The final month of the year is always a great time to reflect and appreciate the forest for the trees. This is the 3rd straight year that my portfolio peaked between July and September, and so it can leave a sour taste through the back half of the year, so I enjoy the exercise of zooming out, which shows a very different picture than the day to day. Overall I was up 89%, although about half of that performance came from long call options. I feel ok about this, despite it being counter to the Saul approach. I am still growing as an investor and I’m using my options to support high confidence positions, testing and learning my own way. It certainly panned out for me in the front half of the year, and did not in the back half of the year, and I certainly learned a lot. But that’s all off-topic.
This year I held 28 stocks throughout the year. 6 of my current 12 companies have been held the entire year: NBIS (+159%), PGY (+132%), APP (+83%), ALAB (+66%), NVDA (56%) and UPST (-32%).
Pretty positive results for what I can probably consider the cornerstones of my portfolio, with UPST an obvious outlier. UPST’s stock price performance flies completely in the face of its company performance which showed accelerating revenue growth (now at 71% YoY against 20% in Q3 last year) and positive/growing Adj. Net Income for the first time since 2022. Yet they continued to take R&D loans onto their balance sheet which always spooks the market. How that progresses will likely dictate how the next 12 months go.
In reflecting on the year I wanted to take a look back at what I posted in January 2024 in terms of my overall approach to investing and see what’s changed this year. Here is what I posted:
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Find trends I believe in
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Follow the growth numbers
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Don’t assume I know more than what the numbers are showing.
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Take some chances on potential short term catalysts
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Don’t get emotionally attached or price anchor. Just cut bait when it’s not adding up.
I would say I’ve generally followed this, although I’ve probably focused more on the numbers than trends/tailwinds at this point, partially because the current news cycle makes identifying tailwinds complicated. Over the past 12 months, here’s a few of the factors that have entered my decision making:
Consider Net Income/EBITDA alongside Revenue, focus on profitable companies.
This I really took away from WPR’s posts and results in 2024, and I will continue down this path, especially given the constant volatility.
Assess companies based on a combination of growth and valuation.
This one I am torn on. I have quite a few companies that are growing fast and are very undervalued based on EV/Sales and EV/EBITDA metrics, and yet they rarely see the type of news, momentum and volume that other quite highly valued companies do. On one hand, this represents an opportunity for huge price movements especially around earnings, but as another poster pointed out earlier this year (can’t remember who), valuation may be more of a market reality than a mistake waiting to be rectified. And I have noticed given the timing of certain earnings reports, many of my companies tend to report after Big Tech and other important companies which can cast a long shadow over earnings for many of my companies. This proved debilitating over the last 4 months of the year, with such a negative view of overinvestment in AI and high valuation of the market overall (not sure that holds water but it’s certainly in the news a lot). So, I may need to evolve this approach overall.
Find balance between decisiveness and patience
In the past I have eliminated positions based on a single earnings report, only to see in the next report that it was a single quarter issue. I now have adjusted and created an earnings ratings system and trend sheet in excel, where I can look at how consistently the companies are reporting. I’ve made a mental commitment not to sell out of companies based on a single report, but rather adjust them up or down an portfolio tier based on the trend. I imagine there will still be some red flag reports here and there, but overall I’m liking this approach so far.
Consider momentum
Most recently, I’ve been thinking about momentum as an X-Factor of sorts. My imperfect memory recalls that in Saul’s Knowledgebase he said he typically buys companies whose stock is rising, rather than looking for value or necessarily a hidden gem. Positive momentum, news, etc seems to be really important now and I’m not sure if or when that will change in the modern world. I’m certainly NOT saying that the story is more important, but that the positive news and momentum behind a company could become a tiebreaker. A good example of this was my decision to invest in Robinhood, whom I’d been thinking about for multiple quarters. Given the conversation around retail investors, prediction markets, and other expanding product lines, I finally dove in. If results pan out, I’ll expand my position and perhaps swap out a stock that looks stagnant.
Onto 2026. My goal is to hit 50%+, but anything better than my 401ks are a success as far as I’m concerned.
I’m eternally grateful to Saul, the OG board members, and the constant contributors for the free education these last few years. It’s a life-changer.
My lifetime performance looks like this:
2018: -39% (very small Q4 investment)
2019: +77.54%
2020: +127.35%
2021: -28.97% (found this board in Fall 2021)
2022: -68.51%
2023: +71.10%
2024: +69.77%
2025: +88.58% (includes options)
My final year looks like this:
JAN: -2.42%
FEB: -1.15%
MAR: -20.60%
APR: +7.91%
MAY: +24.92
JUN: +11.48%
JUL: +17.66%
AUG**:** +12.85%
SEP: +19.52%
OCT: -0.32%
NOV: -15.32%
DEC: -4.18%
YTD: +41.88% (excludes options)
My portfolio looks like this:
