€441.22 in dividends in October. Five companies, five payments, and two I wouldn’t add to my portfolio today.

The numbers come from my portfolio and the spreadsheets in my investment model, so here’s the full breakdown—including the caveats.

• $DG (-0,17%) Vinci €157.30 🟢 Optimal

•$SAN (-2,06%) Santander €135.26 🟣 Watch

• $T (+0,05%) AT&T €86.05 🟢 Optimal

•$MCM (-1,93%) Miquel y Costas €32.50 🟠 Caution

• $MKC (-0,38%) McCormick €30.11 🟢 Optimal

🟢 Vinci: 4.66% yield and a 12.09x P/E ratio for the highway and airport operator. The downside: France’s plans to raise taxes on concessions and the expiration of French highway concessions between 2032 and 2036.

🟣 Banco Santander: 10.88x P/E ratio, 23.69% payout ratio, and a 6.87% total return to shareholders including share buybacks. The downside: it distributes only 2.44% in cash, so a large portion of the return comes from share buybacks rather than cash dividends. The 65% cut in 2021 remains on its track record.

🟢 AT&T: 5.36% yield, 11.38x P/E ratio, and 2.25x cash coverage. The downside: It cut the dividend by 35% in 2022, has frozen it until 2028, and carries a debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 3.66x.

🟠 Miquel y Costas: 8.35x P/E ratio and positive net cash, but 60% of its revenue comes from cigarette paper, and the dividend’s cash coverage is 0.65x. My system rates it at 25/100 for quality. I’ll collect my €32.50, but I won’t increase my position until I see results from the €130M plan.

🟢 McCormick: 4.10% yield, 8.50x P/E ratio, and 40 consecutive years of dividend increases. The downside: strikes and a current P/E ratio of 8.5x versus a forward P/E of 13.87x, which usually means that recent earnings included one-time items.

Source: Enagás ($ENG (+1%)
)

• Price: -14% since my purchase.
• Dividends received on the position: ~50% of the investment → the overall trade is profitable.
• Why am I selling? The investment thesis has changed. The dividend was cut by 16.4% in 2024 to finance its shift to hydrogen, and the coverage ratio based on free cash flow is only 0.36x. My model rates it as 🟠 CAUTION (Quality 42 / Opportunity 62): fossil gas in structural decline + unproven bet.

Entry: 3 European stocks that the model rates as 🟢 OPTIMAL

• Gecina ($GFC (-0,85%)
  ) — Parisian REIT. Yield 7.86%, a discount of 49% off NAV. Quality 75 / Opportunity 85.
• LEG Immobilien ($LEG (-0,31%) )— German residential real estate. Yield 5.87%, a discount of 55% discount to NAV. Quality 75 / Opportunity 90.
• Vinci ($DG (-0,17%)
  ) — infrastructure. P/E 12.7, yield 4.23% + total shareholder yield of 10.76%. Quality 83 / Opportunity 85.

Same pattern across all three: non-monetary devaluations due to interest rates that are weighing on the price, while rent and cash flow remain solid. A temporary problem, not a broken business model.

To be honest: LEG took a hit in 2024 (-39.8%) as part of a strategic reset and has already rebounded (+10.2% in 2025), and Vinci’s toll road concessions expire between 2032 and 2036. They aren’t perfect—that’s why they’re cheap.

Do you see value in Gecina and LEG at these discounts, or is the European real estate sector still under pressure from interest rates?

For those who $CME (+0,55%) aren’t familiar with it… here’s a quick summary:

The CME Group operates the world’s largest futures exchange. There, investors and companies trade futures and options on stock indices, interest rates, commodities, currencies, and many other asset classes to hedge against risks or to speculate on price movements.

Simply put: for example, Farmers, airlines, and many other companies today use derivatives on fuel or other commodities to hedge against potential price increases in the future.

• Airlines: Fuel prices
• Farmers: Prices for corn, wheat, soybeans, livestock, etc.
• Energy companies: Oil and natural gas prices
• Banks and insurance companies: Interest rate changes
• International companies: Exchange rates
• Investors and Funds: Stock indices such as the S&P 500 or Nasdaq

In my opinion , a great niche company, with extra special dividends when the company generates high free cash flow.

My thoughts:

The financial sector is now the largest in my portfolio. I’ll be taking a slightly more cautious approach here for the time being, until good opportunities to buy more arise.

CME , however, I’ll still build up my position to my desired size of approx. €6,000 and then simply let the position grow from there.

I expect that over the next few months I’ll focus more on materials,
industry and infrastructure . These companies include, among others, $HD (-0,32%) and $WIE (-4,88%) and $DG (-0,17%) .

As I had already mentioned a few years ago in the portfolio and at that time with profit . In the meantime, the stock is trading significantly lower than it did back then, and it still haunts me to this day because I bricks seem to be on every construction site .

What interests you right now? ⤵️

This is not investment advice—just my thoughts.

I’ve held Talgo for 5 years. My position is down 25% including dividends. I bought it because of its potential: high-speed trains, Spanish technology, and solid contracts.

With Merlin, it was a different story: a 30% gain in value and another 30% in dividends over a similar period. A Spanish REIT with quality assets. It seemed like a safe bet.

Both are in the Low Threshold quadrant on DividendQuad. The numbers don’t lie:

🔴 Talgo ($TLGO (+1,28%)
): Quality 15, Opportunity 10. Negative free cash flow (-€94M). Penalties from Renfe totaling €116M for missed deliveries. Debt-to-equity ratio skyrocketing to 3.27x. The government blocked a takeover by a foreign group. No dividend, no cash.

🔴 Merlin ($MRL (-1,43%)
): Quality 30, Opportunity 15. Cut the dividend by 93.9% in 2026 to finance its pivot to data centers. Current yield: 2.55%. Negative FFO per share (-€1.07). And the risk that the SOCIMI tax regime will be eliminated adds an extra layer of uncertainty.

This week I sold both and made purchases in the following stocks:

🟢 Vinci ($DG (-0,17%) ): Quality 80, Opportunity 85. Yield 4.18%. P/FFO 7.8x. Debt/EBITDA 1.48x. Monopoly concessions with inflation-indexed revenues.

🟢 Standard Life ($PHNX (-0,44%) ): Quality 80, Opportunity 85. Yield 6.14%. The reported losses are purely accounting-related (hedging). Adjusted operating profit grew 15% to £945M. Solvency II surplus of 153%.

🟢 EON ($EOAN (+0,75%) ): Quality 80, Opportunity 85. Yield 2.96%. P/FFO 7.4x. 75–80% of EBITDA comes from regulated networks. The recent net loss was a one-time accounting charge.

I’m glad that since I created my tool, these decisions have become much easier. It helps me separate the emotional aspect from the decision-making process.

$FER (+0,24%) has been laughing at me for a long time. They have turned Heathrow upside down and the move to relocate the headquarters to the Netherlands has since made it more attractive because the dividends are no longer subject to withholding tax in Spain. They are also a supposedly "safe bank" in Europe, as infrastructure cannot be easily doubled/replaced. While reviewing the watchlist, they have now come back into my focus. Unfortunately, they have become really expensive in the meantime.

How do you see the company? Is it a quality share that has its price, or is it now the best-known and therefore too expensive European infrastructure stock? The figures for the 2025 financial year will be published on February 25 and I'm thinking about buying in before then. Or would you rather wait for the figures to see if they confirm the current development, because that doesn't matter for this buy & forget stock?

Alternatively, I would also find $DG (-0,17%) interesting, but here the French source tax issue is frankly scaring me. Source tax issue puts me off to be honest.