2016 started extremely turbulent, bottomed during the Brexit referendum in June, and ended with a true December (or Trump-) rally. Both the turbulence and the December rally were noticeable in the results of the A&F Investments portfolio. This article will highlight the most important moments of the last quarter, will have a look back at 2016 and will briefly discuss the outlook for 2017.
Every first meeting of a quarter we ask the new members of the committee to prepare a short introduction pitch. This often brings a lot of great picks and has a strong successful track record over the years. This quarter’s new members also brought some nice ideas; one of the new members had analysed the technology company Nvidia Corporation. He succeeded to enthuse everyone with the leading-edge products of this company and the potential to grow into a big player in the automotive industry. After some more research by the whole team, the fast growing sales and profits, and the promising future made the committee decide to invest in this company. The result: 35% return in two weeks! With an eye on a sustainable future, we also indirectly invested in wind energy, by buying shares of the recently listed company, SIF Group. Beside that we reduced our exposure to gold, in order to allow for the investment in a cybersecurity ETF. Another point to put forward is that, the risk management team gives more pro arguments for the pitched company, or arguments against the pitch, by explaining the effect of a new position to our risk profile and to reveal hidden risks. Lastly, this quarter was dominated by many price targets that were reached. Five shares got sold because they reached their aimed target, leading to a nice profit and furthermore more space for new investments.
Overall in 2016 most members were satisfied. Despite the short bear market in January everyone can count a nice return to their investment. The Brexit, Trump, the small banking crisis and the final comeback of the oil price often predominated, but also led to fascinating discussions and the need for tough decisions. Altogether, this year we had 55 transactions, whereby almost all positions of the start of the year are replaced by new shares. Next to the regular meetings there were 3 guest lectures of our partners and we made a deal with the Market Mogul, a rising international platform where economists and financial professionals post interesting and relevant articles, without influence of the media. We are proud to announce that there are already 6 articles of our own writers online.
“We are currently out-competing our peer societies from other universities in terms of shares and reads.”
We hope that 2017 will bring even more highlights and surprises, and the relative expensive share prices are going to be justified by higher profits and that there will be more interesting stocks for our portfolio. The upcoming quarter we also have activities with our partners Rembrandt Fusies & Overnames and IBS Capital Allies, so we will not be sitting on our hands!
