Value & Opportunity 13th Anniversary

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Every year on December 15th, the blog celebrates another anniversary, because on that day in December 2010, the blog went live for the first time.

As always there will be a separate performance portfolio review in the beginning of January.  13 is often considered an unlucky number. So far that hasn’t be the case for the blog, rather the opposite, as I didn’t have to start another “Panic Series” revival.

I have been thinking if I know any other stock focused blog that is still active and older than mine, but I couldn’t think of many. There are some longer running Financial blogs such as Calculated Risk or Marginal Revolution. Prof. Damodaran’s blog Musings on Markets is up since 15 years.

I can only speculate why so many blogs have disappeared over time, maybe it’s the allure of Social Media or the fact that a couple of the early bloggers became professional.

Personally I would be very interested if my readers know other stock focused blogs that have been running for a very long time. Kindly post into the comments if you know about stock blogs that exist for 10 years or longer.

Again, a big thank you to all readers, especially those who contribute (and motivate me) via constructive comments but of course also to all the silent readers.

The top 10 posts in 2023 were the following:

  1. Italmobiliare (ISIN IT0005253205) – Buying “Italy’s Finest” for only 50 Cents on the Euro ?
  2. SFS Group AG (ISIN CH0239229302) – Super boring but sexy “Hidden Champion” from Switzerland
  3. Collectors Corner Series Part 1: Laurent-Perrier SA (ISIN FR0006864484)
  4. Logistec (ISIN CA5414114010) – A cheap marine terminal operator with a great track record – what is not to like ?
  5. My 23 Investments for 2023
  6. “Freedom Insulation” – Follow up and Basket Update (Sto, Steico)
  7. Schaffner Group AG (ISIN CH0009062099) – Is this “Meier & Tobler 2.0” ?
  8. Half year 2023 Portfolio Review Part 1/2
  9. Broedr. Hartmann (ISIN DK0010256197): A truly Egg-citing Special situation ?
  10. Value & Opportunity 2022 Performance Review & 2023 Outlook

Blogging highlights 2023:

So far, in 2023 I managed to post only 56 times, which is again less than in 2022. As can be seen in the Top 10 list, stock write-ups and portfolio reviews seem to be the most popular posts.

The biggest achievement has been the “All Norwegian Shares series” which I almost managed to finish this year. Somehow Norway has been a stock market that doesn’t fit with what I am looking for which in itself is an interesting outcome. I still need to choose a Country for next year, but I already have a favorite.

I also started a new series called “Stock collection” where I focus on stocks that might not meet my formal return requirements, but for one reason or the other, are still interesting enough to justify a “small” position. Champagne specialist Laurent Perrier was the first part. The “collection” will be a very opportunistic series.

Statistics:

Overall, views are at around 280 k for this year, which is again below the level of 2022. This number correlates 1:1 with the activity, so no surprise here that with fewer posts, the number goes down. I think that my focus on obscure and boring small caps also limits the audience to a certain extent. Subscribers are still growing but slowly.

Twitter:

As mentioned, I had started in 2021 to reactivate my old Twitter account. I think it is still useful to me for idea discovery, but filtering the feed has become quite cumbersome and activity has been significantly decreasing, at least from the accounts that I actively follow. I tried Bluesky, but I am struggling to find it useful. In any case, a try to avoid in arguments on Social Media as this is mostly a waste of time.

The year ahead

Going into year 14, the biggest goal is of course to keep up the frequency and complete a new “All stock” series. Other than that I don’t have any specific goals.

Bonus Track:

With an increasing number of conflicts in the world and an increasing number of innocent victims, this song came to my mind:

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