TracyK's portfolio at the end of July 2017

Investment Analysis Clubs Saul’s Investing Discussions
1

Greetings to my fellow travelers, seeking the wisdom of smart investing.

Like others, July was a great month for me.

This month
My portfolio +6.5%

YTD
My portfolio +23.1%

I took the friendly advice of Bear and GauchoChris, and tried to find ways to lighten my load of Netflix. Actually, this time - procrastination paid off! After their earnings announcement, NFLX is up 29% YTD. That merely delayed my thought process. I’m beginning to think that I should not only lighten NFLX: BRK/B, COST, and AAPL deserve another look as well. I think I’ll wait on Apple until after the iPhone 8 launches.

YTD Top 10 stocks - % growth
SHOP +80% (interesting note: I purchased SHOP in 4/2016 for $29.64 per share)
NVDA +60%
ANET +59%
ATVI +54%
PAYC +52%
VEEV +51%
ABMD +39%
SVXY +36%
XPO +34%
EPAM +10%

YTD Top 10 stocks - % of portfolio
NFLX 21.8%
BRK-B 6.7%
AAPL 6.4%
CASH 6.1%
GOOG/L 4.8%
MFA 3%
MELI 2.4%
VEEV 2.1%
COST 1.8%
BL 1.9%

I sold:
BWLD Why? Slowing growth. I owned this stock for 5+ years,and it’s time to move on.
DIS Why? Yes, it’s a story stock, but when I looked at my success in choosing fast growing companies in leading industries - it’s time to trust my outlook. The money is sitting in cash waiting for the next purchase
GNTX Why? It hasn’t done much over the last 12-18 months. Again, it’s time to trust my ability to invest in something with higher returns.
MDT Why? Same as GNTX

I bought:
BL (any company that can deliver accounting solutions via the cloud in a smart way deserves consideration)
BLUE (it’s a gene therapy company. After selling MDT and GNTX - I didn’t have exposure in broad medical space.)
RLGT (this is a small logistics company, and I work in this industry. I also own XPO Logistics, and XPO has been on a tear this year.).
TDOC (At one time, I worked for a company that sold mobile video teleconferencing in this space. This is a growing area and the solution is needed)

It’s so helpful to see how each of us listen, share, and chart his/her own path. If I can implement the advice that’s been shared - I can move my own results in a more positive direction. My thanks to all of you!

TracyK

19 Likes
2

Hi Tracy,
I like your portfolio list, I have a similar list actually. Just one comment and a not very important one but some might find it interesting.

I own GOOGL and I see you say you own GOOG/L. I assume that means you own some of each GOOG and GOOGL. for those who don’t know, Alphabet, formerly Google, split their stock a few years back and gave out one share of GOOG and one share of GOOGL for each share of GOOG. The only difference between the two is in voting rights where GOOGL has 10x the voting rights of the plain GOOG shares. Because of this benefit, you have to pay a bit more for each share of GOOGL. Now me, I don’t really care which I own because my shares aren’t enough to matter anyway, but I have noticed something interesting about the premium over time.

The premium, obviously set by the free market, changes over time, I have noticed it fluxuate between about $12-15 a share difference to up to $25-28 dollars a share. Probably because of an organization bug in my head, I didn’t like owning a few of each type so one time when the difference was small I sold the half of my shares that were the lower priced shares (GOOG) and bought the higher. Over time the difference would fluctuate to the larger end of the spectrum and I sold the higher priced and bought the lower priced shares.

I have done this a few times now, hasn’t made me a lot of money but essentially free cash at about $10 a share. But after this happened a few times, I noticed something else, when the stock was out of favor the range would get small and in favor, the range would get large. So the most recent few trades I have used this indicator to add shares so that when I sell the GOOG to buy GOOGL, i would add a few shares. So in effect, I made a little cash each time I bought and sold, and I added share s during relatively low prices… a win-win.

Just for reference, The range is at the low end now. I just recently switched to the higher priced shares and added a little to my position. I am sure the difference will swing again and I will trade back. For each trade, I make some cash, essentially don’t pay any commissions (because of the arbitrage on share prices) and have usually found good buying points to add some shares…

So as I said, not big here but something I have found that is both entertaining, profitable, and essentially no risk (over owning google in the first place).

Randy
Long GOOGL

11 Likes
3

Tracy, do you still own SHOP, NVDA, and ANET? I don’t see them listed in the stocks you sold, but I also don’t see them listed in your current holdings. I’m assuming that if you still hold them, they are a very small percentage of your portfolio.

4

Nice YTD Tracy.

BL still remains a mystery on this board. Very bipolar on this board it seems regarding the potential of cloud accounting.

XPO: finally great returns this year. I just sold out of it yesterday. Targeting single digit growth. Bradley Jacobs was very good on the CC. Mentioned no obvious headwinds in terms of competition, just normal cyclical trends at the moment, but that Amazon and Uber are questionmarks. Nothing specific or threatening. He’s just aware of his competition. That’s good. Seems a very very capable company and I’m sure they will continue to do really well. I just sold because I’ve been wanting to cut down on the # of companies I’m in, and looking for larger growth.
Second guessing myself somewhat as it was nice to be exposed to a different industry (I’m mainly tech, finance and biotech). However, I figured as they are taking on more fleets/vehicles, XPO will also be hurt a lot during a recession.

TDOC. Seeming to be gaining popularity here. What’s your opinion of TDOC vs BEAT? I own BEAT. Currently profitable but not growing anywhere near as fast as TDOC.

5

Randy,
This is so interesting! You’re right - I own both types of shares. I definitely will think this through.

GOOG - $926.79 (C Shares)
GOOGL - $944.19 (A Shares)

~TracyK

6

Yes - I still own all three. I own ~50 stocks, and I simplified my report by listing the top 10 in each category.

TracyK

7

Hey Billy,
I haven’t researched BEAT. I would be interested in your view/research of the company.

I completely understand the desire to cut down the number of companies to follow. I have ~50 stocks, and that’s a lot. I do rely on the Fool to help me analyze the companies. Most of my stocks are being tracked by the Fool with one of the exceptions is the small logistics company that I recently purchased: RLGT - Radiant Logistics. It’s a tiny position … a visual for me to follow.

One of Saul’s many suggestions that has helped me is that I have created a simple spreadsheet, and at the end of every month, I enter the stock price, and dollar amount. I know that all of this could be automated, but the effort it takes me to enter the information causes me to slow down, and consider each company.

~TracyK

8

Hi Tracey,

I took the opportunity yesterday to sell BEAT (one of my only stocks that were up) and buy SHOP (which was down the most).

In my personal portfolio I now just have 11 stocks (12 really but one is a dead position I’m holding onto for tax purposes). I manage a family members portfolio which has an additional 9 tickers (so 20 in total).

Currently on the chopping block are AMBA and CRTO. It’s felt good so far to cut out a few stocks. I’m looking to consolidate them into a few stocks such as:
VEEVA, SPLK, TLND, SQ, ANET, NVDA.

It’s weird. I’m loving VEEVA but it keeps getting trumped by how well some of these other tech stocks are doing. But I will hold the funds in AMBA and CRTO for just awhile longer. AMBA is competing against mobileye+intel and I would like to see how that plays out. I have a feeling I’m not going to like it, but I have big FOMO (fear of missing out) with stocks I’m in. I held onto EXEL during its disaster year and that paid off massively so far.

4 Likes
9

SVXY +36%

Hope this is a small position. This is not really a stock but volatility derivative.