LM portfolio as at 13/12/2024:
| Code | Sector | Date Bought | Cost | Value | Gain/Loss |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LM055 LM055-2 LM055-3 |
General Financial | 11/01/2023 02/05/2023 20/12/2023 |
£3850 | £7690 | 100.00% |
| LM079 LM079-2 LM079-3 |
No specific Industry | 22/02/2024 16/10/2024 03/12/2024 |
£4310 | £4910 | 13.94% |
| LM084 | Food Producers | 21/10/2024 | £1520 | £1480 | (2.90%) |
| LM085 | No Specific Industry | 21/10/2024 | £1520 | £1330 | (12.74%) |
| LM086 | Banks | 02/12/2024 | £1520 | £1540 | 1.15% |
| LM087 | Fixed Line Telecommunications | 02/12/2024 | £1520 | £1410 | (6.93%) |
After a LONG layoff, I started a new job at the beginning of November and settled in quickly. Today is the first day that I've worked from home as I've been on-site 5 days a week. As it happens this wasn't the end of the world, it made a nice change.
Commuting is OK, it usually takes just less than an hour and I have queued up plenty of podcasts to keep me entertained on the journey. I make my way to the motorway, jump on and then plonk myself behind a wagon. Just about the point where everyone starts queueing a few miles before the end of the motorway, I take the exit and work is a couple of miles from the junction.
The motorway is the easy, free-flowing bit. It's the final 2 miles (or initial 2 on the way home) which take the time. Queues galore, never helped by the actions of all the muppets who aren't paying attention and must be playing with their phones instead of setting off when the green light eventually comes.
I hit the ground running in the new role - quickly finding out who to ask about which system and quickly sorting the chancers from the knowledgeable. All I can think of during this whole time was the intensely dull question I got from one HR dork in a late stage interview - "what do you think is the biggest challenge you'll face in this new role?"
It still rankles me as such a stupid question - annoys me even more that my answer to this question was apparently the reason I didn't get the job. As I said to the numpty who asked me (using different words of course), there won't really be any challenges aside from figuring out where I can keep my lunch and where to get a coffee. This is IT, I've been doing it for 20+ years and I'm very good at it. I've also worked as a contractor for nearly 10 of those years, jumping in and out of different companies. I can hit the ground running as I have demonstrated again and again.
So when I say I can't think of any "big challenges" that I will face by starting in your company I mean it. I'll just come in, ask questions, make notes, figure out how everything fits together and GET ON WITH IT.
They went with the internal candidate in that case and I hope it has worked out for them. I am now working with someone in our team who was an internal hire and it is obvious that this person was an internal candidate. This is the person I have learnt the least from because they have a small sphere of knowledge, they have 6 years' experience on paper but it's just 6 times the same year of experience repeated.
I'm new and I've already overtaken them...
Challenges? Pffft, what a load of frosty.
Ins and Outs
Three sales since the last update; Mitie, Kier Group and Lloyds:
| LM058 LM058-2 LM058-3 |
17/01/2023 20/07/2023 23/04/2024 |
21/11/2024 | MTO | 674 | £232.93 |
| LM071 LM071-2 LM071-3 |
24/07/2023 22/09/2023 29/01/2024 |
15/10/2024 | KIE | 449 | £950.93 |
| LM083 | 03/09/2024 | 02/12/2024 | LLOY | 42 | (£251.37) |
The good news was that on the 15th October 2024 LM071 became the all-time biggest profit I've had in this experiment. The company was Kier Group and I invested the maximum 3 units into it, getting very close to a four-figure profit. Here is the chart showing my entry points:
Mitie (LM058) wasn't as profitable although it moved well enough to warrant 3 units of investment. Everything was going great until it had a blip in mid-November and I got the signal to close the trade. Not an amazing profit but every little helps:
And then there was a short-lived attempt to trade LLOY again (LM083) but this time it didn't work and I was out after a few weeks. I basically gave back the profit I'd previously made on Lloyds earlier this year.
In terms of new investments, I've now got up to the maximum three units in LM079 as it has been moving upwards nicely. And I've used some of the cash that was sitting in my broker account to add 4 new positions. Naturally, 3 of these are currently underwater but I'm in no rush and will give them time and space to "breathe".
I don't want to jinx it but look at LM055 in the table at the top of the page. Three units in and the profit stands at 100%. Great stuff.
This is the company which has been targeted by shorters. Maybe they know something, maybe not. Until I get a signal I'll be letting it run.
Crypto Proves Me Wrong
How smug I was to talk about my friend "L" and his crypto-currency investing shenanigans dismissively back in March of this year. I poured scorn on his assertion that a huge run-up in prices was surely going to happen. His words were "when the bull run arrives", like it was a certainty that the crypto markets would rise again simply because they had risen before.
Earlier this month the whole cryptocurrency market had a huge upsurge. My friend, at this moment, is looking like he was correct in his predictions.
I'm happy for him and I hope he makes a fortune. Looking at the prices this morning, his big ones Ripple and Stellar have risen considerably since I mentioned them 9 months ago. Ripple is up at $2.39 and Stellar is at $0.41 whilst back on 18/03/24 they were at $0.61 and $0.12 respectively.
And Bitcoin? That's up at an all-time high of $104,500. Which is astounding when you think about it.
There's nothing there... nothing at all. At least with Tulips you had something you could hold in your hand, this is just a token, some zeros and ones, code on a computer.
I'm still absolutely 100% sure that this will all collapse at some point but until then we may still be stunned by the prices these so-called currencies obtain.