$CRM (-2,41 %)

AI is causing a job transformation, at least at Salesforce. Around 1000 jobs are to be cut at the software company. However, the company is also looking for new employees - in particular salespeople for the new AI products. It is unclear whether the job losses are directly related to AI.

Bloomberg has learned from an insider that around 1000 employees are affected. However, they can also apply for other internal positions - it is questionable whether they are all suitable for a new job. Salesforce itself has not yet commented. According to the report, the company has around 73,000 employees.

Job cuts at big tech

There have already been massive job cuts at almost all major tech companies since 2023. Microsoft, Meta, Amazon are all cutting jobs. Meta recently announced that it would be getting rid of so-called low performers, which means that employee performance has to be monitored and evaluated. Big tech is under enormous pressure from investors; the aim everywhere is to be as efficient as possible. However, before the big wave of job cuts, there was probably too much recruitment, partly to take skilled employees away from the competition.

As recently as December, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff specifically said that 1400 new people would be hired to take care of the many orders associated with Agentforce. This is a platform that can be used to acquire AI agents for the company. These agents then take on tasks. Salesforce primarily offers software for customer management and support, so one of the tasks of the agents is to answer and process customer inquiries.

(emw)

https://www.heise.de/news/Mitarbeiter-wechsel-dich-Salesforce-kuendigt-und-stellt-ein-10268422.html

Constellation Software $CSU (-0,46 %) is one of the top companies on my watch list with one of the best sales charts I have ever seen. Do you have the company on your radar?

Even Salesforce $CRM (-2,41 %) , Shopify $SHOP (-5,86 %) or Crowdstrike $CRWD (-6,19 %) are sweating...

I actually knew that DeepSeek existed a week ago. Thanks to Tiktok. But I didn't suspect that it would have an impact on the markets today, otherwise I would probably have sold everything to get in at a lower price today. *wink*

Basically, however, there was no reason to make this assumption, as it is actually only bad news for one company: OpenAI. They were previously regarded as an absolute pioneer and trailblazer in the AI business, but are now coming under a lot of pressure from the low-cost competition from China. The most likely to suffer here is anchor shareholder $MSFT (-1,57 %) and of course Alphabet's competitors $GOOGL (-2,28 %) who, despite their expertise, have only managed to embarrass themselves with their language model in a relatively high-profile manner.

But why on earth are the manufacturers of AI infrastructure being punished? Starting with $NVDA (-3,63 %) but also all the way to $SNPS (-3,7 %) or $ASML (-0,72 %) it doesn't really make much sense. Here's what happened: A guy used a shovel to dig away a lot of soil, which impressed us for two years. Now a Chinese guy comes around the corner with a shovel and digs away just as much. Are spoons more efficient than shovels? Somehow not.

What China is NOT showing here is that they have managed to develop chips that shave off everything on the market without a technological advantage. They have only managed to prove that OpenAI needs a lot of computing power to do relatively "little" with it. In my view, this doesn't affect the infrastructure providers and certainly not the companies that can meaningfully integrate AI into their software.

If, for example, a Salesforce $CRM (-2,41 %) can expand its margins by using the Agentforce platform, this is absolutely unique and cannot simply be copied. Just because some Chinese company has some Chinese program, I am still a Salesforce customer with my company and only benefit from the features that my provider has. There have certainly been cool features on VK networks for 20 years, but here in Germany we are all on Instagram and co. and not on the other - perhaps better - social media from Asia.

As I said, it's a hard blow for OpenAI that their success has been copied. It is also bitter that the others offer this at a much lower price and with fewer performance requirements. Although cheaper is actually a non-issue. They will probably have to cross-finance this somehow and OpenAI didn't charge the prices because they had to, but simply because they could. Ultimately, it's normal in any market that prices eventually become relative and you can't keep charging moon prices for simple services (or Dubai chocolate) forever.

Of course, there will now be a bit of pressure on companies and they will put more pressure on their IT departments to do something with the resources they already have. But that's not a bad thing per se. I think it's a completely messed up idea to think that all companies should be inefficient because they will then spend more money and increase GDP. After all, we're talking about companies here, not the federal government. In the long run, the DeepSeek shock will tend to channel resources in the right direction and that is exactly what the market is supposed to do.

Last year, there were fears that AI could not make any money at all, which have since been refuted. That would have been a much worse scenario than only making money if you manage to reduce cost pressure and increase productivity.

During my first year of investing, I bought a lot of shares that I didn't really understand what they were doing. In the course of my restructuring, I would like to reduce my number of shares from almost 30 to 15 in the long term. However, I want to do this over a longer period of time, as these are not bad companies.

Shares that I want to sell

Apple $AAPL (+0,26 %)
Medpace $MEDP (-0,94 %)
ResMed $RMD (-0,09 %)
Shimano $7309 (+1,25 %)
LVMH $MC (+0,4 %)
Genmab $GMAB (+0,47 %)
Pernod Ricard $RI (+2,31 %)
Pilbara Minerals $PLS (-3,08 %)
Sixt $SIX2 (-0,48 %)
McDonald's $MCD (+0,5 %)
Domino's Pizza $DPZ (-1,75 %)
Crowdstrike $CRWD (-6,19 %)
Salesforce $CRM (-2,41 %)
Nvidia $NVDA (-3,63 %)

Just to clarify, I am not selling these companies because they are bad companies, but because they no longer fit into my investment strategy. I will only invest in companies that are not included in the classic world ETFs, but which I nevertheless understand well.

My question would be what you generally think of this and in which order you would sell the companies listed (as they are listed, this is my preferred order)

In 2024, a lot has happened for me financially. I started investing around the middle of 2021. As I come from a family in which investing in the stock market was rather frowned upon (my parents invested in car manufacturers in 2000, which then slipped in 2001 just like everything else and they realized the losses), I only dared to start with small amounts bit by bit on an ETF basis in 2021. Financial flow classic 70% MSCI World ETF and 30% MSCI EM. The good thing about this was above all building up the automatism of investing money steadily and not waiting until the end of the month.

However, in 2024 I started to look more closely at the topic of finance, sometimes watching Berkshire conferences with Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger and realized that I was interested in individual stocks and would like to own Apple (shares) myself, for example. In February 24' I then looked at my EM position and saw that the position had been more or less at 0 since '21. So I sold just under €1000 and put it into Apple. And no, I didn't calculate the intrinsic value of the share first and didn't know at the time that Apple would be launching devices with AI at the end of 2024. I myself work in the field of software engineering/data science and if someone has the choice, you actually always take the Macbook over Windows computers. But that's another topic for debate :)

The Apple shares then performed really well even after the purchase and I was fascinated by the fact that I generated more unrealized profits with a single share or 6 Apple shares within 2 months than with the EM in 4 years. (I'll come back to EM later)

From March onwards, I suspended my savings plan in the ETFs and simply put the money in my Scalable clearing account instead. I didn't know what exactly I wanted to buy now, so pretty much from mid-24' I started to dive more into investing and how to analyze stocks. I had already studied discounted cash flow analysis in my bachelor's degree, back then in the subject of finance with a 3.0 :D. So I built an Excel spreadsheet and started using DCF models to calculate the intrinsic value of shares.

But what exactly should my strategy be when buying shares?

I mean, I already liked getting a dividend from Apple, so did I want to pursue some kind of dividend growth strategy? Should I go for "fast growers" as Peter Lynch would say? But should I then also add so-called "stalwarts" (dividend stocks) and "asset plays" (stocks with very expensive inventories, for example, or investments and cash whose book value is well below their actual value) to my portfolio, as he advises?

"Only buy something that you'd be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for ten years" - W. Buffett

Long-term focus

My investment horizon is over 10 years, so it is important to me to have some kind of predictability of income from the companies I want to buy. It was also important for me to be patient when buying from the outset and to allow some time to pass in order to check whether an investment thesis holds up over quarters.

Quality

I focus exclusively on companies with a leading position in their respective industry, either number 1 or number 2 in the respective sector with a large market share. The important thing here is that growth should be primarily organic. This means that the company should either simply build good, irreplaceable products that customers love and therefore remain loyal to, or simply be so influential that they can simply raise their prices without really losing customers ("pricing power" like Apple)

Concentration

Especially for someone coming from the financial flow school where the more diversified the investment, the better, it was hard to get used to this element. The investor Dev Kantesaria, who has successfully managed Valley Forge Capital for years and whose philosophy is also based on mine, once described this very aptly in an interview: "Why should I invest in my 25th best investment idea?". Accordingly, my goal is only to invest in a maximum of 15 individual stocks - I can't even manage to regularly check more in my free time and check whether the investment thesis still holds up.

Discipline

With the Emerging Markets ETF, I have held a position in my portfolio for several years purely out of conviction that this investment in emerging markets will work out in the long term. I also want to hold my stocks with the same conviction that they will perform well over the long term. In addition, I usually invest in companies when their intrinsic value suggests a margin of safety of at least 15-20%. For example, there was a slump in Alphabet shares in the summer with the unrest that Alphabet might be split up. The share was worth around €150 at the time. All of Alphabet's individual businesses have a combined intrinsic value of €250-300. Also related to this strategy element is that I don't really touch individual sectors that are associated with large research and development costs, for example, unless I really know my way around them. So I avoid biotech companies because I hardly know anything about them, but I invest in tech companies because I work in IT myself.

So I look for companies that are quasi monopolies in their respective industries, with strong market shares and a large moat due to irreplaceable or hard-to-penetrate products and a solid margin with a focus on steady free cash flow growth.

So why do I actually have the Emerging Markets ETF?

I asked myself this question and then promptly took another look at just ETF to see which stocks are actually in it. The top 10 holdings accounted for almost 25%. Why is that important? Some people always complain that the Magnificent 7 have such a high share in the S&P500, also slightly more than 25%, but this is usually due to the fact that companies are often weighted by market capitalization. If you then take a closer look at the top 10, 5 of them are Chinese companies. In general, China accounts for just under 25% of the ETF share. Chinese equities are not bad per se, there are some very good companies. However, the constant intervention of the government is a problem, laws can be changed overnight and a company becomes obsolete, or Mr. Ma, the CEO of Alibaba, simply disappears for a few months after having expressed mild criticism of government officials in a speech. These characteristics go against my strategy as formulated above, which is why the EM ETF was thrown out completely in July.

I then slowly tried to build up my individual positions towards the end of July, primarily $CRM (-2,41 %) , $ASML (-0,72 %) , $MSFT (-1,57 %) , $BKNG (-5,35 %) , $GOOG (-2,32 %) , $V (-0,16 %) and $AMZN (-2,39 %) . On August 5 there was a small correction, I think it was due to the "Japanese carry trade". That week I made another big purchase, very happy not to have invested all my freed-up EM capital at once. As a result, I was able to invest heavily in Amazon and Alphabet and make them my largest single positions.

Overall, I am very happy with the decision. I am aware that the last stock market year was a very good one overall and that you shouldn't be deceived by appearances. Things will probably not always go so well. My third-largest single position, in which I was in the red at just under €1500 in the meantime $ASML (-0,72 %) is good proof of this. Nevertheless, this company is a virtual monopoly in the chip manufacturing sector and will most likely remain so for the next 10 years. Therefore, I can only shrug my shoulders and look at the reports from the Magnificent 7, which are constantly expanding their data centers and in some cases were unable to meet demand in the last quarters of 2024! But there are already some good articles on this here on getquin. A new addition at the end of '24 is $UBER (-2,45 %) I will also be steadily expanding my position there, and the watchlist also includes $MELI (-4,31 %) , $MCO (-1,54 %) , $SPGI (-0,29 %) , $CAKE (+2,45 %) and $AMD (-2,29 %) for 2025.

To summarize:

Portfolio performance: 31% vs. S&P500 25%

Invested capital: approx. 22,000 euros

Portfolio value growth: approx. 42,000 euros

Goals for 2025:

• 30k invested (a large crypto cash-out will take place with approx. 20-30k, not included in the portfolio)
• Beat the S&P500
• Increase portfolio value to 150k
• Sell $TTWO (-0,04 %) (GTA 6 bet, but by the time this appears it feels like you've already done 10x in other companies)
• expansion $SPGI (-0,29 %) and addition of $MCO (-1,54 %) (credit rating duopolies)

Part 5 of 5
/ Review of the year 2024: In the first 4 parts

of my investment story, I looked at the years 2013 to 2023.

A mixture of highs and lows. While there was a lot of learning at the beginning, the last few years are finally bearing fruit!

Monthly view:

2024 was another very positive year, although December again resulted in a slight loss in the portfolio.

In total, December was -0,8%. This corresponds to price losses of -3.200€.

The MSCI World (benchmark) was -0.9% and the S&P500 -2.5%.

In the following, however, I would like to look primarily at the whole of 2024 and not

just December.

Year as a whole:

Winners & losers:

The winner par excellence is hardly surprising NVIDIA $NVDA (-3,63 %) with

almost €20,000 in share price gains! And this despite the fact that I took my entire stake of ~€4,000 off the table in March.

In 2nd place follows Bitcoin
$BTC (+0,71 %) with approx. 6,000€ price gains. 3rd-5th place

are shared by TSMC $TSM (-0,58 %)
Alphabet $GOOG (-2,32 %) and Meta
$META (-1,11 %) with gains of ~€5,000 each.

On the loser side it looks very relaxed all in all.

Sartorius $SRT (-2,19 %)
Nike $NKE (-0,48 %)

and Bechtle $BC8 (-0,42 %) have each caused share price losses of ~€1,000. They are followed by LVMH $MC (+0,4 %) with share price losses of €500 and Amgen $AMGN (+3,04 %) with €200.

All in all, share price losses that are not really worth mentioning.

The performance-neutral movements in 2024 were just under €20,000. This is a significant decline compared to the almost €30,000 from previous years. This was due to some private issues and the upcoming house construction.

My performance for the year as a whole was +28,8% and therefore outperformed my benchmark, the MSCI World, by 25.8%.

In total, my portfolio currently stands at ~347.000€. This

corresponds to an absolute growth of ~95,000€ in the current

year 2023. ~71.000€ of which comes from price gains, ~3.800€ from

dividends / interest and ~20.000€ from additional investments.

Dividend:

• The dividends in December were 17% above the previous year at ~€370
• Amgen is in the lead with over 50€ (gross) dividend every 3 months
• For the year as a whole, my dividends amounted to ~2.900€ and thus almost 25% over 2023

Buys & sells:

- I bought in December for a significantly reduced ~500€

- As always, my savings plans were executed:

- Blue chips: Lockheed Martin $LMT (+2,16 %) Republic Services $RSG (+0,39 %) Thermo Fisher $TMO (-0,59 %) ASML $ASML (-0,72 %) Northrop Grumman $NOC (+2,66 %) Itochu $8001 (+0,66 %) Constellation Software $CSU (-0,46 %) Hermes $RMS Salesforce $CRM (-2,41 %) MasterCard $MA (-0,3 %) Deere $DE (-2,08 %)

- Growth: -

- ETFs: MSCI World $XDWD (-0,98 %) and the WisdomTree Global Quality Dividend Growth $GGRP (-0,99 %)

- Crypto: Bitcoin $BTC (+0,71 %) and Ethereum $ETH (+1,73 %)

- There were no further sales in December

Target 2024 & outlook 2025:

My goal for 2024 was to reach €300,000 in the portfolio. Due to the

extremely positive market performance in the current year, my portfolio stands at ~€ 350,000 at the end of the year. I was therefore able to significantly exceed my target.

What will happen in 2025? The logical target, of course, would be 400.000€ to be achieved. However, due to the upcoming house construction, part of the assets will be invested in the house construction. If I include the property in my statement of assets, the target of €400,000 would of course not change.

However, as I am more likely to be tracking my liquid assets here, I will probably

probably refrain from doing so.

Therefore, my year-end target for 2025 will probably be closer to the final balance for 2024. So around €350,000 at the end of 2025.

How are things looking for you? Have you already thought about your plans for 2025?

Finally, I wanted to say thank you again for all the positive reactions to my investment story!

https://linktr.ee/mister.ultra

#dividends
#dividende
#rückblick
#depotupdate
#aktie
#stocks
#etfs
#crypto
#personalstrategy

Happy New Year everyone! We are starting the new year with adjustments to the Sina ETF. (The performance here below somehow no longer corresponds to the actual performance, but so be it...) After this post you'll have peace and quiet from my ETF again :D

I sold some stocks and invested the dividends I received last year. That left me with 19 euros in cash, so it's still a 40-share ETF ;)

If this were my only portfolio, I would probably have held more cash and not reinvested directly, as the entry point doesn't always seem optimal. But I also proceeded without regard to entry points.

For the question of how high the profits or losses were, please refer to the portfolio.

Out are:

$STLAM (-0,34 %) (loss)

$AFX (-0,59 %) (loss)

$MC (+0,4 %) (loss)

$OR (+1,22 %) (loss)

$7203 (-0,72 %) (loss)

$D05 (+0,91 %) (Profit)

$RHM (-1,89 %) (Profit)

$ENR (-4,27 %) (Profit; also dropped from my "real" portfolio)

Partial sale:

$WMT (-2,31 %) at 50%

Increased by:

$AAPL (+0,26 %)

$MSFT (-1,57 %)

$ASML (-0,72 %) Since the position was down over 20%, but I am convinced in the long term

$GOOGL (-2,28 %)

New additions:

$BKNG (-5,35 %)

$JPM (-0,57 %)

$NU (-11,11 %)

$COST (+0,22 %)

$AFL (-2,16 %)

$INTC (-4,07 %)

$CRM (-2,41 %)

$NOVO B (+5,32 %)

In addition to my World ETF core, I would like to invest in the following shares (partly via a savings plan) in the coming year.

How do you rate these shares?

Which of them would you also take or do you already have in your portfolio?

$CRWD (-6,19 %) - Crowdstrike

$CRM (-2,41 %) - Salesforce

$AVGO (-3,16 %) - Broadcom

$ACN (-5 %) - Accenture

$SOFI (-4,68 %) - SoFi

$MELI (-4,31 %) - Mercadolibre

$TSLA (-4,32 %) - Tesla

$AXON (-4,57 %) - Axon

$NU (-11,11 %) - Nu Holdings (possibly)