Mekong22 May 2025 portfolio update

Investment Analysis Clubs Saul’s Investing Discussions
1

I’ve been travelling a lot so this is already a week since the end of the month, but I didn’t make many changes in June, so I’ll keep it brief

Here’s how things look cumulatively for 2025:

+3.1%  YTD Jan
-17.9% YTD Feb
-31.2% YTD Mar
-26.3% YTD Apr
-12.3% YTD May

My portfolio is still very concentrated, particularly with an outsized large position in Tesla.

Tesla gained about +22% in May, which, along with a more than +40% gain in TTD this month, drove the increase in my portfolio this month,

These were my positions at the end of last month, in April 4/30/25

Large/Oversized  (TSLA)  Tesla    
Medium           (MELI)  MercadoLibre
Medium           (CRSP)  Crispr Theraputics
Small            (TTD)   The Trade Desk

and this is what it looks like now at the end of May 5/31/25:

Large/Oversized  (TSLA)  Tesla    
Medium           (MELI)  MercadoLibre
Medium           (CRSP)  Crispr Theraputics
Small            (TTD)   The Trade Desk 
Small            (AMZN)  Amazon

It is a very concentrated portfolio, now down to only 5 companies which is small even for me, 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.

Note that a portion of my holdings includes December 2026, and June and December 2027 (TSLA) LEAP call options. I sold all of my remaining TTD calls this month when the stock price spiked up to almost $80/share after earnings.

One month after I sold out of Amazon in April, I bought back in a small AMZN position using the proceeds of some of my Trade Desk holdings when TTD popped after earnings

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. The company continues to reiterate that their robotaxi service is going to launch (on a small scale initially) in Austin this summer.

Company Updates

Not much to post regarding Company Updates. Tesla has been bouncing like a ping pong ball given what Elon has been doing and saying lately. To me, they are still positioned to be a leader in a couple of industries that I expect will be huge in coming years (auto autonomy and humanoid robotics), and I expect the news headlines of this past week will all be distant memories when we look back a few years from now.

Stock Performance

Here is the year to date performance of each of my current holdings. Also note that, if I invest in new companies that I didn’t own at the beginning of the year, this will only show the performance since I purchased them:

Dec 31 2024^ May 31 2025 YTD Gain
TSLA 403.84 346.46 -14.2%
TTD 117.53 75.22 -36.0%
MELI 1,700.44 2,563.29 +50.7%
CRSP 39.36 36.29 -7.8%
AMZN 204.79 205.01 +0.1%

^ For any companies I did not own prior to 2025 (AMZN), the “December 31st” numbers above are not their 12/31/24 prices, but the stock price of my initial, most significant purchases during 2025.

That’s it for this month.

Thanks as always to Saul and everyone else that makes this board so great!

-mekong

46 Likes
2

I don’t understand your confidence in Tesla. Musk has made himself into one of the most hated persons in the Western hemisphere - that can’t be good for business. The only thing that is keeping them ahead of the game in the US is the 100% tariff on Chinese EVs. BYD is outselling them in China. Chinese EVs (mostly BYD) are outselling Tesla in Germany, UK, France, Spain, Sweden, Portugal, Denmark and the Netherlands.

In addition the head of the Optimus project just quit. I don’t if he gave a reason for his departure.

I guess the energy business is still doing OK, but that doesn’t come close to supporting the stock price.

11 Likes
3

Hi brittlerock

That’s fair and I get that this company won’t be for everyone.

I guess my question in reply would be, “what company or companies do you think are going to be ahead of them in vehicle autonomy or humanoid robotics in the near future? Who is going to be able to manufacture and scale like they will be able to as things ramp?”

My opinion is that these are both going to be massive high margin industries and likely going to be winner take most (or a small group of winners taking most of the profit).

I have a hard time seeing Tesla not being one of those winners.

With robotaxi, IF (still a big “if” sure), they are offering a better ride share experience for a lower price than most competitors a year from now (I believe they will), a lot of people are going to want to pay less for more. Some won’t. Maybe lots won’t. But I bet lots will.

When it comes to humanoid robotics, they’ll almost exclusively be sold to corporations for factories for the first several years. If buying (or leasing or however Tesla offers the bots a few years from now) lowers costs and insurance, improves quality and safety and meaningfully increases profits, companies are going to get as many of them as fast as they can. Same goes for Tesla semi trucks (the new Nevada factory looks to be on pace for volume production next year). Both of these products will be sold to companies interested in the bottom line that won’t really care much whether the supplier company’s CEO is loved or hated, if purchasing the product is going to lead to outsized profits for your business.

I’m not investing in a consumer goods vehicle company. I’m investing in the future high margin, recurring revenue, technology company that I believe they will be in the not too distant future.

I could definitely be wrong. But for me the risk reward makes this the right place for a significant investment. For sure it’s a multi year story that will unfold over a long time. Big things can go wrong that would cause me to reevaluate my conviction but until something (eg a bad incident early after robotaxi launch) occurs, I’ll continue to monitor and follow their execution.

-mekong

32 Likes
4

Honestly, where I struggle with the humanoid robots for factories concept is just understanding what the advantage is. Manufacturing already tries to automate as much as possible by removing the human element- and an efficient manufacturing line would feature several purpose built robots designed for exactly the operation they perform. The human form is more of a jack of all trades, master of none situation- why would a manufacturing line use that over a more purpose built system?

12 Likes
5

I can’t answer the questions you posed as I haven’t really been keeping up with the developments in self driving cars and humanoid robots.

But, I do know that Baidu (sort of the Google of China) is pretty far along with self driving/driverless taxi technology. They have some level of service in several Chinese cities; Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and maybe some others. I don’t know what company makes the actual car. Baidu is not alone, there are two or three other chinese tech firms with large AI investments blazing the trail. The Chinese government is providing a lot of support for the development of this technology, just as they have for the development of BEVs.

I don’t know the current number of companies in China making BEVs, but less than a year ago there were over 70. Even though the government subsidies remain (so far as I know), a shakeout is already taking place. I am familiar with these developments in China because my wife is Chinese and I spend 2 - 3 months these every year. Will a Chinese company provide a robust service before Tesla - my guess is yes they will, but not in the US, just everywhere else.

As for humanoid robots, I know even less, but I am not so sure that there’s a large market. I worked at Boeing for 30 years. Though I was in IT, I spent most of those years working on systems in support of manufacturing. I spent considerable time on the factory floor (the factory in question was the one in Renton, WA where the 737 was assembled). To a lesser degree, I also spent time in Everette where the wide body planes (747, 767, 777, 787) were built.

Even though I retired in 2010, Boeing was already using “robots,” although I’m not sure you would call them robots. For example, while I was working at Boeing the brought in a machine that was used to automate riveting for the 737 wings (there’s hundreds of rivets in a wing). After the first machine, the factory floor was redesigned in order to make space for several more. Are those riveting machines robots? They replaced hundreds of man hours while improving the build quality. I would call them robots, though they were designed to perform one specific task.

IMO, which may not be worth a lot - after all, I’ve been away from a factory for a lot of years now, those machines are not generalized robots that can be trained to perform different tasks. But I think machines that are designed to perform a specific task are far more likely to be found in the factories of the world than humanoid robots that can be trained to perform multiple tasks. Humanoid robots are still limited in capability.

But, I don’t really have answers for your questions. Not my wheelhouse. But I think it’s clear, Tesla is a story stock per your own description of why you are invested in it. Saul discouraged investing in story stocks. Seems like you’ve got a lot of funds tied up in an investment that might, sometime in the future pay off. You might do better with those funds working for you in a stock that’s paying off today. By all means, keep a small percentage in Tesla just to keep it on your radar. I have a small investment in Red Cat. They make drones in support of military and commercial services. I think this company has promise. But my position is very small. If they really take off, I’ll have time to build the position. If they just kind of idle where they are, I’ve not a lot of lost opportunity tied up with them.

19 Likes
6

I may well be wrong when all is said and done but I would hardly say I’ve invested in Tesla as a story stock

The humanoid robot part probably falls under that category, as it is so early and still several years out from being a revenue and profit generator

But FSD, robotaxi, cybercab, semi truck, energy, I personally don’t think story stock (or “business lines”) is an accurate description. People are being driven by their Teslas autonomously tens of thousands of miles every day. And you can bet the version of FSD being used by “supervised” Tesla owners is not as advanced as the versions that Tesla is testing internally and indicative of the data they have for where (and when) it is heading.

It’s coming.

Waymo has shown it can be done. tesla has shown their camera only solution works. And Tesla can certainly manufacture and scale like nobody else. It’s like they say, with Tesla, the factory is really the product for most all of their businesses and even with elons other companies.

I invest in them not because I think the story is good but because I think the future is good, and very profitable, and I see Tesla being one of the, if not the leader, in multiple industries that will define what I think the future will be.

I would never tell anyone what they should or shouldn’t invest in. If you’re not following the company closely and you don’t believe they have the solutions or that the industries will be big or they won’t execute on where their focus is, then I wouldn’t recommend owning shares.

23 Likes
7

I expect they’re going to work long hours, nights, weekends, holidays, not require vacation or medical insurance or smoke breaks or sick days. They won’t sue the company for mistreatment or harassment. They won’t show up to work hungover or miss work for student teacher meetings or to care for sick kids or maternity/paternity leave. No payroll taxes, social security contributions, 401k matching.

There will be no threat of them quitting. Once one is trained, you can immediately upload that training to dozens, or hundreds, or thousands more with the press of a button and not require the time and cost to train and re train new hires, and the new ones will perform the job just like your most experienced, on day one.

I expect that, not too far in the future, you may get the benefits and work performance of 5, maybe 10 employees (or more) for the cost of one today. Let’s say a bot can work 12 hours a day (might be conservative), 7 days a week, that’s 84 hours a week, more than double a standard 40 hour workweek in the US. If the cost, including maintenance, electricity, etc is 25% of the cost of a full time worker (including everything noted above), you’ll be getting 8x to 9x as much for your budget as you are today with full time staff.

My guess is that the cost will one day be way less than 25% what a worker costs today, for at least double the output.

I’d say wait and see how Tesla is using them in their own factories in coming years and then decide what the prospects are. I’m sure the first several thousand humanoids that Tesla can manufacture to perform useful tasks will be kept for their own plants, so we’ll see.

25 Likes
8

If an assembly line does exactly the same thing year after year, then there are many functions where it might make sense to design and build special purpose machines for various parts of the line … although note the observation about the difficulty of automating the insertion of the wiring harness. But, if the requirements keep changing, then the general purpose human form may be more readily adaptable … and, it can use existing machines without robitics design for use by humans. While many steps might be more ideally done with a specific designed machine, creating that machine is very expensive and time consuming, especially if the requirements keep changing … as it is likely to do for a wiring harness, for example.

8 Likes
9

I initially had similar concerns. But, your observations actually point to the reason - that the factory floor had to be redesigned to accommodate the single/special purpose robots. With many operations originally designed from the get-go to be performed by humans, substituting humanoid robots would be straightforward, not requiring line disruption, at least to the same extent.

For high-volume needs, dedicated robotics designed for the specific tasks will continue to be best, but the market for robots that can be directly and easily substituted in for humans, including the ability to be software reprogrammed to new/different tasks will be huge, IMO.

I agree that Musk is the now the biggest risk for TSLA investors. People on both sides of the political spectrum have reasons for not just disliking him, but avoiding his companies’ products.

They mostly operate in different price tiers. Can’t compare Toyota Corolla volumes to Mercedes S-Class volumes, either. That said, Tesla’s sales have declined world-wide (down 2024 compared to 2023), and are on track to decline again this year - this in an EV market that is growing.

Musk made the mistakes of a) Putting too much new technology into the CyberTruck, resulting in years of delay, higher prices, and lower range; and b) Killing the cheaper “Model 2” vehicle project.

It’s hard to see Tesla regaining growth in EV sales, at least until it’s able to supply truly useful Level 3/Level 4 features. Yes, I know Mercedes has a “traffic jam assist” Level 3 feature, but its operational limitations are so great that it’s not useful in most situations for most people. And yes, it’s an open question as to when, much less if, Tesla will actually get there.

Tesla hasn’t made the right moves in, IMO. Amazon didn’t stop feeding its eCommerce business to develop AWS. Netflix actuallly did mess up its DVD business to concentrate on streaming, but luckily listened to its customers and reversed itself. Apple didn’t kill its iPod business until after the iPhone firmly established itself. It’s great that Musk saw the future for autonomy early, but with Tesla’s resources he didn’t have to stop pushing on advancing its existing business prematurely, especially as FSD has taken far far longer than he expected.

Tesla still has the hype factor. Just a day or two ago, someone shot a 9 second video of an empty Tesla robotaxi making a turn and stopping for pedestrians in Austin that went viral. Which is somewhat odd considering Waymos have been doing that for literally years in multiple cities.

Waymo has a technical autonomy solution that works. And that would be great, except for two things: a) The expansion of their coverage has been remarkably slow, b) They charge more than Uber in the same cities (San Francisco, for instance). Maybe the cost differential is just Waymo taking advantage of the cost/demand curve and will subside, but Waymo has recently bought the entire Jaguar I-Pace assembly line and is relocating it to Arizona. The idea is to build in its many sensors during assembly rather than retro-fitting, which is more costly, later. However, they only plan to build 2000 vehicles within the next 18 months.

Even Tesla’s existing Model Y vehicles cost less to build than I-Paces with the sensors, and the new CyberCab is promised to cost even less. Tesla bulls expect a lower capital cost combined with probable/possible lower operating costs combined with a faster expansion rate to have Tesla win out over Waymo. But, that’s pretty speculative at this point. Waymo has “Remote Operators” that can do things like suggest driving paths for the vehicle to get them unstuck, but we’ve also seen videos where they dispatch a human driver to take over at times. Tesla also has been hiring similar remote operators. So, a cost factor there could be how many vehicles one remote operator can supervise at any time, and we have no idea how efficient either of these companies are at this time.

In China, as pointed out above, Baidu is also providing robotaxi service, claiming 11 million rides from 1,000 driverless vehicles in 15 cities in China.

In its early days, while Tesla was pushing EV technology and manufacturing scalability, other OEMs worldwide, with the exception of China, were almost stagnant. That gave Tesla a huge advantage. However, the competition for autonomy and robotics is much more aware and smarter, so Tesla has its work cut out for it, and Musks antics aren’t helping.

18 Likes
10

@smorgasboard Agree with almost everything in that post. I live in Los Angeles, Waymos are cheaper than Uber or Lyft every time I’ve checked, so it must depend on the market. The rollout is definitely more measured, which I would argue could be seen as a boon with portions of the market that are more cautious about AVs - which is the majority of the population. Personally, I wouldn’t trust jumping in a driverless Tesla like I do with Waymo, I just don’t trust them now like I did a couple of years ago. I could definitely imagine a large portion of the population would trust a more cautious AV company vs. one who might be pretty desperate right now.

That being said, it is a slower rollout. You mentioned the Jaguars. I’m curious if you know anything about the other vehicles they are testing? In LA, I’ve seen Waymo vans being tested, but they aren’t available to ride yet.

3 Likes
11

Smorg, that’s quite the reply . . .
I agree with a lot, most of what you wrote. One niggle, there’s no way Boeing would have put humanoid robots to work on the wing riveting line. The dedicated machine was able to drill, chamfer, place, buck, set and flush virtually all the rivets required for a wing in one operation. There’s insufficient physical space for humanoid robots to simultaneously perform those operations, plus you would need two humanoid robots on every rivet (one to set and one to buck). But OK, I get your point, the wing rivet machine is just not a good example.

And there’s the fact that the head of the Optimus development project just left Tesla after being given the title (and presumably the pay package) of Vice President just last year. He gave the “I want to spend more time with my family” reason for his departure. Yeah, right. Any way you slice it, that can’t be good for the project.

As for comparing BYD with Tesla being a mismatch - I dunno. I’ve been a passenger in both vehicles (no, I don’t know which models), from the perspective of someone along for the ride, Tesla wasn’t really any more comfortable, luxurious or whatever you want to use for comparison than the BYD. I’ll admit, I wasn’t making a point of comparing the vehicles at the time. In fact, when I rode in the Tesla I had only heard of BYD as a Chinese car manufacturer, I hadn’t any idea that they were in the autonomous driver race. BTW, in case you didn’t know, BYD is an acronym for the English phrase, Build Your Dream. Buffet was one of their early investors though I think Berkshire has sold all of their positions in Chinese firms.

I don’t want to belabor this any further. The Tesla believers will continue believing and tie up a fair percentage of their portfolios for that big payoff that’s just around the corner - and the corner isn’t too far in the future. As for me, I think I’ve got more promising options for my funds. I admit, I could be wrong. If I really, absolutely knew the fate of Tesla I would be invested in it, short or long depending.

5 Likes
12

Actually there something in this.

I have been in a Waymo - with no hesitation and it was amazing.

I have also been in Teslas in UK and in Asia. Given how Tesla practically abandoned Tesla Autopilot to push for FSD and my experience of how pathetic a Tesla on Autopilot was at navigating a straight road with stationary parked cars and visible road signage (in UK), I don’t think I would have confidence in Tesla FSD given you couldn’t leave a Tesla to drive without interventions every couple of seconds. Honestly I’ve experienced better cruise control and lane control vehicles. Perhaps Autopilot and FSD might perform better in the US where much of its training miles have been conducted but there’s no way I’d trust it internationally. I would be much more likely to trust Waymo or even BYD than Tesla internationally.

Ant

14 Likes
13

Depending on when you are referring to, I believe FSD and Autopilot were on a totally separate code base and Autopilot was clearly the neglected child. Likewise, FSD has had some dramatic improvements not too long ago and, while some people are now impatient for yet more improvements, that leap was apparently quite dramatic.

7 Likes
14

Hi Tamhas - interesting. My Tesla rides with autopilot were about 9 months ago.
Regards
Ant

1 Like
15

I would encourage people to take a test drive in a Tesla and experience the current iteration of FSD yourself. I did, and it blew my mind and I bought more TSLA. The descriptions I am reading in this thread are not accurate for what I experienced. I have read tweets from trusted sources talking about using FSD for 5 hour long road trips in urban areas and highways and having zero interventions - try doing that in a Waymo and you won’t get 10 miles before you are outside of its restricted zone.

If autonomous works for cars, it will eventually work for semis - huge market. I believe Tesla will eventually merge with XAI - I can not predict what that will do in the short term to the stock price, but long term it would create an even larger and more powerful juggernaut. Grok will be integrated with the vehicles - I don’t know what all the uses will be, but there is optionality there. Other car makers will license the FSD software from Tesla and part of the license will probably mandate that they also use Grok - recurring revenue stream. Tesla owns most of the charging infrastructure and I expect it to expand further for semi charging - more recurring revenue. Yes, some people hate Musk but I think it’s a small % of the overall population, and I also think that people have short memories and in a year most people will have moved on.

33 Likes
16

I know nothing about autonomous driving or software or technology. But as a person who’s driven for many years, on the highway and off of it, I know that driving on the highway is extremely less complex than driving on surface streets with other traffic and traffic signals and stop signs and roundabouts and that sort of thing.

Long story short, if autonomous driving can handle off-highway driving, then highway driving, like for semi trucks, is extremely less complex.

1 Like
17

You’re right that highway driving is less complex than urban driving.

However:

  • The speeds are higher, so reaction time is often shorter.
  • Distances needing to be perceived are greater, which affects both LiDAR and cameras: LiDARs have a limited range (and be careful trusting the “maximum range” listed as that is object reflectivity dependent, as well as needing a confidence percentage threshold agreement), and with cameras objects get smaller the further away they are.
  • The stakes are higher: low speed fender benders aren’t as serious as high speed crashes.

Tesla started out with AP on highways, then progressed to urban driving. Maymo started with urban and is progressing to highways. Teslas only have cameras, so they have one set of sensor issues with which to deal and can’t use other sensors which may be better in certain situations; Waymos have a variety of sensors but then they have to determine how to “fuse” what they’re detecting to match, which will vary under different circumstances.

In short, it’s hard to say which path to completion will be faster or produce better results without seeing the internal data each company has.

7 Likes