My ROI stock portfolio experiment; half way there

In a previous post about my ROI stock portfolio you could read what my plan was. We’re now 5 months further, and that means we’ve reached the halfway mark of the buying period. So how’s it going?

The portfolio

As of 10th of January 2023, just before I deposited another €100, the portfolio looked like this:

• ❌(-3.40%) Microsoft (MSFT) - ❌(-14.07%)
• ❌(-2.20%) Apple (AAPL) - ❌(-17.41%)
• ❌(-2.00%) Mastercard (MA) - ✔️(+5.32%)
• ❌(-3.93%) Qualcomm (QCOM) - ❌(-13.68%)
• ✔️(+0.72%) McDonald’s (MCD) - ❌(-3.06%)
• ❌(-1.36%) S&P Global (SPGI) - ❌(-5.01%)
• ✔️(+1.36%) Novo Nordisk (NVO) - ✔️(+13.02%)
• ✔️(+2.07%) Southern Copper (SCCO) - ✔️(+26.55%)
• ❌(-1.43%) Blackstone Inc (BX) - ❌(-17.91%)
• ❌(-1.65%) Paychex (PAYX) - ❌(-8.18%)
• ❌(-2.72%) Lousiana Pacific (LPX) - ❌(-1.89%)
• ❌(-2.32%) Rio Tinto (RIO) - ✔️(+14.96%)
• ❌(-1.36%) Vale (VALE) - ✔️(+17.29%)
• ❌(-1.42%) Applied Materials (AMAT) - ✔️(+4.07%)
• ❌(-0.27%) KLA Corporation (KLAC) - ✔️(+8.67%)
• ✔️(+2.79%) Vermillion Energy (VET) - ❌(-33.76%)
• ✔️(+0.55%) Crescent Point Energy (CPG) - ❌(-10.19%)

Volatile, that’s how it’s going. Just like the rest of the 2022 market. In fact, now with a couple of months of hindsight we can also see that my starting point, August 2022, was one of the ‘worst’ months to start.

Stable tech companies like Microsoft and Apple are down a lot, most likely because of the high interest rate in the US. Semiconductors are also interesting. Raw semiconductor stocks like Applied Materials and KLA Corporation are up, while Qualcomm, which relies on the semiconductor industry, is down.

In the energy and basic materials sector we also had whiplash, where energy stocks (VRX, CRP) are down and basic materials stocks (SCCO, RIO, VALE) are up.

With these massive fluctuations, it’s interesting to note that the portfolio is actually breaking even while I’m writing this at the end of January.

Learnings so far

• Depositing every month according to the percentages you set, is quite nice. No stress, no thinking, just do it.
• I’m losing a couple of cents everytime for foreign exchange fees. So any gains need to cover those at well.
• Speaking of FX; I’m down 5% on each stock because of EUR/USD.
• Not 100% related to this portfolio, but this year has kinda shown me that I might like dividend stocks a lot; just buy and hold.

So the experiment continues. I’ll keep you posted!