John's money ideas

So what about October!

All things considered I’m not too disappointed. For October my portfolio fell by just under 2.3%. A fall, yes, but then the FT All World Index was down by 3% and the FTSE 100 Index down by nearly 3.8%. So in relative terms I did better than many.

Considering the state of conflict, war (call it what you want) that suddenly erupted with Israel, Palestine and Hamas, then all I can say is that I’m very surprised markets did not fall further than they did. Most of my investments generally followed the same pattern of a drop of 3% or 4% then a bit of a recovery. Two of the 12 (Jupiter Merlin Global Equity and Polar Capital Global Insurance) even managed to end up in positive territory.

There were no buys or sells during the month. Had the markets reacted to the fighting with a sudden fall then continued on with a general down trend, then perhaps some sells and a shift into something ultra safe (cash?… not sure, I tend to prefer being ‘fully invested’), however that didn’t happen, so just keeping it ‘steady as it goes’. Will see how things pan out into November and the run up to the Christmas period.