Deere report Q1 2016

Here comes the first big ball dropper for this year and that is Deere. Due to their broken accounting year I have completely missed the Q1 as well as the Q2 report. To catch up and to keep it "correct" I will report the first quarter now.

Avtovaz report Q1 2016

The destroyer of my heart and soul Avtovaz arrived with their awful first quarter report. I still hesitate over what to do with this company. Hard decision and for this reason it remains as part of my portfolio.

TJX report Q1 2016

The American off-price giant TJX arrived with their quarter report probably a long time ago but to be honest I hardly noticed it. The share price of these american giants are anyway moving as quickly as a sea turtle on the beach so there would not have been much to tell anyway.

RWE report Q1 2016

My fourth and final electricity company have also arrived with their Q1 report for 2016. As always I no longer remember or even care how the share price moved during the release of the report. I never follow the analysts forecasts before the release of the report so why should I care how they afterwards adjust it. Either way the development has been awful since I stepped in as is very often the case.

Enel report Q1 2016

My Italian success story Enel arrived with their Q1 report not that long ago. The report was like most other utilities companies speaking of much less sales.

E.On report Q1 2016

E.On was one of the very first investments that I made back in 2012. Needless to say that the development has been awful. Back then I thought that E.On was in the utility business of providing customers with electricity and gas. Today I consider them to be in the adjustment business. If the results do not fit then simply adjust the past, present or future to give you what you want.

Cez report Q1 2016

Cez has for a long time been pushed down just like all the other utilities which means that I have a pretty big red figure in connection with this company. What happened upon the day of the release I no longer remember.

Aquamarine Capital: Guy Spier Q1 2016

Guy seems to have put on the spending trousers and ran out buying everything he could find after the disaster with Horsehead. I hope that he has corrected his checklist so that these kind of things will not happen with the new investments.

New holdings were:

Enlink - An American natural gas company

Ferrari - An Italian origin car producer that were spun-off from Fiat Chrysler not that long ago.

Moodys - An American crook company that provides credit "ratings" based on the highest bidder/payer. They have still to be punished for their part in the last financial crisis.

Seritage - An American REIT.

For the previous report please click on Aquamarine Capital: Guy Spier Q4 2015.

Conclusion: Extreme activity! Extreme! Four new investments and one kicked out which comes form that they went bust... but still. I cannot tell if this activity comes from a desperate attempt to cover the losses quickly or if it simply comes from that the share prices dropped down very nicely in February which every value investor could and should have profited from.

Source: SEC

Pershing Square: William Ackman Q1 2016

Enhanced activity by William during this last quarter! One of his investments, Valeant, have received a lot of bad publicity as well as being trashed by the Berkshire boys for conducting and using a business plan without any sense of moral. Are the old boys correct? I tend to think so.

One new holding arrived this time:

Nomad - a frozen food company that are currently head quartered on the British Virgin Islands and we all know why a company is sitting there...

For the previous report please visit Pershing Square: William Ackman Q4 2015.

Conclusion: William kept adding into Valeant with their highly questionable business model as well as did he enter into a new holding, Nomad, sitting on the British Virgin Islands... I would not follow in his footsteps.

Source: SEC

K+S report Q1 2016

This report from K+S was a bomb drop that I did not expect at all. The response from the market has been more or less nothing which should mean that they anticipated it while I did not. This is not something that change my opinion about the company it is only interesting to observe how things are playing out.

Adidas report Q1 2016

The report was fairly well accepted if I remember correctly but even the days before it arrived they went out with new guidance for the year with increased revenue and earnings. The share price have moved from around 100 € to around 110 € due to these latest news.

Coba report Q1 2016

The share price of Commerzbank have been drifting downwards for the last couple of weeks so I therefore assume that the expectations on Coba were higher than what they managed to deliver. What was then in the report?

Greenlight Capital: David Einhorn Q1 2016

David seems to have relaxed a little again and he did not jump into as many companies as he did the quarter before. With his five new additions (which actually only means that he holds these companies over the quarter change and he might have traded and held many more companies during the course of the the quarter) he is back to his "normal".

For the previous report please visit Greenlight Capital: David Einhorn Q4 2015.

The new additions were:

Community Health Systems Inc - An American healthcare company that owns leases and operates hospitals.

Globalstar - An American company that are producing satellite phones and providing the satellite net to run it.

Hatteras Financial Corp - An American REIT.

Lamar Advertising - An American advertising company.

PVH Corp - An American apparel company. They own the brands Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, SPEEDO etc.

BASF report Q1 2016

The first quarter has passed also for BASF and their report is out. I no longer remember the response from the market but generally the share price for BASF has been kept at a low level which is favourable for those interested in an excellent investment in the years to come.

Dalal Street: Mohnish Pabrai Q1 2016

Extreme activity from Mr. Pabrai even though he was forced to some of it which I am sure that he is not happy about.

For the previous summary please visit Dalal Street: Mohnish Pabrai Q4 2015.

The new holdings were:

Ferrari - An Italian origin car producer that were spun-off from Fiat Chrysler not that long ago.

Seritage - An American REIT.

Conclusion: Horsehead is "out" because they went bust or as close as one can get... I am still amazed that this happened and I would love to find out more how this could happen. Due to an interview that I saw with Mr. Spiers he claimed it come from him NOT evaluating the investments as time was passing and that he has now implemented this procedure... the question is if it was the same reason for Mr. Pabrai... 

Source: SEC

Fugro report Q1 2016

Fugro arrived with their Q1 report which is a trading update that contains... well... not much. The share price started, if I remember correctly, diving down again after this report had been published. Mr. Market had different expectations than what Fugro delivered.

Berkshire Hathaway: Warren Buffett Q1 2016

Also this time around there were not any hidden companies or at least I suspect that there were no hidden companies. The activity was good with a bit added here and there.

The new holding:

Apple - An American giant working with design of technological products as well as having being a growing service company.

DB report Q1 2016

The report from Deutsche Bank arrived some time ago and the market was happy to see it. Why one wonders? Well, they expected DB to make a big loss in Q1 and they ended up reporting some earnings. Correct or not? Who knows! With the twist of the magic wand banks can create value as they see fit.

Dividend from Adidas: May 2016

One of the benefits with a world brand like Adidas is that there is no reason to explain what the company is doing. Everyone knows.

For my 35 shares I received 56 € from which taxes were removed in the size of 14.77 € and I received as cash on my broker account 41.23 €. The YoC of my Adidas shares are up at 2.8% which I find reasonable.

To find out more about Adidas please click on analysis of Adidas 2016.

to follow the yearly dividend increases please take a look at the Stock Dividend page which will soon be updated.

Dividend from Talanx: May 2016

The German insurance company Talanx have been busy paying out dividends during May. This year they even increased the quantity slightly which is always good news!

For my 80 shares I received in total 104 € which I now have to start paying taxes on and for this reason 15.49 € were removed and I received out as cash 88.51 €. The YoC for Talanx is at 4.9% which I find very good.

To find out more about Talanx then please visit analysis of Talanx 2016 and the Stock Dividend page which will soon be updated if you want to follow my dividend progress.

Dividend from K+S: May 2016

My third agricultural directed company K+S also paid out the dividend during May and this big lump of money I am very happy to receive.

For my 240 shares in K+S I received in total 276 € and I ended up paying no tax on it which means all of it ended up on my broker account as cash. The YoC for K+S is now at 5.3% which I find more than acceptable!

To find out more about K+S then please visit analysis of K+S 2016 and the Stock Dividend page which will soon be updated if you want to follow my dividend progress.

Dividend from Fast Retailing: May 2016

The Japanese retail chain with Uniqlo as the most important brand decided to pay out a dividend that they really should not even bother doing. They do however pay out twice but still... they should use all of it for expansion.

For my six shares I received in total 1,110 JPY which gets converted to 8.94 €. From this I had to pay 15.315% (1.37 €) in taxes and I ended up with 7.57 € on my broker account. I cannot be bothered to calculate the YoC but its bad.

To find out more about Fast Retailing please visit analysis of Fast Retailing.

To see my yearly dividend earnings then please visit the Stock Dividends page that will shortly be updated.

Dividend from Kernel: May 2016

The second agricultural company that I have also paid out dividends recently and that was Kernel. This Ukrainian company keeps improving the situation for themselves but I honestly see no take off.

These days I only have 170 shares left in Kernel and for each and everyone I received 0.25 USD. In total I received 42.50 USD that got converted into 37.19 €. I also here had to pay 15% in taxes which meant 5.58 € and I was left with 31.61 € as cash on my broker account. This gives a YoC of 2.5% which is not good but I accept it for now because it keeps increasing.

To find out more about Kernel please click on analysis of Kernel 2015.

To see my yearly dividend earnings then please visit the Stock Dividends page that has now been updated.

Dividend from Deere: May 2016

I have three companies that are directed towards agriculture and Deere decided to pay out its first quarter dividends to us, the owners.

For my 30 shares I got 0.6 USD per share giving 15.64 € in total once converted to EUR. From this I had to pay 15% taxes which was 2.35 € and in the end I received 13.29 € as cash on my broker account. If this will continue then I am up at a YoC of 3.0% which is less than before which comes from that the EUR has strengthened against the USD.

To find out more about Deere then please visit analysis of Deere 2015 and the Stock Dividend page which will soon be updated if you want to follow my dividend progress.

In England to find a home

Me and my wife are now in England for a week to try to find a new home. This is the first time I am making a serious move with a life partner and I had for this reason not the experience regarding it... It is hard. Things that I do not see, would not see, would not care about she does. She also have a clear opinion about what must be present in this house / apartment.... So... what would personally have taken me maximum three apartments visits before deciding now takes much, much longer time.

It should be repeated here that the plan is to stay for maximum one year in the rented apartment before buying a house. For living somewhere during one year time I really do not care what it look like but she does and for this reason it is also important that we find something that she will like even if it takes a bit longer time.

There are so many nice little villages in the UK and the distances are nothing if traffic runs smoothly. For this reason we are trying to find a nice place in one of those little villages.

Today we will go and see a very promising town house! It is a bit on the expensive side (600 GBP) but it is only 18 km to work and with good traffic it will take 20 minutes to get there with a car. A car is a must here and we will be forced to buy two of them directly in the beginning. I am already worrying about all the costs that we will have to carry during this first month.... the move will be around 5k € to that can be added that we need to start two cash ISA and pay in 2.4k GBP... since we do not have a credit record here in the UK we might even end up being forced to pay the first half year in rent even before entering the apartment... to that comes fees in the size of 300 GBP... and of course the two cars... flights... hotels... etc. etc. It really feels like a never ending story. Besides from the cars and the fees the money will not be lost but they will still need to be brought out on the table during this first month.

Do I have the money? Yes, I do but it is in stocks and I have no intention of selling stocks to pay for my move. Anyway... we will manage since I planned a little a head and started to build up cash.

So... Greetings from the UK - the future home for My Contrarian Adventure.

BP report Q1 2016

The price for the shares and the price for oil seems to follow each other pretty well. Lately the price for oil has increased which have pushed up the share prices... in the last week or so the oil price have again started to drop a little and surprise, surprise so did the share price of BP.

Dividend from BASF: May 2016

The German chemical company BASF paid out dividends even though 2015 was not a good year which was based on their 500 million € employee party as well as a decreasing oil price.

For my 47 shares I received a total of 136,30 € in dividends and I was not forced to pay any taxes which means that all of it was directly paid out as cash on my broker account. My YoC for BASF is currently at 4.5% which I find very good!

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

To see my yearly dividend earnings then please visit the Stock Dividends page that has now been updated.

Analysis of Vonovia 2016

Company: Vonovia (new on DAX since 2015)

ISIN DE000A1ML7J1 | WKN A1ML7J

Business: A German residential property owner. They currently hold over 360,000 residential units in what they claim to be the highly attractive German market. They are currently the largest listed residential company in Europe and it was due to a merger between Deutsche Annington and GAGFAH.

Active: Germany

P/E: 14.8

Analysis of VW 2016

Company: Volkswagen 

ISIN DE0007664039 | WKN 766403 

Business: A German automobile manufacturer. The are still producing motorcycles, cars, trucks, large-bore diesel engines, turbochargers, turbo machinery, compressors and chemical reactors. They are however most famous for their cars and here are the Volkswagen brands. The next time you go for a spinn with your Ducati remember it is a Volkswagen you are sitting on and never forget that the many will always beat the few in the end... one way or the other. 

Active: World wide with sales in 153 countries. 

P/E: -40.7 (P/E5: 5.7)

VW annual report 2015

How they mighty shall fall and especially how quickly it happens. 2015 was a tough year for Volkswagen and the share price have dropped dramatically during the year based on the discovery of the cheating. It is interesting to see how one man, the CEO, can destroy a company so quickly by doing what they think is correct and probably thinking and believing that they are excellent leaders. Mr. Winterkorn, in the end, proved to be such an incompetent leader that not only did he not know what was happening under his command but he built a culture that scared people from speaking up. That takes plenty of ignorance, arrogance and incompetence to accomplish that over so many years. That said... over the years with him as the captain he did accomplish an amazing journey for VW and it is a pity that it ended like it did because now he will most likely be remembered only for how it ended. It is a tough balancing act and one probably needs to reinvent oneself when sitting as a CEO for many years in these large companies. Some manage to do this and others do not. For many years he pushed VW into what they are today a force to be reckoned with AND it was the reason why I bought it in the first place. So, yes... he must be blamed... he was the captain... but he did much good and one must remember both.

Analysis of ThyssenKrupp 2016

Company: ThyssenKrupp 

ISIN DE0007500001 | WKN 750000 

Business: A German steel and steel products company. They are still dividend into six business areas: Components Technology (assembled camshafts and ready-to-install net-machined crankshafts and engine components), Elevator Technology (passenger and freight elevators, escalators, moving walks, passenger boarding bridges as well as stair and platform lifts), Industrial Solutions (design and construction of chemical plants, refineries and other industrial facilities), Materials Services (carbon and stainless steel, tubes and pipes, nonferrous metals and plastics), Steel Europe (carbon steel flat products) and finally Steel America (production, processing and marketing of premium carbon steel products). 

Active: Almost in 80 countries world wide. 

P/E: 37.6

Analysis of Siemens 2016

Company: Siemens 

ISIN DE0007236101 | WKN 723610 

Business: A German electrical engineering company. They are divided into divisions and those are: Power and Gas, Wind Power and Renewables, Power Generation Services, Energy Management, Building Technologies, Mobility, Digital Factory, Process Industries and Drives, Healthcare and finally Financial Services 

Active: World wide in over 190 countries. 

P/E: 11.2

Analysis of SAP 2016

Company: SAP 

ISIN DE0007164600 | WKN 716460 

Business: A German software and software related services company. They seem to have a difficult identity crises at the moment have two business lines: Services and the second is Cloud and Software. Cloud and Software have two business lines underneath it and those are: Cloud subscriptions and Support and the second one is Software licenses and Support. But wait... Software licenses and Support ALSO have categories underneath it namely Software licenses and the second one is Software support. Well done SAP. I also very much enjoy how your CEO is greeting the not shareholders but stakeholders with his sunglasses on inside the board room as if it would be a beach in Florida or something. Hopefully there is a medical reason behind it because otherwise...

Active: 190 countries world wide. 

P/E: 28.1