Another year has passed and it was yet another with multiple global issues: Russia’s war in Ukraine, tensions with China, tensions in middle east, inflation and energy crisis just to name few. Considering all this markets have been surprisingly strong and in a way western economies have shown even some strength while dealing with these issues. There has been plenty of weakness but for example adaptation to energy crisis was way better than I personally expected. Sadly majority of these issues are likely main topics for 2024, perhaps even for 2025.
Q4 was pretty OK as main dividend account grew 5,67% and whole portfolio produced 2045,84 EUR pre-tax income during the quarter when converted to Euros at the time of writing (of which 181,91 EUR was interest paid for cash reserves, not much but significant indication of the impact from inflation and change in interest rates). Year over year changes were OK for FY2023. Very conservative allocation aimed for controlled dividend income resulted portfolio value increase of 1.78% and produced 10312,73 EUR pre-tax income when converted to Euros at the time of writing. This is minor drop in dividends compared to previous year, mainly a result of dividend cuts (some due to listed global issues, some just because of extra high payments during previous year) and due to exiting certain positions and therefore missing some payments completely (reinvested money will convert to dividends next year).
For FY2024 I have very mixed feelings. Aftermath of said global issues will likely take significant time and especially Finish economy is in very bad shape with the insanely high debt load and increased interest rates. Therefore my plan for 2024 is quite conservative: I’ll try to buy something every month but mainly with smaller maintenance purchases and dividend reinvestments. For now I have my my eye mainly on following companies: Fortum, Kesko and Bristol Myers Squibb. Perhaps also something in the REIT space depending on how the US interest rate cycle evolves.