John's money ideas

So April, not such a good month. Not horrible, but we were negative. Compare this portfolio’s fall of -1.75% to a gain in the FTSE 100 index of 2.4%, but balanced against a fall of -2.7% in the FT All World index. 

However there’s more to this jump in the FTSE 100 than meets the eye. It was highly influenced in the last few day of the month by a jump of around 30% in Anglo American  because of take-over talks (and to a lesser extent jumps in AstraZenica and WPP). If we exclude this Anglo American thing then we’re looking at a move in the FTSE 100 of around -1.1%. So that makes things a bit more balanced.

Within the portfolio there were no real nasties, just 8 falling compared to 4 gainers, with the falls averaging out a bit greater than the gains, so a net loss. However we are still doing a ‘two steps forward for each step’ back routine, so not too concerned.

No buys or sells during the month, and nothing much on the danger list at the moment. So just chill-out and catch up with Terry Smith’s Fundsmith Annual Shareholders’ Meeting which happened back in February. Nice to have a fund manager who doesn’t just hide behind an annual report but makes an effort to communicate with his investors.