What a month.
Not once in the history of tracking my portfolio has a month been this strong, not even close.
The portfolio increased by a whopping 16.4% in April, putting the year to date performance at a very healthy 5%.
You can worry about something new every single day – inflation, recession, depression, war, market crash, and now a pandemic.
Here are five things you may have worried about in April.
The US has erased all the new jobs it created over the last 11 years — more than 30M Americans have filed for unemployment.
Bernie Sanders dropped out of the 2020 presidential race.
Airlines are getting their $25B bailout.
An oil future contract traded below zero for the first time.
The US government agreed on an additional $320B in loans and grant relief for small businesses. The original $349B package already ran out of money.
The economy and the stock market are not the same. Our global economy is a massive machine with an enormous amount of data points. It is impossible to predict its future and what is going to happen.
Wall Street thinks that all of this will be behind us sooner rather than later.
You can waste a lot of time trying to predict the future of the economy, consuming way too much "Infotainment" along the way.
I'm not sure about this unprecedented run-up. There are incredible levels of uncertainty out there. I don't think about it too much and am keeping my cash position relatively large.
My advice: spend your time analyzing where your favorite companies are headed and ignore all the economic "infotainment."
Portfolio
I hold 10-20 individual stocks in my portfolio at any given time.
March was an unusually active month for me. I don't trade in and out of positions frequently, and it is not unusual for me to go a couple of months without changing a single thing.
In April, I pursued the following opportunities:
I increased my position in The Trade Desk and Opera.
I started a position in Slack.
I started a position in Facebook.
I didn't sell anything.
My thoughts on Slack are available here.
Facebook isn't a high growth stock per se, but the last time you were able to buy shares for an EV/Sales of less than 7 was a long time ago.
Ad Spend will be hit in Q2, but the future is bright. Their entire Messenger ecosystem isn't monetized yet. I also like their ambition with Libra, and Ad Spend is, of course, going to recover eventually. Zuck is an execution monster, and he will probably remain at the top of Facebook for another decade if not two. Ethics aside, you could do worse.
Opera is a small position and highly speculative. Valuation is low and likely justified given that a Norwegian based company is run by Chinese, primarily doing business in Africa. Not exactly a typical setup. I am not a fan of their micro-lending business, which has mostly been stopped since the pandemic outbreak. Their other business lines I do see tremendous potential in. It's my play on the African market.
Trade Desk, to me, is a company with superb vision and execution, led by a fantastic CEO. I'm glad that I got in at significantly lower levels and will be holding on to this one for a long, long time.
Portfolio Performance - April
The total losses from February and March have been made up, and then some.
I am now up 4.8% on the year, compared to -10.9% against an All-World ETF. A difference of 15%!
Current Portfolio - End of April
Amazon is my biggest position, and this isn't going to change any time soon. It'll likely be a life long holding.
Square, Facebook, and Slack are positions that I will likely increase over time.
Top Performers - April
The Trade Desk (+55%) and Pluralsight (+42%) had a fantastic April. $PS was beaten down heavily in March and recovered massively.
Overall, only Baidu (-2.4%) had an awful month. I continue to believe that Mr.Market has this one wrong and that with patience, Baidu can return to a stock that is treated more favorably.
Disney and Porsche are two interesting holdings in that the current shutdowns most impact them.
I plan on holding both for the long term, and would even increase my position in Disney at lower levels.
Both are established companies that have long realized the need to become more digital companies. They are leading the charge in their respective areas compared to other incumbents.
My stock portfolio is all about our world becoming more digital. Only companies that are adapting to, leading, or enabling the digital transformation have a place in it.
Here's to another exciting month. Thank you for reading!
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