Updates on the Team Dave Fund of Fun-ness Portfolio

With the FTSE ticking along well and no serious dramas kicking off in the world (except poor old Ukraine who everyone seems to have turned their back on) all seems quite serene in the portfolio.

Updates on some of the holdings:
- Took the opportunity to top up HSBC when it dipped under 600p last week. Seemed wrong not to.
- Infinis has dropped 20% since purchase. Most of me says sell, but the reasons for buying in the first place stay sound - growth, industry consolidation. There has been no news. I think people are just bored. It has guaranteed to pay out big dividends this year and next so no reason not to be in it. Hope I haven't missed something. Maybe debt is too high?
- Schroder Real Estate had a successful placing which I contributed to. With shares at 50.25p, it was an instant 2p gain which has since gone higher. They are continuing to turn around this company and I'm hopeful that the problems of the past are behind them.
- Middlefield Canadian Income was bought at 98p. Seemed a no-brainer with 1.25p every quarter in dividends. The board thought so too and bought 50,000 shares at the same price along with a director who bought 100,000 at 102. The price has now crept back up to NAV at 108p. Nice one.
- Emerging markets seem to be recovering slowly and as I have quite a bit in two holdings (an ETF and
- Man Group continues to be the dog in my holdings. Only keeping it for the dividends now which I hope will be massive this year. They announced a second quarter of net inflows to their funds which means things are on the improve but it still feels like a basket case. I'm not sure any financial institution is investable other than HSBC at the moment. Even with RBS announcing make-believe profits again, there isn't any way you should be putting your money in any of them at the moment. Barclays unbelievably did another placing recently, announced sackings of 15,000 bankers and simultaneously reduced in real terms their dividend. More evil than any corporation that has ever bestrode the planet.
- the Saga IPO is uninvestable too. Too much debt, of which they are only paying back a tiny bit. Plus it will almost certainly list at between 17-20x earnings with no growth in the last three years. Madness - you can put your money in Beazley (or any of the other growing insurance companies), pay between 9-10x earnings and get fantastic dividends too. The only people getting rich at Saga are the private equity companies and the directors. Save your money people.

There's been no sales of any holdings for a while.

Are we getting toppy? Certainly the pull-back in tech and bio stocks in the US is a warning to them. At the moment though with the FTSE on an average of 14.5x earnings and paying around 3.5% in divs, there is no point having your money anywhere else.

Plenty of great things on the blogs around the world at the moment. As ever, I am in awe of the writing on Monevator and hang on everything Paul Scott has to say in his daily roundup on Stockopedia.