How I'm investing my ISA this tax year

Given the Chancellor’s budget this year, it seems that tax free is an increasingly rare beast, so I plan to take full advantage of this year’s ISA allowance.

I have reviewed my investment notes from ISA 2021/2022 when my focus was around inflation, commodities with a focus on agriculture, softs and water, FTSE 100 mid 6000s, gold and general miners and a bit of volatility. In general, these were all good calls except for volatility which was just poor.

This year, the themes I’m focusing on are centered around uncertain geopolitical background, rampant inflation, the longer-term impact of Covid-19, the war in Ukraine and increasing interest rates. All this points to a defensive approach and dollar averaging or investing part of the GBP 20,000 each month, to avoid mistiming the market and top ticking.

My investments will include a big allocation to well managed and mature long short hedge funds. The shorts in their book should help cushion against markets in decline. If your portfolio is overweight Europe and the UK, pick a hedge fund with a European focus.

I will also continue with Commodities but this year I intend to focus on gold miners and gold.  I like the defensive qualities of gold and at some point, gold should break out in the face of mounting inflation and uncertainty.  To this I will add, a much-overlooked commodity – water. There are water ETFs which provide access to water companies with their defensive qualities and yield.

My overall strategy is to stay confident and if there is a large sell off, I will update my strategy to pick up heavily sold off global equities.