Is Pawn good for you?

It is projected that the cost of living in the U.S. is projected to continue its upward trend in 2026 and 2027, with the US Consumer Price Index (CPI) expected to reach approximately 333.85 and 341.87 points, respectively, according to Trading Economics. In the UK, it is expected to peak in early 2026 and then very slowly decline.

During these times, credit lenders such as banks, buy-now-pay-later companies like Klarna, credit card companies, discount stores (BME, etc.) can all do well.

A previous favourite of mine had been the pawn shop business H&T Group plc (HAT). I look at buying shares in this company during recessions and when the gold price was high because many people would pawn their gold jewelry and as the value of gold went up, the value of their stock would go up too.

$USD begins to strengthen + my early progress report on hot share tips

My portfolios went down by 1-2% over the last few days despite the S&P 500 being at an all-time high. The dip was due to the weakening $USD. However, today (Thursday 18th Sept.) it seems to be gaining strength and both T212 portfolios have bounced back up again.

The Fx change however, did mean that I could buy more with my £GBP on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Investing in Nuclear SMRs - get in now before it is too late!

Introduction

The world needs green electricity - especially electricity that does not depend on the weather (i.e. neither wind nor solar). Unlike the USA, who are drilling for oil and gas with no regard for global warming, the UK have adopted a Net Zero policy.

In November 2024, the UK and 30 other countries signed a global pledge to triple their nuclear capacity by 2050.

I couldn't make this up - soon you may be able to invest in Trump ETFs!

I am not making this up - honest. Here's the timeline of events in Lalaland the USA.

Why cash is not king for investors!

Around 17th February 2025, Tech shares began to fall. Some people were afraid that the over-priced tech. bubble was finally popping. Others were reacting to the Trump effect and USA instability.

Some investors feared the worst and sold up and converted their portfolios to cash or bonds - especially those with portfolios in tax free wrappers such as ISAs or SIPPs.

Is Defense a good area for investment just now?

Russia has sent drones over NATO (Poland) territory. This has caused some concern amongst the West.

Oana Lungescu, a fellow at the Royal United Services Institute think tank and a former NATO spokesperson, said NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte "has said that NATO needs a five-fold increase in air and missile defense capabilities, so that’s an urgent priority. It’s also important that all NATO countries clarify their national legislation about downing aircraft entering their airspace."

Defense stocks and shares had increased in price over the last 8 months due to the Ukraine/Russian war, but this latest incident has shown that more spending on defense (from drones) is immediately required.

Trading 212 Portfolio Update 2025-09-13

Here is a status report of my two Trading 212 accounts which have performed very well this week (it probably won't last :-( ).

• My £20K ISA account was opened on April 7 2025 with a £20K lump sum.
• My £70K GIA Invest account was opened with £1K in Feb 2024, by June 2025 I had deposited £40K, July 2025 £60K and by Sept. 2025 £70K

Note: I have other SIPP, ISA and GIA accounts which I tend not to touch and only look at occasionally. These comprise of safer, longer term ETFs such as HMWS, XLKQ, IUCM, IITU, EQGB and Artemis Global Income Fund. I use my Trading 212 accounts for more active trading as they have a great app. and web site and very useful search/research features plus alerts, etc. They make investing fun!

I have been investing for over 20 years and have made many mistakes along the way!

My philosophy for these two Trading 212 accounts is to have some fun but never make a large loss by taking big risks. If I buy risky/volatile stocks, it will only be in small amounts that would not seriously harm my whole portfolio. That is why I have 40-50 holdings in each account. Using a wide diversity of stock types is thus spreading the risk. That is why I do not invest large amounts in such trendy, highly tipped companies like FuboTV, HIVE, Crowdstrike, Vertiv, Fortinet, etc. Large losses can seriously affect portfolio performances.

Just use THIS LINK to sign up and get Trading 212 free shares once you have put some money into your account. I will also get some free shares too :-)

Trendy shares (good performers but volatile!)

Scorchio!

I list below some shares and ETFs that have been appearing a lot in many YouTube investor videos.

Most have shown amazing gains so far, but of course they could descend into the depths of Hades at any moment, so beware! Many are purely sentiment driven.

The ones listed below are all ones I hold and most (but not all) are showing me a nice gain so far.

Please do your own research on them and if you decide to buy any, please buy at a good price and remember to take profits before they collapse.

The market at the moment seems to be high, so maybe wait a while?

I will list each one with the 3 month and 1 year performance percentages in parentheses.

How to cash in on the new weight loss obesity drugs

Two of my friends here in the UK who were overweight and pre-diabetic have started to take weight loss drugs.

They were not on an NHS prescription however and it had to be paid for out of their own pocket. Each were paying over £200 a month but the results have proved remarkable. Both women have lost weight and look so much healthier, happier and more attractive! Clearly, these drugs advertise themselves!

This, of course, means that the potential for the success of these drugs is enormous, for both women and men.

Gold and Silver stock tips today!

Clive Thompson is a retired professional investor who has a YouTube channel that gives investing information and tips.

He says he has learnt of large transactions which are about to take place in a week or so by a large ETF company that is disposing of a large amount of stocks and buying other gold and silver stocks instead.

Click to view in YouTube

N.B. Most of these changes will already be priced in by the market!

The sale of large amounts ($100 millions+) of any stock may affect it's price - but not if it is already priced in. The inclusion of new companies into an index ETF will however mean that anyone who buys that ETF will also be buying those new companies too. 

He will be telling us the name of some gold and silver mining companies that will be possibly bought and sold by this large ETF company.

However, mining stocks are notoriously volatile and risky. Their share price tends to respond wildly to any news or rumour from any source (social media, news channels, tipsters, etc.).

So I would urge extreme caution if you are thinking of buying any of his miner tips and only bet what you can afford to lose!

The price of the shares that he tips may initially go up, but then quickly drop again as many day traders will take a quick profit. If the price of any of your mining shares rockets due to news or tips, you should think about selling for a profit quickly before everyone else does!

Stablecoins

The US dollar seems to be weakening and gold and silver is strengthening. Many stablecoins like Tether or USD1 are buying gold as a reserve asset which they have to have by US law (see Trumps Big Beautiful Bill) to back these vapourware coins.

What is a Stablecoin?

A stablecoin is a type of digital asset designed to maintain a stable value by pegging its worth to a reserve asset, such as a fiat currency like the U.S. dollar, a commodity like gold, or a basket of assets. This stability addresses the more inherent volatility often found in other cryptocurrencies, making stablecoins especially suitable for everyday transactions and financial services.

Stablecoins play a crucial role in payments, remittances, decentralized finance (DeFi), and cross-border payment solutions. Their stable value ensures that users can transfer funds without the risk of significant value fluctuations during the transaction, which is essential for both consumers and businesses.

America’s new law on stablecoins is so good, “They named it after me,” joked President Donald Trump as he signed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act on July 18th. While the administration and the crypto industry celebrate the dawn of a golden age, the mood across the Atlantic is darker. Stablecoins, tokens backed by conventional assets, are seen as scammy, deeply destabilising - or both. Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, has warned commercial banks against issuing their own coins. Christine Lagarde, head of the European Central Bank (ecb), cautions that stablecoins could become private money that risks one day dislodging central banks.

Eric Trump and Zach Witkoff, both co-founders of World Liberty Financial along with their fathers, are also taking on roles in a publicly traded Alt5 Sigma, which plans to buy $1.5 billion in WLFI.

Buying their own digital asset through Alt5 Sigma may have secured a $500 million payday, according to the Wall Street Journal.

• World Liberty Financial unveiled USD1 stablecoin in March
• To be used for $2 bln MGX investment in Binance, WLF co-founder says
• Use highlights World Liberty's growing clout in crypto industry

May 1 2025 (Reuters) - A stablecoin launched by Donald Trump's World Liberty Financial crypto venture (USD1) is being used by an Abu Dhabi investment firm for its $2 billion investment in Chinese crypto exchange company Binance, one of World Liberty's co-founders said on Thursday.

Basically, this is like forcing deals to use Mastercard for large payments when you own the company Mastercard! The president of the USA is asking for $billion payments to be made using USD1 when he and his family stand to make $100millions from the transaction charges alone!

Quite how this can be allowed is beyond me. It is no wonder that everyone in the world (except the gullible or greedy Americans) are turning to gold and silver rather than the US dollar when the USA President (Emperor Trump) is forcing through his own legislation and then stuffing as much $cash as he can into his own pockets in plain sight of Congress, the US Supreme Court, Governors and Senators and the American people!

Currency Hedging

The rush to buy gold and silver signals to me that there is a lack of confidence in the USA dollar, so it makes sense to buy currency hedged ETFs when buying USA or World index ETFs. e.g.

EQGB instead of EQQQ - NASDAQ

IGWD instead of SWDA - MSCI Core World

IGUS instead of CSP1 or CSPX - S&P 500

You should also think seriously about holding a large amount of non-US global ETFs (ex-US) to reduce your exposure to the US dollar.

Buying Gold Mines!

Buying shares in gold and silver mines is extremely risky, especially if buying the smaller AIM listed ones.

I have recently bought a few gold and silver shares (against my better judgement) - see below.

I advise you to not copy my trades however, unless you can afford to lose at least 50%!

When the crypto madness ends...

In the GENIUS act, stablecoins have to be backed by fiat such as the US dollar or Gold or Silver.

When the crypto madness ends and people realise that it is just the same as a country-backed fiat currency like the US dollar and just as stable or unstable (and transaction charges are higher than inter-bank charges), then as stablecoins are sold off by their holders, the stablecoin companies will no longer need to hold gold or silver to back their stablecoins so they will start selling off these assets.

This will cause a collapse of the gold and silver price and these miners will suffer a market crash.

This could set the economic world into a panic as the US dollar will weaken as will US bonds, gold and silver. There will be runs on stablecoins as the value of their gold/silver assets will not be sufficient and people fear they will go bust and leave them holding worthless stablecoins.

This could cause some financial institutions (incl. crypto) to collapse as there will be a run on crypto and the banks.

Just at the moment however, it seems to me that people have a lot of cash to invest (as no one wants to start or invest in a new business with such economic uncertainty around) and they see large US tech. companies as the best place to put their cash while interest rates are low. This is the start of a bubble (Broadcom AVGO has a P/E of nearly x100, Palantir over x500).

I am watching for signs of collapse very carefully.

Steve

Subscribe for more news and tips here.

Get up to £100 of Free shares!

Anyone in the UK who has not already opened a Stocks and Shares ISA must be crazy! Lol :-)

Trading 212 offer a free account (no charges except a very small Foreign Exchange rate charge if you buy non-GBP shares). You can buy fractional shares (so you can buy shares even if you only have £5 a month to invest) and because the ISA is flexible, you can take out all your money from the ISA (tax free) at any time and as long as you put it back in before the end of the tax year (April 5th 2026), anything you put back in is still tax free. You don't need to tell the tax man about your ISA or any profit you make inside your ISA - it is all tax free!

UK Stock up 16% this last week - Manolete partners (MANO)

Manolete Partners are an insolvency litigation financing company who were listed on the AIM market in 2008 and has risen 38% in the last month and 16% in the last week. Manolete work for, and alongside, HMRC, the Insolvency Service, the British Business Bank and the many hundreds of outstanding private sector insolvency practitioners and insolvency and restructuring lawyers.

The recent share price increase is presumably due to recent cases which they have on-boarded and funded. Their 2024 net profit was 3%.

The best investing advice you can get!

I have been investing in Stocks and Shares for over 20 years, starting with ISAs and then with General (taxable) Investment Accounts (GIAs) and then I also started a SIPP.

Over those 20 years, I have made all the mistakes possible:

Broadcom shows sharp price rise today!

Broadcom (AVGO) often appears in the top 10 tech stocks lists but yet seems to be mainly ignored by most retail investors. It has shown a massive gain of over 100% in just 1 year.

This morning (pre-market UK) it seems to be rocketing up 10% so far today, so I have bought in...

More risky share tips!

Last week I bought a few 'risky' shares/ETFs inside my ISA. Yesterday the whole market was down, but when the UK market opened this morning, it was looking better.

First, I have bought £1000 of  the NASDAQ 100 x3 long QQQ3 this morning as I notice that EQGB, XLKQ and IITU are all up this morning (probably due to Alphabet/Google).

Then I checked on my recent smaller mining holdings which are also up today:

Cheapest UK S&S ISA provider + my Top Secret Stock Picking Tool!

In the UK, the cheapest Stocks and Shares providers are Trading 212 and Invest Engine, however they do not provide all types of accounts (e.g. SIPPs, LISAs) and do not allow purchase of mutual funds (e.g. my current favourite fund - Artemis Global Income Fund).

Some brokerage providers do not offer Flexible ISAs and have quite high trading charges.

A new online tool (under development) is here. It is not yet entirely accurate, but you can view the source data here and check each brokers T&Cs. For instance I have an Interactive Investor account and the charges are shown incorrectly by this online tool, they are actually:

Is Ashtead Technology a good buy?

One of the YouTube channels I follow is that of the Geordie Pig Investor. He used to be very strongly into UK Dividend paying companies, but has since seen the light and has started to strengthen his portfolio with USA and global accumulating ETFs.

In normal times, I would buy mainly World ETFs and US Tech ETFs, but I think the USA is heading for a money-printing phase next year and weakening dollar. The Trump effect has made me cautious.

So I have been looking for a good UK company like RR to invest in and Geordie Pig's pick of Ashtead Technology seems like a bargain to me, especially as it has just gone ex-dividend this month and so its low price should rise again before the next 6-monthly dividend payout in early Jan 2026. His video is below. The shares should be moving out of the AIM market on October 6th and although this will be priced in, it may see greater upwards movement when it hits the London market.

HIVE is still looking strong (+ other progress reports)

Hive is still looking good...

I have also taken some small positions on a few other 'chancers' recently too...

I just sold all my Bitcoin (+ are UK CGT rates about to go up?)!

I have held a small amount of crypto via Coinbase for many years. 

I originally started a Coinbase account because some of my users wanted to make a donation in crypto in gratitude for my free RMPrepUSB and Easy2Boot software.

Donations were usually quite small, but over a period of a few years, it probably added up to about £100. I experimented with this as it grew in value and bought £600 Ethereum with it as it grew in value. A few years ago, I then converted it all back into Bitcoin and this week I decided to cash it all in for about £1200. I am just not convinced Bitcoin or crypto is going anywhere - after all it has had plenty of opportunity. Stablecoins are another offshoot, but the infrastructure costs of maintaining a global blockchain and transaction costs don't seem to live up to the promises. If they did, then the finance companies would be adopting crypto like crazy.

Cashing in my Bitcoin means I have crystallised a taxable capital gain of approx. £600. The Coinbase fee for the conversion to cash and withdrawal was over £20. So much for crypto transactions being cheap (1.66%)!

What to buy with £1200?

This leaves me with the problem of what to buy with the 'free' money.

Where to invest - USA, UK FTSE or EU?

The USA market is looking very volatile at the moment. It is not clear whether USA $ index ETFs are a good investment right now, compared to the UK or Europe (or even other areas such as Japan, etc.).

US stocks have fallen for five days running as traders nervously await a speech from Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell.

I use my GIA accounts for safer, less volatile, longer term investing. In these GIA accounts I hold HMWS, EQGB, XLKQ and IUCM (the first MSCI all world containing approx. 60% US companies and the last three almost 100% US companies). So long-term, I am very Tech biased and thus USA biased.

However, in my £20K ISA account on Trading 212, I have a lot of fingers in a lot of pies as I like to short-term and mid-term trade within this account because any gains within my ISA will not trigger any CGT when sold. 

       



This morning's T212 ISA mix is quite a mess at the moment (IRR 13%) as I am top-slicing many of the larger holdings in order to hold cash, ready to buy on the forthcoming dip.

The promise of AI seems to have been oversold as far as I can see. The chip producers and AI software companies seem to have over promised. AI will benefit certain service sectors and finance sectors however, especially anyone who uses a large number of real live humans for support services, etc.

Another complication is the weak $Dollar rate vs the UK £GBP or EU €Euro. I am avoiding any risk by opting for currency hedged ETFs (e.g. EQGB instead of EQQQ).

The 3-month chart below shows how the $Dollar rate has affected gains on index funds for UK investors:

Stock tip: HIVE is looking good.

I bought HIVE recently and it is showing encouraging signs.

Maybe one to consider?

The great Hedging Experiment!

You will see many YouTube videos which continually tell you how important it is to buy the index ETF which has the lowest TER rate.

The TER is the hidden rate that you are charged. It is the cost of owning the ETF. Differences between different providers are usually very small. For instance the benchmark World ETF SWDA has a TER of 0.20% but the identical ETF HMWS has a TER of 0.15%.

Over 3 years, the gain of these two ETFs were:

SWDA   37.28%  (TER 0.20%)

HMWS  37.83%  (TER 0.15%)

So £10,000 invested for 3 years would give us approx. £78 more if we chose HMWS instead of SWDA.

However, we often have another choice to make when deciding which index ETF to buy and that is whether to buy a currency hedged or unhedged ETF.

Ventoy 1.1.07 now released

 Ventoy 1.1.07 is now available from the Ventoy website. Download here.

If you have added the Ventoy image files to your E2B drive, you can update them by clicking on the Make_Latest_Ventoy_Partition_Image.cmd script which is located on the 2nd partition of the E2B drive in the \e2b\Update agFM folder.

Note that the integrated and modified Ventoy For Easy2Boot is still version 1.0.97 of Ventoy.

New IODD Mini Pro (no more E2B\Ventoy Secure Boot and WinPE issues!)

IODD have just released the new IODD Mini Pro which has a USB 3.1Type C USB connector and improved firmware.

'.RMD' is used for removable media devices, '.VHD' for fixed devices

The Mini Pro is available in capacities of 512GB ($149), 1TB ($185) and 2TB ($248).

Key Changes to the IODD MINI PRO:

New Interface: The adoption of a USB-C type port has significantly

improved its versatility and convenience.

Expanded Storage: It now supports 80mm M.2 SSDs, a change from the

previous 42mm, allowing for a wider variety of capacities and models.

Effective Heat Control: We’ve applied new materials to effectively

reduce heat, ensuring stable performance even during extended use.

Enhanced Security: The encryption password length has been increased

from a maximum of 16 to 76 digits, making security even more robust.

I found an amazing new managed Global fund (37% gain in a year, 150% in five years)!

Back in April 2023, I decided to add an actively managed fund to my portfolio. I chose the Royal London Global Equity Select Fund (Acc) and for 2023 and early 2024 it  proved to be a good choice.

However, the fund manager and  it's Alpha managers left Royal London in April 2024 and since then the performance of this fund has been disappointing to say the least (4% vs. 11% for a benchmark global equity fund)...

Fix for WinPE ISOs (e.g. Ankh Tech WinPE) not fully working from agFM menu system

You may find that some WinPE ISOs boot to the WinPE Desktop OK, but some Desktop icons may be missing or not functional or some shortcuts report a 'Drive Y: not found' error message.

The problem is that many WinPE ISOs are actually designed to be extracted onto a USB drive and not actually booted from an ISO file. In some cases the WinPE startup files may look for the ISO on a drive (so it can mount it as drive Y:) but may not find it.

For instance the Ankh Tech WinPE ISOs an Easy2Boot USB drive may work OK if you legacy boot (and add a _.isope01 suffix to the filename) in legacy BIOS boot mode from the E2B menu system or if using the Ventoy menu, but if Legacy or UEFI booting to the agFM menu, the WinPE ISO may boot OK, but some Desktop and Start Menu items in WinPE may not run.

Another recent share purchase - Comfort Systems (FIX)

I have recently bought shares in Comfort Systems (FIX) on Trading 212 for £500...

Time to switch to unhedged ETFs for UK/EU investors (EQQQ vs EQGB)?

Generally, there is not much difference between hedged and unhedged ETFs for UK investors over the long term, however due to the weakening dollar to GBP rate, instead of buying the Nasdaq 100 ETF EQQQ, I have been buying the hedged ETF version EQGB (which has a higher TER of 0.35% compared to 0.30%) because the performance difference has been quite marked.

In the above chart, we see the hedged EQGB has massively outperformed the unhedged EQQQ so far this year. Almost a 9% difference in the last 6 months is quite a difference!

However, if we look at the performance over just the last month, I can see that the unhedged ETF EQQQ has shown a return of 4.86% vs. 4.04% of EQGB.

I asked ChatGPT 4 which of my stocks I should sell!

ChatGPT can be sent files and asked to comment on them, so I uploaded my Trading 212 Account Statement for July 2025 and asked it to identify the stinkers!

Trading 212 download PDF

I then asked it to identify which ones to sell...

Two more investment stocks to consider (BNKE and CKHUY)

BNKE

I bought Amundi Euro Stoxx Banks ETF (BNKE) in April 2025 and sold a month later for a 14% profit when it plateaued for a while. Since then, I have been tempted to buy back in but only this week have I taken the plunge. It has gained 22% in the last 3 months, so perhaps I should not have sold so early after all!

• April 2025 Buy £1000
• May 2025 Sold £1140
• Aug 2025 Bought £1000

Tip: Uranium and Nuclear Technologies ETF (NUCG) is rocketing!

The NUCG ETF seems to be performing well. Almost 100% gain in one year (45% YTD). 

I bought £2k-worth on T212 16th June 2025 and I am so far up about 12%.

See below for 2nd hot tip (500% gain in 1 year)

I bought this to hold long-term and so I was rather pleased that it is rising so quickly. I am not sure if it represents a good buy today, but it has gained 17% in the last month and is not plateauing yet AFAICT. 

Holdings are spread between mainly Canada, USA and Japan 1/3 each so it does give some Fx rate diversity too.

One holding is the NuScale Power SMR producer (SMR) which has gained 158% in 3 months and another is Cameco Corp (CCJ) a Uranium producer which has gained almost 60% in the last 3 months.

Please do your own research before investing - this is not investment advice!

NUCG

UK Share tip (BOWL)!

It is looking like the market (esp. USA) is recovering slightly since the small dip last Friday. I will be watching Palantir and AMD closely today for their Q2 results. Intel is also looking good value at the moment.

UK tip

The indoor bowling company Hollywood Bowl (BOWL) may be worth buying and holding until at least the end of this year.

They have recently spent a lot of their cash on updating and refurbing their bowling alleys and have concentrated on enhancing the more profit-generating parts of their business. They are also in the process of a £5 million share buy back by Sept. 2025.

Market down today - BUY, BUY, BUY! (Friday Aug 1st 2025)

It seems the tariffs on China and Canada imports that we all knew were coming has caused a dip in the market. Amazon has dropped 8% due to profit worries even though results were good. Volume in trading is low today, so the drop is probably due to small retail investment sentiment rather than large volume traders and so it should bounce up again next Monday.

So today may be a good time to buy more of your favourite stock. We all know that we will get a compromise in the end and that China, Mexico and Canada will work around the tariffs. Taiwan are also going to be subject to 20% tariffs on Aug 7th. Unfortunately, in the end it will be the USA and the USA tax payer that will suffer.

This week's share tips

Vertiv, which I already hold, has shown a promising 16% gain in the last week.

FuboTV (FUBO) is at last looking better with a 12% gain in the last week (24% in last 3 months).

Robinhood (HOOD) is looking strong but needs to be watched closely today as Q2 results are due at the end of today! 400% gain in a year with reasonably steady chart line.

Fortinet (FTNT) has been stable for 3 months but may jump up depending on Q2 results next Wednesday 6th Aug.

HIMS is rising rapidly as good expected Q2 results on 4th August are anticipated. 

IUCM S&P 500 Communications has Meta, Netflix, Alphabet, Disney and telco companies as major holdings is one of my favourite ETFs (I pair with XLKQ) and has not performed as well in the last 6 months as it had the previous 6 months. I have topped up on this $ ETF in the hope of good Q2 results.

AMZN dived in the first 3 months of 2025 due to heavy capital investment and the weakened $, but it now looks to be making a strong recovery.

Classic high flyers PLTR, AMD, NVDA, MSFT, GOOG are being tipped this week, but I prefer to buy via index ETFs such as Nasdaq EQGB or EQQQ and S&P 500 Tech ETFs, etc.

XLKQ/IITU USA Tech and Nasdaq have performed well in last 3 months. 

Note: This is not investment advice - i'm just an average bod on the internet!

New free eBook - 'Start Investing Now'!

I have just written a new FREE eBook (using Apples free iPages online editor on iCloud) and it is now available from my Payhip store as a free PDF file.

The eBook is targeted at potential UK newbie investors who have thought about starting a Stocks and Shares investment ISA or perhaps a SIPP personal pension fund but have given up because they thought it was way too complicated.

In fact, investing is ridiculously easy these days and online brokers such as Trading 212 make it really easy to start.

What shares am I buying next week?

First, I will share that I have crystallised profit and sold a major portion of SOFI. I have been buying more SOFI over the last few weeks, so I sold £5000 for a profit of £421 made in just 3 weeks. Due to the short timescale the Fx hit was only £7. I still have some SOFI shares that I bought for £1000 and they are currently valued at £1516, so that is a 50% unrealised gain so far.

The good news is that the S&P 100 is up 5% this week. I would think it is a good time to buy it or the NASDAQ 100 or US Tech (XLKQ or IITU or IUCM) while the £ has strong buying power.

What have I bought this month (July 3rd - 18th 2025)?

Inflation and investing - will the banks rip us off even more now?

Many people in the UK think that investing is 'risky'. This is true if you invest in a few individual companies, but a global index tracker fund is not risky in the long term - it is just more volatile than a savings account (but far more rewarding!).

Even Government bonds are no longer perceived as entirely risk-free assets - their long-term growth potential is now in doubt if you consider inflation too. 

In this article, I also discuss a UK index ETF that has returned an average of 17% each year over the last 5 years, gives over 4% in dividends each year and did NOT lose you money in 2022!

How to quickly add a menu entry to the agFM startup menu

If you boot to an E2B USB drive in UEFI mode, the agFM UEFI menu system will be loaded...

Although you can browse the folder structure of Partition 1 using this menu system, the first startup menu screen contains some hard coded entries too.

You can add more menu entries to the top of this menu by creating a new text file into the FAT32 Partition 2 folder \boot\grubfm\user_menu_top.cfg

The example below adds the existing imgptn23 Memtest86 partition image file to the top of the startup menu.

Partition 2 folder \boot\grubfm\user_menu_top.cfg

You can test for $EFI32 or $MBR instead of $EFI64 and use a .ISO file or .EFI file instead of a .imgptn23 file. You can remove the if xxx lines (and fi lines) if you don't want to test the boot mode or test for the existence of the target file.

--class=uefi  determines the icon that is displayed on the left of the menu entry. Here is a selection (some may not be available if you use the default agFM theme)...

See the agFM page or better still get my eBooks for more details ;-)

Are Fisher Investments worth it (plus Crypto and the Genius Act)?

Fisher Investments are a well-known, high profile independent investment advisory firm founded by Ken Fisher in 1979. They manage assets for both individual and institutional clients, offering personalized investment strategies and financial planning resources. Fisher Investments charges a fee based on a percentage of assets under management, with rates varying based on the portfolio size and account type. Typical charges are 1.5% plus an initial on-boarding fee. Overall, including fees, Fisher aim to beat the performance of the global MSCI index (e.g. SWDA).

The Purisima Global Total Return B fund is managed by Fisher and has a TER of 1.51% and we can use it to compare Fisher's investment performance with other benchmark indexes.

Trumps Big Beautiful Bill will weaken the S&P 500 for non-US investors!

Trump's Big Beautiful Bill is expected to weaken the dollar even more as it will increase the USA debt level and weaken US bonds.

During the last 6 months the EUROUSD rate has gone from 1.02 to 1.13 and has been predicted to reach 1.2 in the next 6 months (see chart below).

For UK/EURO investors, the dollar exchange rate has caused a 9% hit on the S&P 500.

Early Amazon Prime Day Deals

There are early Amazon Prime deals available now before Amazon Prime day which officially start midnight Tuesday 8 July! For instance, The 10" Fire Tablet (#Ad) is less than £90 with screen protector.

You can get the 64GB model  (#Ad) for just £103 saving almost £100!

I recently purchased some clip-on, polarised sunglasses (#Ad) for my prescription glasses. At the moment two pairs are less than £6 and they are both of very high quality.

Hot Tip - Hive Digital Technologies up 12% in a day

HIVE is a crypto company into mining, etc.

It looked like it was trending upwards, so I bought 356 shares on July 1st and today it is up 12%.

This is a risky 'bet' but I am holding for a while. It may be undervalued and could reach $4.

I am not an expert in this industry, so please do your own research before investing and if you cannot afford to lose 90% of your deposit then please avoid this stock!

I am also keeping an eye on UK drinks firm Diageo (DGE). This has dropped 24% in a year but has good cash flow and net profit margin of nearly 20%. It too may be undervalued and it looks like it is bouncing up (a hot summer could not hurt it either!). It pays approx. 3% dividend.

P.S. I bought £500 of Rightmove in May 2025, picked up a £4 dividend May 23rd, and sold today for £552 to lock in profit. See here for tip mention.

Try CachyOS for a fast Linux-based Live CD ISO (includes RAM/CPU test programs)

For a fast and responsive Live CD or installation try Arch Linux-based CachyOS. I tried the Desktop version of the Install/LiveCD ISO.

The ISO's grub2 menu also has a MemTest86+ v7.2 option...

Once booted to the Live CD, you can install various versions onto your internal hard disk or just run the Live CD Desktop OS. OCCT is included...

These Stocks and Shares are now on my 'to buy' watch list

In my General Investment Accounts (GIAs), I try to hold just a small number of ETFs for several years without selling. This is mainly because it is a real pain to have to work out Capital Gains Tax (CGT) if I have a  100+ sell transactions in a tax year. I also do the same with my SIPP.

I use my ISA accounts for short term trading. Some people set up watchlists, but because I use Trading 212, I like to actually buy a small amount of any share that is on my current hot list as there are no trading fees on T212.

Because I max out my ISA allowance every year, I cannot add more into my ISAs, so this means I cannot 'gamble' more than is in the ISA accounts (and I also keep at least half of my ISAs in more 'sensible' long-term ETFs like all-world ETFs or S&P 500 or NASDAQ, IITU, IUCM, etc.).

If I see the price of any share in my portfolio trending downwards, instead of selling 100% of the share, I will sell just a portion of it. For instance, if I have £1000 in Palantir and the price starts to dive, I will sell between 50% and 95% depending on how I feel about it's chances of recovery. If I think the shares were a 'one hit wonder' or that they are going to go to zero - only then do I sell 100% of them.

This allows me to keep an eye on all my 'potential' good prospect shares because they are still in my portfolio (albeit some at a low value of just £10 or so).

If any of them are low value, I look to see if now is a good time to buy more, or just wait. I try to keep some cash in my ISA for this purpose. 

Since April 2025, my 20k deposit into my T212 ISA is currently worth 21.86k with an IRR of 10% which isn't too shabby for 3 months considering it was not fully invested until mid-May!

The shares that are on my current 'to buy' watchlist are (next week's possible buys are in bold):

How to add a WinPE USB Recovery drive to E2B or Ventoy (e.g. Lenovo Recovery USB)

If you have a working USB flash drive that contains WinPE, such as that made by the Lenovo USB Recovery Key app., you may need to follow this procedure if you want to add an image of that drive to your E2B USB drive.

See also the .imgptnREP3 section at the bottom of this article if you want to have multiple images on one E2B USB drive without temporarily replacing the first partition of your E2B drive.

This ETF beats the S&P 500, NASDAQ and All-World ETFs over 1mnth, 6mnth, YTD, 1, 3 and 5yrs!

If you are looking for a USA ETF that consistently beats the S&P 500, All-World ETFs and even the NASDAQ 100 and don't live in the USA then try a hedged NASDAQ ETF such as EQGB.

The chart below shows you the YearToDate (YTD) performance.

What speculative ETFs am I buying in June 2025?

The performance of global ETFs (e.g. SWDA) and S&P 500 ETFs (e.g. CSP1) so far this year has been disappointing to say the least!

It seems that bonds are not as safe as we thought either. However, it does appear that rare and precious metals are doing quite well. Two ETFs that have caught me attention are:

• GJGB - VanEck Junior Gold Miners UCITS
• NUCG - VanEck Uranium and Nuclear Technologies UCITS ETF A

Both of these have shown 17% and 26% gains in just the last month:

How to back test your portfolio for free

I have wanted to back test the performance of various portfolios for a while now.

One of the best sites I have found is https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com

You can go to https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio to build and back test several portfolios.

For Europeans, there is also the curvo.eu backtester which I will discuss later.

My ETFs for H2 2025

We are now 6 months into 2025 and it is looking like Trump's devastating tariffs and his 'Big Beautiful Bill' is not going to be allowed to go ahead in it's entirety.

It may be that now is a good time to invest some spare cash that I may hold because it is looking like 'play time' will soon be over and the grown-ups will start to take charge of the USA soon.

Hot Tip: Crypto shares up 200+% in last month!

In the last month, the Bitcoin-oriented share ALTBG (Euro) has gained over 200% to date (11:00 BST 21-May-2025). They went up 168% in the last week!

This company has pledged to buy a large amount of BitCoin and seems to be rocketing. It often has a trading halt on it for a few hours but it is currently trading.