03.16.2022 Portfolio Update (Monthly Edition)

Topics: Personal Update, Portfolio Update, Portfolio Discussion, More Books, Don’t Share Your Edge, & Monthly Munchies.

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I hope I'm forgiven this month for going with a song and not a quote for this month…

I was going with sharing Ukrainian National Anthem (to spread awareness about Ukraine…on this more later on) but I think you might enjoy this one more:

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Personal Update

This month’s update I will start with personal update as what’s going on in the world “hits home” and I mean that figuratively and literally.

On February 24th Russia invaded Ukraine (my home country) and within days they got to Kherson (my home city), I still have family there too.

I’m Ukrainian born who also speaks Russian and I have wife who’s Russian and our two girls are half Ukrainian/half Russian… So all of this is really strange to me…

Although I’m in US right now, I spend half of my life (most of my childhood) in Kherson and to see what is happening hurts me emotionally (lucky my family is safe…for now although I do not know how long that will last) so emotional pain is manageable (for now), but others are not as lucky.

I don’t want to get all patriotic because I’ll be honest I’m not even 1/4 of a man comparing to all men and women that are in Ukraine right now and defending Ukraine with their lives, but if any of you can help, be it by spreading awareness or donations it would mean a lot to me.

• National Bank of Ukraine

• USA for UNHCR

• Nova Ukraine

Which brings me back to already rocky markets and me not really finding any time for writing.

I don’t know if its the bad news, or the market going down, or both that makes a lot of us less willing to write more as I notice its was a lot more “fun” and easy to write when everything was going up.

when it rains, it pours…

When not writing here, I been trying to be active on Twitter or Commonstock, but I also have a confession… I been spending more time relaxing and I’m not even feeling guilty about it right now, although I do realize that I need to pick up a bit on my writing related to investing.

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Portfolio Update*

*I am NOT a financial advisor, I’m sharing my investing journey. Do your own research.*

P&L Snapshots + Account Details w/ Monthly P&L:

As of 03.15.2022

As of 03.15.2022

As of 03.15.2022

For the Month of February

As of 03.15.2022

Portfolio:

As of 03.16.2022

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Portfolio Discussion

A few things to discuss on portfolio.

Exited OMAB 0.00 , although I do like the company I think best for me to re-enter below $50 and keep adding. I have learned a few things about me (when it comes to investing) and one of them is that I get more satisfaction from entering when “I want to” and not when “I’m getting FOMO”. I’m okay on missing out on my side if it didn’t hit my MoS price, but I’m really not okay when I chase the price and then it goes down (AKA what I kind of did with FB META 0.00 ).

Exited OPRA 0.00 for a minor gain and then re-entered it again and will be adding more below $5.

Dividends for February:

I trimmed some FF 0.00 yesterday AH on good earnings.

Management executed “properly” with biodiesel segment (custom chemicals is less then 20% of profits) but I think they kind of got lucky, because although “fuel” prices went up so did the prices for cord/etc that biodiesel is made of and I think its a dangerous game to play that (in the long run) I don’t want to be part of.

I think $FF should have some gas to go up to $15ish which would be nice but I would be more happy to keep an eye on it and look out for special dividend in the future something similar to SSSS 0.00 .

There is no extra points for doing things the hard way.

Next I want to give two cents on PYPL 0.00 , SPOT 0.00 , and TWTR 0.00 . All three are my biggest current “losers” but after listening to the earnings calls and some talk that management has given since last earnings (and after having some independent thinking about it) I’m happy with 2.5/3 . you might ask who does that work? well $TWTR is the only one I’m a bit skeptical about but that’s mostly due to fintwit noise getting to my head a bit.

Good things need time to develop and shake out the non believers.

All three growth stocks and so I can’t really say I have good prices for entry or exit, I’m willing to give all of this at least until 2023 (for better or worse).

Next is GOOG 0.00 :

I was debating (in my head) if I should initiate position and I think its just too silly to miss out on this around $2,500 below $2,500 (also given the soon split which really does’’t matter and yet people pay attention to these things).

I think $GOOG is one of the safest plays on tech as long as both Larry Page and Sergey Brin are in control of voting on things.

$GOOG can also be seen as some sort of a hedge on my $SPOT play (via YouTube) and I must rather own $GOOG then $FB.

I won’t be getting into nitty gritty of what makes Google, well Google.

But I will let these great guys’s substacks do all the talking:

Alphabet (GOOGL)

Google's Goliath

and this video

Lastly, quickly $IAC. I think there a lot of possibilities with $IAC and the merger between Meredith and Dotdash is > $ANGI.

And everything that is in “Emerging and Other+” is so so interesting!

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More Books

For the month of February I have completely listened to one book, and one that I didn’t finish but I think I can share about it and let you decide if you want to learn more about it.

Lessons from the Titans: What Companies in the New Economy Can Learn from the Great Industrial Giants to Drive Sustainable Success by Scott Davis, Carter Copeland, and Rob Wertheimer

Lessons from Titans, was a good book but I think I will need to read to it in paper edition and not audio. This is like a case study going over company by company of what they did right and did wrote and what “lessons” we can can learn from.

Especially good for CEOs/Managements and useful to pick and choose from for long term investors who are looking to learn from the past of big success and failures.

I give it 3 out of 5 stars., mostly due to (I believe) this must be read and not listened to.

The other book that I didn’t finish was:

Understanding Michael Porter: The Essential Guide to Competition and Strategy by Joan Magretta

This one I didn’t finish because honestly I couldn’t understand and got bored, but I did take away something:

• The Explainer: Porter's Five Forces - Video

• Fit Across the Value Chain

  • Strategy involves creating “fit” among a company’s activities. Fit has to do with how the activities in the value chain interact and reinforce one another.

    Fit drives both competitive advantage and sustainability: when activities mutually reinforce each other, competitors can’t easily imitate them.

  

I will not try to claim, I understood much but I think it’s good to challenge yourself and keep trying to get concepts that might not come easy to some.

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Don’t Share Your Edge

(this one will not be at all don’t in “correct writing, more of me talking and writing”)

I want to bring up something that I thought about (and still do think about time to time) and that is understanding what is “your” competitive edge when it comes to investing.

There is much chatter on the social media of everyone sharing their lessons and thoughts on everything from their research to their ways of buying or selling… think of “deep dive research” or “concept of #neversell”.

Now, I will not claim that there is right or wrong way of doing “investing” but what I thought about was “if everyone talks about how they invest and all of that information becomes public that means that others can learn from and take advantage (profit) which means market little by little get more and more efficient”.

So…

If you want to be a great long-term investor, that means you can’t share all of your secrets (until you are very rich), no?

I do believe that one competitive edge that can’t be taken away from anyone is long term investing (at least 10+ years) but that’s in itself a challenge for some/most? “investors” …compounding works (we know that) but most won’t be able to pick stocks for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50+ years.

So…

Whenever someone shares their investing bullet points, thought process, stats/metrics that they look for (and consider that it’s actually good and potentially can bring profits) people will use and the more investors make profits the more will use and that will be done until it’s no longer can be “arbitraged” (think of Mr. Graham or Mr. Buffett doing Cigar Butt investing in 1950,60,70 with computers that was taken away for the most part by 2000) and also so with only using P/E or P/B when internet stocks came around.

I think same can be said about “trading” before computers I’m sure you could “easily” trade candlestick patterns but as more traders learned about it and as computers became more powerful that edge was taken away from most traders (by black boxes), and yet there are a lot of newbie traders who think they can STILL trade candlesticks or moving averages and make a killing (I’m not saying it’s impossible, I’m just saying majority won’t be successful in it … there are legends that some investors still making a killing with Cigar Butt approach).

As computers get more powerful and as more “inventors” have access to investing platforms that give more tools and those tools becoming free, I think markets will be (and already are?) getting more efficient, so that means if you think you have unproven (proven?) edge… should you really be open about it?

·       If you think its successful and you share it with others, others will use it and the edge will go away

·       If you think its successful and you share it and its not, well then it will be just gone away because it’s not profitable

·       If you don’t share it and its not successful, you are in risk of losing and be the only “loser”

·       BUT if you don’t share and it is successful, you have an edge and if you are serious about investing, you must keep it and profit from it and become rich yourself and maybe later on teach others (hopefully for free until that edge too disappears) no?

I have my own opinion on this, but would love to hear yours?

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Monthly Munchies

Here are some things to munch on…

• The Mistake of Not Selling Soon Enough (Podcast)

• Top 5 predictions for 2022 w/ Andrew Walker (mostly for $DISCA discussion) (Podcast)

• From Facebook to Meta and Beyond w/ Bill Nygren (Podcast)

• Q4 Investor Letter Audibles: Greenhaven Road, Laughing Water Capital, and Greenlight Capital (Podcast)

• Björn Fahlén: Quality First Investing (Podcast)

• Lessons from a Legend w/ Howard Marks (YouTube)

• Morgan Housel — The Psychology of Money, Picking the Right Game, and the $6 Million Janitor (YouTube)

• Guy Spier’s substack

• The Rabbit Hole (Cool website for bookworms like me)

This one I haven’t watched yet, but it’s on my list to do so and I think it should be interesting (I’m big fan of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s books:

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Thank you for reading all the way to the end…

I hope you found this update helpful or useful or both and I would love to hear your feedback (both positive & negative feedback is welcomed).

Lastly, I would really appreciate if you would share this newsletter with anyone who you think might benefit from this or just might enjoy reading what I’m writing.

Sincerely,

Mr Zaye

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