Kellanova

How I beat the MSCI World by over 25,000% over 13 years

Part 4: The financial challenges of a partnership and Kellogg's as a turning point

You can find the first part of my investment story (incl. background and TL;DR) here: https://getqu.in/JldknL/

The second part here: https://getqu.in/Ptei6g/

The third part here: https://getqu.in/sfTZ3P/

You already noticed it in part 3. This one was far less spectacular than parts 1 and 2, and that's a good thing. The donkey has to grow up at some point. And my girlfriend also contributed to this.

A portrait of my partner

My partner is a phenomenon. While I worked 40 hours a week and studied part-time, my girlfriend studied full-time and financed her studies with temporary jobs. And yet she was able to afford everything I was able to afford. 3 weeks vacation in the USA? No problem. A new cell phone? Of course. A gym subscription and membership of several sports clubs (without using them, of course)? Why not? Party every Friday and Saturday (with 40 hours a week and a part-time degree, that's really exhausting 🥲)? Definitely.

Honestly. I had and still have no idea how she did it. It's a complete mystery to me how she was able to finance such a life with her income. But she could. Perhaps it would be more instructive if she wrote posts on getquin instead of me? Pretty sure she would. But I'm afraid she'll take her secret to her grave (OF jokes & co incomming 😉).

Higher salary ...

In 2020, I was still living in my first apartment, the rent for which (500 euros warm) had never been increased. At the same time, our IT Director was a big fan of the donkey (no idea why, probably luck again) and promoted me, against the wishes of my direct superior and shortly before the Director was fired, with huge salary increases to just under 100k gross annual salary. My job only changed marginally. As I was still not living the high life, my already high savings rate grew even further. Until my partner took her first real job.

... and higher expenses

Do you remember? My partner could afford my lifestyle with her temporary job 😅. Kind of bitter, wasn't it? Now that she had a real salary, I got scared and anxious. And rightly so. Suddenly I was doing things with her that I'd never dared to dream of. Suddenly I was going on vacation several times a year. And not in the low season in cheap vacation apartments. No, now it had to be the high season and a hotel. Then there were crazy things like "just going to a restaurant for no reason" or buying good alcohol instead of the booze that was good enough the year before.

But the biggest turning point was the first apartment we shared. Normally, moving in together makes everything cheaper because you now divide everything by two. But because I was living so incredibly cheaply and we had to move to an expensive city because of her job, my share of the joint rent and therefore my living costs increased significantly. Thanks to corona, I was able to stay in my home office and didn't have to change jobs. My very good salary remained the same.

So my life became significantly more expensive. And I am infinitely grateful to my partner for that. She taught me to treat myself sometimes. I didn't know that before and it makes my life so much more worth living. Apart from that, that was of course complaining on a high level. Of course, you can also save a lot with an adjusted lifestyle in an expensive city like Stuttgart and an annual salary of 100k.

Kellogg's, the next turning point in my investment career

Over time, my investments became more mature. I continued to study finance in depth and developed my first real strategy. I went for a world ETF as a core, added a few sector ETFs as niches and supplemented my risky portfolio with my existing crypto positions and P2P loans. I also kept buying individual stocks based on my gut feeling and landed direct hits such as $MPW (-0,81 %) or $YOU (-0,15 %). So I wasn't quite all grown up after all.

And then came Kellogg's $K (+0,58 %). I bought a few shares on impulse and found myself checking the price several times a day, constantly looking at the portfolio and generally feeling very tense. After about 8 weeks, I sold the position again with a few euros and a much calmer sleep as a profit. I questioned what had happened to me here and realized that I had not done enough research on the share. This created uncertainty and nervousness.

Somehow pretty crazy. I have 6 figures invested in crypto, but a 1,000 euro investment in Kellogg's makes me nervous 😅.

Anyway, I realized that you should understand what you're investing in. And that it can be expensive. However, it took some time to put this realization into practice. Until the 5th and final part of this series, to be precise: https://getqu.in/DJulMK/

How I beat the MSCI World by over 25,000% over 13 years

Part 3: My girlfriend with no financial know-how changed everything

You can find the first part of my investment story (incl. background and TL;DR) here: https://getqu.in/JldknL/

The second part here: https://getqu.in/Ptei6g/

Welcome to the third part of investing failures, bad luck and mishaps. What do you think? How many parts did I need to make a Netflix documentary out of it?

Money, money, money

In the meantime (2018), I had taken on first a small, then a slightly larger management position. How did I manage that? Quite simply. With the first one, I went on my boss's balls until I got it. At the second, there was a restructuring and my boss asked me. Once again, I was in the right place at the right time. My part-time degree (which I hadn't completed yet) certainly helped, as I was able to prove my resilience and stamina. This enabled me to increase my gross annual salary from 36,000 euros to just under 50,000 euros and later to around 75,000 euros. As my cost of living only increased marginally at the same time, I suddenly had a lot of money at my disposal. Reason enough for me to take a closer look at my finances for the first time.

Where to put all the money?

First of all, I started writing down and calculating my previous investments and the associated returns. Manually in a text file. Fortunately, there's getquin for that nowadays. However, writing things down by hand helped me to understand how returns and the like are calculated in the first place, what influencing factors there are, what effect they have, ... In any case, I had the feeling that my bank advisor always told me a lot of nice things, but the returns were usually terrible. And I was right.

So I resolved not to follow any more stupid recommendations from my bank advisor. Instead, I managed very well to continue making stupid decisions myself. This included, for example, an investment in a subordinated loan from a local company via crowdfunding (the risk/return ratio was terrible, but it worked out well) and a savings plan on an ETF with a high dividend and low return.

However, I also made some decisions that I would describe as "still okay". For example, the investment in P2P loans and in a DAX ETF. By chance, my savings plans in $IWDA (-0,81 %) and an IT ETF. In a way, I invested in everything that wasn't up to scratch. @Koenigmidas I still do that today 😘.

However, most of my money continued to flow into fixed-term deposit accounts, as I still had my sights set on financing my own home.

A high savings rate can make stupid investments (partially) offset

My assets have now grown to a 6-digit amount. I don't remember exactly how much (and probably didn't know at the time). Maybe just under 200k. It's crazy when you consider that I was mainly investing in building society savings, life insurance, fixed-term deposits, Riester and mutual funds and the crypto market was at rock bottom. But my savings rate was simply phenomenal at the time, I started very early thanks to my parents and the unit-linked Riester pension was doing pretty well 🚀.

In 2019, I had finally completed my part-time studies after my Abitur, Bachelor's and Master's degrees and had also finished my one-year intensive English course. This gave me time to focus even more on my finances and learning. First on the agenda was crypto. I started to understand my crypto investments and realize what nonsense I had invested in. So I sold many (not all) of my altcoins and reallocated the proceeds into $BTC (-0,58 %) and $ETH (-1,17 %) reallocated. I no longer had an exit plan, but had written off the money and wanted to hodl until it became worthless or life-changing. When the bull run started in 2020, I reinvested in some nonsensical altcoins via a savings plan and tried out crazy crypto products on Binance 🤦. Needless to say, I only lost money.

At the same time, I bought my first individual shares. As an IT nerd, I stumbled across a book about companies with a modern corporate culture and a focus on IT. That was the only (!) basis for buying $ING (-1,32 %) and $ETSY (+0,14 %) 😅. As you can see, even a few years ago I was still traveling without sense and reason. Looking back, however, at 36 euros was an ideal entry price, at least for Etsy, and at 100 euros not a bad price to sell at. I was able to sell the ING shares at +/- 0 after holding them for a few years.

Water becomes wine. Fixed-term deposits become ETFs.

I was so convinced of myself and at the same time so convincing that some people developed boundless confidence in my abilities, who were actually at bank advisor level. This included my girlfriend, whom I recommended to start a savings plan on an MSCI World (lucky guess). And she did. With 700 euros a month 🤯. And I fed my ETF with 500 euros a month despite my higher income and supposedly higher financial building. That was the wake-up call for me. "Donkey" I thought to myself. "Donkey, how can it be that your girlfriend, to whom you have just explained the world of finance, has a higher savings rate than you?". I had to stop preaching wine (ETFs) and drink water (fixed-term deposits). And that's what I did. From then on, I saved significantly more in my poorly chosen ETFs and correspondingly less in call money and fixed-term deposits. Looking back, this was one of two decisive turning points in my investment career.

The second turning point in my investing career was Kellogg's $K (+0,58 %). But more on that in part 4: https://getqu.in/d4GUta/

As every Sunday, the most important news from the past week, as well as the dates for the coming weeks.

Also as a video:

https://youtube.com/shorts/f0axgV1KRVs?si=6MLwRC5IQHK7FPqt

Monday:

$FRAS (-1,38 %) Frasers seizes the opportunity and increases its stake in $BOSS (-0,36 %) HUGO BOSS. The share had recently fallen by more than 50% compared to its highs in 2023. Frasers Group now directly holds more than 15% of the voting rights.

https://fashionunited.de/nachrichten/business/frasers-group-erhoht-beteiligung-an-hugo-boss/2024081257677

Tuesday:

$HFG (-5,75 %) Hellofresh can grow the bottom line and the ready-to-eat segment grows by almost 45%, sales in the cooking box business shrink by 10%. Overall, sales increased by 0.9%. This means that Hellofresh is already able to compensate for the falling sales in the cooking box business and return to growth. In addition

Hellofresh was able to refinance itself favorably. Hellofresh therefore continues to have a solid capital structure.

https://www.wallstreet-online.de/nachricht/18373330-hellofresh-hits-7-5-aebitda-q2-2024-strong-performance

Producer prices in the USA 🇺🇸 are better than expected. Instead of +0.2 % compared to the previous month, it was +0.1 %. This increasingly points to a first interest rate cut at the beginning of September.

https://finanzmarktwelt.de/inflation-usa-erzeugerpreise-niedriger-was-nun-318977/?amp

Wednesday:

With the exception of Japan, there is growing evidence of a global turnaround in interest rates. Even the economically relatively insignificant (GDP: around USD 250 billion) island state of New Zealand 🇳🇿 has now lowered interest rates. The key interest rate has been lowered from 5.5% to 5.25%.

https://www.handelsblatt.com/finanzen/geldpolitik/geldpolitik-neuseelands-zentralbank-senkt-nach-langer-pause-den-leitzins/100059828.html

At +2.9%, the inflation data from the USA 🇺🇸 was below expectations of +3.0%. The markets continue to rise accordingly, and an interest rate cut by the Fed is becoming more likely.

https://www.handelsblatt.com/finanzen/geldpolitik/usa-inflation-faellt-im-juli-auf-tiefsten-stand-seit-maerz-2021/100057609.html

Big deal in the food industry. The non-listed food giant Mars takes over the Pringles manufacturer $K (+0,58 %) Kellanova. It is likely to be one of the biggest takeovers in the food industry ever. The confectionery giant Mars already has a turnover of USD 50 billion. With Kellanova, turnover will increase by a further USD 13 billion. The takeover is likely to cost USD 36 billion.

https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/handel-konsumgueter/pringles-hersteller-mars-will-kellanova-wohl-fuer-30-milliarden-dollar-kaufen/100059764.html

Thursday:

The trade union-affiliated IMK puts the probability of a recession in Germany at 49.2%. The main problems are domestic consumer demand and general demand from abroad.

https://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/konjunktur/imk-institut-rezessionsrisiko-in-deutschland-steigt-studie-zufolge-auf-fast-50-prozent/100060064.html

$CSCO (-0,02 %) Cisco has exceeded expectations with its sales forecast for the current quarter. In the previous quarter, sales fell by 10% and profits plummeted by 45%.

https://www.finanzen.net/amp/optimismus-cisco-aktie-steigt-prognose-uebertrifft-erwartungen-13767655

Domestic consumption is driving the economy in Japan 🇯🇵. In the 2nd quarter, GDP grew by an annualized 3.1%. Experts had only expected growth of 2.1%.

https://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/international/konjunktur-privater-konsum-treibt-japans-wirtschaftswachstum-an/100060045.html

$BAYN (+0,72 %) Bayer can dismiss a lawsuit in an appeals court. As there are contradictory rulings from appeal courts, Bayer continues to demand that the glyphosate case be brought before the Supreme Court.

https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/industrie/pharmakonzern-bayer-verbucht-juristischen-sieg-im-us-streit-ueber-glyphosat/100060322.html

Key dates in the coming week:

Tuesday: 14:30 Inflation data (Canada)

Wednesday: 20:00 FOMC Minutes (USA)

Thursday: 10:00 Purchasing Managers' Index (EU)

Gude,

Now that $K (+0,58 %) is sold to Mars, the share and thus a building block of many a diversification will fly out of the portfolios. Has anyone here already found a successor or any ideas as to who it could be in the direction of food consumption?

$ULVR (-1,57 %)
$MDLZ (-3,31 %) are already in the portfolio!

Hello everyone,

somehow I can't quite make up my mind, $KO (-0,6 %) , $K (+0,58 %) , $ULVR (-1,57 %) , $PEP (-2,49 %) , , etc.

Doesn't it make sense to invest in an ETF $WCSS (-1,12 %) to have exposure to all these companies?

My idea is to strengthen my portfolio somewhat in the consumer staples sectors, as this area only covers 4% at the moment. There is a small dividend and the stocks are not quite as volatile.

Is there anything against it? Is anyone invested there?

Thanks for your feedback ✌️

Actually, the CEO of $K (+0,58 %) is right. Perhaps it wasn't exactly wise to make such a statement publicly, but Peter Lynch himself writes in his book that people eat cornflakes in times of crisis because they are cheap and nutritious and Kellogg is therefore a good investment. It's definitely on my wishlist too. Even if the chart doesn't look great 😄

Do you still buy Kellogg's? This is how the muesli shitstorm started

https://www.20min.ch/story/boykott-ab-1-april-kaufst-du-noch-kelloggs-so-kams-zum-mueesli-shitstorm-103059919

$K (+0,58 %) has anyone received the kellanova dividends?

How do I teach getquin transactionally the spin-off from $K (+0,58 %) (Kellogg). Does anyone have an approach to hand? Thanks a lot.

My 57 shares have become 14.25 of the new old Kellogg (US92942W1071).

Kellogg $K (+0,58 %) has been around forever and probably remains an investment for eternity

Servus my dears ✌️☺️

Social Media , curse and blessing at the same time 😁 on the one hand you can exchange experiences and on the other hand there are people who know everything better and are clairvoyants and can tell you 100% with which strategy you will achieve the best return 😂

Since there has been in recent times at getquin again and again propaganda against the dividend strategy😁 and today #dividendsthursday I wanted to summarize my aristocrats and possible candidates for the future where I myself am invested. ☺️👍

If you discover the dividend strategy for yourself then it is important to buy shares that annually increase the dividend or at least not lower, and there are 80% actually only stocks from the USA in question 😁👍

My Aristocrats ☺️👍

Consumption

Coca-Cola $KO (-0,6 %)

• Dividend yield 2.80%
• Increasing for 61 years
• Pay-out Free-CF 86%

Procter & Gamble $PG (-2,53 %)

• Dividend Yield 2.38
• Increases for 67 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 74.6%

Colgate-Palmolive $CL (-0,44 %)

• Increases for 60 years
• Dividend Yield 2.46
• Pay-Out Free-CF 84.8%

Kimberly-Clark $KMB (-0,75 %)

• Dividend Yield 3.24
• Increasing for 51 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 68%

Diageo $DGE (-3,37 %)

• Dividend yield 2.10%
• Increases for 36 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 85.7%

Altria $MO (-0,65 %)

• Dividend Yield 7.97%
• Increases for 53 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 82.7%

British American Tobacco $BATS (-0,93 %)

• Dividend Yield 7.36
• Increases for 25 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 59.7%

McDonald's $MCD (-1,26 %)

• Dividend Yield 2.00%
• Increases for 47 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 113.5%

Finance

Franklin Resources $BEN (-2,03 %)

• Dividend Yield 4.51
• Increasing for 32 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 41.1%

T. Rowe Price $TROW (-4,01 %)

• Dividend Yield 4.44
• Increasing for 37 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 52.7%

Old Republic $ORI (-1,86 %)

• Dividend Yield 7.86%
• Increases for 42 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 50.1%

Aflac $AFL (-1,79 %)

• Dividend yield 2.48%
• Increases for 40 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 26%

Pharma/Healthcare

Johnson & Johnson $JNJ (+0,38 %)

• Dividend yield 2.78
• Increasing for 61 years
• Pay-out Free-CF 85.3%

Energy/Oil

Chevron $CVX (+1,15 %)

• Dividend yield 3.48
• Increasing for 35 years
• Pay-out Free-CF 28.4%

Consolidated Edison $ED (-0,57 %)

• Dividend Yield 3.21%
• Increases for 49 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 100%

UGI Corporation $UGI (+1,95 %)

• Dividend Yield 4.34%
• Increases for 36 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 125.2%

Real Estate

Realty Income $O (-1,52 %)

• Dividend Yield4.89%
• Increasing for 28 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 77.3%

National Retail Properties $NNN (-1,59 %)

• Dividend Yield 5.18%
• Increases for 33 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 68.3%

W.P. Carey $WPC (-0,28 %)

• Dividend Yield 5.91%
• Increases for 27 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 99.1%

Essex Property Trust $ESS (+0,49 %)

• Dividend Yield 4.33%
• Increases for 28 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 58.4%

IT

IBM $IBM (-1,63 %)

• Dividend yield 5.24
• Increasing for 27 years
• Pay-out Free-CF 64.2%

Industry

3M $MMM (-1,19 %)

• Dividend yield 5.80%
• Increasing for 65 years
• Pay-out Free-CF 81.4%

Air Products and Chemicals $APD (+3,51 %)

• Dividend yield 2.31
• Increased for 41 years
• Pay-Out Profit 62.8%

Caterpillar $CAT (-2,49 %)

• Dividend yield 2.22
• Increases for 29 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 48.4%

Ecolab $ECL (-2,35 %)

• Dividend yield 1.28%
• Increases for 36 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 55.3%

Stanley Black $SWK (-1,77 %)

• Dividend Yield 4.13%
• Increases for 56 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 100%

Emerson Electric $EMR (-1 %)

• Dividend Yield 2.51%
• Increases for 66 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 51.6%

Archer-Daniels-Midland $ADM (+2,74 %)

• Dividend Yield 2.14%
• Increases for 48 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 55.2%

Nucor $NUE (+0,51 %)

• Dividend yield 1.40%
• Increases for 31 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 7.6%

Leggett & Platt $LEG (-1,16 %)

• Dividend Yield 5.68
• Increases for 52 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 70.1%

Utilities

Essential Utilities $WTRG (-1,44 %)

• Dividend yield 2.62
• Increasing for 31 years
• Pay-out Free-CF 100%

Logistics

C. H. Robinson $CHRW (-1,24 %)

• Dividend yield 2.51
• Increasing for 26 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 17.6%

Future potential aristocrats

Apple $AAPL (-1,69 %)

• Dividend yield 0.56%
• Increasing for 10 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 15.1%

Microsoft $MSFT (-0,88 %)

• Dividend Yield 0.88%
• Increases for 19 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 33.8%

Broadcom $AVGO (-1,19 %)

• Dividend Yield 2.82%
• Increases for 11 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 44.3%

Qualcomm $QCOM (-1,39 %)

• Dividend Yield 2.63%
• Increases for 19 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 42.1%

Texas Instruments $TXN (+1,23 %)

• Dividend Yield 2.91%
• Increases for 19 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 99.6%

Kellogg $K (+0,58 %)

• Dividend Yield 3.43%
• Increases for 18 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 69.1%

Verizon $VZ (-3 %)

• Dividend Yield 7.04%
• Increases for 18 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 71.2%

MetLife $MET (-3,73 %)

• Dividend Yield 3.39
• Increases for 10 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 13.7%

Starbucks $SBUX (+0,39 %)

• Dividend Yield 1.83%
• Increased for 12 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 63.2%

KDDI $9433 (-0,68 %)

• Dividend Yield 3.24
• Increases for 20 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 21.5%

Pfizer $PFE (+0,23 %)

• Dividend Yield 4.17%
• Increases for 12 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 30.8%

Bristol-Myers Squibb $BMY (-0,49 %)

• Dividend Yield 3.26%
• Increases for 15 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 39.4%

JPMorgan $JPM (-1,51 %)

• Dividend Yield 2.96%
• Increases for 12 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 29.1%

Visa $V (-1,41 %)

• Dividend yield 0.72%
• Increases for 14 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 19%

Nike $NKE (+0,17 %)

• Dividend Yield 1.04%
• Increases for 20 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 53.1%

Lockheed Martin $LMT (-0,16 %)

• Dividend Yield 2.51
• Increases for 20 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 47.4%

Home Depot $HD (+0,73 %)

• Dividend Yield 2.70%
• Increases for 12 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 69%

Oracle $ORCL (-5 %)

• Dividend Yield 1.45
• Increases for 13 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 51.7%

Waste Management $WM (-0,02 %)

• Dividend yield 1.62%
• Increases for 19 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 55.9%

Union Pacific $UNP (-2,2 %)

• Dividend Yield 2.72%
• Increases for 16 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 58.6%

BlackRock $BLK

• Dividend Yield 3.02%
• Increases for 13 years
• Pay-Out Free-CF 60.7%

What aristocrats do you have in your portfolio that I haven't mentioned here yet and which stocks do you see a chance to become an aristocrat in the future?

Thanks a lot ✌️☺️

Source:

https://aktienfinder.net/