Sunday 12 January 2014

Summary of December 2013

Summary, December, 2013, Me vs DAX

Due to my illness this report is coming out later than usual but still... here it is. I was hoping to make a nice transfer to my stock account but due to poor financial planning in my own company I do not dare to transfer any money from my salary and even worse I will most likely be forced to sell shares due to that I must give my company a credit besides from that I must yet again step down to the minimum of survival salary that I already had since July. Grrrr!

I must admit one thing though and that is that a good thought was formed in my head due to this situation that I am now in. The trouble I have is which shares do I sell? Should I sell the loser Asian Bamboo and take the loss given that according to German tax rules I can carry that loss "eternally" and counter it against future profits. In Sweden you must sort those things out at the end of the year which creates a silly situation of people buying and selling stocks to counter losses with profits. Part of my problem is however that by selling Asian Bamboo I am not getting in enough money for the credit I have to give so I would need to tap at least also a second stock. This is one of the worst situations you can be in as an investor. Being forced to sell shares. I hate it!


There is a German saying that goes "langer Rede kurzer Sinn" meaning "to cut a long story short" but since it is commonly used by people that have already been talking for an hour and then try to sum that up in a few additional words I have re-made it into "langer Rede keiner Sinn" meaning "a long talk without any sense" due to one of our clients that both love to talk long as well as saying "langer Rede kurzer Sinn" before going on ten more minutes. So now really here comes the report...


The total invested value was up at 34,414 € and the latest investment made was to increase my position in K+S. Lately apparently due to that BlackRock has started to buy into K+S the share price has increased a little.


The current value of my stock portfolio is at 30,910 € so (-3,505 € or -10.2% if you prefer). There are only a couple of euro in cash on the account since I made a new classic beginners mistake and decided to take stock as dividend from BP which means I did get 4 more stocks which is ok but what I was not aware of was that for getting that I had to pay a provision of 19.9 € (when I make normal trades up to 3,000 € I pay 7.9 € so 19.9 € was not at all in my mind and especially not for four shares which I then ended up paying double for...) no wonder they have been trying to push me to accept to take shares as dividend each quarter and now I know why.


DAX did of course better than me but it only increased by 0.35% in December and went from 9,402 to 9,435. For me I dropped even further down mainly due to Asian Bamboo taking another trip to the bottom of the well which means my month ended with -1.9% from the previous month and in total from the investment start my portfolio was down by -10.2% while DAX is up by over 36%.

In the year 2013 my portfolio grew by almost 40% due to the addition of fresh cash when it was possible. I would love to see something similar in 2014 but then I am afraid that must come from that my stocks increase in value since monthly additions of fresh cash will be hard in the direct future.

For the full portfolio report please go here and if you have suggestions for stocks that I should analyse then please go here. If you do write a comment then it will not appear directly because I always screen it first and as soon as I have done that it will be published.

6 comments:

Chris Bailey said...

Less than two weeks into the year provides a great opportunity to take a look at each of your portfolio constituents and ask 'where do i have conviction?' A simple division between low, mid and high conviction stocks for the future (forget historic profits or losses - they just 'anchor' your thoughts).

It is unfortunate that you need to sell a share or two but by dividing your holdings into conviction levels, i hope it will allow you more easily to make a decision.

What do you estimate your 2013 performance was excluding the impacts of cash in / out?

Keep on going. Investment is 90% perspiration, 10% inspiration.

Fredrik von Oberhausen said...

Sounds like a good advice Chris thanks!

Currently I have entered the living on "air and love" modus to try to scrape together the money needed without being forced to sell any shares. It will be tough but doable.

2012 was -0.1% and 2013 was -10.1% so not very good! Hahaha! 2014 can only get better and hopefully if a larger correction arrives my poor performing stocks will theoretically be hit slightly less. Future will tell!

Falk said...

If I had you sell at least one of your stocks, it would be Commerzbank.

Not because of the fundamentals, but mainly because of the lousy management, as you already stated here.

So, take your (current) profits and Run, Forrest. Run!

Fredrik von Oberhausen said...

Hahaha, yeah, maybe I should run from Commerzbank but today I consider the management of Asian Bamboo to be worse.

The management of Commerzbank looked after their own interest but they did not speculate the future of the company while doing that. As long as fundamentals remain acceptable one should also keep owning the shares.

Asian Bamboo have however speculated the entire future of the company by stepping into a completely new field and did then also change the fundamentals which should directly be a sale.

So if any then Asian Bamboo will be kicked out... however I will try to bring up the money without being forced to sell any shares.

PoomK said...

Hi Fredrik

Personally I have two portfolio performance charts for myself. One is the chart since inception, the other is from the beginning of the year. It helps me a lot to realize how bad I did, and when did that happen.

Have a great performing year in 2014!

Fredrik von Oberhausen said...

Hi PoomK,

yeah that sounds like a good idea. I will try to implement that for next years summary.