Hi everyone,
Below is, as I do each year, the yearly update since I started investing (and found this board at the same time) in November 2020.
First a quick personal update - I am now closing my first year as a business owner, and things are going reasonably well, it the sense that we are still going, and started to hire a bit more. It’s also very stressful and I fail at something literally everyday. Yet, I feel so blessed that I get to continue to learn surrounded by mighty smart people, including on this board.
Now for the investing: I choose to compare at both NDX (100) and SPX. For reference, in 2020 I invested for about 6 weeks as a beginner.
I also updated all my calculation to use time weighted.
As you can see, I closed 2025 at 60.5%, which isn’t bad.
Here is my portfolio as of today- I plan to make some changes in the days to come after taking some time to review each company.
All in all, it’s been another good year for me. I am now positive, even after the debacle of 2022, and with a 6% 5Y CAGR since I started end of 2020.
While I am happy, this is actually objectively quite bad: this is underperforming any of the indices I follow on the same period, meaning I would have earned more money by investing in them. And this isn’t accounting for the time i spent picking stocks, of course.
This is important for me to highlight, as I don’t want newcomers to think this is in any way a magic wand. Even the best investors on this board, if they take the past 5 years, will almost all underperform simple indexes.
The power of this approach resides in the long term, and we should collectively get much better at managing drawdowns. I still remember even Saul feeling absolutly terrible during 2022. This isn’t a subject for today, but if you’re starting to invest, please consider having a plan to mitigate losses in mind.
However - and outside of that - I have learned a great deal, and I am starting to be confident that I can beat the market consistently, and that is an awesome feeling!
As for past goals and learnings - I also wrote last year:
"My goals for 2025:
- Beat the Nasdaq for a second time, proving this is not a fluke year
- Further progress on my entry/exit timing and solidify my own thesis around stocks
- If finance permit, slowly start adding some funds again - I would like to wait to have gotten back to my initial investment "
I have achieved each of these goals, and started re-learning a bit about options. I actually made some money overall, that would add about 5% to my early returns, but I want to focus on stocks only in these recaps.
Unsurprinsigly, I again made many, many costly mistakes. After entering both NBIS and IREN at great prices, I bought more late on the way up, shattering a good part of my gains.
Last year, I also wrote:
"I still hold today TMDX and ASPN, when in hindsight it is evident I should have sold both and re-allocated at the first sign of weakness. I am now holding them because I believe they are at extremely depressed valuation, but I might be entirely wrong. "
ASPN turned out to be a big mistake, and I sold it rapidly after year start. I still hold TMDX in size, however I have trimmed it often near its highs as I understand the stock much better.
My plan remains to continue investing mostly in domains I understand very well, notably in AI and tech, as well as ecommerce.
I am ever so thankful for the contributions of this board, and I am looking forward to this new year. I believe it will bring a new set of challenges, many that scare me for reasons that have nothing to do with money.
However, as I concluded last year: where there is change, there is opportunity 
My best wishes to you all!
Ysdrasill