That sentence has been sitting in my spreadsheet like a bad houseguest. Today I finally sat down and lined up the year-end values from December 31, 2017 through December 31, 2025, plus the snapshot from August 31, 2026. All numbers in SEK. Digital records make this possible. They do not make it pleasant.

The only reason the 2025 bar dropped is the Swedish krona. It strengthened by roughly 20 percent against the US dollar last year. That hits every dollar-priced holding when you insist on measuring the whole mess in kronor. We reinvested every dividend. My husband put his private pension to work. We kept the joint monthly savings going. The spreadsheet still went the wrong way.

At the high point in January 2025, one dollar cost around 11.32 kronor. Today it sits near 9.60. Same stocks. Different measuring stick. I have written about this currency hangover before — it is the uninvited guest that keeps crashing the party.

The chart below is the year-end portfolio value for 2017–2025, with August 31, 2026 tagged on the end. No victory lap. Just the numbers, including the year the krona made us look poorer while we were still adding money.

If you also live in one currency and invest in another, look at your own year-end bars twice: once in kronor, once in the currency the companies actually earn in. The second version is usually less dramatic. And slightly less annoying.