LM portfolio as at 22/09/2023:
| Code | Sector | Date Bought | Cost | Value | Gain/Loss |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LM055 LM055-2 |
General Financial | 11/01/2023 02/05/2023 |
£2560 | £3210 | 25.76% |
| LM056 | Media | 11/01/2023 | £1270 | £1470 | 15.35% |
| LM057 LM057-2 LM057-3 |
Gas, Water & Multiutilities | 12/01/2023 30/05/2023 06/09/2023 |
£3810 | £5220 | 37.16% |
| LM058 LM058-2 |
Support Services | 17/01/2023 20/07/2023 |
£2540 | £2790 | 9.69% |
| LM061 | Aerospace & Defense | 20/02/2023 | £1270 | £1430 | 12.09% |
| LM062 | Food Producers | 06/03/2023 | £1290 | £1280 | (0.24%) |
| LM066 | Beverages | 24/04/2023 | £1280 | £1190 | (7.31%) |
| LM068 | Industrial Engineering | 02/05/2023 | £1270 | £1210 | (5.07%) |
| LM071 LM071-2 |
Construction & Materials | 24/07/2023 22/09/2023 |
£2550 | £2780 | 9.14% |
| LM074 | Industrial Transportation | 24/07/2023 | £1270 | £1640 | 29.21% |
Another unit has been added to LM071 following a decent bump in the price. This comes as the FTSE 250 is still wallowing below its 50, 100, 200 and 377 day simple moving averages. Not necessarily a big bear sign but it suggests that the overall market isn't trending up at present.
As you can see, LM074 has had a significant rise in value but hasn't got a second unit yet and there is good reason for that; the price rise is due to an offer.
I won't pretend to know about what happens when an offer is made for a company. All I know is that the offer was made at 48p but the share is sat at 42p. So perhaps the market doesn't think that the offer will result in a sale - otherwise the price would be up at 48p, surely?
For now I'm hanging on as, who knows, another company could enter the fray and start bidding up the price. Or the offer could collapse and the price return to its previous level. At that point I'd be at parity or perhaps a small loss. A third option is that the sale goes through at the current offer and I make a decent profit. In other words, it's likely worth the "gamble".
Book recommendation: The Mandibles: A Family, 2029–2047 by Lionel Shriver
A very entertaining book that I first read back in 2017. The plot revolves around an American family and the slow but devastating financial collapse of the US.
I've read it 3 times now and this time it probably hit home more than ever with the current economic climate. In the book inflation is running rampant and private ownership of gold is banned (the government confiscates it all).
Bitcoin and crypto are a distant memory - it's implied they imploded and no cryptocurrency has any value.
As I was reading it I was thinking about what I could do in the same situation and the answer is, basically, not very much. It gets to the point that whenever a character is paid, or gets any money for any reason, they immediately spend it all because doing anything else would be foolish.
Prices are flying up day after day so keeping cash in your pocket means that it buys far less the next time you go shopping.
Very thought-provoking and perhaps not as far-fetched as it might have been the first time I read it in 2017.
Despite depressing myself by reading the book, the LM portfolio reached an all-time high in value on the 15th of this month. It has come down a little bit since but I am very happy with the performance recently - even though there are only a handful of positions and 4-and-a-bit units available to invest.
Naturally I will keep a close eye on each investment, not hesitating to cut them straight away if they fall to a certain level. The frequency of checks, as always, is limited to a maximum of once a day - I discovered long ago that watching shares constantly doesn't make them increase in value.