Monthly Update #011 - November 2021

November has come and gone - It is time for another update on my investment portfolio and the events that have taken place over the last month. For one, I have sold out of one position entirely...

Growth Portfolio

Not labeled from left to right: CRISPR Therapeutics, Xiaomi, Unity, Coinbase.

While it always was such a small part of my portfolio to really see on this chart - you might notice something missing. I have sold my position as Tattooed Chef (TTCF). One of my most recent purchases. Now, why is that? After all, it is not that long ago I posted about how it was the most attractive plant-based company to invest in. I clearly stated how it would be a long position for me and several reasons for what made it so great... But if you read the entire thing you may also have picked up that one of the negatives about this operation was that some fairly strange and nonsensical insider selling going had been going on right before I bought into the stock. Tattooed Chef became a public company in 2020 via SPAC and so they have had to quickly learn and adapt to the requirements of being publicly listed. And this month they failed on delivering one of the very essentials of being a public company: Their earnings report...

On November 10 I was waiting patiently after market close for their Q3 earnings report to be released. But just a few minutes before it was to be, an announcement was posted on their investor relations page about them rescheduling. There were no details, no real explanation - just that. This took me back - I have never experienced an earnings delay from any company I have owned before. It is an unusual practice and often not a good sign - but what made it worse was the timing and the way they went about it. Had the company come out with this announcement even just the day before, it would have been a different story. But it seemed like an absolute panicky last-second move and very disrespectful towards their shareholders. So after seeing the issue discussed online and talking to a few of my much wiser friends I decided to sell my shares. I am disappointed and sad to see it end this way, but ultimately I think I will find a better risk/reward opportunity elsewhere. I simply do not trust the company's leadership or financials anymore.

I hope TTCF in time will grow to take on this responsibility - But I think them taking the easy route towards going public via SPAC may have been the wrong move for them. I still believe their products and underlying strategy to be absolutely wonderful so I definitely still see them succeed - But I will not be part of the journey. Ironically I made my investment in TTCF with the funds I had from my other unexpected exit this year: Virgin Galactic (SPCE) another SPAC that burned its investors in an entirely different way. With that, it makes my SPAC ventures a two-for-two failure and after sitting on it for a while, I decided to just put this money into my dividend portfolio rather than ensuing a new endeavor. More on that later.

In other news this month: Unity (U) announced its plans to take over Weta Digital, the renowned VFX studio founded by Peter Jackson for The Lord of the Rings - a move that the markets initially did not like, but quickly flipped on after published my post (maybe😉) on exactly how great it really is. My other darling Tesla (TSLA) seems to finally have overcome the German bureaucracy and aim to start production at their Berlin-Brandenburg Gigafactory in December. The factory has been ready to go since late July but achieving it before the end of the year is still a great win. With this factory, I believe the pressure is truly on for the German automakers to step up their game and I am excited to see Tesla gain further penetration in my home market of Europe. On the not-so-fun side of things CRISPR Therapeutics (CRSP) has continued to drop massively in November - and with my brokerage finally opening up a type of account where buying foreign ETFs makes financial sense it does have me considering swapping them for a general biotech fund instead - As I mentioned in my piece on CRISPR I would have much preferred to lower my risks by just owning something more general like the ARK Genomic Revolution (ARKG) ETF if I had the opportunity. ARKG particularly is still not within financial sense due to strange taxation laws here, but other similar funds are now finally so.

While still extremely volatile in 2021 my growth portfolio is doing well, up near 4% this month alone.

Dividend Portfolio

Two new additions this month, although one is a freebie.

I have made some changes to my dividend portfolio. After thinking long and hard about it I have decided to sell half of my position in AT&T (T). I have discussed the situation many times before in previous updates, but in short: AT&T with its upcoming spinoff of Warner Media is cutting its dividend in half and turning away from being a Dividend Aristocrat. Very much a fundamental change. I had honestly never imagined they would do such a thing, as that title is usually something companies strive for long and take large pride in... But they did. I continue to be conflicted about the stock: On one hand, their leadership has a track record for making bad decisions and on the other, the spinoff creates opportunity both for the new company with Discovery (DISCA) as well as a renewed focus on the core company. For now, I have decided to cut my exposure to this 'problem' in half and wait out the final decision until the time around the merger in the middle of 2022. You can read about my initial thoughts on the topic in an earlier post. I am taking a slight loss of around 10% on this move, which luckily I can use for tax write-offs.

The money from the AT&T sale went into my new position in Broadcom (AVGO) in combination with what I had from my twice failed SPAC adventure. Luckily I have managed to exit both of those with no losses but I figured that since I apparently suck at it, the money is better off in my dividend portfolio. That being said, Broadcom is a little more of aggressive play than most of my other dividend-paying stocks. Their yield is less than what I normally look for (3%+) in this portfolio sitting at 2.55% currently. However, they are growing their dividend payout more rapidly than anything else I own and on top of that, I think they have opportunity to grow in general.

Broadcom is a fabless semiconductor operation much like Nvidia (NVDA) and AMD (AMD), although far less cutting edge. They are not a foundry like TSMC (TSM) and do not actually produce their own chips - they just design them. But where I see a true opportunity for the company is in their 'Infrastructure Software' segment, which currently accounts for 28% of total revenue. Back just a few years ago in 2018, this number was 9%. In 2019 the company overtook Symantec for $10.7 billion and this type of revenue shot up. This segment covers business operation and cybersecurity software and has diversified its business significantly and set the foundations for much higher margins on software revenue going forward. Going back again all the way to 2016 Broadcom itself was actually bought by Avago Technologies for $37 billion - in what was at the time one of the largest semiconductor deals ever. That brought new and efficient management focused on acquiring other great businesses and ever since they have done extremely well and made many great acquisitions. With this in mind, I think Broadcom is a great candidate for my portfolio and I do not expect it to take very long in the grand scheme of things for the company to catch up on that dividend yield. Either way, I expect them to continue to grow in the traditional sense in the coming years.

Lastly, it is worth mentioning that I received 5 free shares of Orion Office REIT (ONL) from my shares in Realty Income (O) - They immediately dropped from $23 a share to around $18 as people sold off after receiving their free shares - Many are worried about the business being too little diversified and focused on office space, which is becoming less and less attractive as more and more people work from home. I have decided to just keep this one for the long term - I am excited about owning a real estate operator this early in their journey and I think the former management of VEREIT can do great things here.

My dividend portfolio continues to be a slow and consistent winner.

Here are my dividends received for the month of November:

Name of Position	Payout Date	Amount (USD)
AT&T (T)	02.11.2021	$60.63
AbbVie (ABBV)	17.11.2021	$42.52
Realty Income (O)	17.11.2021	12.86
Total	Nov 2021	$116.01

Total dividends received this month across all my portfolios – before taxes.

Website updates & Statistics

Everything is much the same here.

For the third month in a row, I have had around 1500 readers of my site.

I did upgrade my WordPress plan from Basic to Premium - just because I could get the next year for the same price with either option. WordPress continues to unfortunately disappoint and I would never recommend the upgrade at the regular price. It did allow me to monetize the site with ads - Of course, only their own 'WordAds' service which barely works at all and only really offers one format. It has made me a whopping 43 cents from 3300 ads served so far.

Personal

I know this post has been long so I will make this last part quick:

I am now working two jobs outside of University: I have taken on a temporary job as a promotor for Google - Advising new customers on Google Nest home security and audio products. Unfortunately, this is only until the end of December. The second job I have been graced with is much more interesting to me: I am now working as a UX & QR tester on an enchanted Augmented Reality book series from a local startup called Peasoup. I really enjoy it and it is much more akin to what I have been looking for since quitting Lenovo. The team is small, yet dynamic, super friendly, and ambitious. The hours are unfortunately not quite enough and so that is why I have taken on the temp job as well.

Exams are coming up for University and I still hope to make it through that one Data Analysis subject that I just do not do very well in. Unfortunately, it also means I will not have much time for this site in the coming month.

That is all for now - Have a great December!

Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor, the opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own – always invest at your own risk.