Investments

I originally initiated position in Castellum as a short term dividend turn around play with currency speculation twist. Both aspects lead to a failure as no turn around has yet been seen in dividend and – while I still think it is likely outcome – it will likely take still quite some time to materialise. Currency play failed as well since SEK has been deteriorating since this purchase. Today I decided to exit this position with a minor loss and bough additional 100 shares of Nordea Bank. I sold Castellum shares for 137,60 SEK per share and bought Nordea shares for 10,70 EUR per share. This move simplifies portfolio a bit and increases projected dividends without injecting new capital or re-investing received dividends. As a whole I expect Nordea to perform quite well for next couple of years.

Dividend re-investment time once again and this time I’m even investing back to the same company. Nordea paid and I bought additional 100 shares for 10,74 EUR per share. Reasoning is quite simple: despite times being tough, Nordea seems to be very solid company with very reasonable valuation. Sure, interest rates are likely going down from here and it will have negative impact on Nordea. Yet they are buying back shares and have executed very well in zero interest rate environment in the past. Even after considering these headwinds current valuation seems to be on the low side (as it has traditionally been for European banking sector in general, often for a good reason).

Dividend re-investment time with additional 20 shares of Kesko Oyj (B series) bought for 16,74 EUR per share. Nothing special here as Kesko is in my list of additions for this year. I would like to see per share price closer or even below 16 EUR but these levels are fine as well. Challenging times for Kesko and for our local economy. Furthermore, competition has taken market share from Kesko in certain segments but for long term I consider current valuation to be fair.

Fortum held their annual general meeting and therefore had their ex dividend date. Did tiny maintenance purchase of 25 shares for 11,14 EUR per share. Fortum as a whole is complicated company as they have many positive aspects, troubled past and problematic state owner. Yet for the long term it does hold strategic assets in very low carbon electricity generation. After this purchase I might have reached a full position of 700 shares but will be considering going for 1000 shares in small chunks.

See: https://www.fortum.fi/media/2024/03/fortum-oyjn-vuoden-2024-varsinaisen-yhtiokokouksen-paatokset

Today I sold my 50 3M shares for 94,36 USD per share. Main motivation for this was the fact that I want to skip the upcoming Solventum spin-off as I don’t want to have yet another tiny position and can do this now in tax effective way. Will I eventually initiate a position in 3M and/or Solventum? Perhaps. Depends on how both behave after the spin-off. For now I used these funds as planned before and added on existing positions with a purchase of 75 shares of Realty Income for 53,20 USD per share and 25 shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb for 54,38 USD per share. These purchases included also re-investing received dividends in addition to sales profits.

Additional information: https://investors.3m.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1829/3m-board-of-directors-approves-spin-off-of-solventum

Maintenance purchase time and this time around I bought additional 10 Kesko shares for 17,94 EUR per share and 25 Fortum shares for 11,01 EUR per share. Nothing special here as Fortum seems to be reasonably valued. With Kesko I have doubts for short term and would like to see lower valuation to buy even remotely significant amounts. While waiting for better valuations – and spring dividend period to pass – I’ll just nibble these tiny chunks.

Today I initiated a new position in my Big Pharma basket as I bought initial 25 Bristol-Myers Squibb shares for 49.87 USD per share. This was mainly dividend re-investment from other positions with small injection of fresh capital. Quite basic addition in the basket of big pharma players. Stock price has dropped and subsequently yield has gone up. They have been very active on acquisitions and it remains to be seen if those moves truly materialise in coming years. My initial target position is modest 100 shares which I’ll hopefully build during 2024 but it depends on market moves.

See: https://www.bms.com/investors.html

Tiny maintenance purchase of 10 shares of Kesko Oyj (B series) at 18,115 EUR per share. Nothing new here. Will just nibble very slowly as share price has increased quicker than I originally expected considering the overall state of economy. Might bite bigger chunks if we see a correction in share price. If not, I’ll just keep of nibbling and see where I end up.

Maintenance purchase once again with Kesko Oyj (B series) as I bought additional 20 shares for 17,55 EUR per share. Finnish economy doesn’t look too good and forecasts for next couple of years are indicating decline in GDB. National performance is awful not only in Nordic but also in European context. This is bound to have negative impact on Kesko but then again tax reforms could partially mitigate that. Current valuation appears decent to me but I’ll just nibble with these tiny maintenance purchases while waiting for better valuation. Ideally I would like to aim for a total position of 500 shares but it remains to be seen if I’ll ever get there. I would like to see share price around 16 EUR to make any bigger moves.

Minor addition on Pfizer with additional 20 shares bought for 30,53 USD per share. Broker had black friday campaign so reinvested some USD dividends without transactions fees. Pfizer has dropped significantly as Covid boost is gone and some people apparently wouldn’t mind seeing Pfizer and others being hit with legal issues. Still, drop seems a bit drastic given the size of the company and impact on whole sector. I will not likely add much on the position though since I consider this sector as one that is best approached with a basket of stocks. If I would be truly able to analyse their backlog, I would probably work in big pharma myself.