A well moved quarter – A&F Investments Fourth Quarter

For the Dutch version, click here

When you think about A&F Investments you must inevitably think about the market. A moving market is for sure a great opportunity, whether it goes up or down, there is money to be made. We’ll be certain that these financial top brainers are up to the task and ready to spot some great opportunities. Just recently we closed our most recent quarter and therefore it is time to look back! For sure this quarter has seen significant movement in the market. In September everyone was still fearing for a recession, but the market proved everyone wrong and went for new all time high records. This shows once again that you must be prepared for any situation. The all time highs were mainly fueled by better than expected results, improvements in the trade war and less worries about the Brexit.

When you expect a recession you better come prepared, markets are extremely volatile and move very quickly on economic downturns. No wonder we started the quarter with some necessary cautiousness. However, this is also the perfect time to make money, when the train starts moving you better hop up. So when the market showed signs that no economic downturn was coming it was time to start investing our money, but keeping a strong preparation for a market in times of recession. Looking at our portfolio we have worked on keeping it diversified in sectors that can actually perform strong during recession as well. Finding these stocks was a challenge but this could be a valuable skill in the near future.

“When you expect a recession you better come prepared, markets are extremely volatile and move very quickly on economic downturns.”

Despite the market doing better than ever we could sadly not say this for our returns on Pandora as these were heading for an all time low. Maybe the biggest move we made this quarter was to finally get rid of Pandora, one of our worst performing stocks ever. Though painful for taking this loss it is remarkably good for our portfolio as we immediately started beating the market in general, a very great accomplishment. It is important to keep in mind that although something has gone down so much already, this definitely does not mean that it must go up again. Actually, stocks seem to follow patterns and it turned out very wisely to get rid of Pandora. Besides selling it was also time to strengthen our portfolio, as we said we worked on diversifying our portfolio, for this matter we bought a video gaming ETF, Estee Lauder, TKH and LVMH.

Not only has our portfolio been moving a lot, we have also seen a big shift in the committee. The number of participants was increased and a lot of fresh blood was added. The transition was completed when the board was taken over by two new members, luckily one of the oldies stayed to keep an eye out. Luckily, all the changes only helped the committee thrive further and hit some new great successes. This quarter we immediately got a visit from two investors that also studied in Tilburg. They told us how they took over a large portfolio with First Dutch and how they created solid companies from the ones that they took over. This interesting guest lecture also shows how important it is to take a thorough look at companies. A lot can be made by reforming, looking at synergies and cost effectiveness. After the guest lecture we shared another great passion of us, having a small drink after the meeting, because in the end everything should keep moving forward!