September was a good month for my portfolio, driven by the large holdings in Tesla (+22% this month) and The Trade Desk (+10%)
I sold about 10% of my TTD holdings (3.5% of the total portfolio) and sold the last of my small SCMI and ZS stock.
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
My portfolio is still very concentrated, down to seven positions, and three, really mostly two now, of the companies I own make up the majority.
Tesla and Trade Desk have played leapfrog for the top spot of my port the past few months, with Tesla moving back to the top again, due mostly to the appreciation of the shares, in addition to my selling some of my TTD when it got up to $110.
This was my allocation at the end of last month 8/31/24
38.1% (TTD) The Trade Desk
35.1% (TSLA) Tesla
10.3% (MDB) MongoDB
3.9% (AMZN) Amazon
3.8% (MELI) MercadoLibre
3.5% (MSFT) Microsoft
2.6% (CRSP) Crispr Theraputics
1.8% (ZS) Zscaler
0.9% (SMCI) Super Micro
and here it is at the end of September, 2024 now:
42.2% (TSLA) Tesla
34.0% (TTD) The Trade Desk
8.7% (MDB) MongoDB
4.9% (AMZN) Amazon
4.4% (MSFT) Microsoft
3.4% (MELI) MercadoLibre
2.3% (CRSP) Crispr Theraputics
Note that a portion of my TTD and TSLA holdings includes some 2026 Leap call options.
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 holdings pretty consistently for the past five years.
Despite selling 10% of the TTD shares I owned, Trade Desk increased slightly as a larger percentage of the portfolio
With the proceeds from the TTD, ZS, and SMCI sales, I added a bit to my Amazon and Microsoft holdings, and pulled some funds permanently out of the portfolio for other uses.
Trade Desk TTD - I mentioned last month, when TTD was my largest holding, that if the shares got up above $110 or $120, I would probably reduce it somewhat. That is what happened and I sold one-tenth of what I owned.
If it continues to move up to $115 or $120, I’ll likely trim a little more, although I am still optimistic that they could outperform expectations for Q3 and have pretty good guidance for Q4, so I don’t plan to do anything too drastic until we see the next earnings release (unless the shares really spiked up a whole lot beforehand)
Their next release should be right around election day so it will be interesting to see what is happening with the markets that week.
Last month I noted that I feel that TTD is probably one of the top candidates to be added to the S&P 500 index. Well they didn’t get added this quarter as Dell and Palantir were just announced to be added. There was MF article a few days later, also noting that TTD is a top candidate, and noting that it’s possible they held off on including Trade Desk this quarter so not to put three new tech stocks into the index all at once. It’s an interesting take that I hadn’t considered. Still could be a while before TTD goes into S&P500 (if it ever does), but I feel if they continue on the current trajectory, it is probably just a matter of time
Tesla TSLA - There will be no shortage of news from Tesla in October. We should get their Q3 deliveries numbers in the next couple of days, then they have their much hyped Robtaxi event on October 10th and we’ll get full Q3 earnings later on toward the end of the month.
Despite the big move in Tesla this month and it’s large portion of my total portfolio, I haven’t had an urge to sell any shares like I did with TTD. I just think the opportunities for Tesla in so many fields (auto, self driving, robotaxi, energy, robotics, semi trucks, microchips, insurance, etc) is so great that I’m willing to let it play out more right now, especially with all of the new information I expect we will be recieving in October. Of course, there is a certain point where, if the allocation gets too huge, I would feel the need to sell some and diversity, but as of today, I’m not at the point where I feel that way.
Some early indicators based on China registrations might suggest that Tesla’s Q3 numbers will exceed expectations and that could be what has driven the stock higher in September.
For the 10/10/24 robotaxi event next week (which CEO Elon Musk has posted that it will also include “other things” too), Tesla has rented the Warner Bros studio, most likely to demonstrate live, not only what the vehicle(s) will look like, but also to show what the experience will be like on a (fake) movie studio neighborhood of streets. I’m excited to see what unfolds during this event and whether it will be mostly hype or something more.
This week, Tesla just released the first version of their FSD Full self driving for Cybertrck (“supervised”, as with all Tesla FSD right now, which requires an attentive driver at the wheel even when the car is driving itself). Early reports on social media testing the system show that it is working very well, right from the intitial release.
“IF” (big if) Tesla is someday successful in licensing FSD to other auto brands, this gives me some comfort that they can adjust the system and test it on a brand new, very different shaped car in a pretty short amount of time, which would obviously be vital in getting other brands to sign on. Time will tell whether other brands want to license that system from a major competitor…it will probably ultimately come down to how much better Tesla’s FSD system is compared to the alternatives and what consumers expect from their vehicles in coming years in order for the other automakers to stay competitive.
Not much else to report on the other companies I own this month. I think this is the first time in a long time (years) that MDB has dipped to less than 10% of the portfolio (a year ago, it was 30% of my portfolio). I still like the company and their opportunities ahead, but just dont’ have as much confidence in them right now as I do in my two largest positions.
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, MSFT), this only shows the performance since I purchased them:
| Dec 31 2023^ | Sep 31 2024 | YTD Gain | |
|---|---|---|---|
| TTD | 71.96 | 109.65 | +52.4% |
| MDB | 408.85 | 270.35 | -33.9% |
| TSLA | 248.48 | 261.63 | +5.3% |
| MELI^ | 1,409.42^ | 2,051.96 | +45.6% |
| MSFT^ | 402.50^ | 430.3 | +6.9% |
| AMZN^ | 177.88^ | 186.33 | +4.8% |
| CRSP^ | 55.06^ | 46.98 | -14.7% |
^ Because I didn’t own MELI, CRSP, AMZN, MSFT 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.
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 +863%, while most of my MongoDB shares were purchased in July 2018 for $57.39 and are up +371% now.
That covers it for another month.
Thanks as always to Saul and everyone else that makes this board so great!
-mekong