10 years already…

It's been 10 years since the dividendes.ch adventure began. Many of you have supported me since the beginning and I thank them for their unwavering loyalty. I also salute those who joined me along the way and who are now part of this great family.

A somewhat chaotic decade

During this decade the world has changed considerably, not necessarily for the better. Several important countries have shifted towards autocratic systems. The Internet and in particular social networks have made many people stupid. This partly explains the previous observation. The planet has warmed dangerously, with a series of natural disasters. Syria has gone through a terrible war, causing the emergence of the ISIS scourge, with sinister repercussions even in our latitudes. The Chinese have invented yet another epidemic for us. This time, however, it could not be contained and turned into a pandemic, affecting the entire world.

A historic bull market

Paradoxically, despite several fairly violent upheavals, the stock market has appreciated very strongly over the last ten years. It must be said that it was starting from a long way back, after a "lost" decade at the beginning of this century. The successive explosions of the Internet bubble and subprimes had made shares really cheap. As I said in 2011: " This walk gives me the BULLs ", and there was reason to be, given the valuations at the time. However, in 2017, I began to lighten my portfolio of large American caps, which I was already starting to find overpriced. It was probably too early, but as they say, you're always smarter afterward.

Throughout this period I have been playing roughly on a par with the market. I initially beat it until I changed strategy three years ago, then I was somewhat caught up. It is indeed difficult to beat a bull market that speculates on growth stocks with value stocks… I remain convinced, however, that the stock market will return to more rationality and normality. In any case, that is what it has always done in the past. The "this time it's different" has never been a very good investment advisor.

The site

During these ten years, the site has evolved a lot. My analysis of the time were focused almost exclusively on dividends. You will tell me that this is quite logical given the name of the site. However, distributions are the result of a whole process that takes place upstream. Today, the analyses are more complete and the dividend, even if it is still discussed and important, is on a par with other fundamental characteristics of companies and their shares.

Many will remember that at the time I had also developed a fully automatic algorithm for selecting dividend-paying stocks. To my wife's great dismay, I had spent hours and hours of programming to process data taken from Yahoo Finance. It worked well… until Yahoo made some major changes to their data. I’m not one to give up easily, but this was pretty much the equivalent of starting over from scratch. And since I was also starting to want to change my strategy a bit, I decided to drop this system, which meant the end of the “Global Dividend Growers.”

The "Trading Auto Signal" which had also required a monstrous job from me, also had to be interrupted for the same reasons. However, all this work was not done in vain. It allowed me to get to the bottom of things and better understand certain mechanisms of the stock market, which would later lead to my wallet current and my work " The determinants of wealth ".

YOU

Over the past ten years, I have also met several remarkable personalities who have left an indelible mark on dividendes.ch, whether as an editor, commentator, forum participant or long-time reader. Some are still here, others have left, but I would like to mention in particular Dividinde, Jean-Louis, Armand, L'investisseur Particulier, Ploutos, Nuno, Julien, swx, DSwissK, Vince99, Boreale, Rayxandre, revelly, Julien, Harmonie Gestion, guyem, Ludo, tournier, jmu, Jean, BenBrahhim, Mystik, PatJac, Lopazz, birdienumnum, vertigo, savandede, florent, copycat, kienast, zebiinvestor, Nico, dom67, VerbalKint, mappleluna, Michel, Thierry, herveC, Vincent, Guilhem, Earnie, Bientôt, Ether, hueteddy, Cedric, Sovanna Sek, Martin Raymond, tokyoville, Maarek, psycoke, Ether, loorloop, Paul Marcel, NathanC, Lemij, Asty, Arnaud, spark, Philippe de Habsburg, agu, divhunter, Laurent Martin, Terry, gg, bardamu, Seb, Yves, Franck...

I'm probably forgetting some of you and I apologize to them. Feel free to post in the comments below if I've left you out. I would also like to mention the silent majority, those who read without posting. I know that there are many of you, given the site's statistics and survey participation. Of course I would like to hear more from you, especially on the forum which is not used enough in my opinion. That being said, a blog has no meaning if it is not read, so I prefer to have you as simple readers than nothing at all.

I regret having lost some of the pillars of dividendes.ch from that time. I would be happy to hear from them and know what has become of them.

My path to independence

From a personal point of view, my path to financial independence over the last ten years has progressed very strongly. You have also been able to follow this progress through my diary of a future rentier. In 2010 I was still working like a madman, at a rate of 60 hours per week. As my quest progressed, thanks to my savings and especially my investments, I took advantage of slowly but surely reducing my working time to the point that I have now divided it by three compared to then.

Today, I would already be financially capable of ceasing my professional activity. As a reader who has already taken the plunge told me some time ago, this step is probably the hardest of all. You find yourself at the top of a cliff and you have to take the final leap, with all the unknowns that this implies. Have I thought of everything, will I be able to hold out for the next 40 to 50 years, financially secure the rear not only for myself, but also for my entire family?

This is why I have chosen to reduce my rate gradually for several years. This allows me to realize that it works. It is reassuring, it allows you to enjoy your new life of independence more quickly and to get used to it. The last leap therefore becomes less difficult and traumatic. Since this evolution has been made over time, I cannot say at what point exactly in this last decade I switched to the camp of those who feel like they have left the world of work. It must have been around 2016, when I had set myself the ambitious goal of becoming a rentier in 2020. Since that moment I have let go a lot in relation to my job.

Objective achieved or almost achieved

I consider that the goal I set for myself is almost achieved. As I said, from a strictly financial point of view, I could do it. For my head, however, I still need one last step, the one where I will replace my salaried activity with a small independent secondary activity. I still have some logistical preparations and administrative work to do. If all goes well, in the course of next year, I will be able to leave salaried employment for good. I will then work when I want, with whom I want, how much I want and how I want. As an order of magnitude, I set myself about ten hours per week.

On the road to 2030

In short, I hope that these last ten years have been as rich in every way for you as they have been for me. I also hope that the next ten will be even more so.