Return vs benchmarks

(Index source: Koyfin, ex-dividends)

Year Portfolio Nasdaq S&P 500 FTSE 100
2021 35.12% 21.39% 26.89% 14.30%
2020 151.27% 43.64% 16.34% -14.34%

Portfolio

Holding Ticker(s) Weighting (%)
🐶 Datadog DDOG 23.1
🗂 Monday.com MNDY 12.4
🦅 Crowdstrike CRWD 11.7
❄️ Snowflake SNOW 9.8
💸 Upstart UPST 9.1
🪙 Coinbase COIN 8.5
📲 Twilio TWLO 6.3
🏡 Airbnb ABNB 5.4
🕸 Cloudflare NET 4.2
🦇 Crypto AVAX, SOL 2.9
💰 Cash - 6.5

Adjustments

Coinbase & Airbnb

  • After initiating starter positions in both $COIN and $ABNB last month, my conviction in both has led to accumulating more shares this month as prices across growth stocks have fallen. For the former, I found the Hayden Capital memo essential reading.

  • Given the brand dominance of Coinbase and their relentless focus on retail investors, the expanding usage of cryptocurrencies in general, and the propensity of the sector as a vehicle for speculation, with shares priced reasonably attractively currently, I think this could be a good opportunity.

  • Also, anecdotally, having taken the time to get familiar with Metamask and going through the often clunky process of buying into tokens that aren’t available on the larger exchanges, my opinion is that the increasing number of people getting involved in cryptocurrencies will do so through said exchanges (however much this grates against the concept of ‘decentralisation’). I reduced my separate crypto holdings as a result of my overall increased exposure, specifically selling DPI and ETH. My $COIN investment has essentially replaced the DefiPulse tokens in my portfolio as an index tracker for crypto.

  • After a touch-and-go period in 2020, Airbnb have come out the other side a far stronger business as evidenced by their latest quarter with increasing gross profits and a huge swing in operating income. This is also a partial bet that as a society, we will manage to keep on top of Omicron and further variants of covid as we move into 2022.

Docusign, Cloudflare and Snowflake

  • My cash position was bolstered by selling $DOCU after an extremely disappointing guide for next year and deployed into new holdings in $NET and $SNOW as they hit prices that I thought justified re-opening positions in both.

  • While $NET’s valuation still concerns me, for me this is a top-3 management team in the SaaS space and it would be remiss of me not to hold a position, even if I never let it grow into a large holding.

  • It’s a similar story with $SNOW although the valuation makes much more sense to me here: a business growing at >100% over the past 4 quarters with increasing, best-in-class retention rates and a CEO that has been there and done it before (though never with this level of expectation). They are expected to grow at 74% next year and given the sand-bagging tendency (along with every other SaaS business) will surely beat this. As the stock was down as a result of general sell pressure on growth names shortly after they blew the doors off during the last earnings report, I decided to take a larger-than-normal starter position, then added on further weakness.

  • While the majority of $UPST’s fall was a result of share price decline following the latest quarter, I did trim a small amount given the level of uncertainty around their forward growth. They will have to execute their vehicle financing opportunity in a similar fashion to the way they attacked the personal loan space in order to maintain the very high level of growth experienced this year. While not impossible, this is something I think is worth being cautious of and I may trim further in the new year.

Others

  • Given the overall weakness in my holdings over the past month, I took the opportunity to add to $CRWD, $TWLO and $MNDY. While I’m always on the look-out for new investments, given the recent market turbulence surrounding growth, my current focus is on remaining concentrated in my highest-conviction ideas. As a result I’m not likely to hold more than 10 names in the near future.