I’ve bought for the portfolio 14205 shares in SDCL Energy Efficiency for 9k.

Yielding 10% and trading at a discount of 31.2% as a replacement share for LBOW.

I’ve looked at SEQI after today’s update, although it contains no bad news, I’ve decided to sell for a total loss of £3.71p

The Snowball is overweight at NESF, where the current ‘profit’ is £883.00, including earned dividends.

I’ve sold 2713 of shares for £2,255.00 bringing the position back to 10k.

current cash for re-investment £5,389.22

I’ve bought for the Snowball 17373 shares in Triple Point Social Housing SOHO for 10k

Trading at a discount of 55.3% to NAV and yielding 9.5%

The current blog profit on SOHO is £3,420.67

I’ve sold the Snowball shares for a loss including dividends earned and capital returned and re-invested for a loss of £3,917.00.

I’ve been very slow in selling and the loss as only grown, hopefully if the funds are re-invested in a Trust trading at a big discount and paying a dividend the loss can be re-covered.

There is a new rule.

Rule one.

Buy Investment Trusts that pay a ‘secure’ dividend to buy more Investment Trusts that pay a ‘secure’ dividend.

Rule two.

Any Trust that drasitically changes it dividend policy must be sold even at a loss.

Rule three.

Obey rule one and two.

1 top stock to consider for a diversified passive income portfolio

Story by Kevin Godbold

The Motley Fool

Income from passive investing sounds attractive.

Little effort. No worries. Just sitting back and waiting for shareholder dividends to flood in.

That’s one way of investing. But it’s active rather than passive

Checking in every so often

For those with a life, a better way may be to take the laid-back approach.

After all, billionaire investor Warren Buffett is known for holding stocks for long periods — think decades. So he’s proved there are businesses that can be buy-and-forget investments.

Having said that, Buffett is known for reading company annual reports. But I bet he doesn’t watch stock price movements, or concern himself with every piece of trifling news. Has he even got his own computer ? I’m not sure.

Reading annual reports — or even just skimming them — is a good idea. If we don’t do that, what’s the point of being a do-it-yourself investor? We might as well just bung money in low-cost index tracker funds and ride off into the sunset.

However, a light-touch approach to owning shares can be productive because a long-term holding period often drives the best returns. Being too active can lead to doing silly things, such as buying and selling shares too much because of emotional over-reactions to news flow.

But passive investing needs a couple of things, I reckon.

Two important steps to take

The first is a careful approach to stock selection, and thorough initial research. The second is diversification between several stocks, so all the invested money isn’t concentrated too much.

With a diversified long-term portfolio in mind, I’d consider stocks such as Renewables Infrastructure (LSE: TRIG).

The investment firm has a portfolio of onshore & offshore wind, solar, and battery storage projects across the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Spain, and Sweden. 

In short, green energy, so why has the share price been so weak lately? In today’s world, the sector seems like a no-brainer for investment, at least at first glance.

Those risks are real and may become an ongoing headwind for the company’s growth in net asset value and cash flow. Many stocks in the sector have been marked lower by the market over the past few months.

A strong record

However, if Renewables Infrastructure can keep up decent cash flow, there’s a good chance dividend payments will continue. After all, the multi-year record of shareholder payments is excellent.

The firm has raised the dividend every year since at least 2018, and didn’t even miss a beat through the pandemic.

With the share price near 100p, the forward-looking yield for 2025 is just over a whopping 7.6%.

Over the long haul, I reckon the company has a bright future, so I’d be keen to research further with a view to adding some of the shares to a diversified portfolio of stocks

I’ve sold the portfolio shares in GSF for a profit of £114.00 after they changed their dividend policy.

Gore Street Energy Storage Fund plc

Dividend Policy

We remain committed to regular capital allocation reviews and comprehensive analytical assessments, while remaining receptive to shareholder feedback, to ensure the Company continues to be managed effectively for investors. Following this year’s review, the Board has decided to adjust the Company’s dividend policy to better align it with the construction schedule of the portfolio.

It is the Directors’ intention to continue to pay, in the absence of unforeseen circumstances, a dividend of 7.0 pence per ordinary share for the financial year subject to market conditions and performance, financial position and outlook, and fiscal environment. This is consistent with investors’ expectations based on the current NAV but, from the 2024/25 financial year, the profile and quantum of dividend distributions will be more closely aligned with operational and other cashflows rather than NAV.

Moving from roughly equal payments across all quarters, the Board has determined to target a dividend of 1.0 pence per Ordinary Share for each of the first three quarters of the financial year. It is intended the amount of the final quarterly dividend (announced in June and paid in July) will make up the balance of the annual dividend target subject to cash flows at the time. As with the current dividend policy, all dividends remain at the discretion of the Board.

This is a prudent adjustment to the dividend policy reflecting the maturing nature of the Company’s portfolio, with a transformative year for increasing operational and revenue-generating capacity.

Might the UK market be at a turning point?

While the French find themselves in uncharted water as no party wins its general election, the UK looks to be in much better shape. M&A activity is picking up, Labour is looking to boost growth and international investors might find UK equities look cheap and under owned.

By David Stevenson•11 Jul, 2024•

Like many I didn’t bother staying up past 11pm on Thursday night to see the election result, partly because I’ve done so many times before, and partly because the end result (a Labour government) wasn’t ever in much doubt. The next morning, I anticipated a long series of emails from investment managers making all sorts of claims about ‘what next for investors…’ – and was richly rewarded with observations, comments and the odd outlandish criticism. 

Stepping back from the noise of the election campaign, I think we can safely make a few observations. The first, is that no one in the City was sitting in cold sweat anticipating a hard left Labour government. The charm offensive by Rachel Reeves et al was just too high profile for the scare stories about a socialist revolution to make much headway. In fact, the next morning, sterling slightly strengthened, and gilts were also in the black. As for the stockmarket, by early afternoon on Friday – enough time for the result to sink in – the FTSE 100 had barely ticked up, while the more domestically focused FTSE 250 was up 1.39%. British home builders stood out, with an index tracking their shares up 2.3%. As for gilts, Reuters reported the premium that investors demand for the extra risk of holding gilts rather than top-rated German 10-year bonds has remained stable this year at around 160 basis points – far below the 230 basis points seen during a mini-budget crisis in 2022. That premium was down 2 basis points at 159 basis points on Friday.

The next observation I’d make is that the big majority for Labour should make the government fairly stable and what many investors crave above everything else is stability. 

I’d make two final observations. The first is that the UK market is under-owned by international investors and what will really make a difference to UK stocks – and funds – is whether the UK seems a more attractive, cheap way to buy exposure to the right business sectors. To understand this point consider these two facts :

• The UK market comprises just 3.4% of the value of the Global ACWI index, compared to 5.1% for Japan. Back in 2011, that number was 7.5%, and even as recently as 2021, it was 4.9%. Japanese equities currently comprise 5.1% of the ACWI global index.
• UK stocks comprise just 3.72% of the MSCI World index (which excludes emerging market stocks). Again, this percentage was much higher in previous decades.

For the UK market to really increase in value, we need more international investors to think the UK market is cheap. 

This brings me nicely to the final point: one crucial element in that equation – is the UK cheap and a great place to access the right sectors? – are closed-end funds and investment trusts. I sense that more and more international investors are beginning to focus on the FTSE 250 index, a more useful proxy for the UK, and that means investment trusts are crucial. 

Of the 250 companies in the FTSE 250, over 90 are investment trusts or REITs. In addition, 12 other companies in the FTSE2 50 are asset managers and custodians, many of which have significant investment trust exposure. Collectively, if we add up all the funds and trusts, we come to a total value of £125 billion compared to the total FTSE 250 value of £2.5 trillion. If we include 3i in that fund calculation, then we come to £155 billion. The average FTSE 250 stock has risen by 12.6% in price terms over the last 12 months whereas the average fund in the FTSE 250 index has risen by just over 10%. 

To put it as bluntly as we can, the difficulties faced by the investment trust sector – big discounts, patchy liquidity, lots of selling – have a major impact on the FTSE 250 index, which many international investors see as the better proxy for the UK economy. If the UK market is to enjoy a renaissance – and I’m more positive than most – then a large part of that resurgence will depend on international investors buying into investment trusts. 

I’ll finish with one positive data point – takeover activity. Charles Hall is head of research at broker, Peel Hunt, which has very publicly warned that the UK market – funds and operating companies – is in danger of falling into a death spiral because of a lack of interest in the UK and negative government policies. As an investment advisory firm, they have been admirably blunt about the headwinds, so when they come out with some positive news, it’s worth taking note. Hall recently circulated a research note stating that the pace of takeover activity for UK companies generally, and specifically smaller market cap companies, is increasing. Here are some choice quotes from the report:

• M&A activity on the up – Bids announced YTD and still live amount to an equity value of £43bn. Including the bids announced last year and completed this year, and delistings from the UK, the total value is £95bn.
• Going up the market cap – Of the 32 transactions announced in H1, 17 were in the FTSE 350, 3 in the FTSE Smallcap and 10 on AIM. In the whole of FY23, there were 39 transactions announced, of which 2 were in the FTSE 350, 14 in the FTSE Smallcap and 19 on AIM.
• Increase in pace – There has been an acceleration in both the number and scale of transactions over the last few quarters, with Q2 being the busiest period both by number (21) and value (£26.5bn).
• More corporate buyers – Last year, the majority (56%) of offers were from financial buyers. However, corporate buyers (72%) have dominated in 2024 as the rate environment and economic outlook have become clearer, demonstrating the value of UK companies.
• Multiple offers – There have been 6 competitive situations YTD (Alpha, C&R, DS Smith, Hipgnosis, Spirent and Wincanton) and 8 raised offers.
• High premiums – The average premium thus far in FY24 is 40%, with some offers materially higher than the undisturbed price (e.g., Wincanton +104%, Spirent +86%, IDS +73% and Keywords Studios +69%).
• Overseas appetite – Overseas bidders are c.60% of the total YTD.
• Sector focus – Tech and Real Estate have been the most active sectors.

Those last two bullet points are very relevant for investors in investment trusts: there is increasing appetite from international investors and real estate investment trusts are a particular focus. These trends are potentially very positive for investment trusts. I’d also note one other potential positive – more and more smaller cap companies on the London market are being snapped up by trade buyers. This bodes well for a large number of funds that are focused on the UK small to mid-cap sector.

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Until news, the trend is your friend.