Full Portfolio Summary
Full overview of my portfolio and a summary of each position
One of my pet peeves is when I see individuals title a post, podcast, or video “such and such revealed.” It always feels like click-bait and it irks me. Plus who the hell are you that I care what you’re revealing? The people who’s portfolios I actually keep an eye are legally required to “reveal” themselves every quarter in a 13F filing with the U.S Government. Still, I think if i’m planning to continue with this Substack (which I am), I should try and be as transparent as possible with you. I will make mistakes, and if i’ve done my job then you will know about those mistakes. The entire reason I started this Substack in the first pace is because I was already writing it to myself in my notes app to track my decision making. At year end I write myself a “letter to shareholders” which includes good choices, bad choices, and the reasons behind all of them. I’ll admit there is a temptation to lie here and shine the best possible light on myself. Its fun to get subscribers and likes and whatnot, but i’m absolutely sure that if I go down the road of misrepresentation, I will end up with sub-par investment results. The irony would be too much to bare, so I’ll stick with the truth. Which leads me to my very lame and embarrassing largest two positions:
QQQm: ~25%
SPY: ~13%
Yes, I own the index’s. But before you judge me I need to make something clear: my portfolio consists of ALL OF MY MONEY. I always wonder about some of the investors i’ve seen post portfolio’s that would keep me up at night - until I realize there is a solid chance this isn’t actually where they have the bulk of their net worth. It makes for better content, but frankly I care more about my returns than the popularity of my Substack. Moreover, there were times in the past when the market was cheap and I had cash and no time, so I bought the damn index’s and i’m glad I did! They’re solid investments and more importantly they are a hedge against my greatest risk exposure: myself. I’m not someone who conflates risk with volatility (a great topic for another write up). I don’t care if my net worth swings up and down so long as I have faith in what I own. The risk I’m exposed to is me being cocky, under-informed, or even worse…partially informed. But fear not, i’m in this game to win it, and over the last two-three years virtually all of my new capital has gone into individual positions. The remaining ~62% of my net worth is invested in me and my ideas. As i’ve gained experience as an investor, I’ve also gotten more comfortable having the bulk of my assets in individual companies.
Ok, enough being defensive. Here is a breakdown of each position with a brief explanation of why I own it, when I bought it, and what i’m looking at down the road.
Now to the positions themselves - from smallest to largest:
Microsoft $MSFT: ~2%
I bought Microsoft in early 2022 simply because of valuation. It wasn’t a very well thought out idea, but it seemed like a no-brainer. Plus, I’ve doubled my money, so i’m not super upset about it. At the time I had a little cash and didn’t want to buy an index, so MSFT seemed like an easy choice. Microsoft traded at a pretty reasonable/cheap valuation for an incredible company with a fast growing top and bottom line — despite its size. They have a rock solid balance sheet, strong earnings/FCF, and management has been buying back shares for a long long time. Azure is also growing quickly as the world’s business’s are moving to the cloud. Integration of Open AI’s technology into the cloud seems rather frictionless, and I’d imagine Microsoft has an advantage over other companies trying to make this transition simply because their software is already imbedded in the U.S economy and trusted by thousands of businesses. Is that an awesome reason to own it now that the earnings multiple has risen from 24 (when i bought it) to 35 today? Not really. I’ll probably sell this rather soon seeing as I’ve found many other companies I’d rather own since I initially took that position. Speaking of…
OTC Markets Group $OTCM: ~2%
…And you thought I was just gonna buy boring old big tech. Yee of little faith.
OTC Markets Group is a fascinating business. Its a small-ish company (~600m Market Cap), but it plays an important role in the economy. If you’ve been on substack for a while you’ve likely seen a lot of people mention “nano-cap” or “micro-cap” companies. These companies can’t yet afford access to large stock exchanges like NYSE or NASDAQ, but they still need access to liquidity. Enter OTCM. These guys are not a regulated exchange, but they function like one. They also enable foreign companies that are listed on foreign exchanges to access the deep pockets of U.S investors. Moreover, for a lot of large/mid-sized international companies OTCM is also a great way to make their stock available to U.S investors without needing to comply with (or pay for) NYSE or NASDAQ. The companies listed on OTC Markets pay an annual subscription for that privilege. OTCM also then charges market makers a subscription for the right to trade these securities, as well as a per-transaction fee. Finally OTCM charges companies like Yahoo Finance or Bloomberg for the data (i.e stock quotes and financial information). OTCM has a crazy high margin, very high ROE, and regularly returns cash to shareholders via dividends. It trades ~20 TTM PE with a rock solid balance sheet and has had some lack-luster growth in the wake of the cool-off from the 2021 meme-stock trading frenzy. The natural monopoly of this business is what appeals to me — as does the incredible economics that come with it. I’ve only just started buying OTCM and my only hesitation in buying a lot of it is uncertainty around growth. It seems to me that there isn’t very much OTCM can do to actively grow its network. That said, there are definitely things they are trying, and I’ll cover all of it in a future deep-dive.
Apple $AAPL: ~2.5%
Ok, maybe I do own some big tech. While I was buying Microsoft I was also buying Apple. Its a company I felt I understood better, and also liked more. After doubling my money yet again, I also sold half my Apple position recently when the price went above $250/share around the New Year. The multiple had gotten far too pricey for me and frankly I’ve had some concerns about Apple as a business. While I absolutely adore the cult-like loyalty of the average Apple user, i’m not sure its enough to make up for the high multiple, flat revenue, regulator-forced weakening of the app-store moat, potential loss of the 20B/year Google pays them, unprofitability of Apple T.V Plus, lack of demand for Vision Pro, and just general sluggishness of the business. Frankly, I also sort of think that while Apple has a lot of pricing power, there IS as limit to what people will pay. Moreover, Apple has been slow to offer any impressive AI-integration into SIRI, leaving the door open for a company like Google to sell their Pixel phones (of which i’m a proud owner) as the “AI Phone.” If they could undercut Apple on price and utility, Google could start taking some market share in phone sales. I think I may have caught the tail end of the “Apple is a magical company” narrative. If people don’t upgrade their phones constantly, regulation weakens the app-store margins, and Apple can’t get the bottom line to grow, then I can’t imagine how buybacks alone will be enough to justify the multiple. I still own some, but this one is on the chopping block unless I can find a reason it is still as good as some of my other ideas.
Berkshire Hathaway $BRK.B: ~3%
First stock I bought, and i’ll “never” sell it. Beat the market and I love owning Berkshire. Plus i’m not smart enough to value it properly.
(The Coal Bet) Alpha Metalurgical Resources $AMR + Warrior Met Coal $HCC: Together at ~3%
My “coal bet” write up has been very popular and its free so go check that out if you want the full rundown. I started buying up coal producers early this year as a way to shift my portfolio out of the way of big tech. If you haven’t guessed where the other half of my Apple position went, this is part of it. Coal companies have been thrown in the trash thanks to a cool-off in China, regulations around lending to coal miners, and frankly institutions just not wanting to advertise a portfolio with “coal” in the mix. But not all coal is created equal and the coal bet is all about steel-making coal, not thermal coal for power plants. For a myriad of reason which i’ve outlined in my original write up (hint hint go read that if you haven’t already) I expect demand global demand for steel-making coal to rise over the next decade, and these two companies are my favorite way to position for it.
Celsius Holdings $CELH: ~3.5%
I bought Celsius after I realized it was publicly traded. For those who don’t know, Celsius sells sugar free “better-for-you” energy drinks to both men and women! I had been drinking these things daily and foolishly never bothered to see if I could invest in it. The interesting thing about Celsius is that they are not only in 3rd place behind Redbull and Monster in the energy category, but their customers consist of a LOT of people who previously weren’t “energy drink people” — women in particular. The way I saw it, these guys found a way into an incredibly lucrative and fast growing market without having to go head to head with any big players. Its hard for Monster or RedBull to reinvent themselves after 2 decades of establishing their brand identy as something akin to “jet-fuel for badasses.” I loved the product and found a way to rationalize buying in at $41/share before the stock rallied above $90, back down to the 50’s (where I bought more), back up to the 90’s and then crashed down to the 20’s (where I bought more again).
Currently I’m flat on this position and its been a brutal journey. The reason behind the tanking share price has to do with the way Celsius books their revenue from their largest distributor: Pepsi. The long and short is that Pepsi instituted some “inventory optimization” last year, which basically just means they were buying too much Celsius too quickly. This sent two signals to the market. 1) Some of Celsius’s eye-watering growth was bull$@#t, and 2) Celsius was about to have a few bad quarters. By now, a lot of that pain is in the rearview mirror as Celsius has recently announced the acquisition of their biggest direct competitor “Alani Nu” — an entirely female focused energy drink maker.
Before the acquisition, Celsius had a beautiful balance sheet (no debt + plenty of cash), and now its…less beautiful. I also don’t really love managements use of “Pro-forma non-gaap adjusted EBITDA” in the acquisition announcement. It sends the hair on my neck up when I hear such jargon. I also basically don’t like the idea of buying growth — even if there is “synergy” (another term I dislike). I’m swaying back and fourth on this one. I love the product and the market. I know a lot of folks who drink this stuff daily (myself included). Moreover, Celsius is trying to expand into international markets — albeit not as fast as I initially hoped. I think ultimately it could be a wonderful company, but I question the moat as well as the management. Caffeine is habit forming, and Celsius has enough flavors that you’ll eventually find one you like. YTD Celsius has actually been my best performing position with a return of 47%.
Netflix $NFLX: ~4%
Bum BUM. Netflix. I covered Netflix in my second ever write up when I laid out the way that company’s content library is amortized, and this masks a lot of Netflix’s real value. But thats why I hold it, not why I bought it. I purchased shares of Netflix seemingly moments before the sell-off in late 2021. It wasn’t the best time to buy, but incredibly i’m still up almost 100% on those initial shares, and more on the ones I bought subsequently. Its really just as simple as this: Netflix is not a discretionary purchase. See, maybe you’re like many people who use their parents Netflix or you have your own personal account. But now imagine you’re the parent, and your child or spouse watches Netflix, but you don’t. Now imagine the conversation where you tell them you’re cancelling Netflix. I now pay for both my mom’s and my Netflix and she’s hooked. No way could I cancel it now!
Fortunately, unlike Hulu (which I can’t stand paying for), I feel I get a good value for my Netflix subscription. Since I bought it, the AD tier has been an impressive growth driver. They’ve also expanded into live events and sports. Netflix’s “Drive to Survive” is an excellent example of Netflix leading culture as one in every four F1 fans say they became a fan after watching the Netflix show. Moreover, Netflix’s decision to withstand cultural pressure on some of their stand-up content was — in my humble opinion — forward looking. Netflix has won and thats all there is to it. Sure there are times I can’t find anything good to watch, but I really never think about cancelling the subscription. I think Netflix has many years ahead of entertaining not only the U.S, but the entire world. Toss on a VPN and see how many shows, how many languages, and how many countries Netflix actually offers. Its a wonderful place for quality entertainment, and I don’t see any shift away from Netflix in the future. The valuation is a bit frosty, but as I explained in my amortization write up, there is more value hidden in its content library. Moreover they have a lot of pricing power as more and more households cut the cord of cable and move to streaming. Netflix’s valuation would have to get to an absurd valuation for me to sell it.
Eagle Materials $EXP: ~7%
Ah now we’re getting interesting. Concrete? This guy owns Netflix, Celsius, and concrete? Yep. You may even say I believe in concrete more than I believe in Netflix. Eagle Materials is also a newer position of mine, and one I was buying aggressively alongside coal. I bought some early in 2025 and continued buying as the market fell to lower my cost basis.
Why concrete? Well because its so damn cheap and so damn heavy. Once you transport concrete over 300 miles by road, you may as well not have sold it because cost/ton is unlike any other product I know of. Its just too heavy and literally not worth the cost to ship it long distances. That makes concrete a highly localized business, and one where you don’t have to compete with cheap foreign produced products. Even within states and counties, concrete producers are local monopolies.
Eagle Materials has spent 2 decades buying up assets around fast growing geographies in the U.S in order to both corner the market, and also vertically integrate their business; thereby making them the lowest cost producer in every area in which they operate. They make concrete for industrial use as well as gypsum wallboard (sheetrock). At a ~16/17 P.E, a ~30% ROE, and ~20% net margin, these guys are killing the concrete game. Balance sheet checks out with plenty of cash and debt =< 3 years of net income. The numbers all look good and management buys back shares whenever the stock slides. I love buybacks for value ideas, so I was very happy to see management agrees. Moreover, when times get tough and other suppliers go underwater, Eagle is able to buy them up and continue to cement their place as the go-to supplier for builders.
Side note, I have a write-up coming soon for EXP so stay tuned for that.
???? ~8%
I can’t tell you what this position is yet because its a $30 million company with a highly illiquid stock, and I may not be done buying just yet. Plus the company is buying back their own shares and i’d rather not do anything to alert the world to its existence just yet. Perhaps i’ll do a write up for paid subscribers - still not sure.
Amazon $AMZN: ~9%
Amazon, alongside that mystery company from earlier, is a core position of mine. I purchased shares in Amazon around the same time I bought Netflix in early 2022. I bought some more in the August 2024 dip, and really ramped it up to a core position during the tariff sell-off. Amazon is a beautiful company with its hands in many pies.
Of course they are most famous for their E-commerce platform and lightening fast delivery service, but that business alone is really not impressive economically — at least not the way one would guess. Amazon doesn’t “buy for a nickel and sell for a dime.” Instead, they get paid by 3rd party sellers on their platform who rely on Amazon’s seller-services to facilitate their own businesses. Amazon has built a moat of cap-ex around their vast seller services and delivery business, such that it makes no sense for competitors to enter the ring. Its a toll road on e-commerce and Amazon has done a wonderful job of leveraging that position. They squeeze sellers and provide customers incredible price, service, variety, and speed. But even that moat of cap-ex wasn’t enough to enthrall me.
What really blew my mind was when Amazon flipped a switch and manifested a world-class advertising business seemingly overnight. Imagine the buying data possessed by Amazon, and now imagine you want to advertise your product to potential customers. Who on this planet has better buying data than Amazon? Meta? Nonsense. Amazon is where people go to buy stuff, and Amazon knows what you buy, when you buy it, and probably even how you felt when you bought it. Plus, the “Fulfillment By Amazon” product suite is such a vital tools for sellers that its almost mandatory. They handle inventory, payments, and shipping in such a way that it really doesn’t make sense for sellers to try and do it themselves. You must pay Amazon for the right to advertise your widget, list your widget on the site, and ship it from A to B. Maybe you bought for a nickel and sold for a dime, but Amazon charged you 40 cents for the privilege. But hey, its not a monopoly! Anyone who wants next-day or same day delivery can just go ahead and spend the many many billions of dollars that Amazon spent building out that infrastructure. Love it or hate it, Amazon is not smoke and mirrors, its genuinely an engine of economic efficiency. That engine may be in 4th gear in the U.S, but its still shifting into 1st and 2nd gear in much of the world. Amazon still looses money with this business in other countries as it gets the world hooked on its convenience and low prices. I live abroad and the local delivery here in southern Europe is abominable compared to Amazon. Eventually those international segments will turn a profit as they do in the states, but Amazon is in no rush as they continue to build out a global delivery network that makes DHL look like the pony express. Did I miss anything? Oh right AWS.
To explain AWS, I’d like to tell the story of how Bezos actually came up with the idea. He was on a tour of an old factory from the early 20th century when the tour guide pointed out an old power generator that, once upon a time, provided that factory with its electricity. Bezos realized that every company used to have its own power generator that it used to electrify the building and it’s operations. Today of course that power is purchased from the grid. The system of independent power generation is incredibly inefficient compared to the grid system we have today for a whole host of reasons. Anyway, while Bezos was on this tour, it occurred to him that the businesses of the world were all operating on their own servers. The lightbulb went off, and Bezos realized in that moment that such a system for compute was also very inefficient. What if one company offered compute power as a utility, and rented that compute power to businesses as a service. And so “Amazon Web Services” was born. If Amazon’s e-commerce business seems like an octopus with tentacles in and around the economy, then AWS is the water itself. Today, 2.38 million businesses run on AWS. I love owning an asset where, if it disappeared overnight, there would be a national security emergency. Thats a sign of a moat right there. The margins on AWS are as lovely as its growth, and as it stands AWS’s growth is constrained by supply - not demand. And what, pray tell, is constraining them?
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company $TSM: ~9%
As Amazon, Microsoft, Tesla, Google, and Meta all pour capital into expansion of their cloud businesses, the thing they’re spending all spending hundreds of billions of dollars on is the dang chips!
The CPU’s and GPU’s needed to run massive data centers are designed by a variety of different companies; the most famous of which is NVDIA. But NVDIA doesn’t actually manufacture their chips; neither does AMD, Apple, or QualComm. Instead these chips are made by basically one company who has left every other other chip-manufacturer in the dust: TSMC.
I bought my initial position in TSM in 2020 for around $50/share (today it sells for $194/share), and I’ve barely added to it until recently. On its own TSM has grown to be one of my largest holdings, and is easily my oldest single position besides Berkshire. Since my initial purchase, TSMC has rapidly expanded its capacity for chip-making in the U.S as the demand for HPC (high performance compute) has exploded thanks to AI. All those NVDIA chips the world is crazy for? Made by TSM. Your new Macbook? The CPU was made in Taiwan. Even your car probably relies on Taiwanese chip making to unlock the damn door. There isn’t really a company on Earth as important to global growth as TSMC, and after I read the book “Chip War,” I was essentially convinced of that fact.
I should do a deep dive on TSM because there is a lot to talk about, but i’ve finally added to this position during the tariff sell-off. Over the last 5 years i’ve watched TSM make an absolute cuckold of Intel. Unlike TSM, Intel both designs and manufactures its chips. The problem is they just don’t do either thing very well. Its gotten to the point where recently Intel has basically contracted TSMC to actually manufacture their chips. For a company that has spent hundreds of billons on chip fabs, this is embarrassing. I don’t expect TSM to lose its position at the top of the heap anytime soon. TSM is basically a pick and shovel play on all technology, and they don’t even trade at a pricey valuation (thanks to fears about a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan — something i’ll cover in the deep dive). You don’t have to know how AI is goin to play out to realize that TSM will play an integral role in that story.
Visa $V: ~9%
And finally we have Visa; tied for largest position with TSM and Amazon. I love Visa for its simplicity, insane margins, incredible ROE, and its natural monopoly that enables it to float above the muck of competition. I never intended to make this position so large. Its more than i’d steadily added to it since 2020 anytime the P/E had fallen below 30 or so. Its grown all the while and so its found its place at the top of my portfolio.
Visa (along with Mastercard), enables instant electronic payments across its network. Customers, businesses, and banks all create a giant global payment network run on the high speed rails of VISA. I love it because its so darn quiet. 639 million transactions are made on Visa’s network PER DAY. They’re performed instantly, safely, and easily and you probably never even think about it. But each time you swipe that card, Visa takes a cut and so do I. Moreover, Visa and Mastercard make up a powerful duopoly, and they do so without having to violate the Sherman Anti-trust act. They’re whats referred to as a “natural monopoly.” Think about it like this: its hard to convince someone to use a credit card that isn’t accepted by businesses, and its hard to convince businesses to accept a credit card that nobody has! Thats not illegal, its just lucky! And so Visa and Mastercard dominate this extremely capital light business. In the words of Mastercard’s CEO, they don’t compete with each other, they compete with cash. And as these two giants grow they do so with very little capex and plenty of capital returns to shareholders (in the form of both buybacks and dividends). Besides possibly Berkshire, Visa worries me the least of any position I own. They just move along at a steady clip; earning incredible returns on capital and returning whats left back to me. The choice of Visa vs Mastercard is something we can debate, but really both are fantastic businesses with incredibly dominant positions and extraordinary fundamentals.
Parting Thoughts
This portfolio looked very different a few months ago. As we entered 2025 I was heavily invested in a few REITs as well as Ulta Beauty. Both of those positions held up in the tariff sell-off as investors fled to safer assets and Ulta beat on their earnings. I sold all of it and flooded the proceeds into my core positions; as well as some newer ideas like coal and cement. I’m working my way toward a more concentrated portfolio, and so it’s rather likely I will end up exiting a few other positions given the right price. Apple, for example, is inching closer and closer to a valuation that seems rather rich, and so if it were to return to a 40 p/e without any real cause I would likely sell the rest of it. Hey, I may even just sell it today if the mood hits.
Celsius has been a test of my claims that “I don’t care about volatility.” I make claims and Mr. Market laughs. Still, I love the product and the business, so i’m tempted to see it through at least one more year. That said, if I need capital for another idea, my Celsius position may be a good place to find it. I prefer the “straight shooting” management style of Eagle Materials.
In a future write up i’ll dive deeper into some of these positions, and maybe even write a bit about how my investment style has evolved since I began in 2019.
I hope this was useful to you, and i’ll be back soon with another deep-dive.
There it is. My portfolio “revealed.” I feel so naked now.
Disclaimer: Not investment advice. This publication is for education and entertainment only. Nothing here is an offer, solicitation, or recommendation to buy or sell any security. I may own (or short) securities mentioned and may change positions at any time without notice. Investing involves risk, including loss of principal. Do your own research and consider speaking with a licensed adviser who knows your situation.