Saturday 18 June 2016

No internet say what?


internet

I wrote this text while I was still in Germany the reason being that I will of course not have any internet in the beginning of my stay in the UK. If everything goes well and according to plan then I will get internet on the 22nd of June but until then I will be living my life in internet-shadow.

It is interesting to observe just how handicapped one feels without internet. Or better put... already now I am dreading that the period of no internet will come and I have worked hard evenings and nights to try to prepare myself for not having internet by storing a lot of car advertisements and the phone numbers and addresses to those car dealers so that we will still be able to look at cars etc.

When one thinks about it then I find it pathetic. I lived so many years without internet and things worked out just fine. So I need to re-calibrate my mind.

Tuesday 14 June 2016

Auf Wiedersehen Germany - Hello UK


Germany, flag

Germany and more specifically Berlin became the town where I spent the longest time in my life as an adult. In the end it became almost a decade. I must admit that I am sad to leave.

I did however never really fit in here and if it would not have been for me having my own company then I would probably have left earlier. It is not that Germany or Germans are bad it was simply not my cup of tea. My way of working fitted ok in the Netherlands and perfectly in France but less so here in Germany. It will be interesting to see how I will fit in the UK.

Usually in research and development today there is a lot of talk about optimization, quality control, quality management, GMP, Lean, Six Sigma etc. In my lab I established a concept that I called "Quick and Dirty" or short "Q&D". Sometimes the world seems to forget that new products only arrive by doing new things and part of that process is NOT optimization, quality control, Lean etc. All those things comes afterwards. Additionally, spending time in meetings talking about new products will also not generate new products but five minutes of Q&D in the lab will. These are the kind of things that makes me not really fit into the German scientific world.

Outside of work life in Germany is fine. Food tastes good and you get plenty of it. They have a heavy bureaucracy which sometimes you hate and sometimes you love based on how your current interaction is progressing. German people are kind and hard working savers that unfortunately have yet to discover stocks and the stock market. 

I was on my way to write that Berlin is special but I decided to change it into that Berlin was special. The reason for this is that today there is much less that is special about Berlin than what is "normal" in Berlin. Give it another couple of years and Berlin will be a large München or Frankfurt. I missed the golden era of Berlin which was from the fall of the wall to the millennium and I was here during the intermezzo where some parts where still different and special and other parts had already become completely gentrified. Try to find a place in Berlin today that is not gentrified...

Due to my personality I did not profit from Berlin as I could have. In the middle of the process I also discovered and was forced to start investing which then also caused me to profit less from Berlin because especially in the beginning when you start living very frugal it is hard to find a balance and one very often goes frugally too extreme. I did for many years and only recently have I started to change a little concerning this matter which most likely comes from me tossing out around 15k € for starting our new life in the UK. Much of it will come back but psychologically once you start to toss out those quantities of money it seems to be "easy" to just keep pushing out more money. I will need to step on the break once we are in the UK to regain control of the situation.

I was once told by a french person that I should never say "Adieu" because that meant to never meet again and therefore to Germany and Berlin I will say "Auf Wiedersehen" and at the same time I say "Hello" to the UK!

the UK, flag

Saturday 11 June 2016

Dividend from E.On: June 2016


E.On, a Germany energy giant.

I must say that I was a little confused when I discovered this dividend payment on my broker account... I hoped and expected that it would be the same as last year and that I would be able to take the dividend in the form of shares. Apparently this was not the case and the dividend was paid out as cash.

For my 400 shares I received 200 €. From this was taken 52.75 € in taxes and I received 147.25 € paid out as cash on my broker account. The YoC for E.On is around 4% which is ok but should have been much better based on the holding time that I got on this one.

To find out more about E.On please visit analysis of E.On 2016.

To check out my current dividend payment history then please visit the Stock Dividends page which has now been updated.

Wednesday 8 June 2016

Dividend from TJX: June 2016


TJX, an American off-price retail giant

The off-price retail chain TJX dropped their bombshell (empty) of a dividend during this month.

For my 32 shares I received a total of 8.32 USD which gave 7.41 €. From this was removed 1.89 € in taxes and I received 5.52 € paid out as cash on my broker account. The YoC is still around 1.2%.

To find out more about TJX then please visit analysis of TJX 2016.

To check out my current dividend payment history then please visit the Stock Dividends page which has now been updated.

Tuesday 7 June 2016

Dividend from Intel: June 2016


Intel, an American processor company

The second quarter dividend from Intel arrived during the beginning of June.

I received also this time 35.10 USD for my 135 shares which got converted into 31.37 € so either the € got stronger or the $ got weaker... take your pick. I was forced to pay taxes in the size of 8.01 € and I received 23.36 € out as cash on my broker account. My YoC is still around 4.9%.

To find out more about Intel please visit analysis of Intel 2016.

To check out my current dividend payment history then please visit the Stock Dividends page which has now been updated.

Monday 6 June 2016

Summary of May 2016


Summary, May, 2016

I must admit that this summary dropped on me like a bombshell. During the month I have looked very little on the development of the portfolio and individual stocks and for this reason I was unaware of how poorly the result was this month (and yet there is a reason for it). The banks and energy companies are still having a bad time on the stock market and Mr. Market does indeed hate them... not without some justification I must add.

In one week the truck arrive to pick up our stuff. The day after we fly over to the UK, rent a car, sign the contract, pick up the keys and then the day after we greet the moving van when it arrives to our new home.

Wednesday 1 June 2016

German inside trading: May 2016


Germany, inside trading, May, 2016

Since I will freeze my German stock portfolio when I move the the UK I will also not follow the German market as well as I have been doing in the future. With this comes that I will no longer make any insider trading reports concerning the German stock market and I will see if I will manage to start doing that in the UK and then especially if I will manage to find a good source for extracting the information.

This will therefore be the final inside trading report for the German market and I must say that the manages have been pretty active.