Our Australian fund has maintained its strong performance since my Q1 report. The returns below are annualised, except year to date (YTD). Frankly I’m a little surprised the Australian market hasn’t done better. Are you guys letting me win on purpose? While Australian investors have on average had poor returns the unhedged returns to international investors have been significantly better, at least on paper.

The first quarter of 2011 brought good returns for both our concentrated Australian fund and our less concentrated less focused upon American fund.
This month I decided to implement a NAV spreadsheet for our Australian fund. Until now I’ve been more focused on the field of play rather than the scorecard (shameless Munger plagiarism) and have been content with knowing year end returns.
While we are index agnostic and target an absolute long run return it is none the less pleasing to show the market a clean set of heals so early …

Musing on the market and specific shares. Including Advanced Share Registry, Anteo Diagnostics, Prana Biotech, Biota Holdings, Pfizer, Biogen, 3M and Catch the Wind

While the Investometer chart shows large changes in both accounts this month the reality is I increased cash by 9% this month. As I commented the other day I’ve been selling down fairly to overvalued US stocks, notably FDX and II-VI, and buying undervalued Australian shares.

The growing account with regular cash flow is the SMSF I manage. Due to regular personal and employer contributions, the coming capital return from Biota and other dividends I’m happy maintaining a lower cash balance in the SMSF. If the market goes down I’ll have …

Invested levels didn’t change this month, but four calls sold raised cash near the short term peak.
The FI Fund briefly returned to positive territory during October. It was good to pop into the green and lets hope we see more of that soon.

A quick look under out SMSF and a Fusion Portfolio update.

The Fusion Investing Portfolio posted a small gain in August, though was resoundingly thrashed by the S&P/ASX 200 Index. The portfolio relative outperformance decreased from 16.7%, to 13.1%. Since inception the portfolio is down an absolute 9.9%.
The only transaction in August was the sale of STW.AX, the S&P/ASX 200 tracking fund at $40.95. STW.AX has risen since then and closed last night at $42.20. The sale dramatically increased the portfolio cash position, which now sits at 39.6%.

Last Update: Fusion Portfolio’s return to 31 July

Fusion Investing sold the 5,000 STW index shares at 40.95 this morning. More later.

The FI Portfolio increased its ASX200 outperformance to 16.7% during July.

The Fusion Investing Portfolio just bought 60,000 shares in Biota Holding Ltd (ASX:BTA). Due to the near term risks associated with GSK announcing Relenza sales on 22 July and Daiichi Sankyo announcing LANI results within weeks the fund is buying a half position.