A month ago I took a look at my savings, see Bertie and Brunner. Now it’s time to see how resilient my portfolio is.
The MSCI World Index and the FTSE 100 are both down about 30%. My savings have lost 22% which is quite good news, sort of. More than half of my holdings are in investment trusts and what is really good news is that they are at much bigger discounts than a month ago. Caledonia has gone from an 18% discount to 44% and RIT from a 9% premium to a 22% discount. Monks though has stuck close to its NAV. My biggest loss is Marks and Spencer – down almost 50% – and to make matters worse it will not pay a dividend.
Palm oil prices have collapsed. Crude palm oil got above $800 per tonne in January. Now Chinese demand has collapsed and the price is just below $600. MP Evans shares have fallen by 34%, my second biggest loser. I invested in three Vietnam investment trusts about two years ago and have lost 28% of my initial investment. I raised the money by selling shares in Shell. They have fallen by about 60% which cheers me up.
McInroy & Wood have been cautious for some years. They allocated 35% of their main funds to Bonds and 5% to gold. This has served them well in the past month and they have felt brave enough to move 5% out of Bonds into equities. They espouse the preservation of the real value of their clients’ capital by adopting a long-term investment approach focusing on quality. Other fund managers may say the same but M&W deliver and that’s the main reason my portfolio has been quite resilient.