Advantest

Advantest raises profit forecast as AI boosts demand for test devices. $6857 (-2,3%)

Japanese company Advantest on Wednesday raised its full-year profit forecast by almost a fifth to 165 billion yen ($1.08 billion) as strong demand for artificial intelligence chips boosts its testing machine business.

Operating profit in the July-September quarter tripled year-on-year to 63.6 billion yen.

Advantest sees robust demand for artificial intelligence chips, although it will take some time for demand for testing to recover in areas such as the automotive and industrial sectors.

In the second quarter, Taiwan accounted for 73.1% of sales, up from 41.5% three months earlier. China accounted for 42.7% of sales.

Advantest, whose shares have risen nearly 80% since the start of the year, announced it would buy back up to 50 billion yen worth of shares.

($1 = 153.2900 yen)

https://de.marketscreener.com/kurs/aktie/ADVANTEST-CORPORATION-6492081/news/Advantest-hebt-Gewinnprognose-an-da-KI-die-Nachfrage-nach-Testgeraten-ankurbelt-48200017/

Asian stock markets mixed

The Asian markets are mixed ahead of the upcoming quarterly figures of the major US technology companies. In Japan, the leading Nikkei index rose despite political uncertainty following the ruling party's loss of majority, while the Chinese stock exchanges came under pressure. The Shanghai stock exchange lost 0.6% to 3300.52 points. The index of the most important companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen fell by 0.6% to 3940.23 points. In Tokyo, the Nikkei index, which comprises 225 stocks, rose by 0.7% to 38,872.30 points, while the broader Topix was up 0.9% at 2681.40 points. Positive company figures and price gains on Wall Street supported sentiment. "Share prices have already fallen far enough that there should now be a revaluation," said Kenji Abe from investment bank Daiwa Securities. Technology stocks such as the investor specializing in artificial intelligence $9434 (+0,25%) SoftBank, which specializes in artificial intelligence, rose by 2.2%, the chip tester manufacturer $6857 (-2,3%) Advantest by 1.5%.

Attention is now turning to the upcoming quarterly figures of major technology groups such as $GOOGL (+0,67%)
$GOOG (+0,64%) Alphabet, $META (+0,19%) Meta and $MSFT (+0,04%) Microsoft. "The results of the Magnificent Seven will set the tone this week," said one trader. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, will open the round of tech giants on Tuesday, followed by Facebook parent Meta Platforms and Microsoft on Wednesday and $AAPL (+0,28%) Apple and $AMZN (+0,17%) Amazon on Thursday.

• FuW, 29.10.2024

Having Charlie Munger in your profile picture doesn't mean you're as successful as him.

A look at the end of my portfolio shows the weaknesses and mistakes that were made.

You might say Fallen Angel.

LVMH $MC (+2,06%)

Bought on 30.05.2023 after bad news and a fall in the share price.

In the back of my mind sayings like

"Luxury always works" and "LVMH is a long runner"

Suddenly, every influencer at the time had

had the share on their buy list and so on

28.09.2023 was bought again.

However, there was no shortage of bad news, the share disappointed and an exit was missed.

Tokyo Electron $8035 (-1,47%)

Due to US sanctions against China, there were considerations that China would obtain high technology from Japan.

And due to the AI hype, on 8.02.2024

Tokyo Electron and Advantest $6857 (-2,3%) were bought at a high P/E ratio.

Nevertheless, Tokyo Electron was quickly up over 30% and the joy was great. And a stop loss was not set either.

And so it was that an interest rate hike in Japan caused the stock market to crash. And of course the first to be hit were the overvalued hype stocks.

Incidentally, Advantest is already well up again after good figures and I am optimistic about Tokyo and fortunately the position is only very small.

ASML $ASML (+1,48%)

History repeats itself. Here, too, we bought after the market correction on 31.07.2024.

Again it was influencers "ASML has a monopoly"

and it won't get any cheaper.

But things turned out differently. The last quarterly figures proved me wrong.

This now raises the question for me

BUY UP ?

or will it be an LVMH story?

My dears,

Of course I am aware that in the long term I will be smiling about this in a few years' time.

And a diversified portfolio keeps such things in check.

But as a clever investor, I could have invested LVMH's money better over a year.

Please tell me your opinion on this, do you set stop losses and where do you set them?

What strategy do you use?

When do you buy?

etc.

You are the best community, and I would especially like to mention that the tone has changed for the better in the last few weeks.

Thank you my dears 😘🌹

Nikkei at record high

https://www.faz.net/aktuell/finanzen/finanzmarkt/advantest-aktie-warum-der-halbleitertester-eine-gute-anlage-ist-19076417.html

Investment philosophy, "diversification" and dividends

Hi all, as this is my first slightly larger post I would generally appreciate some constructive feedback.

First something About Me

I'll be 22 in a month and I've been active in the stock market for about 2 years now. After a lot of back and forth, I can almost say that I have tried every strategy - but I never really felt comfortable. One learns from mistakes, and I have made many of them.

But what I have also done is to spend countless hours, days and weeks with books, videos, shareholder letters and internet research. I was particularly fascinated by the investment approaches of Terry Smith and the way of Joseph Carlson on Youtube.

My goal quickly became clear, I don't want to have thousands of companies in my portfolio that I don't know, understand or fully support. So an ETF focus was off the table.

Thereupon I built my own investment philosophy, which I would like to present to you in the following.

If you want to know more about me and my goals, there might be another article with a portfolio presentation soon :-)

First I would like to explain to you why I do not believe in diversification hold:

A quote from Warren Buffet is well known: "Diversification is protection against ignorance. It makes little sense if you know what you are doing."

However, a quote from one of the world's best investors alone is unlikely to convince everyone. Studies also support Buffet's view. The advantages of diversification decrease very fast and the gap between market risk and total portfolio becomes minimal from a portfolio size of 20-25 companies - 25 companies give you all the advantages of diversification, more positions only worsen your performance and overview. (Figure 1)

Because concentration delivers better performance. Fund managers who concentrate their knowledge in a few companies deliver better results than more diversified managers. (Figure 2)

Investment philosophy

I want to outperform the market, so I look for the best companies. What makes good companies?

Companies with competitive advantages (moats) outperform the market (Figure 3), and they do so because they have high returns on capital. My first metric for evaluating quality of a company and with a high value in my company analysis is ROIC (Return on Capital Invested). I look for companies with at least 10% ROIC. (Figure 4) Furthermore I want high ROCE (Return on capital employed) and high ROA (Return on Assets) figures.

This directly eliminates some companies and also whole sectors, namely exactly those in which it is not worth to invest anyway. Why is this so?

There are sectors that historically outperform the market (Software, Consumer, Healthcare) - on which my focus is -, and sectors that consistently underperform and are not considered in my investment approach (Banking, Energy, Insurance, Mining, Utilities, Airlines) - just compare the sectors with the main index ;-)

Consumer goods, healthcare and software companies perform better because they generate sustained profits, so they remain profitable even during economic downturns. This allows for consistently high returns on capital.

Next, a look at the margin here I would like to see high Gross Margins >60%, which are also a good indicator of a competitive advantage, and a high Profit Margin, which is an indicator of the efficiency of a company's value creation. However, the most important margin for assessing profitability is the FCF margin.

A company's focus should be maximally on Free Cash Flow, we should invest in companies that are as profitable as possible. In the long run, the share price follows the Fcf/Share.

Beyond that I don't want any debt, any company with Debt/EBITDA > 3 flies right out, preferably anything less than 2.

In terms of growth, I look for stable and good EPS and revenue growth, but FCF growth has the highest priority.

The higher the better, the more important the key performance indicators are.

My minimum benchmarks for the most important metrics:

• ROIC > 15%, ROCE > 15-0%
• Gross Margin > 60%
• Profit Margin > 20%
• FCF Margin > 20%
• Debt / EBITDA < 3, preferably < 1
• FCF 5Y CAGR > 10-15%

(Not all of my companies always meet every metric, but I have built my own score where a minimum score must be met and by score I set the "Conviction" to a company).

Buy & Hold and long-term investing outperforms

As long as a company continues to reinvest its capital at high returns there is no reason to sell. (Figure 5)

What about dividends?

Some of my companies pay a dividend, others don't - I don't put much emphasis on dividends, and will definitely not put bad companies in my portfolio just to get a payout in a given month ;) Dividends should be minimized if capital can be reinvested at high rates of return. At my young age and with a long term investment horizon the focus should be on yield, in old age I will also shift to dividends ;)

The most important thing to conclude: Invest in profitable companies that you UNDERSTAND

A few final tips:

• Don't chase trends, they fade away
• Do not be blinded by dividends
• Don't care about macroeconomics, invest in companies - not cycles
• Market timing is impossible
• Look for established companies, not one-hit wonders
• BUY GOOD COMPANIES - DON'T OVERPAY - DO NOTHING (Terry Smith)

My current investable universe:

$ADBE (+0,49%)
$NVO (+2,05%)
$CUV (-1,73%)
$CDNS (+0,02%)
$ASML (+1,48%)
$VRTX (+0,26%)
$V (+0,12%)
$MA (+0,35%)
$MSFT (+0,04%)
$QLYS (-0,54%)
$MKTX (+0,12%)
$KLAC (+0,38%)
$GOOGL (+0,67%)
$REG1V (-0,88%)
$TNE (-0,55%)
$ENX (+0,64%)
$EW (-0,59%)
$VRSN (+1,19%)
$FICO (+0,76%)
$FTNT (+0,04%)
$NEM (+0,34%)
$MONC (+1,9%)
$CSU (+0,17%)
$6861 (-3,14%)
$ENGH (+0%)
$MC (+2,06%)
$AAPL (+0,28%)
$6857 (-2,3%)
$7741 (-2,32%)
$PAYX (+0,11%)
$MTD (-0,1%)
$TXN (-1%)
$OR (+1,23%)
$ZTS (+0,43%) (Companies I watch, in my portfolio I have only 8 of them).

That's it from me for now. Please leave me some feedback and share the post if you like it :-)

What would you like to hear from me next? More about free cash flow? Portfolio presentation? Company presentation? My slightly different valuation approach, far away from P/E?

Some of the illustrations are from a slightly smaller fund ("Long Equity Investing" on Twitter - can only recommend you) or from Terry Smith's Shareholder Letter.

No investment advice