Investments

Defensive allocations continued with a purchase of additional 90 shares of Lassila & Tikanoja at 8,53 EUR per share. This is also slightly speculative turn around play as L&T might finally be bottoming out. Operatively speaking there’s hell of a lot to improve but potential is there. Given the past performance it’s easy to be doubtful, therefore I’ll build this position slowly and probably aim for somewhat modest position of about 500 shares. While observing this turn around theory unfold, this acts as a solid dividend income play due to the relatively high yield and defensive sector it operates on.

I decided to redeploy some of the USD dollars received from recent sales and bought 500 shares of Iberdrola SA for 14,42 EUR per share. Reasoning being strategic but limited shift from US and USD exposure to Europe. Iberdrola should fit the bill just fine as it operates in preferred energy segments while providing some geographical diversification. It does have exposure to US markets as well which has pros and cons: renewables are not necessarily loved by the current administration but on the other hand this softens the level of reduced US exposure.

Not sure if this was accident or not but I ended up buying back recently sold Lockheed Martin shares. I’m not totally sure if this was a wise move to make but let’s see how this goes. I recently sold 30 shares for 470,53 USD per share and now bought back 40 shares for 424,34 USD per share. Not much has changed as Agent Orange is the main risk for everything. I’ll keep this one on a tight leash and make another french exit if needed.

Nordea had ex dividend date today so I bought additional 400 shares for 11,975 EUR per share as a partial early dividend re-investment and partial re-deployment of USD from recent sale of few US stocks. I might buy additional 400 shares if there’s a significant drop during Q2 and Q3. Nordea is not exceptionally cheap but solid company with generous dividend supported by buybacks. Dividend growth is likely miniscule but probably next year will bring increase of couple of cents per share. Hopefully Europe will benefit from general reallocation of investments while interest rates remain at high enough level for Nordea to benefit of increased activity from re-arming Europe.

Third stop loss kicked in and executed my exit from EPR Properties. In other words, I sold all 120 shares for 51,20 USD per share. For now this shall be good enough risk management in case US triggers a proper recession. I really don’t see how that could be avoided with tariff instanies, flirting with annexing parts of Canada and/or Greenaland, reducing workforce especially in agriculture, bullying Mexico and Ukraine, measles outbreaks due to not so modern view on vacciness and so on. Adding Russia and China on top of that… in fact I would be tempted to go full in cash, take a break and then realign strategy into more passive mode while potentially switching broker. Said list of ongoing insanitites and portfolio still trading relatively close to all time high valuation sounds really bad but generally holding and postponing taxes would be better choice.

Another stop loss kicked in and I sold all 30 shares of Lockheed Martin for 470.53 USD per share. Not exactly something I would have liked to do but I will sit on the sidelines for a while. It remains to be seen if I can convince myself to buy these back anytime soon while Trump is in the office. Solid company but too many uncertainties. Locked in some solid profits, missed the top and might miss some gains going forward. Story of my life but at least it does not sound like a tragedy.

Stop loss kicked in and I sold all 600 shares of Apple Hospitality REIT for 14,20 USD per share. One dividend is still on the way and then this chapter can be closed. Short term I will not likely buy these back unless there’s a significant overraction. Long term, maybe once recession has really kicked in. For now I’ll likely transfer these funds out of US and dollar.

Spring season with traditional finnish dividend payment season is getting close. Therefore I initiated a new position on Lassila & Tikanoja plc with an extremely small purchase of just 10 shares for 9,00 EUR per share. My plan is to slowly build a full position but will wait for ex dividend date before buying bigger chunks. Even then I might buy my way in with small chunks over longer period of time. Reason being that Lassila & Tikanoja has traditionally been a under performing dissapointment. Lately there have been some indications of potentially and finally bottoming out, hence the intention to build a full position on it if – and only if – these indications materialize. This is diversification play with a sector that should be really defensive so in that sense if would tick multiple boxes in my longer term plan.

Dividend re-investment time and decided to initiate a new position on General Mills. I have owned General Mills in the past and in retrospect should not have exited it back in 2018. Now this is mainly a diversification play with what seems like a reasonable valuation. General Mills stock has dropped significantly during the last three years or so and is yielding about 4% so I decided to buy initial 20 shares for 57,59 USD per share. I might build a mid sized position from this but let’s see how market moves in coming months.