YTD return: 7.28%
Current drawdown from ATH: 15.89%
Portfolio hit all time low drawdown of 36.14% mid-may.
YTD returns by month:
July: -1.57%
June: +8.99%
May: -2.84%
April: 6.52%
March: -16.5%
February: +1.26%
January: +7.91%
2020 return: 159%
July Delta YTD
My pf -1.57% -
ARKK -6.36% 10.88%
ARKW -2.08% 6.46%
S&P +1.1% -11.63%
QQQ 7.4% -8.92%
BTC 23.73% -37.43%
A choppy month with all but 3 out of 14 of my companies with a monthly price change of less than +/-4%. It’s been about a year and half since I discovered this board which then helped me bring some structure to my investing. However, it’s been about six months from reaching an ATH as well as a personal key milestone figure intraday on Feb 12th, my portfolio is still languishing at 15.89% drawdown and continue to lag S&P and QQQ YTD. This slow and uncertain recovery of my portfolio is making me a bit jittery, but this is where the invaluable transparent monthly reporting that happens here is helping me get past the emotions and continue to stick to the process and continue to be an optimist.
Portfolio changes
Only major change I made this month is to sell out of Pinterest completely and bought into Palantir with a 4.5% position while adding a little here and there to others.
Allocations
Ticker July June Chg% Name
ROKU 13% 12.83% -0.47% Roku
CRWD 12.25% 12.00% 0.40% CrowdStrike
TWLO 10.25% 10.39% -3.88% Twilio
SE 10.05% 9.75% 0.90% Sea Ltd
PLTR 4.5 % 0% -11.17% Palantir
FVRR 8.44% 8% 3.28% Fiverr
MELI 7.6% 6.82% 1.08% Mercado Libre
ZI 5.84% 5.59% 3.56% Zoom Info
SNOW 4.81% 4.23% 12.00% Snowflake
FTCH 3.75% 4.16% 0.26% Farfetch
LSPD 4.25% 4.12% -1.34% LIghtspeed
UPST 6.25% 4.00% -0.37% Upstart
PINS 7.5% -25.73% Pinterest
Cash 3%
Sold Positions
Pinterest PINS
Management said they will struggle with MAUs in their Q1 ER and they reported just that in Q2 ER. And in between they rallied within 10% of ATH. But I didn’t act on any of these opportunities and blindly stayed in it which I believe is not even hope but plain wishful thinking on my part. Yes, they could have sand bagged and still went on to report better MAU numbers but when management themselves were highlighting their challenges, it probably made perfect sense and at least trim it accordingly. Lesson for me here is to err on the side of trusting management messaging, not superimpose my own stupidity and focus on customer/user growth for younger companies. My conviction is still not absolute bearishness for them but its low enough that it doesn’t find a spot in my portfolio at the moment.
New Positions
Palantir PLTR
Palantir Technologies builds and deploys software platforms for the intelligence community (primarily US and foreign government agencies) with their Palantir Gotham platform and data operations/analytics platform for non-government commercial clients with their Palantir Foundry platform.
Guide-Actual rev YoY% in Q4 20 and Q1 21, the only two Qs after they went public last fall are 30%-40%, 45%-49%. Q2 21 guidance is for 43%. Gross Margins increased from 69% to 78% from Q1 19 to Q1 21. Profitable on an adjusted basis, FCF positive. They are still ~50% away from their ATH, so market may reward them handsomely if they are able to post good numbers and revise guidance.
They have a mix of the typical SaaS product-based business model and labor-based business model when their customers look for custom software development. So not 100% a Saul company but I think in a land of SaaS companies that design products for a cross industry fit, Palantir will continue to find sticky customers in their focus industries. So, the question comes down to how fast they can grow their revenue to be treated like a SaaS company and not be penalized for the other risks that they carry.
Added to Positions
Upstart UPST
Beefed up to a 6.25% position with an average price of $111. Except for the non-recurring nature of their business (at least for now), I think they are well positioned on all fronts. Also got influenced by the excellent coverage on this board. Only question for me is their rapid progress since their IPO just 7 months ago and wonder why their leadership choose to go public at a 1.5B market cap valuation and if they really didn’t expect their business to take off with credit unions, make prodigy acquisition so soon after going public. It’s definitely not a Zoom like situation last year where an unexpected worldwide pandemic shot Zoom to fame so quickly and rapidly that they couldn’t have been factoring in when they went public in 2019. May be going public helped Upstart to gain trust and recognition for their name which in turn helped gain all these new customers.
Mercado Libre MELI
I think unlike for Amazon in the US, Ecommerce penetration in LATAM is still going through a hockey stick growth phase. So while they will run into COVID comps, I’m anticipating their sequential numbers will be much more convincing when the report on August 4th.
Other Positions
Sea Ltd SE
A major player in Southeast Asia with a very profitable Gaming business (Garena) that funds E-Commerce(Shopee) and FinTech(Sea Money) businesses.
Like Mercado Libre, I’m expecting their Ecommerce division to continue to show strength despite COVID comps.
Roku ROKU
A platform provider for streaming services that is perfectly poised to benefit from shift to streaming. One of the top two in its space in US along with Amazon Fire TV.
No change to my conviction since last month’s post and will wait for their numbers and messaging when they report on August 4th.
Twilio TWLO
I thought their Q2 ER was pretty good with really strong topline growth and Q3 guidance for 52% which with their usual beats can safely be expected to be at least 65%+ again. Perhaps market is mulling over their lowest sequential customer adds and 1% dip in their gross margins. Yes, both not great but I think they are both within their historical variance. No change to my conviction to bring them down from a #3 conviction position but will try to keep an open mind as I read through other’s reviews here.
Snowflake SNOW
Early in July, just as I was considering if Snowflake has all the expectations priced in, they started moving and made it an easy decision for me to leave this position alone.
I’m on the fence with SOFI, FarFetch (FTCH) and will wait for their ER to give me a strong reason to stay in them.
Waiting for ER on CRWD, LSPD, FVRR, ZI.
June Summary - https://discussion.fool.com/upsidedown39s-june-portfolio-summary…
May Summary - https://discussion.fool.com/upsidedown39s-may-2021-summary-34844…
April Summary - https://discussion.fool.com/upsidedown39s-april-2021-summary-348…
March Summary - https://discussion.fool.com/upsidedown39s-march-summary-34792364…