Report for May 2006

May was one of our worst months ever, with the portfolio falling by £1057 (6%) and the Unit Value falling by 4% to 110. The fall was not just because of our rather speculative holdings, because the FTSE100 also fell by 4%.

In fact it was only our holdings in BSkyB and Tesco that showed any gain last month: all the others fell. The most spectacular fallers were our mineral, oil & gas shares (BHP Billiton, African Platinum and Island Oil & Gas). We bought more of the latter when the price had fallen to 105 pence from a high of 135 pence, but they continued to fall a little more, and are now more stable at just over 101 pence. We will hang on hoping to take profits at around 150 pence.

We have received £60 worth of dividends this quarter, making £217 in the year to date, ready for distribution at the AGM. We also received a scrip issue of 2 more HSBC shares in lieu of dividends.