Until yesterday, it was looking like I might end February slightly up on the month, but it turned out to be another month with negative results (down 4.1%). Here are my results YTD.
2024 +70%
2025 +117%
2026 January -5.1%
February -4.1%
YTD - 9%
I actually made no changes in my portfolio at all this month. It seems that there is still much fear around the market concerning the capex spend of many of the bigger companies relating to AI, and it seems that the flight to more defensive stocks continues. But I am seeing this just as a season and I believe that all of my companies have strong fundamentals and they continue to post great numbers and give strong guidance. The market will reverse course at some point as this year progresses I believe. And then of course our stocks will start to fly again. Until then we continue to focus on the businesses themselves and hold on through the noise of the market.
Here is what my portfolio looks like today:
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Nebius (NBIS): 25%
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AppLovin (APP): 16%
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Celestica (CLS): 15%
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Micron (MU): 12%
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Astera Labs (ALAB): 11%
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IREN (IREN): 11%
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Electro Optic Systems (EOS): 10%
As always, I am fully invested and long, and I hold no options or puts or anything else like this that I don’t understand.
Here are the YTD gains (losses) of my current holdings.
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Nebius (NBIS): up 9%
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AppLovin (APP): down 35%
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Celestica (CLS): down 6%
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Astera Labs (ALAB): down 29%
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IREN (IREN): up 8%
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Micron (MU): up 44%
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Electro Optic Systems (EOS): down 5%
Some of these figures do not look great - but you have to zoom out a bit to look at their 3 month, 6 month and 1 year charts and there is obviously much more to get excited about there. Nebius, for example is up 185% from this same time last year, and APP, even after all of the falls in the SP of the last few months is still up 36% on a 1 year basis. All of my companies, except Micron, have now reported - and I was impressed by all of them.
Celestica
As I wrote last month, they had had their best results ever - with total revenue up 44%. This is incredible for this company and represents their best ever YoY performance. On top of that their CCS revenue (which represents 78% of their total) grew 64%. Their Non GAAP EPS was up 70%, showing they are becoming ever more profitable as they scale in revenue.
The market seemed to punish it for it’s plans to increase Capex to $1B - but they made very clear in the release and on the call that this will all be funded organically from operating cash flow. Rob Mionis, CEO, said:
“Our financial performance in the fourth quarter was very strong, with revenue of $3.65 billion and adjusted EPS (non-GAAP)* of $1.89, both exceeding the high end of our guidance ranges. We had a solid finish to 2025, achieving revenue of $12.4 billion, up 28%, while our adjusted EPS (non-GAAP)* grew 56% year-over-year,” said Rob Mionis, President and CEO of Celestica. “Driven by very strong results in 2025, and improved momentum into 2026, we are pleased to be raising our annual outlook.
As demand for AI-related data center technologies continues to strengthen, we now expect revenue of $17.0 billion and adjusted EPS (non-GAAP)* of $8.75 for 2026.” “We are continuing to align with our largest customers on their multi-year capacity roadmaps in support of their long-term AI infrastructure investments. We believe the revenue growth trajectory that we anticipate in 2026 will be sustained into 2027, and as a result, we are strategically increasing our planned capital investments to $1 billion this year. Importantly, we anticipate being able to fully fund this expansion organically through our operating cash flow.”
AppLovin
APP had their best QoQ increase this year - up 18% sequentially and 66% YoY. Their margins continue to be best of a kind with 77% GAAP operating income margin, 67% GAAP NI margin, and 89% GAAP Profit margin with a 79% free cash flow margin. In addition to this they increased their EPS by 87% and reduced their share count through continued buybacks by 2%. They continue to fire on all cylinders and produce phenomenal numbers.
Adam in the call addressed the disconnect between their use of AI, their growth and how the market sees them. He said:
“While I prefer to ignore short-term fluctuations in the stock price and focus on maximizing value over the long term, the recent volatility warrants addressing. For the past few weeks, there’s been a lot of discussion about how AI and competition will challenge our business. But when I look at our internal dashboards, we are delivering the strongest operating performance in our history. What’s fueling that growth is our own AI models. And as research and AI, both internal and external, continues to improve, our business will grow with it. There is a real disconnect between market sentiment and the reality of our business……
A skeptical market sharpens our focus and pushes our teams to execute. Our revenue per employee remains among the highest in the world because we build the best and most scalable products in our category. If the market chooses to price our stock based on fear, while we continue to compound revenue, cash flow and product capability, we’ll stay focused on execution and let our results speak over time. From where we sit, we are still in the early innings of what this platform can be.”
Nebius
As I wrote in the Nebius earnings thread at the time of their release a few weeks ago, they had another great Q. Revenue was up 56% sequentially and 547% YoY! They reached group EBITDA positive for the first time ever - ahead of schedule. They re-affirmed their aggressive ARR target and projections for next year - coming in at 7-9B - which is +540% at the midpoint. They are going to open up 9 new Data Centres around the world over this coming year - more than doubling their current number. They are increasing capex to a whopping 16-20B - but they were able to point out that they can account for 60% of this figure already. They are extending their depreciation timeline from 4 to 5 years - which is also a positive and is more conservative than Coreweave’s 6 year depreciation schedule.
Speaking of Coreweave, Nebius was down 14% yesterday because of Coreweave’s results! This in my mind is another example of this crazy market that is tarnishing Nebius because of Coreweave’s debts and poor balance sheet. Nebius has a much stronger balance sheet in every way - and with a much stronger and more experienced management team. I continue to be impressed with Arkady and the whole team.
Many of their new DC’s are going to be outside the US - and I think this will be a major positive for countries looking for Sovereign AI and enterprises outside the US. In terms of raising further monies - they have a strong balance sheet already with over 3.7B in cash. They have their, so far unused ATM plan for 25m shares, and they have their stakes in Toloka, and in Clickhouse (now valued at 25%), plus their own businesses of AVRide and TripleTen. As Arkady said in the shareholder letter “ We will maintain a disciplined approach to raising capital. We see strong appetite from financing partners and investors and have a broad range of financing options available for 2026 and beyond, including corporate debt, asset-backed financing, and our unused at-the-market equity program.”
They achieved their first quarter of operating cash flow. They delivered both of their contracted tranches on time to Meta and they are now in full servicing stage. And they delivered their first tranche of capacity on time to Microsoft last November.
I continue to be very impressed with Nebius, and it continues to be my number 1 holding - as it has been for the last 14 months now.
My 3 other companies
In terms of my other companies - there has already been much written on the board about IREN and ALAB so I won’t add to anything here. Both have suffered in their SP’s recently - but both provided very convincing numbers and outlook in their recent ER’s
EOS has bounced back following a short report against it last month. I have held this company now for over 6 months - and it has actually been my best performer since this time - returning to me well over 200% growth and more than tripling my holding. That is why it has grown, whilst others have shrunk a bit, to now be 10% of my portfolio.
Wishing everyone a successful March as we enter Spring here in the UK
Best,
Jonathan