Investments

Currencies tend to fluctuate and lately the Swedish Krona has been trending down and same can be said about Telia Company. Therefore I decided to buy additional 420 shares for 40,80 SEK per share. I could have bought these from Helsinki stock exchange but my strategy says that dividend income in multiple currencies is preferred. Second dividend payment of the year is coming up next month so it’s a bit unusual to see such a drop in stock price even though there are clear reasons for it: Swedish state might sell the position it holds due to changes in media landscape (Telia becoming a player in the segment through acquisition. Let’s see how the price moves once that materialises, I might make a significant addition at that point.

Maintenance purchase for secondary portfolio with a purchase of 50 NEL ASA shares bought for 3,444 NOK per share. Extremely small transaction but this is mainly setting a baseline for the company in the secondary portfolio. I’ll try to move all my NEL shares from primary portfolio to secondary portfolio. Primary portfolio is really a dividend based one and NEL – being a more speculative growth holding – doesn’t really fit there. Timing of the actual transfer will depend on stock price moves during the next months or even quarters. I’ll probably sell my shares if there’s a significant pop without a a huge change in short term fundamentals.

Nordea has bounced back a little bit so I decided to sell all my 162 Nordea shares held in the secondary portfolio for 8,81 EUR per share. Quick trades in and out don’t typically pay off but that’s what this secondary portfolio is currently for. I was originally looking to replace these with Telia shares but Telia also bounced back already. XXL ASA is also looking very interesting for a quick trade. Let’s see how both will move in the coming days.

Maintenance purchase for the secondary portfolio in the form of 8 Loudspring shares bought for 1,336 EUR per share. Tiny transaction but acceptable in the secondary portfolio as the fees are so low with Nordea.

This is a purchase I have mixed feelings with. H&M was similar and so far it hasn’t served me too well but let’s see what the future brings. Europris ASA appeared too cheap to pass and I had the currency (NOK) already available from the Gjensidige exit, therefore I bought 1500 shares for 21,50 NOK per share. With this cost basis I can expect above 8 per cent yield which appears to be very high but also sustainable. I still haven’t made up my mind if this is a long term dividend investment or short/mid term capital appreciation play. This increases my debt level but not too much leaving me with multiple options going forward. I most likely will sell my stake on BHP Billiton at some point (due to the cyclical nature of it) for which I could currently offset the taxes by selling my not-so-succesfull stake in H&M. That would lower the debt level significantly but I can also manage the debt component with new capital.

Oops, I did it again as I bought additional 60 shares of Nordea Bank for 8,12 EUR per share for my secondary portfolio. Nordea announced today that they are buying a Norwegian online bank from Gjensidige Forsikring ASA, a company I still recently had position on, for €578 millions paid in cash. Interesting developments in general – Sampo being a major owner of Nordea and Gjensidige being a competitor of Sampo. I suppose we will see plenty of M&A activity in insurance & banking sectors in the coming years.

See: https://www.nordea.com/en/press-and-news/news-and-press-releases/press-releases/2018/07-02-06h00-nordea-to-acquire-gjensidige-bank-and-enter-strategic-partnership-with-gjensidige.html

I can’t help myself so I decided to stop trying and bought additional 24 shares of Nordea Bank for 8,135 EUR per share. Valuation appears too cheap and yield too high to pass.

Maintenance purchase for secondary portfolio with a purchase of 6 additional shares of Nordea Bank for 8,225 EUR per share. Rather insignificant as such but keeps the fees away for a quarter.

Lockheed Martin is a long term play of mine. I have a short term interest in the traditional military aspect but long term interest in the space exploration and, as a Skunk Works fan, technology R&D aspect in general. Therefore I decided to buy 8 additional shares for 299,50 USD per share. Many stocks are down today and Lockheed Martin is in the news with F-35 related bonus payment issues – hard to say what’s the impact on the share price today but that’s irrelevant in the long term. US decision to create a new space force branch for the military is also very interesting.

See: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/18/trump-space-traffic-debris-630189

AT&T has been down lately due to the litigation for Time Warner merger. They got a favourable decision and the merger is moving on. It’s a move which is very difficult to value as the such mergers tend to come with pros and cons – huge debt load being one of them. Other telecoms are making similar moves on smaller scale but this is big enough to really move the needle. I personally share some of the doubts people are having about this but overall I view this as a positive change. Therefore I bought additional 40 shares for 32,55 USD per share.

See: http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/12/media/att-time-warner-ruling/index.html