Month: December 2017

FY2017 Results & Strategy for FY2018

JP

Fiscal year 2017 is coming to an end so it’s time to look at the results. This time around there were multiple significant events but none of those had massive short term effect on the market. Trump won the presidential election and first year has been interesting, tensions in the Korean peninsula escalated a bit and Catalonian independence remains unclear. Then there’s the hype like Bitcoin and cryptocurrency boom which will not end well for some of the participants I suspect. Predicting the future is always a bit difficult but I’d guess that none of these issues will truly be resolved during FY 2018. I’m also expecting Euro zone to face again the underlying problems hidden by the ECB. We might see a mild market correction but I wouldn’t expect a full recession until well into the 2020’s. My personal assumption is that ECB fails to significantly raise the interest rates before the next recession. I expect the interest rates to be below 3% when the next recession forces ECB to lower them again. Having said that, I’m also interested in reducing the debt I’m carrying as a defensive measure. That’s because I believe more in defence that I do in predictions.

In the portfolio FY2017 was quite boring. Pre-tax dividend income was 4 167,45 EUR which is a solid increase from the previous year’s 3 186,27 EUR. Adjusted and currency converted portfolio value didn’t change much as it increased merely 0,15% which clearly is a loss compared to (almost any) index. This is quite insignificant for me as this is pretty much defensive and income oriented portfolio but added margin of safety would have been nice bonus. Market valuation being in general all time high, I’ve moved the portfolio once again to a maintenance mode. Currently I plan to slowly add on Fortum and Loundspring positions while using majority of the new cash to improve the debt level. This is possible due to the secondary brokerage account I opened in Nordea Bank as they have pricing model which allows small transactions with acceptable fees. I’ll also consider selling some assets to eliminate the portfolio debt but that remains to be seen. Potential elimination list contains VEREIT (turnaround play with legal issues, original target price close to 11 USD per share), Hennes & Mauritz (sector I have mixed feelings for in general) and Nordea Bank (once there’s suitable M&A taking place).

Recent Buy: Loudspring Plc A

JP

Secondary maintenance purchase for December with a purchase of 80 Loudspring Plc shares bought for 2,56 EUR per share. I expect to slowly build a full position on the company as they have quite a few interesting holdings. Nocart is the most obvious one as they have huge potential in African market which is not the easiest of the markets but there are others as well.

See: http://loudspring.earth

Recent Buy: Fortum Corporation & Strategy Update

JP

As a risk management operation I decided to open a new account in Nordea Bank. It will complicate reporting a little bit but allows me to spread the risk in many ways. Most obvious is the protection against service downtime which could prevent me from placing buy or sell orders. Their pricing model also allows me to put the overall portfolio in a maintenance mode in which I will be making only small purchases (with reasonable fees) and use most of the new capital to pay down the portfolio debt. This also a way to put some pressure on my main broker Nordnet as they have some technical limitations that are not really acceptable, though I have to admit that they are not likely not notice this. Anyway, as the new account was opened and they had a campaign in which the stocks listed in Helsinki stock exchange could be bought without any fees, I re-initiated a position in Fortum Corporation with mere 10 shares bought at 17,73 EUR per share. I don’t expect to build a full position on the company due to the political risks mentioned before but slightly smaller position will do as there’s a lot to like in their strategy going forward.