What a month
I was going to start this writeup with a joke about how I’m glad I didn’t “Sell in May then go away!” but Bama already beat me to it! Great minds think alike
Despite my portfolio getting pretty pummeled today, June was still, by a mile, the most that my portfolio has ever grown in a single month!
Let’s get right to it. Here’s my year to date performance for each month of 2021:
+5.0% YTD Jan
+14.6% YTD Feb
-9.2% YTD Mar
-8.2% YTD Apr
-19.7% YTD May
+7.9% YTD Jun
At the end of the day yesterday, I was actually up more than +15% YTD, but took a beating today, largely due to MongoDB announcing a share issuance last night, which sent their stock down today, as well as other declines in practically all stocks I own today.
Last month, I ended my portfolio update by saying that I was excited about my concentrated portfolio, despite being down -19.7% in five months, and the past few weeks have only strengthened my feelings about these companies.
So what happened to flip my 2021 performance from almost -20% down 30 days ago, to a decent gain now?
June started with three of my companies, MongoDB, Docusign, and Teladoc, all announcing earnings in the first week, and all three stocks reacted favorably. Then Nutanix held their virtual investor day this month, which was also favorably received by the markets. And then Google made their announcement that they would be keeping third party cookies for at least another two years, which caused The Trade Desk and Magnite to both rise.
Here are the June monthly gains for each of the companies I own (in order of my allocation size at the end of last month):
**June one-month Gain**
+13.9% Magnite
+23.8% MongoDB
+21.3% Nutanix
+32.2% The Trade Desk
+38.7% Docusign
+22.4% Smartsheets
+10.4% Teladoc
At yesterday’s close (excluding today’s declines), my five largest holdings (80%+ of the total portfolio) were up, on average, more than +31% for the first 29 days of June (Magnite was up +24% and MongoDB was up +31% before they gave some of those gains back today). So, yeah, when all of your stocks rise like that in one month, it will lead to a nice result.
I even got a mention in Bert’s Ticker Target subscriber newsletter this month (I was the user he referred to on Monday that pointed out that TTD’s ratio is not as elevated as the numbers suggest because they record their revenue on a net basis).
Here’s my latest allocation at June 30, 2021:
22.5% Magnite
16.8% Nutanix
14.4% MongoDB
13.9% Docusign
13.5% The Trade Desk
10.1% Teladoc
8.7% Smartsheets
I took my own advice after writing up the May portfolio update last month and decided I should own more Teladoc, so I sold a chunk of my oversized Magnite stake in June to buy more Teladoc, about doubling my TDOC stake.
MongoDB’s stock also had a really nice run the first few weeks of June, and MDB is the only stock I own that I consider to pretty expensive valuation-wise, so after the big run, I trimmed just a small sliver of MDB and put those proceeds into Teladoc as well. I do think Mongo will grow and grow for the next few years making today’s price still look reasonable in retrospect, but they’ve peaked a few times in recent memory, and the combination of the stock’s run in June with Teladoc still selling at what I feel is a wonderful price, I decided to shift some over.
That’s it. After making some more significant reallocations in recent months (which so far have worked out quite well) all I did in June was free up some funds to build up the Teladoc stake a bit.
A few thoughts about the companies:
Magnite
Not much news or anything really new to add on MGNI this month that I haven’t said before. It gained a bit when Google made the cookies announcement, although regardless, Magnite today, as a sell side platform SSP, is a lot less impacted by cookies than The Trade Desk, and some have argued that the eventual elimination of cookies could ultimately be a positive for MGNI.
Nutanix
Nutanix held their annual investor day earlier this month. This was the first one since new CEO, Rajiv Ramaswami joined in December. I watched the live stream and really felt it was a great update to investors.
Last year’s investor day was very much focused on entertainment value (Trevor Noah hosted the event) and it was way too “rah rah”, despite some really great business updates being buried within.
This year, they wisely cut back on the celebrity host and got right to the nuts and bolts of what an investor needs to understand. Everything was much better presented this year.
Management’s expectations presented are quite a bit more positive/aggressive than what I’ve modeled for them, and I already believe the company is significantly undervalued compared to my own estimates, so if they even come close to what management said to expect this month, I will be very happy. I realize NTNX isn’t a company this board focuses on so I won’t get into any of the details here, but the replay of the investor day is available on their investor relations web page if anyone is interested.
MongoDB
Earnings were released in early June. No massive surprises, just consistent steady performance and guidance. MDB is the company I own that I can foresee the longest tail of high growth ahead. It won’t surprise me if their growth doesn’t decline too much for the next 5 years (or more?). I still expect they will ultimately be a much bigger company than they are today and that’s why I continue to be comfortable holding a big stake in them despite what, even I feel, is a fairly frothy valuation now.
As noted above, it did get expensive enough where I felt that MDB was worth slightly trimming some of my shares to add to TDOC. The timing was good because last night they announced that they are doing an offering of 2.5 million additional shares, which will raise close to a billion dollars, which caused the price to fall about 5% today. They used the standard line that the funds will be used “for general purposes”. Certainly they aren’t having any liquidity crunch, but I have no problem with them raising some money when times are good and they feel that they are getting at least fair value for the new shares. This is a company that I expect will put that money to good use that will ultimately reward the shareholders in the long term.
Docusign
This one gets plenty of coverage here. I probably sound like a broken record, but I’ll repeat the same thoughts I’ve said in the past. They’re the leader in e-signatures which is still growing at a nice rate. Still lots of room to expand internationally with e-signature. And then I believe agreement cloud will ultimately be a big deal for them too.
I noticed today when putting together my monthly summary that my biggest lot of Docusign shares, originally bought in August 2019, are now up more than +520% ($44.73 cost) in less than two years. Not a bad run, but I still feel the company has a long way to go!
The Trade Desk
My latest thoughts on TTD were already pretty well covered in my post upboard in the TTD thread relating to Google’s cookies announcement. Their growth should be close to +100% this quarter, albeit that’s against the weakest pandemic impacted Q2 2020 last year. Advertising might come back a little slower than I would have expected a few months ago(in line with my lower expectations for overall U.S. economy comeback which prompted me to sell my LSPD shares in May) but regardless I feel that TTD is in a leadership position in what will grow to a huge market, and they’re led by an incredible CEO.
Teladoc
For me, it was an easy decision to double my stake in TDOC this month when other stocks rose and this one was still around $150 per share in mid June. I simply think the valuation is way too low because the market underestimates the extent that Teladoc will succeed against competition and underestimates their ability to leverage the Livongo acquisition. Telehealth obviously isn’t going away and I believe Teladoc will be very successful. Once the integration is further along this time next year, I believe today’s TDOC price will look like a gift, in retrospect.
Smartsheets
Just a really good company that continues to fly under the radar. I’m not sure what it will take (beyond being acquired) to get the market to take notice of SMAR and move the stock price more significantly, but at the current valuation, with the way they’ve performed in the past, and pretty conservative expectations, I’m pretty happy holding on and seeing how it plays out. However, this won’t be one that I would add very much to, unless the price gets beaten up much further without good reason.
Avalara (Watchlist Bonus Track)
Although I’ve never owned it, one company that caught my eye as I updated my spreadsheet this month is Avalara (AVLR). I believe they were first brought to the board a year or so ago, but they’ve been an afterthought for me because, although I know and quite love their (albeit boring) business model (they help automate sales tax compliance and related local taxes for companies), they seemed too expensive valuation-wise compared to their growth when I first looked at them.
A year or so later, and the stock has had a nice run, but I actually think it’s more reasonably priced now, despite the higher stock price, given their growth in recent periods and with some conservative expectations.
Revenue growth is accelerating:
+28% Q2’20
+30% Q3’20
+35% Q4’20
+38% Q1’21
And they’ve guided for +33% next quarter, which with a decent beat, could continue the acceleration further. I haven’t dug into them much further. Right now, I’d say I’m still unlikely to buy any shares anytime soon. If I had more free funds available, I’d be more likely to continue to add to my Teladoc stake than initiate an AVLR position, but I’m keeping my eye on them, and might take a try out position at some point. This may wind up being a company I regret not owning. I’ll have to look into them some more when I have some time.
So yeah, great month. And I expect we’ve got a lot more great ones coming in the future. I believe most all of the companies I own don’t release earnings again until August, except for Teladoc which will be at the very end of July, so this may be a fairly unexciting month before the next storm of quarterly results.
Everyone have a great July, stay safe, and thanks, as always, to Saul and everyone else for keeping this incredible board so educational and informative
-mekong