Hi everyone!
I’ve been following this board for about 8 months, so seeing as this would be my first full year investing (mostly) the Saul way I figured I’d document my progress along with everyone else. I’d like to add that I appreciate all of the time, energy, and wisdom everyone brings to the board. This board is unique, and the level of information and insight is beyond most of the boards I’ve browsed. It was easy to identify this as a board to follow, and has become the only board I view daily.
Just some history about me and my investing…
I’m a chemical engineer working in process controls. I like to think myself capable in when it comes to tech, but nowhere near the level that some here can boast. I started a career later than some at 28, which is when I started investing in a 401k. I was only investing through a 401k for nearly 12 years before getting wise to the fact that a 401k had limited options in investments. In mid May last year, after looking into various portfolio managers, I decided it may be better to do it myself. I signed up for Stock Advisor and Rule Breakers, then started investing in individual companies.
I dove into the Fool way of doing things, and likely overthought too much. Before long I had investments with about 65 companies. It was too much, and I found myself wondering “why am I doing this?”. While I got the LTBH philosophy, it seemed too inflexible and allowed for much less opportunity. Around this time I stumbled upon Saul’s board and reading through the posts and knowledge base everything made much more sense. I won’t say I understand the technical details about analyzing companies as I’m still very much a novice, but the overall philosophy resonated with me. So towards the end of June I started concentrating my portfolio, and ended 2020 with 79.3% return and 19 companies. I will be reducing the number of companies invested this year to a more manageable number, but I don’t think it will be as small as Saul’s (or many others’) last year.
Since following Saul’s board, I’ve been mostly a lurker but have responded to a few posts where I felt I could contribute something.
This year…
So I haven’t made any moves this year, and there’s definitely plenty going on in the country and in the market. I am not including my 401k investments in these reports. So here’s how my portfolio looks:
**Company Allocation Performance**
Jan
TSLA 13.69% 8.74%
CRWD 11.67% 7.64%
TTD 9.64% -0.96%
SE 8.69% 10.53%
MELI 6.64% 8.51%
SQ 6.34% -2.35%
ZM 6.07% 3.36%
DOCU 4.99% 4.71%
NET 4.47% 2.78%
AAPL 4.43% 1.97%
DDOG 4.12% 12.63%
SHOP 4.1% 0.57%
TDOC 3.81% 31.5%
OKTA 3.62% 3.33%
SNOW 2.54% -2.08%
ETSY 2.32% 15.7%
FRPT 1.88% 0.82%
FSLY 0.76% 26.94%
U 0.07% 3.98%
Cash @ 0.15%
YTD Return @ 5.95% (it was a high of 12.1% before last week’s roller coaster)
The categories I’m lumping my investments in are as follows:
SaaS-ish
CRWD, ZM, DOCU, NET, DDOG, OKTA, SNOW, FSLY
There’s already plenty said of these companies, so I won’t repeat those that definitely said it better.
I jumped on ZM too late last year. I didn’t like the software (personally) so I avoided the investment. I think that is equivalent to letting emotions get in the way. The recent activity has been disappointing, and I did reduce it some with the deceleration news. I’m on the fence on reducing further, mostly because I regretted my huge reduction in FSLY afterwards and this feels like a similar story.
I kept a small position in FSLY from last year, and it is doing great. The position isn’t large enough to move the needle, so I have to decide if I want to get back in or get out completely. I’m on the fence, but leaning towards completely exiting. I was focusing on the tech vs business comparison with NET, and see similarities with U vs Unreal Engine, at least when it comes to arguments over which is the better investment.
I invested in SNOW not long after the IPO, and have been increasing my position when I could. I will be increasing more once I free up some money.
Diversify
TSLA, TTD, SE, MELI, SQ, AAPL, SHOP, TDOC
These are my positions to give a little diversification, as I’m not completely comfortable yet with a hyper-concentrated portfolio. I’ll ignore TSLA to abide by the rules of the board, and the others have also been covered plenty by other posts so I will again not repeat.
I’ve been mainly disappointed in SHOP, and honestly very unenthusiastic about it as a company. This is very likely a position I will exit soon.
TDOC, the stock, has been doing well this year but I’m still on the fence with TDOC the company. I had sold out of my original TDOC position and was happy with my investment in LVGO. I stayed in through the merger while many exited. I’m waiting for the next quarterly results to see which side of the fence I fall.
Tester
ETSY, FRPT, U
I’ve had “tester” positions in ETSY and FRPT for several months, and shortly after IPO for U. I never looked into these companies more. I’ll likely exit all 3 positions soon as I can’t muster any enthusiasm for any of them, though I will say that all 3 did very well for me last year.
Watchlist
Over the last several weeks I have been considering starting positions in ROKU and FUBO. ROKU has been written about a bit, and I think there is something to it. I had a decent position when I first got started, but exited to concentrate my portfolio which proved to be the wrong move. FUBO sounds like the Netflix of sports. I know several people that spend too much money on cable and DirecTV sports packages, and some only have those services because of the sports packages. With people switching to internet-based TV (myself included) both of these companies stand to profit from the large audience base.
-Griz