August 2016 portfolio update

During August 2016 I have become active once again on my investment portfolio.

As a matter of fact, during this month, I have opened two new exciting positions in my investment portfolio. I am confident these will help me achieve my ling term goal of financial strengthening.

The August 2016 additions to my portfolio:

x500 Unicredit spa (BIT:UCG) @ €2.00

x431 British Land Company plc (LON:BLND) @ GBX 650 (or £6.50)

Unicredit spa is the second Italian bank for market cap. At €2/share, I consider it very cheap.

Looking at the fundamentals, the €2 price point represents a P/E of 6.06 which is very cheap, 6% dividend yield (even when considering Italian withholding tax on distributions) is great for my passive income strategy. The performance in august has been astonishing ever since I made the purchase, with a current price of €2.35. Not bad at all!

British Land Company is a much different beast. It is a British REIT business which holds estate properties in several areas, from office space to shopping centres. Because of Brexit, the general confidence in land and estate properties had fallen dramatically. Hence why I decided to risk it and invest in this kind of stock. So far so good, as the stock trades at GBX 671.

The stock pays a decent dividend (around 5%), no withholding tax on this one as it's a British company purchased through my ISA. P/E of only 5.4, another bargain!

The above investments will take me one step closer to my ultimate goal of robust cash inflow.

Few months back I kind of promised myself I would have resisted to the temptation to invest any further during August, as I wanted to maximise my firing power in September (generally considered a bearish market, as you can read here). However, as these new opportunity emerged, I decided to go ahead with the purchase. At the end of the day you never know when the next market correction will take place.

August update - ISA utilisation progress

Now the focus is on September. Hopefully this month will open up new entry points in some interesting companies I am following. 

Some names include: Johnson&Johnson, P&G, Unilever (I think I am not sufficiently exposed to the consumables sector), Pepsi, Diageo. These are just some of the many names in my watchlist.

Of course I will keep you updated through my Twitter account on any new purchase. Just waiting for the right conditions...

Thanks for reading.

Yours,

The Gentleman Investor

August 2016 Dividends

With a new dividend record set in July, I would have never imagined an even better performance in August!

Indeed during the last month I received the following dividends:

AT&T T 02/08/2016 £9.27
Vodafone LON:VOD 03/08/2016 £33.49
Disney DIS 05/08/2016 £11.49
Apple AAPL 16/08/2016 £1.88
Starbucks SBUX 22/08/2016 £6.51

This brings the total dividends for the month to £62.64!. These values are of course after tax.
The 2016 performance YTD is as follows:

Lastly, let's take a look at the cumulative performance for the whole year.

The snowball has definitely started building up!

This is it for the moment, thanks for reading.

Yours,

The Gentleman Investor

July 2016 Dividends

The month of July has now ended and I am taking the opportunity to write a quick review of the performance achieved.

As anticipated in June, July has been my best month to date and I am quite proud to show my results.

During July I received the following dividends:

Porsche PAH3 05/07/2016 £18.70
Coca Cola KO 12/07/2016 £9.16
New York Mortgage Trust NYMT 27/07/2016 £31.10

This brings the total dividends for the month to £58.96!. These values are of course after tax.

The 2016 performance YTD is as follows:

As you can see July is my best month to date by a wide margin, I could not be more satisfied of my overall performance! Obviously I will try to keep the trend going and try to beat the new record.

Lastly, let's take a look at the cumulative performance for the whole year.

Not bad at all, my snowball is gaining good momentum!

This is it for the moment, thanks for reading.
Yours,

The Gentleman Investor

First Half Year financial review (HY16)

Welcome to my H1 2016 review.
The first half of the year has gone and it is now time to review the performance of my net worth and holdings for the first 6 months of 2016.


Dividends received to date

How am I doing financially?

Sometimes I find myself reviewing my objectives and achievements. When it happens, I think it can be difficult to determine a proper benchmark to use as a term of comparison, to understand if my performance is either good or bad for example.

In this article I will try to address this issue and offer several methodologies which may help answering the critical question: how I am doing financially?

GDP per capita (2016)

First, let me offer a look at the world's GDP per capita chart.

GDP per capita in the World (2016 data)

As you may know from my 'About' page, I currently live in the UK.
The GDP per capita in this country is $42,105 for 2016.
Also, let's have a look at the evolution of GDP per capita in the UK over time:

My July watchlist

For the last couple of months I have been working on a nice spreadsheet on Google Sheets to help me model the fair price for a my stock watch list and, combining this to several criteria, tell me when some of the names in my basket have reached a buying point.

During the last couple of weeks I have been keeping a close eye on:

June 2016 Dividends

The month of June has now ended and I am taking the opportunity to write a quick review of the performance achieved.

During June I received the following dividends:

June 2016 portfolio update

June 2016 has been a crucial month for my strategy and annual objectives.

June represents the second month after I decided to maximise the ISA allocation for the current tax year (£15,240).
Well, I couldn't be more pleased to share with you my latest additions to my portfolio!

The June 2016 additions to my portfolio:

Strategy revision ahead of Brexit vote - end of June 2016

For those who started following me in my exciting journey, you will know that I always have a plan for the future. Recently I had the opportunity to explain my thoughts on Brexit and how this historical decision may affect my personal finances.

The conclusions of my analysis is that it is wise to adopt a conservative approach given the great uncertainty surrounding the future months. It would be better to hold on to the money right now and see what will happen next. After all, the referendum is just few weeks away and it does not make any sense to rush through investments for the moment. It is exactly in these conditions that one may be led to make big mistakes which may become a regret in the future.

Black Tuesday (29.10.1929). Are we heading in that direction?

My plan is to slow down until September, which is not a random month...indeed September is generally considered a bearish month, as you can read in this article from Investopedia.

So, when we take into account the high level of uncertainty surrounding the future, plus the need to reinforce my cash position due to the recent investments and the fact that we have a nice bearish month coming in the near future, I think my new contingency plan will be quite effective!
By end of August-September I should be in a much better position to exploit any opportunity on the horizon.

September is generally considered a bearish month for investors.

In my review for the end of the month I will update my net worth and take a look at how this contingency plan will affect my overall wealth distribution.

Yours,

The Gentleman Investor

Few words on Brexit

Right now there is a lot of debate on Brexit, as you can imagine.
It is not my intention to express a political view with this post, I am not going to talk about immigration (I feel I can't really have a say on that one), nor will I talk about what is best for the UK economy.

I'll simply try to be as objective as it is possible for an Italian investor living in the UK and try to understand what the impact might be on my portfolio.

Before we start, please allow me to say that I am undeniably a bit scared by the outcome of all of this. As a European citizen living in Great Britain, my future is at stake and I won't even get a chance to officially express my idea through my vote.

But let's get started with the analysis. As an investor, I realise that this event will be the main catalyst of change for years to come and, possibly, great opportunities. There are clearly two main scenarios depending on the vote result.


Scenario 1. The UK ends up voting to leave the EU. 

Uncertainty about the financial future of the nation and about foreign investments - which may be blocked as a result of the vote - will cause the GBP (£) to take the hit, dropping to all time low against the Euro. Forecast is in fact it will get close to parity with the Euro, or even lower.

May 2016 portfolio update

May 2016 has been a crucial month for my strategy and objectives.

As a matter of fact, it's only a month ago that I decided I wanted to maximise the ISA allocation for the current tax year (£15,240).

The same month, I also decided to open this club. Sharing my progress and achievements openly is already getting me closer to my goals.

The May 2016 additions to my portfolio:

New 2016 Objectives: June review

As anticipated in my previous post, I have decided to review my 2016 objectives.

This is because two of my original annual objectives have already been achieved!

For this reason, my revised objectives are:

May 2016 Dividends

The month of May has now come to its end and I am taking the opportunity to write a quick review of the performance achieved during such time.

During May I received the following dividends:

AT&T 06/05/2016 £8.44
SBUX 23/05/2016 £5.86
AAPL 23/05/2016 £1.67

This brings the total dividends for the month to £15.97. These values are of course after tax.
The 2016 performance YTD is as follows:

May 2016 YTD Dividends

In May I added some new positions to my portfolio, so I can't wait to see the impact of my new investments on the overall performance!

Objectives Review: May 2016

As promised in my previous article, this is the first 'technical' post in which I want to review my 2016 objectives.
You can find the up-to-date objectives here. As you would imagine, all of them have got an end date of 31 Dec 2016.

I think it is very important to set clear objectives for ourselves, as well as keep monitoring the progress. The entire process provides a great opportunity to grow as individuals and to understand if we are in control of our finances.

Welcome to the Club

The idea of writing my own blog has been growing in my head for a long time, and now that it's a reality I'm so keen to start that I was almost tempted to skip the introduction and go straight to the point, as if the reader joined the club in the middle of a discussion. But one shouldn't start a conversation with someone new without introducing oneself first. At least, a gentleman wouldn't do that.

I entered the world of the investors about a couple of years ago, but I've been doing my research for a long time before then, and I felt that I needed to grow my experience for some time before I could start sharing publicly my investing objectives, targets and aspirations in a personal blog. Now I believe it is the right moment to start.

When my interest in the investing world started to grow, I used the best source of information I had at hand: the internet. I was sure I would have found everything I needed there, as always.
However, I've been surprised by how much rubbish there is on the subject. I was looking for some articles where people just shared their experience, but most of the time I ended up frustrated to find piles of websites which irresponsibly tried to sell premium services in a sly, annoying way.

I don't know about you, but I am really tired of getting redirected on The Motley Fool, Morningstar, Guru Focus and Dividend.com (and many more websites) only to find out that in order to read the rest of the article you have to pay a subscription service.
Ok, I may be exaggerating a bit, but I really think it's not fair to manipulate people to try to sell them a $500+ annual subscription for some information which they could find themselves on the 'free side' of the internet. I find it unprofessional and unfair...I hate it!

So, we end up here and now. This space is like I am sitting in a Gentlemen's Club where I can share my own story with the other members.
It works for me, because public commitment is a powerful tool, and sharing my personal aspirations and goals will generate a stronger drive. At the same time, this website could provide some honest and unbiased examples to anyone interested in starting to invest their money. I am not selling anything to anyone, this is more like my 'investing journal' where I can write down the progress made and review my own objectives regularly.

If you've read my lengthy article until here, I like you already. The next one will be all about the exciting stuff...the numbers! I will provide a review of my 2016 objectives as of end of May.

Oh, you may have noticed that my introduction was a bit peculiar. The first thing that you say, usually, is your name. But if you don't mind I will skip that part, at least for now. For the moment, you'll have to settle with my alias.

Yours,

The Gentleman Investor

Welcome

Welcome to this space, my brand new blog where I will be sharing my personal experience in terms of investing.

The aim of the blog is to publicly share my goals, motivations, decisions and achievements.

By doing this, not only I hope to create a stronger sense of commitment and discipline in my investing activity, but it may prove useful to 'wanna-be' investors who may need some ideas to get started.