Well…my portfolio is off to a pretty good start to the new year
Similar to Saul’s comment, my portfolio was also a bit of a yo-yo in January.
A short attack on my largest holding, Magnite on January 7th pushed it down, but that only lasted a couple of days before the stock shot back up to all time highs.
Four days ago on Monday morning, my portfolio was up more than +17% ytd already in about three weeks, although it came back to reality a bit the past few days finishing January right at +5.0%
Performance
2019 Full Year +57.1%
2020 Full Year +140.6%
2021:
End of Jan +5.0% (high of +17.1% intraday on Monday)
My gains this month were primarily from Magnite and Guardant Health, while most other holdings stayed relatively close to where they were at year end.
January 31st Allocation
MGNI 27.2%
MDB 13.6%
TTD 11.9%
NTNX 11.4%
AYX 7.8%
DDOG 6.1%
SMAR 5.7%
DOCU 5.6%
CRWD 5.2%
GH 4.8%
ESTC 0.6%
No major changes from last month, except that Magnite went up some more, due purely to stock price appreciation. Magnite was targeted in a report by short seller Spruce Point Capital on January 7th which pushed MGNI down from $28 to below $24. The report was garbage, in my opinion, and MGNI shot up to new highs over $40/share two weeks later, before settling around $35 today.
Although this happened before this week’s reddit stock market action on heavily shorted stocks such as Gamestop and AMC, we’ve already seen Andrew Left and Citron today say that they are no longer going to target companies with short attack reports in the future given the reddit-type risk, so Spruce’s attack on MGNI may be the last one of these I see on one of my companies, for a while at least, as I’m sure eventually memories will fade and someone will go back to the same old tactics if they think they will work.
As planned, I sold off the last of my old AMZN shares in early ’21. Most of the proceeds went to my large 2020 tax bill, and the rest to exercise my expiring, very profitable, MDB calls. I ended up selling other MDB shares that were in my IRA to keep my overall MongoDB ownership about the same, without triggering any taxes. I also sold just a small sliver of GH and of my TTD shares this month.
The net proceeds of all of that went into a combination of NTNX, SMAR, DOCU, and AYX.
My small ESTC stake, which is about three-quarters capital gains, has now crossed into long term capital gains treatment this month. I mentioned in December I would probably sell it once it went LT. Part of me still likes Elastic, but given how small my stake is, and as I don’t feel I understand the company as well as others I own, I will likely let it go next month, putting the proceeds into a combination of the same four companies above that I bought in January.
Keeping it Brief This Month
Given that there were no earnings reports or major news on the companies I own this month, I don’t have much else to add, as most of my individual company writeups from my December 2020 update, still reflect my current feelings about them.
Looking back at my comment on TDOC in December, feeling that it may be the company I regret not owning the most, has rung true so far in January, as Teladoc rose 32% already in 2021, but hey, you can’t own them all!
Also, for anyone owning Guardant Health, they put together about a dozen calendar days closing over $150/share this month before dipping below it, a few days ago. If they have a 30 consecutive calendar day stretch closing over $150 before March 31st, their stock based compensation expense will be exceptionally high in Q1, but it’s really not a bad thing because it’s not due to any new grants, it would simply be the result of the stock performing really well and vesting some older awards earlier than originally expected. Overall it’s a good thing for shareholders that the stock price is rising and it’s likely (well, hopefully) that all of the grants, including the ones that need the stock price over $200/share for 30 days, will eventually vest, so it’s not really diluting us anymore than was already known. And early vesting now will lead to less future stock based comp expense in future periods.
I’m looking forward to upcoming earnings announcements in February with DDOG and AYX early in the month, and then MGNI, TTD, and GH a couple weeks later.
Everyone continue to stay safe, and be well!
-mekong