Investments

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.

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.

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/

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).

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

REIT sector has been taking a beating and Realty Income has felt it too. Interest rates are naturally key factor in this and overall economic situation is not that great either. Latter applying in both sides of the pond. Overall I see Realty Income as very interesting at current valuation levels. Sure, short term pain is likely to continue but long term it should do just fine. Therefore I re-invested dividends and bought additional 25 shares for 50.21 USD per share. If there are no drastic changes in valuations, I might be aiming for additional three identical tranches in coming months.

Especially Finnish economy is starting to have negative enough sentiment. Construction companies are starting to drop like dead flies and that is likely to trigger domino effect among the smaller companies in the associated value chain. This will be yet another impact on average consumer already hit by inflation and higher interest rates. Kesko has already felt this hit in the share price but otherwise not so much. This is likely to change but on the other hand they are using this opportunity to expand their Nordic presence. Will the share price drop significantly during the next next 6-12 months? It very well might. I still decided to initiate position in company with a modest purchase of 30 shares bought for 17,99 EUR per share. I anticipate this to be relatively slow position building process. Company itself is solid – even high quality one – and management appears to be excellent. Then again next few years are likely very difficult for the Finnish economy. It remains to be seen how Kesko manages to navigate through these turmoils.

See: https://www.kesko.fi/en/media/blogs/investor-blogs-and-podcasts/2023/ir-blog-denmark/

Maintenance purchase with additional 50 shares of Nordea Bank bought for 10,03 EUR per share. Banking sector is problematic one and in current interest rate environment peak is probably close. Then again Nordea managed to perform well enough even in zero interest rate environment. Since then they have improved significantly in many fronts and have been active with buybacks. Will real depression wreak havoc in Europe? Possibly. Would it hit Nordea equally hard? Likely. Will it survive with dry enough feet? I’ve put my money on it.

As previously planned, I rounded up my Realty Income REIT position to even number with a purchase of additional 19 shares bought for 62,87 USD per share. REIT sector in general has felt the impact of raising interest rates so in general I consider this as decent time for rotating back towards the sector. Realty Income itself is not exceptional bargain – it rarely is – but valuation appears to be relatively reasonable and something that justifies this maintenance purchase type of transaction.