Hello.
Returns
I am up 14.03% YTD through October. I am down 4.22% over the past 12 months, 11.32% over the past 3 years and I’m up just 2% cumulatively over the past 10 years. Yes, I missed a massive, multi-year bull market and am still kicking myself over it. I honestly think I’m getting better at investing, but there was lots of room for improvement and I’m still a real novice.
Allocations
The allocations below are not precise. I have lots of options which distort things. I have also been buying a few puts on some stocks. Maybe 1% of my portfolio is in puts. I won’t discuss it other than to say it has affected the returns slightly. Mainly I just own them so I can feel less miserable when everything goes down. 
Pagaya (PGY) 20%
If you have never heard of Pagaya, look through some of my old posts and you’ll find some useful links.
I rode this stock all the way from $1.20 (when I first posted about it) to above $3 for a glorious day in August and all the way back down to $1.08. I sold a few shares–less than 1%–in the $2.90s, but I have kept adding all the way down because from what I can see they are doing everything right. They keep signing new partners announcing impressive new hires and closing new deals. They have gotten punished as they are an Israeli company and because of rising interest rates, but I think they will prove less interest rate sensitive than the market thinks for two reasons.
- The decline in lending by banks makes Pagaya more attractive because it allows the banks to offload risk by securitizing their loans and selling them on Pagaya’s platform. I may be slightly wrong here but I am mostly right.
- No one talks about Pagaya’s moves in the rental market. They bought a company called Darwin Homes which manages rental properties. This should benefit in times like these when high mortgage rates make it difficult to buy a home and force many prospective homebuyers to remain renters.
They will release earnings tomorrow morning.
SOFI 17%
Here’s another company that is doing everything right but which the market seems to hate. It is also a bank, and bank stocks generally have have a rough year. But they keep delivering impressive growth quarter after quarter.
SMCI 13%
This is still the best way I know to bet on AI, aside from NVDIA. I am a bit out of my comfort zone here and I will probably scale back this allocation if we see another big rally in the stock.
CRWD 7%
I don’t really know what I’m doing here, but it has been consistent.
IOT 5%
It seems to jump after earnings and then fade.
TTD 5%
I feel pretty comfortable owning this stock, and adding every time it goes down. They seem to deliver quarter after quarter.
ZS 3%
I’m a bit less sure about this one than I am about CRWD, but I don’t know that I have a really good explanation for why. I have a vague sense that CRWD has a better CEO and that earnings and the stock are a bit less volatile.
These names below are all 2% or lower. In descending order of size. I know: way too many names. I can’t seem to cure myself of doing this.
PSTG ,NVDA, AXON, UPST, MNDY, GLBE, INBP, LW, NTNX, LMND, MSFT, LLY, CPNG, IQV, SHOP, PATH, TSLA, RACE, VASO, MRVL, TSM, HSON, CELH, ELF, SEAC
Thanks for reading as always and I welcome your comments and questions.