Weekly review archive. Not investment advice.

Portfolio Journal

Weekly portfolio reviews documenting account value, positioning, lessons, mistakes, and market context from my own portfolio.

Weekly Review Cards

Account value: £2,055.86
Weekly move: +£32.86
Main trade: Sold ASML for a strong realised profit
Main lesson: The ASML sale is one of the most important lessons this week. I sold it for a strong realised profit, which helped protect the account and raised cash. That is good discipline.

Account value: Around £2,007
Weekly move: Recorded in weekly review
Main trade: Sold ASML for a realised profit of £40.59
Main lesson: I am reading The Intelligent Investor at the moment and it is definitely having a profound impact on my investing journey. The biggest thing it is teaching me is discipline. It is making me think less about trying to win every single week and more about protecting capital, being patient, and not getting pulled into whatever the market is doing on that day.

Account value: £2,007
Weekly move: Recorded in weekly review
Main trade: Bought Microsoft with around £140 and sold for roughly 10% profit
Main lesson: I made a trade last week that I did not tell you about at the time, which I am sorry about. It will not happen again.

Account value: £1,983.39
Weekly move: +£9.02 (+0.46%)
Main trade: No new trade assumed; Google still not re-entered
Main lesson: The main lesson this week is that a portfolio can improve even without a big headline move. A £9 gain is not exciting, but it matters because the account is now closer to breakeven and the stronger positions are starting to offset the weaker ones again.

Account value: c. £1,974.37
Weekly move: c. -£12.32 (-0.62%)
Main trade: Sold 1 QQQA share for £25.41
Main lesson: The main lesson is that a small down week is not automatically a bad week. The account fell slightly, but it stayed close to the cost basis and the structure still makes sense. That is a lot better than earlier in the process when the account was under much more pressure and I had less flexibility.

Account value: £2,000
Weekly move: about -£8 (-0.4%)
Main trade: Sold Alphabet for profit
Main lesson: The main lesson this week is that taking profit is not the same as giving up. Selling Alphabet means we protected some of the recovery and made the portfolio a bit safer.

Account value: £2,008.07
Weekly move: -£17.77 (-0.88%)
Main trade: Held most of the Week 7 recovery
Main lesson: The main lesson this week is that not every week after a recovery will keep moving higher. Week 7 was a strong improvement, but Week 8 is a reminder that the portfolio can still drift or pull back even when the broader structure is improving.

Account value: £2,025.84
Weekly move: Recorded in weekly review
Main trade: Recovered back above starting value
Main lesson: The main lesson this week is that patience does pay off, but only when it is combined with discipline.

Account value: Recorded in weekly review
Weekly move: Recorded in weekly review
Main trade: Core positions steadied
Main lesson: The biggest lesson this week is that patience still looks more sensible than overreacting. After a few more difficult weeks, it would have been easy to become too negative about the whole portfolio. But this week showed that when the market backdrop improves, the stronger parts of the book can still do their job properly. So the process still seems more important than the short-term mark-to-market swings.

Account value: Recorded in weekly review
Weekly move: Recorded in weekly review
Main trade: Reduced speculative exposure
Main lesson: The biggest lesson is probably that I should not confuse a bad mark-to-market with a bad process. The book actually looks healthier than it did before the rebalance, because I already cut back some of the speculative exposure and added more to the steadier side. So even though the account is still under pressure, it feels more balanced, which is a good sign. Right now the better move still looks like patience and discipline rather than forcing new trades.

Account value: Recorded in weekly review
Weekly move: Recorded in weekly review
Main trade: Rebalanced away from some speculative exposure
Main lesson: The portfolio is currently sitting at around £1,860, down from roughly £1,999 at the start. That means the account is still under pressure overall, but the recent weakness continues to look more like a difficult market backdrop than a sign that the whole portfolio structure is broken. The broad picture still feels similar to last week: the core remains intact, while the more volatile sleeve has been the main source of pressure.

Account value: Recorded in weekly review
Weekly move: Recorded in weekly review
Main trade: Broad risk-off move hurt the account
Main lesson: The portfolio was under pressure from a broad risk-off move, but the core still made sense and the main drag remained the more volatile sleeve.

Account value: Recorded in weekly review
Weekly move: Recorded in weekly review
Main trade: Checked whether the portfolio matched the original plan
Main lesson: My overall conclusion for Week 2 is that the portfolio still looks disciplined rather than random. The core holdings are still doing most of the structural work, the defensive sleeve is still useful, and the speculative positions are still small enough to stay manageable. The main job from here is to keep reviewing each name against the original reason for owning it, rather than overreacting to short-term price movement. If that discipline stays in place, then the portfolio still feels on the right track.

Account value: Recorded in weekly review
Weekly move: Recorded in weekly review
Main trade: Built the first version of the portfolio
Main lesson: The first proper week of the portfolio focused on disciplined construction, spreading capital across quality companies, ETFs, a defensive income name, and gold.