November was (for the most part - we'll get to it later) both uneventful and uninspiring. It is among my weaker months and there is little joy in it: work is piling up, the days are getting darker, and there is no day off. It is only fitting then that the highlight, or should I say lowlight, came at the end of the month. We European investors tend to be rather envious of the limtless options US-investors have: quality ETFs (e.g. SCHD), nicely managed CEFs (e.g. BUI) and lots of other goodies. At the beginning of the year, I created an account at CapTrader, a broker which had a wide variety of stocks and funds available which are not available at brokers from Germany. Of course, these are not tax-easy brokers, i.e. you have to do the taxes yourself at the end of year, but hey, that's worth it, I thought.
Just a few weeks after opening said account, the EU did not allow the purchasing and trading of funds that did not have a KIID document, which is to say, all of the US prodcuts I was eager to buy. This is supposedly a protection of private investors, but in reality limits our choices to somewhat poorer products available. I made my peace with it, but then encountered a pleasant suprise in the summer: At Freedom24, a broker from Cypress, one was able to buy the desired funds. I quickly set up my account, not really wondering how they were able to do what other brokers were not allowed to by EU laws. I should have thought twice about. Just a few days ago, the message reached me that one was no more able to buy said funds. The only thing one was able to do was to either hold them or sell them.
Somewhat enraged by this, I slept over it a couple of nights and today, still rather miffed about it, decided to sell all of my shares in the US funds I had. Why, you might ask? Why not simply hold on? It's a good question, and I'm not sure I made the right decision. But I'm somewhat dubious as to what might happen to those shares I'm technically not supposed to own and I only was able to buy through a loophole or a rather blatant disregard of EU laws. So to be on the safe side and to avoid the situation to never be able to get the money back again, I sold my shares. I still have a few at CapTrader as of now from the short period of time one was able to buy them at the beginning of the year, but I might just as well sell those too. They were the much smaller portion anyway.
All of this is to say that a) I'm rather peeved about this whole thing and the sort of patronizing behaviour about what I can invest my hard-earned money in and b) that I, reluctantly and through gritted teeth, stick to the options avaible here in the EU and (for now) no longer look to find loopholes or exotic brokers where it is possible to buy US funds. Ultimately, it is a shame and it robs of me interesting, lucrative and profitable investment opportunities and - the irony of it - it forces to me to take bigger risks as I look at single investments for higher yield as opposed to bigger and more diversified funds (e.g. CEFs).
Having ranted enough, here comes the result of November 24. It is weaker month, but at least I crossed the 400€ barrier. In total, I ended up with 433,17€. Losing those monthly payers (BME, JEPI, etc.) is going to hurt though:
- AbbVie: 10,94€
- Agree Realty: 33,48€
- Air Products & Chemicals Inc.: 0,55€
- Arbor Realty Trust: 36,47€
- BLACKR.ENH.CAP.+IN.DL-,10: 3,23€
- BlackRock Health Sciences Trust: 16,17€
- BLACKROCK SC.+TECH. TR.II: 4,47€
- BlackRock Utilities, Infrastructure, & Power Opportunities Trust: 15,61€
- British American Tobacco: 55,30€
- CALAMOS STR.T.RET.FD SBI: 2,84€
- COHEN + STEERS DL -,001: 1,88€
- Cohen&Steers Quality Income Realty Fund: 1,93€
- EPR Properties: 2,82€
- Global X S&P 500 Covered Call UCITS ETF: 1,43€
- Greencoat UK Wind: 5,32€
- Hercules Capital: 26,34€
- Horizon Technology Finance: 0,76€
- iShares J.P. Morgan $ Emerging Markets Bond UCITS ETF - USD DIS: 0,64€
- JPMorgan Equity Premium Income ETF (USD): 23,48€
- Kinder Morgan: 6,11€
- LTC Properties: 2,28€
- Main Street Capital: 16,87€
- NNN REIT: 4,11€
- Omega Healthcare Invest.: 33,13€
- Realty Income: 32,97€
- Sabra Health Care REIT: 8,48€
- Sequoia Economic Infrastructure Inc Ord: 9,80€
- SL Green Realty: 1,94€
- SPDR S&P Global Dividend Aristocrats UCITS ETF - USD DIS: 21,56€
- STAG Industrial: 0,44€
- Starbucks: 16,81€
- Texas Instruments: 8,56€
- The City of London Investment Trust PLC: 3,52€
- Vanguard USD Emerging Markets Government Bond UCITS ETF - DIS: 0,91€
- Verizon Communications: 8,79€
- Equinor: 13,23€
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