Portfolio - February 2013 Update

A very solid February for the Team Dave Fund of Fun-ness Portfolio. A nice £38 in free money was added to the ISA by dividends from Schroder Real Estate, Merchants Trust, Henderson International Income Trust, City Merchants High Yield Fund, and Ecofin. All of that lot is getting reinvested into the individual shares.

I finally sold out of Legal & General which was a nice small earner for me. It just felt like time to go and I had far too much exposure to the insurance industry. The money from that along with a small fresh injection from redundancy went into more Ecofin and Utilico Emerging Markets helping to bump up their weightings in the portfolio to more meaningful amounts.

I took RSA's decision to hack their dividend amounts by 33% as a hint that they are in deep shit and so bailed on them. I've made good money from them in the last few years and their dividends have been most appreciated, but if they aren't going to pay loads any more and they have no growth prospects either then ... BYE! I whacked the money into my portfolio superstar stock, Beazley. I love them and the latest annual report just confirmed how brilliant they are performing, growing in new areas and inventing new markets to push into. They are great innovators in the insurance sector. They've also decided to give me 14p per share dividend in the next payment. What great guys.

There's just one bit of bad news. I still have a large lump of rubbish in the shape of the worst run company in the entire world, RBS, sitting in the portfolio. I still hope against hope that one day it will come good so haven't bit the bullet and cashed them in yet. However, this week they announced they managed to lose £5bn last year. Astonishing. The share price has sunk again and there seems little hope that unless they can completely shed themselves of the crappy investment bank that they will ever make money again.

As the rally now seems to be fixed in place with the gains consolidated from late last year, we are now in a FTSE 100 holding pattern of 6200-6350. Which is a hell of a lot better than where we were in the dark days of 2011. The fund is now earning good money in most months and is only exposed to complete crap in one area now. In metaphorical terms, my fund now has its head clear of the water, and is striking for shore.