The Amateur Investor Ep. 17: The numbers so far

We were about 300ish meters above sea-level, the view wasn’t too bad. Just under four hours ago, my girlfriend and I rolled out of bed, packed and drove the hour and a bit to the base of Mount Tibrogargan to commence the ascent. Her brother and his girlfriend had wanted to tackle the mountain for some unknown reason, and we were invited along. I’d had my reservations about making the ascent. Yet here I was, having made the journey, climbing the more notorious, exposed sections to reach the top. The view wasn’t too bad, and while the others in the group were taking their obligatory photos, I took a few seconds to take stock and plan the route back down. Most of the hike was relatively easy, if a bit inclined. Only nearer the peak would one have to climb, as the forested areas there gave way to rocky outcrops and sparse shrubbery. The terrain there turned pretty much vertical, and it became pretty clear to me how the much-publicized fatalities and rescues occurred on this particular section. Comfy forest tracks gave way to sheer cliff faces with some decent handholds, easy if you knew the way but daunting to the uninitiated, a fact that I noticed when we realised near the top that the crowd we’d run into had largely evaporated after the steepest sections, unable to push through the harder segments. In spite of the risks, one of which was a 25-minute chunk where one of our party was frozen in place, trying not to panic while the rest of us coached them through the moves, we’d made it and I had to admit to myself that overall, it wasn’t a bad day at all.

This is all by way of segueing into another form of stock-taking I did today, looking over how my portfolio had performed overall. From my first trade in mid-March of this year, I’ve managed to grow my capital by about 38%, which isn’t too bad according to Hsuan. So I did a bit of digging through my records and came up with some figures (I hate math) to give a bit of a snap-shot of how I’ve done so far

It’s safe to say, I got a little over-committed in a few positions, though I did eventually manage to back out of all of them, in most cases making a profit which I’m relatively happy about. Now let’s have a look at my current portfolio holdings.

I’d like to add here that I’ve mostly gotten lucky with many of these positions and trades, implementing a relatively vague strategy intending to capitalize on COVID-19 market trends, though I have to give credit where it’s due and thank my fellow Mockers for providing advice and guidance where needed. It’s also worth noting that the purchase prices for both IEL and WEB were the result of a Retail Entitlement Offers that were issued to shareholders by both companies, prior to which I had 3.7% in IEL and 3.3% in WEB. The next step is to figure out what the next steps will be for many of these companies, and answer the age-old question of “should I stay or should I go?”.

The last week and a bit has been slightly chaotic with university assignments due and a number of personal things coming up that I had to go deal with. But hopefully that’s all over now and I can get back to writing more articles, whilst building out more systems for valuations and maybe some contingencies. 

I’d like to point out that as well as I’ve done, I couldn’t have done it if I didn’t commit to Bill’s motto

“Go slow, play small and learn the process”