Happy Monday, you wonderful humans!
Following yesterday’s giveaway, there are 3 new faces; it’s great to have you here, and I hope you find some value in my posts. If there’s anything you’d like to see, just let me know and I’ll do what I can to include it.
As promised, from today, I’m going to reveal my current portfolio each month. I’ll aim for the first Monday of the month, to keep things simple.
A few things to note:
- This post will be WAY longer than future posts. This is so I can some give context to each company.
- I’m a firm believer that focusing on your cost basis (the average price you’ve paid for a company’s shares), or your current returns, is detrimental from a mental health/psychological perspective. As such, I won’t be revealing my cost basis. Nor how much value I have in each company.
- Instead, I’ll provide the percentage of my portfolio that each company takes up.
- Generally speaking, if you believe in the fundamentals of a company and trust in them to succeed in the long-term, then you shouldn’t care too much about what the price per share is. Your goal should be to own more shares. So, the lower the price in the short-term, the more shares you can own!
- I only started investing in mid/late 2021. As such, my portfolio still consists of companies I would have avoided, were I to start again from scratch today. My mistakes are still very evident. Additionally, I have a higher risk-tolerance than most. So, I do not encourage others to copy my portfolio.
- I repeat, I do not encourage others to copy my portfolio! It’s here for entertainment and to see my perspective only.
With that in mind, let’s jump in!
The Full Portfolio
Below is a quick illustration of my portfolio as a whole. This is across all areas: my S&S ISA, Lifetime ISA, Coinbase and private shares (via Crowdcube).
My largest holding is currently Tesla, which is quite surprising to me considering its recent decline. I’m also surprised that a few of my low-conviction companies are in the top 10… Clearly, I need to do some rebalancing during the next bull-run!
Want to know where I stand with these companies now? What mistakes I’ve made and want to correct moving forward? Then read on!
The Good (High Conviction)
Below are my “top 10” companies (that I currently own). The ones with my highest conviction, where it would take a catastrophic event for me to sell at a loss!
| Company | Portfolio Weight | Some Context |
|---|---|---|
| Tesla | 17.40% | My highest conviction company. I’ll do a separate post explaining my thesis in the near future. The plan is to never let Tesla be more than 30-40% of my portfolio; if I need to sell, I’ll do so! |
| Lloyds Banking Group | 5.54% | A British classic, and in my opinion, heavily undervalued. Lloyds is a nice dividend play, too. |
| SoFi Technologies Inc | 5.33% | A US start-up bank. SoFi has been beaten up over the last few months, which meant I could finally get in at a decent price. They’ll somewhat struggle during the impending recession, but I believe in the company long-term. |
| Base Resources Ltd | 4.72% | An Australian mining company based in Africa. Owned shares on-and-off since 2021. They do some great things for the Kenyan community, are undervalued, have no debt, and have to-date given a ridiculous dividend yield (I don’t expect this to continue). The biggest risk is that their expansion plans aren’t approved before the current projects are complete, meaning a huge (hopefully temporary) loss of revenue. |
| Lemonade Inc | 3.32% | A US-based insurance company. They recently started business in the UK, and I’ve had an amazing experience with them so far. My contents insurance was halved, but my cover doubled! It’s a risky stock to own, but it’s there because of the experience I’ve had. |
| Polestar Automotive | 3.25% | An EV company. Google them. Really nice vehicles, and the company have beaten their ~50k production goal for 2022. Not profitable yet, but I have confidence in the management team. |
| Alphabet Inc | 2.56% | It’s Google. Need I say more?! |
| Walt Disney Co | 2.29% | Disney were hit hard in 2022. With parks opening up, people wanting to have more fun in a depressing world, and some great films (Marvel, Avatar, etc), it’s a no-brainer. |
| Palantir Technologies Inc | 1.25% | A software and data-analysis solutions company who have had contracts with the NHS, Ukraine’s armed forces (and the UK’s forces), among many other things. I have high hopes long-term for the company. |
| Salinity Solutions | 0.60% | A small position in a privately owned company who aim to revolutionise water-treatment. This is a 10+ year play. |
The Bad (Medium/Low Conviction)
Below are 10 stocks I hold (plus Crypto), where I have SOME conviction, but not enough that I’m happy about seeing them drop in value. Some of these companies make me nervous, and have really tested my willpower over the last 2 months or so.
| Company | Portfolio Weight | Some Context |
|---|---|---|
| Robinhood Inc | 9.16% | The well-known US investment platform. I DOUBLED a £500 investment when they went public and sold. As the price dropped below ~$25 again, I started buying again. Big mistake. But I’m hopeful they’ll pull off profitability in the long-term and recover. |
| Freetrade | 6.49% | Privately bought shares (I even have a branded hoodie!). Not profitable yet and we’ve just hit a cost-of-living crisis. So I’m unsure how well they’ll weather the storm. Fingers crossed. |
| Matterport Inc | 6.10% | A 3D imaging company largely in the real-estate space. Amazing products. Not yet profitable, with the US property market hitting a downturn. Short-term very risky. If they can survive, I think they’ll do great long-term on the ride back up. |
| Affirm Holdings Inc | 5.92% | A BNPL provider… Considering selling, but I’ll see how Q4 earnings do, first. Debt levels are at record highs and I’m concerned about defaults. They aren’t profitable yet, so a recession will hit them hard. |
| Coinbase Global Inc | 4.38% | In my opinion, the most trustworthy Crypto exchange out there. Whether they succeed will all depend on the market and whether Crypto recovers. |
| Paypal Holdings Inc | 4.11% | While I like PayPal, I’m a little on the fence. How can they grow again? Are they really innovating? Eh, I’m not sure. But for now, I think it’s cheap. |
| Crypto | 4.08% | See Coinbase. I mainly hold BTC, ETH and ADA (Cardano) |
| Block Inc | 3.37% | Previously called Square, a payment platform for small and medium businesses. Similar to PayPal; I’m unsure how they’ll continue to innovate, but I think they’re cheap and will recover. |
| Roblox Corporation | 2.96% | A multiplayer gaming platform. Gaming took a hit due to the opening-up after the Covid pandemic, and people have less money to spend on ‘fun’. So I’m concerned, but holding for now. |
| Hippo Holdings Inc | 2.50% | An insurance company similar to Lemonade. Heard equally good things, but they aren’t in the UK. |
| Snap Inc | 1.53% | Snapchat; we all know it. Advertising has been hit hard in 2022, so I’m watching this sector/stock carefully. |
The Ugly (Terrible Mistakes!)
Below are four companies where my position is down 50% or more, and may well never recover. These are:
| Company | Portfolio Weight | Some Context |
|---|---|---|
| Evraz plc | 4.29% | My biggest folly, by far. This is an international steelworks company which was sanctioned, due to Roman Abramovich owning ~28% of the company. The shares got suspended, so I may never get this money back. We’ll see. If the war in Ukraine ends, it’s likely the company will quickly get relisted. I consider this money ‘gone’. |
| Jupiter Fund Management plc | 2.91% | One of my first ever investments. This is a dividend stock with a pretty attractive yield. Little did I know, it’s an investment fund with investment managers who have done very poorly in recent years. Down -50% in two years, the dividends have hardly worth it! But I’m waiting and hoping that they recover. |
| Shift Technologies Inc | 1.06% | This was a stock I ‘traded’ a few times and made good money. The company sells used vehicles in the US via an app. But I got caught out, and am bag-holding a few shares still. The company will either go bankrupt, or will surprise and the stock price will jump massively (it’s heavily undervalued, IF they can recover). I actually think they’ll surprise in a recessionary environment, but regardless, I should have sold a long time ago. |
| Workhorse Group Inc | 0.81% | Similar to Shift, except I had high hopes for this company when I first purchased the shares. They were one of the first companies to create EV ‘last-mile delivery’ vans… But it fell apart due to delays, faulty products, and the loss of a huge contract. New management have done a great job though, and I’m cautiously optimistic. It’s a tiny portion of the portfolio and I made money trading it originally. So if the company disappears tomorrow, I’m ‘only’ down around 50%. |
My Investing Strategy Moving Forward
Now that my dirty laundry is out in the open… Here’s what I plan to do in 2023 so that I can better sleep at night.
Firstly, I want to reign in the risk. I went overboard and want to have a more stable portfolio.
When we get our next bull market, I will:
- Reduce most positions by 50%, once breakeven or my targeted profitability hits (depending on conviction).
- Sell half of my shares in Tesla at $300 per share. Yes, I’m crazy and truly think it’ll get there again sooner rather than later.
- Use the above money to rebalance my portfolio so that I have:
- ~5% allocation to Crypto.
- ~5% allocation to private companies.
- ~20% allocation to ETFs, perhaps FTSE All-World? Recommendations welcome!
- ~20% allocation to UK-based dividend stocks.
- ~50% allocation to US growth stocks..
Let’s Discuss
So, that’s my portfolio, nakedly out in the open, mistakes and all! How has your investing journey gone?
Let me know in the comments:
- What has been your biggest investing mistake so far?
- If you went back in time to the first day of your investing journey, what would you tell yourself?
- What is your investing strategy for 2023?
Let’s chat!
