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.