2025 YTD Monthly Closing
Jan +9.8%
Feb +1.6%
Mar -13.8%
Apr -6.7%
May +8.5%
Jun +19.0%
July 31st: +24.6% YTD (down from a YTD peak of +25% earlier in the day and up from April low of -25%)
This has been one of the most volatile 6 months I can remember in my portfolio history with the swing on a par with the dotcom boom/bust around its apex.
This was another strong month building on the bounce back in the previous 2. I have to climb another ~25% to reach my portfolio ATH.
Thematically, I’m principally invested in:
eCommerce (20%) - Shopify, MercadoLibre, Global e-Online & SEA
AI & Cloud Infrastructure (25%) - Cloudflare, Pure Storage, Nvidia, Nebius, Astera Labs, Credo, Micron & Tempus Ai
Software (SaaS/DevOp/Data analytics) (25%) - Palantir, Datadog, Snowflake, GitLab, Monday, Samsara, MongoDB & HIT
Cybersecurity (10%) - Crowdstrike, ZScaler, Rubrik & SentinelOne
Fintech/Payments (10%) - SOFI, Toast, Robinhood, Upstart & Bill
AdTech (10%) - The Trade Desk, Applovin and Reddit (ad community)
Recent Activity -
Sold out of SMCI and re-invested into ALAB and APP and sold out of CyberArk after the PANW offer and re-invested in Rubrik and Sentinel One. Made another top slice of Palantir to enter HIT.
Considering trimming Palantir further and exiting Tesla. Would like to build up AppLovin at the right price (rolling over from TTD perhaps) and enter Axon (perhaps from IOT if its share price recovers), perhaps even Transmedics.
Holdings in MDB & BILL sit closest to the exit door.
Missed the window to sell or top slice TTD and IOT further.
Portfolio holdings -
25+ positions with a long tail of 1-2% positions (made up of high conviction, scaling down and scaling up plays):
SHOP - 10%
PLTR - 7%
DDOG - 6%
NET - 6%
SNOW - 4.5%
TTD - 4.5%
PSTG - 4.5%
MELI - 4.5%
NVDA - 4%
MNDY - 3.5%
CRWD - 3.5%
UPST - 3.5%
ZS - 3.5%
IOT - 3%
RBRK - 3%
SOFI - 3%
HOOD - 3%
ALAB - 2%
TSLA - 2%
MDB - 2%
CRDO - 1.5%
MU - 1.5%
NBIS - 1.5%
SE - 1.5%
S - 1.5%
GLBE - 1.5%
GTLB - 1.5%
APP - 1.5%
TOST - 1%
RDDT - 1%
HIT - 1%
TEM - 0.5%
BILL - 0.5%
Bright spots in the portfolio are: Palantir, Rubrik, Nebius, Nvidia & Cloudflare which are at an ATH, MercadoLibre, Credo and Crowdstrike which are also not far off and Snowflake, SEA, Toast and ZScaler which are at or near to a 52 week high.
Watch list includes…
Lightspeed, Sezzle, ROOT, AXON, FOUR, Arista, Transmedics, Fortinet, Palo Alto, Pagaya & Raspberry PI and Grab.
Bigger Picture -
As sectors, Cyber Security, AI and Cloud infra/DevOps and ex US eCommerce have been relatively strong - as well as profitable SaaS plays/software providers with rising consumption and ones with demonstrable AI use cases. Payments & Fintech had been holding up until the recent retracement although bouncing back strongly of late whilst AdTech is showing signs of weakness in pricing and demand.
The potential for macro damage on a sector and company basis is clearly having an impact. With the prevailing politics and in particular economic and trade policies we are facing some hyper volatility with big winners and losers and not necessarily driven by innate company consideration.
I’m thinking that seeking out growth companies with defensive qualities, (cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity and consumption based rather than seat based 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, Raspberry PI and Grab).
Ant