November and December Results

Before I discuss my overall performance for the year, I just want to update you with the results from November and December 2023 because these made a strong contribution to the final result.

• November +9.82%
• December +5.83%

As you can see, November was a big month for the portfolio with a gain of just under 10%, thanks largely to a big rebound in the US stock market that started at the end of October.

This continued into December with a traditional Santa rally that can be relied upon nearly every year to push share prices up, and this increased the value of the portfolio by a further 5.83%.

Overall Performance for 2023

Another strong month for me was January, right at the start of the year, which saw a gain of 9.51%.

Many of the other months saw more modest gains of 2 or 3%, but I was more than happy with that because the final result for 2023 was a gain of 33.24%.

Biggest Gainers

It is fair to say that Google (up 49% on my last purchase in February) and Amazon were two of the biggest gainers in 2023, along with the SPY ETF, which tracks the S&P 500.

However some of my UK dividend stocks have bounced back strongly and paid healthy dividends, especially IG and Aviva, and Catalyst Pharmaceuticals is currently over 41% in profit at $16.81, having originally bought at $11.90, and I think there is a lot more to come from this particular healthcare stock.

I have also traded in and out of this same stock a few times as well, which has helped to boost my performance stats.

Another strong gainer was Easyjet which gained just under 25% in two months before I decided to bank my profits on this stock last month.

Biggest Losers / Disappointments

Most of my portfolio stocks are now in profit, but I have one Russian stock that I am still unable to sell (Qiwi) and another stock that has been a constant disappointment (Tencent).

The fundamentals of Tencent remain strong, but it keeps experiencing setbacks every time the share price looks like recovering, and the recently announced regulation on Chinese gaming is the latest setback.

This is one stock that I am currently considering selling, and I may well replace it with Alibaba because I think this could be one of the strongest performing stocks in 2024 as it is hugely undervalued, with a very low P/E and a rapidly increasing free cash flow yield.

Recent Purchases

With regards to my most recent investments, I haven’t made too many changes to the portfolio. However after banking profits on Easyjet, I did buy back into two Chinese stocks, JD and Baidu, that were far too undervalued to ignore after they both saw some big sell-offs.

I think these will both do well in 2024, and as I just mentioned, I also really like Alibaba as well because this is arguably even better value right now, so this is probably next on my list when I next bank some profits.

Trading Strategy

With this current high interest rate environment, I have been very selective about the stocks that I have been buying.

For example, I will not even consider buying a stock that has high levels of debt because this is obviously very expensive to finance with interest rates so high compared to recent years.

Equally as important, I will only buy stocks that are generating large amounts of free cash flow that is forecast to grow even more in the next few years.

That’s because these companies are best equipped to deal with any recession if there is one, and have lots of capital to reinvest back into the business, buy back shares to increase the EPS or pay out to shareholders in the form of dividends.

IG Group is a good example of one such stock that satisfies both of these criteria, and this is currently up 12.1% and 22.25% (not including dividends) on the two purchases that I made in 2023.

Finally, as in any economic climate, I always want to see some degree of revenue and earnings growth moving forward to help maintain a steadily rising share price over time, and I use analyst forecasts, trading updates, conference calls, webinars, etc. to help me with this.

I should point out that I do place a few forex trades in this eToro account from time to time, but I mainly use this account to trade a global portfolio of stocks.

Risk Score

My risk score has remained between 3 and 4 in 2023, which indicates that I have a fairly low-risk strategy, so a gain of over 33% is a decent result when you compare it to the overall risk of the trading strategy and the portfolio of stocks held.

Copiers

At the end of 2023, I do not currently have any active copiers as I am not currently part of the Popular Investor program, and therefore do not receive a great deal of exposure.

However I also understand that many prospective copiers will be wary of the losses made in previous years, and I can completely relate to that.

So all I can do is to stick to my current strategy of investing in quality growth stocks that are generating large amounts of free cash flow, and hopefully the performance of this year can be repeated in 2024 and beyond.

Final Thoughts

While I am delighted with my overall performance in 2023, I can not take too much satisfaction because of the disappointment of previous years.

In previous years I was trying out different strategies and undoubtedly bought too many speculative early-stage companies that ultimately resulted in some big losses because I was too stubborn to cut my losers early.

However I have now gone back to the strategy that I use for my retirement accounts which is to only invest in proven quality companies that have little or no debt and are increasing their earnings and their free cash flow every year, and preferably paying a dividend as well.

Follow Me on eToro

If you would like to automatically copy my trades in eToro, my username on this platform is SteadyProfits and you can copy my trades here if you have an account with eToro.

You can also track my performance and see my latest trades from the same page.

Whether you choose to follow me or not, I wish you luck with your trading and investing, and hope that you have a great 2024!

A Poor Month – Down 6.16%

July proved to be a very disappointing month for my eToro account with an overall fall in value of 6.16%.

I did manage to close out a few positions for a decent profit and also received some dividends during the month. In addition, my US stocks held up pretty well. It was my UK stock holdings that did all the damage, as I will discuss below.

Trading Performance / Portfolio Update

With regards to my trading performance, I managed to bank some decent profits last month.

Tesla (TSLA) was the biggest success story with a total profit of 14.95%, but I also took the opportunity to bank 10.37% from Lockheed Martin (LMT) and over 7% from Coca Cola (KO).

I also banked a 6.18% profit from selling Duke Energy (DUK) and 5.74% from Wells Fargo (WFC) and Investec (INVP).

There were also multiple gains between 1 and 5% across multiple stocks that I closed out during the month, so there were some decent profits made.

The main problem is that when my largest holdings fall sharply, it really drags the whole portfolio down, and that’s exactly what has happened because HSBC (HSBA), BP (BP), Royal Dutch Shell (RDSB) and Aviva (AV.), for example, have all seen their share price fall quite dramatically.

The strong pound has been a major contributing factor to this because many of the biggest UK companies report their earnings in US dollars, but the worsening COVID-19 situation and increased restrictions regarding the opening up of the country haven’t helped either.

Luckily some of my US stocks have been performing well. My first investment into Amazon is doing well, currently up 7.84%, and other stocks such as Microsoft (MSFT), Altria (MO), IBM (IBM) and Momo (MOMO) are also nicely in profit.

Dividends Received

There were no massive dividend payments in July, but we did still receive payouts from Danone (BN.PA), Simon Property Group (SPG) and our S&P tracker SPY.

We have a lot more payments due this month, particularly from our US stock holdings, which generally tend to pay out quarterly.

Copiers

The number of people on eToro who are copying my trades remained unchanged at 3 last month.

It really does make me feel bad seeing some of my copiers down quite a lot since they first started copying me before COVID-19, but I remain confident that they will all be in profit in due course if they are prepared to stick with me.

Furthermore, any new copiers who come on board in the near future should be well rewarded in the long term because they will be buying some good quality companies at very low prices when copying open trades.

Risk Score

One positive from last month is that my risk score has now come down to 5. This is a reflection of slightly lower volatility in the markets and increased diversification across companies and sectors.

Final Thoughts

After such a negative month, I am obviously hugely disappointed. The UK market in particular is really having a negative impact on my portfolio because my largest holdings are all UK stocks in the financial and oil sectors that have been hit hard by the effects of COVID-19.

Unfortunately these are only likely to bounce back when a successful vaccine is developed that enables daily lives to get back to normal, and that could still be several months away.

So it is just a case of being patient, and trying to make some short-term gains when the right opportunities present themselves while I wait for the longer-term holdings to recover.

Follow Me on eToro

If you would like to follow my journey on eToro, simply open an eToro account and search for SteadyProfits to view my live trading results and to see my latest trades.

Past performance is not an indication of future results. This content is for information and educational purposes only and should not be considered investment or portfolio management advice. 81% of retail investors accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider.

A Modest Gain – Up 0.89%

Last month I was up nicely as we approached the end of April, only to see most of those gains wiped out on the final trading day, and exactly the same thing happened this month as well, much to my disbelief.

I was heading into June with a gain of 4.46% and feeling good about my performance during the month, but the FTSE 100 was down heavily yesterday, and subsequently dragged down the financial and oil stocks in particular, of which I have quite a few in my portfolio.

As a result of all this, I finished the month up 0.89%, which was still better than a loss, but was very underwhelming after I worked so hard to generate profits with my short-term trading.

Trading Performance / Portfolio Update

The portfolio is still well down for the year as a result of this one-day setback, but overall I am not too unhappy with how things stand.

I have banked quite a few profits for my eToro portfolio this month as a result of multiple short-term trades.

For example, I traded in and out of several stocks and ETFs, including ISF, VOO, INVP, AXP, MOMO, RBS, BRK.B and ULVR, and they were all winning trades, with the largest gains coming from MOMO (7.1%) and BRK.B (5.42%).

Investec (INVP) in particular has been a personal favourite of mine this month because I have traded in and out of this stock multiple times, and bought back in once again just a few days ago.

With regards to the remainder of my portfolio, I still have large holdings in the recovering oil sector with BP and Royal Dutch Shell, and also hold a number of financial stocks, such as Aviva, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, Visa and HSBC.

I also have the very undervalued US-listed Chinese app MOMO, and hold ISF and SPY, which track the FTSE 100 and S&P 500 respectively.

Finally, I currently hold a small amount of short-term treasury bonds with SHV to provide a regular monthly income, although this can always be sold if I see some better opportunities in the markets.

Dividends Received

There were very few dividend payments due to be received this month, particularly after many of our companies announced that they were scrapping dividends for the rest of the year.

However we did still receive a small payout from our ETFs, namely SPY and SHV, and we can look forward to some much larger payouts next month, with payouts expected from Visa, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, ISF and SHV.

Copiers

I ended last month with four copiers, but one of those left me this month, so I am now left with three copiers.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t matter if I have 1 or 1000 copiers. I will always do my best to make sure that each and every one of them is profitable.

Risk Score

One reason why it has been hard to attract new performers (apart from my underperformance in 2020) is that my risk score has gone up to 7.

Many people will see this score and instantly assume that I am quite a risky trader, but that’s not the case at all. I always run a long-only portfolio and never use leverage. It has gone up purely because of the volatility of the markets.

Of course I do still want to bring it down if possible, particularly as I know that I have too much exposure to certain sectors, but it is hard to do so right now with many of these stocks trading at very low levels.

Final Thoughts

Overall, it would have been a very good month if it wasn’t for the big fall in the UK market on the last day, so I am not too disappointed. The markets may well recover next week, particularly with the UK and US economies starting to open up again, and I am confident that the oil stocks will bounce back with the oil price rallying strongly late on Friday.

Of course there is still a long way to go just to get back to break-even for the year, but I think the portfolio is heading in the right direction, and as mentioned above, it will be boosted by some decent dividends in June, which will obviously help.

Follow Me on eToro

If you would like to follow my journey on eToro, simply open an eToro account and search for SteadyProfits to view my live trading results and to see my latest trades.

Past performance is not an indication of future results. This content is for information and educational purposes only and should not be considered investment or portfolio management advice. 81% of retail investors accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider.

An Eventful But Flat Month – Down 0.66%

March was the month when the markets really plummeted around the world, with my own eToro portfolio falling in value by 15%, but April also turned out to be quite an eventful month.

The stock market falls continued and I was experiencing more losses at the start of the month, before the markets picked up again towards the end and at one point I was up just under 5% at the close of play on Wednesday.

However all of Wednesday’s gains were wiped out on the last day of the month, and I ultimately ended down 0.66% for the month.

Trading Performance / Portfolio Update

The fallout from the coronavirus has undoubtedly had a massive impact on my portfolio, however the fallout from the oil price collapse has been just as damaging.

In addition to all of my UK banks scrapping their dividends for the remainder of 2020, Royal Dutch Shell announced on Thursday that they are cutting their dividend payouts by around two thirds.

As a result of all this, I will now have significantly less dividend income coming in during the rest of the year. BP have said they will retain their dividend (for now), but apart from that healthy payment, it is only ISF, SPY, Visa and SHV that are providing any kind of income.

My three largest holdings are still BP, Royal Dutch Shell and HSBC, and I remain invested in Aviva, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and Visa, and although they are all likely to remain low in the coming months, they should all recover over time.

I am also invested in ETFs that track the FTSE 100 and the S&P 500, and these will be held for years and years. I also have the short-term bond ETF SHV to provide a little income and protect my portfolio.

While I wait for my portfolio to recover, I am still actively trading in and out of stocks to generate some short-term gains for myself and my copiers.

This month I traded in and out of Barclays, BP, Google, Investec and Visa, and sold my Google shares for a small profit, but my best trade was American Express, which I bought at $82.34 and sold just one week later at $92.11 for a profit of 11.87%.

So it wasn’t a bad month overall with regards to my trading.

Dividends Received

As alluded to above, many dividends have been cut, but we did at least receive a dividend from SPY at the end of the month, although this is really small compared to many of our UK dividend stock payouts.

Copiers

Despite the poor performance of my trading portfolio, I still have 4 copiers as of the end of April, who I am very grateful for for sticking with me. I am working hard to ensure that all of them will see healthy profits in the future.

Risk Score

The volatility of the markets has meant that nearly all stocks have been assigned a higher risk score, which in turn has left me with a higher risk score of 7, despite the fact that I haven’t really made any major changes to my portfolio.

I think BP and Royal Dutch Shell are the two main culprits, particularly as they make up such a large part of my portfolio, but I am not going to sell either of them at these levels just to bring my risk score down.

Final Thoughts

After being up nearly 5% with one trading day left, I am obviously very disappointed to finish the month down 0.66%.

However moving forward I am fairly happy with the make-up of my portfolio, and remain confident that it will rise to previous highs once again once the worst of the coronavirus is behind us.

This is still some way off in my opinion, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the S&P 500 makes new highs as early as next year.

In the meantime I will continue to trade in and out of stocks to capitalize on the market volatility right now, and pick up any bargains for the long-term with any leftover cash.

Follow Me on eToro

If you would like to follow my journey on eToro, simply open an eToro account and search for SteadyProfits to view my live trading results and to see my latest trades.

Past performance is not an indication of future results. This content is for information and educational purposes only and should not be considered investment or portfolio management advice. 81% of retail investors accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider.

Worst Month So Far – Down 15.69%

First of all, I would like to apologise for not continuing to post monthly updates about my eToro progress in recent months.

As many of you will know, March has been a terrible month for stock market investors, so I thought now would be the perfect time to write a new update.

The impact of COVID-19 around the world has had a devastating impact on many countries’ economies and has decimated many people’s portfolios as a result, including highly respected fund managers such as Ray Dalio.

I have suffered as well because after the final day of trading, my account was down 15.69% in March, following on from a fall of 9.07% in February and a 2.99% fall in January.

Trading Performance / Portfolio Update

Many people assume that the coronavirus is responsible for most of these losses, but in my case, the ongoing dispute between Saudi Arabia and Russia has also had a major impact because this has driven the price of oil down to just $22 in the case of WTI Crude.

Subsequently, I have seen the share price of two of my largest holdings, BP and Royal Dutch Shell, fall by as much as 50% before bouncing back to a slightly more respectable level.

Other companies in my portfolio have performed equally as badly thanks to the enforced lockdown in the UK and elsewhere.

For example, HSBC is down over 20%, Aviva is down over 30% and RBS and Barclays are both down around 34%. Even my FTSE 100 tracker is down nearly 22%.

My US stocks and ETF have performed a little better because I purchased these a little later using the proceeds from my bond ETF sales.

Visa is down around 19%, Google 11% and SPY (a popular S&P 500 tracker) around 16%.

In short, everything is down a lot but I am not currently selling anything for a loss because these are all good quality companies / ETFs that should all go back into profit over time once we start to eradicate COVID-19.

Most of them pay very generous dividends in the meantime, although I am just hearing that UK banks are all cancelling any future dividends for the remainder of 2020, which is obviously a big blow.

It should be noted that it hasn’t all been doom and gloom because as mentioned above, I sold three of my bond ETFs for decent profits last month, and I also made a profit of over 15% on a short-term trade in Barclays.

Dividends Received

eToro have recently changed the way that payments are received so that they are now in line with most other brokers. Instead of paying out dividends on the ex-dividend date, they now pay the dividends on the official payment date for each company.

As a result of this, I received dividends last month from a few companies that went ex-dividend in February, including Visa, ISF, BP and Royal Dutch Shell, so this provided a decent income to mitigate some of the heavy losses.

This month there are more dividends due to be paid out from SPY, but the anticipated dividends from Barclays and HSBC have now been cancelled.

Copiers

At the start of the year I had as many as 8 copiers copying my trades at one point, but with the global stock market collapse, I now only have 3 copiers, which is perfectly understandable.

I am invested for the long-term with short-term trades boosting profits in the meantime and am fully prepared to ride out any storms, but everyone has their reasons to stop copying someone.

Risk Score

As a result of some wild fluctuations in the value of my portfolio, my risk score has gone up from 4 to 6, which is obviously not ideal. Hopefully this will fall once the markets settle down a little bit and stop moving several percentage points in one day. If not, I may have to trim some of my larger holdings.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I am not too unhappy with the overall loss of 15.69% in March, as crazy as that may sound. I was actually down a lot more at one point when the FTSE and S&P 500 were down significantly more than they are today.

The key thing you have to do during a crisis is to avoid panic selling. As long as you are invested in good quality stocks and ETFs, you should be OK in the long run, however long that may take, and I believe I have a good mixture of both.

So for now I am just continuing to bank any dividends and waiting for this coronavirus nightmare to be over. Stay inside, stay healthy and keep buying at low prices is my philosophy for the immediate future.

Follow Me on eToro

If you would like to follow my journey on eToro, simply open an eToro account and search for SteadyProfits to view my live trading results and to see my latest trades.

Past performance is not an indication of future results. This content is for information and educational purposes only and should not be considered investment or portfolio management advice. 81% of retail investors accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider.