Hello to all investors. In this newsletter edition you will be able to read how my portfolio evolved in 2024, how our family income and entrepreneurship ideas evolved, the companies that are no longer part of the portfolio as well the new entrants. Lastly, we will discuss changes around this investment community and it’s future.

As explained in an earlier newsletter, 5 years ago I started keeping notes that are now an Excel file with my net worth, a complete overview of our assets and liabilities and the events that influence them. Here is the up to date chart of my net worth, closing in on 1.4M Euro. Important legal disclaimer: The net worth is an artificially computed number, is different from our taxable net worth and includes assets that have not yet entered our possession, but will do so and so this number is an attempt to put a number on something that is difficult to evaluate. All in all, our net worth is up by 300K EUR this year, mostly due to appreciation of our liquid assets (investments). This appreciation would have been significantly higher had I not been actively selling from our portfolio this year, but more on that later.

The good news is that due to a significant rebound in TSLA due to the re-fueling of it’s Full Self Driving progress and the full blown cycle around Bitcoin, our net worth is going up and to the right. The other goods news is that the liquid part of our assets, is hovering around 700K and so we are closing in on 1M in liquid assets – thus becoming millionaires by the classical definition of the term – one million in liquid assets. Another milestone that I’m looking forward to is the 2M net worth. Again, just to be unnecessarily vain, 2M net worth is the minimum requirement for calling yourself a multi-millionaire. Obviously this will all sound very comical in the unlikely but possible event of a stock market crash – which happens from time to time.

Despite good news on the surface, under the hood the trends are negative, just like last year. Instead of investing continuously, we are now actively spending from our stock portfolio to the tune of 60K in 2024 or 5K a month. I started selling in early 2024 and sold throughout the year. The impact on the portfolio is still digestible, as newer positions in the portfolio have tripled in value and so compensated for the assets I did have to sell. At the current run rate we have around 10 years of spending before we run out of money. As comrade Dyatlov would say: Not great, not terrible.

The reason for this continues to be the difficulty in finding a job, by my estimates I have been through 10-15 interview processes in 2024, each comprising 2-3 interview rounds. The entire months of March, May, July, August and October were dedicated to preparation and interviews. So far no luck and I’m increasingly considering out of the box ideas that make me laugh: Such as a large monetary award to the person that helps me land a job or other crazy ideas. I remain confident that eventually I’ll find a role although the market is all but dead from my point of view.

2024 did bring some good news. This first was me going to therapy, growing my audience and eventually growing the Public Investment Club on Telegram. I’ve also managed to start a small business of providing personalised financial consultations and so far I’ve managed to provide this service to a good number of people. In these consultations we go over everything from budgeting, to investing opportunities, to tax laws in one’s country in order to reach financial independence. I’ve also launched Stockastic earlier this year after 5 months of work on it. Stockastic is my take on stock tracking with a unique approach to pre-market and after hours times and pricing of stocks outside regular trading hours and with a focus on fundamental analysis (cash flows, pe ratio, net income). I continue enjoying using the app on a daily basis in order to monitor the market and I have many future plans for this app.

Speaking about the investment portfolio, here is how it looks at the end of 2024:
⬆️ NFLX (Netflix) position was held steady and has increased 129% since I recommended it in October 2023.
⬆️ BRK.B (Berkshire Hathaway) position was held steady and continues to serve as the most stable part of our portfolio, currently at 40% of my personal portfolio.
↘️ TSLA position was slightly decreased in my personal portfolio due to the reasons above, but outside of a mishap in October 2024, Tesla remains a long term hold in the portfolio.
➡️ Bitcoin held steady, no changes, enjoying the 2024/2025 halving bull cycle given the ETF approval in January 2024 and the promise of a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve or at least a HOLD approach by the incoming US administration.

I also think it’s good to consider what investments are currently (or where earlier) under consideration :
– MSTR has entered my personal portfolio as a potential new investment and I’m inching closer to recommending it as a 1-3% allocation in the portfolio of the investment club, although I’m not there yet.
– APPL was removed from the portfolio in late 2023 due to excessive valuation and stagnant profits. This situation only worsened in 2024 as it’s stock price increased despite no move in the quarterly earnings.
– GOOGL was removed in 2023 due to it’s aggressive stock based compensation (SBC) and inability to provide an adequate response to AI tools. The company is now considered a leader in the AI space, however I am not willing to consider them due to the SBC issue.
– NFLX was reintroduced in late 2023 after their free cash flow surged, invalidating an earlier fear I had that their profits are just on paper. I will continue adding to this position when the price is right (at around 400$/share).
– Constellation Software (CSU.TSE) – was on our watch list, entered my portfolio but I quit following the company in late 2024 despite it’s 200% stock price appreciation – the company’s quarterly reports are too difficult to understand and so I’d rather make money from things that are in my circle of competence, rather than worry that I’m investing in something I don’t understand.

I am also very happy with my bearish predictions on the EUR as opposed to the USD throughout the entire year of 2024. The EURO area economy is doing poorly by all measures, and the US economy seems to be unstoppable. I continue to be very positive on the US and negative on the EU although the stock market prices seem inflated and unreasonable and I continue to wait for a meaningful pullback before making more buy recommendations.

I’m also enthusiastic with how the Telegram community is growing. From active investors to people with wildly different net worth values spread across topics dedicated to each country, I feel that we’re finally starting to see a real community taking shape. As always was the case, I want to ensure access to the community remains free and unobstructed and that I continue to provide free financial education. In light of that I launched the financial consultations and stock analysis services which are tangential to the club and don’t restrict access to it in any way. However the best way to support the channel and to ensure that I have the time and resources to dedicate energy to it is to support my work via patreon. With several activities competing for my attention, I can foresee that I eventually will have to choose between my career and bi-weekly posts in the Telegram community. As always, any activity that isn’t economically sustainable will eventually come to an end, and my hope is that I find a healthy economic model for my work in the Telegram public investment community. By subscribing to patreon you send a clear signal that this is a valuable service to the community.

What about me and our family in 2024? We’re ending the year on a thoughtful note in what was a challenging year but also a year in which I launched 3 separate business ideas and watched some ideas succeed while others failed spectacularly, did lots of therapy, connected with hundreds of people and told my story. It has also been a year of learning in order to come to terms with consequences of my earlier career and life decisions. Just like good investments compound, bad ones can also compound over time. An investment I’m personally happy about is the investment in my health. I overcame my fear of doctors and can now visit a doctor without the trauma and was able to finally solve minor health concerns i’ve long postponed. I’m also happy about reconnecting with long lost friends, one of which has now joined the original investment club and whose portfolio I’m actively working on. I also liked being forced to grow by the circumstances, trying to bring value into the world. For me and my family this was the year we had to grow up, accept hard cold facts and rely on our portfolio and early investments. I think this highlights more than ever the need to save and invest when things are going well because you never know when you might take a year off work(either voluntarily like in 2021 or involuntarily like in 2024) and need to start a couple of businesses before finding one that works. From our family to yours, happy new year and keep on investing because financial independence is true independence.

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By: [email protected]
Title: #11: 2024 Year end review
Sourced From: danursu.com/11-2024-year-end-review/
Published Date: Wed, 01 Jan 2025 15:26:59 +0000

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