It is 5 weeks today since we bought VEVE for the 8th time since August 2023.
And, as ever, plenty has gone on in the meantime.
Without picking through all the previous cycles, this has probably been the most volatile VEVE experience we’ve had so far.
We bought at 9664. It then behaved itself for about a week before dropping around 5%. Not once, but twice.
Not especially pleasant to sit through.
The likely culprit was the usual cocktail of oil spiking on Middle East tensions (Iran / Strait of Hormuz), which then feeds into inflation worries, which then gets central bankers puffing their chests out again.
Markets spent about 10 days getting their heads around all of that.
Since the end of March, VEVE has recovered by roughly 6%, which leaves us in profit overall, plus a small dividend along the way.
Which, when you step back, is fairly typical.
Something happens, markets wobble, everyone gets a bit excitable, and then things settle down and attention shifts back to what actually matters.
Not the next headline, but what the world looks like in 3 or 5 years’ time. And the answer, more often than not, is: not a great deal has changed.
So yes, it has been a bit of a rollercoaster, but that is exactly where this strategy tends to do its best work.
From here, we need another 2.4% or so from Friday’s close to hit our target and sell.
And, as I am wont to do, it’s worth comparing that to the alternative.
Had this money been sat in Government bonds since 10 March, you would currently be down about 1%.
So, all things considered, this is a decent outcome so far, even if it hasn’t felt like it at times.
As ever, the job is to sit with it, stick to the plan, and let markets do what they have always done.