Charts

Spent a little time this morning looking at the perfomance of my various portfolios. I have closed my Morgan Stanley Smith Barney account. Keeping the Goldman Sachs JB Were one in status quo as the fee is not based on valuation of the portfolio but on what I trade.

Looking at the charts of the major stocks over the last 12 months, it becomes very clear that the blue chips were just rumbling on but the exotic mining stocks were zooming around, mostly up. But over 3 years, most blue chips were also rumbling on but a lot of my speculative shares have plunged. What is amazing is if I had bought shares around late 2008 or early 2009, the performance have been spectacular.

I left my blue chips virtually untouched in the last 3 years; most transactions were due to share purchase plans or selling to realise capital or due to buybacks. What I bought were mostly miners with emphasis on West African miners. I had expected the blue chips to make a good recovery but in fact, it was the good quality small miners that help my portfolios move towards the peak of 2007. The ASX All Ords has plunged from a peak of 6000+ to below 5000 today. At least my superannuation portfolios have exceeded its 2007 valuation (helped a lot by new contributions and good choice of mining stocks). I have also jettisoned the bad mining companies but not all were rightful "jettisons". Among the 'bad mining companies', uranium stocks, oil explorers and geothermal companies stand out. And I lost a lot with Babcock and Brown.

Where do I go from here? More gold, REE, potash and Mongolian shares!