After spending several years having fun chasing stocks which I hope will show me a nice profit, I have found it to be quite a challenging experience.
Across my Trading 212 ISA+GIA accounts I have 85 different holdings. This is becoming more and more difficult to keep track of. The problem is that in several cases, I have found that I should have sold earlier but I missed the declining price movement amongst all the other price movements of all the other holdings. I know 85 is way too many but I just can't help myself!
The other issue is that when I do sell a holding for a quick profit, it crystallises a gain which I know I am going to have to pay tax on next year, for example, although the trade may look like a £200 quick profit, it will actually be £152 profit after 24% tax!
So my plan is to try to reduce the number of different holdings in both accounts and add into more funds/ETFs which I can just hold for longer and keep a closer eye on.
However, I don't want to just use a S&P/Dow/Global index tracker though as I already have a broker account which is basically an MSCI global core index fund.
A recent YouTube video showed the top 20 most popular funds and ETFs in 2026...
Here is the video...
My new plan!
So my new plan is to stop looking at the shiny single companies and short term trades (< 1 month) and instead buy thematic ETFs.
This year, I have noticed that stock prices seem to be affected more than ever by sentiment in the Retail sector (i.e the punters who follow social media) rather than how good a company really is (cash flow, profit, dividends, P/E, forecast, etc.).
Just look at a few companies like Netflix and Broadcom and their drooping chart over the last 6 months. Both companies are good value and healthy but apparently not 'sexy' enough.
If I just hold good ETFs, I hopefully will not have to trim or sell them very often and thus I will not trigger a taxable event. ETFs hold a basket of companies so that I don't have to.
My cunning plan is to buy each thematic ETF just as the price starts to trend and climb - and then hold it until it peaks. For example, the recent 'AI will hack the world' scare has caused a boost in the share price of cybersecurity companies. The ETF WisdomTree Cybersecurity WCBR has gone up 15% in the last 30 days (I bought it 2 weeks ago and am up 10% already).
Here is a list of some of my favourite funds and ETFs:
- HMWS - equiv to SWDA core MSCI World tracker but cheaper TER
- IITU - S&P 500 Tech companies
- EQQQ/EQGB - NASDAQ 100
- IWFV - World Value companies
- IKOR/CSKR - Korea (Samsung+Hynix)
- SEMI - Semiconductor ETF (AMD, Micron, TSMC, Nvidia, Broadcom, Intel, Hynix, LAM, etc.)
- WCBR - Cybersecurity (Crowdstrike, Sentinel, Fortinet, PaloAlto, Cloudflare, etc.)
- COPX - Copper producers
- BNKE - Banks (Europe)
- IUFS - S&P 500 Financial companies (Berkshire Hathaway, JP Morgan, etc.)
- SGLN - Physical Gold
- GJGB - Junior Gold Miners (v. risky)
- TDGB - Developed markets (good performer) dividend companies
- VHYL - Vanguard dividend companies
- IUKD - FTSE high dividend companies
- CSH2 - Money market fund (variable bank rate)
- Artemis Global Income I Acc - Actively managed high return fund
- GIGB - Global Mining (BHP, Newmont, Freeport, Rio, etc.)
- SILG - Global Silver Miners (volatile and risky!)
- AUCP - L&P Gold Mining
Some of these are accumulating and some are distributing. I try to avoid holding accumulating funds in my GIA. I have held nearly all of the above over the last few years and still hold many today.
I am also interested in looking at other sectors such as drugs/pharma, healthcare, robotics, energy, space, country ETFs (e.g. Poland, S. Korea, Taiwan, Japan, EU, etc.), defence, AI, etc.
I like bioscience very much and I envisage AI playing a big part in the development of new drugs/medicines/vaccines/genetics (plant, insect, animal and human). It seems quite a volatile sector at the moment though. For BioTech I like GNOG and WBIO (both have Moderna as top holding 10%).
Research
Finviz is a good place to see which ETFs are trending over the last 4 weeks.
Stockanalysis.com and JustETF.com are also good places for research.
To quickly see trends, I have set up a portfolio on my ukcgt.xyz Trend page which you are free to use.
P.S. I still hold metal, gold and silver miners at the moment. Some are down 25% but I am hopeful of a boost in future precious metals soon as interest rates looks to be climbing (however it does not seem to be affecting the gold price very much!). I keep looking for an upswing into commodities but Tech is too strong at the moment.
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