Responsible Investor Portfolio Update, August 15th, 2020 | $TCEHY $NEM $BK $SYF $GILD $GRUB $SQQQ $SCO $PCG $LVMUY $LRLCY $PEUGF $ELC.MI $WBD.MI

Another positive week for the global stock markets with Europe over-performing the US. The Italian stock market jumped almost 5% while the Stoxx index gapped 2.77% higher. The Dow and the S&P500 were up 2 and 1%, respectively. The Nasdaq was very quiet and closed marginally higher.

There are increasing calls from investment banks for a potential future over-performance of the Stoxx versus the US Stock Markets which have run a lot: YTD, the S&P500 is up 4.7% while the Stoxx index is down 10% and the FTSE MIB lags behind with a -13,82%. There are exceptions within Europe: for example the Danish stock market being up 15% YTD and currently has a P/E of 31. With our portfolio consisting of European stocks for 68% at present, we are geared to benefit from a possible mid-term rise of the European stocks.

We have had 3 winners this week as $SYF , WeBuild and Elica rose between 5% and 7%. This week’s sell off in gold has negatively impacted on $NEM , down 7%, however this precious metal is expected to rise further in the near future.

$TCEHY continues to be hit by anti-China US policies and, more recently, by the dispute between $AAPL and $GOOG vs Epic Games, the company behind popular video game Fortnite in which Tencent has a stake.

Two of our positions hit the SL price, namely $SCO and $GILD. For the latter it might have just been bad timing as the fundamentals and the valuation remains strong: we might get back in if the earnings continue to grow and the technicals suggest an entry point.

The table below summarises the portfolio performance since inception.

2000814 RIP

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Responsible Investor Portfolio Update, August 8th, 2020 | $TCEHY $NEM $BK $SYF $GILD $GRUB $SQQQ $SCO $PCG $LVMUY $LRLCY $PEUGF $ELC.MI

Welcome to the ever rising stock market era where nothing that used to matter really matters anymore. One could call it state capitalism.

Another week of growth across the board with the US markets leading the push towards ATHs. With the US presidential election now just 90 days away, chances are that more stimulus and more bubble blowing policies will be implemented. That’s all well and good in the short term, but will happen in the long term ? If momentum is dictating the current market direction, at some point valuations will matter, one would think.

In the meantime our portfolio was basically flat this week due to a couple stinkers, namely $TCEHY -which has been affected by Trump’s attack to Chinese stocks- and Italian Contractor WeBuild which has now dropped below 1.1€ and is very close to my line in the sand. On the positive side, $GRUB becomes our first position to pass the 30% mark, a capital appreciation threshold I use to determine when to have take profit (TP) ready: more on this in future weekly updates.

We have sold our position on $IMA.MI on Monday with a nice +14% profit in just one week ! No other changes to the portfolio this week but there are many stocks on my watchlist, such as $CSPG, $SMSFT and $AMAT.

From this week onwards you will see all the stop loss (SL) prices which have been defined so far. A general rule I follow is to consider a 7 to 10% loss to determine the SL price depending on whether it is a divided stock or not and on the general market performance. The SL price increases if the investment relates to a leveraged ETF. And with every rule, there are always exceptions of course !

The table below summarises the portfolio performance since inception.

2000807 RIP

If you don’t want to miss my alerts, please subscribe to Responsible Investor or follow me on Twitter. I also run an eToro portfolio which currently has 25 positions and can be accessed via this link.

Responsible Investor Portfolio Update, August 1st, 2020 | $TCEHY $NEM $BK $SYF $GILD $GRUB $SQQQ $SCO $PCG $LVMUY $LRLCY $WBD.MI $IMA.MI $ELC.MI

It is surprising how the global stock markets are capable of shrugging off just about any news headline recently. This week was no different. The pandemic keeps wreaking havoc in many developing countries and of course in the US as a second wave in Europe seems inevitable now. Check out these great graphs from the Financial Times.

On Wednesday the CEOs of the largest 4 tech companies, Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook appeared before a US Congress Committee to be “grilled” on anti-trust accusations. You can’t say anyone of them lost their cool, really, and when the same companies all reported their Q2 earnings after the close the following day on the one hand it seemed that as if there is nothing to stop them from hoarding cash, and on the other it does reinforce the point of whether there is fair competition and reasonable profit.

The US markets were up this week, especially the Nasdaq, while the World Stocks Index was mostly flat. Italy saw a sharp decline, just shy of 5%, and the European stock markets in general were also down (Stoxx index fell by 2.6%). The other stock market we watch closely, the Nasdaq Copenhagen, was less badly hit with a 1.4% loss and continues to outperform most European stock markets.

We keep finding great investment opportunities in the Italian stock market. A classic  rule when it comes to personal finance is to invest in what you know. This past week I have sent two new buy alerts, one for mid-cap in the Industrial sector called IMA (which is already up 14% since my buy alert) and another one for a Consumer Cyclical stock called Elica, both traded on the Italian stock market.

I am disappointed by the recent weakness in WeBuild which tanked 21% this week. This is a good example of why focusing only on valuation is not sufficient to pick (or deciding to stick with) a stock: if the market is against it, you won’t see it grow. With the 38.2% fib level broken, there is the risk of further depreciation. I will look into it more closely in due course and send an alert if I sell/reduce/accumulate.

WBD.MI_YahooFinanceChart

I realised that one of our SQQQ position was incorrectly reported despite the ETF having hit our SL price of 8.1$: apologies for the inconvenience.

So far we have not included dividends in the total return and I will endeavor to add this information in a future update as some of our stocks have already paid a quarterly dividend since the inception of the RI portfolio.

The table below summarises the portfolio performance since inception.

200731 RIP

If you don’t want to miss my alerts, please subscribe to Responsible Investor or follow me on Twitter. I also run an eToro portfolio which currently has 20+ positions and can be accessed via this link.

Responsible Investor Portfolio Update, July 25th, 2020 | $TCEHY $NEM $BK $SYF $GILD $GRUB $SQQQ $SCO $PCG $LVMUY $LRLCY

I was on holidays for the last two weeks and while I took a break from the weekly blog, I kept an eye on the markets and even sent three buy alerts over this period. So much has happened within the span of a fortnight, from the worsening of the pandemic in the US, to the diplomatic tension between the US and China and the start of the earnings season. While the first two may offer an excuse for a correction, all eyes are on earnings which will be the reality check for this frothy market.

Two months have passed since the inception of the Responsible Investor Portfolio and we are still in the black with a total return of 1.9% (excluding dividends) whereas the market is up 1.3% (0.6% market beat).

The majority of our 18 portfolio positions are traded in European currencies whereas 43% is in USD. Over the last two weeks the USD has lost 4.4% vs the Euro and this impacts on our portfolio on which I report in USD.

We initiated a position in Tencent the week before last and also one in the Italian contractor WeBuild (previously trading as Salini). Following the approval of the EU Recovery Fund and a positive technical signal, I also sent a buy alert for an ETF which reproduces the price of a selection of European dividend stocks and is traded on the Italian stock market, EUDV.MI.

The table below summarises the portfolio performance since inception.

200724 RIP

If you don’t want to miss my alerts, please subscribe to Responsible Investor or follow me on Twitter. I also run an eToro portfolio which currently has 15+ positions and can be accessed via this link.