanguard FTSE Developed World ex-UK Equity Index	9.5	Medium	Global	GB00B59G4Q73

Below is a list of the 'red' funds that have fallen out of both the BOTB and BFBS tables

• Aviva Inv Global Equity Income

This is the smallest number of funds to appear on the red list that I can remember. Also given the portfolio's performance over the short-term as well as the long-term performance, this is perhaps going to be one of the easiest portfolio reviews I have carried out in the 10 years of running it.

If you recall last time, Vanguard FTSE Developed World ex-UK Equity Index was given a stay of execution and the decision has been rewarded, with it now back in the BOTB.

With regard to Aviva Inv Global Equity Income I am loathed to change it given that it outperformed other global equity income funds within the portfolio (such as M&G Global Dividend that is in the BOTB), over the last month. In addition, given the level of volatility in markets at the moment I don't want to make any major changes to the portfolio, and right now equity income funds are generally outperforming their growth-focused counterparts.

However there is one small change that I will make. Last time I highlighted how my portfolio had less Chinese equity exposure than that of the BOTB. Chinese equities continue to perform well so I will introduce a small direct equity exposure to Jupiter China, which is the least volatile of the China funds in the BOTB (which you can tell from the max weekly fall figure).

Given that T. Rowe Price US Large Cap Growth Equity has triggered 2 stop loss alerts (one at the end of February and one at the end of March), at the same time as the BOTB reduced its US equity exposure by 2-3% I plan to drip out of the fund and use the proceeds to invest in Jupiter China. It's a minor change but a dripping out approach has also served me well over the last 10 years when faced with market volatility. The switch will reduce my US equity exposure by around 3% while increasing my Chinese equity exposure by the same amount.

Fund switches

• 33% out of T. Rowe Price US Large Cap Growth Equity and 100% into Jupiter China

My portfolio

My portfolio looks now like this:

Fund	Allocation	Risk	Sector	ISIN Code
abrdn High Yield Bond	14	Lower	Sterling High Yield	GB00B79RR984
Artemis Global Income	12.5	Medium	Global Equity Income	GB00B5N99561
Aviva Inv Global Equity Income	10	Medium	Global Equity Income	GB0030441918
Barclays Global Markets Adventurous	8	Medium	Flexible Investment	GB00B4YPY060
Invesco Asian (UK)	5.5	Higher	Asia Pacific Excluding Japan	GB00B1W7HW60
iShares Physical Gold ETC	6	Medium	Commodity & Energy ETF	IE00B4ND3602
Jupiter China	3	Higher	China/Greater China	GB00B1DTDX49
M&G Global Dividend	5.5	Medium	Global Equity Income	GB00B46J9127
Man Group Man Japan CoreAlpha	3	Higher	Japan	GB00B0119B50
Ninety One UK Special Situations	4	Higher	UK All Companies	GB00B1XFJS91
Schroder Strategic Credit	8	Lower	Sterling Strategic Bond	GB00BJZ2ZC09
T. Rowe Price US Large Cap Growth Equity	6	Higher	North America	GB00BD5FHW12
Thesis TM Tellworth UK Select	5.5	Lower	Targeted Absolute Return	GB00BNY7YM73
Vanguard FTSE Developed World ex-UK Equity Index	9	Medium	Global	GB00B59G4Q73

 

My Portfolio asset mix

My portfolio asset mix now has approximately 63% exposure to equities. Last month's figures are shown in brackets.

• UK Equities 12% (12%)
• North American Equities 24% (28%)
• Asian Equities 4% (5%)
• Chinese Equities 5% (2%)
• Emerging Market Equities 0% (0%)
• Japanese Equities 5% (5%)
• European Equities 8% (8%)
• Other International equity 5% (5%)
• Commodities and energy 6% (6%)
• UK Fixed Interest 4% (4%)
• Global Fixed Interest 19% (18%)
• Cash 0% (0%)
• Alternative Investment Strategies 8% (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	18
Artemis Global Income	16
Aviva Inv Global Equity Income	13
Barclays Global Markets Adventurous	10
iShares Physical Gold ETC	8
M&G Global Dividend	7
Schroder Strategic Credit	10
Thesis TM Tellworth UK Select	7
Vanguard FTSE Developed World ex-UK Equity Index	11

 

Higher risk

Fund	Allocation %
Artemis Global Income	17
Aviva Inv Global Equity Income	14
Barclays Global Markets Adventurous	11
Invesco Asian (UK)	8
iShares Physical Gold ETC	8
Jupiter China	4
M&G Global Dividend	8
Man Group Man Japan CoreAlpha	4
Ninety One UK Special Situations	6
T. Rowe Price US Large Cap Growth Equity	8
Vanguard FTSE Developed World ex-UK Equity Index	12