As of 10.02.24 from 01.03.12 - the page has started to mess around
Conclusion: Sold no shares and took out cash from DE broker.
As of 07.01.24 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Sold Skanska, BASF, Netflix, H&M, EasyJet and I bought McDonalds, Berkshire, Burberry, ETF-All World. Took out >10k € from broker account.
As of 01.10.23 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: No investments made, no sales made.
As of 30.06.23 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Minor final May investment made in ETF Mix (final salary from company), sold Talanx and took out both that and build up of dividends from the broker account. I had misreported on my size of ownership between ETF All-World and ETF S&P500. ETF S&P500 is the bigger investment.
As of 12.05.23 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Minor investment made in ETF Mix, major in ETF S&P500 and ETF All-World both from Vanguard and having low fees.
As of 01.04.23 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Minor investment made in ETF Mix.
As of 26.02.23 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Investment made in ETF Mix.
As of 03.12.22 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Investment made in ETF Mix.
As of 06.11.22 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Investment made in ETF Mix, Rio Tinto and ETF EU 600. Intel and Nike have dropped like stones lately which I don't like.
As of 31.07.22 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Investment made in ETF Mix and Restaurant Brands.
As of 02.07.22 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Investment made in ETF Mix and Rio Tinto. Divested Stock X.
As of 03.06.22 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Investment made in ETF Mix and ETF EU.
As of 30.04.22 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Investment made in ETF Mix, ETF EU, Netflix, EasyJet, Restaurant Brands, Yum and Shell was divested.
As of 04.03.22 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Investment made in ETF Mix and ETF EU.
As of 28.01.22 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: No investments made. Stock market down.
As of 07.01.22 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Investments were made into ETF Mix, Rio Tinto and ETF EU.
As of 28.11.21 from 01.03.12
As of 30.10.21 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Investments were made into ETF Mix, Lufthansa and EasyJet. My target has now been reached.
As of 02.09.21 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Investments were made into ETF Mix, Lufthansa and EasyJet.
As of 06.08.21 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Investments were made into ETF Mix and nothing else.
As of 03.07.21 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Investments were made into ETF Mix and Rio Tinto. Majority of shares in Stock X were sold at a -24% loss.
As of 29.05.21 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Investments were made into ETF Mix, ETF Austria (due to closed down ETF Portugal) and Lufthansa.
As of 30.04.21 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Investments were made into ETF Mix and EasyJet. My ETF Portugal went into liquidation so plenty of cash that needs to find a new home.
As of 01.04.21 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Investments were made into ETF Mix, McDonalds and Stock X. Commerzbank dropped due to CEO having to step down due to health reasons. VW is steaming ahead due to their statement about electric cars and Ratos starts to be looked upon as a good investment by the market again.
As of 27.02.21 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Investments were made into ETF Mix, Berkshrie Hathaway, McDonalds and Stock Y. RWE has continued its downward journey as has Intel even though it has started to go up a bit again.
As of 29.01.21 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Only larger investment was made into ETF Mix. Sitting on a bit of cash that needs to be converted into stocks as soon as possible.
As of 29.12.20 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Several investments were made such as ETF Mix, Shell, Stock X and in Stock Y of which Stock X has done very well in a short period of time.
As of 01.12.20 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: It works again! The ETF Mix keeps doing well and an addition and in the meantime investments have been made in ETF Portugal and Shell.
As of 30.09.20 from 01.03.12
This is no longer working. Do not know why but it has started with Googles new blog format. Fascinating how companies takes a working system that they change to be rubbish for the purpose of making it "look more flashy". Didn't anyone learn from Microsoft mistakes concerning this matter?
As of 14.08.20 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: The ETF Mix keeps doing well and an addition was made to my ABF holding.
As of 14.08.20 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Mixed ETF doing well and more Skanska was bought.
This is no longer working. Do not know why but it has started with Googles new blog format. Fascinating how companies takes a working system that they change to be rubbish for the purpose of making it "look more flashy". Didn't anyone learn from Microsoft mistakes concerning this matter?
As of 14.08.20 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: The ETF Mix keeps doing well and an addition was made to my ABF holding.
As of 14.08.20 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Mixed ETF doing well and more Skanska was bought.
As of 03.07.20 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: My mixed ETF continue to do pretty well and no beneficial developments have taken place with my Tessenderlo investment that I decided to increase in during the last month.
As of 29.04.20 from 01.03.12
As of 09.04.20 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: The stock markets have crashed all over the world and everyone sitting on some cash will be able to pick up great stocks or ETFs that will have a glorious future ahead of them.
As of 03.07.18 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: I added one row that has to do with the amount of dividends that I have received over the years because that gets directly reinvested. ETF Greece and DBAG was increased. VW, banks and Intel made nose dives.
As of 01.06.18 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Rough ride with the banks. Oil and energy is still going strong and I hope that the oil price love will spread to the surface companies such as Fugro and Aibel.
As of 05.05.18 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Bought a bit more ETF Russia in the dip that they had. H&M have started to recover a little but that is most likely driven by the Persson family and not because the general stock market hold the company in high regards.
As of 03.04.18 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Bought a couple of BASF stocks which I think will do me well in the long run. Seen massive drops in banks and of course H&M that I went in heavily into. The tech companies in the USA is also not doing very well which adds to the poor performance and the energy stocks have pretty much stopped the nice increase that they started off having.
As of 02.03.18 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Bought more H&M as well as ETF Oil. Both continued down as did the entire market.
As of 29.12.17 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: One new company entered the portfolio, H&M, and additionally I made a significant increase in my ETF Portugal. My shares dropped slightly in valuation during December.
As of 08.11.17 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: No new investments made but my two banks have increased a bit in value to balance many of my other companies that made a slight dip during November.
As of 07.11.17 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: I bought more ETF Portugal and the energy companies are pushing forward as are VW.
As of 06.10.17 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: I have sold two companies: Enel because I found it to be overvalued by the market at the moment and Uniper because of the take over situation. Last time a take over situation happened with one of my shares (K+S) then I did not sell off which lost me a handsome profit of some 3,000 euro. That kind of stupidity will not happen again. Besides from this things seems to go up and up and up and The P/E values starts to be strained in my opinion.
As of 02.09.17 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Due to North Korea, Trump and Brexit the portfolio did not perform well during the month of August. Deutsche bank has once again taken a nose dive.
As of 02.08.17 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Everything was pretty much flat and no real excitement happened during the month.
As of 03.07.17 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Roller coaster which I do not know why it is happening but I do not mind seeing it. Banks starts to be more appreciated as do energy companies.
As of 02.06.17 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: The stock market has increased a little and with it also my stock portfolio. No big changes have happened.
As of 04.04.17 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Nothing much happened. Everything is pretty much flat.
As of 08.02.17 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: I sold Adidas and decided to buy Nike and Hugo Boss instead. I should probably start to decrease the amount of holdings and instead build larger positions.
As of 13.12.16 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Did not buy anything due to lack of money and well... lack of time to find good companies. 2017 will hopefully be the year when I get a bit more back in the saddle compared to what it looks like now.
As of 20.11.16 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: I decided to increase in ABF due to its massive drop in the last couple of months. The banks recovered a little but then directly the energy companies took another beating. It is truly interesting that there is always a industry that I own that gets punished almost each month.
As of 07.10.16 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Especially DB went down again and shockingly also ABF is down like a stone. no new investments were made but I still ended up getting a new stock Uniper.
As of 02.09.16 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: The banks have recovered a little but of course at the same time my second heavy investment groups, electricity, dropped like a stone. so overall poor performance.
As of 04.08.16 from 01.03.12
Comment: Adidas is scary high, scary high indeed and I do not believe that I can get that much more out of it... would this be to sell a flower? Those wicked banks are dropping like stones in quicksand.
As of 03.06.16 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: The poor performance of energy and banks keeps hitting me. Will this story never end? Will they never recover?
As of 02.05.16 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: The EUR/USD is jumping around a little which gives an additional change on the share prices. Besides from this nothing out of the ordinary happened and the share price slowly crawled a bit higher.
As of 01.04.16 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Nothing of interest happened to the holdings and the old performed equally poor during the month.
As of 01.03.16 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: The only "dramatic" things are that Intel has dropped due to that I bought more shares and Tessenderlo made a significant increase up to the around the conversion price that will be paid for Picanol. Besides from that was was down has remained down and what was up stayed up.
As of 01.02.16 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: The two banks that I pushed in more fresh hard earned euros into dropped even further. Especially DB have gone completely out of control. On the other side of the spectra I am getting more and more scared over Adidas. A new, highly successful CEO is coming and obviously the market is pushing up the expectations to a level that is making me very uncomfortable.
As of 01.01.16 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Added on the two banks and there was a general share price decrease during the last month so no specific stocks to complain about.
As of 01.12.15 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: The only addition to the portfolio was some more RWE. My current growing problem is Adidas since they are now up sniffing on a very fair P/E and that I do not like because I do not really want to sell them. I am now once again over the water level (+1%) which is good but still unacceptable.
As of 02.11.15 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Adidas is sneaking up as is Intel. Had no real big disappointment during October but the months before there were plenty enough to cover the entire year.
As of 01.10.15 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Once again the new investment dropped like a stone. This time it was Volkswagen. Well done! The only thing I like is that heads are rolling both there as well as in Deutsche Bank. The difference is that in Volkswagen it took less than a week and in DB it took 7 years. The portfolio kept dropping in value but I sit on plenty of cash since I sold MüRe.
As of 01.09.15 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: My failry fresh investment RWE kept dropping like a stone mainly due to potential risk of cutting dividend. Most stocks dropped besides from the ones not considered to be in distress.
As of 03.08.15 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: ABF have once again started to push higher in share price I just hope that the earnings will follow! K+S have started to fall back again but besides from that minor changes with the companies.
As of 01.07.15 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: K+S did well due to friendly offer but that was it. All the rest did pretty much zitt.
As of 01.06.15 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Many losers this month so let us focus on the good ones instead! ABF has started to go up in value again and Tessenderlo start to look very nice!
As of 04.05.15 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Biggest change was MüRe after the CEO talked down the share price as well as the payment of dividends. For the overall value of the portfolio Deutsche Banks drop also had a strong impact.
As of 01.04.15 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: Biggest changes are that Asian Bamboo is finally sold. ABF and Intel have started to decrease in value which is bad. MüRe and Kernel has done very well during March.
As of 02.03.15 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: As a general comment all of them have kept sneaking up but the biggest sneaker this time is DBAG but it will soon drop again since they pay out dividends in March.
As of 02.02.15 from 01.03.12
Conclusion: The big eye openers this month were MüRe and K+S! Both of them have really started to sneak up higher and higher in valuation. Besides from those two there is really nothing of interest to report.
As of 02.01.15 from 01.03.12
Comment: Asian Bamboo has dropped down to yet lower levels. Both their lending banks in Germany demanded back their loans and the only German board member left the company. General several of the companies went back during December.
As of 01.12.14 from 01.03.12
Comment: ABF has had a crazy month and is now up at level that makes me very, very uncomfortable. DBAG jumped up after their announcement of planning to pay out 2 € in dividend (meaning 0.4 € ordinary + 1.6 € in extra dividend payment). Intel have kept climbing higher (due to USD/EUR as well as improved business) and are getting close to a level that is uncomfortable for me. Eniro has kept dropping during November but all in all it has been a good month for my stock portfolio.
As of 03.11.14 from 01.03.12
Comment: Fugro, IBM, Eniro, DB and Cez all dropped down very nicely in the October depression and has still not recovered. Fugro gets the award of the month with its more than -50% drop. Only good news is that I managed to step into BASF at more or less the October bottom.
As of 01.10.14 from 01.03.12
Comment: ABF have dropped down a little lately but nothing too dramatic. The biggest changes were the three new companies that entered the portfolio which will lead to a more boring month of likely no "real" investment happening.
As of 01.09.14 from 01.03.12
Comment: Asian dropped further, DB, MüRe and Kernel also. The other stocks did not manage to keep things at status quo so therefore the total portfolio dropped by almost -2%.
As of 30.07.14 from 01.03.12
Comment: The biggest difference is the bringing in of IBM and that Intel has jumped up in valuation. Besides from that it is pretty much samo, samo.
As of 01.07.14 from 01.03.12
Comment: Asian Bamboo is staying in the dirt, ABF keeps going up, DB has dropped which has influenced the portfolio a lot this month and Intel has sprinted higher.
As of 02.06.14 from 01.03.12
Comment: Made a readjustment of the towards price for Asian Bamboo. ABF still doing crazy well. The banks have lost plenty of ground this month. Kernel has recovered a little in terms of share price but the situation in Ukraine is still bad.
As of 02.05.14 from 01.03.12
Comment: ABF has jumped up again, Asian is further down, E.On. has also dropped a little and K+S increased slightly. The new stock Cez joined the ranks. I was also forced to move back the cash to my normal account.
As of 01.04.14 from 01.03.12
Comment: Associated British Foods has been dropping a little lately but happily Commerzbank has been doing well to counter that a bit. Enel is really sneaking up as an outsider and the valuation starts to be more interesting.
As of 03.03.14 from 01.03.12
Comment: The month looked good but went sour in the end due to that Putin decided to invade Ukraine were I have one company. ABF keeps going higher and the others are standing still.
As of 03.02.14 from 01.03.12
Comment: Nothing much happened during the month. No new investment made. Most of the stocks were treading water. The Asian Bamboo knife seems to have landed but are still shaking. MüRe goes up to around 160 € and then start to drop again. Commerzbank is working itself upwards and so is ABF. Kernel keeps dropping but there is never any trade happening.
As of 03.01.14 from 01.03.12
Comment: During the month Asian Bamboo dropped down as low as to 0.8 € per share. MüRe has also stepped back a little. Happily ABF, Commerzbank as well as K+S are improving lately and have managed to counter out the big drops.
As of 02.12.13 from 01.03.12
Comment: Associated British Foods is still scary but I collect comfort in the words of Peter Lynch that what troubled him the most was when he watered his weeds and not the flowers. So I will leave it be and keep my fingers crossed that ABF will split of Primark one day in the close future. Asian Bamboo dropped again below 2 € per share and many of my stocks have been standing pretty still. MüRe keep pushing itself higher and higher which pleases me.
As of 01.11.13 from 01.03.12
Comment: Associated British Foods are starting to be too high for my liking and I am uncertain what to do. I seem to like to buy and hold but I feel very uncomfortable when it comes to selling shares. Asian Bamboo is still very much down as well as Commerzbank and now also Kernel.
As of 01.10.13 from 01.03.12
Comment: Asian Bamboo & Commerzbank continued to be pushed down during September. MüRe has started to swing back a little and DBAG has been added as well as the extra cash that I managed to bring in which will pretty soon be consumed in the more consistent buying quantity of stocks for 1000 € per month which means that I should manage to do that for the coming two months now also.
As of 02.09.13 from 01.03.12
Comment: Asian Bamboo once again dropped down. Commerzbank has been climbing up the last month. E.On have also continued to drop even though I was very pleased with the half year report. K+S has been added to the portfolio. Kernel continue to drop but no stocks are being bought and sold and MüRe has dropped with 10% grrrr...
As of 01.08.13 from 01.03.12
Comment: Since I am still pretty fresh with blogging I continuously change things I now managed to bring in the price of the stocks that I expect them to move towards and how far they are from that price in %-age. The new stock Enel was now included. Both DAX and I did pretty well during the month.
As of 01.07.13 from 01.03.12
Asian Bamboo - 950 Shares - 2107.4€ (-69%)
Associated British Foods - 100 Shares - 2025.1€ (+21%)
BP - 350 Shares - 1880€ (-4%)
Commerzbank - 229.9 Shares - 1462.2€ (-55%)
Deutsche Bank - 188 Shares - 6063.5€ (+6%)
E.On - 240 Shares - 2965.3€ (-20%)
Münchener Rückversicherung - 18 Shares - 2560.4€ (+30%)
Intel - 100 Shares - 1833.1€ (+11%)
Kernel Holding SA - 115 Shares - 1228.4€ (-24%)
Invested Value: 28216.6 €
Total Current Value: 22125.3 € (-21.6%)
Cash: 2964 € (12%)
Dax on start of adventure: 6933.2
Dax Current: 7983.9 (+15.1%)
Comment: Biggest changes were that Commerzbank continued further down and Kernel has dropped significantly without any trade happening which is part of the problem with little traded stocks. However it means nothing to the value of the company. I significantly pushed in cash to the deposit and I find it to be too much. I will start to trade a little instead of the 1500 € monthly investments I will decrease it to 1000 €.
As of 03.06.13 from 01.03.12
Asian Bamboo - 950 Shares - 1898.4€ (-72%)
Associated British Foods - 100 Shares - 2142.1€ (+28%)
BP - 350 Shares - 1911.5€ (-2%)
Commerzbank - 230.1 Shares - 1762.6€ (-45%)
Deutsche Bank - 188 Shares - 6725.3€ (+18%)
E.On - 240 Shares - 3063.7€ (-18%)
Münchener Rückversicherung - 18 Shares - 2524.4€ (+28%)
Intel - 100 Shares - 1902.1€ (+16%)
Kernel Holding SA - 115 Shares - 1514.7€ (-6%)
Invested Value: 28216.6 €
Total Current Value: 23444.725 € (-16.9%)
Dax on start of adventure: 6933.2
Dax Current: 8250.8 (+19.0%)
Comment: The big drops this month were correction with Associated British Foods as well as Commerzbank were I due to stupidity did not buy the stocks I wanted. However if it keeps dropping then pretty soon I can buy Commerzbank cheaper then what they offered.
As of 02.05.13 from 01.03.12
Asian Bamboo - 950 Shares - 2135.9€ (-68%)
Associated British Foods - 100 Shares - 2296.1€ (+37%)
BP - 350 Shares - 1943€ (-0.3%)
Commerzbank - 230.1 Shares - 2427.6€ (-25%)
Deutsche Bank - 188 Shares - 6680.2€ (+17%)
E.On - 240 Shares - 3274.9€ (-11%)
Münchener Rückversicherung - 18 Shares - 2648.6€ (+34%)
Intel - 100 Shares - 1825.1€ (+11%)
Invested Value: 26610.2 €
Total Current Value: 23231.3 € (-12.7%)
Dax on start of adventure: 6933.2
Dax Current: 7961.7 (+14.8%)
Comment: The major value decrease of the portfolio was this month due to Asian Bamboo that had a very weak annual report and they were even negative concerning the rest of 2013. I´m still stuck in the decision if it is a value trap or not...
As of 02.04.13 from 01.03.12
Asian Bamboo - 950 Shares - 3959.9€
Associated British Foods - 100 Shares - 2310.1€
BP - 350 Shares - 1897.5€
Commerzbank - 2301 Shares - 2648.5€
Deutsche Bank - 188 Shares - 5881.2€
E.On - 240 Shares - 3366.1€
Münchener Rückversicherung - 18 Shares - 2734.1€
Invested Value: 24965.8 €
Total Current Value: 22797.3 € (-8.7%)
Dax on start of adventure: 6933.2
Dax Current: 7943.9 (+14.6%)
Comment: Strong fluctuations this month. Have still not bought a new stock from the salary and are waiting a little at the moment. If something happens in Korea then all the markets will drop and there will be good moments to buy but I doubt something will happen... As you can see I have still not decided...
As of 01.03.13 from 01.03.12 (one year of investing)
Asian Bamboo - 950 Shares - 4808.9€
Associated British Foods - 100 Shares - 2140.4€
BP - 350 Shares - 1802.5€
Commerzbank - 2301 Shares - 3230.6€
Deutsche Bank - 188 Shares - 6316.8€
E.On - 240 Shares - 3046.8€
Münchener Rückversicherung - 18 Shares - 2483.9€
Total Value: 23829.9€ (-4.6%)
Dax: 7708.2 (+11.2%)
Comment: February 2013 was a tough month. Asian Bamboo, Deutsche Bank, E.On. and BP all dropped liked stones in still water. I thought I had started to catch up with DAX but it is definately beating me badly in this quarter also! Hahaha!
As of 27.02.13 from 01.03.12
Asian Bamboo - 650 Shares - 4257.5€
Associated British Foods - 100 Shares - 2153.7€
BP - 350 Shares - 1802.5€
Commerzbank - 2301 Shares - 3267.2€
Deutsche Bank - 188 Shares - 6571.5€
E.On - 240 Shares - 3057.6€
Münchener Rückversicherung - 18 Shares - 2432.7€
Total Value: 23542.9€ (+8.9%)
Dax: 7740.0 (+11.6%)
15 comments:
Don't you use StopLoss? That loss at Asian Bamboo AG was nasty (i am not sure if this is the word i want to use xD) If my investment goes down at least 5% i stop it...
Cut the losses and let the profits run ;)
Cheers
Hi Miguel, my problem is that i have to pay 4.5 euro to place that order and it only lasts for a month. It simply becomes to expensive here in Germany to use StopLoss in the long run and especially on my small investments.
But in many countries where StopLoss works better it is a great order to use!
Surely if you have lost money over 2 years while the DAX index is up 50% means that your method of investment is simply wrong. There is nothing short term here. Graham never made such under-performance, especially over a significant time scale.
Having glance through your website, it appears as though a lot of your data is incorrect (can't beat manual calc), company understanding is about at small as it can be and any consideration of earnings or valuation seems completely absent.
When investors like Buffett invest, he reads all annual reports, statements, visits companies, understands their business inside/out before making any kind of investment.
I would really urge you to work on your method in order to reach your 2033 target
Thank you for you comment.
Yes, index is indeed up by 50% during these two years and if I would have taken all the money that I now have and pushed it into a none fee paying index fund I would have been up by 50%. Unfortunately back then when DAX was at 6933 points I only had a couple of thousands to push into my investments.
It is very easy to forget that DAX of course have a new value each month when I make my investments. If I would consider the day I make my investment and would also look upon buying index that very same day then DAX (or better put an index fund investment) would be up by 20% and not 50%. Still 20% difference is also bad yet, less dramatic. I prefer to paint darker pictures since that pushes me to try to perform better.
I do not understand what you mean when you say significant time scale and in the sentence before mentioned two years. Two years are insignificant in terms of a single investment and even less so when one consider that the investments have been made each month during those two years into different investments. My latest investment is hardly more than one month old. So what kind of progress should have happened during that month?
What is your investment time scale? A year, a quarter, a month?
The data is correct. One needs to look at the date of the analysis and realise which annual report that analysis is then based on. If something significant has happened then people can pass on a heads-up so that I make a new analysis but often that is not the case. Things tend to happen very slowly and I am neither Yahoo or Google Finance with updates every minute. I am sure that you will be happy with the running EPS that you can get from there.
I think that you highly overvalue the investment strategy of Munger & Buffett (the most time they spend on an investment is when it turns bad. They hate to lose money and that is when their investments and the managers gets their "full attention"). Munger even said that the only reason they have beaten index is based on 20 investments. 20 investments over 40 years means one investment every two years turned out successful. The rest were either mediocre or in the best case, as index. My full investment period is a bit more than two years which means, thinking in terms of Buffett & Munger, I should have one golden investment in my portfolio and that I do believe that I have.
I am neither Buffett or Graham and I definitely are not investing like them or even trying to do so. I am, mainly, a contrarian investor. I buy what others hate and loath and it takes time for companies to be loved again. I know this and I accept this. I am also insane enough not to care when a stock drops by minus 50-80% or when my stock portfolio for that matter drops that much which is probably the reason for why the contrarian investment style fits to me.
Thank you for your concern for my 2033 target, I will take it under consideration.
The financial industry with hedge funds in the front (could as an example be sitting in London with Irish connections who knows...) just made a new low on the scale of decency.
By the look of it the new strategy is to visit financial blogs and leave comments as, I assume, an attempt to win clients by discrediting the financial bloggers. You visited two pages my dear Hmmm. Two.
Shame on you!
I've seen you pop up a few times and I can be pretty sharp and direct with my views. This is probably incorrect, and I should probably be more constructive as contrary to what you think I gain nothing from this discrediting others but I get peeved when I see someone employing a bad investment strategy for so long, showing proof it is not the best strategy and continuing without any reason or rhyme.
If I were to make a suggestion (to which you could take or not), I would recommend that you spend more time understanding the business from a qualitative standpoint. Look at the five forces (Porter), management quality, the product, the competition. Good business isn't hidden in financial statements, those help us put a price tag on a business but good business is simply good business. One look at Eniro, the accounting problems and the impending obsoletion should give you a good reason to understand why it trades cheaply on typical earnings.
As I have gathered, you have in place a set of rules meaning you will only invest in distressed assets. That is fine and plenty make money from this. The logic absent from your current method is accepting that the stock is cheap for a reason, understanding the problem which has led the company to trade on a discounted multiple and then deciding whether or not you think the problem is transient or not... That is the whole game of value investing.
You have done part one, ie found distressed assets but you need to spend a lot more time deciding on how sustainable those business models are.
I am also a value biased investor and my holding period is multi-year but I avoid catching falling knives until there is some evidence or some rational that the price may simply be transient. I point to Tesco as a case in point, I have avoided this stock until now and am still hesitant about investing. They have brought a CEO who has seemingly identified the right things and may get the right strategy but market data shows they are still losing 1% of their customer base today. I was worried about an Xmas profit warning due to weak cashflow and this warnings was announced just recently. Despite difficulties, Tesco still is the market leader in grocery, has strong locations and a bunch of non core assets that can help stabilise the balance sheet.
Anyway hope this rant is slightly more useful and apologies for my earlier abruptness (not sure where you get your tracking data from but have viewed 10-15 ideas of yours)
Hi Hmmm(x2),
Thank you for your constructive remarks! Yes, I make many mistakes and I will make many more while attempting to adjust after each failure.
I have since my Eniro investment decided to take a closer look at the assets, in more detail, of the company before I make an investment. If the assets are not nailed to the floor then I will think twice about it. Everyone is praising Google as the ring to rule them all. Google starts to have serious problems in Europe with ECN (European Competition Authorities) and risk being broken up if they want to stay on the EU market. Do I think that a company such as Eniro will benefit from that. Yes, I do. What happened with the accounting issues in Eniro? It lead to that they have removed previously reported earnings and will have to re-book them in the future to the benefit of current shareholders. My risk, as always when buying stocks, is bankruptcy. I thought it would not happen and if not then value can be built in the future.
Due to E.On., Commerzbank and DB I have decided that I need to figure out more about the management and if they are honest or not which will not be easy to figure out but I will in the future try to do so but it will not be added as a point to the analysis.
I would not have the time to make a Porter analysis for each company. I do not even think that I would manage to dig out the information meaning that I would only sit and make "qualitative" guesstimates that would most likely be influenced by if I found the company of interest or not as well as once made it would become even more convincing for me to invest (or not) in the company but it would be based on guesstimates which has no value. In my world less is more.
Tesco is interesting. It jumped up a lot for a while there on several value investor blogs (many also invested) and as a contrarian investor I was also forced to take another look at it. In my opinion there are better options that are not in distress. I find both Casino and Morissons much more interesting than Tesco.
There is unfortunately very far between my thoughts and what I write in this blog. I know that I step in very early in the companies in distress but after I step in they are mine and then I will in every case also rant on them if they do not perform better the minute after I have stepped in. One could say that it makes no sense since the knife has still not stopped... and?
When something I own and that can be anything from a pencil to a car or a company that are not performing well then I rant. It is in my nature to do so but it has nothing to do with me accepting the companies low market valuation. If I would have been really unsatisfied then I would have sold the company.
You miss my point a little - you cannot reasonably and rationally be a value investor if you cannot accept that the company is cheap for a reason. The whole added value of the process is deconstructing the reason for a stock being cheap and understanding whether this problem can be solved. You seem to look at the same 10-15 metrics which all confirm one thing. The stock you are looking at is 'cheap'.
Once again, the performance over 18 months shows that you need to change your approach. The big big difference between yourself and Buffett (bar the obvious) is that most of the time, he actually buys the company or has a stake large enough so he can exert influence on the company. You are simply a taker not a maker and buying a cheap stock with no catalyst or reason for a change in rating is simply a recipe for disaster which is shown pretty much by the PnL to date.
Obviously you can do what you want but I would recommend adding a required catalyst before you purchase a stock. Something like a new product, new management, sudden industry shifts that actually allow the company to do something different from underperforming
Hi Hmmm,
I understand what you are saying. You say that I do not invest like Buffett and that my investment approach is a failure and to improve that I should invest in special situations with catalysts.
It sounds to me as if that is your way of investing. There are several ways to invest and many of them work out as long as one is sticking to it. I am sure that what you are doing works for you but that does not mean it will work for me. Your interpretation of a special situation with a catalyst I might not at all see which means I would miss that investment. Each investor needs to find what works for them and the most important thing of all is to start investing.
My investment approach is contrarian and mainly based on Dreman. I will give it five years before I make any serious changes to this strategy just as I have explained in several articles in the blog.
Special situations and catalysts I personally are not able to do. I cover that area by buying investment companies such as DBAG.
Fredrik,
I followed your blog and think what you try to do is "too much", some kind of overconfidence is at play here. You invest in all kinds of stocks (big caps to micro caps), in all kinds of sectors and in all kinds of countries at the same time. Take the hints from Hmmm seriously and lower the expectations on your self and rethink what worked (keep it) and remove what did not work so well. I think the number of stocks in your portfolio has grown too fast and position sizes are extremely unbalanced. A much simpler approach would be to cover certain markets and the "diversification aspect" by 2-3 ETF index funds (larger positions) and have a small, but decently researched contrarian and value portfolio of maybe 4 to max 8 stocks, which have predefined position sizes and managed with strict stop loss and rebalancing. Whenever you find a huge "opportunity" and have done the needed research, you can pull money from cash or from index fund into this "bargain stock" - no question. But essentially investing is like playing tennis (Howard Marks quote, see link: http://www.fuw.ch/article/investieren-ist-wie-tennis/) - you first must reduce your errors as much as possible.
All the best !
Thank you for your comment and the link to a great article here it is for clicking on Howard Marks quote.
The article is in German but I decided to freely translate some of the quotes from Howard Marks the chairman of Oaktree Capital.
1. Also by investing in high quality, value companies (such as IBM, Coca-Cola, Merck) it is possible to loose a lot.
2. Success as an investor does not have so much to do with what you buy, but instead with the price that you pay for it.
3. The most important thing is to remove (or not allow to enter) companies that will go bankrupt.
4. Just like in amateur tennis, the investor that makes the least mistakes will have the biggest success.
Howard Marks has been an active investor for 46 years and each decade and with each available financial product he has drawn conclusions and improved his investment approach. Very nice article! Thanks for sharing it!
I do not agree with overconfidence. I would actually claim the opposite. The only reason to own many stocks is lack of confidence and the fear of loosing too big in one investment just like I did very early in my investment career with Asian Bamboo (I have still not realised the loss).
I see a couple of reasons for why I have so many stocks and most likely will continue to have so for some time longer:
1. I fear another Asian Bamboo and my stupidity of pushing money into a failing company.
2. Several of my early investments have turned out to be longer turnarounds than I anticipated and I seem to lack the will to sell companies either good or bad ones.
3. I have still not started to sell companies and I have 1-2k fresh € that needs to be invested each month.
My thought was that I would reach an equilibrium once I start selling companies and will need to re-invest that money... but at the moment I do not see that happening any time soon.
The ETF strategy that you mention I do indeed like and I have started that up a little and will expand it further but using a different approach in comparison to yours.
It sounds as if you have a healthy value investing strategy with the ETF as a non sentimental buy and sell pool for investing into new discoveries. Clever!
I would disagree with Anonymous. If you buy ETFs you missing some of the fun of picking stocks and investing into a real business.
ETFs are essentially boring as hell...
Hahaha! Anything that increase a persons wealth by 10% per year should in the long run not be considered boring.
I also love the investment process of finding companies, checking their key figures and digging into their quarter and annual reports. However... I must admit that my life would have been more relaxing and what is worse... I would have had a higher net worth today if I would have bought index funds.
I wanted to ask you which companies you own but that reminds me that it would be much more interesting to make a general question and asking people to post their 5 to 10 biggest investments. That will be the article for tomorrow!
I am not going to be overly critical about your investment choices, One thing you really need to take note of when investing is to always check the institutional investors that also own that stock, on websites like ft.com you can easily see which funds own the stock you are looking at.
your biggest mistake here was asian bamboo it has nearly no institutions that own its stock that is for a reason, When the money managers are not investing in the stock your looking at then there is something there that you cannot see, like wise when over 70% of a stock is held by institutions it is wise to steer clear of the stock because when the next market drop comes they all tend to act in the same manner and jump ship at the same time decimating the price.
Hi Nely,
When I made my investment in Asian Bamboo it was to 7 or 8% owned by the Norwegian oil fund. As well as several other funds owned it. If I remember correctly around 15-20% were funds.... which was part of the reason for why I thought it to be an ok company. Today... sure... only the suckers like me are sitting on the shares.
Yes, I should have, at the very latest, left when they did and I know that it became a mistake but stepping in to the company when I did, I still do not see as a mistake. The company did back then look very good.
Today I keep it to remind myself about my mistake which was not the investment as such but that I kept pushing in more capital as the share price dropped due to degrading business AND that I did not step out when they changed the fundamentals of the company when they decided to start a new line of business building houses instead of harvesting bamboo.
If I would have followed the rules that I now have in place my realised loss would today have been around -900 euro instead of an unrealised loss of around -5800 € that I now hold in the books.
Several of the Chinese companies that back then had their IPO here in Germany have now gone bust with managers hiding in China with money stolen from the companies. Very ugly business.
Anyway... I do not like institutional investors. They are lapdogs to the managers and are the reason for many preposterous bonuses and management salaries. The day I see them take more responsibility then I will find it more interesting to invest along with them. Today the only thing I do look at is if there are too many of them then I back away from the company.
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