── Yet More Apple (AAPL) ──
At this point, buying more Apple is less a decision and more a reflex. The world's most valuable company continues to be one of the greatest wealth-compounding machines ever created. The iPhone installed base — over 1.5 billion active devices — is a moat so wide you can't see the other side. The services business (App Store, Apple Music, iCloud, Apple Pay, Apple TV+) generates recurring, high-margin revenue that smooths out hardware cycles. The ecosystem lock-in means once you're in, you stay in — and every new device you buy makes the ecosystem stickier.
Apple's buyback programme is the quiet superpower that doesn't get enough attention. The company has reduced its share count by roughly 40% over the last decade. Same earnings, fewer shares, each remaining share worth more. It's a compounding mechanism that works silently in the background, quarter after quarter, requiring no action from me except continuing to own the shares. Add to that Apple's growing position in AI (Apple Intelligence, on-device processing, the privacy-first approach that differentiates them from everyone else) and you've got a company that keeps finding ways to grow even when it's already enormous.
I buy Apple because it's a compounder. I keep buying Apple because it keeps compounding. Simple as that.
── Even More Amazon (AMZN) ──
I bought Amazon last week. I'm buying more this week. When I find a business I believe in, I don't buy it once and call it done — I keep building the position. Amazon is in the same category as Apple, Microsoft, and BlackRock: businesses I want to own more of, not less of, as time goes on.
The thesis hasn't changed since last week's buy — it just keeps getting stronger. E-commerce is the visible surface layer. AWS is the profit engine underneath, generating more operating income than the entire retail operation. And now Amazon is building out AI infrastructure at a scale almost nobody can match — custom chips (Trainium, Inferentia), Bedrock (the platform layer for enterprise AI), and data centre capacity that will power the next decade of cloud growth. The operating leverage in this business is extraordinary and we're still in the early innings of it flowing through to earnings.
The share price doesn't look cheap on a price-to-earnings basis, but Amazon has always looked expensive on near-term earnings — because it reinvests so aggressively in future growth. When those investments mature (as AWS did, as advertising is doing), the earnings catch up. I'm happy to keep adding while the market debates the multiple. This is a decade-long position, not a trade.
── A New One: Fidelity Global Quality Income ETF (FGEQ) ──
Here's the new kid on the block. FGEQ — the Fidelity Global Quality Income UCITS ETF. I've been looking for a quality-focused dividend ETF to add alongside the broad market trackers, and this one ticks the boxes. Unlike a standard high-dividend ETF that simply screens for the biggest yields (which can be a trap — sometimes a high yield means the share price has fallen because the business is in trouble), a quality income ETF screens for companies that have sustainable dividends backed by strong fundamentals.
FGEQ looks for companies with high profitability, low leverage, consistent earnings, and the ability to maintain and grow dividends over time. The kind of boring, dependable, cash-generating businesses that don't make headlines but keep paying shareholders year after year. Think consumer staples, healthcare, financials, industrials — sectors where established companies with moats generate reliable cash flows.
Why add an income ETF to a portfolio that's mostly growth-oriented? Diversification, for one. The SIPP is heavy on US growth (VUAG, AAPL, AMZN, MSFT, META) and having some international quality income exposure provides balance. For another — and this is the long-term play — as the portfolio grows, dividend income becomes increasingly meaningful. Reinvested dividends are a powerful compounding force in their own right. An ETF that focuses on quality rather than just yield means those dividends are more likely to keep coming — and keep growing — through market cycles.
This is a long-term, buy-and-forget position. FGEQ sits in the SIPP alongside VWRP and VUAG as part of the boring-but-beautiful core. I'll add to it over time, same as the others. Quality. Income. Patience. The holy trinity of not-screwing-this-up investing.
── Yet More Meta (META) ──
Meta keeps proving the doubters wrong. After the 2022 meltdown — when the stock got absolutely hammered and everyone decided Mark Zuckerberg had lost the plot — Meta has delivered quarter after quarter of outstanding results. The advertising business is a machine: AI-powered targeting, Reels monetisation catching up to Feed and Stories, and a user base of over 3 billion people across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. That's nearly half the planet. Advertisers go where the people go, and the people are on Meta's platforms.
The 'year of efficiency' narrative has played out, but the efficiency gains are structural, not one-off. Meta cut the fat, streamlined operations, and emerged as a leaner, more profitable business. The AI investments — in recommendation engines, ad targeting, and now open-source LLMs with Llama — are creating competitive advantages that compound. Better targeting means higher ad prices. Higher ad prices mean more revenue. More revenue means more capacity to invest in better targeting. The flywheel is spinning.
There are risks — regulatory pressure, TikTok competition, VR/Reality Labs spending that might never pay off — but at these levels the core advertising business alone justifies the position. Everything else (WhatsApp monetisation, AI leadership, potential TikTok ban upside) is optionality I'm not paying much for. I've been buying Meta for a while and I'm not stopping now. The business keeps getting better and the market keeps being suspicious. That's exactly the combination I look for.
── Stacking the Compounders ──
Four buys today. Three compounders I've been building positions in for months — Apple, Amazon, Meta — and one new quality income ETF that adds a different flavour to the portfolio. The common thread: I'm buying businesses and funds I expect to own for years, not weeks. I'm not trying to time entries. I'm not waiting for pullbacks. I'm just steadily, boringly, consistently adding capital to things I believe in.
The SIPP is shaping up nicely. The core is broad global and US equity (VWRP, VUAG), with a new quality income sleeve (FGEQ) for diversification and dividend compounding. Around that core sits a collection of individual stock positions in businesses I think are exceptional — AAPL, AMZN, META, MSFT, BLK, PYPL, MCD, RDDT, INTC. Some are obvious compounders. Some are contrarian bets. All are sized appropriately for their risk profile.
The strategy hasn't changed. Buy good things. Buy them regularly. Hold them for a long time. Let compounding do the heavy lifting. It's not exciting. It's not going to make me rich overnight. It's exactly the kind of boring, patient approach that has a habit of working out rather well over a decade or two.
As always, nothing on this site is financial advice. I'm a 66-year-old UK investor sharing what I do with my own money in my own SIPP. All investments can go down as well as up. Past performance doesn't guarantee future results. Do your own research, understand your own risk tolerance, and never invest money you can't afford to lose. Apple, Amazon, Meta, and FGEQ could all lose value. That's investing. I'm comfortable with it. Make sure you are too before you do anything similar.