mekong's belated April update

I’m late to the April portfolio update game. mekong moved from NYC to South Florida in the past few days (Goodbye 9% of my income going to state and local taxes and super-high cost of living!..Hello palm trees, sunshine, and good vibes!)

So as a recap of Jan-Mar, my portfolio was hit harder than many here due to holding more exposure to call options, and a decent stake in KMI, a natural gas pipeline operator that has been hammered during this pandemic and economic downturn. I also don’t own any ZM, so I haven’t been riding that wave this year.

However, it April, my portolio was up about +25% from the end of March, so I made up all of my losses for the year so far and finished just barely over break even year to date. Considering the pandemic, and some of my holdings that were overexposed to the situation, I can’t complain at all about being in the green while many investors are down a lot this year, although of course many of you on this board are having much more success in 2020 so far.

Here’s the monthly summary:


End of Jan 	+15.5%
End of Feb	+ 7.0%
End of Mar      -20.0%
End of Apr       +0.6%

Although many of my stocks did well this month, my portfolio was led by everyone’s favorite company, Nutanix! :smiley: NTNX was up about 30% in April, and given that I own mostly calls in NTNX, my stake increased by even more than that. The stock slid back slightly at the beginning of May, but they pre-announced earnings two days ago and the stock popped 17% yesterday and is up another few percent today. I know most folks here don’t like hearing me talk about the company, but they have quite literally hit or exceeded everything management said they would for several quarters in a row and even exceeded expectations while the pandemic started at the end of last quarter. Now they did withdraw guidance for the rest of the year (as most companies have) and furloughed some staff (wise move imo given that new deals are surely slowing in this environment), but I still see the company worth significantly more than what it trades at today and they really play well into the work from home environment with their virtual desktop services, as well as DaaS (desktop as a service) offerings.

So far one week into May, my portfolio is up just under +5% so far this month, so things continue to move in the right direction.

Here’s my portfolio breakdown for April 30th, with last month and Year-end comparisons:


	12/31/2019	3/31/2020	4/30/2020
AMZN	  18.3%	          24.1%	          24.0%
AYX	  12.3%	          19.1%	          19.3%
MDB	  15.0%	          18.2%	          17.5%
TTD	  18.5%	           8.4%	           8.9%
NTNX 	   6.9%	           5.0%	           7.3%
KMI	  11.7%	           7.8%	           5.7%
DOCU	   3.5%	           5.9%	           5.5%
DDOG	   2.1%	           4.4%	           4.3%
OKTA	   4.9%	           3.8%	           3.7%
CRWD	   2.3%	           1.9%	           2.1%
ESTC	   1.7%	           0.7%	           1.1%
GH 	    -              0.6%	           0.5%
SMAR	   1.0%	             -               -	
ZS	   1.5%	             -               -	
ZM 	   0.4%	             -               -

So most of my holdings drifted up together this month, with KMI continuing to go in the wrong direction, and NTNX and ESTC growing into bigger proportions of the portfolio. I didn’t have many transactions last month, although I sold a small amount of my KMI and DDOG and used the proceeds to buy more NTNX in the $15’s and $16’s, when I though it was really too cheap, which has, so far, gone well since NTNX is over $21 already, just a few weeks later. Glad I haven’t sold any AMZN so far this year as they are obviously prospering in this environment, and I would pay a ton of taxes on any Amazon sales since most of my shares have cost basis in the $300’s per share.

Believe it or not, it looks like my worst mistake of 2020 so far appears to be selling half of my TTD when it was lower and using much of the proceeds to buy AYX, early in the year. Since then TTD has shot up and AYX has only increased slightly. I’m glad I did hold onto as much Trade Desk as I did. I had said at the time that I love the company and hope to be able to buy back in to build that stake back up, but was nervous about them in the short term. Since then, the stock is up more than $100 per share, so not looking like a great move on my part. They report results later today, so will be interesting to see if they are being more impacted by decreases in advertising due to the overall economy, or if they are prospering by everyone staying at home and watching on demand connected TV on ad supported services.

I’m going to keep it short this month because I have dozens of moving boxes to open up and go through, and some furniture shopping to do, but I hope everyone has still been safe and your families are all doing ok. With some luck, this current situation will be far behind us soon, and something we tell our children and grandchildren about sometime that sounds so foreign to them, like something out of a bad movie.

Good luck everyone, here’s hoping the spring and summer moves things in a positive direction!

mekong

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Congratulations on your result mekong. I know they’re under the results reported by other superstars on the board, but I think its really important to note your success.

Dow Jones and S&P are way below your results, so you’re outperforming all the people who’ve invested in those indexes (which I’m guessing is a large large number).

NTNX is a company I struggle with. It’s just fundamentally confusing to me (even though I’m a super tech-geek). Their results … seem to be all over the place, an enormous number of products (now security?), some success with some products, not with others. Some big multi-million wins indicating massive value, vs minuscule growth rates. Massive GAAP expense growth, and share count growth. And the interminable spectre of “transition to a subscription-based model”. And $900m in the bank!

Way too many moving parts for me, but congratulations on your results and fortitude!

really appreciate your updates and analysis, and best of luck emptying all of the boxes.

cheers
Greg

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