Report for November 2005

November was one of our best months ever! The FTSE100 rose 5%, our portfolio rose 8% and our Unit Value rose 5%.

Outstanding performers were African Platinum (+41%, but can just as easily fall again next month), O2 (being taken over) and Reuters (+15%). The Club is now worth 5% more than the net subscriptions we have paid in.

We need to keep an eye on Vodaphone (whose share-price graph I circulated last week) who are down 14% since the AGM, and BSkyB who are 8% down.

We are holding £7K in cash (33% of our assets): this ought to be invested or borrowed by members at our usual interest. We will net another £990 from the sale of O2 very soon. Any suggestions, especially about a Green Energy investment?

Report for October 2005

The FTSE100 took a real slide during October, falling by 5%: our PIC portfolio followed suit and we lost £715 in the month. Our Unit Value fell fractionally (see graph). Even our speculative investment in African Platinum fell back after a promising stir last month. Note that the newly-acquired F&C Multi-Manager Growth Unit Trust seems to track the FTSE100 rather faithfully.

Exceptions to this gloomy trend were GlaxoSmithKline (who will be making vaccines against malaria with the help of our hero Bill Gates) and O2 (even before the takeover bid which came on November 1). We may have missed our chance to take profits from O2, but Telefonica have bid 200 pence per share which is more than its closing price tonight (197 p).

Since our AGM in July, both Reuters and WPP have fallen 9% and are jointly heading our Share Watch list. We reckon to sell if they fall 20%.

There is £6666 in the kitty for investment. We await a proposal for a green energy stock purchase.