April 2025 Inflation rate
and Indices performance
In the indices of April I have included for the first time the annual inflation rate from the May 2021. This gives a truer historical figure of inflation as by human nature we have a habit of only remembering more recent events.
Today the office of National Statistics have released the inflation indices for April which came in at 137.7 up 4.1% increase on the year.
The S&P 500, ended 5569.06 down from 5611.85 for a 0.76% fall and the rest of the world, mostly covered by The Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap Fund ended the month at 210.97 down from 217.35 for a 2.93% fall.
With the Rest of the Word out of the way how does the UK represented by The FTSE All Share 500 stack up? At the end of April it finished at 4577.12 down from 4672.27. That is a 2.03% fall over the month.
Gold finished April at 3294.14 up from 2876.03 for an impressive 14.53% increase.
Bitcoin ended April at $94207.31 up from $82548.91 thats an increase of 14.12%.
The Isa Portfolio seems to be picking up a little momentum lately after a period where it seemed to be catching the worst of everything and the best of nothing despite its individual constituents producing good results. It ended April at £242709.74 up from £225114.90 an increase of 7.81%. That brings a sigh of temporary relief at least.
As usual though, apart from the monthly comparisons, yearly in the case of inflation its important to take a longer term perspective thats why I always choose the 26th May 2021. The date I decided to to follow Quality Investing principals. So to the table below.
My first thoughts, that one months Index change can have a big affect on the long-term APR. for example March’s ISA portfolio showed an APR of 8.4% and now its 11.3%, but previously before March it was around 11%. This is a sign of the times we currently live, ups and downs.
UK inflation, its averaging 5.6% and FTSE All Share Index at a measly 3.5% there are a lot of UK only investors who are losing out. It is well known that fund managers can’t match their index, so subsequent pension fund savers are hit by a double whammy.
1 Poor performing fund management.
2 Government is now considering a percentage of pension fund money to be allocated to Private equity, only for that allocation to be even more badly mis-managed.
Trying not to overthink things too much, why has my portfolio performed quite well? As was my hope when I started the Quality Investing route it has to do with companies with high rates of return consistently producing good results.
Two investments I would never advise anyone to make. Gold. In my account the broker makes charges to cover the costs of running the platform etc. I am able to cover these charges by the dividends I receive. Gold I can’t.
The other is Bitcoin. This is not a serious investment as not regulated by any of the countries I would consider investing in. Which leaves it in the hands of unscrupulous people.
A friend who invested £100 in Bitcoin and DOGE shared a graph of his account recently showing its value at £118.00. The problem is he can’t get his money out as his platform are refusing to pay him.
A look at Wikipedia for Mount Cox gives an interesting read that could be the basis of a Netflix Drama if anyone has any doubts.
Current Portfolio as of 22nd May 2025
