Pretty much everything is being shaved excessively these days and the shaky hands seem to be increasing. Today $VZ (-3,9 %) Verizon "caught" with a price loss of over 8.5%. A nice dividend stock in my portfolio and that's where it will stay.

Verizon warned on Tuesday that subscriber growth in the first quarter is likely to be "weak" as competitors lure customers with special offers. The company's shares fell 5.3% in pre-market trading as a result, with the US wireless giant cutting back on customer incentives after a promotional December quarter, while its rivals did not, intensifying competition, Chief Revenue Officer Frank Boulben said at Deutsche Bank's Media, Internet & Telecom Conference.

American telecom companies have relied on incentives in a fierce battle for customers as growth slows in a saturated market. That has boosted customer growth but also raised concerns about profits.

Shares of Verizon rival AT&T fell 4.5% after the company also reported increased customer churn in January, while T-Mobile US slipped 2.1%.

Verizon also saw a "slow start" on phone upgrades in the first quarter, a sign that customers remain reluctant to buy amid growing concerns about the US economy.

Still, the company expects to add more paying wireless customers in 2025 than the roughly 900,000 subscribers it added last year as it benefits from its customizable myPlan.

The comments follow a strong fourth quarter for U.S. telecom companies, in which plans to bundle 5G services with high-speed fiber data as well as streaming services helped attract customers.

Verizon also said it doesn't expect major losses from the tightening of immigration policies in the US.

"We expect very limited impact on the postpaid side, where customers have to provide some form of identification to get a contract. So if there is an impact, it's more likely to be at the lower end of the prepaid market," said Boulben.

Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has launched a sweeping crackdown on immigrants, tasking the US military with securing the border and issuing a broad ban on asylum.

Source: MarketScreener

Last night in the news $VZ (-3,9 %) that our "dear" Elon wants to use his Starlink internet service to force the previous provider Verizon out of a multi-billion dollar deal with the FAA. Not good news for me as a shareholder, for now....

reuters and other services are now reporting as follows: WASHINGTON, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Billionaire presidential adviser Elon Musk on Thursday falsely accused Verizon, a rival contractor to his SpaceX Starlink system, of endangering U.S. aviation safety with a communications system actually operated by L3Harris.

Musk admitted he made a mistake when he said Verizon was operating the Federal Aviation Administration's communications system.

"Correction: The age-old system, which is rapidly degrading, was developed by L3Harris. The new system, which is not yet operational, is from Verizon," Musk wrote on social media.

Verizon, which operates the largest US cellular network, denied Musk's initial accusation, stating that it had only begun work on the system.

"The FAA assessment is single-digit months to catastrophic failure, seriously jeopardizing the safety of air travelers," Musk said in his original post.

Verizon responded, "To be clear, the FAA systems currently in place are operated by L3Harris, not Verizon. We are at the beginning of a multi-year contract to replace outdated legacy systems. Our teams have been working with the FAA's technology teams and our solution is ready for deployment."

L3Harris did not immediately comment.

On Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that the FAA was close to einen 15-Jahres-Vertrag über 2,4 Milliarden US-Dollar zu kündigen, der Verizon in 2023 to overhaul a communications system and had awarded the work to Musk's Starlink. The FAA said it had not yet made a decision on the contract.

This week, the FAA said it is testing three Starlink terminals at a government facility in Alaska to address concerns about reliable weather information for aviation in the state.

"The FAA has been considering the use of Starlink to increase reliability at remote locations, including in Alaska, since the previous administration," the FAA said this week. The agency did not immediately comment on Musk's tweet.

Everyone may think what they want of our $TSLA (-7,2 %) Tesla CEO what he wants, somehow he seems to have finally lost his grip on the ground.... and that will also become a problem for $TSLA (-7,2 %) in my opinion.

What do you think? Will he interfere so much and take advantage of his "position" to the detriment of other companies or is he simply out of his mind?

Hi, I'd like to hear your opinions on my portfolio.

I also welcome your suggestions for etfs in 2025 with stable growth and that pay dividends. I'm analyzing this ETF to invest in the near future $JEGP (-2,61 %)

My focus is to have good assets that pay dividends and over time be able to refresh my investments with those same dividends. This way I can also get a good average price depending on the ups and downs of the market in the long term.

Since November 2024, I've been investing in shares such as $KO (-2,41 %)
$STAG (-1,99 %)
$VZ (-3,9 %)
$VICI (-0,87 %)
$O (-0,61 %)
$PZZA (-8,33 %)
$BMW (-4,03 %)
$T (-4,47 %) etc.

As for cryptos, I'm betting on Solana and Xrp.

In my opinion, these are two assets that could increase in value over the long term.

I have Solana in coinbase, which currently pays 8%, thus also generating recurring payments.

So at the moment I have 80% in shares and reits, and I also want to acquire etfs.

And 20% in cryptos.

Happy 2025 to everyone and good investments!

$VZ (-3,9 %)

For a long time, the high dividend yield was by far the most important reason to buy the shares of the US telecommunications group Verizon. But now potential price gains are being added.

At currently around 6.3% (for 2024), the argument of a high dividend yield still applies to Verizon. This figure even puts the Group in first place among the "Dogs of the Dow", i.e. the ten stocks in the index with the highest dividend yields.

Verizon can report strong customer growth

Now that the Verizon Communications share price has broken through its long-term downward trend from below, the chart has brightened. And: strong operational improvements and promising plans for the future

Verizon gained more new customers in the fourth quarter of 2024 than it has for over ten years. The number of contracts with mobile and broadband customers rose by just under one million after deducting terminations. That was more than experts had expected.

Verizon's quarterly profit rises to 5.1 billion dollars

Sales increased moderately by 1.6 percent to 35.7 billion US dollars (34.5 billion euros) compared to the same quarter last year. On the bottom line, however, the AG earned 5.1 billion dollars after depreciation-related losses of 2.6 billion dollars in the previous year.

In 2025, the planned acquisition of fiber optic provider Frontier Communications (ISIN: US92343V1044) is expected to ensure further growth.

My first dividend for this year.

Seized the day today and took heavy losses.

$CVS (-3,43 %) sold completely and from the remaining money

position $CAT (-3,35 %) and rebuilt the positions $ABBV (-4,56 %) , $VZ (-3,9 %) and $ETN (-4,34 %) increased.

I expect the latter in particular to deliver strong share price and earnings growth in data centers, automation, drive and aviation technology. Everything that has to do with electrification. 😅

From 18-year-old wannabe investment banker to successful private asset manager: my (bumpy) path to €300,000 in my custody account

Part 2 of X:

After a long road through the valley of tears: how buying MasterCard shares ended up
changed everything - This is probably the best way to describe the next stage of my investing life. After discussing my first steps on the stock market in the first part and realizing that I'm not the next Warren Buffett and that I've made just about every rookie mistake, after three years everything should finally be getting better, right? Unfortunately, that wasn't the case in 2017 and 2018. In fact, everything only got worse.

(Part 1: https://app.getquin.com/de/activity/PElWrODsmV) - Thank you for all the positive feedback!

Baseline & Spoilers:

From 2013 to 2016, I did a dual study program and earned a small salary every month. As I was still living at home, I was able to save and invest around €30,000 during these three years. I also added around € 5,000 in capital gains and dividends. My portfolio balance at the end of 2016 was therefore around €35,000. Despite my poor stock selection, this was a sum I could be happy with as a 23-year-old.

Now let's jump forward 24 months: at the end of 2018, I had a portfolio balance of around €40,000, just a measly €6,000 more than two years earlier. In these two years, there were additional price losses of €3,500. In other words, I had managed to lose €600 on the stock market in 5.5 years, while the S&P 500 gained over 50% in the same period - a remarkable (negative) achievement! Only dividends of over € 3,000 in these 5.5 years led to a positive return on the bottom line.

But now let's take a look at what went so massively wrong in 2017 and 2018.

Personal income situation:

After I completed my Bachelor's degree at the end of 2016, I knew that I didn't want to stay with my training company. There was a strong focus on sales, which I personally never wanted to do. I therefore left the company and decided to make a new career start in my early or almost mid-20s.

Before my studies, I really wanted to go into investment banking in New York, but after my studies I suddenly didn't know what I actually wanted to do: "self-employed would be cool", "do I do another Master's", "do I study something completely different again?" - these were my thoughts at the end of 2016 and beginning of 2017. As I was registered as unemployed during this time, I had to keep going to job interviews, which were more or less forced on me by the job center. These were mandatory, as otherwise the money could have been cut (times before the citizen's allowance 😉). My highlight was a job interview at Vorwerk, and I'm not kidding: for an open position as a vacuum cleaner salesmanwho is allowed to move from door to door.

In mid-2017, I was then offered a job in a completely different area that had absolutely nothing to do with my bachelor's degree in business administration and started all over again. I received around €600-700 in unemployment benefit for 9 months and then only a trainee salary of €800-900. Fortunately, I was able to continue living with my parents and invest around €200-300 in ETF savings plans every month. However, I was only able to save around €2,000 in total in 2017.

A few weeks went by and I quickly realized that I was once again not happy with my new professional situation. So I knew I had to leave again. This time, however, I didn't want to just quit and turn up at the job center again. So I forced myself to keep going until I had something in hand. The subject of a Master's degree came up again. But it was also by chance that I got in touch with my former employer.

Long story short: At the beginning of 2018, after 1.5 years, I signed a new contract with my former employer (DAX company), albeit not in a sales role, but in head office/administration. Even though the salary increased significantly, this involved moving to another city. In addition to the rental costs, I also had to furnish an apartment. As a result, there was not much room for investment in the stock market in 2018 either. In total, "only" €5,000 was invested in 2018.

Portfolio performance:

As already mentioned, 2017 and 2018 were an absolute flop in the portfolio. No significant investments and a lousy performance.

In hindsight, it's no wonder: at the time, my portfolio consisted of price rockets such as Hugo Boss $BOSS (-1,36 %)
Deutsche Bank $DBK (-8,27 %)
Macy's $M (+2,13 %)
AT&T $T (-4,47 %)
Verizon $VZ (-3,9 %)
or Daimler $MBG (-4,48 %) .

I was still convinced that tech and co. were far too expensive - I only bought what had a low P/E ratio and a (high) dividend yield. From a dividend perspective, that was great: in 2017, I received over €1,000 in dividends for the first time. I won't reach this mark again until 2020.

However, it also became clear to me that dividends are of little use if there are share price losses on the other side. On average over the two years, my return was a meagre ~2.5%. That was still more than was available on the call money account at the time - today such a return would hurt even more. But you don't have to sugarcoat it either: The performance was forgettable.

Bright spots:

But it wasn't all bad either: I took my first steps into crypto in the fall of 2017. Back then, there was a lot of Bitcoin hype for the first time. I had no idea about it yet, so I bought a participation certificate via the stock exchange as normal. I made a profit of almost €500 in just under three weeks. After that, the hype quickly died down again and I didn't get involved with Bitcoin and co. until the next hype in mid or late 2020.

If I had continued at the end of 2017 and bought Bitcoin regularly, my wealth would probably be a lot bigger today.

All in all, I can look back on the year
2017 but I can also defend myself a little bit: The performance in 2017 was around +7%, which was roughly in line with the performance of the MSCI World (+8%). Only the S&P 500 was significantly stronger at +20% (Trump and his "America First" policy have already had an impact here).

The year 2018 was not a good year on the stock markets overall, and most indices closed in the red. Nevertheless, my decline was greater than that of the S&P 500 and the MSCI World.

There were a number of negative factors in 2018, such as risks from the trade war between China and the USA, Brexit and global economic concerns. All of this was reflected in share prices, particularly in the final trading days of 2018. Once again, a shutdown was on the cards in the US because no agreement could or would be reached on raising the debt ceiling. Within a few days from mid-December, prices fell by 5-6%. This was the main factor behind the extremely poor performance over the two years.

The turning point:

Even though December 2018 was a bad month for the stock markets, in hindsight it was extremely good for me and my portfolio. In December 2018, I bought MasterCard $MA (-4,07 %) and that was the turning point in my investing career.

I realized that my strategy (low P/E ratio, high dividend) would lead to nothing and discovered more and more the topic of "dividend growth" for me. MasterCard was the first stock to enter my portfolio that was in line with my new strategy.

Instead of a low P/E ratio of less than 10, the P/E ratio was suddenly over 30 and the dividend well below 1%, but growing strongly - just like sales and profits. A clear difference to companies like Macy's, Daimler and Hugo Boss in my portfolio.

My financial situation also improved significantly over the course of 2018. My net salary was around €2,500, and even though I had to pay rent and other costs, it became clear that I would be able to invest more again from 2019.

Asset development & return:

As described, the two years were too forgettable - but the learnings and my strategy change in hindsight extremely important for my future investing life.

Year
Deposit value
Return

2017 39.000€ +7%

2018 41.000€ -10%

Vermögensentwicklung 2016-2018:

Vermögensentwicklung 2013-2018:

Outlook:

I had arrived professionally and was ready to build up a completely new strategy in my portfolio. Everything was ready for 2019! And everything should finally get better in 2019. But there will be more big mistakes in the next part (Wirecard, corona hype, China), but above all there will finally be successes!

In part 3, I will discuss the years 2019 to 2021. We will then break the €100,000 mark and even come close to reaching €200,000.

#strategy

#personalstrategy

#etfs

From 18-year-old wannabe investment banker to successful private asset manager: my (bumpy) path to €300,000 in a custody account

Part 1 of X (let's see how many there will be): The new Gordon Gekko? Between Chinese small-cap recommendations from stock market letters and "AT&T is better than Amazon" (2010 - 2016)

(Part 2: https://app.getquin.com/de/activity/LUkWiLtZKX)

Previous story:

Inspired by @DonkeyInvestor I would now like to share my story and continue it if there is interest. Thanks for the cool idea!

My investment journey began about 2-3 years before my first securities purchase in 2013. While the financial crisis (2007-2009) only interested me marginally as a ~15-year-old, the emerging euro crisis from 2010 onwards aroused a much greater interest in the economy, sovereign debt and co. As part of some school work, I dealt with the debt crisis in Greece, among other things.

Through films like Wall Street or Margin Call - The Great Crash slowly sparked my interest in the stock market. With my first smartphone in 2012, I was able to secretly check share prices during lessons - which often led to the teacher confiscating it 😂 I primarily followed the prices of "cool" shares such as Daimler, Hugo Boss and Sony.

I grew a desire to become an investment banker myself and emigrate to Wall Street in New York (spoiler: neither happened 😉).

The first purchases:

My first purchases were made under contradictory circumstances. I was firmly convinced that a major crash was imminent (government debt, interest rate policy, ...) and was very convinced by well-known crash prophets such as Dirk Müller.

Nevertheless, I wanted to play along and bought my first shares.

In 2013, I started my dual business studies at a global bank. When I started my studies, I finally made my first securities purchases. On the one hand, my capital-forming benefits went into the DWS Top Dividende, and on the other, I set up an ETF savings plan on the DAX. In 2014, I added further shares such as AT&T $T (-4,47 %) Verizon $VZ (-3,9 %) Shell $SHEL (-6,48 %) and Sony $6758 (-4,79 %) were added. While Sony was a great investment, I unfortunately sold the stock far too early. My purchase price was around €12 and I sold at around €18. If I hadn't sold Sony, it would have been a tenbagger at times.

My main investment criteria at the time were

- Low P/E ratio

- High dividend yield

- And/or "cool" company

So in 2014 I had to choose between Amazon $AMZN (-0,33 %) ("cool, but no dividend & much too high P/E ratio") and AT&T ("high dividend, low P/E ratio"). And, of course, the decision sucked with today's knowledge.

Another company was Macy's $M (+2,13 %) . When I was in New York and visited the largest shopping center in the world, I was sure I had to have this stock.

The only two stocks I still have in my portfolio from my early years are Procter & Gamble $PG (-2,47 %) (bought in 2015) and Unilever $ULVR (-2,65 %) (bought in 2016).

In 2016, I had a total of 14 individual shares in my portfolio, 12 of which were sold in the following years and will probably never end up in my portfolio again.

The first lesson:

After I realized professionally that the path to investment banking and New York was probably not the right one after all (40 hours of work is really exhausting, I don't need 80 or more in investment banking), I slowly realized that I wasn't the next Gordon Gekko or Warren Buffett either.

It was too boring for me to just invest in shares - after all, I wanted to get rich quick and drive a Porsche! So from 2014, I also started investing in other things (no, unfortunately not crypto).

I tried my hand at various certificates, reverse convertibles and the like, all with little success. The biggest learning I had was with an absolutely hot tip from the internet. It was a classic pump and dump game from a stock market letter. Someone had stocked up on shares in a Chinese small cap (Tianbao Holdings) and then called on everyone to buy: "Share with the chance of a 10,000% return - forget Apple and co." It was advertised like this or something similar at the time.

I took my entire monthly salary (around €800) and thought to myself: get in! It didn't matter what the company was doing or why the opportunity should be so great! At first things went up and I was quickly up 20%. Then it went downhill - the initial investor had probably made his return and withdrawn the money. The stock exchanges quickly realized this and stopped trading. I tried to sell the shares on various stock exchanges and was able to get rid of them in Berlin, Bremen or somewhere else - with a loss of 50%. Two weeks of work for nothing. Although it was "only" a loss of €400, it really annoyed me. Not just the loss, but that I fell for something like that.

In hindsight, the €400 was extremely well invested and helped me a lot in my future investment career.

Asset development & return:

How did the first 3-4 years on the stock market go and how did my assets develop?

Year Deposit value Return

2013 2.000€ -12%

2014 8.600€ -1%

2015 17.000€ +4%

2016 35.000€ +14%

All in all, these were lost years for me in terms of returns. You can also see this from the green line, which was mostly in negative territory.

The stock markets did very well, and yet I mostly only saw losses or very low returns.

Conclusion & outlook:

So in 2016 it was clear to me: no investment banking, no New York, I'm not the new Warren Buffett and I'm not going to get rich overnight.

In the following 3 years from 2016 to 2019, I built on my initial experiences and slowly developed into a better investor. Nevertheless, more big mistakes followed (Bitcoin, Wirecard, ...).

#strategy
#personalstrategy
#etfs