Happy New Year everyone!

This is going to be a short post as there is not a lot to talk about that was not already told in the review from the first half of 2014. Because of a lack of time, still caused by my studies, am I unable to invest the way I did before. The transactions of the first half of 2014 reflect this as I had to adjust. Nevertheless did my portfolio perform quite well, especially in the second half of 2014. The performance was driven by my stake in Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B) as the stock increased ±27%. This increase in price was more than the increase in intrinsic value of the company. Although it was still undervalued at the beginning of 2014, it is less so now. We have to wait for the annual report to be able to determine the approximate value of the company. I can comfortably say, though, that Berkshire is not yet priced at an unreasonable high value. Therefore I expect to keep the stock in my portfolio in the foreseeable future.

Skagen Global, my other investment, was somewhat disappointing as it really underperformed the market. A value philosophy is of course not a certain way to always outperform the market, but I believe that the performance of Skagen Global was even disappointing to the investment firm as they changed the management of the fund.

Another driver of the performance of the portfolio was the appreciation of the dollar versus the euro. More than half of my portfolio consists of Berkshire shares denominated in dollars and Skagen also does have dollar denominated investments. The 12% gain of the dollar therefore matters. In the long run however, I think such large swings evolve into small changes. Since I stopped trying to hedge currency fluctuations in 2012, the dollar appreciated since then only 5.6%.

The tables below show the  portfolio as of 31 December 2014 and the performance of the portfolio until 31 December 2014.

Click on table for larger view

Portfolio

Performance

Graph

The Portfolio (1) is denominated in Euros.  Transaction costs, custody fees (bewaarloon) and dividends are when necessary included in the Annual Percentage Change. (Dividend tax is included in full years (2010 to 2013)).

The AEX (2) is a stock market index composed of Dutch companies that trade on Euronext Amsterdam. The Annual Percentage Change is calculated without taking the dividends of the current year in account.

The S&P 500 (3) is a stock market index based on the market capitalizations of 500 large companies whose common stock is publicly traded on the NYSE. The Annual Percentage Change is calculated without taking the dividends of the current year in account.

In calculating the Compounded Annual Gain is the current year considered as completed.

Since 14 May 2012 the currency risk isn’t hedged anymore. This means that currency fluctuations can significantly influence the performance in the short term. To show how the currency fluctuated during a certain period, an extra column is added with the fluctuations since 14 May 2012. A decline indicates that the US dollar has become stronger against the Euro and vice versa.