Upsidedown's April 2021 summary

YTD return: -2.81%
Drawdown from ATH: -31.23%

April: 6.52%
March: -16.5%
February: +1.26%
January: +7.91%
2020 return: 159%


	April	Delta YTD
My pf	6.52%	-
ARKK	5.97%	0.18%
ARKW	4.31%	-4.32%
S&P	+5.31%	-14.65%
QQQ	+6.96%	-10.54%

Decent month but still over 30% drawdown from +27.5% YTD hit on Feb 12th. This is my first real drawdown experience and interesting to go through. But I guess it is relatively easier to go through this after last year’s results. It probably will be more gut wrenching / disheartening to go through this drawdown had I deployed my capital in Feb this year especially if this period drags longer.

Allocations


Ticker	April	March	AprChg%	Name	
CRWD	11.11%	10.08%	17.34%	CrowdStrike	
ROKU	10.05%	9.58%	11.78%	Roku	
SE	10.33%	9.11%	20.69%	Sea Ltd	
TWLO	9.80%	9.08%	15.01%	Twilio	
PTON	5.50%	7.00%	-7.58%	Peloton	
PINS	6.5%	7.00%	-3.91%	Pinterest	
ETSY	5.30%	5.74%	-1.74%	Etsy	
MELI	5.23%	5.08%	9.71%	Mercado Libre	
CURI	5.33%	4.60%	8.52%	Curiosity Stream	
GHVI	4.06%	4.60%	-9.95%	Matterport	
FTCH	4.57%	4.00%	-3.83%	Farfetch	
FVRR	4.71%	3.72%	3.07%	Fiverr	
LSPD	4.09%	3.30%	15.68%	Lightspeed	
VYGVF	1.80%	1.96%	-2.13%	Voyager Digital	
IPOE	2.72%	1.70%	-0.58%	SoFi	
ZI	2.07%		-1.97%	ZoomInfo	
UPST	0.62%		-23.74%	Upstart	
Cash	6.2%				

New Positions

Upstart UPST
They are a cloud-based AI lending platform based in San Mateo, California, founded in 2012 and founder led.

Their IPO list price in Dec 2020 was $20 and closed at $29 on its first trading day. Just a four months later, they are currently at 445% from list price or 275% from first day close. At their ATH of ~$169 a week after their 2020 ER in mid-March, they were at 725% appreciation from IPO list price and 469% from first day close. Besides a couple of banks signing up with them, market is clearly very impressed with their only two significant news events which are 2020 results and acquisition of Prodigy Software, an automobile retail software provider.

I know one should follow the company and not the price but with such rapid price appreciation, especially with other growth stocks still 20-25% off of ATHs, I will keep it a small position and look to add on pull backs as I think unlike a vertically integrated Financial services company like SoFi, Upstart will have a relatively easier path towards growth and profitability with their platform approach servicing multiple banks that cater to different segments of the lending industry.

ZoomInfo ZI
A cloud-based information platform used primarily by sales professionals to identify and target their highest-value potential sales targets. Founded in 2007, based in Vancouver, WA and founder led.

I had a cursory look at them during their IPO last year but didn’t take a position as I was trying to stick to companies that I can easily follow and/or covered in the forums that I subscribe to. Their numbers are great like how Saul other posted here, but I think their database is unrivaled and would hard to compete with giving them a nice moat providing a service that is a must have for every B2B company in the world.

Thank you to this board for the posts on this company.

Sold Positions

Ondas ONDS - With pretty much every growth company down 30-50% off from ATH, didn’t make sense to still hold onto tiny positions in companies that are still a few years away from significant revenue.

Katapult FSRV - Although they posted 170%+ YoY 2020 revenue growth and have a very attractive EV/Sales(LTM) of 5 as compared to other BNPL players like Affirm 30 and AfterPay 50, customer concentration risk and crowded space led me to allocate to other positions in my portfolio.

Skillz SKLZ - Barrage of short attacks in the recent weeks opened a can of worms for me about this company and really tested my conviction. I concluded that there are more questions than answers about this company. Most importantly, I don’t fully understand management’s argument that tracking user growth isn’t as critical for them for now and payingMAUs matters more which is up nicely YoY. A company like Facebook or Pinterest tapping into all of US users and then focusing on ARPU growth makes sense but not sure how it is OK for them not to grow users at the growth stage they are in currently. They said they spent a lot for expanding into India and other markets but aren’t factoring in their outlook, so will wait for them show this in numbers and will stay on sidelines until then.

Other Positions

Pinterest PINS
They posted 78% YoY revenue in Q1 2021 and guided for 105% in Q2 2021 which even with easy compares from Q2 2020, more than doubling revenue in a year is still very impressive. Besides tapered expectations around user growth which I’m hoping that their management will find a way to execute for continued growth especially internationally, I think there is nothing to not like about this company at this point. It looks like Etsy and Pinterest are increasingly stepping on each other’s toes with their product launches and future plans, but I like the growth numbers of both the companies and plan to stay in both for now as midsized 4-6% positions.

No change in conviction with the others and plan to hold through their ERs.

Lastly, thank you Saul for the existence of this board and for the contributors for the quality insights and experiences they so generously share.

March Summary - https://discussion.fool.com/upsidedown39s-march-summary-34792364…

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