Saul’s Portfolio at the end of May 2024.
MY RESULTS MONTH BY MONTH FOR 2024
Here’s a table of the monthly year-to-date progress of my portfolio for 2024. I’ll present them as starting from 100% of my starting value and figure from there.
After the huge February gains, March was a calmer month, we had a smallish pullback in April, and a smaller still bounce back in May. In addition, I made more changes in my portfolio this month but not a lot.
End of Dec 100.0% starting point
End of Jan 101.7%
End of Feb 125.4
End of Mar 127.2
End of Apr 117.4
End of May 121.7
Looking at the Feb close of 125.4 and May close of 121.7, you might think it’s been a very quiet three months, but actually the week ending on Mar 22nd the portfolio closed at 131.3, and four weeks later on Apr 19th it was down to 106.8, then May 24th it was at 130.1, and as you know, a week later we closed May at 121.7 (up 4.3 points from Aprils close of 117.4)
Here’s what my postions looked like a month ago (end of Apr):
Axon 18.7%
ELF 17.9%
Celsius 17.6%
Samsara 16.5%
Crowdstrike 7.1%
Monday 7.1%
Nvidia 5.6%
Nu Holdings 2.9%
And here’s what they look like now, at the end of May:
ELF 20.9%
Axon 16.6%
Celsius 16.5%
Samsara 13.9%
Nvidia 10.5%
Crowdstrike 7.5%
Monday 4.4%
Nu Holdings 4.4%
As you can see, it’s the same eight positions, and the top four are the same although the order changes from day to day, depending on the market action. However, you can see several changes.
First, I had bought back a smallish position in Nvidia in April, and in May I enlarged it, even if I don’t understand all the techie terms. I decided to pay attention to results (as I normally do), instead of worrying about not understanding its technology. Its quarterly results announced this month were fantastic. For example revenue up 262% yoy and up 17.6% sequentially. However it is important to remember that that year-over-year revenue growth will be dropping rapidly as they lap the beginning of their rapid growth a little over a year ago. What’s important to watch is sequential growth. If they can keep up the 17.6% for four quarters they will end up with about 91% yoy revenue growth for the year. They also announced a 10-for-1 split to take place on June 7th. That will bring the share price from the $1000 per share range to $100 per share range, where it will be more accessible to smaller investors.
Monday changed from a 16% position into a 7% position in April, largely because I trimmed it down. I used to have a great deal of confidence in Monday, but in May, after some hesitation and seesawing, I trimmed it further. Why? Because they keep talking about how great their new products are, and how well they are being taken up, and about all the new large customers they are getting, but each quarter revenue just grows by the roughly $13-$14M sequentially. It has grown revenue by about the same number of dollars each quarter for roughly eleven quarters, since mid-2021 ! Well a sequential revenue increase of $12.4 million was enormous 11 quarters ago, when the previous quarter was $71 million (up 17.5% sequentially), but up $14 million is piddling this quarter when the previous quarter was $203 million (up 6.9%). This is resulting in a hugely lower and lower percentage sequential growth, even though their product introduction has been very interesting. I’m not implying that management is exagerating. I just don’t see how revenue can be growing so slowly if what they say is true, so I decided to be happy with about a 4.5% position for now, and I recognize that it may be a mistake, but I had other places I preferred to put the money. [Granted, next quarter revenue may be up a little more because of a price rise, but that’s a one time deal.]
ELF also had astoundingly good results and has grown into my largest position. In the board thread on ELF’s results I warned against paying any attention to their comically low guidance. After all they grew revenue by 71% yoy, and grew it sequentially by 18.5%, and then forecast revenue growth for the year at 20% to 22%!!! It’s as if they were saying “Okay, you guys are insisting that we give estimates, so here are some silly ones. If you take such a ridiculous estimate seriously, that’s your problem!” Oh, and their adj EBITDA grew 93% yoy, and gross margins were 71%, an incredible number for a company selling physical products. And they are hugely taking market share from everyone else.
Axon is a 2% smaller position than it was a month ago, basically because the other three large positions grew while Axon’s stock was taking a siesta and descended a small amount each week. They still seem very steady to me. Their revenue was up 34% in the Mar quarter after having dropped back to up 28% yoy in their Dec quarter, and it was up 6.7% sequentially after being up only 2.0% this same quarter last year. And their adj EBITDA was a record and up 67% yoy. Their Cloud and Services Revenue (recurring revenue) was up 52% and their Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) was also up 52%. They are doing fine.
Nu had a great quarter. For a couple of figures: Adj Net Income was $443M, up 136% yoy (more than doubling) from $188M a year ago, and up 11.9% from $396M sequentially**.** Revenue was $2.7B, up 64% yoy. Monthly average revenue per active customer of $11.4 rose from $10.6 sequentially and from $8.6 yoy. The monthly average cost to serve an active customer held stable at $0.9. (They estimate the cost for most incumbent banks to be about $6.00, and they are at 90 cents). Gross Profit: $1.18B, up 76% yoy (Foreign Exchange Neutral). Gross Profit Margin stood at 43.2%, up from 40.2% a year ago…. With incredible results like that I can’t turn down a position, even if it is a bank in Latin America.
And I did add to my Crowdstrike position in April and it’s now 7.5%.
I didn’t particularly either add to or trim my Celcius and Samsara positions. I’ll write more about them next month.
And I did continue to take out small amounts of cash into my permanent non-investing position that I referred to as my permanent safety fund below.
IF YOU ARE WONDERING HOW MY STYLE OF INVESTING DOES LONG TERM
If you are wondering how my style of investing does long term, here are the last seven years and five months, starting with 2017, when we started investing in SaaS companies.
**2017 84.2%
**2018 71.4%
**2019 28.4%
**2020 233.3%
**2021 39.6%
**2022 -68.4%
**2023 26.7%
And first five months of 2024 +21.7%
That compounds to 919% of what I started with in seven years and five months, more than 9 times what I started with, even including the horrible 2022 sell off.
Okay, let’s look at a longer time frame. How about the last 31 years, going back to 1993 when I started seriously keeping track every week. If there is no sign on the yearly results it means that the total portfolio was up that much percent for the year. In other words, 21.4% means up 21.4% and 115.5% means up 115% (more than doubling, not up 15.5%).
**1993: 21.4%
**1994: 15.4%
**1995: 43.4%
**1996: 29.4%
**1997: 17.4%
**1998: 4.9%
**1999: 115.5%
**2000: 19.4%
**2001: 46.9%
**2002: 19.7%
**2003: 124.5%
**2004: 16.7%
**2005: 15.6%
**2006: 8.6%
**2007: 22.5%
**2008: –62.5%
**2009: 110.7%
**2010: 0.3%
**2011: –14.5%
**2012: 23.0%
**2013: 51.0%
**2014: –9.8%
**2015: 16.0%
**2016: 2.5%
**2017 84.2%
**2018 71.4%
**2019 28.4%
**2020 233.3%
**2021 39.6%
**2022 -68.4%
**2023 26.7%
**2024 21.7% …(So far)
I’ll let you compound it for yourself. The compounded number is so large that I’m embarrassed to write it down.
If you aren’t sure how to compound, start with 1993, 1994, 1995, etc and then start with $1 or $100 (your choice) and then to multiply by 1.214 x 1.154 x 1.434 … etc. When you have a number like -62.5 in the crash of 2008 you multiply by 0.375 because you ended the year with 0.375 of what you started the year with.
If you started with $1 and you have a result like 9.75 it means that you have almost 10 times what you started with, and if you have a result like 137.5 it means you have more than 137 times what you started with. As you will see, it compounds to a lot more than that.
Please understand though that I don’t have all that money. I’ve been retired since June of 1996 (for about twenty-eight years) and my family has been living off my investing for all that time. That means renting and buying houses or apartments, all the family food, eating at restaurants, buying cars, taking airplane trips, and there was clothing for all of us, furniture, hotels, sending my daughter to college and grad school, medical bills, electricity bills, computers, home repairs, phone bills, the whole works, for twenty-seven and a half years.
What those numbers compound to is what I would have had if I could have left it all in to compound , but I took out money for our full expenses every year, as well as for emergency money set aside. Just for example, if that compounds currently to 200 times what I started with in 1996 when I retired, every single ten dollars that I took out for our family to live on in 1996 would mean two thousand dollars less I’d have now (200 times), and so on each year.
I have kept a permanent safety fund out of the market that I could live off for several years if necessary, and I feel everyone who does not have a secure regular source of income should do the same. I have gradually added to it over the last sevaral years, moving some funds gradually from my investing pool to my out-of-the-market pool. Given our advanced ages, my wife and I probably have enough to live for the rest of our lives with our out-of-the-market pool, with a little left over for our children. I add a little to our out-of-the-market pool almost every month.
I have learned long ago that sticking with great companies wins out in the end, and beats market timing, even though living through the 2021/2022 decline was very difficult.
FINISHING UP
Let me remind you first, that I have NO IDEA what our stocks will do next month. I’m terrible on predictions. But I know that the businesses of our companies will do just fine for the most part.
When I take a regular position in a stock, it’s always with the idea of holding it indefinitely, or as long as circumstances seem appropriate, and never with a price goal or with the idea of trying to make a few points and selling. I do, of course, eventually exit. Sometimes it’s after months, and sometimes after years, but I’m talking about what my intention is when I buy.
I do sometimes take a tiny position in a company to put it on my radar and get me to learn more about it. I’m not trying to trade it and make money on it, I’m just trying to decide if I want to keep it long term. If I later do decide that it’s not what I want, I sell it without hesitation, and I really don’t care whether I gain a dollar or lose one. I just sell out to put the money somewhere better. If I decide to keep it, I add to my position and build it into a regular position.
You should never try to just follow what I’m doing without making up your own mind about a stock . First of all, you may have a completely different financial picture than I have. Different age, different income, different assets, different debts, different expenses, different financial and family responsibilities, etc.
Besides, in these monthly summaries I’m giving you a static picture of where I am currently, but I may change my mind about a position during the month. In fact, I not infrequently do, and I make changes in the position. I usually don’t announce these changes until the end of the month, and if I’m busy or have some personal emergency I might not announce them even then. And besides, I sometimes make mistakes, even big ones! Don’t just follow me blindly! I’m an old guy and won’t be around forever. The key is to learn how to do this for yourself.
THE KNOWLEDGEBASE
Since I began in 1989, my entire portfolio has grown enormously. If you are new to the board and want to find out how I did it, and how you can try to do it yourself, I’d suggest you read the Knowledgebase , which is a compilation of my “words of wisdom”, and definitely worth reading, (a couple of times), if you haven’t yet. It’s on the panel to your right.
I hope this has been helpful.
Saul