LM portfolio as at 31/12/2024:
| Code | Sector | Date Bought | Cost | Value | Gain/Loss |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LM055 LM055-2 LM055-3 |
General Financial | 11/01/2023 02/05/2023 20/12/2023 |
£3850 | £7530 | 95.72% |
| LM079 LM079-2 LM079-3 |
No specific Industry | 22/02/2024 16/10/2024 03/12/2024 |
£4310 | £4910 | 14.02% |
| LM084 | Food Producers | 21/10/2024 | £1520 | £1470 | (3.41%) |
| LM086 | Banks | 02/12/2024 | £1520 | £1530 | 0.56% |
| LM087 | Fixed Line Telecommunications | 02/12/2024 | £1520 | £1350 | (11.50%) |
Last night was supposed to be a very quiet New Years Eve: pop round to our friends' house in the afternoon, home by 7, in bed at usual time of around half 9.
The hangover I sit here with reminds me the night didn't go quite to plan.
We went round to Mr and Mrs T's house at 2pm as planned, had a few beers and left at 8pm... so not too far off the schedule.
It all went a bit awry because we decided to have another drink once our 3 year old was safely tucked up in bed. Then one drink turned into half a dozen and, although we were in bed just before midnight, the damage was done. I've been up since half 7 and don't feel very chirpy.
But I do feel chirpy enough to write an update and let all you bots know how the LISAMillionaire portfolio did in 2024.
One small change from the last update with LM085 sold on Monday to lock in a £309.10 loss. The share was Moonpig Group PLC (MOON) and the price started dropping the moment I bought it until I pulled the plug at just about 20% down.
M-O-O-N - that spells moon.
Let the winning trades run and cut the losers short. I'm thinking I might even tighten up the criteria for closing off trades with a loss so that I get out of them even quicker. At the moment I usually sell to close a position if it reaches 20% down or the price drops below the 200 day SMA for 3 days running, whichever happens first. The problem with a share that drops 20% is that it then needs to go up 25% just to get back to parity. Perhaps I should change this manual stop-loss level to 15% or even 10%.
Maybe I'll give it a try this year. There aren't too many positions to test it on though as I haven't been trading too much. Such is the nature of my investing methods that trades don't come along too often. Also, I only buy if the FTSE 250 is over its 200 day simple moving average and it is ominously hovering around this mark at present which means I'll probably not be buying anything until there is some daylight between the two lines on the chart.
And so to the results for 2024 - the portfolio was:
Up 14.18%
I'm happy with that. The FTSE 100 and the 250 were both up on the year - 5.69% and 4.55% respectively - so I've beaten them cleanly.
Of course, this takes into account the withdrawals I had to make and much as I wish I hadn't had to withdraw money the reality is that I had to and it is done.
This takes the portfolio value back down to roughly the same level as it was back at the end of 2021. I should probably edit the header at the top of the site to say "One Investor, 23 Years, £1,000,000".
2024 wasn't the best year in terms of the LM portfolio but personally it was a cracker. I got married which, although expensive, was worth every penny - a great day. I also managed to secure a new, permanent job meaning I now have a predictable income, paid holidays, paid sick leave and large pension contributions.
Knowing exactly what I am going to be paid every month is refreshing. I can draw up a budget to make sure all the bills are paid and then anything else I earn from other means is gravy. For example the horse racing system I use. It's passive income, I do nothing most of the time except set the software off in the morning and then turn it off in the evening just before bed. In 2024 this meant a decent 4 figure profit and I am aiming to ramp this up in 2025 to try and get it to 5 figures.
The Betfair system is up about 63% in 7 months. It was much higher but December was terrible with a string of losing bets although I haven't been spending much time on it lately. Funnily enough when the results are bad I tend to lose motivation to follow it so closely. The main problem with this system is that it needs regular short bursts of attention, especially on a Saturday and Sunday, and sometimes it simply isn't possible to fit in with family life. All I can do is highlight all the qualifying matches and then try to trade when I can grab 30 minutes with no interuptions.
I'm quietly confident for 2025. The stock market looks to be teetering and it wouldn't surprise me to see it trending down for a while. Obviously this would mean no new share purchases. Of course, it could turn around and start powering up and if this was the case I have several units worth of investment cash ready to invest.
It remains to be seen if the wages from my new job will be enough to sustain me long term although I do plan to continue applying for and interviewing for other roles at a higher banding. The IT job market is still absolutely terrible and I couldn't say with any certainly why this is. It doesn't help that people are buying into the hype about so-called "AI". There is no AI at present, just language calculators that produce output that needs to be checked thoroughly. I've never used any of these products and wince whenever I see colleagues typing into ChatGPT or Microsoft's CoPilot. Nothing good will come of any of it, mark my words.
I guess the most notable thing about the LISA Millionaire experiment in 2024 is that I destroyed the fund's value by making withdrawals - and this obviously means that I never got to pay any money in. Again...
Oh well, nevermind. Onwards we go, to profit (hopefully).
Happy New Year to anyone reading this and the very best of luck with your trading.