2026 YTD Monthly Closing
Jan: -5.5%
Feb: -17.5%
Mar: -20%
April: -9.4%
May: +19.5%
June 30th: +22.4% YTD, (a YTD peak up from the YTD low on March 30th of down 24%).
June was one heck of a rollercoaster with a sharp drop followed by an equally sharp recovery that ended with me just ahead for the month (although I could do without these kinds of round trips usually), the pull back and recovery was again driven by AI infra and neoclouds and the continued renaissance in former SaaSpocalypse casualties with some sort of moat, (data or hardware or network infra) as well a favourable consumption based business model. I’m now back to my ATH from last year which also matched the SaaS boom peak - let’s hope this isn’t a triple top forming!
The contradicting theses of AI is eating software as well as AI is a Capex bubble that’s faltering seems to be being replaced with AI euphoria across the board. Weakness in adtech and fintech continues as well as eCommerce but strength in Micron, Neoclouds and the Data Center connectivity/AI infra players and a bounce back in Datadog, Snowflake, Crowdstrike and Cloudflare (all now seen to be beneficiaries of AI tailwinds rather than vulnerable to AI displacement), has driven the portfolio forwards.
Early Q1 results were passable for SoFi, Reddit & Robinhood, however the releases got stronger and stronger with a good clutch for AI infra and neoclouds and the market especially rewarding Datadog, Cloudflare and Snowflake with some significant post earnings bumps and raises in SP targets, all of which paled into insignificance compared to the Micron earnings.
Thematically, I’m principally invested in:
eCommerce (15%) - Shopify, MercadoLibre, Global e-Online & SEA
AI & Cloud Infrastructure (30%) - Cloudflare, Pure Storage, Nvidia, Nebius, Astera Labs, Micron, Tempus Ai, IREN, HIVE, CoreWeave, Credo, ORCL & EOSE
Software (SaaS/DevOp/Data analytics) (25%) - Palantir, Datadog, Snowflake, GitLab, Monday, Axon & Samsara
Cybersecurity (10%) - Crowdstrike, ZScaler, Rubrik & SentinelOne
Fintech/Payments/Crypto (10%) - SOFI, Toast, Robinhood, Upstart, Bill, Pagaya & Bitmine Immersion Technologies
AdTech (10%) - The Trade Desk, Applovin and Reddit (ad community)
Recent Activity -
I trimmed a number of positions in June, (ALAB, MU, CRDO, DDOG & NET), amounting to ~5% in total value in order to redirect funds outside of my growth portfolio.
Considering trimming Palantir further and Pure Storage. Also considering entering Lumentum & Rocket Lab, Billion To One and some energy storage players like Bloom or Fluence or NRGV as well as Figure, Silicon Motion and Dell (which I should have pulled the trigger on). Drone makers could also be an area of interest.
Holdings in Monday, GitLab, BILL and TTD sit closest to the exit door.
Portfolio holdings -
25+ positions with a long tail of 1-2% positions (made up of high conviction, scaling down and scaling up plays):
MU - 12%
DDOG - 8.5%
NBIS - 7.5%
SHOP - 7%
ALAB - 5.5%
NET - 5%
P - 5%
SNOW - 4.5%
CRWD - 4%
IREN - 4%
NVDA - 3.5%
PLTR - 3.5%
RBRK - 3%
MELI - 2.5%
APP - 2%
SOFI - 2%
IOT - 1.5%
HOOD - 1.5%
ZS - 1.5%
UPST - 1%
CRWV - 1%
GLBE - 1%
RDDT - 1%
S - 1%
AXON - 1%
CRDO - 1%
HIVE - 1%
TEM - 1%
MNDY - 1%
TTD - 1%
SE - 0.5%
GTLB - 0.5%
PGY - 0.5%
TOST - 0.5%
DLO - 0.5
BMNR - 0.5%
EOSE - 0.5%
BILL - 0.5%
ORCL - 0.5%
Bright spots in the portfolio include: Micron & Nvidia as well as IREN, Nebius, Credo, Astera Labs, Cloudflare, Crowdstrike, Snowflake and Datadog which are closest (within 15%) to their YTD and AT highs.
Watch list includes…
Fluence, Bloom, Figure, Sigma, Lumentum, Rocket Lab, Silicon Motion, TransMedics, Sezzle, ROOT, FOUR, Arista, Fortinet, Palo Alto, Raspberry PI and Grab.
Bigger Picture -
As sectors, Cyber Security, AI and Cloud infra/DevOps have been relatively strong - as well as profitable SaaS/software providers that operate a platform play with consumption based revenue models and demonstrably bullet proof vs AI disruption. Payments & Fintech which had been strong with rate reductions back on the cards, with expectation of spending resilience and a boom in crypto/alternative/private investing however that strength has weakened in recent months with economic uncertainties (that are also impacting eCommerce players), whilst AdTech is showing signs of weakness in pricing and demand as well as facing a fight back from the walled garden operators going beyond their native home markets.
It feels as though every part of the data space is doing well and reaccelerating; (semiconductor, memory, storage, servers, data center infra, databases & data cloud) and remains AI resilient. Clearly the most extreme gains have been seen in anything that could constitute an AI value chain supply side bottleneck
I see the outcomes of 4 challenges are the critical determinants of market success right now - certainly for my portfolio holdings:
i) the will it won’t it question of “AI eating software”
ii) the alternative scenarios of higher for longer vs an AI bubble
iii) the formulation and reaction to Macro (tariffs & trade), fiscal (tax & spend) & monetary (Fed rates) policies
iv) the imminent behemoth IPOs (SpaceX, OpenAI & Anthropic) and to what degree that will create investor euphoria across the board or suck money out of the market in order to fund IPO entry positions
Specifically the almost binary outcome of OpenAI and its potential impact on NeoCloud Capex, Oracle RPO commitments (amongst others) and leadership in AI feels a critical risk/reward situation.
One additional competitive risk I am watching carefully is the transformation of X from a social media platform to a fully fledged all-in-one super app with eCommerce and Fintech which could impact a number of my holdings from Shopify to SoFi within US and MercadoLibre and SEA internationally.
I still believe that seeking out growth companies with defensive qualities, (cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, energy generation, storage and supply even and consumption based rather than seat based software models), might do better in these volatile and uncertain times as well as ex US eCommerce and trading plays that benefit from US currency weakness but more importantly are removed from US import/export movements on an intra regional / local to local basis (e.g. MercadoLibre, SEA and Grab).
Ant