LM portfolio as at 05/12/2025:
| Code | Sector | Date Bought | Cost | Value | Gain/Loss |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LM079 LM079-2 LM079-3 |
No Specific Industry | 22/02/2024 16/10/2024 03/12/2024 |
£4310 | £5900 | 37.06% |
| LM086 LM086-2 LM086-3 |
Banks | 02/12/2024 10/02/2025 10/09/2025 |
£4570 | £6360 | 39.25% |
| LM090 LM090-2 LM090-3 |
Aerospace & Defense | 06/01/2025 23/04/2025 10/09/2025 |
£4560 | £6270 | 37.43% |
| LM091 LM091-2 LM091-3 |
Basic Materials | 12/09/2025 17/11/2025 01/12/2025 |
£4560 | £5280 | 15.79% |
| LM093 | Services | 29/09/2025 | £1520 | £1440 | (5.15%) |
| LM095 | Services | 01/12/2025 | £1520 | £1530 | 0.66% |
I wrote the below yesterday (Sunday) and then I've come back today, re-read it and decided it needs a couple of updates so I will add in this colour rather than editing because, well, why not?
Here's my weekend routine for keeping check on the LISA, my SIPP and a new venture I'll tell you about shortly:
- Log into broker website(s)
- On each account press 'PrtScr' button on my keyboard
- Screenshots automatically save in Dropbox
- Open a spreadsheet I've developed and type in the new values of each position in my LISA
- The HTML code is automatically created in the spreadsheet - I highlight it and copy it
- I create a new PHP file and paste the code in
And that is how I quickly and easily make the above table on each update. Perhaps the most valuable course I ever took was a A/S level in IT back in the mid-90s where I was taught how to use Excel. Just being able to use a spreadsheet properly saves me so much time in life.
Part of the process also involves updating 3 different spreadsheets - a LISA one (that updates a nice 'value v date' chart), a SIPP one and an IG Index one.
I'm so close now to the £30,000 balance it's ridiculous. When I look at the chart of my LISA balance it's like there's a resistance line at 30k, it keeps on bumping up against it then moving lower.
For the last two weeks I've been re-watching a series of seminars from back in the early 2000s. These are high-priced events at a conference centre in London that were filmed and released on DVD. All of the attendees would get the footage sent to them on DVD after the event and then some would decide to sell it on eBay. I've got the DVDs from seminars in 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2015 and 2017 - so plenty to be getting through when you consider each time it's usually six 1.5 hour DVDs per time.
The tickets were typically £3,000 each (plus VAT) but as I was bidding on, and winning, these sets on eBay I only ever paid a fraction of that. As an example I bought the 2004 DVDs in mid-2005 for £92 or thereabouts, watched them and then sold them on again - on eBay - for £500. Easy money. I then picked them up again a few years later for next to nothing.
I find it extremely valuable to re-watch these DVDs every-so-often. I always pick up some new information and use it in some shape or form. The 2004 DVDs are by far the best, even though they are over two decades old now. I could watch them over and over. I've got the 2006 ones on whilst I type this and I will have them on in an ear-bud at work until I've got all the way through to the end of the 2017 event.
The reason I mention this now is that I opened a new IG Index account a couple of weeks ago after being inspired by this seminar footage. I've not put much in (£500) and I was pleasantly suprised to find out that the minimum bet size is now just 1p a point. The last time I was active with spread-betting the minimum would often be 50p or £1 a point which made it very difficult to trade much when you only had a small account.
A five hundred quid account in 2010 would've been wiped out in just half a dozen bad trades so good for IG for lowering the minimums. Perhaps it says something about the industry that they've had to reduce it - I guess they are competing with all the crypto brokers and the likes of Robin Hood which allow inexperienced and foolish newbies to bet any amount on what turn out to be very very poor "financial" instruments.
I wish I had more information about minimum bet sizes from back in 2004/2005. From what I can remember the only broker which allowed small bets was Finspreads - and they no longer exist, I think they were taken over several years ago. Finspreads used to have some kind of training period when you first opened an account which allowed smaller bets sizes, perhaps 10p a point. They were an outlier, though, as the minimum for the other companies was always much higher.
My day-to-day PC is an ancient Intel NUC that I bought back in 2016. It's a lovely piece of kit as it's only the size of about 5 CD cases stacked on top of each other. I've been using it constantly since I first put it together - you bought the NUC then added your own RAM and HDD, then installed your chosen operating system.
Unfortunately it's coming to the end of its useful life as a usable Windows PC. Firstly it can't be upgraded to Windows 11 because its processor isn't supported and secondly it's getting a little bit slow.
When I'm not at home I will remote into this NUC PC so that I can avoid signing in to personal email accounts, bookies, share brokers, banks etc on PCs that I don't own. I've locked it down so it can only be accessed from IP addresses I have specified. It all works really well.
However, like I said it can't be upgraded so it needs replacing. And what I've done is sourced a 2nd hand Lenovo laptop from eBay. I also got a USB-C dock whilst I was there.
I won both in auctions, bidding only in the last 6 seconds so that no-one could bid after me. Won the laptop for the minimum and the dock for at least £10 less than they usually go for.
When the laptop arrives I will wipe it and re-install Windows 11 onto it. Then I'll add various software and policies to lock it down for a lower attack surface. Then I will hook it up to the dock and readjust my firewall to allow remote access into it. I can't see this laptop lasting 9 years like the NUC did but it's got good specs so it should be good for 3 or 4 years. And for just £170 I think that's a bargain.
I should've got a new laptop a couple of years ago, this NUC struggles sometimes and I have wasted a lot of time waiting for it to catch up. The laptop I won is a Lenovo Thinkpad T14 Gen 2 which means it is probably about 4 years old but for what I need it for - web browsing, emails, remoting into other machines, life admin, file storage, basic spreadsheets etc - it will be a marked upgrade on the present setup.
Even though it's a laptop, the vast majority of the time its lid will be closed and it'll be plugged into the dock and used with an external keyboard, mouse and monitor. But I'll have the option to use it on its own. Win-win.
If you're in the market for a laptop I can certainly recommend buying 2nd hand business laptops off eBay. There are sellers on there who will give you a 1 year warranty on 4 year old machines they have reconditioned. Go for Dells or Lenovos. I have always liked Lenovo Thinkpads after using them for many years for work. Now USB-C docks are standard there is little point to using desktops when you can spend the same, or less, on a laptop and dock which together do the same thing.
Well, there you go. I sat down to write a quick update then ending up giving you a block of random stuff to read.
The porfolio is looking good. 4 out of the 6 open positions are at the maximum investment level of 3 units (unit size is currently £1,500) and the other two aren't in any dire need of intervention.
It was only upon creating the table today that I noticed I have two positions in the same sector, which goes against my loose "diversification" rules. I'm not supposed to have more than one position in any one sector. In this case I'm not worried, one share is a retail share and the other is in leisure therefore I would say they are suitably different.
Not long until Christmas... and I get the opportunity to read the two books I read every year. (I'll likely mention the books again in the next update but look back to some other pre-Christmas updates for full details if you're curious) Looking forward to it, despite the fact I've read each one at least 8 times. They are both short, entertaining and, in different ways, inspiring... what more can you ask for in a book?