End of the first quarter of 2023

It has been while since the blog was updated. Mainly because so little has happened. As our portfolio has been very small due to fact we sold most of our position at the end of the last year. However we have been active in rebuilding our portfolio slowly and steadily. During March we made several small purchases. Dividendwise the last month was quite quiet also. We only received one or two very small dividend payments per week. 

During the first quarter we managed to double our stock portfolio compared to end of the year 2022 because we had better free cashflow since we do not have any debt. At end of the first quarter 2023 we have more cash available than in end of the year but we have to reserve some cash for additional tax bill as the taxation of 2022 is about to be finalized. 

There has been no changes in Coop memberships or Investment funds. The reason is that the investment fund is only valuated once a year at the middle of the second quarter. 

Investment portfolio

Asset class	31st MAR 22	30th Jun 22	30th Sep 22	31st Dec 22	31st Mar 23
Cash	7 107,92 €	6 761,52 €	6 443,06 €	2774,08€	4771,91 €
Investment funds	9 831,25 €	11 267,08 €	9 458,80 €	9458,80 €	9 458,80 €
Coop memberships	1 500,00 €	1 500,00 €	1 500,00 €	1 500,00 €	1 500,00 €
Shares	241 359,58 €	233 072,96 €	237 740,19 €	12 027,66€	24 261,07 €
Gross investment portfolio	245 559,28 €	259 799,02 €	252 610,56 €	25 760,24€	39 991,78 €
Investment loan	14 225,10 €	13 365,98 €	12 446,07 €	0 €	0 €
Net investment portfolio	245 573,92 €	239 244,58 €	242 695,98 €	25 760,24€	39 991,78 €

We made quite many very small purchases, we do not list them here at this point of time but we update the income graphs. In February we received 104,91 € capital income and in March the income was 136,45 €. We are back on track to increase monthly capital income. The numbers we have now are lowest in 6 year history of keeping track of income monthly.  We expect to reach approximately the same grand total we reached 2017. 

Anyway we are very happy that our investment portfolio has started to recover. 

 

Weeks two and three of February 2023

Again two weeks have passed and since we sold majority of our positions quite little has happened. We have started rebuilding the portfolio and paid our taxes from our sales at December.

During the last two weeks we have bought following shares. 

• 58 shares of Kesko A @20,50379 €
• 42 shares of Omega Healthcare @28,415 USD

and we received following dividends

• 50,17 € from Vodafone
  
• 1,16 € from Whitestone REIT
• 3,92 € from Main Street Capital

So total amount of dividends was 55,25 €

 

Start of February 2023

Some time has passed since we have updated our blog. The reason is that not much happened in last two weeks of January. in the third week of January we did not receive any dividends or buy anything. In the last full week of January received some dividends. 

In last 2 weeks we received following dividends:

• 6,16 € from MSC Industrial Direct
• 1,75 € from Gladstone Investment Corp BDC
• 2,73 € from Gladstone Commercial Reit
• 1 share of Main Street Capital worth 34,79 €
• 10,26 € as a remainder of MAIN DRIP
  
• 15,79 € from British American Tobacco (February)

This totals up to 71,48 €. Most of them in January. 

Since the last update we have made following transactions

• 16 shares of Kesko A @21,30124 €
• 29 shares of Gladstone Investment Corp @13,59448 USD
• 126 shares of Transalta Renewables @12,14 CAD
• 32 shares of Nordea Bank

We are slowly building up our portfolio again and we try to accelerate rebuilding now that we have paid estimated capital gain taxes for last year's sales.

Second week of January 2023

Gladstone Commercial Corporation cut its dividends and it will cut our dividends approximately by 8,40 €. 

We bought this week:

• 17 shares of Gladstone Investement Corp BDC @13,12882 USD
  
• 11 shares of Nordea Bank @10,81545 €

We received following dividends:

• 0,78 € from Whitestone REIT
• 3,87 € from Main Street Capital
• 17,25 € from Pepsico
• 48,18 € from Leggett & Platt. 

Total amount of dividends was 70,08 €. We have now received most of our dividends from old portfolio and future dividends will be very small while we are rebuilding our portfolio.

 

First week of January 2023

First week of 2023 is over. We received good amount of dividends from already sold holdings and we continued our rebuilding program. We bought back 13 shares of Sampo @50,00538 €, 12 shares of Whitestone REIT @9,89333 USD and 10 shares of MSC Industrial Direct @81,90 USD. We made one small speculative purchase and bought 100 shares of Fellow Bank @0,3757 €. These puchases should increase our passive income approximately by 80 €.

We received following dividends:

• 5,69 € from Genuine Parts
• 34,60 € from Iron Mountain 
• 9,17 € from Methanex
• 21,83 € from Telus
• 28,40 € from Brookfield Infrastructure
• 23,57 € from Regency Centers 
• 66,33 € from Saratoga Investment
• 40,78 € from MidCap Financial Investment
• 0,31 € interests
  

We received total of 230,68 € passive income, which would had been just perfect for our original 1000 €/month target. 

End of the year 2022

The Year 2022 is over. For us it was quite a ride. We reached our yearly dividend goal in September and our portfolio grew as planned. We also set a target for 2023 to receive 1000 € dividends in our accounts per month. Unfortunately the interests started to raise more rapidly than we expected. At the beginning of the year we had more than 260 000 € debt and that was fine with the interest rates what we had back then. As we knew the fact that interests will raise we accelerated payback of our loans already in early 2022. We would have been comfortable with interests between 1-2%. We made a decision that if Euribor 12 breaks the 3% level we will pay back all our debts. We tried to negotiate with our bank to find out if there could be some arrangement which would benefit both but we failed. As Euribor 12 broke the 3% level at the end of November we decided to get rid of our loan and repay everything. Not only we got rid of every loan we also got a chance to rebuilt and organize our holdings optimally between different accounts. Earlier our holdings were not so well organized between the brokers and accounts.

Investment portfolio

Asset class	31st Dec 21	31st Mar 22	30th Jun 22	30th Sep 22	31st Dec 22
Cash	6 396,97 €	7 107,92 €	6 761,52 €	6 443,06 €	2774,08€
Investment funds	9 834,18 €	9 831,25 €	11 267,08 €	9 458,80 €	9458,80 €
Coop memberships	1 500,00 €	1 500,00 €	1 500,00 €	1 500,00 €	1 500,00 €
Shares	227 828,13 €	241 359,58 €	233 072,96 €	237 740,19 €	12 027,66€
Gross investment portfolio	225 543,86 €	245 559,28 €	259 799,02 €	252 610,56 €	25 760,24€
Investment loan	16 990,76 €	14 225,10 €	13 365,98 €	12 446,07 €	0 €
Net investment portfolio	228 568,52 €	245 573,92 €	239 244,58 €	242 695,98 €	25 760,24€

We have set some new targets for 2023 as we abandoned the target of 1000 € monthly dividends in 2023 for obvious reasons. Our new targets are to have a investment portfolio of 50 000 € by end of the year. Dividendwise we would like to reach level of 2018 dividends. 

We have already started rebuilding our portfolio and we bought 29 shares of Spirit Realty Capital @39,63448 USD, which is 0,41552 USD lower than we sold these. 

We received following dividends

• 24,98 € from Main Street Capital
• 0,70 € from Gladstone Investment Corp BDC
• 19,96 € from Gladstone Commercial Reit
• 22,20 € from Gilead Sciences Inc
• 8,79 € from Cohen & Steers Infrastructure fund
• 10,65 € from A&W Royalties 
• 13,84 € from Transalta Renewables
• 20,00 € from Citycon
• 27,46 € from Alpine Income Properties 
• 41,69 € from Simon Property Group

Total amount of dividends received last week was 190,27 €. In December we received 1034,43 € in dividends, which was 3rd best month in 2022. Usually December has been good indicator of the next year's level of dividends in general so our original target of 1000 €/month would not have been too hard to reach. Investment income received in 2022 was totally 11 690,84 €. 

Fourth week of December 2022

Merry Christmas to everyone. We had a very busy week as we sold most of our positions to pay back our mortgage. After we have paid back the mortgage we will return to market. We will not list all the sold positions since there were several dozen of those. We haven't calculated profits from sales yet. 

Dividendwise week was quite good. We received following dividends

• 62,34 € from Blackrock
• 89,32 € from Kesko
• 10,67 € from Dominion Energy
• 53,26 € from Manulife Financial Corp

 Total amount of dividends was 215,89 € which is a pretty good amount. 

 

Third week of December 2022

This week was quite active. We received dividends in 4 days out of 5 and we continued to sell our positions to pay back our mortgage. 

The order of sales depends on several factors. We try to optimize the dividend income and taxes from profits from sales. So if ex-date is near, we wait until ex-date has passed. As we have sold many positions with good profit we will sell only positions which have unrealized losses this year. So remaining positions which have unrealized profits will be sold in January. We also consider dividend yield, so we are selling positions with lowest dividend yield first and we try to leave best dividend payers to portfolio. That way we can accelerate rebuilding the portfolio as much as possible. 

We sold following positions 

• 96 shares of Cibus Nordic Real Estate @142,27853 SEK
• 500 shares of Telia Company @26,9031 SEK
• 1137 shares of Vodafone @0,8361 £
• 8 shares of Genuine parts @178,761 $
• 20 shares of Dominion Energy @68,53608
• 70 shares of Coca-cola @62,95378 €

 We received following dividends

• 24,53 € from Coca-Cola
• 16,72 € from Whitestone REIT
• 54,17 € from Main Street Capital
• 1,05 € from Gladstone Investment Corp
• 10,86 € from Walgreens Boots Alliance
• 29,87 € from Washington H. Soul Pattinson
• 42,63 € from National Australia Bank
• 4,51 € from Owl Rock Capital
• 8,30 € from Aapple Hospitality Reit
• 17,55 € from Exchange Income
• 24,69 € from Realty Income Corp
• 79,95 € from Duke Energy

Total amount of dividends this week was 314,83 €, which is a really good amount. The dividends from Main Street Capital are unusually large because our bank failed to carry out participation to DRIP. Generally we are very unhappy with our current bank's performance. Paying back the mortgage is one activity to loosen ties to current bank. Without mortgage it is easier to change bank if we find better one.

Second week of December 2022

This week was uneventful. Only notable event was that finally our bank finalised Main Street Capital's November dividends. Normally the DRIP has taken one week to be sorted out, but this time it took 22 days. Otherwise it was very quiet except a few dividends

Dividends received:

• 1 share of Main Street Capital worth 36,07 €
• 15,60 € as a remainder from Main Street Capital DRIP
• -5,32 € for taxes from Main Street Capital DRIP
• 34,80 € from Johnson & Johnson
• 49,81 € from CSR Limited
• 18,73 € from Southern Co
• 20,43 € from Exxon Mobil

Total amount of dividends was 170,12 €. 

First week of December 2022

First week of December is over. As we have fully paid back the investment loan we no longer have monthly repayments. Instead, we made extra mortgage repayment with cash received from sales. 

This week we closed our position in Lazard. This was unfortunate purchase in the first place. Somehow,  when investigating the company we missed the information that company has another headquarter is in Bermuda. In taxationwise this is problematic as the total taxation is really heavy for us. Also the changes in US taxation at 1st of Jan 2023 accelerated the sales. After 1st of Jan we would have paid 10% witheld tax from gross sale price of the share. These are reasons why we ended up correcting our mistake rapidly. We realized 8.8% annualized net profit with this investment. Even though we made profit the investment was a mistake. We sold Lazard @36,94141 USD

Received dividends:

• 11,61 € from MSC Industrial (November)
• 15,55 € from LTC Properties
• 20,51 € from Gladstone Commercial Reit
• 0,71 € from Gladstone Investment Corp BDC
• 1,47 € from Sabra Healt Care Reit
• 18,62 € from Bank of Montreal
• 10,95 € from A&W Revenue Royalties
• 14,22 € from Transalta Renewables
• 6,53 € from Cibus (December)
• 9,04 € from Cohen & Steers Infrastructure
• 53,94 € from Canadian Utilities
• 69,44 € from Enbridge Inc

Total amount of dividends this week was 232,59 €. In November we received 645,42 € in dividends, which is less than our 725 € monthly target for 2022. Our bank failed to deliver some dividends from Main Street Capital in November. 

December dividends are now at 138,95 €.