I have looked at my portfolio review of 2025 and my start to 2026 - not just "how much", but above all: why and what I have learned from it. I am happy to share this with you and look forward to discussion & feedback and, above all, your views: what was the result and also your perception of your stock market year 2025 - and what set-up are you starting the new year with?

Time to reflect 🧘‍♂️

1) Change of mood at the end of 2024

After a rather sobering (for me) stock market year 2024, there was a clear turnaround in sentiment in November 24: on the day of Trump's election victory in Nov 24, the market jumped significantly (Dow +3.57 %, S&P 500 +2.53 %, Nasdaq +2.95 %). This made the "risk-on" narrative credible again - and you could see it in the behavior of many portfolios. At least in mine, if I'm honest with myself ;)

2) Q1/Spring 2025: Unusually Europe-friendly

The first few weeks of 2025 were indeed unusually Europe-heavy: in the first six weeks of 2025, the STOXX 600 was up >5.5%, while the S&P 500 was only up +2.7% in the same period.

This also became clear later in hindsight: in 2025, defense and banks were extremely strong drivers in Europe at times. I was also right in this upswing ($DHL (-0,02 %) , $GBF (+2,74 %) , $RIO (-0,02 %) ) but unfortunately also some disastrous ($NESN (+0,41 %) , $MC (+0,69 %) , $NKE (+3,35 %) ,$NOVO B (+1,14 %) ) decisions were made. Partly also trend- and community-driven -> yes, you are to blame ;)

3) Beginning of April: Bad times

Then came the break: The strong start to the year was literally "wiped out" in just a few sessions, partly due to the customs/trade war shock. YTD turned completely negative, and by April 7 the STOXX 600 was around 12% below the closing price on April 2. $TSLA (-4,52 %) and $NVDA (+0,47 %) purchases. I also $PEP (-0,87 %) I bought cheaply, but a real breakout is still a long way off.

4) Shortly afterwards: fireworks

Then a tailwind came back in the US from the middle/end of April, when the market repriced parts of the Trump escalation in the direction of "negotiations/de-escalation". The Donald kept a few election promises that were perhaps not quite official .-)

5) H2/late year: AI + interest rates as a "macro tailwind"

Towards the end of the year, the environment was then more strongly characterized by two factors: AI-driven risk assets and falling interest rates. It was an AI-driven rally, which also supported sentiment and inflows into US equity again.

And on the interest rate side: the Fed set the key interest rate at 3.50 % to 3.75 % in December after a further cut.

At the end of the year, the major benchmarks were also closer together again: STOXX 600 +16.66 % in 2025, S&P 500 ~+17 %.

6) Golden times 🥇🏅

Then there was the beautiful gold (u.W.). 2025 was a real exclamation mark: spot gold was up around 66% over the year (according to Reuters, the strongest increase since 1979).

Silver was even more extreme at around +168 % per year.

I have already written about gold in more detail here on getquin - if you are interested in the topic, you can find the article in my profile.

Personal performance 2025

• Internal rate of return: approx. +10 %
• TTWROR: approx. -33 %
• Dividend yield: approx. 1.3 % p.a.

The figures confirm what I described above: in my opinion, I made very good operational decisions (realized profits, used tax aspects, built up cash flow). At the same time, the TTWROR shows quite clearly that the portfolio structure was too volatile and too strongly growth/trend-oriented in the meantime. Too often, I have taken the "falling knife".

Before the turn of the year, I invested in $NVDA (+0,47 %) , $TSLA (-4,52 %) , $GBF (+2,74 %) and $DHL (-0,02 %) - each with positive returns - for the following reasons:

• Utilize saver's allowance
• Reduce tech-heaviness
• Cash generation (you can read why below)

Starting point Jan 2026:

Brief overview of the 2026 start setup

Asset mix

• Individual shares: 71.4 %
• ETFs: 16.0 %
• Gold: 9.2 %
• Crypto: 3.4 %

Regional breakdown

• North America: approx. 45.7 %
• Europe developed: approx. 26.0
• Rest of the world (including EM/Asia/Australasia): approx. 22.5 %

Sector structure

• Financial services: 20.5 %
• Consumer goods (cyclical): 19,2 %
• Consumer staples: 15.7
• Information technology: 14.8
• Materials: 7.9
• Healthcare: 4.7

Start to the new year

Parallel to the sales at the end of 2025, I reallocated or increased my holdings in January, including in $O (+0,6 %), $VNA (-1,63 %) and $ZAL (-1,98 %)- with the logic:

• Strengthen cash flow/dividend components
• Turnaround opportunities as a limited admixture
• Reduce volatility in the portfolio

Why I am thinking more defensively in 2026

Next week, the purchase of an apartment on beautiful Lake Tegernsee 🏝️ will be notarized. This is a step into a completely new asset class for me, as it's my first property of my own. - In addition to construction financing, it will of course also be a liquidity issue over the next few weeks.

I may make a separate post about this, perhaps some of you are also currently facing this step?

I can mentally cope well with drawdowns. But: being able to bear risk does not automatically mean having to bear risk.

My portfolio should fit in with this new phase of my life.

What I will do differently in 2026

Because a new asset class will be added to my portfolio in 2026 with the purchase of an apartment, I want to position my portfolio more defensively in future - without completely foregoing opportunities for returns : risk. Otherwise we would be completely wrong on the stock market :)

1) ETF core should dominate

I want my portfolio to be dominated by my ETFs in future. My target scenario is therefore

• 60% of the deposits via a savings plan in my 4 core ETFs ($VWRL (+0,67 %) , $COMM (-1,95 %) , $WSML (+0,41 %) , $IEMS (+2,6 %) ).
• 30 % stocks
• 10 % commodities
• Play money: crypto, certificates, pennies (weighting < 5%)

Important! This is a start-in-2026 setup

Of course, as always in life, a plan is there to be thrown overboard - so you have to wait and see how assets perform in the year ahead and reassess regularly.

2) Stocks yes - but with more discipline

Turnaround/opportunity stocks and trends remain part of my approach, but clearly limited. I want these positions to be what they should be again: An addition, not a foundation.

I will reduce (basic) consumption and strengthen healthcare. And tech?

3) Tech: more controlled

Tech will remain a driver of returns in 2025 - but I want to build it up again in a controlled manner after my sales. I will monitor the trend from a distance for the first few weeks and possibly months and bet on corrections. You can't do without it - as you can see from the Mag-7 performance in 2025:

• $GOOGL (+0,93 %) : +65,3 %
• $NVDA (+0,47 %) : +38,9 %
• $MSFT (-2,41 %) : +14,7 %
• $META (-0,91 %) : +12,7 %
• $TSLA (-4,52 %) : +11,4 %
• $AAPL (-0,45 %) : +8,6 %
• $AMZN (-1,83 %) : +5,2 %

On that note, happy new year!

$VWRL (+0,67 %)
$EWG2 (-0,83 %)
$O (+0,6 %)
$PEP (-0,87 %)
$MSFT (-2,41 %)
$P911 (+3,53 %)
$BLK (+0,26 %)
$NKE (+3,35 %)
$RIO (-0,02 %)
$MC (+0,69 %)
$NOVO B (+1,14 %)
$NESN (+0,41 %)
$ZAL (-1,98 %)
$COMM (-1,95 %)
$IEMS (+2,6 %)
$BTC (+1,08 %)
$ETH (+0,89 %)
$XRP (+2,73 %)
$PEPE (+3,91 %)

-72% The Trade Desk $TTD (-1,12 %)

-72% Fiserv $FI (-1,54 %)

-65% Dogecoin $DOGE (+6,73 %)

-65% Cardano

-61% Gerresheimer

-60% Enphase Energy $ENPH (+2,31 %)

-59% CarMax $KMX (+1,58 %)

-57% Strategy $MSTR (+1,58 %)

-56% Deckers Outdoor

-56% Alexandria Real Estate

-50% Redcare Pharmacy

-50% PUMA $PUM (+0,95 %)

-50% lululemon

-49% Dow

-49% Novo Nordisk $NOVO B (+1,14 %)

-48% MARA $MARA (+4,55 %)

-48% Molina Healthcare

-47% FactSet

-47% Charter Communications

-47% HelloFresh

-45% Wolters Kluwer

-43% Solana $SOL (+0,84 %)

-43% Cocoa

-42% UnitedHealth $UNH (+2,52 %)

-41% Atlassian

-41% Li Auto

-40% Copart

-40% Meituan

-38% PayPal

-38% Chipotle Mexican Grill

-36% TeamViewer

-35% GameStop $GME (+0,6 %)

-35% Orsted $ORSTED (+5,44 %)

-33% Pernod Ricard $RI (+0,11 %)

-33% Evotec

-33% Symrise

-31% Marvell Technology $MRVL (+4,53 %)

-30% Comcast

-30% Natural Gas

-30% Kraft Heinz $KHC (+1,26 %)

-30% Adobe $ADBE (-4,74 %)

-29% Salesforce $CRM (-4,37 %)

-28% Nike $NKE (+3,35 %)

-28% Adidas $ADS (-0,56 %)

-27% Sugar

-27% XRP $XRP (+2,73 %)

-26% Stellantis $STLAM (+3,28 %)

-25% JD .com

-24% Procter & Gamble $PG (-1,3 %)

-23% Arm $ARM (+4,2 %)

-22% Ferrari $RACE (-1,19 %)

-22% Porsche AG $P911 (+3,53 %)

-21% Zalando $ZAL (-1,98 %)

-21% NEL ASA $NEL (+2,01 %)

-21% Ethereum $ETH (+0,89 %)

-18% Bitcoin $BTC (+1,08 %)

-16% Brent Oil

-16% Delivery Hero

-13% Vonovia $VNA (-1,63 %)

-12% Coinbase $COIN (+1,61 %)

-11% SAP $SAP (-3,49 %)

-7% Amazon $ (-1,83 %)AMZN (-1,83 %)

The best shares for 2026 from the $UBSG (+1,12 %)

$AMZN (-1,83 %)
$ANET (-0,77 %)
$CSCO (-1,83 %)
$SNOW (-2,34 %)
$TXN (+1,1 %)
$NEE (+1,03 %)
$D (+0,56 %)
$ETN (+1,93 %)
$PWR (+1,98 %)
$FSLR (+2,4 %)
$UNH (+2,52 %)
$ACAD (-3,86 %)
$DHR (+0,62 %)
$LLY (+0,37 %)
$NOVO B (+1,14 %)
$COF (+0,96 %)
$SPGI (-2,44 %)
$TPG (+2,27 %)
$LOGN (-2,77 %)
$NESN (+0,41 %)
$SIKA (+0,75 %)

Let's see what happens in 2026 🙊 👩🏻‍🚀

$VUSA (-0,28 %) ☝️

$EQQQ (-0,84 %) ☝️

Europe 😯 ☝️

$NOVO B (+1,14 %) -47,44% 🥺

Japan ☝️

$NOVO B (+1,14 %) Nordisk is in much better shape than feared for a long time ahead of trading in the new year from Friday. The share price ended the old year at around 44.02 euros. Although this level does not mark a major leap compared to previous weeks, it does signal a clear shift from the previous risk of a crash. The share had been struggling around the EUR 40 mark for some time. This was precisely the area where buyers intervened several times and slowed down sales. For good reason, as the assessment of the current starting conditions can certainly show.

Novo Nordisk: The good news!

The trigger for the latest movement came from the USA. The approval of Wegovy in tablet form there significantly changed the perception of the product. So far, Wegovy was primarily seen as an injection solution. With the tablet form, Novo Nordisk is expanding access to a significantly larger group of users. This news immediately triggered increased buying activity and provided a visible boost to the share price.

This was followed shortly afterwards by a second announcement from China. The authorities there imposed a price cap on Wegovy. Novo Nordisk confirmed this step publicly. This news partially relativized the first impulse. Nevertheless, the reaction on the stock markets remained muted. Buyers did not withdraw. Sellers did not intensify their activities either. The share price remained close to the level reached.

It is now 2 euros short of the GD100 and thus the formal jump into the upward trend. If this is now achieved quickly, analysts' expectations could come into effect in the new year. They expect price gains of around 20 %. That would be a strong year and would also mean that the share price would break through the EUR 50 mark. This would then open up a whole new range of opportunities anyway.

Would you use the slimming tablet? What is your BMI?

I have a BMI of 25.2...

Source: boerse-express.com

The recent development of $NOVO B (+1,14 %) around the oral Wegovy appears to promote growth at first glance, but on closer inspection turns out to be a clear burden on profitability.

Due to the very low bioavailability of an orally ingested peptide, around 70 times more active ingredient has to be used compared to injections. At the same time, prices for Wegovy have fallen significantly, leading to sharply rising production costs and falling revenue per patient and putting margins under considerable pressure.

This means that sales do not necessarily increase, as the margins reduce this effect. In addition, the advantage is only there as long as Lilly does not launch a product on the market. In addition, this leads to lower margins in the entire pipeline.

Competitive pressure further exacerbates the situation. $LLY (+0,37 %) Lilly is about to enter the market with an oral GLP-1 product on a small molecule basis, which is structurally cheaper to manufacture and puts Novo at a long-term disadvantage in terms of both price and margins. Despite potential sales growth, this threatens a sustained deterioration in earnings quality.

As a result, Novo still remains a risk area for me: value is not yet being generated here and the risk/reward profile does not fit for me!

The future will show: Will NOVO get 3x more customers as a result of the price cut? Then the price cut will have paid off and sales will remain the same. Has the barrier to trying Wegovy through oral pills fallen? (YES) But as I said, this can take time and initially weigh on sales!

My motto: Wait and see how it establishes itself, you may lose a return of 20% but you have certainty!

Dear Community,

At the end of the year, I would like to share my portfolio and my strategy with you.

I am 38 years old, have been in the stock market since 2024 and am aiming for financial freedom at the age of 58. Time will tell whether that will work out... 😉 I'm not investing to maximize my profits, but to be able to live a relaxed life in the long term. To this end, I have deliberately separated my investments into two portfolios with a clear purpose.

Portfolio 1 - Growth (ING)

$VWCE (+0,36 %) , $XNAS (-0,82 %) , $WGLD (-1,09 %) and as an admixture some Bitcoin via ETP $IB1T (+2,66 %) .

This portfolio is saved monthly until 58 and then remains more or less untouched.

My savings rates would be:

800€ $VWCE (+0,36 %)

375€ $XNAS (-0,82 %)

150€ $WGLD (-1,09 %)

0€ $IB1T (+2,66 %) - Position is currently at 10% and should rest for the time being

Portfolio 2 - Cash flow (SC)

Here I am investing via 2 dividend ETFs ($VHYL (+0,84 %) , $TDIV (+0,73 %) ) and selected quality stocks to build up a steadily growing cash flow. All distributions are reinvested equally in the ETFs. Furthermore, a small cushion is built up here via $XEOD (+0,04 %) is built up here.

My savings rates would be

250€ $XEOD (+0,04 %)

200€ $VHYL (+0,84 %) - Start January 26

200€ $TDIV (+0,73 %) - Start January 26

425€ Individual assets (as required, no savings plan, no obligation)

My individual stocks:

Allianz $ALV (-0,77 %)

Munich Re $MUV2 (-2,94 %)

Procter & Gamble $PG (-1,3 %)

PepsiCo $PEP (-0,87 %)

Johnson & Johnson $JNJ (-0,04 %)

Novo Nordisk $NOVO B (+1,14 %)

Lime $LIN (+0,83 %)

ADP $ADP (-1,74 %)

Waste Management $WM (-1,55 %)

Siemens $SIE (+0,93 %)

Accenture $ACN (-3,57 %)

Alphabet $GOOGL (+0,93 %)

Itochu $8001 (+0,64 %)

visas $V (-1,75 %)

No speculation, no trading. For most people here, extremely boring... 😴 But hopefully the selection will bring some stability to the portfolio in turbulent times. 😉

For the time being, we will stick with these stocks and gradually buy more when good opportunities arise. Each individual position will of course be capped later and should make up between 2-3% of the portfolio (including the proportion within the ETFs). Alphabet would be an exception.

The reallocation idea

Nothing is invested from 58. The plan is to reallocate around 5 % annually from custody account 1 to custody account 2. In this way, growth is gradually converted into cash flow - without significant erosion of assets. And in the best-case scenario, my growth portfolio can continue to grow. I consciously accept taxes 😉

Thank you for reading and have a successful 2026.

P.S. My allocation doesn't fit yet because I've been focusing more on my individual stocks in recent weeks. Chart is also not meaningful because of ING Autosync and Itochu split 🥲

Hello dear community, hello followers and, of course, anyone else who is interested. Here comes my review of 2025, which you've been waiting for so long. What has crazy Chris actually achieved?

Well, first of all, my monthly overview doesn't really look any different from that of many others here.

There were good and bad months. For me with 9 to 3 it was more positive than last year. The best and worst months in terms of returns were

January + 26.7%

September + 19%

April actually +14%

February - 12.8%

July - 6.6%

December -2.3%

Incidentally, January was also the best month last year and July and December were among the worst.

That reads rather harmlessly here. I would therefore like to show you what impact my strategy can have. At the start of my vacation on 01.09. I had a TTWROR of around 65%. This rose to 123% by mid-October and then fell back to 87% by mid-November. At the time of the GQ Rewind it was back to 99% as you can see above. This was of course disappointing as it was less than last year's 107%! But that is of course complaining at a very high level and not really meant seriously.

In €, and this is what most people here are interested in, it means the following.

Here are the facts that were already in part 2. the calculated target according to the original plan was

8,435 at the end of the calendar year 2025 (does not correspond to my investment year which ends on 31.03.).

13,340 was the multibagger target based on the performance of the previous year.

And this is the result as of today:

19.750,-- € a very good result in my opinion!

This means that as of today (yes, it is only a snapshot of my risk) I have already reached the calculated level for my project of € 3,000 to € 100,000 in 10 years by 31.03.2028, i.e. I have built up a buffer of a good 2.25 years. To be honest, I'm a bit proud of that.

You can disregard the total maturity figures you see in the chart, as I have only been tracking the portfolio with GQ since the beginning of 2025.

Next, I would like to tell you a bit more about how I achieved this outperformance. I have already explained my approach in Part 2.

Top trades were stocks:

$IREN (+8,25 %) with +450% does not appear in Rewind because GQ only takes into account the stocks that are still in the portfolio at the time of creation.

$GPCR with + 188%

$PPTA (-3,24 %) with + 160%

The flop 3 stocks were:

$BNTX (+1,26 %) with - 20%

$IREN (+8,25 %) with -19% after new purchase

$PATH (-5,66 %) with -13%

all 3 loss positions are still running!

Now, of course, many people will think: And this is how he achieves such an excess return? Definitely not. As has already been mentioned several times, the majority of the excess return comes from the derivative trades. In my opinion, these returns cannot be achieved with shares over a period of 10 years. Of course, like me with $IREN (+8,25 %) and some others, but that is the exception rather than the rule.

So now we come to the evaluation of the derivatives:

298 derivative trades were concluded.

Of these

11 x total loss

21 x greater than 100%

4 x greater than 200

2 x greater than 300%

The rest somewhere in between!

But to make you aware of the great risk, I have also taken the trouble to look up the holding period for the top returns. If you then extrapolate the returns achieved to 1 year, this often results in several 1000%!

This requires strong nerves, high leverage and the best possible entry time. So here are the pot flyers:

Derivative on €/SFR 390% in 48 days

United Health 320% in 4 days

Silver 280% in 21 days

App Lovin 216% in 2 days

Novo 186% in 3 days

Vossloh 170% in 6 days

Apple 185% in 13 days

Although the derivatives section only accounts for around a third of my portfolio, it is responsible for at least 60% of the performance.

Outlook for 2026

Calculated target 31.03.26 according to plan: € 9,145

Target multibagger 31.03.2026: € 22,000

Calculated target for calendar year 2026: € 12,230

Target multibagger 31.12.2026: € 29,000, because round figures are simply nicer, I would prefer 30,000, but let's not get cocky.

In addition to the pure figures, I see the following opportunities and risks in 2026. This is purely my subjective assessment, which I will also use as a basis for my investments. In my opinion, it will make sense to achieve a large part of the planned return in the first half of the year, as I see more opportunities there. Why? Because the effects of the new US interest rate and economic policy will not yet be as fully felt in the first half of the year as in the second half.

I therefore see good opportunities in the R-categories next year.

First and foremost commodities. Why? I believe that the escalation in the Caribbean will increase tensions between the USA and China again. The majority of Venezuelan oil exports go to China. The tightening of exports by China announced last week for silver, for example, will continue and rare earths will be the next to come back into play. The US will therefore continue to spend a lot of money to reduce its dependency, as otherwise it will be vulnerable to blackmail in all conflicts with China.

I therefore see great opportunities with $LYC (+0,15 %) and also with $SSW (-4,64 %) both of which I see as possible candidates for US entry.

But my price target of USD 5,000 for gold and above all my price target of USD 120-150 for silver in 2026 also offer excellent opportunities.

The next topic I see is armaments continues to be promising. Regardless of whether there will be peace in Ukraine. (I assume that the war will end soon if Ukraine is defeated) as there is a great danger that the USA will end its intelligence and satellite-based support. Donald Trump has elections next year and urgently needs successes.

However, an end to this war would not change the need for rearmament. The Europeans in particular are not even in a position to implement the security guarantees that are on the table. My best assessment here is in the area of drones and satellites.

I am also confident about data centers (also with their energy supply) and robotics.

As a longer-term tip, I would then focus on the biotechnology sector. For me, this is the area that has the greatest advantage through AI, as the evaluation of study data and thus the timeframe for approval will be massively accelerated. Some interesting candidates have already emerged here recently. For long-term ETF investors, this would also be worth considering.

Let us now turn to the overall economic outlook, which I expect. Even if it is said that political stock markets have short legs, this is more of a good opportunity for traders like me, as volatilities are rising.

I expect a very loose monetary policy in the USA. There will be significantly more than 1 interest rate hike and inflation will not play a role in the decisions. I strongly expect a yield curve control under the new Fed chief in the second half of the year. This will lead to a sharp fall in the US$. I think we will see an exchange rate of at least 1.25 to the euro in the course of the year. This is what the US government wants because it will make it more difficult for European countries, for example, to export to the US. I therefore anticipate below-average growth for export-oriented stocks in Europe. This trend will continue. The upcoming midterms in the USA in November will bring further uncertainty to the market in the second half of the year. There is a threat of a deadlock in the chambers. The foretaste of this will be felt again at the end of January when the next shutdown in the US threatens again.

Finally, I would like to mention a very important situation, which for me primarily affects Danish companies that have a high proportion of US business. First of all, I see the very popular $NOVO B (+1,14 %) . In my opinion, there is a great danger that they will become a pawn in the battle for Greenland. Donald Trump will not go to war with Denmark, but maximum economic pressure to push through his wishes for a deal on Greenland seems very likely to me. In the end, Greenland will continue to belong to Denmark, but the USA will be granted extensive extraction rights there. Everyone should keep an eye on this and find out which US companies could benefit from exploiting the mineral resources there.

So that's it for the review and outlook from my point of view. Nobody knows whether this will happen.

Even if I will still be active here and comment a little, that's it for detailed posts. Of course, the evaluation of the Performance Challenge and the announcement of the winners will follow in the other post.

But to everyone I won't be speaking to, I'd like to wish you a happy new year 2026 with good health and, most importantly, as many personal highlights as possible. Don't forget that enjoying life can also be a great resolution.

With this in mind: All the best, Chris