2025 - A year to forget if you look at the first quarter. While things were still looking positive until around mid-February, things have been going steadily downhill since the middle or end of February.
March 2025 was the worst single month in my portfolio since 2013, with price losses of almost 10%. The negative market trend in the US and a weak US dollar naturally hurt my portfolio particularly badly.
Monthly view:
In total, March was -9,9%. This corresponds to price losses of almost 30.000€.
The MSCI World (benchmark) was -7.9% and the S&P500 -5.8% (in dollars, for euro investors it was also more like -10%).
Winners & losers:
A look at the winners and losers shows a clear picture in March:
Winners? You will look for them almost in vain this month.
In 1st and 2nd place are Deutsche Bank
$DBK (-6,15 %) and Allianz $ALV (-2,67 %) two German financial stocks with gains of around € +180 each. Northrop Grumman $NOC (-0,5 %) at +120€ is only one of 2 American stocks with a positive price performance in March.
A completely different picture on the losers' side:
1st place goes to NVIDIA $NVDA (+0,68 %) with price losses of over €4,200. It is followed by Meta $META (+0,16 %) and Palo Alto Networks
$PANW (-0,57 %) with price losses of ~€2,000 each. 4th place goes to Alphabet
$GOOG (+0,22 %) with €1,600 in share price losses. The flop 5 is then completed by a non-tech stock, namely Starbucks
$SBUX (+0,14 %) with losses of ~€1,400.
The performance-neutral movements were €500 in March - these are still lower at the moment due to the house construction issue.
current year:
In the YTD my portfolio is now also clearly in the red with -8,4%. The MSCI World is still doing better at -5.4%.
In total, my portfolio currently stands at ~260.000€. This corresponds to an absolute decline of ~€25,000 in the current year 2025. -28.000€ of this comes from exchange rate losses, slightly offset by ~900€ from dividends / interest and ~2.000€ from additional investments.
Dividend:
- Dividends in March were +8% above the previous year at ~390€
- At the top of the list Amgen
$AMGN (-0,3 %) with meanwhile over 55€ (gross) dividend every 3 months - In the current year, the dividends after 3 months are +15% over the first 3 months of 2025 at ~730€
- The US dollar will also have an impact on dividends this year. Example: 2,500$ at an exchange rate of 1:1 equals 2,500€. At an exchange rate of 1.08$, these 2,500$ would only be worth 2,315€, a decrease of ~185€
Buying & selling:
- I bought in March for 750€
- 460€ shares
- 190€ ETFs
- 100€ crypto
- Sales Was there no
Change of strategy?
At the moment, Donald Trump and his policies are causing a lot of scrutiny, especially with regard to the (high) US share in the portfolio.
I can understand these thoughts very well. However, I have decided not to change my strategy and to maintain my high US & tech allocation in my portfolio.
There are certainly better short-term investment opportunities (European defense stocks as an example). Through my savings plans, however, I have deliberately opted for a long-term buying strategy that I will not throw overboard every few months. In the long term, for example, 2022 was an extremely good year to buy tech stocks.
As I don't have a portfolio target for this year anyway, I'm happy to go even lower - hopefully I'll be happy about the entry prices in 2-3 years' time.
YouTube:
Unfortunately, I only uploaded 2 videos to YouTube in March. Unfortunately, work in March was extremely stressful and time-consuming, so there was little time left for this.
I have also uploaded my March portfolio update as a video there if anyone would like to see some more information on the portfolio performance: https://youtu.be/fxbvatj6uvM?si=xP_gvoEmtuqSsfz8
I'm particularly happy to receive criticism or feedback here! 😊
Goal 2025
As already mentioned in the January & February review, a fixed deposit target for this year makes little sense due to the house construction. A fixed savings rate is also difficult to implement due to the issue (unforeseen costs and the like).
A dividend target is also very difficult due to the high volatility of the US dollar.
That's why I'm focusing on other topics this year, especially building a house and possibly one or two YouTube successes.
How are things looking for you? Are you sticking to your portfolio target for 2025 or do you also see difficulties in achieving it after the first quarter?
