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Re: Investments Trade Log

Posted: Fri May 17, 2019 9:07 am
by Seppia
Seppia wrote:
Fri May 04, 2018 9:28 am
Ended up buying some P&G, I just think there's a lot of stuff to like. Great brands in a time when I believe people tend to underestimate the power of consumer brands, great cash generation, recently re-focused brand portfolio, good dividend (even if the payout ratio seems too high to me), lowest price in 5 years.

I'll take that in this environment.
Turns out I was particularly lucky and almost caught the very bottom.
Sold them all now for $107.45
I really don't like to sell*, but I made 35.5% net of taxes (26% on capital gain) in a little more than a year, and I wanted to up a bit my cash allocation that was sitting at 12.5%.
Normally I like it to be just under 10%, but in this environment I planned to up it to around 15%.
Keep in mind I have no bonds as, here in Europe, cash yields 0.3% in a CD, while German 10y bonds yield -0.1% (yes that's minus zero point one percent).

*looking back, this is my first "sell" trade in about a year, when I sold some Royal Dutch at 31 euros. My ratio of buy/sell is about 30 to 1 not including reinvested dividends

Re: Investments Trade Log

Posted: Wed May 22, 2019 12:41 pm
by Seppia
Is anybody listening to the leaked Adam Jonas call on Tesla?
It's really bad, it looks like the wheels are finally coming off

Re: Investments Trade Log

Posted: Wed May 22, 2019 12:46 pm
by Seppia

Re: Investments Trade Log

Posted: Thu May 23, 2019 4:46 am
by Seppia
TESLA stock is literally getting slaughtered, it was only a matter of time.
Maybe people will start waking up to the fact that making money is not a completely irrelevant aspect of businesses.

Too many comparing Amazon to these Ponzi schemes, but “reinvesting all the profits from your established businesses to expand in new areas” (Amazon) and “selling stuff that costs $4 for $3” (Uber) are very different animals.
(I don’t own any amazon either though :) )

Re: Investments Trade Log

Posted: Fri May 24, 2019 11:32 am
by jacob
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/poof- ... 2019-05-24

=> If the trade war is ended, stocks will go up. I figure stocks are currently priced according to the probability of ending/continuing the trade war, so long if you think it's more likely than the market to end, and short if not.

Re: Investments Trade Log

Posted: Sat May 25, 2019 2:21 am
by Ego
Seppia wrote:
Thu May 23, 2019 4:46 am

Too many comparing Amazon to these Ponzi schemes, but “reinvesting all the profits from your established businesses to expand in new areas” (Amazon) and “selling stuff that costs $4 for $3” (Uber) are very different animals.
(I don’t own any amazon either though :) )
People have been saying for a few years that Tesla isn't a car company, it's a software company that used car sales as a way to collect the data necessary for their software to own transportation. Here is a short video of Musk explaining it recently.

https://youtu.be/0GnH_C6NrOM

Looking at it solely as a car company makes it look ponzi-ish. What if the value is really in those millions of miles of real-world self-driving data?

Re: Investments Trade Log

Posted: Sat May 25, 2019 3:25 am
by Seppia
Ego wrote:
Sat May 25, 2019 2:21 am
What if the value is really in those millions of miles of real-world self-driving data?
I have no idea about that, but unless they can quickly monetize it, it doesn’t look good at all.
Right now Tesla is fighting a war against math, looking at the bonds value it looks like most people believe there’s an extremely high chance of disaster.

Re: Investments Trade Log

Posted: Sat May 25, 2019 3:27 am
by Seppia
jacob wrote:
Fri May 24, 2019 11:32 am
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/poof- ... 2019-05-24

=> If the trade war is ended, stocks will go up. I figure stocks are currently priced according to the probability of ending/continuing the trade war, so long if you think it's more likely than the market to end, and short if not.
I have picked “do almost nothing” for the last three years and it has served me well.
I did slowly increase my cash allocation in the last 12 months, but I personally don’t believe in dramatic moves (ie “all in” or “all out”)

Re: Investments Trade Log

Posted: Sat May 25, 2019 6:40 am
by thedollar
Seppia wrote:
Sat May 25, 2019 3:27 am
I have picked “do almost nothing” for the last three years and it has served me well.
I did slowly increase my cash allocation in the last 12 months, but I personally don’t believe in dramatic moves (ie “all in” or “all out”)
Curious as to what your allocation is currently?

Re: Investments Trade Log

Posted: Sat May 25, 2019 7:01 am
by jacob
@Seppia - I decide based on several factors (it's like democracy), this is just one of them.

Re: Investments Trade Log

Posted: Sat May 25, 2019 8:02 am
by Seppia
@jacob: it wasn't meant to be a critique - sorry if it sounded that way. I'm a big believer in the fact that there is no "right" way to invest (there are many wrong ones though :) ), and one has essentially to pick the one that woks for him/her.

@thedollar currently around 85-15 stocks-cash/CD*.
Stocks are split:
40% indexes (10% EM, 30% Europe)
60% individual stocks, biggest holding is Royal Dutch (I own it since the very beginnings of my investing life in 2006, and accrued a lot of it during the semi-recent oil crash).
Most of the other stocks would be considered "defensive", and now that I sold P&G there's veeeery little usa (not even 3%).
I own almost zero "tech" (only one being a tiny bit of IBM).

*Keep in mind I am based in Europe, where if you want to lend money to Germany for 10 years you have to actually pay for the privilege, so bonds are a no-no for me.
I would own more USA if I lived there, but I would still be overweight ex-US

Re: Investments Trade Log

Posted: Mon May 27, 2019 11:17 am
by thedollar
Currently evaluating following investments:

- Carnival
- GSK
- BAT
- Ship Finance

They seem to have growing revenue and profit going forward combined with a large payout.

Re: Investments Trade Log

Posted: Mon May 27, 2019 7:28 pm
by Seppia
@thedollar
GSK has been a holding of mine for a long time, I personally like the stock a lot in general, and more in today’s context.

BAT seems to be one of those opportunities that do not come up often. Only a couple years ago cigarette stock skyrocketed in the face of low interest rates, as they were seen as bond proxies (stable price, stable and non cyclical profits, not much else to do with cash other than pay dividends).
I’m not proud of it and I feel dirty, but I did buy a few recently.

Re: Investments Trade Log

Posted: Mon May 27, 2019 10:38 pm
by slowtraveler
Why feel dirty? It's a consumer's free choice. Alcohol, sugar, oil, meat, guns, the list goes on but they're all guilty. JNJ was recently accused of causing cancer for people. Nestle and Coca Cola have dried wells in other countries to get water for their products until protests forced them to stop. Bonds can be seen as particularly dirty considering everything governments do. Nothing is 100% clean and it's okay. Investing is to grow wealth.

The company seems priced very well. Short term who knows but across several years it should do quite well.

Re: Investments Trade Log

Posted: Mon May 27, 2019 10:48 pm
by Seppia
Of course there are few saints among listed companies, but there are different degrees.
The entire business model of cigarette companies is to sell products that kill people. Seems worse than a food company.

But in the end yes I kinda agree with you. I don’t feel great about it but I’m doing it anyway.

I could not do weapons though (i for sure own some through my indexes, but I would not buy them as individual stocks)

Re: Investments Trade Log

Posted: Wed May 29, 2019 8:08 am
by jacob
Yield curve getting pressured again. Inversion breaking below March 2019. I see 3 month CD rates at 2.4% now.

Re: Investments Trade Log

Posted: Wed May 29, 2019 9:52 am
by Seppia
Seppia wrote:
Mon May 27, 2019 7:28 pm
BAT
...
I’m not proud of it and I feel dirty, but I did buy a few recently.
And on they go to lose 7% in three days lol
This is karma biting me in the ass for being such a horrible human being.
Well deserved.

Re: Investments Trade Log

Posted: Wed May 29, 2019 9:56 am
by Seppia
@jacob
It feels like this bull market really wants to die, but always manages to survive one way or another.
My completely rational prediction is that Trump is a very lucky man: I bet the bear market starts soon after the election (if he loses), so that he can claim forever that “dems destroyed the stock market”.
If he wins, who knows.

Re: Investments Trade Log

Posted: Wed May 29, 2019 7:29 pm
by IlliniDave
Seppia wrote:
Wed May 29, 2019 9:56 am
@jacob
It feels like this bull market really wants to die, but always manages to survive one way or another.
My completely rational prediction is that Trump is a very lucky man: I bet the bear market starts soon after the election (if he loses), so that he can claim forever that “dems destroyed the stock market”.
If he wins, who knows.
If the dems prevail and do all the taxing they "promise", then yes they'll trigger a significant recession, of that I am as certain as I can be. Trump might trigger one himself before the election. Playing hardball against China is not easy (but in the long run, it's necessary IMO) even if the US were unified behind him. As it is China can just wait (historically that gov't has no compunction about putting its people through difficult times) and hope their old crony Biden gets back in so they can cash in on their "investment" with Hunter.

Re: Investments Trade Log

Posted: Wed May 29, 2019 9:40 pm
by classical_Liberal
IlliniDave wrote:
Wed May 29, 2019 7:29 pm
If the dems prevail and do all the taxing they "promise", then yes they'll trigger a significant recession, of that I am as certain as I can be.
If this taxation has retributive effects (which is basically what the dems want), I believe the velocity of money will begin to increase as well. The increased QE monetary supply will finally translate into a bit more consumer "spending" vs investments. This will lead to higher demand-side inflationary pressures. Unfortunately, if our (the US) cheap supply line of consumer goods is disrupted from China, we could be looking at both supply side inflation as well.