My stock portfolio is built around one central thesis - the digitalization of our world. I believe that,
The digitalization of our world is 10% complete.
This megatrend will continue for at least another decade.
I believe that this trend allows for outsized returns. That's why I invest a significant portion of my net worth into individual stocks. If you're interested in my monthly portfolio performance, deep-dives, and analysis around my holdings, feel free to subscribe below!
This year continues to defy all logic. In what is one of the worst years in a long time for many people, where we are all collectively facing the same crises, many portfolios are hitting all-time highs.
Over a long time horizon, I expect to return 15-20% annually, by picking the right companies to invest in.
To see a 50% return this year feels completely out of whack compared to the amount of work I had to put in to achieve that. In all honesty, it’s been achieved with very little effort.
That performance includes one of the worse moves in recent times. At the end of October, I sold my long term holdings, Disney, and Porsche.
Talk about bad timing, as we saw a resurgence of both companies during the early November sector rotation. Can’t get them all right, but hurts to miss out on a quick +20% gain on both.
Despite that, November returned 12.9%, handily beating the performance of both Nasdaq (+8.4) and my All World index (+10.6) benchmark.
That’s the first time in a long time that an extremely broad benchmark outperformed Nasdaq.
Portfolio & Performance YTD
Portfolio: +50.15%
Nasdaq: +31.94%
All World Index: +4.68%
Top Performers - November
Not surprisingly, Slack sits at the top of the list for November.
I would have preferred if Slack stays a stand-alone company. As a consumer of the product, I am slightly anxious about what Salesforce will do to their roadmap.
Perhaps I was in the minority. The risk/reward for Slack was favorable in my mind to succeed on their own and would have loved to track their moves for the next 10 years. Now I will be selling my position in November, as I have no interest in holding Salesforce in my portfolio.
Trade Desk soared 20% after reporting strong earnings and returned more than 50% this month. The combination of high growth AND high margins is unique when compared to many other high growth darlings. Connected TV is such an obvious tailwind for them, and that revolution is still in its early days. High valuation, but remains one of my highest conviction holdings. It could drop 30% in a day and it wouldn’t phase me.
For those wondering why TTWROR and Absolute Performance differ for the month on some holdings, this is due to my trimming and adding to a couple of positions. For ZScaler and Netease, my timing seems to have been favorable.
Current Portfolio - End of November
In November, I made a couple of moves.
New:
Teladoc
Owned Livongo. Wanted to see more information on how Teladoc envisions the future. Convinced that the business can have a bright future. Will monitor it closely to get a feel for how strongly they can execute against it. Will increase my position over time.
Shopify
Shopify is very slowly growing into its valuation. That’s a time when I like to open a position, and will also be adding to it over time.
Added:
Peloton
Spotify
Twilio
Slack
You can read up on my initial thesis for these companies in previous write-ups. It is a shame that Slack is getting boggled up.
It is likely I will add to my positions in Peloton, Twilio, and Spotify. Got to deploy that Slack cash somewhere.
Sold:
Netease
Sold these positions as they don’t fully fit into my investment strategy anymore.
Both companies will likely provide great returns for shareholders in the coming years, that I wouldn’t be too worried about.
In the case of Netease, I’ve enjoyed an 18-Bagger in the time span of 12 years. The high growth days in the Gaming business are behind them, and I don’t have the time to assess their other business lines accurately.
As I am in the Gaming industry, I tend to invest in small Gaming companies, as I should have an edge there to pick businesses that can provide large returns, as was the case with Netease when I invested back in 2008. Once they reach a certain size, it just isn’t that attractive anymore to me. That’s why I sold Activision Blizzard in the past and now Netease.
Trimmed:
ZScaler
HubSpot
Both positions grew into being my #2 and #3 positions. I had to re-balance this slightly, as my conviction is higher on the above stocks that I added to during the month.
Top Performers - YTD
Twitter, Nutanix, Baidu, IAC, and Pluralsight are underappreciated by the market. None of these names are as sexy as the high growth darlings.
Time will tell whether I am right on these “value” tech plays. Of course, seeing 35% and 28% gains on Nutanix and Twitter respectively is something I would take repeatedly for years to come.
Thank you for following my investment journey. I hope you found this useful, and here's to an exciting December!
Thank you for reading!
I want to share two links that allow you to invest alongside me.
Wikifolio:
If you are based in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland, then you can follow my Wikifolio. Once I publicize it, it would allow you to purchase a certificate through your broker that tracks my performance. Right now, you can watch it and can indicate whether you would be interested in investing.
EToro
My EToro portfolio, click here.
If you are based in Europe and are a user of EToro, you can copy my portfolio. This replicates all of my trades in your portfolio. Feel free to check it out if you like the thought of more free time and me doing all the work for you.