Weekly Reviews / 5 April 2026

Week 5 Portfolio Review

The account remained below cost, but the portfolio felt more balanced after trimming speculative exposure and relying more on steadier holdings.

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Snapshot Portfolio closed the week at around £1,931 against a cost base of roughly £1,999. It is still down overall, but this week felt a bit steadier and more controlled than the raw number suggests.

How the week felt This week still did not feel like a portfolio that is falling apart. It felt more like the same pattern we have been seeing recently: the stronger, steadier names are helping hold things together, while most of the pain is still sitting in the higher-risk part of the book. That is important, because it means the weakness is still fairly concentrated rather than something going wrong everywhere at once.

What helped and what hurt The more reliable names continued to do their job. Holdings like Realty Income, NextEra and Meta helped give the account a bit more balance, which is exactly what they are there for. On the other side, IonQ and Symbotic were again the main drags, with Airbnb also not helping much. So the overall picture still looks like the speculative sleeve is doing most of the damage, rather than the whole portfolio structure being wrong. My view on the thesis I still do not think there were any proper thesis breaks this week. Meta and SGLN still look among the strongest positions in the current setup, and the core generally still makes sense. IonQ and Symbotic are the names that need to prove themselves more from here. That does not automatically mean they need to be sold, but it does mean I should be harder on them and make sure I am not just being patient for the sake of it.

Main lesson from the week 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.

What I want to watch next week The main thing I want to see next week is whether IonQ and Symbotic show any real signs of stabilising. I also want to see whether Meta, Alphabet and the ETF sleeve keep carrying the book, and whether gold plus the income names continue to cushion volatility. More broadly, I need to keep an eye on the macro backdrop, because if markets move away from this risk-off feel, some of the pressure on the weaker names could ease quite quickly.

Overall conclusion My overall view for Week 5 is that this was a better week than the headline P&L makes it look. The portfolio felt a bit steadier, the defensive and core positions still justified their place, and the weakness stayed mostly where you would expect it to stay — in the smaller speculative names. So for now, the right move still feels the same: stay disciplined, do not react emotionally, keep weak names under proper review, and let the stronger parts of the portfolio keep doing their job.