Once again, here is an update: With a heavy heart, I had to part with the only Swiss stock in the portfolio: The talk is of Implenia $IMPN (-0,29%)

Have you already pulled the emergency brake on an investment?

If so, which one was it and why?

As always, you can find the original blog post including a small table & pictures here:

https://www.valueinvestments.ch/vermoegensverwaltung-value-und-momentum-september-2023

And the full text content I post directly here on Getquin to read:

Portfolio sales and purchases

Shortly after the last rebalancing, I had to pull the emergency brake on one stock: Implenia was showing one warning sign after another, especially regarding qualitative metrics on profitability, financing and efficiency. Therefore, I decided to sell the shares of Implenia - on August 28, 2023 - after less than one year.

When I bought in October 2022, the world looked even better for Implenia. During the current year, however, the situation deteriorated visibly. So, with a heavy heart, I had to part with the only Swiss stock in the portfolio. At least I managed to do so at a price of CHF 38.31. This means that I still managed to get out with a price gain of 18.2%. The dividend brought in another 1.2%, which resulted in a plus of about 19.4% - that consoled me a bit about the pain of separation.

Excitingly, on August 30, 2023 - two days after my exit - the news came out: "Implenia-Grossaktionär Norbert Ketterer platziert 1.3 Millionen Aktien". This corresponded to 6.9% of the outstanding share capital. Now I truly have no clairvoyant abilities, but I am glad today that I dared to exit beforehand. Often one is too late when such news comes out. If I had waited, the shares would be today at CHF 30.05 or about 21.6% down compared to my sell price and compared to the entry price of October 2022 it would still be 7.3% down instead of 18.2% up. Even the 1.2% dividend yield would not have helped much.

On the other hand, the Australian company Whitehaven was allowed to keep its place in the portfolio during the annual review - one could almost say: Some go too early, others stay longer than expected.

The second company I sold was Genie Energy, which saw a nice gain of 49.1%. price gain of 49.1%. Even nicer is that this price gain is tax free - at least for investors with tax liability in Switzerland. Genie Energy has not become outrageously expensive, but there are companies that now have stronger momentum and also score better on quality criteria. One such company is Trican Well Services from Canada: it's a company that sells the shovels and picks used during the gold rush. Only this time, it's black liquid gold and natural gas. In short, Trican Well Services sells specialized equipment and technology for use in oil and gas drilling. A company profile on the company can be found below.

News and developments on the stock market

Uncertainty was stronger in August than it is today. In general, the markets seem to be somewhat directionless at the moment. It's not getting boring, though, because the Americans are once again arguing about their budget - or rather about whether the debt ceiling should be raised, and if so, by how much. For now, there is no government shutdown: Congress bought itself another 45 days yesterday - just hours before the deadline. So far, there have already been ten government shutdowns in the US. The longest shutdown lasted 35 days from December 22, 2018 to January 25, 2019, when Donald Trump tried to push through funding for his "big, beautiful wall" on the border with Mexico.

The U.S. was already paying an incredible $475 billion in interest in 2022. The debt currently stands at over $33 trillion. That's a number with 12 zeros: 33,000,000,000,000. Let someone say that a zero is worth nothing - it always depends on where it is. In other words, that's 99,000 US dollars in debt per person in the USA. And who lent them all that money? All of us to a large extent: Our AHV and pension fund money is to a considerable extent in US bonds.

So it remains exciting and the only thing that is certain is uncertainty. Nevertheless, I feel comfortable with a diversified portfolio. The ups and downs of stock prices are part of it, just like a ship that floats on the waves of the Atlantic.

$GNE (+0%)
$IMPN (-0,29%)
$WHC (-0,56%)
$TCW (+0%)

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