Life and Blogging

2018 has been a difficult year for me so far, despite initially feeling so positive at the beginning. I am sure most people know about these issues in some form or another which stops us from doing all the things we plan to do.

It is difficult where to start, but I used to be able to allocate time on a regular basis to do the things I enjoyed doing like writing a blog. The plan was to write at least one blog every week. This I managed until the end of February, but since then I have only managed 1 blog a month. I did write a list of follow up blogs to make it easier. But since March have only managed to do  "investment blog" which for some is not ideal. 

Sadly my time has been taken up with other issues caused by what I can only describe as fraudsters and hackers.  Not with this blog, fortunately.  First, it was time-wasting telephone calls at work and on my mobile.  These I went to the trouble of reporting, and over time they seem to have reduced.  Next were the hackers whose aim is to commit Fraud.  These are the new breed, who slowly add bits of code hidden away to "open a back door" to your website. You know something is up, and you go looking to find it, but most of the time you don't find it, but even if you do, you just remove it, and they come back a few weeks later and add it back in. 

At the time you are not sure if something has happened or not, because they do nothing else.  So sometimes there is nothing really to find.  They then completely leave you alone for a few weeks, then come back and do it little more, then go away again for a week or two. Then finally come back big time, with a team who are in many countries so impossible to block. 

By now you know you are in trouble and do everything you can to try to stop them.  The sensible thing to do used to be to remove the website, and roll back to an older version from a backup copy.  The problem with this is you need a really old backup copy - one at least 3 months old or even older, but most back-ups are not more than a month, so it does not work. 

The only choice then - remove the original website completely so they have no access and start again.  Years of development and work - gone.  If I had lots of money to invest in putting a new website into place every 2-3 years then this sort of thing would not be an issue.  The little spare money I have is going into my investments so I can stop working one day, which a website sadly will not do the same, especially when there are just too many people who think there is nothing wrong in being a Fraudster.  

April 5,2018 - UK Tax year end

4 full years have now past since I started this portfolio.

Before I give you the facts, I have received the following dividends since my last investment.

£ 38.34 from SSE plc
£30.17 from RDSB
£46.52 from BP

The Facts: 
Total new money invest during the year:  £2,000.00
Total new money invested since starting the portfolio: £13,000.00
Total dividends for the year: £804.94 (2016-17 : £420.01)
Dividend Income : £67.08 per month (2016-17 : £35.00 per month)
Total dividends since starting the portfolio £1,566.89  (2016-17 : £761.95)

If I sold the shares on the 5th April 2018, I would have had £16,884.87  in cash in my SelfTrade dealing account. Overall a 19% profit still on my original cash. This is the same as last year, so I am happy.

 As I say each year, that is the thing about shares.  They can go up and they can go down.  My regular income is still increasing from year one of £13.33 pm, and this the 4th year year is is now up to £67.08pm.  I still have a long way to go, before it is enough to live on, but I have to start somewhere and "Rome was not built in Day"

March 2018 - Investment 22

Since my last investment I had also received the following dividends:

 £31.92 from GlaxoSmithKline
£30.51 from  National Grid Plc
£29.97 from BT

Additionally since the last investment I have been trying decide which my next investment should be.  The market has dropped generally, and I have quite a few existing holdings producing good dividend returns against the costs of my original investment. Some are showing capital losses, so it could be considered a good time to top up. Especially as the reason for investing is for long term dividend return over capital profit.  Generally the news from the companies I am watching have not been positive enough for me to be confident to choose one particular company over another, so I will just have to keep watching each one until I am either ready to invest or find something else which catches my eye.

By mid March 2018 the market was still very volatile, so I decided to take a look at a share I already had, which was not doing very well even thought it was producing a good dividend return.  So I decided to top on on National Grid.  I just used the balance of cash I had in my trading account to purchase another 137 shares, bringing my new holding to 334 shares.

https://www.nationalgrid.com

December 2017 - Investment No 21

The main issue with investing in shares is keeping up with developments of the companies which you hold as a shareholder.  Fortunately I am a long term member of a website called MoneyAm (www.moneyam.com) where I keep a Stockwatch portfolio list of my holdings so I can see at a glance if there is any news. I try to take a look at it at least once a day, ideally in the morning to make sure I don't miss something really important.

In mid December I noticed there was news on "Board Changes" with Persimmon, in which I held 78 shares. The announcement was that the Chairman was going to resign and on the previous day another senior member of the board had resigned. Also generally the announcement tried to put a positive spin on what had happened, but it was over the Long Term Incentive Plan in 2012 which did not include a CAP.  It was due to this omission they tendered their resignation.  I did wonder what the implication of this would be, but decided not to wait until the companies trading up date due at the beginning of January 2018. So I decided to sell my 78 shares in Persimmon for which I received £2,035.95.  This produced a profit of 63% on shares held for just under 18 months. Including the dividends received the overall profit was 66%.  So now I am sitting on over £2,000 in cash.  A very nice position to be in.

Since my last investment I had also received the following dividends:

Centrica  £16.20
Dyson Group £13.14
Royal Dutch Shell B £31.16
BP £48.30

I am not good at leaving money sitting in my dealing account, so I thought I need to make an investment while the market was quiet.  Looking at my portfolio I did think I should consider a bank, to have more diversification, but taking a look at the choice I just could not bring myself to invest in any of them.  So I decided to take a look again at my existing shares.  Centrica was languishing.  Currently down 40% but paying good dividends, although no more in the current financial year.  I noticed the CEO, Iain Conn had purchased 100,000 shares early in the previous week for more than the share was currently trading. In fact he had also purchased 100,000 shares back in October 2017, when the shares where a lot higher.

centrica.com

 Centrica has steadily been dropping in price.  The company was very much trying to be a one stop shop to for its customers and the company figures to year end Dec 2016 were pretty good, after a couple of questionable years.  I wondered in Iain Conn thought the year end Dec 2017 figures were going to be better and had purchased the shares? Of course I could be completely wrong so I would have to wait and see.

In the meantime I purchased 820 shares in Centrica for £1,148.89 leaving £1,000 in my dealing account towards my next purchase.