Recent Buy: General Electric Company

General Electric is a company on which I’m moderately bullish in the long term. Calling the bottom however is really difficult since the company is very much in restructuring mode for the months to come. None the less I decided to buy additional 100 shares today for 22,50 USD per share. This makes it a full position but should there be a steep decline on possible dividend cut news, I might overweight it for short term. Personally I think that that the dividend cut is pretty much priced in already but who knows. I wouldn’t be surprised if it goes to mid teens at some point but for the long term I see plenty of potential considering the size of the company. Aggressive restructuring might provide significant upside from the current valuation. I’ll consider this to be a contrarian limited risk position in my portfolio.

https://seekingalpha.com/news/3302970-general-electric-tumbles-5-percent-downgrades-baml-buyer

Recent Sell: Coca-Cola Company

Coca-Cola is one of those companies you should never sell but that’s what I did. This was a minor position of 38 shares and the valuation has been a bit stretched. I sold mine at 46,33 USD per share. It’s a high quality company but given the valuation and growth potential, my money might be better invested elsewhere. I’m currently monitoring GE and Apple for additional purchases and on the home front Sampo is still looking extremely interesting even though it’s currently my single largest position.

Recent Buy: General Electric Company

General Electric announced a management shake-up and shares went down about three percent. This a company that I have mixed feelings of as there’s lot to like in the long term but there are also huge risks (e.g. pensions). But since it has many traits I like, I decided to buy additional 40 shares for 23,60 USD per share. I will add more should it break the 20 USD barrier. Huge company transforming itself while everybody loves to hate it, that’s usually a situation I like to be involved in. It remains to be seen if it will eventually bite me.

See: https://seekingalpha.com/news/3299959-general-electric-3-percent-management-shake

Recent Buy: Omega Healthcare Investors, Inc.

Small addition to existing Omega Healthcare Investors position with a purchase of 20 additional shares for 31,46 USD per share. There are some political risks involved here and few clients have been in trouble lately but the overall demographic trend is so positive factor that I really don’t care for short term problems. Even with such problems the valuation appears to be very cheap so I consider the risk to be compensated.

Link: George Schneider @ Seeking Alpha

Q3/2017 Results

Third quarter is over and done with. Major events impacting the portfolio during this quarter were the still ongoing tensions with North Korea, Nordea deciding to propose moving HQ to Finland and Fortum buying a major stake in Uniper. All this didn’t cause much fluctuations in portfolio value, rather minor swings back and forth and closing with 1,32% gains. As a preparation to the Nordea decision I’ve built a bit overweight position on the company via Sampo. I don’t see that as a huge problem as both are quality companies which act as a hedge against eventually rising interest rates. Therefore it’s not likely that I would sell neither one unless there’s a major overvaluation which would justify such a thing. However I did sell my stake in Fortum with a nice profit. News on the  Uniper deal drove the share price up and since this deal increases the involved political even further, I didn’t see any problem in selling out. I might be interested in buying back the shares around 14 EUR (sold at 17,20 EUR) per share but that’s a big if. Political risk was significant before but this will take it to a whole new level.

Another short term target was to eliminate some of the debt which was a bit on the high side and above my target level. Selling my stake on Fortum made this possible even though I initiated a new position on Apple Inc. In this market situation I’d be inclined to reducing the debt even further but there are some interesting valuations to pursue as well. As I don’t see a clear mechanism for major market correction (as I ever would if one was coming) or quick changes in the interest rates, I might just as well keep the debt level target as is and keep investing as long as I can find reasonable valuations in quality companies.

Pre-tax dividends were 680,11 USD compared to 487,01 USD year before. Nothing special there, pretty much as expected. Perhaps the most positive thing was the increase from BHP Billiton which is turning around nicely. Last year they paid 39,20 USD for my 140 ADR shares and this year much nicer 120,40 USD which I expect to go up next year.

Links:

https://www.ft.com/content/af24ddac-a2d9-11e7-b797-b61809486fe2?mhq5j=e5

https://www.ft.com/content/4fc74af4-33f6-11e7-bce4-9023f8c0fd2e?mhq5j=e5

Recent Buy: Apple Inc.

I’ve been looking at Apple for quite some time now. Recent launch of new iPhone 8 and the new watch together with upcoming launch of the flagship iPhone X has been received with some mixed feeling. Stock price has reacted to this with a minor correction downwards as the launch hype really isn’t what it used to be. Flagship is likely to have very limited supply and it might cannibalise the sales of iPhone 8 models. After considering all this I’ve come to a conclusion that all this is likely just short term noise. Update cycle will be significant and overall the company is in excellent position to continue to generate massive income and also grow in multiple segments, services being a major one going forward. Therefore I decided to open an initial position on the company with a purchase of 20 shares for 151,40 USD per share. I see a strong possibility for the share price to reach 200 USD level in the first half of 2018. To support this I also upgraded my old iPhone 5S to new iPhone 8 Plus. Joking aside I’ll try to replace the DSLR camera I sold recently with the new iPhone.

Recent Trading Attempt: Fortum Corporation

Fortum came out today with a plan to buy a significant piece of Uniper. This is a decent speculation possibility which I decided to use. I sold all my 300 shares for 17,20 EUR per share with intention to buy those back once there’s more clarity and I fully understand how this fits into Fortum’s strategy. In my opinion there are plenty of unknowns here and it’s very much possible that we will see big swings presenting buyback possibilities with reduced price. In short term this also reduces the portfolio debt significantly which is a plus.

Link: Bloomberg

Recent Buy: Hennes & Mauritz AB

Old buy order was executed today as the Hennes & Mauritz AB stock dropped mainly because HSBC lowered their target price to 180 SEK per share. Funny coincidence that anonymous buyers were actively buying today. I didn’t expect this to happen right now but overall I consider this to be a decent valuation. These additional 90 shares bought for 197 SEK per share make this a full position for now.

Recent Buy: Sampo Plc

Stocks went down today mostly because of the North Korean missile experiments. I took the opportunity to deploy some of the cash from the sale of Scorpio Tankers back to market in the form of Sampo Plc. I bought additional 12 shares for 43,70 EUR per share. Mentally this might be considered as the maintenance purchase for September but let’s see what the market has in store for us as this could the beginning of mid sized correction.

I’m also looking at couple of companies I might be interested in. First of all I’m waiting for a pullback in NEL Hydrogen to open a very long position on it. Really interesting sector to be involved in as energy and transportation sectors are transforming to something new. Second company on my list is Apple Inc. Valuation seems to be quite reasonable given the size of the company and phase of the overall market. If the stars align correctly and there’s no market meltdown nor unexpected product and delivery problems, I don’t see why the stock would reach for the 200 USD per share valuation during the first half of 2018.