LM portfolio as at 31/12/2025:
| 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 | £5850 | 35.87% |
| LM086 LM086-2 LM086-3 |
Banks | 02/12/2024 10/02/2025 10/09/2025 |
£4570 | £6940 | 51.98% |
| LM090 LM090-2 LM090-3 |
Aerospace & Defense | 06/01/2025 23/04/2025 10/09/2025 |
£4560 | £6690 | 46.53% |
| LM091 LM091-2 LM091-3 |
Basic Materials | 12/09/2025 17/11/2025 01/12/2025 |
£4560 | £6020 | 31.93% |
| LM095 | Services | 01/12/2025 | £1520 | £1510 | (0.35%) |
| LM096 | Insurance (Life) | 22/12/2025 | £1520 | £1520 | (0.10%) |
Happy New Year!
First things first, woke up this morning and checked investing.com - FTSE 100 over 10,000. I had a strong suspicion we were close to it going over that mark and it managed to do it on the first trading day of 2026. Of course it didn't hold. It's 4pm now and it is back under 10k... though I don't think that's the end of it, we'll be back there soon enough.
Let me take this opportunity to clarify - I didn't exactly wake up and immediately check the market: I was woken up by my 4 year old at about half 6.
She initially listened when I asked her nicely to go and play in her room for half an hour, then came back at 0635 to ask how much longer she had to play for. That repeated every 5 minutes until I finally admitted defeat and got out of bed at 7.
I dished out cereal for her and her friend (we were away for New Year with two other families), made a coffee, cleaned the dishes, emptied the dishwasher and then, around half 8, I checked the market and discovered the good news.
Luckily I took it easy over the New Year as previous years of over-exuberance have taught me New Years Day is better without a raging hangover - and New Year's Eve celebrations were best when I was young and carefree and could shake off a hangover by sleeping in until early afternoon.
Those days are long gone.
As per usual I read a few trading and investing-related books over the Christmas period and despite the fact I've read all three before, several times, I took some major tips from this re-read.
The first thing was about stop-losses. I have been using a 20% stop loss throughout this LISA Millionaire experiment, not as an order that I set in my broker account but as a mental stop loss. I check my account once a day and if a position is at a point where it's losing 20% then I sell it immediately. Otherwise I will close a position if the share or ETF has dropped below its 200 day simple moving average and stayed there for 3 consecutive days.
In Darvas's book he will put a stop very close underneath his entry point and then raise the stop loss point as the share price rises. Also, several traders in Market Wizards describe how they will use tight stops.
As a consequence of reading about tighter stops and after doing a very rough survey of my losing trades over the last 6 years, I've decided to use a 7% stop from now on.
I figure that 7% is enough to know that the trade is probably wrong; I'm buying new highs with the expectation that the share will continue to rise pretty much immediately. If it slips 7% then I can assume that I'm wrong about the strength of that particular share and I will pay a smaller price for the mistake than waiting until it's down 20%.
Obviously I won't be right all the time but I'll give it a go and see how comfortable I am with cutting the losers more quickly. I've never been afraid to take a loss so I'm guessing I'll probably be OK with it. Plus I can always buy the share back higher if I discover I was wrong.
The first victim of this new regime was LM093, a one unit investment in Currys PLC (CURY) which lost a grand total of £157.94. It was only when I bought this share that I realised it's the old Carphone Warehouse - I should've known this, considering I used to spend quite a bit of time supporting one of their call centres a few years ago.
Using the 200 day SMA as a "kind-of" trailing stop-loss is something I've done for years and I have know about the concept of trailing a stop loss behind a rising share since the very early days when I started getting interested in buying shares. So it was quite a surprise to learn that this isn't as well known as I assumed.
I was listening to the "Twin Petes" podcast Christmas Special where the two usual hosts were joined by half a dozen special guests. One was talking about how he will buy shares and then use a trailing stop loss so he knows when to sell the share and get out without giving all his gains back to the market.
Now I've been listening to this podcast for several years and it has always struck me as strange when I hear one of the presenters saying that they've lost a huge amount on a share. They could be holding some shares that are down over 50%. One of the other guests started pretty much having an epiphany when he heard about the idea of a trailing stop loss. Funny what you assume is just standard knowledge.
Well this is an end of year update and so I should get to the point - how did the portfolio do in 2025?
In a word, fantastic. The market was up and so was I.
Up 31.53%
The FTSE 100 and the 250 were also both up on the year - 21.51% and 8.96% respectively - so I've beaten them cleanly AGAIN.
I'll return in a few days to elaborate but I wanted to take some time to quickly pop on with some thoughts and to give 2025's results. Funny how I am quick to update when it's great news, isn't it?