Recent Swap/Addition: 3M for Realty Income and Bristol-Myers Squibb

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

Recent Buy: Kesko Oyj (B) & Fortum Oyj

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.

Recent Buy: Bristol-Myers Squibb Company

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

Recent Buy: Kesko Oyj (B)

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.

Recent Buy: Kesko Oyj (B)

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.

Recent Buy: Pfizer

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.

Recent Buy: Kesko Oyj B

Maintenance purchase and dividend re-investment once again in the form of 10 Kesko Oyj shares bought for 17,29 EUR per share. Tiny steps and nothing special here. Kesko share recovered already a bit so won’t make any big moves for now. Valuation is still very reasonable given the overall quality of the company and international – well Scandinavian – potential.

Recent Swap: NEL ASA for Nordea Bank AB

NEL reported somewhat weak results. Weak mainly in order intake but as I anticipate challenging investment environment to persist (high interest rates, possibly even a recession) I decided to sell my minor tail position of 2000 shares at 7,05 NOK per share. I sold majority of my position around 30 NOK and original intention was to hold on to this tail long enough to see if NEL will eventually become an established dividend paying company. In current environment I decided to switch to Nordea Bank and bought 100 shares for 9,97 EUR per share as it appears to be very reasonably valued and is benefitting from higher interest rates. It would however be hit by full blown recession but let’s see how the winter goes. Anyway this move positions the portfolio to be more in line with primary strategy of focusing in dividend paying stocks.

See: https://nelhydrogen.com/press-release/nel-asa-third-quarter-2023-financial-results/

Recent Buy: Fortum Oyj & Kesko Oyj

Minor maintenance purchases for Fortum and Kesko. Both have been dropping which was to be expected with Kesko. With Fortum I didn’t expect to see these levels as it seemed to be trading at a slight discount even before. Oh well, market knows better but I still decided to buy additional 50 shares of Fortum for 10,58 EUR per share and additional 30 shares of Kesko for 15,2 per share. Especially Kesko could be hit hard as winter truly is coming for Finnish economy. Companies are going under and change negotiations are starting to be a common thing also in sectors which not so long ago were complaining about difficulties in hiring people. Therefore I’ll nibble on Kesko with these small purchases during next three to six months. Might do the same with Fortum but that position is already a bit larger so might hold off a bit (absolute maximum being 1000 shares for now).

Recent Buy: Mandatum Oyj

As expected, Mandatum Oyj traded below initially expected fair value range. Fair value range is here of course up for debate as times are tough and sector might be challenging during economic slow down. There are also clear technical reasons as all recipients of this spin-off are not willing or even allowed to hold their shares. This might go on for week or even months as at least some funds probably can sell their shares over a longer period and changes in indices will also take time. I had initially defined 3,70 EUR per share as my threshold. Initially it seemed as if I would have missed to boat here but two orders got executed: 500 shares for 3,69 EUR per share and 1000 shares for 3,65 EUR per share. It remains to be seen if some of these will be only short or mid term positions. Total exposure is a bit on the high side for this type of stock but then again there’s some real potential here. Not only because of the technical reasons but the whole sector is ripe for consolidation.

See: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-02/mandatum-set-to-debut-in-helsinki-in-biggest-listing-since-2005