After a fantastic break over Christmas and New Year my feet are firmly underneath the desk and I am getting back into the swing of things. Before looking forward to the year ahead, I am looking back on 2009.

A very fruitful investing year finished with a 96.99% return for 2009, almost doubling my money in a year given the starting capital of £100,000. That meant the total portfolio at year-end stood at £196,987.56. Although off the high for the year (which on October 15th was £202,965.93) given my expectation at the start of 2009 was for a tough year ahead I am delighted at the final return. Some really big winning trades, a few losers and of course the odd missed opportunity that I am still kicking myself about.

Looking at the losers first, the worst single loss was taken on Northern Foods (NFDS) losing £1,450.94 fairly early in the year. A case of bad timing there, selling at pretty near the bottom before the share price bounced back sharply. Fortunately there were not too many losers in 2009, it certainly paid off to not set stop losses too tight and let trades run for as long as possible.

Of course the P&L for the year would have been much better if I hadn’t sold a couple of shares in particular far too early. Topps Tiles (TPT) was one I bought pretty much right at the bottom, around 16p. Unfortuntely I sold it shortly afterwards for a small profit, it then went on to 5 bag right up to 96p. The other big winner sold far too early was Gulf Keystone (GKP), again I was in right near the bottom buying at around 7p. I sold out between 11p and 21p. I good profit but if I’d have held on until 100p+ I could have made over £50,000 more! A costly mis-judgement. In fact in general profits would have been much greater if I’d have held most positions for longer but the market strength continued to surprise me throughout the year.

Of course there were plenty of winners in 2009, the best being the RBS $ prefs which I did hold onto (£6,927.37 profit banked), at least partially, right through 2009. RC Group (RCG) was also a big winner and, surprising me when I checked, my FTSE index & option trades were a big winner too, banking nearly £5k (£4,908.26).

The total return of nearly 100% is also pleasing as I retained a healthy cash balance throughout the year, on average holding about 20% to 25% in cash.

Here’s hoping that in 2010 I can build on the excellent returns of the last year.