Some jobs are less fun at times

Within the Avanza community, things are now starting to grumble.

They have promised to pay out the tax refunds in March 2023. The week before last, Avanza announced that the money would be paid out the following week. Last Friday they announced that the money is on its way.

I'm glad I don't work at Avanza's customer service.

Today's young people are not my vision for YMD

I'll be the first to admit that I am a curling parent. However, you can curl children in different ways.

I hope that our way of showering the offspring with loads of unconditional love, being generous with money so that he can do things with his friends and above all demanding that he do his school work and behave well.

The main goal is for him to be happy, in addition we also wish for him to become an independent and logical thinking person.

A further heartfelt wish is that he does not become like the majority of today's young people, that is, easily offended and self-absorbed. If that is the outcome, then we have failed as parents.

The irony

The Parliamentary Ombudsmen (JO) are appointed by the Swedish Parliament to ensure that public authorities and their staff comply with the laws and other statutes governing their actions.

The irony when JO criticizes the Swedish Tax Agency for not accepting cash as a means of payment for an application fee. This is considered contrary to the Riksbanken's Act. A private company could not have circumvented the law in this way. That we are all equal before the law is not true.

Natural yet complicated

Credit Suisse Group AG (SWX: CSGN ) has recently become the poster boy for the phrase "Too big to fail (TBTF)."

Given that UBS Group AG (SWX: UBSG) demanded ₣12,500 for each resident of Switzerland from the Swiss government as a guarantee in the form of tax money to complete the purchase of SWX:CSGN, I sincerely hope that this bailout package is enough to save the bank.

Since Switzerland is the land of the banks, I fully understand that they absolutely cannot let a bank fail.

They never waive their fee

Being a pension saver in Alecta must be frustrating at present. Today the company announced that it is selling its holding in the crisis-stricken bank First Republic Bank (FRC.PRH) at a loss of just over $0.62 billion. Alecta was the 5th largest shareholder in the bank.

I wonder how many more bad investments the company can handle before they have to admit that future pension payments will be significantly negatively affected.

Even if Alecta is doing badly, they continue to charge their fee.

It's official, my husband can't multitask

I was out walking while talking to my husband this morning when there was a strange noise on the phone. My better half watered the flowers while talking on the phone.

Somehow he managed to drop the phone exactly on the edge of the flowerpot whereupon the phone's screen cracked. The Home Touch button was the worst damaged. The phone became completely unusable.

The mobile phone is more than a phone to many, my husband included. It is a work tool. There was no other option for him but to head to the nearest store to buy a new phone.

You can sum up the day by saying it got expensive.

Not for the faint-hearted

Having all your savings in the stock market is not a walk in the park at the moment. The value may have dropped by several $10,000 in just one hour.

Although young master Dewlar is responsible for most of my gray hairs, he is not alone. The fluctuations on the stock market are complicit.

Despite the ups and downs of recent years, we will continue our savings in stocks. Every time I've felt like we're almost there, something happens that sets us back several years.

I'm in no rush as long as we're done by the time young master Dewlar moves away to go to college. Regardless of what YMD thinks, we intend to get a second home in the same city. When you only have one child, you have the luxury of being able to follow him wherever he moves.

I only blinked once

In Sweden, you can start practice driving on the same day you turn 16, provided that you and your supervisor have taken an introductory course for practice driving and have an approved permits for practice driving.

You can participate in the introductory course as early as 15 years and 9 months. The world's most perfect teenager turns 16 in August. It feels like yesterday when Junior was learning to walk and now he's going to drive a car.

The myth that time goes faster when you have children is not a myth. You have to be constantly present to miss as little as possible. It's enough to blink once and your 5-month-old baby is a 15-year-old teenager.

I hope they know what they are doing

I'm not sure that UBS Group AG (SWX: UBSG) is entirely happy with the purchase of Credit Suisse Group AG (SWX: CSGN).

Even if they bought the shares significantly below the closing price on Friday, $0.5401 vs. $2.088, I'm guessing it won't be worth the trouble.

My guess is that SWX:UBSG was more or less forced to buy SWX:CSGN when Deutsche Bank AG (ETR:DBK) showed a clear interest in parts of SWX:CSGN.

Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best!

Down the rabbit hole

The congestion revenue for the previous abnormally high electricity costs has now been paid out. Even before the refund was paid out, people on the left were deeply upset that people with good finances would get a refund. Still several months later, it's an ongoing discussion from these jaundiced people.

Contrast that with a convicted rapist who was last year awarded just under $72,400 in damages because after serving his sentence he was able to produce extremely dubious documents from his home country that showed he was younger than stated and was thus imprisoned 14 months too long.

In the first case, a household gets back a smaller part of a paid electricity bill, i.e. a refund from a company, albeit a government one. In the second case, a convicted rapist receives compensation with the help of dubious documents, i.e. a payment of tax money.

The left has a mental breakdown when a state corporation receives reduced revenue but accepts that criminals receive tax money in the form of damages.

A perfect storm

The last 3 years have been tough. First, the pandemic that was directly followed by the invasion of Ukraine. Personally, I think the invader would have come a little sooner if it hadn't been for the pandemic.

Europe's past and some current governments have made themselves dependent on Russian gas by phasing out their nuclear power. I guess this gas dependence gave Russia the confidence to invade Ukraine. Because who would dare to come with sanctions with a silent threat to have the energy cut off to their own country.

That Ukraine was/is? one of the world's largest grain supplier may have contributed to further hope that the rest of the world would look away in order not to risk a food shortage.

This coupled with incredibly reckless monetary policy over many years of negative interest rates during boom times has created the perfect storm for Europe's citizens. A constantly rampant inflation despite several interest rate increases from the central banks. When the interest rate hikes now start to break the banks, it will be even bleaker for the common man. We probably have another couple of tough years left before things turn around.

In my opinion, many governments have allowed various environmental organizations to completely set the agenda when it comes to decommissioning nuclear power and thereby significantly contributed to this situation.

Not a single penny in sight

I can assume that both Avanza and Nordnet will wait until the last week of March for the tax refund. This should be the best dividend month of the year for us, but so far it has been meager, only about 9% of the estimated amount.

I am choosing between increasing my holdings in either Fidus Investment Corporation Common Stock (FDUS) or NewtekOne, Inc. Common Stock (NEWT). Actually, FDUS is probably a better acquisition for the time being, but I think that NEWT is a well-managed company that is being dragged into the ongoing banking crisis.

A true story

A very close friend of my father belonged to the very top echelon of his profession. This has led him to work all over the world. A consequence of this is that he has several foreign pension insurances.

Most are paid regularly every month while a few are one-time payments. When one of these one-time payments came on a payout notice, my father's friend had to go to the bank and ask them to credit his bank account with the amount.

The bank clerk who received the assignment with my father's friend payment must have had a complete brain meltdown when he had to recalculate the amount from EUR to SEK. Somehow he managed to add 3 zeros to the amount stated in €, which meant that my father's friend got roughly $4.3 million deposited into his account instead of roughly $4,000.

My father's friend who is honesty himself called the bank the same day he discovered the error and brought it to the bank's attention. In the best of worlds, the bank would have corrected the error and apologized to my father's friend.

Instead, another bank employee reported the unusually large payment to the Finance Inspectorate. It ended with my father's friend being summoned for questioning at the Finance Inspectorate on suspicion of money laundering. Naturally, my father's friend was acquitted of all charges. He changed banks soon after.

Is this the new normal?

I was hoping it would end with SVB Financial Group Common Stock (SIVB) and Signature Bank Common Stock (SBNY) but I was wrong.

It seems that the strategy applied in all markets around the world is to repeat as many times as necessary before it hopefully becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, "our banking system is structured differently compared to America". Or that "these two collapses are only isolated events".

Unfortunately, the strategy seems to have failed. Today, the major Swiss bank Credit Sussie fell hard. Which bank will fail tomorrow remains to be seen, hopefully none.

Oops

Alecta's earlier statement that no saver at the individual level would be significantly affected by their loss in SIVB fell apart today when it emerged that Alecta also invested in Signature Bank Common Stock (SBNY), which were officially shut down by regulators as of yesterday.

According to information that emerged today, Alecta's losses should amount to over 1 billion dollars. Today the company admitted that this will affect savers.

Alecta is now trying to pour oil on trouble waters by communicating that the loss corresponds to only 1% of the total amount that the company manages on behalf of pension savers. I guess they are trying to avoid being subjected to a bank run.

For once, I'm grateful we haven't received the payouts yet

With each passing day, we get closer to our loads of dividends and tax refunds for March. Considering what happened with SIVB last Friday, I'm thankful we didn't get them sooner because then we would have absolutely invested them.

Now we have time to evaluate how the market will react before we decide how to proceed. I am guessing based on experience from the previous dividends that the largest amounts will be credited to our endowment insurances at the end of the month.

How do they think?

The Swedish occupational pension company Alecta started investing in SVB Financial Group Stamaktier (SIVB) in 2019. As late as spring 2022, they chose to sell their entire holdings in the Swedish traditional commercial banks Svenska Handelsbanken AB (SHB) and Swedbank AB (SWED) in favor of SIVB.

According to Alecta, the loss will not significantly affect future pension payments at the individual level due to quote "Pensions for those born in 1978 or earlier are not affected by fluctuations in the stock market, but are based on salary and inflation. For those born after 1978, the impact will be marginal" unquote.

The company representative, Mr. Jacob Lapidus, goes on to say quote "they on the other hand have 25 years left until retirement" unquote. By that, the company means that the affected pension savers have many years left to build up the smaller loss this entails.

If Alecta can't get $0.5 billion over 25 years to affect the individual's final pension, there is absolutely no reason to keep your retirement savings with them, in my opinion.

I am grateful that he pays for others without hesitation

As I wrote about earlier, cash is nowadays an unusual means of payment in Sweden. This creates problems mainly for the elderly, tourists and expats.

Young master Dewlar has had to pay for several of his schoolmates when they only have cash to make purchases during school trips. Imagine being a child in a foreign country and not being able to buy an ice cream or similar on a school trip even though you have the country's currency in your hand.

As a parent, I would have preferred to be able to give my child cash instead of having to equip him with a bank card. Our son was 12 years old when we gave him the bank card, but there are bank cards for children as young as 7 years old.

Personally, I think that children don't really understand what things cost when they pay with a bank card. If they were to use cash, it would be much clearer.

Unfortunately, they did not make it

SVB Financial Group Common Stock (SIVB), the parent company of Silicon Valley Bank, has been officially shut down by regulators as of today. SIVB failed to raise the money needed.

The only bright spot in all this chaos is that it seems SVB's issues seem to be very company-specific although the Financial Select Sector ETF have fallen by almost 9% this week. Other investors and bank stocks should not panic since SIVB biggest strength over the past few years and now its downfall has been that it has a business model that is unique in the banking industry. Although I have been wrong before.

According to information, the occupational pension company Alecta's loss should amount to 0.68 billion dollars. There are many downcast pension savers in Sweden tonight.

I'm grateful I'm not one of them

Like those who had their savings in Russia funds that were completely wiped out, another group of Swedish pension savers is now affected.

One of Sweden's largest occupational pension companies, Alecta, which is a major shareholder in SVB Financial Group Common Stock (SIVB), was hit hard when SIVB announced that it needed to strengthen its balance sheet. According to information, the value of Alecta's holdings in SIVB fell by 0.5 billion dollars last night.

I hope that those who have their pension savings with Alectra have many years left in their working life so they have time to rebuild their capital again.

Our current problem-child

The distance between top and bottom is not far. Not too long ago, NewtekOne, Inc. Common Stock (NEWT) was one of our most favorite holding.

After they decided to change business concentration and as a result were forced to reduce their dividend, development has been less fortunate.

A year ago, their stock price was just over $28 compared to today's price of barely $13. A comparison of the dividend over the same time period shows ¢65 compared to today's ¢18.

We still believe that the price will recover and with that in mind we have set a lower price where, despite our large holding, we will buy more shares. To then sell off the entire holding at our set target price.

The more the merrier

Another special dividend in March. In addition to its regular dividend of ¢39, Hercules Capital, Inc. Common Stock (HTGC) pays a special dividend of ¢8.

After NEWT, we need every penny to successfully save our end goal. The executed dividends for March are still scarce and we have not yet received a tax refund. The longer March goes by, the more impatient I become.

If it weren't for the fact that I absolutely do not want to miss a single second of my time with the world's most perfect teenager and husband, I wish I had a remote control like the one in the movie Click.

I am curious to see the end result for March.

One last update

For transparency and my own agenda, I strongly dislike our previous government, the Social Democrats with the support of the Green Party.

It's worse than I thought. The 98 people whose membership application was rejected by the Social Democrats belongs to the opposing side of the phalanx accused of being infiltrated by gang criminals.

The Social Democrats chose to announce this last Friday. This time has been chosen with care as a large part of Sweden has sports break and is away. All so that this would receive minimal attention. My contempt for the Social Democrats is bottomless.

Why can't they just admit they were erred?

The last dividend we were waiting for to finish February was our holding in Oxford Lane Capital Corp. Common Stock (OXLC) on our endowment insurances at Nordnet.

On previous occasions when the bank has not paid out our dividend, I have always waited 2-3 weeks before contacting the bank concerned. Every time I have contacted them, it has taken 4-5 hours before the bank has contacted me with information that the dividend is now available in our account.

Both Nordea and Avanza have awarded us the dividend for OXLC a few days ago, so I chose to contact Nordnet already today. Today I got the same feedback as before, quote "the dividend is now ..." unquote.

If a similar situation were to arise in the future, I will from now on always contact the bank immediately.

February is done

Finally we got the last dividend for February. The final result was less bad than I thought a week ago, missing the forecast by 12%.

The chart below shows that we have received some smaller dividends for March so far. This chart includes adjustments for reduced dividends (NEWT) and increased dividends based on purchases made during January.

Click to enlarge

My dad is literally not like other dads

Last weekend we were away on a mini holiday. For various reasons we had to borrow my parents' car this time.

My mom has knitted me a sweater that she left in a bag in the car as a surprise for me. In the same bag, my father had left a little surprise of his own for me, it was invoices and receipts related to his accounting.

He did the same thing last Christmas when mom left us their Christmas presents. But then we were at home and I could put all the documents in the office straight away.

This time I had to make sure I didn't forget anything at the hotel plus it galled me a little that I had work that I couldn't do. My husband was not happy with his father-in-law.

Extra working hours

There has been a sports break in Stockholm this week. This means that the majority of Stockholm's residents are in the mountains and skiing.

Parts of our staff have also been on leave. With half of Stockholm gone, there will also be fewer customers in our store. To meet the reduced turnover for this week, my husband and I have chosen to increase our time in the store ourselves instead.

As our other duties do not disappear, this means that our working hours increase at the same time as the world's most perfect teenager is on school leave. Once again we had to rely on his grandmother.

I am grateful for their changed routines

That Nordnet refund the foreign withholding tax within 8 weeks from when it was originally deducted from us and Avanza's changed routines is like a vitamin injection in our money tree.

With Avanza's changed routines, the waiting time for the years 2021 and 2022 was a total of 27 months shorter. The fact that we have our smallest portfolios with Avanza is less important. I am incredibly happy that we get access to our money so much earlier.

They will have time to do a lot of good in 27 months. Assuming I invest them wisely.

It's a scam, albeit a good one

As I have written about many times before, the world's most perfect teenager must save 50% of the money he gets for Christmas presents, birthday presents and other occasions.

For the first years, that money was deposited into the endowment insurance we started for him when he was born. He is not aware of this money.

During the beginning of 2020, we started another endowment insurance that he has access to and can see how the portfolio develops. Pretty soon he was questioning the value of the portfolio, he knew for sure that he had saved more money than the value of the briefcase. It made him lose a little interest in following his portfolio.

To remedy this, we have in recent months deposited the money we normally deposit on the original endowment insurance into the latter. That means his "own" endowment insurance looks like it's on steroids compared to last year. Hopefully this will increase his interest in shares and other investments.

All four of us have benefited from this

My husband and I have always worked a lot. Before we got junior, we rarely worked less than 90 hours a week.

When I was going to give birth to young master Dewlar, we went to the hospital on a Monday morning and he was born on Tuesday evening. We got to leave the hospital on Friday and on Sunday morning I was back in the office with the offspring. Mr. Dewlar was already off to a fair.

We still work a lot but have reduced the work week to 50 hours after having the world's most perfect child. 

We were lucky enough to have the help of my mother. Until the offspring was 26 months old, his grandmother had him during the working day.

He started preschool to spend time with children his age. He spent 3 hours a day at preschool before his grandmother picked him up before his nap. Instead of sleeping at preschool, he got to sleep in his own bed in our apartment. It goes without saying that he loves his grandma.

$ $ $

Any day now we will receive our tax refund for the dividend year 2020 on our endowment insurances with both Avanza and Nordnet.

As I wrote about earlier, we now also receive the deducted withholding tax at our endowment insurances with Nordnet calculated on a flat rate at the end of the following month.

For dividends carried out at our endowment insurances with Nordnet up to and including 31 December 2022 will be refunded according to Nordnet's previous model. Which means that withholding tax for dividends for the year 2021 will be paid in 2024 and dividends for the year 2022 will be paid in 2025.

Avanza on the other hand will use a different model. They will refund the foreign tax in February/March of the following year. However, Avanza makes an exception and also refunds the tax for both 2021 and 2022 this year.

All tax refunds plus dividends for March will mean a large liquidity supplement for us.

Damage control

My husband bought a small number of BlackRock TCP Capital Corp. Common Stock (TCPC) last night. The strengthening of upcoming dividends was barely noticeable, but any attempt to repair the damage from NewtekOne, Inc. Common Stock (NEWT) is appreciated.

It looks like it will take longer than we expected for NEWT to reach our selling price. We will keep an eye on NEWT if we have to change our intentions with them. They closed at $15.655 yesterday.

For us, the current month is our absolute best dividend month. I really hope we will be able to soften the damage from NEWT. Considering that there will still be 9 months left in the year after the end of the month, I have great confidence.

Being married to MSM helps, literally

For transparency and my own agenda, I strongly dislike our previous government, the Social Democrats with the support of the Green Party, who ruled Sweden for 8 years.

I wrote about the fact that the Social Democrats have reportedly been infiltrated by gang criminals in a suburb of Stockholm. They denied and claimed that this was not the case.

Yesterday, the representative of the Social Democrats for the relevant organization announced that 98 of the applications they received for this particular organization has been denied membership due to quote "the party is not sure that the influx of members has been correct" unquote.

The representative for the Social Democrats is Mrs. Åsa Westerlund, who also is the wife of Mr. Anders Lindberg, who is political editor-in-chief for one of our major newspapers. Not a single editorial or critical article has been written in this newspaper.

Even the MSM has been limited in its criticism of this gigantic scandal. It's no wonder we have gang shootings every day. This country is completely marinated in socialism.

A bad outcome is NOT worth waiting for

We are still waiting for dividends from Oxford Lane Capital Corp. (OXLC) on two of our endowment insurances, both with Nordnet.

We will miss the target for executed dividends compared to estimated dividends for February by just over 12%.

Despite a bigger deviation than I expected, I will maintain my decision and not change the cost level I have set for dollar exchange rate, exchange fees, brokerage and DRIP.

The naked truth

During the last quarter of 2022, the Swedes took more money out of the bank than they deposited. It is the first time since 2015 that this has occurred.

The fact that the Swedes are reducing their savings can of course be due to several reasons, but I guess that the main reasons are the increasing interest costs and high electricity prices. Being forced to use one's buffer to cover ongoing costs is incredibly sad because sooner or later the buffer will run out.

If Riksbanken intends to defend the Swedish krona at every attack with an policy rate increase, the Swedes' buffers will soon run out.

Don't rock the boat

I am not the only one who criticizes Riksbanken's actions. Annika Winsth, one of Nordea's top economists, is one of the angriest critics.

She is of a different opinion than Riksbanken's Governor Erik Thedéen. Annika Winsth believes that there are clear signs of a potential crash in the Swedish economy.

Mrs Winsth believes that Riksbanken's stated strategy to strengthen the Swedish krona at every sign of weakening with a policy rate increase will break the Swedish economy.

I agree with her and believe that Riksbanken should take it easy and let the implemented policy rate increases have some time to work.

Bite the bullet

I took the bull by the horns and updated my spreadsheet with the new data on NewtekOne, Inc. Common Stock (NEWT)'s upcoming dividend. Our annual dividend skydived.

With the new information put in, we won't even reach our 2023 annual dividend forecast. I am pleased that March is by far our best dividend month. The fact that it occurs during the first quarter of the year improves our chances of mitigating the damage for the whole year.

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