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 (-0,87%) , $GBF (+3,73%) , $RIO (-1,11%) ) but unfortunately also some disastrous ($NESN (+0,58%) , $MC (-0,09%) , $NKE (+0,12%) ,$NOVO B (+0,8%) ) 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 (+0,56%) and $NVDA (+0,99%) purchases. I also $PEP (-0,24%) 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 (+0,99%) , $TSLA (+0,56%) , $GBF (+3,73%) and $DHL (-0,87%) - 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 (+0,09%), $VNA (-0,37%) and $ZAL (-0,42%)- 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 (+0,19%) , $COMM (-0,58%) , $WSML (+0,26%) , $IEMS (+0,59%) ).
• 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 (+1,19%) : +65,3 %
• $NVDA (+0,99%) : +38,9 %
• $MSFT (+0,72%) : +14,7 %
• $META (+0,64%) : +12,7 %
• $TSLA (+0,56%) : +11,4 %
• $AAPL (+0,88%) : +8,6 %
• $AMZN (+1,05%) : +5,2 %

On that note, happy new year!

$VWRL (+0,19%)
$EWG2 (+1,1%)
$O (+0,09%)
$PEP (-0,24%)
$MSFT (+0,72%)
$P911 (+0,21%)
$BLK (+0,68%)
$NKE (+0,12%)
$RIO (-1,11%)
$MC (-0,09%)
$NOVO B (+0,8%)
$NESN (+0,58%)
$ZAL (-0,42%)
$COMM (-0,58%)
$IEMS (+0,59%)
$BTC (-0,01%)
$ETH (-0,05%)
$XRP (-0,26%)
$PEPE (-1,56%)

Dear friends of Getquin,

I'm usually a silent reader, but if everyone just reads, eventually there's no more reading material, is there? So today I want to share my story with you.

The beginnings:

It's hard for me to say exactly when my journey began, but I do know that I developed a fascination with money as a child. My first "investment" was when I was about 7 or 8 years old, when I bought an ounce of gold with my own pocket money. At that time, no one in my family had anything to do with investments, but I had seen it in my mother's bank when I often accompanied her there. I was fascinated by the shiny coins and wanted to know how I could have a piece myself.

Then, around the turn of the millennium, I saw my father, together with a "great" bank advisor, invest the entire family savings in the middle of the dotcom bubble. The result: a massive loss within a few months. But my mother, who was at home at the time, fought hard and was miraculously able to recoup the losses. I was about 9 or 10 years old at the time and watched her sit in front of the PC every day and look at the figures. From that moment on, I was hooked! I started using an Excel spreadsheet to track which shares I would have bought at what price and watched the performance of my fictitious investments with great interest every day after school.

The first few years:

My mother stopped day trading after about a year and went back to work. However, shares were no longer an issue for me until I was 26.

Getting into real shares:

In 2018, in the summer, as a die-hard Juventus fan, I read about an article on the transfer of CR7 and how Juventus shares went through the roof. I was there again! At that time, however, I only had a small income as a working student. My father, who had failed with his investments in the past, gave me €2,000 - and I bought Juventus shares. However, he made me promise him that I would never invest in shares again. How did the story end? The "trade" with Juventus was a success, but I had to pay taxes for the first time - and I still hate that to this day.

The first losses:

After my Juventus adventure, I began to delve deeper into the matter. I tried out recommendations from "Aktionär" and repeatedly bet on individual shares for smaller trades. It was more of a game, but I generally remained profitable - sometimes a few percent profit, sometimes a few percent loss. Thanks to the profits and additional deposits, I built up my portfolio to €18,000 until I was hit by Wirecard. In the end, I had to accept a loss of around €6,000. It was painful, but not life-threatening - and I learned a lot from this mistake. In particular, I made the mistake of constantly buying more. If I had left it at the original position of € 1,500, the loss would probably not have been so dramatic.

Don't give up:

After the Wirecard debacle, I radically rethought my strategy. I increasingly focused on conservative companies, regular dividend payers and low growth. But here, too, I realized that I was underperforming the market. So I adapted my strategy further and took a long-term approach. I have since been able to slowly recoup my losses.

The clean cut - a new start:

In the summer of 2023, I needed all my assets for a private housing project and decided to make a real "fresh start". I sold all the positions in my portfolio and only kept my ETF savings plans with TradeRepublic.

The new era:

When the housing project was completed, I wanted to build up a new portfolio with the money I had left over - and here you can see the result. My aim is to find companies that are growing strongly and have a solid moat. Dividends are nice, but not a must. My portfolio also contains defensive, boring stocks as a healthy addition. At the same time, I try to further expand my ETF positions through one-off purchases - I stopped my regular ETF savings plans at the end of January 2025. I have also invested a little in crypto and gold on the side. I have made further investments in Lego (€500), Pokémon (€1,000) and Counterstrike cases (€3,000), but these are not part of the public list - that would be too costly for me.

Fun fact:

My cash ratio has never been higher than €3,000 since I first entered the stock market (2018). This is currently an exception because I want to build up a cash reserve for the next generation.

Goal:

I don't have a specific, set goal when it comes to my investments. It's more of a hobby for me. I just enjoy seeing how my portfolio grows and how I can accompany exciting companies and be a small part of them as they develop. For me, it feels a bit like collecting: I enjoy discovering interesting companies, investing in them and watching them develop over the long term.

Thank you:

A big thank you goes to Goldesel Investing and Markus Koch, who have been with me since my first stock market steps. Without you, the share culture in German-speaking countries would certainly not be as strong! And of course a big thank you to Getquin - I've always dreamed of a platform like this! 0% bullshit, 100% investments.

Please let me know if you liked my story!

A small note: My Bitpanda portfolio has a longer history, but I was too lazy to enter everything manually. I also didn't want to take over the history because, as I said, I wanted to start a new chapter in my investment history in November 2023. Overall, however, my crypto track is up €3000-4000.

$CSPX (+0,4%)
$ETH (-0,05%)
$BLK (+0,68%)
$GS (+0,63%)
$XDWD (+0,26%)
$V (+0,18%)
$MC (-0,09%)
$MS (+0,76%)
$QCOM (+1,07%)
$JNJ (-0,06%)
$ASML (+1,84%)
$RBOT (+0,7%)
$LOCK (+0,24%)
$MRK (+0,58%)
$UNP (+0,06%)
$NKE (+0,12%)
$QDV5 (-0,23%)
$MA (+0,34%)
$TGT (+0,37%)
$PEP (-0,24%)
$NU (+0,45%)
$AAPL (+0,88%)
$TSLA (+0,56%)
$DOGE (-0,42%)
$BTC (-0,01%)
$BRK.B (+0,19%)
$PEPE (-1,56%)

This weekend should be particularly hot for cryptocurrencies, especially US-based crypto, it's already lunchtime. The stock market will be pulling its money out, as they do every Friday. Focus on crypto now so you can take profits tomorrow and Sunday. On Monday, take your profits and get out with the critters 🚩🚩🚩🚩📤

$BTC (-0,01%)

$ETH (-0,05%)

Solana $SOL (-0,58%)

🔥🔥🔥💵🔥💵💵🔥💵🔥

ISO compatible

XRP $XRP (-0,26%)

XLM $XLM (+0,91%)

XDC $XDC (+1,25%)

VELO $VELO (-2,68%)

ONDO $ONDO (+0,2%)

💵🔥

Meme 🚨

BONK $BONK (-2,52%)

Pepe $PEPE (-1,56%)

Pudgy penguin

Doge $DOGE (-0,42%)

Shiba Inu $SHIB (-1,51%)

As with stocks, there are risks with cryptocurrencies... Do your research and never invest more than you can afford to lose.

Before I go into my crypto strategy in detail, I would like to make it clear that crypto relies heavily on faith (momentum: it rises because it rises). That's why I think you should only invest money here that you can write off/lose immediately. A predefined strategy like the following can help you to act rationally and leave emotions aside.

Reading time: felt like an hour

Total risk of loss:

Choosing to run self-custody (own wallet) has many advantages, but the massive disadvantage that if you lose your private keys, you can't call BTC customer service and suffer a total loss. Also, there will be no new Bitcoin. It takes exactly one minute to create such a "new Bitcoin" and doesn't cost a single euro. What's more, it will be teeming with scams and ICOs - so only trust the marketcap! 99.99% of all projects will die in the long term. The higher the market cap, the more likely it is to survive, but this is never guaranteed - even BTC could go to 0 from one day to the next.

The same goes for yield on your cryptos. In principle, creating a decentralized market is a good idea, and the yields often look very attractive. But often the coins you get as rewards are massively inflated. In addition, the risk of bugs in the code is often underestimated. The latter can also lead to total losses. Impermanent loss must also be considered here, but that would be a topic for a separate post. Returns always have something to do with risk and information arbitrage: stay in the game > outperform the game.

Trading:

For 99%, it's probably smarter to take a HODL (i.e. buy-and-hold) approach with DCA/savings plan if necessary to build a position. However, this should not be done during hype phases, but when nobody is interested in crypto anymore. Trading may seem very attractive and cool, but the majority will underperform compared to the B&H strategy. Apart from the gray hair and fun in life with much more important things than charts that you save yourself.

My assessment:

In general, I think the market and performance have changed, especially due to ETFs and the infrastructure that has emerged in recent years. As a result, I think that initially this cycle could be strongly driven by institutional investors - not because the number is so high, but because they are simply very well capitalized and even a small exposure brings in a lot of capital.

I think that the psychological characteristics will remain the same: First rises $BTC (-0,01%) then the "better" Shitcoins, until in the end everything that hasn't gone up yet goes up. If I write Shitcoins, please don't feel offended - I'll explain later why I'm doing this. I hold some myself. Just a brief definition of how I differentiate between less qualitative Shitcoins and qualitative ones:

• Is there a medallion figure who is good at telling stories or talking? (Example: Charles Hoskinson at Cardano $ADA (-0,73%) similar with Ripple $XRP (-0,26%) I would say)
• Is the technology really decentralized?
• How are tokenomics designed? (This is why I always look at the market cap and not the price).
• Does it bring added value beyond the buzzword blockchain?
• How is coin distribution divided up (whale wallets)?

Cycle within a cycle:

I also think that we have already gone through this mini cycle once in the current cycle, but that it will repeat itself throughout the momentum cycle and the price swings will increase in favor of shitcoins. My theory behind this is that when BTC has risen, the excess return is sought, and that when the returns attract the new people, they often have no idea. The "stupid money" then flows increasingly into shitcoins without substance (without wishing to offend anyone, this is how I have come to use the term). That's why I also want to use the Shitcoin performance as an exit indicator.

Exit strategy:

I will sell off a maximum of 50% of my crypto holdings, as for me the performance expectation is around 50% of my investment and 50% BTC is a kind of risk hedge against the centralized financial system. I will carry out the sale in tranches of 25% each. I will use a grid bot for this. I will start as soon as the crypto share exceeds 25% of my total portfolio. I will not invest new capital in crypto for the time being, but will only expand my Shitcoin position by using a slight leverage on my margin account depending on the phase. When I talk about leverage, I don't mean 25x, but rather 1.5x - as the additional return is worth less to me in favor of my security. My motto is always: stay in the game > outperform the game.

In the end, only BTC will remain until the next hype!

My personal shitcoin sector favorites:

I think DeFi will perform strongly as substantially more security could be created in the next 6-12 months due to potential regulatory certainty. In general, however, I suspect that it doesn't really matter which coin you buy, as past experience has shown that towards the end of the cycle people will buy anything that hasn't yet made 10x - regardless of whether there is any fundamental added value.

With regard to L1, I think that $ETH (-0,05%) is currently undervalued. I see reasons for this in the fact that Vitalik Buterin is a miserable salesman (which I actually find positive), and Solana $SOL (-0,58%) can offer much lower fees at the expense of security. The ease of programming allows more dapps to be created. In general, I think that ETH is more in line with the basic idea of crypto than Solana, although it should be mentioned that Solana has gained massive adoption - for me a sign that most people have no idea what they are actually buying.

I think the SUI architecture is promising in principle, but I wouldn't overweight it - but I'm not too deep into the subject either.

L2 makes a lot of sense for ETH, but will only outperform when transaction costs are astronomical again. In general, I see transaction costs as a very good market indicator for timing as well as leverage in the market.

Memecoins:

The probability that Dogecoin $DOGE (-0,42%) continues to rise is high in my opinion. That's why I'm holding a small position. Especially if Elon Musk pushes the coin again, strong price movements could follow in the short term. If that happens, I will also buy less capitalized memecoins in the short term. However, you always have to keep this in mind: It only takes a few minutes and a few hundred dollars on networks like Solana to buy a new $PEPE (-1,56%) , $SHIB (-1,51%) or other meme coin. Such coins are often based purely on hype and momentum

Long-term outlook:

I think we are no longer early in crypto, but early in usability and institutional exposure. Only now is the real value being created as products can be used and regulatory certainty increases. I hope that the volatility of BTC will decrease due to the increasing market capitalization and that in the long run it will reflect modern digital gold rather than a risk-on asset.

In conclusion, I think that the AI theme has run its course and crypto could be the new risk-on draw - at least in the short term, as this is also fundamentally justified by potential regulation. Nevertheless, I think that AI currently offers greater fundamental added value in terms of productivity. Crypto is not really needed as long as the centralized services or fiat currencies work. Also, the majority actually has 0 added value and is only riding the crypto wave to attract capital. 99.9% do not correspond to the basic idea.

If a Blackswan event occurs, everything will be sold off in the short term, especially risk-on assets. That's why I always hold cash (currently even 20%) so that I have liquidity to buy. You should never be so naive as to believe that you are 100% right, but always stay humble, think in terms of probabilities and practice risk management!

To conclude once again:

stay in the game > outperform the game. There will be no new Bitcoin, I dare to promise that haha - everything else is speculative. The term "Shitcoin" should help you to always be aware that it is not driven by fundamental value, but by profit expectations!

Everything here is highly speculative and not investment advice, just my humble assessment after a good 8-9 years in the crypto market. Everyone please do what you think is right and don't judge others. "The only thing I can say with 100% certainty is that I can't say anything with 100% certainty": Did Einstein say that?

Congratulations on making it this far and not having a TikTok attention span. Basically, I wrote the whole thing for myself because it @JJJ inspired me to write down more of my thoughts in order to continue making rational decisions - thank you for that! Thanks also to @stefan_21 for the daily BTC education. If I'm honest: BTC is the real deal 😉

Additionally, it's important to make your investment decisions independently of any Youtube Fin or crypto influencers. For the most part, they are only out to push you into trading, as they earn money when you trade with their affiliate links on any exchanges. In general, this financial and especially crypto influencer scene is very, very lucrative due to the commissions - you should always be aware of that!

It has also helped me enormously to deal with very boring topics in order to draw conclusions about the exciting topics:

Bond market, interest rates, especially liquidity, interest rate spreads, fiscal policy, financial psychology, momentum, leverage, to name a few topics.

Of course, not everyone has the privilege of having the time to deal with these topics, but if you do, I can only recommend it. Not because I want to trade volatility or overweight bonds, but because it offers a very good understanding of the overall market and is a basic building block for risk management.

I don't know if anyone still reads here - never mind. Even if not, it has helped me. I've definitely written down enough thoughts for today, I should call my mom again.

All in!😂🐸 $PEPE (-1,56%)

Good evening everyone :)

Just wanted to let you know that we have released some improvements to Cryptos.

Won't have affected super many of you, but we've still received quite a few support requests.

Coins like $PEPE (-1,56%) , $BEAM (+1,32%) or $BONK (-2,52%) are now mapped correctly, as are many other smaller coins. If something is still wrong, please write a comment.

Have a nice evening!

How can it be that meme coins like $DOGE (-0,42%)
$PEPE (-1,56%) etc are experiencing such an upswing again ... not everyone can think "Yolo, maybe I'll become a millionaire"?