End of 2023 Review Dissapointing +0.8% / +5.4%

Usual end of year review here. It hasn’t gone well, overall +0.8 (excluding Russian frozen stocks) or +5.4% including Russian frozen stocks. If Russia goes back to normal will be up far more as there are a lot of dividends waiting to be collected, not included in the below.

Brief run through new investments – HAUTO:OSL, CMCX.L, ASHM.L, VOD.L, ECH, EBOX.L

Aware I haven’t posted in a while – been busy as you can see below..

Overall it’s been a difficult year, natural resources not the place to be. Rough performance right now is looking to be roughly flat.

Had a busy last couple of months adding a number of positions to the portfolio which may be of interest. A little bit of a health warning is needed as many of my ideas haven’t been working out of late.

My favourite is probably HAUTO.OSL 0 Hoegh Autoliners. This provides car shipping. The market is tight and prices are high. In a insanely volatile / specialised market such as shipping I would usually stay clear but some of the growth in demand is in Chinese EV’s being shipped to Europe. EV’s are far cheaper in China than Europe (for the same model) and Chinese EV’s (in Europe) far cheaper than those produced in Europe. There is some talk of import restrictions by the EU. Apparently they are being subsidized / dumped – despite retail prices in China being far lower (for the same vehicle) than the EU. Shipping is a challenge. Some older lower rate contracts are rolling off – but they are not the most transparent on this if the market stays tight likely to be good revenue rises…