Report for February 2007

An extraordinary month! The FTSE100 rose steadily and then fell back dramatically in the last two days of the month to end only 46 points (1%) higher than at the end of January. Our main shareholdings followed suit and more or less held their own, except for clear rises in Tesco (7%), WPP (9%) and BHP Billiton (12%) .

But bucking the trend were our speculative stocks. Island Oil & Gas found some favour and rose 32% (although there have been no announcements of gas strikes etc), and an offer to buy out African Platinum was made by their larger rivals, Impala Platinum. The offer, at 40% above the stock's trading value, was recommended to investors by the Afplats board. No date has been set for the sale (see details in the link), but we should net a profit of £2,400 by Easter.

The crash in the stock markets across the world was triggered by a loss of confidence in the economy of China, and our holdings in Greater China Growth Unit Trust suffered a little (and more since the valuation on 28 February). We will buy more of these units at the lower price once the bottom of this dip has been reached.

The Unit Value showed its biggest rise ever, up by 12% to 123. We will need to invest our profits wisely to maintain this momentum.