In 2023, I generated a return of around 23% across my Stocks and Shares ISA and Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) accounts. All things considered, I’m pretty happy with that performance (the UK’s FTSE 100 index delivered a total return of just 7.9% last year).
Here, I’ll discuss how I achieved that double-digit return. I’ll also reveal my investment strategy for 2024.
A focus on technology
The healthy returns across my ISA and SIPP in 2023 can be attributed to strong performances from the mega-cap technology stocks, which I have a fair bit of exposure to.
At the start of 2023, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Apple were my three largest individual stock holdings while Amazon was my sixth largest.
These stocks all produced phenomenal returns for the year (as the table below shows), boosting the value of my portfolio significantly.
| Stock | Share price gain in 2023 |
| Alphabet | 58% |
| Microsoft | 56% |
| Apple | 49% |
| Amazon | 81% |
Other technology stocks also did well for me. For example, at the start of 2023, I had a decent-sized holding in chip designer Nvidia. It rose 239% for the year on the back of its success in the artificial intelligence (AI) space.
Shopify, Lam Research, and FTSE 100 company Sage are some other stocks worth highlighting. These stocks gained 123%, 86%, 56% respectively in 2023.
Investment funds I hold also generated strong returns. For example, the Blue Whale Growth fund posted a return of 30% for the year. Meanwhile, the Sanlam Global Artificial Intelligence fund returned a little over 30%.
There are a couple of takeaways here. One is that it can pay to take a global approach to investing. Most of my best performers last year were outside the UK (although I did have some good performing UK stocks). So international diversification really paid off.
Another is that it pays to back big themes (AI, cloud computing, etc) and take a long-term approach to investing.
Many of the stocks I’ve mentioned above had a poor year in 2022. However, instead of selling out of them at low prices, I bought more because I was confident in the long-term growth story. So when the market recovered, my portfolio did really well.
My strategy for 2024
As for my strategy this year, I’m not changing a lot. At the start of 2024, my top 10 individual stock holdings were:
| My top 10 stock holdings | Market |
| Microsoft | US |
| Alphabet | US |
| Amazon | US |
| Apple | US |
| Mastercard | US |
| Visa | US |
| Nvidia | US |
| Diageo | UK |
| Sage | UK |
| Smith & Nephew | UK |
One thing I will be doing in 2024 however, is boosting my exposure to areas of the market outside technology just to diversify my portfolio a bit more.
I’d like to own more healthcare stocks. Recently, I have been investing in the Schroders Global Healthcare fund to increase my exposure here.
I’m also looking to build my positions in some smaller holdings to ensure my portfolio is more balanced. Some names I want to boost here include London Stock Exchange Group, Uber Technologies, and InterContinental Hotels.
Additionally, I plan to add to smaller companies that have been beaten up (I think there are some great opportunities in UK small-caps).
As always, I’ll be drip-feeding money into my ISA and SIPP and investing the capital on a regular basis.
However, if we see a decent pullback in the market, I will be buying more aggressively.
