Automotive report Q2 2016

Due to that I had missed the filing of VW Q1 report I of course include that in this report. To read the report in full please go here and to read the previous summary then please click on VW annual report 2015 and to find out more regarding VW then please visit analysis of VW 2016.

Conclusion: In Q1 VW did not do very well. The sales revenue were down by a couple of %-age according to them due to exchange rates. They did however deliver more cars. More people seems to be leasing their cars because their financial services showed a nice growth for the quarter. Not so good is the drop in earnings that were around -20%. Still the company made money. I like when my companies make money in each quarter.

In the Q2 report from VW there are some unpleasantness named special items that is in the size of almost -2.5 billion EUR. I do not like special items that decrease results.

Conclusion: They are still pretty flat compared to in 2015 and they keep claiming lowered  revenue due to exchange rates. Without the "special item" the earnings for VW would have been ok but with it, as it is now, we are down by over -35% in earnings which is a lot.

Here we have the report from our Russian friends in Avtovaz that decided last spring to kick out the Swedish CEO. Did they do any better I wonder? For the report in full please go here and to read my previous summary please click on Avtovaz report Q1 2016 and to find out more regarding Avtovaz then please visit Analysis of Avtovaz 2016. 

Conclusion: The sales are down a little for the running half year but they have still not managed to get costs under their control which is bad news. They have a wonderful impairment cost that made me laugh. The new CEO seems to like financial engineering. This huge impairment cost comes from a discounted cash flow model concerning the situation in Russia today and what that might look like in the future and if they will not reach their targets in 2019. So... eh... yeah... let us add that as an impairment cost in the size of 20% of our current revenue because that sounds about correct.

New approach of summarizing Q-reports

To make my life a bit more easier I have decided to group my companies into these seven groups:

Retail

Automotive

Chemical

Energy

Financial

Agricultural

Technology

I will then wait until all of them have reported and then I will make one much briefer report regarding all of them within one group. In the beginning it might be a bit messy because some of them have broken years but when I go to their homepage I will then take what they offer and report on that.

Pershing Square: William Ackman Q2 2016

The activity was very low in Pershing Square during Q2 2016.

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

Conclusion: I would not be chocked if William is spending a lot of his time and energy on trying to save Valeant and for that reason probably many other things are being cast aside which also makes sense because it concerns so much money and so much honour for Mr. Ackman.

Source: SEC

Greenlight Capital: David Einhorn Q2 2016

Relaxation period was over for David. Full speed forward with plenty of actions going on!

For the previous report please visit Greenlight Capital: David Einhorn Q1 2016.

The new holdings are:

Amaya - Online gambling.

Amerco - North America's largest “do-it-yourself” moving and storage operator.

Amerisourcebergen - A distributor of pharmaceutical products.

Arris - A telecommunications equipment company.

Calpine - A power generation company. Mainly gas.

F M C - A service and equipment provider for power companies.

Hertz Global Holding - The car rental etc company.

Perrigo - A pharmaceutical manufacturing company.

Quorum Health - Operates hospitals etc.

Rite Aid - A drug store chain.

Vaneck Vectors ETF - Offer all kind of investments...

Conclusion: 11 new companies added to the portfolio and 10 were kicked out so David was up around 40% turnover of holdings and this only includes the "snap-shot" that we get from SEC. I always get a feeling of desperation when I see these kind of things but I am sure that is wrong.

Source: SEC

Aquamarine Capital: Guy Spier Q2 2016

After all the excitement last quarter it seems as if Guy fell into a coma of some sort. I hope that it will not last for too long.

For the previous report please click on Aquamarine Capital: Guy Spier Q1 2016.

Conclusion: The quarter was very relaxed for Guy Spier but we should also not forget that here we only see what he holds in the US and not the companies and holdings that he has in, for instance, Europe.

Source: SEC

Berkshire Hathaway: Warren Buffett Q2 2016

Warren keeps dancing around but decided not to start any new dances for the quarter. I must say that I was a little surprised with what I saw.

For the previous report please click on Berkshire Hathaway: Warren Buffett Q1 2016.

Conclusion: I am a bit annoyed that they are now selling Deere shares again and the biggest surprise for me was they they have decreased their holding in Walmart with almost 30%! I was not expecting that to ever happen since I thought that was another Coca-Cola for Berkshire Hathaway.

Source: SEC

Dalal Street: Mohnish Pabrai Q2 2016

Mr. Mohnish has done some changes in the portfolio during the last quarter... as always nothing too radical but still.

For the previous summary please visit Dalal Street: Mohnish Pabrai Q1 2016.

The new holding was:

Aercap Holdings - An aviation leasing company that David Einhorn has been invested in since Q2 2014.

Conclusion: So I started up a new one and then he also kicked out WL Ross Holdings which is a position that he started back in Q3 2014 and he added into the position until as late as Q2 2015. I am not certain that Mohnish made a lot of money on that one...

Source: SEC

Dividend from Cez: August 2016

The Czech electricity company that I currently have some issues with paid out a dividend in the size of 4,000 CZK for my 100 shares. This got converted into 145.76 €. From this I paid 35% taxes so 51.02 € which means that I received as cash on my broker account 94.74 €.

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

Dividend from Deere: August 2016

For my 30 shares I received 18.00 USD that got converted into 16.08 €. From this I had to pay 2.41 € in taxes and I ended up with 13.67 € on my broker account as cash. The weaker euro gives me a better cash flow from my American investments.

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.

Summary of July 2016

I must admit that I was not happy when I put together this summary. I thought that my companies had developed much better than what was the case once I had it down in black on white on paper. Yet again my German banks keep disappointing me which they have been doing now for four years already. I have kept pushing more and more money into them and they keep falling lower and lower. It starts to be very frustrating and I am very close to create the rule "no more money into German banks".

Oh, and this summary covers the last two months developments.

I have already written enough updates concerning the work in my new company so I shall say no more of that. In my old company we have still not managed to stabilise the situation but there is money coming in so I hope things will get sorted out.

My wife have still not managed to get a job but now she is gone for two weeks to do some volunteer job to try to get one foot in the door via this approach. I hope that it will work out as she wants. For me this means that I can push work even one step further to make sure that I build up the needed technical knowledge even faster.

Stock bought July 2016: Company A

I am sorry but I am forced to call this Company A since it is the actual company that I am now working in and I prefer to remain anonymous. What was exciting this time was however that when I made this tiny little buy I had to report it as inside trading so that was something completely new. It was also a bit stressful to buy it since the silence period very shortly starting and I had to buy it within a week or I would have to wait for almost two months until I would be allowed again.

The company is traded on that London stock exchange and I bought shares including fees for a value of 2502.87 €.

Latest developments

I hope that all of you are doing well and that you managed to profit from the stock market crash that came with Brexit.

I have still not noticed a change here in the UK but there are reports concerning a more unfriendly environment towards foreigners. It is interesting times that we are living in right now.

This first month at work I have focused on the organisation and the people. I have already made most of the changes for the people and their rolls but I will start to roll out the administrative changes today. I hope it will be ok for them and that I will manage to motivate them to keep pushing forward.

The second month I will spend on learning the technical part as well as the commercial and business models part for product sales. The technical part is not rocket science but I need to push myself especially in one field that I know very little about so that I can answer any question appearing in the future and I must become the person to go to for all those technical matters.

When it comes to buying stocks I am still not really into the game. I will however try in the coming week to get a stock ISA up and running so that I can start to make 1,000 GBP investments each month.

I have the possibility, each month, to push in extra money for my retirement and if I pay in a minimum amount then my company will pay 2% of my salary. I have decided to push in 10% of my salary there so each month I have a retirement fund being built up based on 12% of my salary. I push that into a Global fund 50%, European fund 30% and UK fund 20%. I will over time change the UK fund down to either 10% or maybe even zero and that will then go into the European fund instead. This is tax free and it will lead to me being able to get money back when I make the tax declaration.

This extra retirement money that I push in I will not consider as being part of my contrarian adventure and I will therefore not keep track of it here.