Damien’s Portfolio update – Outperforming 90% of fund managers

At the start of the year I said that I would periodically update you with how my portfolio is doing, even if I have not made any fund switches.

You may recall that at the start of March (which also coincided with the first anniversary of my portfolio) I made a number of changes to bring the portfolio back in line with the 80-20 Investor Best of the Best Selection.

The table below shows that my portfolio has performed brilliantly since the fund switches in March:

Name	Total Return %
50k challenge (my portfolio)	3.8
Passive Vanguard benchmark	1.58
Average fund manager	1.23
FTSE 100	-0.30

This is a great result and means that the portfolio is once again in profit at £50,709, a gain of 1.41% over the last 13 months (since I began the challenge). By comparison over the same period:

• The average managed fund manager has lost 2.8 %
• The passive Vanguard benchmark has lost 0.8%
• The FTSE 100 has lost 7.5%

In fact I am outperforming 90% of fund managers running equivalent managed portfolios (as represented by those in the Mixed Investment 40%-85% Shares Sector

That is an excellent result and the spike in performance in the last month reinforces why you should review your portfolio regularly. My profit comes despite the various crises we have experienced in the last 12 months, including a Greek crisis, a Chinese economic slowdown as well as a commodity crisis.

The chart below shows how each of the funds in my portfolio has performed over the last month and you can see that the reintroduction of Japanese equities has been a particularly profitable move. Let’s hope it continues.

I will be reviewing my portfolio again in the coming days and if I decide to make any changes I will let you know. For now my portfolio remains as listed below:

Fund	% allocation
Fundsmith Equity Fund	20.27%
Fidelity Global Dividend	8.93%
Aberdeen Property Trust	4.82%
Newton UK Income	7.61%
Legg Mason Japan Equity	7.61%
GLG Continental European Growth	10.17%
Jupiter Absolute Return	6.78%
Troy Trojan	5.06%
Threadneedle Global Bond	8.59%
Vanguard Lifestrategy 20% Equity	20.16%

 

This gives an asset allocation of approximately:

• Global fixed interest - 20%
• US equities - 17%
• European equities - 16%
• UK equities - 15%
• Japanese equities - 9%
• Other international equities - 7%
• Cash - 2%
• Property - 4%
• UK Gilts - 2%
• Alternative assets/strategies - 8%

The ISIN codes for the funds in my portfolio are as below:

Name	ISIN Code
Aberdeen - Property Trust	GB00B036Z329
Fidelity - Global Dividend	GB00B7FQHJ97
Fundsmith - Equity	GB00B4LPDJ14
Jupiter - Absolute Return	GB00B5129B32
Legg Mason - IF Japan Equity	GB0033507467
Man GLG - Continental European Growth	GB00B0119370
Newton - UK Income	GB0006779218
Threadneedle - Global Bond	GB0001533685
Troy Asset Management Ltd - Trojan	GB0034243732
Vanguard - LifeStrategy 20% Equity	GB00B4NXY349