Just as the garden needs a bit of trimming and tidying so does an ISA.
I have sold a small holding in Haleon and made my maximum ISA contribution for this year. On the buy side I added to Vietnam Enterprise and Merchants Trust. The result is a fairly well balanced portfolio of investment trusts.
Personal Assets 35%, RIT 14%, Vietnam Enterprise 11 %, Merchants Trust 11%, North Atlantic Smaller Companies 10%, AVI Global 10%, Monks 9%.
But what about the divvies you cry impatiently. Actually I reinvest them and will do so until I need some tax free income to pay for a luxurious care home, class A drugs, exotic perversions, etc. But for interest here is what they yield.
Personal Assets 1.09%, RIT 1.95%, Vietnam Enterprise nil, Merchants Trust 5.19%, North Atlantic Smaller Companies 2.33%, AVI Global 1.44%, Monks 0.04%.
It’s not exactly a model portfolio and looking at it dispassionately the spread is really more suited to a 35 year-old than someone twice that age. A respectable, low cost, fund manager like Vanguard would advise having 60 – 70% in bonds. Do you remember when old ladies used to leave money to pay off the government debt? Well that’s my plan too. I want to build up my savings so that my Estate can pay plenty of Inheritance Tax.
I now hold just two equities: MP Evans and Phoenix Group. They yield 3.99% and 7.82% respectively and that’s what pays the lunch bills. If I was a betting man I’d go to the races. If you want to bet on a share I suggest BP – the price is down 11% over the past two years but at my age I don’t want to dabble and you shouldn’t either.
An interesting comment on yesterday’s post by ORW. He says Russians in Latvia don’t all speak Latvian and the same is true in Estonia, particularly the older generations, but even Estonians don’t speak Estonian. The three core exams at what was O Levels for me are Estonian, Mathematics and English. Students score higher marks in English than Estonian.
Do not imagine Estonian children are stupid. OECD assesses how well students do in exams: PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment). The PISA tables are baffling but AI summarises the 2022 results.
11% exposure to Vietnam is pretty brave. I have also dabbled in that market but, as has been explained to me recently, the most successful Vietnamese companies are not on their stock market, rather like the UK.