LM portfolio as at 23/05/2025:
| 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 | £8670 | 125.51% |
| LM079 LM079-2 LM079-3 |
No specific Industry | 22/02/2024 16/10/2024 03/12/2024 |
£4310 | £4670 | 8.52% |
| LM084 | Food Producers | 21/10/2024 | £1520 | £1660 | 9.24% |
| LM086 LM086-2 |
Banks | 02/12/2024 10/02/2025 |
£3040 | £3420 | 12.50% |
| LM087 | Fixed Line Telecommunications | 02/12/2024 | £1520 | £1600 | 5.26% |
| LM089 | Investment Services | 06/01/2025 | £1530 | £1700 | 11.34% |
| LM090 LM090-2 |
Aerospace & Defense | 06/01/2025 23/04/2025 |
£3040 | £3700 | 21.61% |
We're recently back from the US, having spent nearly three weeks over there. Well, I say the US but it was 18 days in Orlando. In reality we didn't see anything of the real America as most of our time was spent in Disney's theme parks .
The weather was very hot, it was crowded, the wait times were long and I stuffed myself with lots of unhealthy food but it was a great holiday. But maybe two weeks would've been enough as the last few days couldn't possibly match the excitement of the first few days out. And, sadly, it isn't around the corner - there's a 9 hour flight each way to endure.
Virgin Atlantic are OK and the planes are nice but it's still 9 hours of precious life sat cramped in a metal tube with mediocre food and entertainment, surrounded by strangers. A phrase comes to mind; hell is other people.
So what did I learn from my trip? Well, first of all if you can come up with a product or service that appeals to the "larger" person then you could make a fortune over there. The vast majority of people I saw were overweight, many drastically so. And after a few days there I could see why.
I've always had a slim build and so I don't eat very much. Maybe that's why I am slim - because of a small appetite - or maybe I don't eat much because I'm slim. Or one leads to the other... chicken and the egg... who knows?
Long story short, I'm thin and don't tend to over-eat therefore I stay pretty thin. However, when you are on holiday you often eat out. In an all-inclusive hotel you can steadily pick and choose what to eat and, though you can go back again and again, you control the portion size.
In Orlando, however, portions are huge. You go out to Outback Steakhouse, or Chilli's, or Cheesecake Factory and order one meal and the plate that arrives typically contains enough food to feed two adults. So as the polite person I am I always try to leave a clean plate. After about a week I was feeling groggy and put it down to literally being completely full. I'd eaten far too much and it was tiring me out.
No wonder I noticed a lot of rotund people around me, they are fed to excess. It doesn't help that anything healthy - fruit, vegetables etc - seems to be rather expensive in Walmart yet the unhealthy stuff is noticably cheap. Mini pies available at 84c or so. A big box of sugar cookies just $5. Pop over to 7-11 and you can get a huge, huge "fountain" drink from less than $2. It costs if you want to eat healthily.
The second thing I noticed is how many young women are covered in small tattoos. Lots of little tattoos all over their arms. It must be a new trend and all I could think is that anyone who can take advantage and build up a business offering tattoo removal will probably get very busy in the next 5-10 years.
As far as holidays go, this was exhausting but a lot of fun. You know what you are getting with an Orlando trip - hot weather, occasional showers, traffic jams, long queues for the rides, getting ripped off parking at the theme parks ($30 a day!), lots of eating, regular visits to shops for the air-con, getting to drive a massive car and huge step counts. I'm sure it won't be our last visit.
The portfolio has made a new all-time high as of Friday last week. The FTSE 250 is once again above all the SMAs that I keep track of.
And to add to all this excellent performance, today the portfolio received a bumper dividend from LM079 amounting to £134.48. This position has the full 3 units invested giving a 3.12% boost on a trade that is already showing a decent profit.
Technically - according to the rules I set myself - this trade should've been sold a few weeks ago when it dipped into loss territory and briefly spent some time under its own 200 day SMA. But for some reason I didn't sell it and it recovered. Can't help thinking I got lucky this time...
The horse racing software continued placing bets automatically whilst I holidayed but the results were pretty poor. I've got long term stats that show me that over time I should expect a certain return from each bet depending on the stake size. Having had an excellent April, the May results are kicking in to average it out. Hurts to see such a large loss but at least I haven't wasted any time manually placing these bets, the software has been beavering away whilst I was riding the Tower of Terror at Disney's Hollywood Studios.