{"id":338,"date":"2016-12-14T14:34:40","date_gmt":"2016-12-14T14:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/frugalstudent.co.uk\/?p=338"},"modified":"2016-12-20T02:18:45","modified_gmt":"2016-12-20T02:18:45","slug":"christmas-clean-sorting-portfolio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frugalstudent.co.uk\/index.php\/2016\/12\/14\/christmas-clean-sorting-portfolio\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas clean up – Sorting out my portfolio"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/b>My portfolio was a mess! With many of my early investing mistakes still present in my portfolio I finally decided to bite the bullet.<\/p>\n

I CLEANED UP!<\/span><\/p>\n

All investors evolve over time. We learn from our mistakes and adapt our strategies accordingly. But, what should you do if past\u00a0mistakes are still evident in your portfolio?<\/p>\n

It can be a painful process, that costs money in the short term BUT if a stock’s fundamentals mean it no longer fits with your overall strategy, couldn’t the capital tied up in it be deployed somewhere else?<\/p>\n

For me, a portfolio is like a machine. If one part of that machine\u00a0is misfiring\u00a0– it’s cogs are a different size or whatever- then it needs to be removed\u00a0to ensure smooth operation!<\/p>\n

So what did I do?<\/p>\n

Firstly I sold all<\/b> my shares in EasyJet.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve written before on how much of a mistake EasyJet was and why it is not a stock for a dividend growth portfolio. (Capital intensive and influenced heavily by external factors such as terrorism – Not predicatble, not good!)<\/span><\/p>\n

So there we go hitting the sell button gave me, \u00a3280 in cash from that sale – ensuring a \u00a3220 loss on my investment.<\/p>\n

But I wasn\u2019t done with my portfolio yet. There was still more sorting to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

Next, I sold Carillion. If I\u2019m completely honest, I bought this blindly after reading articles on their operations in the middle east. Articles are never <\/b>a reason to buy a stock.<\/p>\n

With this being only my third ever buy, it was bound to be flawed based on my previous investing stratergy.<\/p>\n

Selling out got me a measly \u00a380 after fees – ensuring a \u00a340 loss on the position.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I then had \u00a3360 cash ready to deploy.<\/p>\n

Adding \u00a3340 of my own capital brought my cash at disposal up to \u00a3700 and with some of my favourite stocks at low valuations I used this \u00a3700 via HL\u2019s monthly savings option to buy stocks as follows;<\/p>\n

Next plc – \u00a3200 (Monster cashflow, lovely dividends and undervalued)<\/p>\n

Unilever – \u00a3200 (Well diversified and great exposure to emerging markets – Great dividend streak)<\/p>\n

Whitbread plc – \u00a3200 ( I bought into this stock too high! But this valuation is now more reasonable – Whitbread continues to expand its operations globaly and have ambitious plans for their \u2018Costa Express\u2019 brand.)<\/p>\n

Greggs – \u00a3100 (This stock has no debt. Not one penny! Is expanding nicely and rewarding shareholders)<\/span><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t add any more positions here because quite frankly, my positions are beginning to become stretched.<\/p>\n

With bits here and there, It came to a point where I could no longer keep track of what was going on!<\/p>\n

If a stock I love is on sale, why not buy more instead of overstretching? <\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks for taking the time to read this quick update. I promise a post a week from now on!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My portfolio was a mess! With many of my early investing mistakes still present in my portfolio I finally decided to bite the bullet. I CLEANED UP! All investors evolve…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/frugalstudent.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/frugalstudent.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/frugalstudent.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frugalstudent.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frugalstudent.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/frugalstudent.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/frugalstudent.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frugalstudent.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frugalstudent.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}