One point that I think Inditex $ITX (+2,41%) I think is often underestimated is the enormous strength of the brands with young consumers. Especially for people in their twenties - students or young professionals - fashion is important but must remain affordable. This is exactly where Inditex hits the nerve of the times. Brands such as Zara, Bershka and Stradivarius offer trendy clothing at relatively moderate prices and react extremely quickly to new fashion trends.

I particularly noticed this on a trip to Lisbon: In many shopping streets, Stradivarius, Zara, Massimo Dutti and Bershka are right next to each other - and all three stores were full. This shows how well the brand portfolio works. The brands don't really compete with each other, but cater to different tastes within the same target group. For me, this is exciting from an investor's point of view because Inditex has created an entire fashion ecosystem for young shoppers.

Financial year 2025: solid growth and high profitability

Inditex once again reported solid results for the 2025 financial year (February 1, 2025 to January 31, 2026). Sales increased by 3.2% to 39.9 billion euros. In constant currencies, growth was even 7%. Both bricks-and-mortar retail and online business developed positively.

The Group also remained strong on the profit side. Gross profit increased to 23.2 billion euros, with a gross margin of 58.3%. EBITDA rose by 5% to 11.3 billion euros, while EBIT grew by 5.9% to 8.0 billion euros. At the bottom line, Inditex achieved a net profit of 6.2 billion euros, an increase of 6% compared to the previous year.

Another important point is the company's strong balance sheet. Inditex has a net cash position of around 11 billion euros, which gives the company great financial flexibility.

Shareholders also continue to benefit. A dividend totaling €1.75 per share is to be distributed for the 2025 financial year, consisting of a regular dividend of €1.20 and a bonus dividend of €0.55. The payout will be made in two equal tranches in May and November 2026.

Overall, it is clear that even if growth remains moderate, Inditex continues to impress with strong margins, high cash flows and a very robust business model.

$$ABF (+1,21%) ;$ITX (+2,41%) ; $HM B (+1,54%)

1. inditex (Zara): The "beacon" of the sector

Inditex remains the undisputed favorite of investors in January 2026. While ABF struggles with stock levels, Inditex shares reached a new 10-year high of around EUR 57.48 on January 12, 2026.

Growth: In the first weeks of the new financial year (Nov. to Dec. 2025), sales rose by an impressive 10.6% on a currency-adjusted basis.

Margin strength: With a gross margin of almost 60%, Inditex is significantly more profitable than Primark (approx. 10% operating margin).

Logistics advantage: By producing close to the sales markets, Zara can implement trends more quickly and thus avoid the massive discount rounds that hit ABF in January.

2 H&M: Between the stools

The H&M share shows moderate weakness in January 2026, but is not under as much fire as ABF.

Analyst skepticism: Bernstein Research downgraded H&M to "Underperform" on January 6, 2026 (almost at the same time as ABF). The fear: H&M could be hit by the consumer slump in Central Europe in a similar way to Primark.

Support measures: An ongoing share buyback program (until 28 January 2026) has so far prevented a deeper fall in the share price.

Waiting for January 29: Investors are cautious as the company presents its annual report at the end of the month.

3. why ABF (Primark) performed worse

The main difference with Inditex and H&M in January 2026 lies in two factors:

Lack of online leverage: Primark is still almost entirely reliant on bricks-and-mortar retail. If footfall in Europe falls (as observed in Jan '26), ABF will be hit harder than its digitally better positioned competitors.

Conglomerate risk: In contrast to the pure fashion chains, ABF was additionally burdened by the weak US grocery business (edible oils/baking ingredients) - a problem that Zara and H&M do not have.

Source Gemini

I have now decided to restructure my portfolio in the coming days. It will then consist of these stocks.

Core:

1) the MSCI World $IWDA (+1,04%)

2) the MSCI EM IMI $EIMI (+0,17%)

3) the VanEck Morningstar $TDIV (+0,74%)

4) Bitcoin $BTC (+0,6%)

Satellites:

1) Microsoft $MSFT (+5,46%)

2) Amazon $AMZN (+5,13%)

3) Nvidia $NVDA (+3,87%)

4) MasterCard $MA (-0,53%)

5) Adobe $ADBE (+2,01%)

6) Ferrari $RACE (-0,06%)

7) Novo Nordisk $NOVO B (-0,86%)

8) Realty Income $O (-1,79%)

9) Wolters Kluwer $WKL (+2,45%)

10) Brown & Brown $BRO (+1,62%)

11) Inditex $ITX (+2,41%)

12) Uber $UBER (+1,72%)

13) Main Street Capital $MAIN (+2,51%)

14) Vici $VICI (+0%)

15) PayPal $PYPL (+0,93%)

In addition to my core of the 3 ETFs and Bitcoin, I think this mix of growth & dividend-focused stocks is really good. What do you guys think about this long term portfolio? Should be held for a long time, 20+ years... I don't think much of the short term. Of course, profits are taken from time to time, but nothing is sold completely and in the event of corrections we buy more! 🤑🔥🙏

I look forward to your suggestions / criticism.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas 🌲☺️

Hi everyone,

I would really appreciate your opinion on my portfolio.

Briefly about me:

I am 38 years old and unfortunately only started my Trade Republic portfolio about 2 years ago. I have been investing regularly since then. I can currently invest around €350 per month - I work in a gym 🥲, and unfortunately you don't earn very well there, you could almost call it a pittance.

In addition, I have my Bitcoin and Altcoin portfolio on Bitvavo... I can't share it here, too many errors in the coins and you can still change it somehow. I then deleted the connection again.

I played soccer until I was 32 (including 3rd league, mostly 4th league for many years) and was able to save up some capital during this time, which I later invested.

My long-term core consists of:

$IWDA (+1,04%)

$EIMI (+0,17%)

$TDIV (+0,74%)

$BTC (+0,6%)

Dividend / cash flow portfolio

I also have a portfolio with a focus on cash flow, the aim is to hold around 15 stocks with a solid dividend yield and ideally dividend growth.

Currently included are:

$O (-1,79%) Realty Income

$RACE (-0,06%) Ferrari

$PEP (-0,15%) Pepsi

$MAIN (+2,51%) Main Street Capital

$NOVO B (-0,86%) Novo Nordisk

$ASML (+0,31%) ASML

$ITX (+2,41%) Inditex

$1211 (+0,9%) BYD

$ZTS (+0,54%) Zoetis

$BRO (+1,62%) Brown & Brown

$SBUX (-0,67%) Starbucks

$ITH (-1,49%) Ithaca Energy PLC

This brings my current total to 12 shares, so there is still room for one or two additions.

One of the stocks on my watchlist is Vonovia $VNA (+1,04%) with a dividend yield of just under 5%. However, the dividend growth doesn't look particularly good. As my wife will be starting work there soon, I've become more aware of the company for the first time ☺️

Other stocks on my watchlist:

Allianz

Vici

Linde

Microsoft

Waste Management

UnitedHealth Group

Mastercard

Visa

Texas Roadhouse

Nintendo

Enbridge

NextEra Energy

Wolters Kluwer (exciting sector, also corrected over 50% from ATH)

Amazon (for the yield/growth portfolio)

Maybe one or the other is missing $KO (-1,78%) or $MCD (+0,13%) but I had opted for $PEP (-0,15%) and $SBUX (-0,67%) and I don't want any more consumer stocks.

Pure growth portfolio

I also have a separate portfolio with a focus on share price growth:

$NVDA (+3,87%) Nvidia

$NKE (+0,2%) Nike

$MARA (+3,47%) Mara Holdings

$BITF (+5,39%) Bitfarms

$TTD (+2,75%) The Trade Desk

$CRCL (-2,94%) Circle Internet Group

$ADBE (+2,01%) Adobe

$COIN (+2,81%) Coinbase

$SMHN (-0,87%) Suess Microtec

$PYPL (+0,93%) PayPal

$HUT (+4,93%) Hat 8

$DRO (+8,05%) DroneShield

$LXS (+3,68%) Lanxess

$PLTR (+2,65%) Palantir

$WEED (+3,69%) Canopy

$UBI (-0,71%) Ubisoft

$MSTR (+1,16%) Strategy

I am aware that I have built up a lot of positions over the last two years. I am therefore also planning to sort out some of them and concentrate more on selected stocks.

I am grateful for any assessment, criticism, tips or suggestions.

Best regards

Chris

Following the rebalancing of the S&P Quality Aristocrats last Friday, the following stocks were removed from or added to my two ETF indices (50% weighting):

New additions:

$QDEV (+1,09%): $NOVN (-1,88%) , $REL (+1,2%) , $ITX (+2,41%) , $LSEG (-1,89%) , $DB1 (+1,75%) and more

$QUS5 (+1,34%): $BKNG (+0,39%) , $MRK (-1,91%) , $CRM (+3,43%) , $UNP (-0,53%) , $COR (+0,28%) , $CAH (+1,13%) and more

Kicked out of both indices and therefore according to S&P no longer Quality Aristocrats are among others: $BATS (-1,23%) , $7974 (+3,12%) , $HD (+0,77%) , $LOW (+0,17%) , $HLT (-1,83%)

In addition, the allocation of all individual stocks in the indices was reduced again to max. 5 % was limited.

Thanks to the recent rally of $$HY9H (-1,36%) my current top 10 weighting (ETFs+shares) is as follows:

3.48% Alphabet

3.04% SK Hynix

3.04% Broadcom

2.93% Meta

2.75% Microsoft

2.71% Apple

2.71% NVIDIA

2.55% Taiwan Semiconductor

2.13% Mastercard

2.08% Visa

New portfolio key figures:

P/E: 27.1 (<30) 🟢

Forward P/E: 21.1 (<25) 🟢

P/Β: 11.5 (<5) 🔴

EV/FCF: 28.7 (<25) 🟡

ROE: 42% (>15%) 🟢

ROIC: 19% (>15%) 🟡

EPS growth for the next 5 years: 15% (>7%) 🟢

Sales growth for the next 5 years: 9% (>5%) 🟡

My internal rate of return is currently 20.19%

Limit buy order has snapped $ITX (+2,41%) and that on vacation 😅

What do you think of the company?

I've added it to my dividend portfolio.

Should I continue to save monthly or just leave it for now and observe?

Best regards 🖖🏽 and have a good week on the stock market!