Why I Have Stopped Blogging About My Shares

02 January 2026
By Maynard Paton

Sad news I am afraid. I have decided to stop blogging about my shares and portfolio.

This decision has not been easy. But my portfolio’s woeful 2025 finally confirmed something I have contemplated for some time…

…that my modest long-term gains do not justify the time and effort I dedicate to publishing this blog.

Something has to change, and I wish to step away from the spotlight to determine how to improve my returns.

Contents

• ‘Lengthy and complicated’
• Trailing the FTSE
• ‘An utter waste of time’
• Thank you
• What now?

Disclosure: Maynard owns shares in Andrews Sykes, Bioventix, City of London Investment, Mincon, Mountview Estates, S & U, System1, FW Thorpe and M Winkworth. This article contains ShareScope affiliate links.

‘Lengthy and complicated’

I commenced this blog at the start of 2015 after I gave up 9-5 work to become a full-time investor.

My former day job involved writing investment articles for a finance website. I then believed that continuing to write about shares would help my returns. As I wrote within About My Blog:

“I have always believed publishing my investment thoughts and research could help improve my portfolio returns.

In particular, writing down exactly why I have bought a share — knowing that others will read the text and try to pick holes — has always forced me to assess the upside potential and downside risks of my investments in greater depth.”

But I also wrote:

“Publishing also persuades me to keep my share ideas simple. When a write-up starts to become lengthy and complicated, I have often found the company in question comes with higher risks and therefore more chance of disappointment.”

Write-ups on this blog have certainly become “lengthy and complicated“. 

When I started this blog, I committed to writing a review about every set of results from every company I owned. 

At first, each review amounted to 1,000 words or so and the time involved was very manageable. But my reviews have since transformed into 10,000-15,000-word epics. And all the extra research and writing has just not converted into extra returns.

My blog really changed during the pandemic lockdowns. With time on my hands and buoyed by a surprisingly decent 2020 (my portfolio gained 17% while the FTSE declined 11%), I revamped my website and started delving much deeper into my holdings. 

I assured myself that knowing more about my shares than 99% of other private investors would give me a market advantage. Each review then became longer to produce as I evaluated more aspects about each business. I even began including my own charts.

But the longer the write-ups became, the longer I had to spend on proofreading, image creation, link checking and other publishing tasks — none of which was related to out-performing the market. 

Long story short, I put myself on a blogging treadmill that required every 10,000-15,000-word review to be published before the company in question issued its next figures.

I have in fact often been too engrossed in preparing a blog about one holding to pay attention to events at my other holdings. And the primary reason I have not introduced a new company into my portfolio since 2017 is because I have time only to blog about eight positions — at least to my 10,000-15,000-word standard.

Throw in an unexpected ‘life event’ — two years ago my wife suffered a permanent health disorder — and the blogging treadmill eventually became too much.

Trailing the FTSE

My Q4 2025 round-up confirms I have failed to beat the FTSE 100 since the start of this blog. My portfolio has gained 77% while the UK benchmark has gained 130%:

I have also trailed the FTSE 100 over the last one, three, five, ten and eleven years:

Now you may say this under-performance is due to my particularly woeful 2025. And yes, my returns seemed a lot brighter this time last year:

And yes, my returns could also look a lot brighter this time next year.

You might also say investing in UK smaller companies has been very tough since 2022 and arguably very tough since mid-2016. ShareScope suggests approximately 73% of all UK shares have trailed the FTSE 100 after I commenced this blog.

But the job of the active stock-picker is to actually pick winners, and not blame a lacklustre portfolio on surprise macro events, unfavourable political changes and/or adverse sector trends.

There have been major winners I overlooked. In particular, I could not bring myself to purchase Games Workshop at £31 (now £189) nor Goodwin at £28, £18 or £36 (now £213).

There have been sizeable losers I hung on to for far too long, most notably Tasty (since renamed Bow Street).

And there have been times when I should have locked in substantial gains, not least with Tristel and System1. Investment writing tip: The market gods always have the last laugh with overconfident share bloggers!

While my portfolio’s efforts versus the FTSE 100 are very unfortunate, the following comparison is truly sobering…

‘An utter waste of time’

My portfolio consisted of the following shares when I commenced this blog at the start of 2015:

That list contains nine shares I no longer hold:

• Burford Capital (BUR);
• French Connection (FCCN);
• Electronic Data Processing (EDP);
• Getech (GTC);
• Pennant International (PEN);
• Record (REC);
• SeaEnergy (SEA);
• Tasty (TAST) (since renamed Bow Street (BOW)), and;
• Tristel (TSTL).

What would have happened if had left my portfolio completely unchanged for the next eleven years?

Here are the subsequent returns:

Including dividends I would have owned two five baggers and two almost-three-baggers. I would have also held on to a 99.6% loser and a total 100% loser.

With all dividends simply accumulated as cash, my unchanged portfolio would now look like this:

And guess what? This unchanged portfolio would now be WORTH 17% MORE than my actual portfolio:

Note that my actual portfolio would have been worth more than this unchanged portfolio only at the end of 2015 and 2024. This unchanged portfolio was in contrast worth more than my actual portfolio at the end of 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2025.

And this unchanged portfolio was full of UK small-caps that suffered the same macro events, political changes and sector trends as my actual holdings.

In pure financial terms at least, publishing nearly 400 blog posts about my portfolio since the start of 2015 has been an utter waste of time. I would have been somewhat wealthier staying with the 9-5 and just leaving my shares alone.

But let me stress… I do not regret leaving the 9-5 and starting this blog! Not least because I would have always wondered ‘what might have been’… and become incredibly miserable by not daring to take the FIRE leap. I gave the blog a go, my portfolio has not performed as expected and I am now a lot older and a little wiser.

Thank you

An unexpected bonus of writing this blog has been all the informative article comments and contact-form messages I have received. 

I have been taken aback by the wide circle of knowledge of my readership, with some extremely insightful snippets received from several company ‘insiders’ and other investors who delve into their shares even deeper than me. And I have loved meeting readers in person at AGMs and investor events. My sincere thanks go to everyone that has contributed or said hello.

I would particularly like to thank Stefan Barden and George Karpus for agreeing to talk to me ‘on the record’ for my blog. 

Both gentlemen reminded me — in no uncertain terms! — that i) non-executives are appointed to serve the interests of shareholders, and; ii) all company expenses reflect shareholder money that could otherwise be paid as dividends. A lot of UK small-cap boards appear to have forgotten those two simple concepts.

What now?

• My blog will remain available for anyone wishing to read the archives:
  • Visit my A-Z page for the full list of company articles, and;
  • Visit my portfolio page for the full list of quarterly portfolio reviews.

• I will no longer publish any blog posts about my shares or portfolio.

• I will continue to write articles for ShareScope and will continue to publish links to those articles on my blog.

• I will stop sending emails that link to my blog (I am still amazed 1,500-plus people were happy to receive my emails!).

• My contact form will remain open should you wish to send a message. Insightful snippets are always welcome!

• The comments section on a number of my blog posts will remain open, too.

• I will probably write occasionally about my shares on ADVFN (username ‘TMFMayn‘). But not 10,000-15,000-word epics. Just the normal bulletin-board chat… with no treadmill and no proofreading!

Thank you for reading, and I wish you safe and healthy investing.

Maynard Paton