Impatiens

As the name suggests it means impatience. It is also called a Busy Lizzie.

Too many investors are impatient, Busy Lizzies. As you know I am mostly invested in funds but I do still hold shares in a few individual companies. In descending order: MP Evans, Glaxo, Babcock, Rolls Royce, Haleon and Vodafone. I’m pleased that Vodafone is my smallest holding as it has lost 53%.

It has not been a good year for investors or, I prefer, savers. McInroy & Wood’s balanced fund has lost 2.4% while RPI is up 14.2%. Personal Assets is minus 3.5%. I like M&W comparing performance to RPI – in other words the price of a Dry Martini. Personal Assets is a little disingenuous in comparing  its performance with the FTSE All Share Index (+ 1.8%). However, they both strive quite successfully to preserve the savings of their investors. Many folk, investing more adventurously, have lost 25% this year. That’s not easy to get back – it is money gone, and unlikely to come back.

If you have mastered the Spey cast you can make the fly come back. I never could. So I’m philosophical. Except for Manchester and London all the funds I hold are making money. Scottish Mortgage and Monks haven’t done well in 2022. The former is down 48% and the latter down 28%. But don’t cry for me ‘cos both still show significant gains from where I bought them.

I do not expect next year to be any better. We will be buffeted by inflation, taxation and a stock market that at best will go sideways. The economies of the planet are so joined up that any interruption, like a war in Ukraine or a war in Taiwan, has a domino effect. M&W are cautious. Their balanced fund has only 55% equities and 10% gold. The rest is bonds and a bit of cash (1%). Up in Scotland they are dour but realistic about risk.

Personal Assets is not optimistic either.

“2022 is turning out to be a dreadful year for investors. According to Bloomberg, this is the worst year for equities and bonds combined since 1926. We had been concerned by the risks to all asset prices, which have been supported for so long by unorthodox monetary policy – the combination of zero interest rates and quantitative easing (‘QE’). For the first time in a generation, fighting inflation and supporting Main Street take precedence over bailing out Wall Street. Financial markets must accept they are no longer the priority.”

Personal Assets, a fund that is attracting followers in a bear market, has only 25% in equities. The rest is in bonds and gold. Now you don’t need a lesson about investing, you want to know how to Spey cast.

But if you do want a lesson in high finance listen to an expert, played by John Bird (RIP).