My winning streak of handsomely outperforming the FTSE All-Share index for six consecutive years came to a shuddering halt last year. However, it took a bear market in small and micro-cap shares to derail the outperformance.
The negative market backdrop in my favoured hunting ground, coupled with the share price collapse of CleanTech Lithium (CTH), meant that the portfolio delivered a loss of 4.5 per cent compared with our in-print offer prices. The portfolio loss widened to 8.7 per cent if the opening offer prices on the day of publication are used. The FTSE All-Share index declined 1.2 per cent on a total return basis.
Although it is scant consolation that the portfolio managed to outperform the 13.4 per cent loss on the FTSE Aim All-Share Total Return index, it does show relative strength against the wider market in small and micro-caps, a positive that should work in our favour in a more benign equity market environment. There is also scope for the underperformers to recover their paper losses.