I am back to that thing I thought I had left behind - losing money! The slump in the gold price in the last quarter has been a real kick in the proverbial for me. As a reminder, I am exposed to the price of gold via the ETFS Swiss Physical Gold ETF (down 26.85% since 1st January 2013; 13.6% of my total portfolio investments) and African Barrick Gold (down 78.21% 1st January 2013; 4% of my total investments). Simply, gold has really stitched me up this quarter. Luckily I am retaining a lot of my assets in cash (37.4%) so that has placed a brake on a ridiculous drop.
The impact of my buy and hold strategy is becoming obvious as the my TER reduces gradually (down to 0.81% from 0.88% three months ago), and my yield increases (12 month trailling is up 0.12% to 1.41% in three months).
As to individual share performance, African Barrick Gold is the naughty child in the corner (down 74.95% excluding its dividend) and Games Workshop sits high up there with a growth of 28.68% (excluding it's chunky 5.34% dividend).
Mark Carney kicks off at the Bank of England tomorrow; I understand the property bubble he maintained in Canada is looking fit to burst, so how long he survives running the British economy I do not know. What I do know is that I will be moving out of sterling stocks in the next few weeks (my eye is on getting some Singaporean stocks, although I am not yet entirely sure how I will manage that through Hargreaves Lansdown) - I am nervous about the value of the pound as the quantitative easing race to the bottom continues apace....
