And what did I do? Exactly the opposite of what people usually do when everything is falling: I increased my holdings instead of waiting.

I added to three positions I already held:

🟢 Realty Income ($O (+1,14 %) ) — 5.8% dividend yield and a 48.7% payout ratio based on AFFO. 674 consecutive monthly dividends without fail.

🟢 Gecina ($GFC (+1,16 %) ) — 8.6% yield and trading at a 53% discount to its net asset value.

🟢 VICI Properties ($VICI (-0,78 %) ) — 7.9% yield, 10.1x P/FFO, near 52-week lows.

And I’ve opened two new positions:

🟢 McCormick ($MKC (-2,64 %) ) — 8.2x P/E ratio and 3.8% yield. Dividends have increased for 40 consecutive years.

🟢 NatWest ($NWG (-1,1 %) ) — 8.8x P/E ratio, 14.8% ROE, and 5.1% yield.

All five are rated “OPTIMAL” by my system. That does NOT mean they’re perfect, so I’ll also tell you what concerns me about each one:

⚠️ VICI relies on Caesars and MGM for nearly 70% of its revenue.

⚠️ Gecina has negative free cash flow due to mandatory renovations of its buildings in France.

⚠️ Realty Income is highly sensitive to interest rates.

⚠️ McCormick is dealing with strikes and an active boycott against some of its brands.

⚠️ NatWest cut its dividend in 2021 and 2023: once due to regulatory requirements and once due to a one-time event that didn’t recur.

I received two dividend payments last week: two from my most recent purchases.

• NatWest ($NWG (-1,1 %) ): £0.12 per share, up 26% from last year. Yield: 4.98%, P/E ratio: 9.0x

• Reckitt ($RKT (+0,09 %) ): £0.886 per share, nearly flat compared to 2025. Yield 4.25%, P/E 11.25x

Both are rated 🟢 EXCELLENT, and both are dealing with litigation (inherited issues at NatWest, infant formula at Reckitt), but the payout ratio is less than 50%.

Morningstar published its list, and 14 of the 16 companies are British. I ran the 13 I’ve already analyzed through my tool:

🟢 EXCELLENT (4)

• $NWG (-1,1 %) NatWest - 5.06%, P/E ratio 8.68x, quality 75/100

• $RKT (+0,09 %) Reckitt - 4.16%, P/E ratio 11.6x

• $HSBA (+1,16 %) HSBC - 3.70%, P/E ratio 10.36x

• $LLOY (+0,2 %) Lloyds - 3.58%, P/E ratio 15.6x

🟣 WATCH (3)

• Relx, AstraZeneca, and Unilever ($REL (-1,88 %) , $AZN (+0,83 %) , $ULVR (-1,31 %) ). Quality businesses, but valuations no longer offer room to run

🟠 CAUTION (4)

• BP (4.87%), Shell (3.39%), Rio Tinto (4.52%), and Barclays ($BP. (+0,55 %)
$SHEL (-0,19 %) , $RIO (+1,62 %) , $BARC (-1,46 %) ). High returns that mask cyclicality. The 78% marginal tax rate on oil in the UK doesn’t help

🔴 LOW THRESHOLD (2)

• Rolls-Royce $RR. (+4,21 %) : It’s on Morningstar’s list, but pays 0.39%. Quality 35, Opportunity 5

• Glencore $GLEN (+0,43 %) : Quality 10/100. A high yield can also mask a declining business

Global bank HSBC $HSBA (+1,16 %) and Mistral AI have announced an agreement that they say will spread the use of generative AI across the financial institution, saving staff time and improving processes.

In a statement announcing the multi-year agreement, the financial details of which were not disclosed, both companies said the bank will have access to Mistral AI's commercial models, including future developments.

The $65.9 billion bank said it would combine its "strong in-house technology capabilities" with the French LLM developer's expertise "to enhance current AI initiatives through self-hosted AI models running on HSBC's internal technology systems".

The use of AI platforms could "help client-facing teams to quickly deliver tailored communications" and "enable marketing teams to run hyper-personalized campaigns". The bank is also considering the use of AI to improve the financial analysis of complex and document-intensive customer lending or financing processes.

In a prepared statement, HSBC Group CEO Georges Elhedery said: "The partnership will provide our colleagues with tools to help them innovate, simplify their daily tasks and free up time for our clients." The collaboration is the latest in a series of plans announced by global banks to signal their intention to adopt generative AI.

Bank of America $BAC (+0,11 %) for example, has announced plans to invest billions of dollars in technologies such as AI to boost employee productivity and generate more revenue. It has told investors that it has earmarked $4 billion in its $13 billion technology budget for new technologies such as AI.

Hari Gopalkrishnan, Bank of America's chief technology and information officer, said relationship managers could serve more customers by using AI for tasks such as preparing client briefings before meetings. "One banker can now serve 50 clients instead of 15. And that's what we're seeing in practice right now."

In October, the British Lloyds Banking Group promised $LLOY (+0,2 %)promised to continue using "digitalization" to drive forward a branch closure program. It had invested £3 billion over three years and £4 billion over five years in transformation, much of which had gone into technology and cyber security, it told investors.

It said it had already made savings of £1.5 billion and promised to look for further ways to reduce manual back-office processes.

In July, the NatWest Group announced $NWG (-1,1 %) announced a five-year collaboration with AWS and Accenture to improve its analytics performance for customer data and make better use of AI and the cloud.

The bank said it was preparing to "consolidate disparate data streams into a single, bank-wide data platform enabled by AI".