06.07.2022 Portfolio Update (Monthly Edition)
Topics: Quote, Portfolio Update, Portfolio Discussion, Comments From Me, More Books, There Is No I In Success, & Monthly Munchies.
Quote for this month:
“You make most of your money in a bear market. You just don't realize it at the time.” - Shelby Cullom Davis
Since last update I have released “Books I have read” post which I will keep on updating, I recommend checking it out and probably finding something to add to your “to-read-list”
Portfolio Update*
*I am NOT a financial advisor, I’m sharing my investing journey. Do your own research.*
Portfolio:
Portfolio Discussion
Fun fact: Webull now allows me to “invest” in crypto for which I (for now) do not plan to do so…
I have decided to add another $10,000 as a cushion, although I might take it out later on but with all this “uncertainty in the world/macro” I figured I would rather have it ready to be deployed so I don’t have to sell any of my positions…
The superficial goal is to hold 10-15 companies.
With that said I have been slowly selling out of HII 0.00 (for profit) and putting that money into my other holdings, nothing major but what I thought would happen isn’t/doesn’t and I would love to move that cash into OMAB 0.00 but I don’t think $OMAB knows whats volatility is, this stock just doesn’t move for better or worse.
$HII was a “hedge” against war and defensive play, but seeing how we probably wont go into WW3 (yes I had possibility of WW3 on my bingo card) and seeing that maybe submarines was not the proper play *cough cough* LMT 0.00 or NOC 0.00 or RTX 0.00 was smarter plays.
Everything else I like I hold and will be looking to add if we go lower.
Next, I would like to give some color on current puts:
Until Elon Must does/does not buy TWTR 0.00 I see selling puts as “free money” below $25 mark
$C and ATVI 0.00 I would love to buy at or below the prices that I have puts at, the problem is Warren Buffett has disclosed having positions in both and so I have a feeling that created “phantom bottom” based on the price he paid. Yet that would stop me from keep doing puts and collecting premiums.
SSSS 0.00 is the “not ready to be my investment yet” story, I do think companies that SuRo Capital are holding will be a profitable investment and I think $SSSS is a good way to play VC in the open market with management that has shown that they work for shareholders and will “give back” any gains via dividends or share repurchase if share at a low price (like right now). Check out this Seeking Alpha article.
Dividends for May:
Cant even fill up my car with those dividends… pfff.
LKQ 0.00 and VMD 0.00 had investor day / investor presentation that I highly recommend checking out if you are investor or looking to learn more about both companies:
Spotify will have investor day tomorrow, fingers crossed.
Comments From Me
This environment reminds me more of the way I felt in 2017/2018 when I wasn’t really following individual holdings (the way I do now) but was interest and buying and holding well known companies with good balance sheet, I think in the long term buying “undervalued” companies at margin of safety should yield good returns.
Slow and steady wins the race… at least I think so…
I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has been subscribing and supporting me on my journey.
Note for the summer, I will (most likely but who knows) take it lightly with writing unless something interesting comes up and then I will of course share it.
It doesn’t mean that I will not be doing the posts or be active on twitter or commonstock, but I would like to dedicate rest of the summer to family and also because bunch of my workers are taking vacations so I might be working more (and they say running your own business is easy and fun…haha).
I don’t know about this whole WFH thing, but in the real world and streets I can see that people are working/looking for work, don’t care about WFH, and looking to spend summer on vacations with friends/family… It’s business as usual, time to make some money.
More Book(s)
I finished listening to one book:
An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang
An Ugly Truth shows how Facebook really came to be the hated Facebook that we know. Book doesn’t really tell us anything that we don’t know about the company and its founder and yet it goes in details and shows time after time that this company doesn’t really care about its users or money really (money is important though) but cares about hording data and making sure that people use company’s products.
If you just look at Facebook as investment, it has everything every investor would want:
Sticky product
Cash flow
Large user data
Monopoly
Fanatic CEO
And yet it doesn’t have one thing that I care about, make the world a better place! and don’t tell me about $FB making the world a better place if you are invest in it. Read this book and then think it over especially if you have little kids.
I will not judge you if you invest into $FB but I would rather see it burn then make a million of it.
We as humans have a big problem when it comes to giving our attention to things (essentially subconsciously) and companies like Facebook (even Twitter) use it and misuse not because they are evil, but because that’s what this company was created to do.
I highly recommend listening to it and its either gonna make your case to be bullish on $FB more or you will start thinking out side the box and realize how NOT useful it really is.
I give it 4 out of 5 stars.
I’m currently reading two physical books and so it will probably take me a bit longer to finish them. Reading actual books and listening to audiobooks is really much much different experience but both are needed (in my opinion).
There Is No I In Team Success
I’m current (half way through) Powers of Two by Joshua Wolf Shenk, a book that I would probably not buy on my own but this one was given to me (for free) by Shai Dardashti (thank you Shai!). Sub-title “Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs” and it got me thinking…
There really is no I in any successful person’s story. We are so used to glorifying the Warren Buffetts (Susan Buffett/Charlie Munger), Jeff Bezos (MacKenzie Scott), Mark Zuckerbergs (Dustin Aaron Moskovitz or Sheryl Sandberg) of the world but none of them NONE did it by themselves. They all had significant others, or assistant, or just “workers” who helped them to succeed, its not being said to take the success from them but to show that it takes more then just that one person to make that one person successful!
And no matter what anyone tells you, successful people never really do it on their own… they can hire people and pay them and think they did it on their own but in reality, they did it with the help of those people and if its really big thing then most likely there is at least one more person (or team) who helped and it wasn’t only for the money it was because they were the so called “cheerleaders” for that individual(s).
Where am I going with this? No where particular, but the next time you might start to idolize someone and think how amazing that person is and what they did, just remember there are probably multiple people that are working hard in the “shadows” to make that individual ready for spotlight.
Ego is an interesting thing and we need to NOT let it go farther then it needs for us to make progress in whatever that we are doing…
Monthly Munchies
Here are some things to munch on…
Related to my portfolio:
Sprouts Farmers Market - English Version (Substack)
The Future of Music Business With Economist Will Page (Spotify)
Other:
50+ Investing Tools (Substack)
The Beauty of Enough (Substack Podcast)
Wise and Unwise Crowds (Substack)
The (Not) Margin of Safety (Substack)
Why I Like Small Companies (Substack)
Irrational ... Compared to What? (Substack)
Lasting competitive advantages - Mexican Investor (Substack) use google translate.
A Snowflake Explains the Upcoming Humanitarian Crisis (Substack)
Videoteca of Daniel Haddad (Useful list of many different videos to watch)
Fool Me Once, Shame on You, Fool Me Twice Can't Place the Blame on You (Substack)
Terry Smith (Fundsmith) How to make money buying good business paying a high multiple? (YouTube)
Thank you for reading all the way to the end…
I would love to hear your feedback (both positive & negative feedback is welcomed).
Lastly, I would really appreciate if you would share my newsletter with one person who you think might enjoy reading what I’m writing about.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Mr Zaye
P.S. Check out my LinkTree ⬅️ .
P.S.S. Don’t forget to ❤️ if you enjoyed it.
I just bought ‘an ugly truth’ last week, and recently finished the book I am reading so this might be next.
I also bought ‘no filter’, which is a similar style of book, but about Instagram.
As a Meta investor I gotta say that... you are pretty much right amigo!
I'm also in that 'investing in companies that makes the world a better place' philosophy (that's why I've never own LMT or PM) and I missed completely the negative aspects about Facebook, not as an investment but as a product. A lot to think about
And yeah, mexican companies doesn't know the definition of volatility lol we have such a illiquid market, for better or worse.
-Mexican Investor