Patience is a Virtue

I have been investing in the stock market since I was fifteen. Here is a post about my early trades.

It’s all so long ago it was called investing in stocks and shares. Today it’s bonds, equities and a plethora of other stuff like trackers and ETFs. Funny how terminology changes. A pretty and charming bartender told me recently that she was on a holiday job. She is at Bristol. I asked what she is reading and her face clouded over; she was silent for a while and said “nothing much” clearly surprised at my question. When I said I read Anthropology, English and Psychology at Durham the penny dropped but she had never heard the expression used in that context. But I digress.

Something happened yesterday morning that was a first for me in my life as an investor for more than half a century. One of my shares is showing a gain of 1,000%. This is very cheering and makes up for many mistakes. I took a loss on Marks and Spencer and although I took profits on Babcock and Rolls Royce I sold much too early. Today I only hold shares in Haleon (once part of GSK), Phoenix Group, Legal & General Group and MP Evans. MPE, of course is the one  showing an unrealised gain of 1,000 %. At MPE AGMs there are some regular elderly attendees, like me, who will be celebrating a similar milestone unless they have already done so.

There is at least one post telling you about the things I bought that were a total loss. GEC and a property company called Mountleigh come to mind but there are others.

There’s no need to pick an individual company to get surprisingly good gains. For example Scottish Mortgage is up 684%, still my best performing investment trust after some setbacks in the last few years. More recent acquisitions like Monks and AVI Global are doing well but I will be patient and await further upside.