Summary of July 2018

It has been a warm, warm summer. It makes me appreciate that I do not live in warmer countries because it is truly a nightmare that drives down productivity to non existing levels unless the Air Cons are continuously on. Happily they are for the benefit of my power companies and I expect to see surprisingly good results from them this summer.

As you have recently seen I am preparing myself for the upcoming divorce. Cash has to be liberated as preparation for the divorce even though I doubt it will have finished before July 2019. The enforced separation period as well as divorce will pretty much last as long as the marriage did. Well done legal system for keeping up with society in general. A lesson has been learnt that I will take with me for the rest of my life. In the next 6M there will most likely not be made any further investments to build up additional cash.

Work is going very well as always lately and the next month will be filled with excitement. Things like this makes tedious to look for new jobs and even more so to actually take one. Work:Life balance is however very bad since a long time.

For the previous summary please visit Summary of June 2018 and here you can see my stock portfolio as it is.

The total invested value is now up at: 104,308 €. No further investments were made.

The value of the portfolio is today: 109,178 € and spread out I now have around 854 € in cash on the different accounts. I have a realised gain of 4,275 € and the unrealised gain is now at: 4870 € (4.5%) which is not good at all.

DAX is now up at 12,616 point which means it has increased by 2.2% while my own portfolio managed to increase with only 1.0% in the same period.

Conclusion: DAX did much better than me during the month of July. I look forward to a boring, boring period in my life when I will not be able to invest any money for a long period of time. But, hopefully, I will not need to decrease my holdings any further but will manage to deal with any upcoming costs from savings. This marriage lasted a little over 2 years and will, investment wise, set me back for well over 3 years.

Dividends from Nike, ABF, ETF Oil: July 2018

For my 40 shares in Nike I received a total of 6.83 € in dividends. From this was taken 1.02 € in taxes and I was left with 5.81 € as cash on my broker account.

To find out more about Nike then please click here.

For my 100 shares in ABF I received a total of 13.19 € in dividends. From this I received 13.19 € as cash on my broker account.

To find out more about ABF then please click here.

For my 185 parts in ETF Oil (owned by BlackRock) I received a total of 51.11 € in dividends which was paid out directly to my broker account.

To find out more about ETF Oil then please click here.

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

Stocks sold July 2018: ABF, Hugo Boss, Fast Retailing, CEZ, Fugro, ETF Austria, ETF Portugal

Due to the upcoming divorce I have decided to clean up my portfolio and to liberate cash. On top of this I will most likely not make any further investments for the coming half year to build up additional cash to pay for legal costs as well as to be able to transfer money to my soon to be ex-wife. The process cannot be started up until in November-January 2019 and the process will most likely take six months. So besides from building up the necessary cash to make sure that nothing further will be required it is better for me to spend money and to live a life of extravagance. It will be very difficult to convert my mindset but then again I should start dating again and that is never cheap.

I have also started to think seriously about marriage. In the past there were tax benefits, there was a protection for the housewife and the children but today in most countries these "benefits" neither exists nor are they needed. Both husband and wife are educated and earn their own living, children are protected by the society in general as well as other regulations so why should one then get married?

I will never marry again. If my, hopefully, future partner want to receive some form of security then that will be dealt with by writing a last will and testament. Both will of course write these and they can be signed in the presence of witnesses and afterwards one can have a "wedding-like" party. If the relationship will not work out then these documents can be ripped apart and in the meantime you and your partner can have a similar protection as if you were married. This is my idea to circumvent the old fashioned regulatory system that exists in most countries in the world today. Am I wrong?

Sold due to upcoming divorce as well as had being bought in a very annoying broker account that I tried out and was not very happy with.

I sold 77 shares (I still own 100 shares) that I bought for 2144.30 € and after fees I ended up with 2148.20 € on my broker account that was swiftly closed down after this sale.

This investment was made back in October 2016 which means that my holding period was 23 months and I made a 0.2% profit on this and no dividends has been accounted here.

To follow the journey of ABF please click here.

Sold due to divorce but also since they had pretty much reached the 30% profit target that I wanted them to reach on top of things.

I sold all my 35 shares that I had bought for 2136.00 € and after fees I ended up with 2701.29 € on my broker account.

The initial investment was made in January 2017 which means that my holding period was only 19 months and in this period I made a profit of 26.5% as well as receiving almost 185 € in dividends.

To follow the journey of Hugo Boss then please click here.

Sold mainly due to divorce. I also felt that I had too much in retail and could do with decreasing that quantity slightly.

I sold my 6 shares that I had bought for 2140.00 € and after fees I ended up with 2180.95 € on my broker account.

The initial investment was made in October 2015 which means that my holding period was 34 months and in this period I made a profit of 1.9% and had only received dividends in the size of 43.07 €.

To follow the journey of Fast Retailing then please click here.

Sold due to divorce. I had previously stated that I was not happy with the behaviour of the managers in CEZ especially all the dealings that took place around buying out the coal power plants and coal mines in Germany from Vattenfall. I then said that as soon as the share price had recovered slightly then I would directly sell them off. Many of the power supplying companies have recovered so it was time to get rid of it.

I sold my 100 shares that I had bought for 2142.00 € and after fees I received 2229.10 € as cash on my broker account.

The initial investment was made in April 2014 which means that I had a 52 months holding period of this company. During this period I made a profit of 4.1% and I was additionally paid out 559 € in dividends which is not so bad.

To follow the journey of CEZ then please click here.

Sold due to divorce. Probably the wrong moment to sell this company but I am not impressed with how few orders they managed to bring in considering that the oil price have been higher now for well over a year. So it felt good to clean it out of the portfolio.

I sold my 120 shares that I had bought for 2166.00 € and after fees I received 1392.70 € out as cash on my broker account.

The investment was made back in September 2014 which gives me a holding period of 47 months and during this period I have made a loss of 36% and I have received no dividends.

To follow the journey of Fugro then please click here.

Sold due to divorce. The Austrian index (ETF Austria held by DB) had increased by around 40% and have remained there for a while. It was time to leave this investment.

I sold my 80 parts that I had bought for 3083.00 € and after fees I received 4356.12 € put as cash on my broker account.

The investment was made in March 2015 and I therefore have a holding period of 41 months. During this period I have made a profit of 43.1% and on top of that I have received 215 € in dividends.

To follow the journey of ETF Austria then please click here.

Sold due to divorce. The Portugal index (ETF Portugal held by Commerzbank) have not increased enough but I needed a bit more money and for this reason I decreased my holding slightly.

I sold 380 parts that I had bought for 2264.80 € and after fees I received 2485.04 € out as cash on my broker account.

The investment was initially made back in March 2016 and I therefore have a holding period of 29 months. During this period I have had a profit of 9.7% and I have received no dividends.

To follow the journey of ETF Portugal then please click here.

My average holding period for sold shares are now at: 35 months, almost 3 years.

Any changes will be brought into the stock portfolio upon the next update in the very end of the month.

Stock bought July 2018: ETF Greece

As has been previously mentioned I am not able to make the full investment due to all the monthly costs that have arrived during June/July and fingers crossed that I will be able to do it next month! The ETF Greece have gone down a little bit further but then again so has pretty much everything in Europe.

I increased my position with 170 more parts at a total cost of 1,347.70 € which includes a fee of 12.91 €. I now have a total of 450 parts at a total cost of 3,662 €. I now own ETFs to a total cost of 29,883 €.

To take a look at my current Stock Portfolio then please click on the link. The portfolio will however not be fully updated until the end of the month.

Summary of June 2018

I am currently sitting in a country that I never again wanted to live in, in a large house in the middle of nowhere and I had to leave my company in Berlin, my baby, all because I was kind towards my wife and she could no longer stand being in a large city. She is now working in one of the major cities in Germany, apparently that is now ok again, and she wants to have a divorce. Oh, she is at least close to her family and friends while I have neither here in the UK. No prenup was made so shame on me.

Work wise everything is fine. My boss have now started to prepare me for taking over his role in the company. Currently that extra work load is wearing me down slightly but I can still manage. My teams have three projects that are crucial to the company and two are progressing above expectations as well as ahead of schedule.

This was the final month of heavy costs so after this one I expect to be able to save around 2k GBP again. Am I then saving for my "wife" to get more money out of me from the divorce?

For the previous summary please visit Summary of May 2018 and here you can see my stock portfolio as it is.

The total invested value is now up at: 119,081 €. During the month I decided to buy some ETF Greece as well as DBAG from dividends. Unfortunately the ETF Greece investments was only a half investment.

The value of the portfolio is today: 123,470 € and spread out I now have around 2,303 € in cash on the different accounts. I have a realised gain of 2,857 € and the unrealised gain is now at: 4,389 € (4%) which is not good at all.

DAX is now up at 12,349 point which means it has only decreased by -3.0% while my own portfolio managed to decrease with only -2.3% in the same period.

Conclusion: I did mildly better than DAX this month. As we all know that is nothing to jump up and done for out of joy because, simply put, so many of my investments are poor performers. The world is still not at peace so there is see no light in the end of the tunnel and if anything things are getting harder.

Dividends from Intel, TJX, IBM and BP: June 2018

For my 135 shares in Intel I received a total of 34.50 € in dividends. From this 5.18 € was removed in taxes and I was left with 29.32 € as cash on my broker account.

To find out more about Intel then please click here.

For my 32 shares in TJX I received in total 10.52 € in dividends. The taxman took 1.58€ from this and I was left with 8.94 € as cash.

To find out more about TJX then please click here.

For my 25 shares in IBM I received 33.22 € in dividends. From this 4.99 € was removed in taxes to support the US economy and I was left with 28.23 € as cash on my broker account.

To find out more concerning IBM then please here.

For my 1,220 shares in BP I received a total of 103.49 € in dividends that were directly paid into my broker account as cash.

To find out more about BP then please click here.

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

Stock bought June 2018: ETF Greece

Since I can only make half investments during the coming months I once again bought some more from the ETF Greece. The price has gone down due to concerns yet again of the southern countries of Europe.

I therefore bought an additional 150 parts at a total cost of 1189.63 € including a 12.73 € fee (I strongly dislike how high it is). This means that I now have a total of 280 parts in ETF Greece at a total cost of 2330 €.

To take a look at my current Stock Portfolio then please click on the link. The portfolio will however not be fully updated until the end of the month.

Stock bought June 2018: DBAG

DBAG has had two poorer quarter reports in comparison to last year. Their work is cyclical in the sense that they step into companies, try to improve them, and then sell them off. This requires that the company is up at a level that makes it worth to sell them on AND that there is a buyer for it. If you have several young companies in the portfolio then there is also no chance to turn them over quickly.

Due to their highly impressive 2017 it appears as if investors that do not really understand what DBAG is doing stepped in which made the share price go up to over 50 €. Two poor quarters and they scatter again by the look of it. For me this means a good opportunity to buy some more shares in a company, that according to me, is fully functional.

I therefore used money that I have received from dividends and I bought 55 more shares at a total price of 1975.04 € which included a 8.9 € fee. I now have 155 shares in DBAG at a total cost of 3989 €.

To find out more about DBAG then please click here.

To take a look at my current Stock Portfolio then please click on the link. The portfolio will however not be fully updated until the end of the month.

Summary of May 2018

May was indeed a very bad month. I had to spend around 950 € to sort out three cars and the pressure is rising to get rid of one of them. Today when I drove home I with the Renault I discovered that I no longer could bring down the electric window on the drivers side. Nightmare! I need to fix it and just let it stand until I get it sold! The unexpected high costs lead to that I could only make a half investment compared to what I prefer to do so I am not please with that! By the look of things I will not be able to make full investments for the next two months besides from reinvestment of the paid out dividends but that I do not like to count because I want to be able to push in around 2k fresh € from my salary each month into stocks.

On top of this we see problems in Italy and Spain. Deutsche Bank is being downgraded and the share price are taking new lows. Our American friend had one of his fits but then again he has been talking about it and he very clearly makes everything that he can to push through what he has said so why does that become such a cold shower? Either way the stock market should fall due to all the things that are going on.

I received a massive amount of my dividends this month which is great but for the monthly report and my comparison to DAX it is horrible since the DAX index always "reinvest" the dividends while I make no correction for the dividends that I get paid out so also in this report I will take a heavy hit.

Work is going ok. I keep looking for something new as you all know but my gosh it is slow and yet I am pretty much open for moving anywhere in the world and I speak 4+ languages. It is funny how things turn out.

For the previous summary please visit Summary of April 2018 and here you can see my stock portfolio as it is.

The total invested value is now up at: 115,903 €. During the month of May I decided to buy some ETF Greece due to the ECBs statements concerning the banks in Greece. Unfortunately it was only a half investment.

The value of the portfolio is today: 122,814 € and spread out I now have around 3911 € in cash on the different accounts. I have a realised gain of 2,857 € and the unrealised gain is now at: 6,996 € (6%) which is not good at all.

DAX is now up at 12,724 point which means it has only decreased by-0.7% which comes to one extent from the reinvestment of dividends while my own portfolio managed to decrease with -2.2% in the same period.

Conclusion: One big problem for me this month was the wonderful Deutsche Bank. I keep going back to how my initial investments back in 2012 have seriously held me back. Either way. I must say that I am chocked that the decrease from last month has not been more serious but i guess that comes from that the rocket went on a bit longer than expected before it completely lost all the thrust because from my monthly high compared to the value of the stock portfolio today is large.

Dividends from RWE, VW, Hugo Boss, BASF, Talanx, Fast Retailing, E.On, H&M, K+S, DB and ETF Russia: May 2018

May has been a massive month when it comes to dividends but I am still far from what I need to get for securing retirement.

From my 330 shares in RWE I received in total dividends in the size of 495 €. From this the German government happily removed 130.55 € in taxes and I was left with 364.45 € as cash on my broker account.

To find out more about RWE then please click here.

In VW I have 12 shares and in total they paid out 47.52 €. Also here taxes were removed in the size of 12.53 € and I received out 34.99 € in cash.

To find out more about VW then please click here.

Also Hugo Boss paid out dividends and for my 35 shares I received in total 92.75 €. Germany once again took taxes in the size of 24.46 € and I received a total of 68.29 € as cash.

To find out more about Hugo Boss then please click here.

The wonderful chemical company BASF paid out dividends on my 80 shares in the size of 248 €. In this case I paid 38.43 € in taxes and therefore received 209.57 € paid out as cash on my broker account.

To find out more about BASF then please click here.

My only insurance company Talanx paid out 112 € for my 80 shares and from this was taken 29.54 € in taxes which left me with 82.46 € in cash.

To find out more about Talanx then please click here.

For my 6 shares in Fast Retailing I received a gift of 9.18 €. On this I paid 1.41 € in taxes which left me with around two beers or 7.77 € in cash.

To find out more about Fast Retailing then please click here.

My 400 shares in E.On gave be 120 € in dividends even though they probably could have used that money more wisely. From this was taken 31.65 € in taxes and I received 88.35€ in cash on my broker account.

To find out more about E.On then please click here.

For my 603 shares in H&M I received a total of 285.34 € in dividends. From this was taken 35.49 € in taxes and I received 249.85 € as cash in my hand.

To find out more about H&M then please click here.

My only mining company K+S paid out 84 € in dividends for my 240 shares. The German government once again comes with their little fingers and removed 22.15 € which gives me in the end 61.85 € as cash on my account.

To find out more about K+S then please click here.

These guys could and should really not have paid out a dividend but still for my 420 shares in DB I received a total of 46.20 €. From this 12.18 € went to taxes and I was left with 34.02 € in cash.

To find out more about DB then please click here.

My 550 shares in ETF Russia reinvested a total of 101.16 € and no taxes were paid out on this.

To find out more about ETF Russia then please click here.

That was everything for the month of May I wish that it would be like this every month.

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

Stock bought May 2018: ETF Greece

Some weeks ago ECB finished their stress test of the banks in Greece. There were some commotion around it because one CEO stepped down etc. but the general information given by ECB was that they all passed the stress test. Unfortunately the index in Greece is to a large extent dominated by their banks and if they would not live up to the requirements by ECB then the index would be far, far away from any form of recovery. Now at least there is a chance for this to happen. Looking into the financial statement of the banks then they are still not doing well but my thought is that if they have now passed the requirements of the ECB then they can reallocate their resources elsewhere which would for instance be into making money.

I think that I might still be a couple of years too early with this investment but sometimes it is good to make it so that one keep watching it. On top of things I hardly had any money this month due to two reasons: Break down of cars and being forced to repair them and secondly massive, for me, expenses that I must carry for the company. I doubt that next month will be better.

I therefore bought 130 parts at a total cost of 1127.69 € including fees.

To take a look at my current Stock Portfolio then please click on the link. The portfolio will however not be fully updated until the end of the month.

Summary of April 2018

April was very interesting. It started off pretty bad but lately things have just gone a like a rocket on the stock market. The German banks keep pulling down my stock portfolio as they have done since 2012. It has been said many times and I can only agree... never underestimate the time it takes for a turn-around to actually turn around.

My work is going very well. I am and have been for some time overloaded so I have decided to take a week in my summerhouse to clear my mind and to be able to focus on finding a new job. At the moment I, just to stay afloat, I have not had the time to search and apply for new jobs as well as I would have liked to.

Both my cars are now giving me plenty of sorrow. I went to the garage to pick it up hopefully fixed and with an MOT finished only to realise that they had forgotten to make the MOT. I took it anyway but after driving 50 meters I had to bring it back due to the breaks being completely messed up... sigh... The other car, my Renault, have recently started to just shut down the engine at stop lights etc. and once that happens then I am almost unable to get it started again. Last night it did not start and I had to call AA that arrived after 3 hours of waiting only to say that they could not fix it for me. Grrr... Only once have a proper AA repair mechanic arrived to help me out and it was excellent service every other time it has been "outsourced" to a company that clearly are not as competent. I therefore do not hold AA in high regards here in the UK.

For the previous summary please visit Summary of February 2018 and here you can see my stock portfolio as it is.

The total invested value is now up at: 114,776 €. During the month of April I picked up some more of ETF Russia simply because the Russian economy is so dependent on it and the price for oil keeps going up.

The value of the portfolio is today: 124,094 € and spread out I now have around 4,025 € in cash on the different accounts. I have a realised gain of 2,857 € and the unrealised gain is now at: 9,319 € (8%) which is not good at all but the saga continues.

DAX increased a lot during April and is now up at 12,820 point which means it increased by 6.8% while my own portfolio only increased by 5.7% in the same period.

Conclusion: DAX did better once again. The German banks keep dragging me down and on top of that my massive investment in ETF Portugal is not moving as I would have liked. I need to make a new investment in the coming two weeks but I still do not know what to buy.

Dividends from Nike and ETF Oil: April 2018

From my 40 shares in Nike I received a total of 6.49 € in dividends. On this I paid 0.97 € in taxes and I was left with 5.52 € in cash on my broker account.

To find out more about Nike then please click here.

For my 185 parts in the BlackRock oil ETF I received a total of 30.65 €. On this I paid no taxes and everything is available as cash on my broker account.

To find out more about my ETF Oil please click here.

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

Reflection on companies

The annual reports started with the British sugar, food and retail company Associated British Foods and ended with

the Russian car producer Avtovaz. This marks the end of the annual reports as well as the analysis of the individual companies that I currently hold in my portfolio.

What we can see is that the German banks are still not doing well six years down the line from the initial investment. We have seen that the German electricity companies are having a great year and on top of that are shaking up the entire market. We have seen that some retail companies have been highly successful and others have not. With the chemical companies we have to draw the same conclusion as for retail. The oil companies are doing well but not the oil service companies because they are still struggling as are the mining companies connected to agriculture. The american companies were hit by massive taxes but were besides from that doing very well which is a promising signal for 2018 especially since they will now pay less taxes.

I now hold 25% of my investment portfolio in ETFs and 35% if I include the company pension scheme that I am involved in. I am not yet up at 50% which I would have liked to be but I am moving towards it with giant leaps at the moment since I am saving over 60% of my salary each month. June will however become a month will a lower savings %-age since I big block of annual bills will arrive then.

I once again took a look at my biggest failed investment which was Asian Bamboo to remind myself concerning the size of that failure that I had so early in my portfolio build up period and how long that has had an impact. If only I had started with ETFs instead of making the inverse journey. I saw the signs in Asian Bamboo and yet I did not have the confidence to react on it. Is confidence the correct word? Did I remain due to curiosity? Due to my initial, very stupid, buy rule that I then had? In the final stages I remained due to that I considered that it was hardly even worth it to sell the shares before I finally did push the sell button. In general those initial investments have all performed extremely poorly for me and have lead to a long term drag on the portfolio that I still today have problems to catch up with. 

With each failure I have tried to tweak my investment approach. Is that wrong? Should the focus instead be to look upon the good investments and make up rules based on what I then saw before I made the investment? MüRe, Adidas, Enel and Deere were all great buys but should I have sold them? MüRe and Adidas I definitely should not have sold while I am still not certain when it comes to Enel and Deere. Kernel was a perfect sale but should I have bought it in the first place? One thing is for certain... it is not easy.

Analysis of Avtovaz 2018

Company: Avtovaz 

ISIN US05453R1014 | WKN 576848

Business: A Russian automotive company. They are the biggest personal car producer in Russia with their own brand, Lada, as well as having production for, for instance, Renault and Nissan which are their largest shareholders. Today they have almost 20% of the Russian market and they hope to increase that as well as increasing export.

Active: In 46 countries with the biggest market being Russia.

P/E: -6.9

Here you can find the previous analysis of Avtovaz 2016... missed last year.

The P/E is bad with -6.9 due to losses and the P/B is equally bad with -1 which gives a clear no go from Graham. Earnings to sales, ROE and book to debt ratio due to losses as well as having negative equity.

In the last five years they have however shown an excellent yearly revenue growth rate of 5% which gives us a motivated P/E of 13 to 18. I am unable to make a statement since they are making losses.

They spend money on R&D which is good but what is crucial for Avtovaz moving forward is of course increased sales and cost control.

They, correctly so, pay out no dividends.

Conclusion: Graham says no and so do I. Is there a future for Avtovaz? I tend to think so but without any earnings it is very difficult to give them a reasonable valuation today. I will remain as a grumpy shareholder due to the loss of Bo Inge Anderson.