Happy New Year!
December was shaping up to be a very good month for my portfolio up until about a week ago, then pulled back a bit in the last few trading days of the year.
Given my large Tesla stake, which was up another +17% in December while most of my other holdings were down this month, I still finished positive for the month and ended with a full year performance of +74.5% that I’m extremely happy with.
As with all of my TMF posts, nothing that I post here is intended to be, or should be considered, investment advice. I post summaries of my investments and performance to help me think through and review how I manage my own portfolio and to participate in the great discussions on this board.
Here’s how things look cumulatively in 2024:
-9.7% YTD Jan
+11.0% YTD Feb
+3.7% YTD Mar
+2.3% YTD Apr
+1.2% YTD May
+9.7% YTD Jun
+11.8% YTD Jul
+18.8% YTD Aug
+33.6% YTD Sep
+36.0% YTD Oct
+70.6% YTD Nov
+74.5% YTD Dec
My portfolio is still very concentrated, with two of the companies I own making up the majority.
Gaining +74.5% in 2024 after gaining +74.1% last year in 2023, my portfolio has grown to be just over three times the size of what it was 24 months ago.
Some positives in recent years:
My portfolio gained more than +54% in 4 of the past 6 years
and
The portfolio gained more than +74% in 3 of the past 5 years
Unfortunately, due to the very negative 2022 that many of us felt with the downturn in tech company stock prices (down more than -70% in '22), the portfolio is still a bit below where it was at the end of 2021…but gettting closer!
This was my allocation at the end of last month 11/30/24
44.2% (TSLA) Tesla
25.7% (TTD) The Trade Desk
7.6% (MDB) MongoDB
7.0% (AMZN) Amazon
6.3% (MELI) MercadoLibre
6.1% (MSFT) Microsoft
3.0% (CRSP) Crispr Theraputics
and here it is at the end of the year at December 31, 2024 now:
55.3% (TSLA) Tesla
19.5% (TTD) The Trade Desk
6.6% (AMZN) Amazon
5.3% (MDB) MongoDB
4.6% (MELI) MercadoLibre
4.5% (CRSP) Crispr Theraputics
3.2% (RBRK) Rubrik *NEW
1.0% (MU) Micron *NEW
Note that a portion of my TTD and TSLA holdings includes some 2026 Leap call options.
I realize how it looks with Tesla now growing to such a large percentage of the portfolio. It has continued to grow due to gains in the share price, and with the other companies pulling back this month, caused the allocation to move even higher.
I continue to believe that, if Tesla can perform well and succeed with their newer business segments, that the company could be worth much more in the future than it is today. So I am comfortable allowing it to be an outsized large portion of my portfolio. I doubt that I would lose sleep even if it grew to even a significantly larger percentage than it already is now.
Most likely, in future portfolio updates, I probably won’t show the exact percentage of each holding as I have in the past. I will probably show each company with a label for it’s size allocation (oversized, large, medium, small, etc), but I left the old format above one last time to be consistent with all other months of 2024.
I sold part, and then later, all, of my Microsoft holdings this month. It was a relatively new position I had started a few months ago, and was a profitable one. However, the more I hear about where Chat GPT stands compared to some of the other AI being built by other companies, the more I’m simply unsure how it will play out and I’m less comfortable having much, or any, of my investments in MSFT valued as highly as it already is.
I added a bit to my Crispr stake as the price got less expensive without any really negative news and I started out two new small try out positions in Rubrik and Micron.
After Micron’s earnings release soon after my purchase (particularly the weak guidance) came out, I sold off half of the already small Micron shares and I’m considering whether or to not to continue to hold any MU very long into 2025.
I added a little to Rubrik right at the end of the year as the price got cheaper.
MongoDB was a roller coast this month. They released earnings the second week of December. The results were a strong beat and decent guidance, which moved the stock up +10% initially after hours.
However, during the earnings call, the shares gave back those gains and finished negative in the after-market. The next day, it was down in the teens and is now down close to -30% since earnings three weeks ago.
I’ve listened to the call and the CFO’s comments (who is leaving the company) really seemed to emphasize some negatives. I’m sure just the uncertainty of the CFO announcing his departure without a new CFO hired yet, also dragged on the stock.
Interestingly, many analysts raised their targets after earnings even despite the gloomy call, but the stock has taken quite a hit.
I’ve owned MDB for several years and willing to continue to let things play out and see how it goes in early 2025 before I do anything too rash.
The Trade Desk TTD didn’t have much significant news this month. For my own original purchase of common shares, they did briefly become a ten-bagger during December before pulling back a bit (still a nine bagger at 12/31/24)
It is a very concentrated portfolio which I don’t generally prefer, but as of right now I don’t have many other companies that I have a high level of confidence in to allocate investment funds towards. TTD and MDB have been two of my top three or four holdings pretty consistently for the past five years.
Stock Performance
Here is the year to date performance of each of my current holdings. Also note that the companies that I didn’t own at the beginning of the year (MELI, CRSP, AMZN, RBRK, and MU), this only shows the performance since I purchased them:
| Dec 31 2023^ | Dec 31 2024 | YTD Gain | |
|---|---|---|---|
| TTD | 71.96 | 117.53 | +63.3% |
| MDB | 408.85 | 232.81 | -43.1% |
| TSLA | 248.48 | 403.84 | +62.5% |
| MELI^ | 1,409.42^ | 1,700.44 | +20.6% |
| RBRK^ | 72.77^ | 65.36 | -10.2% |
| AMZN^ | 177.88^ | 219.39 | +23.3% |
| CRSP^ | 55.06^ | 39.36 | -28.5% |
| MU^ | 105.43^ | 84.16 | -20.2% |
^ Because I didn’t own MELI, CRSP, AMZN, RBRK, MU until this year, the “December 31st” numbers above are not their 12/31/23 prices, but the stock price of my initial, most significant purchases during 2024.
The TSLA Jan 1st number above is somewhat misleading as, although the stock was $248 at the start of 2024 and I still own those shares, I added a decent amount in the $170-200 range during 2024 this year, so my actual percentage performance from Tesla investments this year is higher than what the simple table above indicates. I also sold a good chunk of my MDB early in the year when the stock was over $400 and even over $500, so my total MongoDB investment hasn’t taken the full negative 2024 hit shown above (although my remaining shares that I still hold, have).
Most of the shares I hold in TTD and MDB were purchased in 2018 and 2019 at much lower costs. The largest portion of my Trade Desk shares were purchased in January 2019 for $11.39 and are up +932%, while most of my MongoDB shares were purchased in July 2018 for $57.39 and are up +306% now.
That’s it for another month and another year.
Thanks as always to Saul and everyone else that makes this board so great!
I hope 2025 is a prosperous and happy year for everyone!
-mekong