Pretty well, everything did quite nicely in February: the Athelney unaudited NAV improved by 2.8 per cent whereas the comparatives, the Small Cap, AIM All-share and Fledgling rose by 2.9, 3.5 and 2.1 per cent respectively.

Even the FTSE 100 index, which famously hit a high on the last trading day of the last millennium, found enough puff to make a new record. That latter index, though, is a strange creature – stuffed with tech stocks 15 years ago, was then hit hard by the banking crisis of 2008 and finally knocked for 6 by the heavy fall in mining and oil shares recently. The FTSE 100’s annual return over these 15 years has been only 3.4 per cent, a meagre yield for taking quite a lot of risk. The statisticians reckon that there is a 50-50 chance that the FTSE could get to 10,000 by 2022. The broad UK market does have some appeal but the FTSE less so because of the mining and oil shares already mentioned. And of course, there is the political risk with a general election to be followed, possibly, by referendums which could see Scotland leave the UK and/or the UK leave the EU.

UK equities look interesting but not compelling value – I, for one, shall continue to study and invest in small caps where I believe the value is much better.