Investment Update!

Chris Wilkinson asks in the comments to this article how my investments are doing.

For those who follow such things, my initial investments were made in August and September last year. I discussed them here.

The status of my investments as of close of business today (1 August 2006) is as follows:

Instrument	Date	Buy price	Current price	Return including dividends
FTSE 100 Tracker	12 August 2005	540.90	590.50	11.45%
FTSE 100 Tracker	22 August 2005	540.12	590.50	11.61%
MSCI Japan	24 August 2005	613.50	708.50	16.46%
MSCI Japan	19 September 2005	640.00	708.50	11.63%
Morrison (Wm)	16 September 2005	183.97	203.25	12.49%
Premium Bonds	16 September 2005 (est)	100.00	100	2.5%
Total Return	7.3%

There are several points to note

• Premium Bonds suck as an investment. I put a big chunk into Premium Bonds and, as you can see, they performed tragically compared with the equity investments (but then I guess there were a little safer).


• I didn't reinvest dividends.... I know... I know.... I just never got round to it


• These figures don't include the annual £25 charge from Selftrade


• Stripping out the Premium bonds, the annual return was 12.63% - beating the FTSE by about a percent.


• These figures are for an approximately 11-11.5 month period

So, all in all, the my little foray into the investment game has paid off so far. I've now sold my premium bonds to cover the stamp duty I have to pay on a flat I'm buying and am hoping not to have to touch anything else for a while to come.