2024 was certainly not an easy year, but in the end it was still a very successful one. The sometimes violent fluctuations on the global financial markets brought both challenges and opportunities for investors, even though the economic situation was not rosy everywhere. Germany recorded negative economic growth for the second year in a row in 2024, the economic forecasts for 2025 remain negative and the unemployment rate recently stagnated at 6%. The automotive industry in particular, and therefore the most important engine for the German economy, is stumbling and is having to cut back on supply due to low demand.
The performance of a share index is therefore not a good indicator of the development of a country’s economy. The 40 companies listed in the DAX are all globally active and in some cases only generate a very small percentage of their sales in Germany. The DAX should therefore be viewed globally rather than regionally, and the financial sector does not reflect the real economy.
Strong share indices
For the first time in its history, the German benchmark index exceeded the 20,000 point mark last year, repeatedly setting new all-time highs, especially in December. Overall, the index rose by around 18.8 %. The US S&P 500 rose even more sharply, continuing its upward trend and recording growth of around 24.3 %. Buoyed by strong economic growth and interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, the index reached 57 new all-time highs over the course of the year. Technology companies such as NVIDIA in particular benefited from the AI revolution and made a significant contribution to the positive development.
Bitcoin: breakthrough above 100,000 US dollars
The year 2024 was particularly successful for Bitcoin. Digital gold had an exceptional year in the last twelve months, exceeding the USD 100,000 mark for the first time. There were several reasons for the significant 120% rise: Firstly, there was the launch of the US sports ETFs in January, which raised hundreds of billions over the last twelve months and made the ETFs the most successful ever. No other ETFs have raised so much money so quickly.
The spot ETFs paved the way for a broader investor base and for institutional investors who were previously unable to invest in cryptocurrency for regulatory reasons. They make it much easier, as there is no need to maintain a (hardware) wallet, private keys or exchange accounts. However, the fact that more and more nations are opening up to the crypto markets and adopting crypto-friendly policies is also reflected in the price this year.
Our personal return
After suffering heavy losses of 22.9% at the height of the coronavirus pandemic and making significant gains again last year with a plus of 13.7%, these were significantly higher again in 2024. Overall, our portfolio even outperformed the market in 2024, recording an impressive gain of 26.7% – not only making up for the losses from many a previous year, but also setting new all-time highs.
The months of February and March were particularly strong, with our investments alone gaining 6.0 % and 5.3 % respectively. Driven by Bitcoin, which is now the largest single position, the total amount climbed by no less than 14.4 % in November – we have never recorded such high growth within a single month.
Monthly dividend payments also rose significantly, also reaching a new high for the year as a whole. Although there were occasional months in which we recorded a low cash flow compared to the previous year, December made up for this deficit – we have never recorded so many dividends and interest payments as in December 2024.
This made 2024 an extremely successful year for us from a financial perspective, even though the signs were not good at the beginning. At the beginning of the year, we were annoyed by a lengthy custody account transfer to Scalable Capital, and shortly afterwards we received mail from the tax office that was anything but positive and had a short-term impact on our investments. High additional and advance payments and even the assignment of VAT (although we were well below the threshold) ate up all our reserves, meaning that we were hardly able to invest any new money this year. We only reinvested all dividend payments and were therefore able to take up positions such as Tesla or Munich Re.
This must change for 2025: We want to invest more of our own money again for our financial freedom, despite less net from gross and a significantly higher cost of living due to inflation. In our forecast, we have a tiny, three-digit amount that we want to invest equally in shares and Bitcoin.
The biggest learning from this: As the size of the portfolio increases, the influence of the savings rate decreases steadily. Although we didn’t raise any new money in 2024, with the exception of a few and very small investments in Bitcoin, our assets increased significantly and were considerably higher than our old savings rate. We are very proud of this and will definitely continue to do so!
Letzte Aktualisierung am 2025-01-11 at 13:05 / Affiliate Links / Bilder von der Amazon Product Advertising API
