In the first 3 months of 2024, the Value & Opportunity portfolio gained  +3,2% (including dividends, no taxes) against a gain of +6,0% for the Benchmark (Eurostoxx50 (25%), EuroStoxx small 200 (25%), DAX (30%), MDAX (20%), all TR indices). Links to previous Performance reviews can be found on the Performance Page of the blog. Some other funds that I follow have performed as follows in the first 3M 2024: Partners Fund TGV: +9,0% Profitlich/Schmidlin: +4,0% Squad European Convictions: 3,4% Frankfurter Aktienfonds für Stiftungen: +5,9% Squad Aguja Special Situation: +1,2 ..read more

Back from the Easter break with 20 freshly selected random Belgian stocks. This time, four made it onto the preliminary watch list. 81. MAATSCHAPPIJ VAN DE BRUGSE ZEEHAVEN (Expert Market) At first I got excited, as this seems to be the Port of Brugge and the port seems to have grown over the years according to Wikipedia. And I do like ports.. But this stock traded last in 2015. It seems that at a higher level, the port has already merged with Antwerpes. Unfortunately I did not find any financial information. “Pass”. 82. Mazaro NV This 4 mn EUR market cap company seems to be (or have been) an a ..read more

And on we go, turning rocks and kissing frogs in the Belgian stock market. This batch of 20 randomly selected stocks yielded 4 watch list candidates, among them a stock I owned in the past. So far, the “Expert Market” is a littlebit disappointing. For many of the companies there it is really hard to get infromation. But be assured, i won’t give up easily !! Let’s go: 61. Orange Belgium As the name says, this 745 mn EUR market cap stock is the listed Belgium subsidiary of Orange Group, which owns 77% of the shares. As many telcos, the stock looks cheap but has been basically going down forever ..read more

Treasure Hunting with a nice write-up on Cornerstone FS The Giverny Capital 2023 letter with some important lessons after investing for 30 years Despite a few good IPOs, the PE industry is still struggling Really nice write-up on UK specialty Chemical company Croda Former Bond King Bill Gross is still writing letters Interesting FT article on the development of Private infrastructure Equity as major asset class (search result) A fantastic “Business model breakdown” of retailers from Edelweiss Capital ..read more

Rob Vinall’s RV Capital 2023 letter as always is a great read with soem controversial views (China, PDD, Carvana) I have to admit that Augustusville “outbored” me with its write-up on German small cap Nordwest-Handels AG Great list of the necessary attributes for a long term successful investment process from Flyoverstocks A great reminder: Patience is key for long term investment success Ben Carlson with 20 great lessons from 20 years of investing Joachim Klement on “post eanings drift” in stocks that are dominated by retail investors Good write-up on Var Energi from the “modern Investing” su ..read more

Disclaimer: This is not investment advice. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH !!!! As in the previous write-ups, the full 13 page document is attached as PDF. Within the post I will present the Elevator Pitch, Stock Price/Valuation, Risks and Summary. And of course a bonus music track !! Elevator Pitch: Amadeus Fire is a 590 mn EUR market cap small cap business service company that offers temporary staffing and training for finance and IT professionals in Germany. The company is well managed, has a strong track record with 10% p.a. growth for many years, decent double digit margins, high returns on capital ..read more

Another month, another 20 randomly selected Belgian shares. This time, I found 3 stocks worth watching. The Expert Market so far is quite disappointing, but let’s see if there is maybe a gem or two among all the other stuff. 41. BPost BPost with a market cap of 700 mn EUR seems to be the former state monopoly mail and parcel company in Belgium which is still majority owned by the Belgian Government. The stock looks cheap, but looking at the share price it seems to be more like a melting ice cube. Operating margins have been declining from 18% in 2013 to 5% in 2023. As I try to avoid Governmen ..read more

Wintergems Blog with another interesting Japanese Small cap write-up (Takeuchi) Mat Roiss with a list of potentially interesting HK stocks Some interesting takeaways from Fundsmith’s anual investors meeting According to Stratechery, Google is at an existential crossroad Great portfolio review from Carsten at Augustusville A very interesting story on why Women in South Korea don’t want to have children anymore Ted Giola on the “Dopamine Culture” promoted by the Big Tech companies ..read more

Interesting Microcap-Turnaround idea from Treasury Hunting Substack – Innovation Food Holdings (IVFH) Roland Head looks at Diageo as a potential Dividend stock (Spoiler: not yet) Hong Kong looks even more dead than Germany these days (search result) FTAlphaville on the recent “AI superstar” Super Micro Computer (Search result, Spoiler: No so super duper) A good summary on what we know about long term Private Equity performance (Spoiler: It isn’t special after fees) It seems that retail noise traders (aka “Apes”) have made shorting stocks systematically more dangerous Interesting “post mortem ..read more

And on we go with our random walk through the Belgian Stock market after part 1 in January. This time the random generator selected 20 quite diverse stocks, from which 5 made it onto the preliminary watch ist. One of them is a “sexy stock” in a very special way. Enjoy !!! 21. Immo Moury SCA Immo Moury is a 15 mn EUR market cap real estate company (REIT) that according to TIKR trades at a P/E of 6 and P/Book to 0,57 and has clearly seen better days: They seem to own a mix of commercial, industrial and residential real estate. More than 50% of the company are held by two individuals with the sa ..read more