Book – Weapons of Math destruction

In every way we live our lives today we are targeted by algorithms, and we are mostly totally oblivious of the consequences. Which is well very dangerous. In the book weapons of Math destruction , mathematician Cathy O’Neil explores the world of modeling , algorithms and their effects on us humans.

The algorithms are programmed by humans and therefore contain much of their biasses , ideas and expectations. The algorithms when they scale up , and most do, generate hugh feedback loops which amount to self fulfilling prophecies. This goes from education, finance , policing our streets and disturbing our democracy.

In a very clear way Cathy O’Neil explains the different effects of these models and their feedback loops, fueled by entire industries who ‘help’ beat the models in turn reinforcing their outcomes. The worst part ? Their is no appeal , no legislation , no regulation and no transparency. Scary ? Yes? Simply a must read for anyone.

Why buying a home is not an investment, but still a good idea

With the housing market being at pre crisis levels again and people desperately trying too buy a house the euphoria is back again. The sort of euphoria were people count there paper profits as actual profits and fantasize what they can buy with it.

A strange phenomena which returns every time housing price rise, so I have been thinking a bit about and the only logical conclusion for me is, stop looking at the house you live in as an investment. But it’s still a good idea to own your home.

There are only 2 options when it comes too getting a roof over your head, renting or buying. Basically renting is paying for the use of the house and the owner taking the risks, which in return you will pay a premium for the owner too cover his expenses, inflation and profit. Too keep up with inflation rents are raised with a certain percentage every year. Fortunately in most country’s rents are regulated. And in higher segments during crisis you can get nice discounts. But for the most part rents tend too rise.

When buying a property , you carry all the costs , maintenance insurance taxes and so on. You can simply buy a house with cash savings but most people will have to take out a mortgage on the property. This is a different risk landscape, the bank will loan you the money and will ask a certain interest percentage for risk covering and profit. But the house is yours, and here is where the fun starts.

At a certain point in time when you buy the house, a large part of your living expenses is set for the duration of the mortgage , mostly 10, 20 or 30 years. So your monthly payments are the same. When renting you will see a raise every year.

The monthly mortgage payments consists of interest and a part of the initial loan the principal (the part of the loan you pay back to the bank and thus lowering the outstanding debt). Now the fun bit, most banks permit paying back extra on the principal , so your monthly expenses will go down, you will pay less interest on the remaining loan and the amount you are obligated in paying back each month also drops. What you can do with this extra money is food for another post.

You have a certain control on what the roof over your head will costs you each month, the most significant is the absence of the yearly rise in rent. But buy paying back extra you will own your house faster and save paying future interest. This can add up quickly.

So why is owning your house not an investment ? Well simply because it doesn’t yield any income. No interest will come your way, like when you have a savings account with a bank, nor will there be dividend payments like when you own shares in a dividend paying company.

The only way in cashing in is selling the house. You should not consider yourself richer because of the paper profit which at some point wil be there. Your house is simply an expense which your are obligated inlaying each month , but you need too live somewhere.

Why it’s still a good idea? First you own the house and you can control your monthly expenses more easily.
Second, buy simply having the option repaying the mortgage faster you can get your costs down. Instead of the sure rise in living costs you have when renting. And historically housing always been following inflation (minus the bust and bubbles in the meantime) So after you are done living in your house and downsize start renting after retirement there wil always be a sum of money left over after the sale. You simply gain an asset by doing something you need , having a roof over your head.

Why not rent ? Renting can be cheaper in some cases, when you need the excess money after retirement and downsize. When you move a lot for work. But most people live in a house for years, making buying almost always cheaper than renting. It’s also the easiest way to control a large part of your monthly expense.

But just remember a house you live in is first and foremost a roof over your head and not an fictional ETM machine which you can use for your daily groceries. So no investment but still a good idea.

Portfolio news – Summer 2018

Finally after all the buying of ETF’s too balance the portfolio out in a better way, it’s now time too add a few handpicked stocks to the portfolio. Buying ETF’s isn’t anything really interesting too talk about. Hence not many portfolio updates over the last few months.

Now that everything is balanced out a bit more, I have added a few stocks to the portfolio. Europe is pretty much still lagging behind because of all the political themes , Brexit, Italian budget concerns and trade wars. Timing for me is like magic and I am not a licensed magician. So I just went down my what to buy when I have the money list and came up with a few good ones. The new positions are :

BMW

BMW is in a tight corner, diesel gate , trade wars, currency problems and the omission of a decent electric vehicle have made a considerable dent in the image of not only BMW but the whole German car industry. There is not a lot of music in the stocks , and there hasn’t been for some time.

On the other hand, every car the ensemble , sell with a pretty decent profit. Enough too get their heads around building a decent electric vehicle too get into competition with the established electric car makers. It’s a bit of a waiting game lately with all the political and economical turmoil at the moment. Surely in the short term they will hurt a bit. But with the brand still having a status symbol status and quality cars they have all the potential for being just that in the future. And in the meantime they will still be paying out dividends.

Reasons enough for me too buy BMW, just not the car itself.

Starbucks

Wish list item for a while now. Now with the funds available I finally added Starbucks to my portfolio.
Since 2010 they are paying a steady stream of dividend and their goal is growing the dividend stream.

Starbuck’s stock price has been under pressure for most of the year and is now finally seeing some upward potential. So buying in the summer has been a unexpected bonus. The position of the company is still very solid with nice growth numbers in Europe , The US part is falling behind a bit , but that’s a work in progress in getting things sorted again.

All in all one I had my eye on for some time and finally made an entry in the portfolio.

Nike

Last but not least, Nike. A lot of hustle and bustle around Kaepernick and sales figures. After having their main rival Adidas in the portfolio which had reached a very nice profit margin where the dividend percentage didn’t make sense anymore I simple sold it and banked the profit. Now it’s time to own Nike. The other power in sports and leisure branding.

And same as Adidas , not for any numbers and other boring date. Just looked at the brand and seeing lots of people still growing up with Nike as a brand people wanting too own stuff from, especially sneakers , but also other stuff. Everybody has that one pair of sneakers they wanted and saved up for. And not being able getting the other pair. In later life , they still buy these models. And every generation has them. Same with Adidas.

They still have a large following , limited edition runs, collabs and a lot of sub cultures have in some way shape or form incorporated Nike in their style.

They keep up marketing wise and make bold statements. Which still resonate with young and older crowds. And I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

Experiments , traveling by plane

Last month I did another experiment if you like, on how far I can go travel wise. It had been time for a good old fashioned holiday for some time. After successful small trips and lessons learned it was decided , flying with destination Tenerife, Canary Islands.

The B&B and the small town we stayed in were both familiar from previous visits , so the adjustment period should be minimal. Normally this was just the start of the trip or the end right after or before flying in or out. Now we would stay the week and see how things unfold.

The weeks before I was very nervous and anxious about the whole enterprise. What if I was forced too stay in bed the whole week. Things just didn’t sit well with me. Went anyway.

We booked a hotel near the Airport to cut the traveling in little bites so I could rest a bit more. Early morning flight so we took a cab to the airport, dropped our luggage and took our time. After boarding we had the furthest possible runway , the first few hours went pretty well, in the last hour my mind couldn’t keep up and I could not free myself out of the noise, movement and pressure.

Luckily we landed and the sun was shining, took a taxi towards the B&B and our room was almost ready. My initial expectation was that this was a crash moment. Luckily my afternoon sleeping breaks covered the fatigue and mental problems pretty well. So we enjoyed the village , food and sun and relaxed.

The first half of the week the afternoon naps proved too be sufficient enough , added we didn’t do much besides them anyway and all went well, the second half of the week sleeping wasn’t enough anymore. So the crash moment came later then expected.

In the second half we enjoyed a public transport trip to the capital of Tenerife and with a final meal at our favorite restaurant it was time for the flight home.

It was very good to be out of the country and having a ‘real’ holiday. Simply being abroad just adds to the overall holiday feeling.

It was a mixed bag in terms of my condition, before the trip I anticipated the first half to be a problem, which turned out to be the second half, and compared too out previous holiday’s we didn’t do a lot. It’s an adjustment I need to get my head around. One week of not doing much and just enjoying food sun and relaxation I can manage but after that I would like too see more of the place I am visiting.

After coming home I had troubles I finding my rhythm again , being tired and not committing enough time to rest. All in all a lot of lessons learned and perhaps I’ll have another go in the future. Never stop trying, and exploring , as they say at a famous outdoor brand.

September 2018 – Dividend

Another month gone by rather quickly, time again for the dividend update. This month has seen a new increase comparing with last year. The figure is around 43%, again mainly due to positions who are paying dividends for the first time since being in the portfolio.

Exactly the effect I am after. Let’s see how this is going to work in the future.

The numbers :

DateStockCurrencyAmount
05-09-2018UnileverEUR3,87
10-09-2018Emerson ElectricEUR4,18
13-09-2018Microsoft CorpEUR7,24
14-09-2018DowDuPont INCEUR3,28
17-09-2018Royal Dutch ShellEUR40,48
18-09-2018Icahn EnterprisesEUR1,51
TotalEUR60,56