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A Good Year | 3 winners & a loser

16 Nov 2013. A friend told me I haven't written in a while. It's true, I've been completely caught up in a business venture, and neglected my personal investments! However, it seems they do better when I'm doing nothing!

At the start of the year I had in place 4 big bets:

1. The first bet involved a complex arbitrage transaction over multiple exchanges and currencies. It wasn't a watertight arbitrage and I was "naked" for a period. Unfortunately in the middle of a significant transaction, whilst I was exposed, currencies and share prices moved against me, and I lost a bit of money. On average over time this strategy should result in a profit, but this year it didn't :(

2. The second big bet was with a company called Accentuate, which makes vinyl flooring. This was my stock pick of the year. I made about a 100% return on it since the start of the year. However, I've recently cooled on the share, as there was something in their latest financials which concerned me (a story to be told another day), and I've sold almost completely out of this position.

3. The other big bet I made was with M&S Holdings, who are a provider of outsourced personnel. I bought it at the start of the year and have made in excess of 100% return on it. I've sold about half my holding, mainly for risk-management purposes, as it had become too large a part of my portfolio.

4. My retirement fund assets were invested 42% offshore at the start of the year in the Allan Gray Orbis Global Equity Feeder Fund, and I have received a 44% return on the offshore assets in the year to date. This was dampened somewhat by a cash holding in my retirement fund (when I get a chance, I will explain what that's about).

The selling of Accentuate and M&S Holdings has resulted in the amount of cash I'm holding building up to high levels. I'm hunting around to find something to invest the cash in, but I'm struggling to find value. I've used some of the cash to buy shares in a company called South Ocean Holdings, and a bit in the Mazor Group. Of course I could be completely wrong, but that's related to what I like about investments - I have varying levels of certainty about how various things will pan out, a feeling of what the probabilities of certain outcomes are, and the excitement and joy is in seeing how it actually unfolds.

Some things I've been up to this year

28 Feb 2012. I thought readers may be interested in what I've been up to with my finances this year. Note that what I'm doing isn't necessarily appropriate to what you should be doing, so I'll always encourage everybody to apply their minds to their own situations.

My biggest stock position for some time has been holding Old Mutual shares, and it's been great seeing them do so well. I'm got a sell order in the market - they're currently trading at just below what I want for them. Recent purchases have been Afrimat and Combined Motor Holdings, both of which got off to a good start.

My biggest stuffup this year has been the purchase of Sun International. This was a mistake on my part, a spreadsheet lookup directed at incorrect cells resulted in an incorrect valuation. It was one of those days where it would have been better if I'd spent it lying on the beach in Vilankulo, than trading. I've partially sold out of my position at a loss of some 5%. Lessons have been learnt.

Invested maximum into retirement fund

Invested the maximum I could into my retirement fund. I rate my ability to beat the markets, but Budget 2012 has tilted the scales so much in the favour of retirement funds, that I feel that I need to allocate as much as I can there.

My reply:

20 Jan 2012. Debbite wrote to ask: "Which shares would u buys if u had some moolah"?

I could be completely wrong and lose a lot of money, but here’s what I’m doing.

I'm overall a bear on the JSE - I struggle to find value in South African stocks. A lot of my moolah I’m therefore keeping in cash. I don’t earn much on the cash, but I sleep better knowing it’s there than invested in companies I don’t have confidence in.

Shareswise I have a big chunk of my money offshore (mostly through the Allan Gray Global Equity Fund).'

My most recent purchases on the JSE have been CMH (see ), Afrimat (see ) and DBXJP. I am having a close look at another couple of shares, but these ideas aren't developed enought to speak about yet.

OMLs are my biggest position, I bought them some time back, and whilst they’re still looking good value I’m now looking ahead to selling them.

I also have a chunky holding in Sasol, but this is more for hedging purposes (to protect against oil price rises).

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