(Under-) Performance review 2025 – Comment: “Mean reversion investing – Banks & Spirits”
As this review became a little bit longer (too much time on my hands ?), I decided to publish is as a PDF version. Have fun.
Summary:
There is no way around it: 2025 was another bad year in relative terms (the third in the row). The Value & Opportunity portfolio gained +9,4 % (including dividends, no taxes, AOC fund as of 30.09.2025) against +21,5% for the Benchmark (Eurostoxx50 (25%), Eurostoxx small 200 (25%), DAX (30%), MDAX (20%), all performance indices including Dividends). Links to previous Performance reviews can be found on the Performance Page of the blog.
Over the 15 years from 12/31/2010 to 12/31/2025, the portfolio gained +429% against +225% for the Benchmark (before taxes). In CAGR numbers this translates into 11,7% p.a. for the portfolio vs. 8,2% p.a. for the Benchmark.
The full monty:
value and opportunity 
Do you track some kind of intrinsic portfolio value development as well like for example aggregate fcf year over year? That helps me to get perspective on my own investments.
“Another lesson that I learned is clearly that my underlying strategy, which is not to explicitly
look for winners but to mostly avoid losers, does not work well in a market where the returns
are driven by a few stocks.”
Most gains are ALWAYS made by a few stocks. This is not a bug, it is a FEATURE.
U.S. Market (1926–2016): Bessembinder’s study found that the top 4% – 1,092 US stocks (out of ~26,000) generated 100% of the net wealth creation. The rest just lost money.
The market YOU invest in – Global Market (1990–2020): less than 1% of global companies accounted for all net wealth creation worldwide. The rest were net money losers in the long term and didn’t even beat risk-free treasuries.
The key is to pick winners and stick to them to a long time. If you cut your flowers and water your weeds, you will underperform.
What is really amazing is your long-term performance of 11.7%, which goes to show how long it really takes to gauge the performance of stock pickers/funds and why picking the right fund/investor is so hard.
Hello and thanks for the last 15 years of very interesting blogging. May I ask how you track your performance and the performance oft he virtual alternative portfolio (the one unchanged from start of the year)? By hand, keeping track of dividens / splits etc.?
Regarding the benchmark it is funny how you have been critisized in the past for not using the MSCI World. Have not heard that comment this year (I womder why ;-)). In Euros the performance in 2025 was “only” 7.07% vs your 9.4%. Thought this is worth mentioning.
Herzlichen Dank für all die Jahre immer wieder höchst interessante Ideen und so unfassbar viel Research dazu!!!
Zu Alkohol passend denke ich an Tabak. Seit 2020 habe ich große Bestände in diversen Tabak-Brands aufgebaut (ITB / BMT / vormals Japan Tobacco)… Bisher sehe ich keinen Grund auszusteigen, da die Bewertungen passen und stetig gutes Geld verdient wird. Ähnlich wie Alkohol ist das halt nicht sexy und nicht ESG-Konform. Was hätst du von dieser Branche? Müsste unter Value-Aspekten doch zumindest einen Blick wert sein oder täusche ich mich?
Danke für den Kommentar. Ich tue mich ehrlich gesagt mit Tabak schwerer als mit Alkohol. Von daher habe ich das ehrlich gesagt nicht in meinem Fokus.
Danke für dein immer interessantes Blog.
Man muss beim Investieren aufpassen in welchen Spirit man sich selbst versetzt. Du fühlst dich ja mit den langweiligen Aktien sehr wohl. Ich selber sehe mich nach ca. 5 Jahren Investieren noch als Anfänger und probiere vieles aus.
Um aus deiner 3-jährigen Underperformance auszubrechen, könnte es ein Experiment sein, dein Portfolio in zwei Teile zu spalten und einen alternativen Ansatz zu testen. Das Know-How zur Unternehmensanalyse hast du ja. Nur die Ziel-Kennwerte könntest dir neue suchen.
Ansonsten finde ich das Argument mit der mean reversion schwierig – es lässt wie du selber schreibst den Zeitaspekt völlig außen vor. D.h. wenn die Spirituosen Aktien mal irgendwann den Boden gefunden und wieder positive Kursbewegungen zeigen, kann man ja wieder einsteigen.
Gutes Gelingen in 2026!
Vielen Dank. In der Tat ein interessanter Gedanke, eine veränderte Startegie explizit in einem “teilportfolio” zu testen. Danke für den Denkanstoss !!!
Thanks for this, enjoyed this review. In case of interest I thought this Net Interest post on the comeback of European banks was very good: https://substack.com/home/post/p-181441117
On spirits I agree with your points, it’s difficult to not make a case for some changing attitude towards alcohol, although I struggle to assess whether the cadence has changed vs pre-2020. However I do suspect that more recent troubles – in addition to inventory issues throughout the value chain – have been driven by the spirits companies resting on their laurels during the covid boom, thus failing to meet the consumer at more recent consumption occasions (low/no alc, RTD etc.) at a time when beer, soft drinks and entrepeneurs have been doing just that – the spirits majors materially lag market share vs their relative industry size in these categories. A perfect storm, but hopefully one that will be resolved by smart investment choices this year. I’m keeping a close eye for commentary from Diageo’s new CEO who started 01/01 who I believe to be excellent.
Thenk you for the thoughtful comment. I agree with everything you say.