I am not a Trader and like to consider myself an Investor. As such when the markets get very active I tend to do less. Hopefully following my investment plan, to invest at a good margin to intrinsic value and to review my holdings on a periodic basis, but otherwise trying not to get spooked into doing much.
My broad thesis remains that in 8 years the market will be ahead of where it is now and I will be alive to enjoy that prosperity, As such I am looking and investing to that term.
My portfolio YTD went -ve in the month and I am now down -2.1% YTD.
Sales
Sold SOUC. Management gave themselves, pretty much the entire Board, what I consider to be wheelbarrow levels of nil risk, turn up options. Big red flag to me so sold for 5% gain.
New Purchases
None. I continue to review opportunities but none passed the review in September
Reductions
Sold about 10% of my holding in MPAC. Still a good company and doing the right thing, in my opinion, in maintaining customer service but costs have grown faster than margins and the use of “underlying” and “adjusted” numbers is not a good look now the FD has been there a while. 55% gain
Sold some VTU. 9% loss. Wanted the money for PTAL.
Adds
PILS Pilbara Minerals continues to go from strength to strength. The Inflation Reduction Act encourages US customers to buy its product. Lithium remains in very short supply and recent auctions have been at the highest levels yet. Its recent results were everything that the market had expected and they have the potential to add significant levels to production both through the Pilgan site and the Ngungaju site. On top of this it is clear that there is a potential to move upstream as the JV with Posco indicates.
PTAL. Co seems very undervalued on basic accounts. However there is a level of local politics and claim and counter claim about whether agreements are being met and local populations being remunerated as promised. This leads on to significant risk as to what level local political action might take. So not going to escalate the position further.
TGA. This business moves from strength to strength. Coal is now on a thermal basis more expensive than oil. TGA has negotiated what look to be sensible agreements with its workforce and the biggest issue it has remains its inability to get all it can mine to the port for shipment. The great failure to deliver energy security in europe is unlikely to be missed by many developing country governments as is the ease of providing coal comparatively quickly and cheaply. As such I believe TGA has an extension of its window of existence and I am less worried about holding.
VTY I think the Countryside Takeover will prove highly lucrative over the next few years. Even with the higher debt. With a yield in excess of 5% I get paid to wqit for the market to realise this.
Big Falls in the month
AEO - Simply following the market
GOOGL - Simply following the market
AAPL - Mainly following the market. Lots of discussion as always as to what demand there is for current products..
AVIVA - Mainly following the market. Little real AV. orientated news. Though poor reaction to the mini-budget.
BATS - Following the market
BPM - Following the market
Georgia Capital - Following the market and being geographically close to Russia
META-Cutting back on staff hires. Maybe even cutting roles. Nobody likes Meta
MPAC-Drifiting back on poor results and no good news to offset. Management are pulling on the elastic of shareholder patience quite strongly.
Microsoft-Following the market
Quarto- This share fell out of bed last month. Not clear why. Low liquidity so possibly a determined seller selling into no buyers.
Somero- Following the market.
TEK-No news but no love for this share. If they don’t get a positive press release out the share falls in price.
Vertu-Following the market
Vistry-Following the builders down plus concerns over the debt levels arising from the Countryside takeover.
Big Rises in the month
Pilbara Minerals - Good results and riding the lithium wave
TP-ICAP-Pressure is growing for a major division to be sold off. Valuations are being placed on that division equivalent to the current market cap of the whole business.
Treatt - Company is making up a little for the big falls earlier in the year on disappointing results.
It is very rare that my portfolio generates this many material movers. My expectation is that the situation will remain volatile until at least December, but that there us real value being created in some names for long term investors.