I would like to firstly say a huge thank you to Saul and the other board contributors for this wonderful investing community. I am in the UK and I have been investing in stocks since 2006, but for most of that time just in UK stocks until I discovered this wonderful board in the Summer of 2020. That is when I wrote my first, and only post on this great board (link at the end).
Update and Background.
The first 14 years of my investing journey consisted mainly of following recommendations from various TMF UK services. I had around 30 stocks in my portfolio and my returns had not been that impressive to say the least. In fact after those first 14 years I only had 252% of what I had started with! Not such a great return over such a long period of time.
Then in the summer of 2020 I discovered Saul and this board and I immediately set about learning and reading everything I could. I devoured the knowledge base several times and I have read every single post on this board ever since.
At that time, I sold my UK stocks and put everything into a concentrated portfolio of the Saas stocks that we followed at the time. I made spreadsheets of earnings releases, learnt how to follow the numbers for myself, and avidly digested the conference calls of the companies I now followed (Zoom, Datadog, Cloudflare, Crowdstrike, Okta, Fastly, Amazon and Shopify). I only wish I had discovered the board and these stocks a few months earlier in 2020 when a lot of the big growth had happened. Soon after buying many of these stocks dropped 20 % or so. I got out of Fastly very promptly a few months later to build up Cloudflare. I held onto zoom and got out when Saul brought those timely warnings.
I bought Upstart big time in 2021 and like others here, got carried away with the stock. I was puzzled when some of those who had been so vocal for Upstart turned against it so quickly. I held it too long, but I did manage to get out and still make a profit on it before the big drops came.
My returns in 2020 were a mere 14%. But more importantly than the returns had been the learning and the education I had had from this board and Saul’s knowledge base.
Then in 2021 things started to soar and I was amazed how quickly my portfolio went up. It reached its all time high in Oct 2021. By this point I was up 82% for the year and I now had more than 5 times what I had started with in 2006.
I held onto my Saas stocks through 2022, like so many did here, because by now I was a firm believer in Saas and the incredible results and numbers they were still putting out. I thought it was just a temporary blip we were going through.
But in 2022 I lost nearly 70% of my entire portfolio which had put me back to right where I had been in 2006! (16 years earlier). I had been hoping to retire early from work that year ( I am a UK school teacher), but now retirement was firmly out of my grasp.
But I continued to learn and read and grow, and I refused to give up - even though my results woefully lagged othershere. I did not have the cushion of great returns in 2017-2020, so the loss of 2022 set me back a long way.
2023 and SMCI
I was at a low point in the Spring of 2023 when I read a post by XMFRob on Supermicro computers. I began to research it for myself. And after selling out at a huge loss of Sentinel One in April 2023 I put the proceeds into SMCI at $197. The more I learned and read about this company the more excited I got. I made it my largest holding at 30% of my portfolio in May 2023.
The stock did not do too much during the rest of that year, but I held on. Then in January of 2024 after the pre-earnings release the stock shot up overnight and I had soon doubled my money on that stock alone. Not wanting to lose what I had gained I made the big mistake of selling the vast majority of SMCI at 415 in late January, only then to buy a lot of it back a couple of weeks later in mid February at over 700. If I had not made that silly sale then my returns this year would have been much higher than they now are, even though I have now had the best first half a year ever
As it stands my returns for 2024 YTD are currently at 81%. I am still 55% off my ATH set in Oct 21, but I am confident I will get back there.
Today’s Portfolio
My portfolio today is:
NVDA - 40%
SMCI - 32%
ELF - 13%
PGY - 6%
APP - 5%
CLS - 4%
YTD return is so far 81%
I know that both my NVDA and SMCI positions are very large compared to many on here - but in my defence I can say firstly that they have grown into these positions from much smaller positions initially (over a year of holding SMCI and a few months of holding NVDA), and that secondly I feel more confident about these two companies than any others I am currently holding.
I just felt in the Spring of 2023 that I had lost so much during the previous year that I had to do something bold and significant to try and regain what I had lost. I was very blessed to have discovered SMCI so early on. That’s why I made it such a large position back then.
I will now just write a short reason why I am holding these stocks currently.
Nividia
I did only buy this a few months ago when I sold out of IOT, but I am so glad I made that switch. I lost confidence in IOT when they brought that lawsuit against one of their competitors, and I decided not to be put off any longer by the law of large numbers in NVDA. With the astonishing results they continued to churn out, along with the great leadership of Jensen Huang, and the insatiable demand for their chips (and of course their software) how could I not get into Nvidia?
It had been a 25% holding for me, until I also sold out of Celsius at the start of June, and put the proceeds into NVDA. Even though it is now my largest holding, I feel very confident in where this company is heading. I can see it being a 10T company in a few years.
Supermicro
I could not believe how cheap this company was when I first bought it at $197 in the Spring of last year. Even today I still see it as undervalued with its forward PEG of less than 1 at only 0.74. I can see the price reaching at least $2000 in the next 2- 3 years (I am estimating earnings of $57 by 2026-7 which at a multiple of 35 would give the $2000 share price). But I will continue to follow the numbers and hold it until the story changes. I don’t see it changing anytime soon, as I’ve often said over on the premium TMF boards.
ELF
I see a massive runway for this company too. As mentioned, I am in the UK, and I teach in a large UK Secondary School of 11 - 18 year olds. I often see students with ELF products. When I ask them about it, they can’t stop telling me how good they are! Not only are they as good, or better, than the more upmarket products, but they are affordable too. There always seem to be people in the stores in Boots and Superdrug in the UK buying their products. And the numbers in the earnings releases bear this out. Like Saul, I don’t believe their low ball guide for this current year. Massive sandbagging to say the least.
Pagaya
This is my only holding currently to be underwater. And to be honest, it could go either way from here. I have owned it for over 11 months now, and have bought it a few times along the way as it has continued to go down. Split adjusted, my average price is now $18. It currently sits at just over $12. So there is still a fair way to go for it to break even. But I do feel that we have turned a corner over the last couple of months. Multiple institutions have been buying it of late (which is important for a stock like PGY). There is now over 30% ownership by 105 different institutions. I am hoping that the forward funding agreement will be forthcoming soon, and that the next earnings release will have some good news. I could see this stock easily tripling from here if things start to fall into place for this company. Maybe even by the end of this year. The relocation from Israel to NY in the last few months has been good news for this company too.
APPLovin
Much has already been written about this company. I’m holding it because the numbers on the ER have been increasing over the last few quarters with YOY revenue growth at 21%, 36%, and 48% over the last 3 quarters, and triple digit gains in EPS (actually 6800% in last quarter!). I’m also holding it because of their Axon software that has been a game changer for them.
Celestica
This is a company I have only held for 4 months or so of this year, and it is currently a very small position for me. But as I learn more about it then the more I like it. It delivers advanced supply chain solutions to customers around the world. There are two segments: Advanced Technology Solutions (ATS) and Connectivity & Cloud Solutions (CCS). It is the CCS that is expected to be the driver for this business going forward. It is very profitable, though the revenue growth is not yet as high as I would like (only 20% last quarter) so I’ll keep this a small position for now.
If you have read this far, then thank you very much. Once again, a big thank you to Saul for this excellent board and for accepting my request to join this community yesterday. And a big thank you to all of the excellent contributors that make this board what it is.
Best,
Jonathan