This week, instead of digging into a new teaser for your Friday File pleasure, I thought it was time to update you on a few of the “Idea of the Month” stocks that I’ve been thinking about recently.

First, I should also tell you that I’ve now made two buys this week personally, both of stocks covered in this space previously — I told you earlier that I had added to my Lonrho position, and now that my three-day trading prohibition has expired, I have also opened a new position in Cielo shares.

And as an aside, I am pleased to note that for the first time in a long time, the overall list of stocks I’ve chosen as “Idea of the Month” investments to profile for you is finally beating the S&P 500 again, before dividends (dividends usually end up being a wash, I have a number of high yielders in that group but also several no-div stocks, so it generally averages out to pretty close to the S&P dividend).  That doesn’t mean much to you, I’m sure, since the stocks I’ve profiled would probably not make a very good portfolio for anyone taken as a group, and it would be an odd reader indeed who bought the same amount of each stock as soon as I wrote about it and held those shares through thick and thin (and there have been more than 30 stocks and bonds picked so far, a lot more than most people own), but it is some solace to me after being significantly behind the S&P’s performance for many months. You can see the performance here if you want to check my figures and see the booms and busts (all counted with the closing price the day after I write about them, assuming that they’re held forever regardless of what I may say about them later).

I don’t have anything new to share with you about Cielo, unsurprisingly, other than the fact that it’s now in my personal portfolio — that’s the stock I profiled as the Idea of the Month for August just last week, and it’s down a bit from that writing but there’s been no company news. Brazil is reporting somewhat lower inflation than expected, which is generally a good thing, but it seems likely to be a wash for Cielo overall (higher transaction volume from inflated prices equals ...