I’m Henri, I am 28 years old and I live and work close to Brussels, Belgium. I’m professionalising in business-IT implementations and Business Intelligence, but I have been interested in finance & investing since I was very young. In 2015 I completed my MsC in Business Engineering —with a specialisation in Finance—, and topped that up with a postgraduate in Finance.
I think investing shouldn’t be as hard as the finance world tries to present it. That is why I have designed my own personal website on which I try to explain the basics which everyone who wants to invest should understand — and I try to do so in a very simple and understandable way. For more information, feel free to visit https://www.investmenttales.com.
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My simple but solid strategy: invest in the stocks I believe in. Since a share price is a part of a total valuation of a company, and a company usually grows and shrinks together with the sector it operates in, this is where I start looking. How will the world look like in the future? Will we drive autonomous cars (Tesla) made out of advanced chemicals? Will we store our renewable energy (Next Era Energy) in hydrogen? Does cybersecurity (CyberArk) become increasingly important in a connected world? - I think so. Will traditional oil-and-gas firms still have an equally important role in the future as today? Will traditional banks benefit as many profits from their customers as they did during the past couple of years? Will Apple maintain its competitive edge on product leadership now that both Steve Jobs and Jonathan Yve are no longer active in the company? - I don’t think so.
With that selection of stocks in hand, I apply a simple theory (though complex mathematical execution) of risk-return optimisation to achieve a balanced though slightly aggressive portfolio. By rebalancing my portfolio every 3 months, I ensure to benefit short-term momentum and trend, whilst taking profit and cutting losses on time. Rebalancing my portfolio on fixed time intervals, also ensures I take out as much emotion as I possibly can out of my investment decisions. And doing it on such a relatively long time interval, keeps my trading fees low. Thanks to my newly acquired postgraduate, I can also increasingly apply technical analysis in my investment decisions.
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Some points of attention when you decide to copy me:
*** I do not use stop-losses or take-profits (yet) - Stop losses are meant to be used when you know at what price you wanna get out of a stock and not for indecisive selling when the price just dropped. The stocks I invest in, I intend to see them grow.
*** I don’t use leverage - This keeps the fees and the potential risks low
*** I don’t short (open sell positions) often - On average, the market ($SPX500) grows steadily for a period of 9,1 years, and usually drops strongly in about 1,3 years. That means that it is way more difficult to correctly time your short (sell), then your long (buy) positions.
*** For that same reason, I do invest for the long term. It has been proven scientifically that timing the market right at every turn is very difficult, read impossible. Leaving the market too soon, and you lose value in upward potential, leaving to late and you lose value in stock price decrease. My aim is to beat the market, enjoy (and maximising) the profits but whilst accepting (and minimising) the potential losses.
*** That means that if you decide to copy me, please give yourself a couple of months, maybe 6 or so, to evaluate my performance. Markets are very volatile nowadays, so daily drops (or gains) of over 1% are not unusual. Monthly drops of over 5% neither.
*** Please stay calm in turbulent periods. Most investors lose money by reacting impulsively on market downtrends - That is how others make their money.
*** Because I only rebalance every 3 months, f you don’t choose to copy my open trades, it might take very long before you are fully copying my portfolio. That is why I recommend copying my open trades when you start copying me.
*** When your balance is too small in comparison to mine, copy-trades might become too small for eToro to open them. To make sure all your trades get copied, I do recommend you copy me with at least $250. This amount will ensure that all my trades get copied at once. If you decide to increase your stake in my portfolio, I recommend to do so in increments of $250 also, for the same reasons.
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In short:
*** I invest long term in sectors I believe are to benefit good growth
*** Copy with at least $250, for at least 6 monthsI don’t use stop-losses or take-profits - I recommend you do the same
*** Don’t get emotional
*** Please visit my website for more information www.investmenttales.com
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Looking forward to investing for you,
Your investor,