It’s been almost 10 months since my last post. While I have imagined and discussed with friends scenarios similar to the one that happened in October 2023, it was still shocking, and still is. The feeling that you are so close to beings that can only be described as “zombies”, brainwashed to such a level that they are willing to do so many atrocities in the name of their cause, will take years (if ever) to go away. Completely insane.
The response was expected. But… I’m not really sure what is the goal of the government, if they have a goal at all, other than staying in power. After months of war and many deaths, things don’t look good.
Living in interesting times sucks.
Somehow the Israeli economy is doing quite well. It seems resilience is an integral part of our society, at least for now. And part of this resilience shows in how dividends from great companies keep on coming, even when the missiles are flying:
- One Software Technologies distributed 1.62 ILS in 2023, up from 1.44 ILS in 2022, and if they continue their distributions in 2024 at the pace they are going, it will also be higher this year.
- Gav-Yam distributed 1.28 ILS in 2023, which was lower than the 2.65 ILS in 2022, but that was an outlier year, as the dividend in 2021 was 1.21 ILS and in 2020 it was 0.93. Looking at a longer-term horizon, an investment in one share of Gav-Yam the start of 2010 at 9.17 ILS is now 24.57 ILS and distributed a total of 14.58 ILS of dividends, for a CAGR of 11%.
- Rami Levi distributed 14.66 ILS in 2023, up from 13.86 in 2023, and is on track to surpass that in 2024.
As we can see here, even in a world full of unexpected surprises, owning companies that have distributed dividends for many years, companies with strong financials and consistent growth, makes the ride through tough times a lot smoother.