Stocks & Shares Update September 2026

So it's been 14 months or so since I actually updated everyone on this so with some time on my hands. This isn't out of fear of not showing, its more literally just no time. Life takes precedence. What I will say is Trump is still acting like a big massive wanker so nothing has changed there. Anyways, I guess we should take a look and explain also my changes.

So if we're comparing growth from July last year to now, my total returns have tripled. Great you say, I'd argue that's great, but it doesn't really tell the whole story and this should be taken with a huge pinch of salt. So let's discuss what's been sold off and why.

Sold

Apple

I sold this at a small profit, but my reasoning for it is that while Apple is a global company with massive appeal to everyone, I'm not seeing the same innovation coming out. It's not a fail on my point as my ETF will still cover it, I just feel that phone sales are stalling with rising industrial costs, their hardware overall while is gaining traction still is relatively niche. Give my holdings were very small of the company I decided once it got into profit to take it out and invest into the ETF. No hard feelings on it.

Pepsi

Now this, this I sold at a loss. Granted I didn't lose as much as I thought I would given Pepsi pays dividends so it softened that blow but again my relatively small holdings I thought it best to remove entirely from my portfolio.

Vanguard S&P 500 (VUAG) ETF

Now this, this one came a little out of the blue for me. It was well into profit which was great but objectively looking at my 2 ETF's I had (VUAG and VWRP), there was some overlap and confliction. Now its not overly bad because if America did well, I do doubly well. In the same breath though, that can go the other way. A new opportunity presented itself which I'll go onto show a little later, but I sold this at major profit. No regrets and happy with that.

Vanguard FTSE All-World (VWRP)

Wait?! What?!, you sold both ETF's? Yes, yes I did. again, I sold this at a profit. In hindsight if I was to start all over again, as in zero, I'd probably just done VWRP over VUAG but hey, every day is a learning game. I loved the exposure to the rest of the world but my little peev was always companies that go "viral" (I hate this world but no better way to say it), I never really got a slice of because I'd have to find that needle in a hay stack. It would only be part of my portfolio if it did well ie became a mid or large cap company. I sold this at profit but compared to VUAG, I could have kept this around. I chose not to on the basis of I wanted to learn a little from my duplication.

Invesco Nasdaq-100 Swap(EQSG)

I had a relatively small holding in this and given the cost, I decided to liquidate that again at profit. Being heavily invested into the tech realm has advantages and disadvantages. Through the glasses I had on at the time, I thought it best to simplify.

Reviewing Stock & What I've Bought

Vanguard FTSE Global All-Cap (ACC) (VALL)

So I sold all my VUAG and VWRP and went solely into this one ETF? Why? As I'm getting older (I'm 38 now), I'm learning I have better things to do than trying to find that needle in a haystack. It's just easier to own the god damn haystack!. With this in mind, given I have the same world exposure, a lower fee rate and crucially I also have access now to the small cap companies too, this could be a long term winner. Do I have a crystal ball telling me this? fuck no! but it makes sense logically. This could go horribly wrong as smaller companies inherently carry more risk but I guess over the next 15 years or so we're going to find out. With having such a spread among companies, I still wanted a little lean on the American stock market so I kept my individual investments as you'll see.

Nvidia

As you can see, I'm part of the AI boom. I've added cautiously to this over the last year as I'm very convinced that the AI boom will come to an end. It won't break the big companies but I do feel a stock correction is due at some point. It's funny though, I never invested in Nvidia for AI, I invested in Nvidia as a PC gamer. Funny now they have no regard for us.

Rolls Royce

People who know me, know I love Rolls Royce plane engines but they are so much more than that. I've added to this over time and stock has been rewarded with significant growth. Rolls Royce's continued share climb is a wonderful Cinderella story from when I saw it as low as 62p a share. It's nice to see its stayed around £15 a share now and consolidated a bit. I hope Rolls Royce can keep exclusivity on the A350 aircraft and also potentially too get the Ultrafan to a new aircraft.

On the other side of things, their SMR and Submarine divisions look to be progressing well so its looking pretty cosy there.

AMD

AMD like Nvidia is doing well and as a shareholder I've been heavily rewarded on this. AMD has a little sprawl I feel in comparison to AMD and both those stocks later down the line I'll look to take the profits and probably put into VALL. Needless to to say I'm happy with this stock. Given its highly likely they'll be part of the next generation of consoles and probably us as PC gamers the last hope at an affordable GPU, I'll try and back.

Airbus

I love aviation. Airbus as well as Boeing will be around for years to come and I have no doubt their aircrafts current and future will sell well. Not just civilian but military too.

Alphabet (Google)

As much as I have a disdain about how they extract data from you, they make money. Plus, Gemini isn't bad.

Amazon

For as long as Amazon continue to have fingers in many pies, I will keep the investment. Their AWS, Shopping, Movies and TV areas all seem to be doing well. Let's be frank, we're all funding Bezos' boats aren't we.

ASML

What foresight this was. I thought to myself, why am I owning companies that need create the chips (AMD, TSMC, Apple) when I can just buy direct from the factory who supplies the stuff to make the chips in the first place? Needless to say, done very well from this.

Boeing

I may love aviation but I have hesitancy with Boeing but my emotions must not cloud judgments of a company. Yes they are burning cash and going through a troubling period but the realistic fact of the matter is most planes in America are American. Most long range airliners, are, American. This stock will come back and this is why I add small amounts to it. May not be enough to impact the world but hey.

Cameco

This is a gamble on my part. Canadian mining. I think this will grow by 2029. Similar vain to AI? probably not but maybe something more a kin to Rolls Royce. It's on the doorstep to America and they will outlast Trump who's currently in power and it makes sense for Americans to cosy up to them as its on their doorstep. I will invest some more into this to try and bring my overall cost down in the future.

General Electric

Like Rolls Royce, fingers in many pies and doing very well. Whilst this is a premium stock in my eyes, I only see it rising in the future. A nice plus point is the value of my holdings has almost doubled too.

Mastercard

For everything else, there's Mastercard. Still reigns true for me although a very slow burner. Very small growth from this but at the same time, I'll admit I haven't made any continued investing to this but my growth has doubled.

Palo Alto

Knew this would grow well. I'm in a Cyber Security environment and this will only continue to grow with the powers that be of AI and everything going online in the world now. I think this industry will continue to go from strength to strength.

Shell

I hate this company and similar companies, but if you can't beat them, join them and get some money from it. That's my mentality to it. It's in major growth and I can't really knock it to be fair.

Berkshire Hathway

Company with a fuck off pile of cash and not know what to do with it. Everyone will be watching this company as the AI bubble nears its burst to see what they will do. I won't watch, but I'll take a slice hopefully.

Costco

Costco has disappointed me a little, while there's always going to be a need for this type of company, I sort of expected more growth. I mean don't get me wrong, there's growth, but is this worth just compounding into VALL? It's food for thought (no pun intended there)

Exxon

Another dinosaur juice company. It's a slim of slim holding yet astounding its doing well. I think long term I'll fold this into Shell.

L'Oreal

If our young Bil is reading, I'll have him on a special edition bottle one day...somehow lol. As long as cosmetics sell, I'll keep L'Oreal.

Microsoft

I expect this to grow if Xbox sorts itself out and AWS continues to expand greatly. They may be utter shite in their Windows division but Office, AWS are still mighty big sellers, they will harness AI just as much as Google and Amazon and they WILL make profits.

Concluding Thoughts

Am I right to compound the ETF's into one? Don't know. Leap of faith. Will there be changes ahead? Probably but crucially, will I continue to invest? Yes. If you compare the screenshots from the previous blog to this one, you can see growth is there from solid understanding of companies and research. I'm happy with the progress its making, I just hope VALL grows like VWRP has done since its inception.

Over and out.