Our strategy has been to maintain a balance by dollar cost averaging into individual holdings as opportunities present themselves on the one hand, boosting the quality of our Core Portfolio. On the other, the discipline is always to ensure that no stock represents much more than 10% of the total portfolio.
Having taken profits on key holdings at the end of last year and the start of 2025, last month, in the teeth of the selling, we advised to Stay Calm and Buy Stocks. In the past month, we have been buying.
We made our full transactions at Friday’s close, which included the Macquarie Technologies (MAQ), a new investment, as well as top-ups in Enero (EGG) and Alliance Aviation (AQZ). We sold 500 Evolution Mining (EVN) – 20% of our holding – before the gold price fell after the weekend US/China tariff deal. It is almost never wrong to take profits – especially when you are sitting on large gains. Remember, we remain substantial holders, hence are still exposed to a quality company leveraged to the gold and copper price – read our research on the stock in last week’s issue.
Our mid-sized holdings include Omni Bridgeway (OBL) and Integrated Research (IRI) have contributed to our improving performance, but mitigating the weakness in gold. These two stocks have run up over 20% since the start of April. These holdings are the ones we hope will join the big portfolio drivers – Evolution Mining (EVN), Superloop (SLC) and Austal (ASB). In this way, our Core portfolio strengthens.
Even after Friday’s purchases, we still have 21% cash to invest through the financial year–end, though the suspension of tariffs with China has increased stock prices, so there may be fewer bargains to be had. We always want to be in the position of bargain hunting, hence we are comfortable with higher cash levels.