Q1 2026 Coffee Can Portfolio Update
Switching Off
Readers who have been with the blog for a while would have noticed a marked slowdown in the pace at which content is coming out of this blog.
Life (read: day job) has been busy, and I have been spending a lot of my spare time getting better at Chess — roughly 300 ELO points of improvement over the last year. All that has meant that I have spent less time on my investing life.
If I am spending less time thinking about investing, then naturally blog content will be lower.
Performance Recap
As a quick performance recap, Q1 was another bad quarter for the Coffee Can Portfolio.
The Coffee Can Portfolio declined -6.84% in Q1 2026, while the benchmark — the Vanguard Global All Cap Fund — lost a mere -1.21% over the same period.
Since inception, performance stands as follows:
Portfolio XIRR (GBP): 7.99%
Benchmark XIRR: 12.61%
Alpha: -4.62%
Continuing on the theme of my previous post on this topic, the underperformance has been fairly widespread. I seem to have found the rare skill to diversify just well enough to pick several underperformers at the same time. In any case, a poorly performing portfolio questions the credibility of my writings, on the portfolio and stock selection, specifically. 🤷
The Virtue of Switching Off
Spending less time with your portfolio is very much a desired attribute.
One must think very carefully before putting down a single penny into an investment. Once they do — and if they are truly long-term investors — then being able to switch off from having to think about it is an excellent virtue.
I have done this on and off during my investing lifetime, but I seem to have been more “in the connect” over the past five or six years. Switching off in Q1 (and continuing to do so presently) felt good and very cathartic.
Interestingly, the ability to ignore the portfolio for an entire quarter strengthened my conviction that this is a pretty good portfolio for me.
If I can sleep through a whole quarter without worrying about what the market did, and still feel broadly comfortable reviewing it at the end, that’s a useful signal. And strangely satisfactory.
What “Satisfactory” Really Means
In this context, comfort with a portfolio is not determined solely by short-term performance. What matters more is whether you understand and believe in what you own — and whether those investments are likely to deliver the outcomes you want within the time horizon you have set for yourself.
In my case, I do not have any financial demands on this portfolio for the next three to five years.
With that in mind, I remain comfortable with the companies I hold. On that, here stands the portfolio:
No changes were made during the quarter itself. However, on 1st of April, I added ever so slightly to my India ETF position. All the listings have been moved to Maintain purely because I am not doing anything to add to those positions. I expect very little to change in Q2 - though the hedge position will run out, and I have to decide if I want to renew it or move on.
The Strange Problem of Having No Capital to Deploy
Due to decisions we have made as a family, our overall cashflow has gone down, and therefore the money available to put into investments has also reduced. These are choices we are very happy to make. Having said that though, I have to confess — I am running out of capital to allocate. And with that, the motivation to constantly look at my portfolio or generate ideas.
Unless I am willing to sell something, or take on leverage — both of which I am generally biased against — there is little practical reason for me to spend time researching new ideas.
If capital cannot be deployed, then constant reading and analysis becomes a somewhat unnecessary expenditure of time and energy.
To be clear, I do derive intellectual pleasure from reading (and writing) about markets and money. But it is still a deliberate choice of time spent — and for now I have chosen to spend that time elsewhere.
A Useful Realisation About Returns
Stepping away from the day-to-day noise of markets has allowed me to think more clearly about what I actually want from my money.
One realisation that has become clearer over the past few months is that fretting over my portfolio, or my wealth building on a week to week basis, has at best a marginal, and at worst a negative, impact on my retirement planning.
Starting early, maintaining a disciplined lifestyle, and investing consistently are the real fundamentals and builds enough margin into one’s plans that one can afford to take the foot off the accelerator a little. I should still reach the destination regardless of short term portfolio decision making I go over.
An undoubtedly, fortune has certainly played its part too: good jobs, reasonably sensible decisions, and a fair amount of luck along the way. I suspect this may be true for more people than they realise. Counting one’s blessings is an underrated aspect of mental strength on the wealth building journey.
A Note for New Readers
Over the past year, this blog has quietly picked up a number of new readers.
If you are one of them — welcome.
While updates on the core portfolio may continue at a slower pace, I will likely write from time to time about broader topics around investing, wealth building, and financial decision-making.
The blog has always been free, and the goal has always been simple: to document my thinking as an investor, wealth builder, and retirement planner and share lessons along the way. Sometimes I get very nerdy with data, and sometimes I get very philosophical, like today, but all of it was to be sincere and with intellectual honesty.
If those reflections prove useful to others, like you, that is a welcome bonus.
Closing Thoughts
Updates on the Coffee Can Portfolio will likely remain occasional rather than frequent. But when something interesting happens — either in the portfolio or in my thinking about investing — I will continue to write about it here. What are your current investing thoughts, care to share?
Until then, Happy investing.
Disclaimer: I am not your financial advisor and bear no fiduciary responsibility. This post is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Do your own due diligence before investing. I may hold or enter into positions in the securities mentioned above. This is not a solicitation to buy or sell any security.