Investment Review - January 2015

A lot more activity this month, including my first disposals of any holdings since October 2013....

Firstly, here's the current spreadsheet as updated today, the last working day of the month :-

Stock / Fund Sales in the Period
In the period, I sold 46% of my Tesco holding at a price of 222.9p net.  The total number of shares sold included all those bought at 165.3p in December 2014 and 201.4p in September 2014, plus sufficient others bought earlier at much higher prices to bring this sales transaction to a neutral position.   I'm hanging on to the rest of my Tesco shares for the moment, because I still like the company - however, the recovery may be slow and I felt I had too many of them for comfort, hence the averaging down over recent months.

I also sold all my Unilever holding at 2,934p for a 28% gain over book cost in less than a year.   I still like this company too, but the price is up >10% since the start of January to an all-time high and I can't see any justification for this.  I might buy back into Unilever again if there's a bargain to be had in the future.

And finally, I sold all my BAE Systems holding at 511.5p net for a 19.4% gain since mid-October last year.   Once again, I don't see any good reason why the price should have shot up 10% in just the last few weeks, and is now also standing at around what amounts to an all-time high.

Perhaps the sharp Unilever and BAE gains this month are due to a flight into more traditional defensives in the wake of the oil and commodity stock slumps.  Only time will tell if I did the right thing....


Stock / Fund Purchases in the Period
With part of this month's sales proceeds, I almost trebled my holding in Blackrock World Mining Trust, bought this time around at 304.6p gross.


So, generally a big move back into cash this month.  I also paid in some new money to the ISA during January, and I'll bring the total annual subscription up to the 2014-2015 limit of £15,000 in two more tranches during February and March.