September 2017 – Dividend

Another month passed by, a new monthly dividend overview is in order. This month is slightly better than the same month last year. Ugly sentence I know but you get my drift. The exhange rate still is a disadvantage for me at the moment. But we’re still up by 2,3%.

Overall dividends are up 18% compared too last year, for me that’s a pretty significant change. It’s a bit uncertain if and how the share prices of dividend stocks will be impacted due too rising interest rates. For now this is not in the cards yet. Just slight rate increases are due later this year and next year.

The portfolio tactic will not change however, more about that subject in another future blog post. For now the numbers.

25/09/2017 Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF EUR 1,10
18/09/2017 Royal Dutch Shell A EUR 39,49
15/09/2017 Icahn Enterprises LP EUR 1,28
14/09/2017 Microsoft Corp USD EUR 6,67
11/09/2017 Emerson Electric EUR 4,10
06/09/2017 Unilever Certificate EUR 3,59

Total EUR 56,23

Portfolio news – June 2017 changes

June again, some portfolio news again. Just one new position this month Austrian real estate company Conwert. Mainly active in Germany and Austria, mostly in Germany. Big in residential real estate. Which is boring , hence good. The real estate market in Germany is much more stable and boring compared too the Netherlands, rents are more affordable so not everyone is forced into buying a home. The real estate itself reflects a more real value if you like. It doesn’t go up like crazy.

Some hotspots exempt like Munich. What this means people tend to rent much longer , stable income and there is a real demand for renting. Which attributes a lot to the stability of the market. Dividend at the moment is around 0,30 EUR , and with a share price of around 17 at the moment this is a dividend yield of 1,76% , again not spectacular but there is room to grow here.

Only thing I completely missed was the takeover bid from Vovonia , silly me. We’ll see how this plays out. It’s a nice way to get some exposure into mainly , the German real estate market without buying a rental unit yourself.

The rest of the money and an extra amount went into the Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS index fund. Which I did to balance the portfolio 50/50 , so 50% index and 50% dividend stocks I pick. Science wise the consensus is that beating an index fund is near impossible as an amateur. So as I want to compare my own performance and not totally throw away my hobby, it’s only common sense to have it 50/50.

Portfolio news – May 2017 changes

Well this post is a bit overdue, but not too late. In May I added one new position to my portfolio and used the remainder of the cash to buy ETF’s , specifically the Vanguard FTSE all world ETF.

The new addition is a Dutch investment company called HAL investments, It’s the investment vehicle of one of the most famous Rotterdam shipping family’s, Van der Vorm. They used to own the Holland America shipping line , hence the name HAL. It’s not my usual investment but for me it’s an interesting one. It’s not as much about the company’s they own which are available on the stock exchange. It’s the ones that are not.

For small time investors like myself it’s hard getting in on good company’s that are not listed on one of the exchanges. This is were HAL becomes interesting. They own parts of Coolblue, infomedics and others.

The family holds most of the shares which is a nice vote of confidence. They pay a healthy dividend which contributes nicely to my goal of living off the dividends that come in every year.

the downside is they are a bit heavily invested in the exploration for oil & gas, which has not been that great of a sector the past few years. Still they manage to make a nice profit anyway.

It’s been going strong since 1989 and I believe they will do a good job investing in company’s for years to come. Hopefully they will make more investments in company’s without a listing.

May 2017 – Dividend

It’s the end of May again, Another round of dividends, comparing the amount with last year it’s around 180% more, due to new additions to the portfolio such as Munich Re. Still it’s a nice increase and one for the future. The goal is expanding the dividend income and this month is a nice example.

For the most part it’s recurring dividends however, it’s just that Munich Re is a big chunk in this picture.

The numbers:

18-05-2017 Apple Inc EUR 5,68
18-05-2017 Accell Group EUR 7,20
15-05-2017 K+S EUR 12,00
15-05-2017 NSI EUR 14,00
15-05-2017 ONEOK Inc USD 5,54
12-05-2017 ASML Holding EUR 4,80
11-05-2017 Amsterdam Com EUR 22,50
04-05-2017 Bayer EUR 13,50
02-05-2017 Muenchener Re EUR 129,00

Total 214,22

Now what, step 1.

A couple of days ago I wrote a bit about my own personal retirement gap. Long story short, not much is certain when it comes to my retirement.

Now what, let’s see. It got me thinking about the stuff I can control. So I opened up good old excel and started gathering all my financial info.

Boring but very necessary. So where does my money go. Not surprisingly most of the money goes to my mortgage, (health) insurance, electricity, gas and food (including eating out, drinking in bars etc.). Your basic stuff.

Luckily not all was bad, I have some savings and I tend to save each month. That’s were I did my first discovery. My mortgage costs me 5,4% every year. My savings account netted me 1% every year.

Stupid me , should have made extra payments to minimize my mortgage. which will save me money now and in the future.

Step 1 figured out. Paying off the mortgage.

That’s all good but it doesn’t give me an income in the future , if I pay off all of it the money will be in the house so to speak.

Now I have to figure out how to get a steady income that can pay for my basic needs now and in the future without having to work for it.

Retirement gap

There is such a thing as a retirement gap. The experts claim this is due to insufficient pension build up. Recently it came up as I was checking my personal finances. So there it is a potential financial gap in the future.

Question is, how big is this gap?

I can’t really figure this out. Because I don’t know what monthly income my current pension funds will buy me the moment I retire. How come ?

Well from what I understand , it has everything to do with the interest rates. And more importantly the interest rate the moment you (or I) in this case retire.

The moment I retire, the saved money in the retirement funds will become available to purchase a retirement income.

Which gives me a income based on the calculation “Amount of money in retirement funds * interest rate”. Which is good if the rate is 12 % and very bad if it’s 2%. I might oversimplify it at the moment , but this is what I understand so far.

OK here comes another part of the gap, problem is the interest rate which we calculate the amount of money to put in the pension funds with nowadays is 4%. Well we all know what we get in our savings account. Closer to 0,9%.

Which adds another gap to the gap. So I already save too little for an income of which I don’t know or I can’t calculate how high (or low) it will be.

So lot’s of confusion. This got me thinking, basically I have no way of determining how high my pension will be in the future or how much I will have to save in my pension fund for a nice cosy retirement.

Next question , what is a pension ? No expert here, but it seems to me we can define it as: Income without the need to work for it.

Sounds good to me, why wait for it until I retire ? Let’s start now.

Which I did, I will elaborate on this in another entry.