A.I.M. Users Bulletin Board

[ls7550]

Hi glennpj

I did what Toofuzzy is always advocating against and changed things at the worse possible time.

Attracted by high income I bought far too heavily into banks when they intially appeared relatively cheap (worse possible time).

If I hadn't, in total I'd be down only around 5% across the year. As it is I'm around 30% down at the present time, of which 25% of that is attributable to bank holdings.

I'd mainly bought into Lloyds TSB - which was conservatively/well managed, good yield, low exposure to bad debts etc and which alone has just reported a 0.9B profit across the year. But in their 'choice' to buy HBOS - which has just reported a 10B bad loans based loss has ...!!!!!

So whilst previously overweight banks, the price declines (-85%) have brought current weightings back in line with where I should have kept things back at the start.

If only I'd taken TF's advice more to heart!!!

Lesson learnt - put 90% of effort into downside loss protection (10% into price appreciation potential).

Best. Clive.