Tim's first portfolio update

Investment Analysis Clubs Saul’s Investing Discussions
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First of all, I thank god for finding this board. After decades with various MF subscriptions, it’s now really paying off big time :blush:.
I’ve been with this board from the days when Sketchers was the hottest stock and one of the very rare losing bets. I’m glad I kept following it and now I pretty much follow what this board invests in; I suspect many do.
I have premium access to all of MF’s portfolios, Bert’s newsletter, and a couple of other magazines (more for news content). I read most every post here but really jump when Saul, Bear, and a few others post. I also find it well worthwhile to follow the MF premium community board postings related to each of our stocks.

YTD my portfolio is up 18.82% to include 2/1/19. I ended 2018 up 23.68%. My 2018 high was 42.2%.

2017 & 2018 were big transition years slimming down on number of holdings and aligning myself to this board’s favorites. Now, already sitting close to my entire 2018 gain, I sure think about taking gains and being happy with what I have. But we have 11 months to go so I just trimmed a bit of TWLO & TTD, took some profits last week, bought other things (more below), and am hanging on for now.

My current holdings are:

Ticker	% (rounded)
AYX	18
TWLO	14
ZS	10
TTD	10
OKTA	9
NTNX	8
PAYC	5
MDB	5
SQ	4
ESTC	3
ZUO	2
DOCU	2
Cash	10

I do have a separate after-tax Schwab (OptionsExpress) account I trade a few options in but it’s small and I don’t count that information in the above. All together though, in 2018 I made 564 trades. All of this is in Regular and Roth IRA’s.
The number of trades is due to trading in and out of try-out stocks, transitioning from other holdings I’ve had (MA, V, BR, etc) in order to get more aligned with this board, following the board in and out of things (e.g. SHOP, LGIH, etc), and adding and subtracting to my holdings very slowly (i.e. 100 shares at a time).
At a cost of $5 a trade, I spent about $2,800 on trading in 2018 which I’m very ok with.

YTD, I’ve made 94 trades already. I know, seems excessive. I was in and out of ADBE, ABMD, STNE and others and getting back into MDB, ESTC, SQ, and NTNX. Again, a slow 100 shares at a time. I expect after our stocks ER’s, I’ll be banging away again, we’ll see.

Two notable sets of trades I made were related to MDB and ESTC. I was making great gains on both but sold and took gains when Saul got out of MDB and when Bear got out of ESTC. Later, as I read more info, I scrambled to get back into each and so far am glad I did. I would like to buy more ESTC but am very price-fixed on this and waiting for a pull back (I know, per the KB, I should not be).
Last week I trimmed TWLO from 19% down to 14% and TTD from 14% to 10%. The reason for trimming TWLO was just to take some profits before ER and I trimmed TTD down just to get closer to where Saul’s % holdings on this are. I’ve been very glad to have held a lot of both though.

I’ve been using some of that cash building larger positions in NTNX and SQ. All the discussions around AYX lately have my hair-trigger hands at the ready but so far have left it alone. Obviously, I’m very influenced by this board and why not, you board members have proven to be a very winning formula!
The one thing I’ve noticed is my surprisingly large gains in OKTA and the fact that after I bought it awhile back, I’ve never traded in and out of it. Should be a lesson-learned for me.

Wrapping up, many many thanks to all of you that contribute to this board. It is all extremely gratifying, educating, and so much appreciated.

Tim

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The reason for trimming TWLO was just to take some profits before ER and I trimmed TTD down just to get closer to where Saul’s % holdings on this are.

Hi Tim, thanks for posting your results and I hope you won’t mind a little commentary. You say you trimmed Twilio to take some profits before earnings. I, personally, don’t think that’s a good reason for selling a company that has the world by the tail. If you had said that you sold some because 19% was too large a position so you reduced by 2%, I’d have no argument with that at all, but that’s not the reason you gave.

As far as trimming TTD to get closer to where to my percent holdings were… Tim, what are you thinking? I’m not God! I make mistakes all the time. I got out of Mongo and it went straight up. I may build up TTD during the month and you wouldn’t know it. You really should decide allocations for yourself, and not based on how big my allocation is.

Best on your investments, though and thanks for posting.

Saul

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Thanks for the feedback Saul. The thing is, in those two situations, I know what I did is not what I should have done, but, it is what I did and I was being honest about it.
Those kind of actions are probably what drive a lot of my unnecessary trades.

Jack Bogle (Vanguard) said ‘Don’t just do something, sit there!’.

I need to do more sitting (especially on my hands).

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“I’ve never traded in and out of it. Should be a lesson-learned for me.”

SO true Tim, I have learned to trade less and it has really helped my results and sanity. I try to execute less than 4 trade’s per month as a rule of thumb. I have such an itchy trigger finger that disciplining myself to do this has not been easy. 1-2 trades per month would be ideal in my opinion, mostly just adding to my winners, and occasionally trimming from the number of companies I own, currently 14, with the occasional new try out position to offset the trimmed ones.

I try to add to my winners as soon as they get above 10% vs. the S&P 500, which seems to happen to at least 2 of the 14 stocks that are in my portfolio on a monthly basis. Thinking about that is another way of saying, wow, this high growth investing style, “Saulinian” if you will, has really been working for 2 of 14 to gain 10% better than the S&P 500 index every month.

Good luck to you as you and all our fellow Fools as we continue to self manage our portfolios.

Thanks to all of you for the wonderful board!

Foolingyou1

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Saul, I love your humility and candor in spite of your incredible success over the past 3 decades! Thank you! I was just commenting to our mutual friend, Chris, that I’m glad I had not exited MDB, as it had recovered incredibly in spite of (or regardless of) your decision to exit. My entrepreneur friends in Silicon Valley rave about MDB as an incredible alternative to the Oracle’s of the world; and their financial results and quarterly growth have not yet disappointed. If Amazon and other are targeting MDB’s solution, well, “plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery” and they have a ways to go to catch up, though I don’t think Amazon is playing in the same arena or necessarily targeting the same group, though of course I could be completely wrong… Amazon is one 800lb gorilla that likes to have their hands in everything. Regardless, thanks for keeping it real and for the continued brutal honesty…and humility. Cheers! -Victor

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