This is a page to introduce me. Well at least it was going to be. However, I decided i was going to go into much detail about who i am because its not something i feel is necessary. I am educated to degree level but not in the finance field. Therefore I am not an expert in the traditional sense but neither do i feel i would benefit as an investor or speculator by attempting to become one.
So, what is the point of this blog? Essentially it’s an online journal to follow and detail progress for a stocks (spreadbetting) portfolio that i am going to be running in an attempt to better the alleged x% your local Model Portfolio Theory claims you can get from the stock market each year. Progress will be mapped against 4 US stock indices that are the most often used to benchmark portfolios in the mainsteam financial press, these being the DOW, Nasdaq composite, S&P 500 and the Wiltshire 2000 (and hopefully we’ll be able to do this for monthly, yearly and overall blog lifetime time frames). Thats not to say that i will be trying to make relative returns against the indices at all times, indeed this only works in bull markets. During bear markets (where i believe we are now), portfolio managers should be looking for absolute returns.
So the performance of the portfolio will be there in HTML and white and there will be no escaping how i’m doing. And thats about it, simple really. Either i make more money than the main US indices and i have therefore found some alpha or i underperform the markets and you might as well put your money in an index tracking fund (or try using another financial analyst/newsletter).
One more thing. I am 35. Therefore the portfolio created is likely to be more aggressive in nature than one for people planning for retirement as i am still slightly tainted by illusions of grandeur and the feeling of the luxury of time. However with that aggression will be strict adherence to money management rules and risk/reward evaulation.