Alzheimer’s, Biogen and BioArctic

Alzheimer’s is the only condition among the top ten cause of death with no known treatment to cure or even slow the progression of disease.  Lot of money have been spent to find a cure for Alzheimer’s with 99% failure rate .Most big pharma companies such as Roche , Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca Plc and Johnson and Johnson have earlier abandoned all trials testing their experimental drugs based on amyloid beta even those in stage III due to lack of any encouraging results.

I have been following the Alzheimer’s space for a long time since someone very close was diagnosed and have seen and understood the impact of it. As more and more of our families get old and get lonely back home there is need to care more and find a cure for Alzheimer’s . In India we normally refer to it as memory loss and call it dementia in general and is attributed to aging and we don't really understand the impact of Alzheimer’s on our elders. I was happy when I saw that awareness being created by showing about Alzheimer’s is the latest 'Josh' Uri movie.

One of the companies that is working and has shown some progress is a small Stockholm based company called BioArctic , I was surprized last June when I saw a small company go up 700% from 22 to 172 in less than a weeks time after there were positive results in their Phase IIb. The full 18 month analysis of the 856 patient on BAN2401 in Phase 2b clinical study in early Alzheimer’s disease demonstrated statistically significant and dose-dependent slowing in clinical decline and reduction of amyloid beta accumulated in the brain. I had read about this company when an investment company called Öresund had bought stocks sometime back.

Last week one of big pharma companies Biogen has pulled the plug on its trials for aducanumab, which was a drug similar as BioArctic amyloid targetting BAN2401 and that made Biogen loose 30% of their stock value and wiping out close to 18 Billion is marketcap considering 10-12 billion runrate on thier potential Alzheimer’s drug . The outcome indirectly had an major impact on BioArctic aswell which lost close to 30%  of its value as its Alzheimer’s  drug was similar to Biogen.

BioArctic CEO came out with the clarification that even though both are antibodies within A-beta, but all antibodies have some differences and BAN2401 is the only project that has shown really strong phase 2b- results with clinical effect in a large study and will continue with the phase 3 trails.

After reading more on the differences I decided to take a smallbite and bought 25 BioArctic for SEK 75 last week and I already own Biogen .

Another company in Stockholm that is in to Alzheimer’s is AlzeCure Pharma that has 5 candidates that are yet to start their Phase I.

A kind request PLEASE PLEASE pass the below link to the article about Alzheimer’s that was publish in Fortune Magazine in February 19 to anyone you know who have parents or grandparents nearing 70+ , pls do it as a favor to me . Ask them to read as it may help them to understand and to manage dementia in aging population.

http://fortune.com/longform/alzheimers-disease-cure-breakthrough/

Dividends and Acando

Got some feedback from readers that they wanted to read what am I currently doing along with the process of investments so will alternate between activities ongoing in by portfolio aswell as the journey.

Continuing how the portfolio has developed since it bottomed in December. If I had panicked and sold my holding during the downturn I might have missed the rally as it would have been difficult to understand  when to re enter and if the upturn in the beginning of January was a sustained one or if the bounce was a dead cat bounce,  hence I don't try to time the market but try to spend time in the market.

Booking.com

During this week dividend season has started and moolah started to flow and will steadily increase into the accounts, first being the Danish stocks of Pandora and Danske Bank they do take away 27% in dividend taxes which I can it back, will explain more on the withholding taxes in the coming posts.

Also during the week I sold my holdings of 350 units of  Acando for 41.30. CGI Nordic had offered 41.45 in cash per share in Acando which was a premium of 44.2 % .I need to decided where to redeploy so that I can atleast get dividends from those investments. 

Investing in Stocks as an Asset Class

Stocks investment methodology I follow is not to get rich overnight by gambling my money in penny stocks nor am I into day trading. I believe in investing in quality companies with good fundamentals which meet my criteria I have set and also I can explain it to someone why I am buying a particular stock which I plan to describe in future blog posts.

I have to work for atleast 30+ years if I plan to retire as per the normal retirement age in Sweden and hence my plan to retire earlier by making sure that I could contribute to my family expenses without being dependent on my monthly salary which leads to me having more time and the freedom to do what I love the most and to support my family even more when my kids grow up.

Every year I reduce from my retirement age is an achievement. In India we hang up our shoes at 60 as against 65 in Sweden and there are discussions that it may further be extended to 67+  by the time I retire. Even though its possible to start taking out certain part of the pension earlier when you turn 55+ but it does have a major impact how much you get,  hence this plan to be financially independent and to retire early.

When to Start : The earlier you start planning about your retirement or financial independence the better as you can have more in your kitty and also take on more calculated risks at an younger age than later.

Timing the Market vs Time in the Market: When I started my stock  investment journey in the year 2014  people discouraged me not to enter the market by pointing out that there was an imminent market crash on the cards considering that we had been in a bull market since March 2009 and asked me to wait until the next market crash. That is when I started researching if the market is going to crash again and started to understand that its not timing of the market but the time in the market that mattered hence started my stock investment journey instead on waiting for another market crash.

Below are the screenshots from one of my portfolios , if I wad I tried my luck to time the market and gotten it wrong then I could have potentially lost a good chunk of money like below in a matter of months and could have been devastating.

Instead tried the Time in market and have averaged an 18% return in the last 5 years as below. I plan to write more about my failures I have had in the journey as those are more valuable insights to understand than the successes I had. Also I plan to write about my ongoing investment journey on a regular basis.

In my next post I will show how the portfolio has developed since it bottomed in December, if I had panicked and sold my holding would I have missed the upturn ? how has it developed ? Read my next post for answers :)

Wealth Philosophy

      Over the years I have questioned myself many times why am I here in Sweden away from my dear and near ones and bearing this looong dark cold winters. I make up many reason why I am here of them all two that stands out are one having enough money to retire early so that I can spend more time with my near and dear ones and the other is similar to what our parents had sacrificed their present to make sure we have a better future and thatz the dream I too have for my kids have a better life and childhood than we had.

       'Every Krone Saved is a Krone Earned' . There is no need for me to discuss how to save money or do it regularly with discipline which we are all good at, what we need to understand is how to make our money work harder than us who work hard to make it. This is something which I felt I lacked when I started thinking on an action plan.

         I was always told that FD , Gold and Real Estate are where the money should be invested and not in stocks as its like gambling off your money, this is something I have realized was not completely true. Hence I started my journey of understanding how to make my money work harder for me.

Here in this blog I am talking only about managing Materialistic wealth and not the other kinds of wealth we should be managing to be considered rich namely the Health and Mental Wealth. 

Housing in Stockholm

    I am pretty sure you would have found it difficult to find a place to stay in Stockholm. There are lots of people arriving in  Stockholm at a rate of 40 people per day that creates a strain on housing in general. As housing is the big portion of our spending monthly I thought its better I talk about this in my personal finance blog.

    In Sweden we have different type of accommodation like the villa's and apartment . The ones available for a new comers to rent would normally are apartments . In general apartments are built close to where there are some kind of public transport within a distance that could be covered by a short walk.

  There are two type of apartments that are available and are called Hyresrätt and Bostadsrätt which loosely translated to Right to Rent and Right to Reside, normally you would also hear the phrases 1st hand contract and 2nd hand contract.

Hyresrätt : Big Landlords like HSB , Wallenstam, AFA Fastigheter have created large apartment buildings or condominium associations that rent out apartments where you have right to rest and live until you wish just by paying the rent and their is no need for any capital like a downpayment or a loan. You don't own the apartment but you have the right to rent them and you are covered by tenent rights where you can't be evicted at will by the landlord. These type of contracts are usually refereed to as 1st hand contracts in local lingo.

Tip: Even though I was here for a very long time I missed getting into the Stockholm Hyresrätt queue.I got in just 5 years back .I would suggest to get into the queue and it costs 200 SEK per year to be in the queue and is worth it. The Stockholm Bostadsförmedlingen acts as agent, helping you find vacant rental apartments in the Stockholm region. To apply for an apartment, you must first register in the housing queue.  The apartments are allocated on the basis of time spent in the housing queue , so I would suggest to get in ASAP.

https://bostad.stockholm.se/

https://bostad.stockholm.se/Minasidor/login/Registrera/

There are separate queues for certain landlords,if there is interest to know I will update the blog with details on how to get into those queues aswell.

Bostadsrätt :  These are the apartments that you buy by paying the full cost of an apartment by taking loan from the bank, similar to India. The prices of apartments had been climbing steadily since the end of economic crisis in 2008-09 and  since then it was financially beneficial to buy an apartment to get capital appreciation. This became too attractive and the debt of households became too high to mange and hence amortization requirement was introduced  in the beginning of 2015 to curb people taking on too much debt and a more stricter one came in March of 2018 and since then the prices of apartment have come down to affordable levels.

Earlier  in 2015 the FI (Finansinspektionen) proposed the amortization requirement that required new mortgage takers to amortize two percent of the entire mortgage until the LoanToValue ratio is reduced to 70% of the home's value. Thereafter, they must amortize at one percent until the LTV ratio is lowered to 50%.

Later in 2018 the FI proposed a stricter amortisation requirement for households with large mortgages in relation to income. Accordingly new buyers with mortgages that are greater than 4.5 times their gross income must amortise at least 1 per cent of the debt in addition to the amortisation requirement that was in 2015. This came into force on 1 March 2018.

You can see how the prices have moved over the years in different part of Stockholm in the below link.

Svensk Mäklarstatistik

So if you want to buy a new apartment in a desired area , the first thing is to go for Lånelöfte or Pre approval of loan from any bank of your choice and participate in the bidding.

As I went though the process of buying an apartment recently, will detail it in the coming blogs.

Taxes in Sweden

  Ones we have found where Sweden is on the Map after we have been told about our new assignment , the first thing what we do is to check how good is the saving potential in Sweden and if I can get enough for me to payoff the home mortgage in India within the next few years. That brings the question on how much will be my take home and in order to come to that figure you need to know about how much is deducted in taxes.  Before I jump into taxes , lets first see if you need to pay taxes or get away with it.. One think you can be happy about is that compared to 10 years back we are paying less tax now and has gradually been reduced every year and I hope it continues.

    Normally we have two types of assignments that we are sent over and is always decided upon what the incentive is for the person deciding to send us here ie so called our "Manager" and what is cheaper for the employer as always

On Per Diem : ( Per Diem is a daily allowance that is a specific amount of money an organization gives an individual, often an employee, per day to cover living expenses when traveling for work) .
Per Diem is Tax free and the amount is decided by the Tax authority as its expected that it is the minimum amount that is needed to sustain you in Sweden and is expected to be spent but normally we try to save close to 50 % as we have obligations I spoke about earlier. The last I remember it was close to 550 SEK  per day. The accommodation or hotel is provided by the employer along with transport allowance. So don't bother about Taxes if you are on Per Diem , think about ways to save every öre possible.

Change of Payroll to Sweden : I am not sure what it is technically called but this is the option that makes us searching for what is the take home after tax is deducted. In this you get a fixed salary based on how well you negotiate but you can be sure that you would be provided the minimum needed to get your work permit.
There are lot of websites that give you the calculation , I have listed one below, just fill the first box with your CTC per month amount and put the Kommun or Municipality where you plan to live and uncheck the box for Member of Swedish Church as you have to pay extra tax if you are a member

Ekonomifakta

The other place you can check is at the Skatteverket or Swedish Tax Authority Website , you just have to put the assessment year and Kommun  and in the table that is shown in the next screen see the column 1 for the monthly income range mentioned you get the tax amount that would be deducted.

Skattetabeller och preliminärskatt

In Sweden you also pay a Burial Tax that is 0,08 % of your yearly income. I am yet to find out how to claim it back as I wont be buried in Sweden for sure and be cremated maybe in India. There is still a long time for me to think about it.

Pension is a topic I will cover some other day and is one thing that we all look forward for whole of our lives while loosing our present . Pension is a important topic as its a considerable amount of money and has to be managed well.

Swadesh to Swedesi

My First Post- About Me

    I have been in Stockholm from the last 10 years and have build my life here from scratch after I came here on an consulting assignment. I have seen how Stockholm has evolved during the last 10 years with so many of my fellow Indian arriving and making a life and calling Sweden their new found home . I am super excited that my fellow desi's have found Sweden as a new destination to take up assignments as Swedes has the same emphasis on Family ties as we have and the system supports it very well . Coming from a set-up where work -life balance was non-existent to a society that cherishes work life balance was a tsunami of fresh air for sure.
    As I said I started my life from scratch , I have learned a lot of things the hard way or have started lately, there by being at an disadvantage. If you don't understand the system , you wouldn't know how to work with it.
     I thought it may be helpful for my fellow Desi's if I can put in my experience and collaborate on how we can enrich ourselves together to be a vibrant and progressive community as we can see in other parts of the world.
     Will try publishing all that I know and you are welcome to contribute in the comments or want to publish some thing here useful for all of us.
Do drop me your inputs on my mail id jugaadsverige@gmail.com.

Pls bookmark this page as I would be updating the blog atleast once or twice a week about my journey.

This blog is to document my journey to achieve Financial Independence and to Retire Early and is not a finance advisory blog

I plan to be aplolitical / areligious here and to be inclusive of all my fellow Desi's from all parts of India.

Sāre jahāṉ se acchā, Hindositāṉ hamārā