See all the previous BBB Monthly Recaps here.

(Part Time) Fund Manager’s Report

This is the first year I have used Stockopedia portfolios to track my ISA and SIPP performance, and I have to say I’m rather impressed. It does all the basics well. It doesn’t have fancy bells and whistles I have seen with other portfolio trackers, but serves my purposes well.

Halfway through the year, I decided to start writing a monthly post on my portfolios. As a way to contribute back to the Stockopedia community, but also to force myself to re-assess all my positions and watchlists, from a birds-eye view, monthly.

On a headline measure, I have done well in 2021; a total of 21.6% return across my ISA and SIPP (I don’t do any share trading outside of these). However, digging into the details reveals some interesting differences:

  • H1 performance was +19.5% compared to H2 at +2.3%, so my returns were very first half weighted
  • My ISA delivered a blistering +42.5% return, compared to my SIPP which gained only +7.0%
  • My average cash holding through the entire year was 39% (return numbers above are on total portfolio value, including cash, not just invested money)
  • 7 out of 25 holdings delivered 110% of my returns for the year

I will go into more detail on these four statements later in this article, but firstly here are the summary tables of performance.

Performance Summary

The BBB ISA

2021
ISA Performance+42.5%
FTSE All-Share Performance (Benchmark)+14.6%
AIM 100 Performance (Secondary Benchmark)+1.8%
% Portfolio in cash (average of end-month readings)48%



The BBB SIPP

2021
SIPP Performance+7.0%
FTSE 100 Performance (Benchmark)+12.4%
% Portfolio in cash (end-month readings)32%

Detailed holdings will not be published with this article, but will resume in Jan. See end-Nov's holdings here, and buys/sells in December below.

Drivers of 2021 Performance

H1 (+19.5%) outperformed H2 (+2.3%)

As with many other investors on Stockopedia, I had an outstanding first half. And this despite being almost 50% in cash most of the time. I had invested in several small micro-caps, which were trading at bombed out valuations, and did 40%+ rapid gains. It does feel like H1 was a much easier time to make profits than H2 was. I had positive returns in 5 out of 6 months in H1, whereas in H2 I had positive returns in only 2…

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