Stewards' Enquiry - that extent of a winning margin suggests the possibility of doping!
And indeed my performance was enhanced by the substantial PRSA injection at the start.
In terms of the ARF course in isolation my figures are: Withdrew 81% (only 4% p.a. mind). Now has 169%
I can confirm that as a result of the SE the places have been reversed.
Thank you
@Duke of Marmalade for initiating the Stewards' Enquiry - and for the result, which pleases me no end.
So the revised result, as at 31 December 2023, for 100 invested on 31 December 2010, is:
Colm: Withdrew 102. Now has 186.
Duke: Withdrew 81 Now has 169
So it seems that I won by a distance, rather than the reverse, as we had thought initially. The bad news though is that I have to backtrack on my earlier explanation for underperforming! I'm no stranger to backtracking.
I reckon that my lucky decision to invest so much in Novo Nordisk, which performed spectacularly since I bought it, must have played some part.
In the longer term, the decision to chart a steady course, with minimal switching, combined with the other essentials (investing close to 100% in equities - always - to minimise the 4% handicap, and keeping costs down) played a major part.
The problem with active management is that managers must be "active".
As I mentioned at the start, I kept exactly the same shares in my portfolio all through 2023. Can you imagine if an active manager did the same? Their clients (or more likely their bosses) would berate them: "I pay you to be active, so do something, anything, to show that you ARE active."
Every time you switch shares, you incur a cost. It may be small, but it's a cost. At any time, market values are a fair measure of the relative value of different shares, which makes it difficult to justify moving from share A to share B, given that there are lots of people out there, much smarter than you or me, moving in the opposite direction. That's the definition of a market. Why are they moving in the opposite direction to you? Are they mugs? That's the sort of thinking that causes me to stay the course with the shares I have rather than chop and change.