Monday 26 January 2015

AFK! Ninja Turtle?

Now it's the Greek election!

It seems like every week there is a new political or economic news item that rocks the stock market. Since the New Year the DIY Income Investor portfolio has wilted a bit and then started to recover. But the markets keep being hit by uncertainty and bad news: oil price, copper price, Ukraine, Charlie Hebdo, Eurozone QE, Ukraine, Russia, etc.

My reaction in the face of all this termoil is to do nothing - or rather do something else: hence I've crawled back into my investing 'income shell' and have been Away From Keyboard.

Monday 12 January 2015

Look East, Young Man! (Portfolio Buy)


Following my recent review of income-oriented ETFs, it seems only fitting that I should buy one.

With such a wide choice, how do I decide what to buy? It turns out that it was quite straightforward...

Monday 5 January 2015

Review of London's High-Yield ETFs

I'm always on the hunt for interesting Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). Not just any, of course, but specifically high-yield (either based on dividends or debt/fixed-income) and preferably those leading to a geographically diversified portfolio. For a DIY Income Investor, the right choice of ETFs can be a big help. They can provide cost-effective diversification (and thus a measure of safety), simplify the running of your portfolio plus give easy access to dividend shares from around the world, in various currencies.
So here is an updated list...

Thursday 1 January 2015

2014 - A Tough Year!

2014
Source
The quiet closing days of 2014 offer the chance, again, to take stock of how the DIY Income Investor portfolio has performed over the year - and to assess whether any change of direction is needed.

The numbers are now in (more or less) and overall, during 2014, I have managed to produce an increase in total portfolio value (i.e. total return, as all income is reinvested) of around 11.4%.

This doesn't feel particularly outstanding compared to the results in the past couple of years - but then again, how has everyone else done?