2020 Review (pt2) – Stockopedia Challenge

Introduction

This article is part of a series as follows:

• Part 1 – Benchmarks
• Part 2 (this post) – Stockopedia Challenge: BKS, CRL, UPGS, VLX, WEY

Coming soon:

• Part 3 – BOKU, GAW, SOM, THRU, UCG
• Part 4 – TBD

The Challenge

At the end of 2019 Stockopedia set up an open Stock Picking Challenge to last the length of 2020 based on a five-stock equally-weighted portfolio. No trading is allowed and dividends are ignored. The main purpose of this was presumably to confirm that Stockopedia subscribers outperform non-subscribers (which I don’t doubt) and imply a causal relationship between paying your fees and getting better returns.

It was always clear and acknowledged that winning would require selections where very high potential returns were outweighed by even higher risks that would be totally inappropriate for a real-money portfolio. Given that trying to win would have required significant work with limited synergies to real investing and would almost certainly end up making me look foolish, my recollection is that I decided simply to use my five largest holdings at the time.

Overall Results

My picks and their live performance can be found here.

As discussed in part 1, I completely reject the FTSE All Share as a suitable benchmark for 2020 and so here is my performance to date with the AIM All Share (middle line) crudely superimposed:

All of the lines above exclude dividends which would have added another 1.6% to my return, giving 52.8% to 24th December compared to 18.7% for the AIM All Share total return. This would have been an exceptional return both in absolute terms and relative to my equity benchmark.

Of course my real portfolio neither held 20% of each of the above shares nor refrained from any trading during the period. In fact I typically held 20 positions as well as a cash float, not only potentially diluting or enhancing the above returns, but giving the opportunity for trading to improve things further or to badly mess up. In the rest of the article I review what actually happened with each of these picks in turn. Click on the company headings to see what else I have written about them.

Beeks Financial Cloud (BKS)

Background

Beeks started the year underweight at 13% of my Stockopedia picks. Although the company was by no means new to me, this was a holding I had picked up on 20th December 2019, mostly in the premarket, following a potentially game-changing contract announcement.

January / February

As the share price continued to rise in January I top-sliced and kept the reviewing the situation my thesis. According to my notes I had concerns about the amount of software development required for their “Network Automation” project and the chances of more conservative forecasting or even an equity raise following the change of broker. In early March I made the difficult decision to sell the remainder of the shares at breakeven following a downbeat FY 2021 forecast communicated via Progressive Equity Research and concerns over changes to their depreciation policy.

Overall this was a great annualised return on my buy price, but a 7% loss on the opening portfolio position. Clearly it would be better to have sold more earlier, but nor would this have been best played as a day-trade back in December. I’m happy that I identified relevant weaknesses ahead of time and avoided a long period of underperformance.

March / April

I bought back one third of my starting position at under 72p on the 20th March reasoning that their existing recurring revenues would not be affected by coronavirus and nor would their long term outlook. I then sold again less than a month later for 93p following a downgraded estimates from Progressive.

As it turned out 20th March was the low point of the market and buying almost anything would have yielded a similar return. The success here was due to buying something, not buying Beeks. However my decision to sell was the correct one with the price later slipping back.

June / July

After a portfolio review I bought back again in late June, reasoning that the coronavirus impact was now known, suspecting forecasts via the new broker were conservative and noting the forecast PEG of 0.8x. The share price surged in the run up to the trading update and I top-sliced, noting their record of disappointment. With the trading update merely inline I sold the rest for a good profit, noting that no new deals were likely over the summer holiday period.

I judged market sentiment correctly here but am not entirely convinced this was little more than luck. I am however happy with my decision to make the second sell at a lower price, a difficult but correct decision given the subsequent lack of progress.

September / December

In September and again in December I reviewed the situation with a view to buying back in. I felt another contract announcement was a real possibility in line with previous trading patterns. However I have become increasingly concerned with their cash generation, balance sheet and current ratio in particular. It looks more likely than ever that they will need an equity raise and virtually certain in the event of a significant new contract not cashflowed by the customer. I also noted that the initial Velocimetrics earn-out was significantly below the maximum, suggesting mediocre trading, but that future cash liabilities could still be significant.

In the event no new contracts were announced and the share price has been fairly flat. This cannot be put down to anything more than luck.

Overall

Overall I traded this position well, with annualised rate of return during my holding periods of well over 100% compared to the -16.5% currently showing in the Stockopedia Challenge for a buy and hold.

My main concern is that Beeks currently looks expensive, and not only at its current price, but at each of the prices I historically bought at. If I’m right in this assessment then I could easily have been caught with a significant loss. My other concern is although I was probably right never to have the conviction to buy back in size, trading relatively small amounts was perhaps a distraction from the better opportunities available elsewhere.

Creightons (CRL)

First Half

Creightons started the year underweight at 7% of my Stockopedia picks having added in November. In late February I noted that that most sales were consumer discretionary spend through bricks and mortar shops of the type at risk of closure and so I sold the majority of my position. I continued to review the situation and noted at the beginning of March that they had a soap business, a bottling plant and that they were agile.

On the 20th March I bought back what I had sold a month before at a 35% discount. I sold half of this at well over a 100% profit in mid May before buying back lower in June. My notes record a missed opportunity to reduce just 10 days later for a 20% profit. The price subsequently fell back on the announcement of a delay to the results and an RNS noting movements in the share price.

I’m very happy with this trading performance – I sold ahead of the initial concerns over coronavirus in good time as well as catching the bottom. Subsequent results bore out both the strengths and weaknesses that I had identified. My main issue was probably entering the year underweight which limited how much I could sell in Feburary while still maintaining my desired core position. I then failed to make good on this in March, buying back no more shares than I had sold.

Second Half

I noted Unilever’s problems in Beauty and Personal Care and noted that Creightons were much more agile. At the end of November I doubled by holding at 51.4p noting that the price has traditionally risen on the results presentation and that of late investors had started buying in advance of this.

Results on the 9th December significantly exceeded my expectations and I added significantly more first thing. While I was immediately concerned how much hand sanitiser inventory might be being held by the NHS, I could see Creighton’s reported inventory as potential deferred sales. Virtually the first sentence of the presentation conformed the market was “flooded” and I reduced at a profit. Subsequent slides showed that hand santitiser had made up a greater proportion of sales than I expected and core sales were weaker. Liquidity was drying up quicker than alcohol gel but I sold more at a nominal loss.

In answer to questions it was confirmed that some inventory was held to fulfil the NHS contract, with production, sales and revenue recognition having been delayed with their agreement. I’m confident that this excess inventory to be converted into high margin sales during the H2 and so have held on to the remaining shares I added on the day of the results.

Clearly my performance was much more mixed here. I had the right strategy of buying before the results but I was too cautious. My continued underweight position then left me in a scramble to buy more when headline results were better than expected. I could have take more profits as soon as my fears were confirmed during the results presentation, although I suspect this would have just knocked back the price more quickly and the subsequent stability of the share price validates my position not to sell at any price.

Overall

Again, my actual return is significantly higher than the 29% I would have achieved by buying and holding. This doesn’t appear to be down to luck and dividends have also been significant in the period. My higher weighting now means I’m less likely to repeat the same mistakes or miss the opportunities should they occur again in future.

Ultimate Products (UPGS)

Background

I started the year with UPGS equal weight at 20% of my picks. Of course, as a proportion my full portfolio it was considerably less than 20% and furthermore was half the size of my largest position, which I’ll talk about later. My analysis has showed it was cheap yet with earnings likely to outperform forecasts and the wider market in short, medium and long term. Therefore I was looking for excuses to add.

January / Early February

In January I found myself the first excuse, with major customer B&M reporting a strong update. I then took the opportunity to add further as the price fell. In late January they confirmed trading was going well, but an aside about supply disruption spooked the market. My analysis showed that this was unlikely to be significant, but share trading became quite volatile and I took full advantage of this, buying on the SETS order book at some great prices down from 91p to 66p.

Despite being aware of the Jawol situation and being warned by management not to be overly optimistic, the H1 update the start of February came in significantly below my expectations, plus there was a minor hit from coronavirus-related supply issues. Still, I felt that 61p significantly undervalued them and added more.

This was a terrible performance on my part. Although my analysis of the coronavirus supply concerns turned out to be correct, I failed to read the market and chased the price down. There was an element of impatience in my desire to right-size my portfolio weighting which meant I didn’t wait for the best price. Worse, I failed to properly research the Jawol situation and so my model failed to account for this publically available information leaving me on the back foot when the trading statement came out.

Late Feburary / March

In late February the newsflow on supply started to improve and the market realised that Jawol and the slowdown in German stockist openings was temporary leading to a small bounce in the share price. However my research and modelling was showing that Europe and the UK was about to get hit hard by coronavirus resulting in a severe demand shock. I was also concerned about their financial gearing. I progressively sold virtually all of the shares I’d bought earlier in the year, mostly at a loss.

On the 19th March I noted that major stockist B&M Bargains and the UK supermarkets remained open, that their had a debt refinance announced in October gave them ample headroom and that working capital would in any case unwind in the case of a protracted downturn. I started buying back in sizes twice that of my earlier sales at 33.7p. With the market having turned and the worst case quantified I added more on the 25th March, together buying back most of what I’d sold at much lower prices.

I’m pleased with how this period went. In retrospect I could have been a little more aggressive buying back and was probably rather bruised by getting over exposed in January, but it does seem that I sold and bought back for the right reasons, as well as it turning out to be profitable.

May – July

In May stockist B&M Bargains issued strong results, confirming my thesis. With was followed at the start of July with an exceptionally strong trading update confirming that products for the home were doing especially well, triggering me to add further. This was followed by a trading update from UPGS itself and a further update from B&M leading to more buys, generally at increasing prices. I’m happy that I continued buying at this point.

August – mid December

After a long run up I started taking profits, but results in September smashed by expectations, leading me to buy back the recent sales. I then further added after their outstanding and upbeat warehouse tour plus reassurance over the Felixstowe dock situation.

Looking back it is unclear why I made some of my earlier sales – my notes cite merely “price moves” and weighting concerns, but looking back I don’t think the weighting was excessive. Again, earlier bruising may have led to me taking profits prematurely. The later sales seem more reasonable and I am always happy to buy back at a similar price where the outlook has improved, something they confirmed with an early trading update.

Late December

I once again reduced on the 21st December after concerns over the second/third coronavirus wave, the risk of European retail closures and the likelihood of a two month gap before further news. Slightly better prices could have been obtained by being more patient, but I still made a meaningful profit on the matching buys.

My caution here was driven partly by the memory of the market reaction to the first wave and also due to ongoing discomfort with the high weighting within my wider portfolio despite a conscious decision to be more aggressive with my best ideas.

Overall

In addition to the 14% return shown in my Stock Picking challenge, I received 4% of dividends.

In terms of my full portfolio the profits were far higher due to the decision to triple my weighting, with the badly timed buys at the beginning of the year being more than compensated for later and the shares now trading at year highs. My returns have suffered from emotions of impatience and fear over weightings, but overall I’m happy with the result and where I am now positioned.

Volex (VLX)

Background

Volex started the year slightly underweight at 17% of my Stockopedia picks. I’d repeatedly added during the previous summer as the relentless good news failed to move the share price. At the turn of the year I’d already reduced following a 40% rise around the interims in November and further strength in December.

January / February

Further sales in January were documented as being solely due to price rises giving a 100% gain on my October buy. I then bought back on a 20% fall precipitated by coronavirus-related supply concerns in early-mid February, judging falls overdone and that their geographic diversity left them to be better placed than competitors. This was confirmed a week or so later and I reduced on the subsequent jump as my concerns switched to demand.

When you have been following a share closely and managed to get ahead of the market it is easy to interpret price jumps on no news, or news that you were expecting, as irrational and market noise to be traded by selling. In fact this can be the best time to buy as the market still in the process of catching up with what you already knew. Looking back my November sales were an example of exactly this and failing to accept my mistake I kept selling with each significant new high. However looking back at January the shares had genuinely become overbought as evidenced by the disproportionate falls in early February.

My biggest error had already been made the previous year, but if I try to ignore the knowledge of what came next it seems there was a serious failure to seize the opportunity to correct it in February by buying back more aggressively. The subsequent sale on demand concerns was not unreasonable, but would have made more sense from a larger-weighted starting point.

March – July

My notes are silent when it comes to Volex in March, but I see I put some low-ball bids on the SETS order book on the 9th. It is unclear whether these expired or were set below the 80p it closed at on 23th March.

By April things were looking much better and critically their trading update reiterated pre-coronavirus guidance for the year just completed. This was enough for me to buy at 135p. I then added at progressively higher prices. The price then fell back and an erratic reaction to what seemed to be a very strong AGM Update at the end of the month allowed me to add further at 127p.

The biggest mistake here was not to review of Volex on 20th/23rd March, or at least failing to make notes. Although they had a lot of competition for the cheapest share at the time and I may not have bought, at least I could have looked back and identified any lessons to learn. Other buys were well supported, though I should have been more aggressive on the day of the AGM Update and presentation.

August – October

My first sale was just a couple of days after my buy on the day of the AGM Update for a 10% profit, an annualised return of 160,000% even counting the weekend. I then continued to sell into rises, noting that their reported profits need to be adjusted for historical levels of exceptionals. At the end of October I became concerned they looked overbought in a wobbly-looking stockmarket and sold out entirely.

This period was a terrible mess, repeating my error from earlier in the year of selling into markets just as they were reappraising the company. The first sell for a miniscule 10% was nothing short of insane – annualised returns are irrelevant unless you have something better to switch to. The later sales around 230p had some merit as valuation was looking stretched for a smallcap, but I should have realised it was now almost a midcap, attracting a new type of investor willing pay up for better liquidity and less bogged down with worries over whether their recent history would repeat itself.

However I will not admonish myself for anything after the announcement on the 12th November of the departure of Darren Morris, a major architect of their successful move up the value chain, together with the acquisition of a commodity cable manufacturer.

Overall

I fell far short of the 105% return that would have been obtained by simply holding tight. Trading was generally successful, but only because I was lucky enough for coronavirus to give me a second chance, and I still went on to repeat the same mistake of selling out too early. It is also very difficult to avoid the idea that I completely blew the opportunity to four-bag from the 80p to 320p.

However, holding to 320p was never an option for me. I selected Volex as a deep value, underappreciated company with a clear strategy and strong growth prospects. All that is left now is growth for growth’s sake and while indiscriminate acquisitions using overvalued equity may propel them forward for a few years, this is not my game.

Wey Education (WEY)

Background

Wey started the year massively overweight at 43% of my Stockopedia picks although of course much less of my full portfolio. This was a position I had slowly built up since late 2017, averaging down repeatedly until the low point of 6p in April 2019 and then continuing to add on the way up.

It was clear when the FY 2019 results were issued in November that FY 2020 was trading far ahead of market expectations due to public statements made to customers and the reported level of deposits. However in the results meeting the new chairman was openly antagonistic towards shareholders and the dynamics suggested he was taking a disproportionate role in managing the company relative to the proven CEO. Research indicated that he was founder-CEO of another company that had produced no shareholder returns over many years while paying him a large salary. I therefore resolved that I could not maintain such a high weighting beyond the short term.

Further research over Christmas however reinforced my conviction that trading was exceptionally strong and AIM listing rules would require a trading update imminently. Accordingly I continued to add.

January / February

Following a further review, comments in a customer open day about “unprecedented numbers of new enrolments” and consultation with an independent nomad I determined that they would be obliged to announce an upgrade at their AGM and added further.

No announcement was made on the morning of their AGM and so I concluded my analysis must be wrong. Although I was fairly confident of their prospects for the longer term, my weighting was far in excess of what I was comfortable with given management red flags. I determined to sell about half of my position although in the event my broker found takers for a little less at the price I set. Effectively I sold everything I’d bought since July at a price between 8% and 60% higher.

I attended the AGM in person. The chairman conducted the meeting well, mostly directing questions to the CEO and others appropriately. It was pointed out to me informally that the trading statement in February 2019 has been equidistant with the H1 results, but I failed to register the significance of this. I’d previously discounted that trading statement as a one-off relating to a restructure.

On the 26th February they issued a trading update indicating revenue 12% ahead of forecasts but profits inline. The share price had already risen the day before to 25% above my earlier selling price, but reaction on the day was muted.

In retrospect, selling nearly half my holding was on the day of the AGM was petulant. A smaller scale sale was perhaps justified but there was no hurry. While the pattern of the February trading update was not established or predictable, I should have taken the hint at the AGM and either stopped selling or bought back. I cannot be sure, but I don’t think it was until weeks later that I realised the importance of the conversation. Close reading of company statements is certainly a vital skill, but so is listening, and there’s not much point in going to an AGM if I’m not going to listen properly.

Worse, the share price hardly reacted to the results anyway! Just maybe the update leaked, but while I was right about the upgrade I got the share price reaction on the day wrong. Some of my January buys would have been better value at higher prices knowing that they were trading well rather than only being very confident they were. I will say one thing in my mitigation – I suspected the 12% upgrade was at the very conservative end of what they could have put out and, despite the noise around coronavirus, this is supported by the eventual outturn.

February / March – Initial coronavirus hits

On the 26th February I noticed some school closures had started, potentially benefitting their Academy 21 unit, that heavy “immediate start” teacher recruitment suggested they had found themselves short of staff and that coronavirus could result in short-term publicity and long-term attitude changes benefitting online education. On the negative side I noted the risk of an indiscriminate across-the-board sell off, execution risks and potentially lower margins on any support for state education. While I saw them as undervalued on gross profits I noted that P/E looked stretched and questioned whether the discount for the problematic chairman and what I saw as a record of failing to disclose material changes to trading in a timely fashion was fully reflected in the share price.

My conclusion was that since they had confirmed strong trading and the medium-long term outlook had improved since my sale then paying 20% more to buy some back was fully justified.

The following day the Chief Medical Officer said schools could shut for two months in the event of a pandemic and I bought more. The price started falling and so I added further the following day.

On the 5th March the UK moved to “Phase 2” (which IIRC was “surrender”) and Academy 21 offered a package tailored for state schools. The price had recovered but I bought more.

In mid March there were indiscriminate falls across the market and I bought more at less then I’d sold in January, and this time in a greater size. I had now bought back 80% of what I’d sold.

I’m very happy with this period. My 26th February analysis now seems so accurate for its time that it verges on incredibility – I had to check the history of the my notes document to be sure I hadn’t written it afterwards. The two main errors in retrospect were: a) The expectation of short-term benefits for Academy 21 and b) not buying more, especially in mid-March. My excuses here are that a) The scandalous decision by the state to abandon children rather than teach them online due to a mixture of anti-online education sentiment and ill-founded equality concerns was very hard to predict and b) trading has become so frenzied that it made sense to keep powder dry for potentially lower prices.

March / early April

An 80% rise in the share price in 3 days resulted in some elated freaking out over the portfolio weighting and I made some small sales.

By the 30th March I realised that Academy 21 was going to be a major loser in the current year and it was unclear how much InterHigh would be able to compensate. This led me to sell everything I’d bought in February / March at a significant profit.

I’m in two minds about my performance here. On the one hand I’d cut my weighting as planned and made a considerable trading profit. On the other hand perhaps a higher weighting was justified by the improved medium-term outlook for online education? I think the main mistake was (not for the first time) to be too far ahead of the market in selling on Academy 21 concerns – if I’d taken it slower I would have got some better prices.

May – July

In May they announced stronger H1 results than I expected with with revenue ahead 43% and higher gross margins. They said both Academy 21 and Interhigh had grown strongly and there was no mention of Academy 21’s immediate outlook. I therefore made some modest buys at a similar price to recent sales.

A few days later I announced changes to how I monitored my portfolio aimed at avoiding my perceived undersizing of positions like Wey.

Towards the end of June the share price shared rising again, which initially appeared to be related to their summer school offering which might have been eligible for significant government funding. Despite hopes switching to funding for top-up education in the following school year which then pivoted to tutoring (and ultimately disappeared entirely) the price continued to rise and I started selling. Following disclosure that the chairman and others had sold at the top I reduced further at lower prices.

The market didn’t take kindly to the director sales and the price fell further and I took the opportunity to buy back some significantly lower.

Superficially this was a successful period with buys, sells and buy backs all well judged, taking good advantage of irrationality in the market, reducing portfolio volatility and increasing returns. However I ended up with no more shares than I started with despite a lower share price, excellent confirmed trading and a realisation that I’d previously been underweight.

September / October

By the beginning of September it was clear that the return to school was going very badly with the pattern of partial closures and increasing transmissions seen in Scotland being repeated in England. With government determined to keep schools open they were in the sweet spot, with a loss of parental confidence driving InterHigh and high-risk state educated pupils driving Academy 21. I progressively switched into Wey as the government let the second wave build.

By October I was happy to pay multi-year highs of 30p and take my weighting temporarily over normal limits in preparation for the near-certain FY 2021 broker upgrade coming with the FY 2020 results. However I did note again my opinion that they had failed to adequately guide the market in the past.

On the 9th November Pfizer released their vaccine PR statement, successfully grabbing the attention of governments, the public and investors alike. As I had been expecting at least one substantive vaccine announcement in November I ignored it. So-called “covid” stocks started to fall.

On the 10th November the results were issued which were well ahead of my expectations and included deposit figures that more than supported my modelling for FY 2021. However the WH Ireland note was disappointing with a lower FY 2021 upgrade than I expected. The share price opened strongly and but then fell 25% and stayed down for several days. My notes cite hints over acquisitions as a negative – the company’s recent success has been due to focusing on core activities.

The results presentation the following day reassured somewhat over acquisitions, but the chairman once more showed contempt towards private shareholders and keeping the market informed. The clear impression was left that there would be no trading update before January / February virtually regardless of progress. Following enquiries I determined that he was spending less time with his public companies of late giving some reassurance.

My willingness to buy at higher prices as the newsflow improved was generally helpful. My prior expectation of imminent vaccine success was proven correct as other companies issued their own more substantive updates, but I badly misjudged the impact on sentiment and missed the opportunity to switch into covid-hit stocks. The disappointing broker update should have also been a trigger to sell first thing on the day of the results. My failure to buy in the dip, even after gaining some reassurance over the chairman, mostly reflects the over-caution that is an inevitable cost of an oversized position.

December

Having missed the dip I nonetheless later decided to add again at 30p as sales elsewhere made my cash position more unreasonably large than my holding in Wey. I determined to look at adding again in the next dip, or failing that in late January / early February, ahead of the near-certain broker upgrade.

Prominent investors had been talking the share up e.g. on Mello Monday, but this seemed to have died down until Leon Boros’s PI World interview on the 21st. I decided waiting for a dip was too risky and jumped right in with further buys.

It is too early to say whether I was wise in continuing to add. Although the shares are currently trading 10-15% ahead of what I recently paid it does feel like I was a little hasty and better opportunities might be available in January. I am acutely aware that if anything went wrong with trading or execution shareholders might not be informed for months by which time the damage could be significant.

Summary

Given the badly timed sale of nearly half my holding in January and a few missed opportunities I was surprised to see that I am slightly ahead of where I would have been if I’d just held tight for the year. However this is only really because I added additional money to the position (maybe I should claim this was money from selling Beeks?) which then appreciated in the strong run in the last few days.

As with UPGS I have gone on a journey as concerns weighting tolerance and it is difficult to imagine not having sold anything along the way. Only time will tell whether I did the right thing by buying back again each time.

Conclusion

It is pleasing that my highest weighted positions have generally performed the best, with the exception of UPGS where my actual, real-portfolio, performance was far better. Of course it would have been better still to have chosen something else in place of the laggards – Somero was virtually tied with Beeks when I made my selection and outperformed it, and next up were Games Workshop and CMC Markets, both of which did well.

It has to be accepted that Wey benefitted from a tailwind from coronavirus, however even there the falls in March would have taken out many investors, e.g. via stop-losses or margin calls. All of the other holdings suffered headwinds from coronavirus, even Creightons who had to fight hard for one-off profits from PPE that I don’t think investors value as highly as the established earnings they lost or compensates for the uncertain outlook.

When trying to separate luck from skill it also worth looking at counterfactuals:

• Could UPGS’s debt have threatened its solvency has things been even more serious? This concerned me at the time, but in retrospect it was merely funding working capital which would have unwound in the worst case. Their treatment of Jawol demonstrated the conservatism as regards bad debt exposure.
• What if the sale of non-essential goods had been properly banned in the UK? That would have significantly hit UPGS’s profits and they would almost certainly have ended down on the year, but the main permanent effect would have been no dividend and no furlough repayment.
• What if Creightons or UPGS had not executed so well? That would have been very out of character, but their excellence isn’t reflected in their valuation anyway, limiting losses.
• What if I’d been wrong about Wey’s or Volex’s current trading back in January? The public evidence here was overwhelming, but it was always possible. The risk was more that they announced good figures, the share price irrationally fell, then their trading deteriorated abut I could only sell at a loss.

I think the biggest lesson is really about the place of these companies within my wider portfolio, something I’ll cover in a later article. Nonetheless, the underweight position and subsequent sale of Beeks and the overweight position in Wey was more than enough to outperform the “official” score for this portfolio, despite early sales of Volex.

Trading generally added to returns and reduced volatility. Mistakes here were often related to concerns over portfolio weighting which I have generally rectified or at least come to terms with, although Wey Education still presents a risk.

Overall I am happy with how my 2020 picks turned out.