My Holdings Pt. 2, The Losers
I just reviewed my top three holdings in terms of performance: Costco, TQQQ, and Microsoft. Costco and Microsoft were two companies I have held for a long time while TQQQ is just a company I have caught the wave on recently. These other four companies I have either held for a much shorter amount of time or they suck (Disney). My fourth best-performing holding is.......... (drum roll please).......BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY B CLASS STOCK.
I joke about holding Berkshire Class A stock all the time, but unless you are doing much better than I am in the market or life, you do not own the most expensive stock in the world. However, Class B stock still gets the job as it is the exact same as Class A, except without the luxury of voting. When you buy into Berkshire Hathaway, you buy the brains of one of the smartest individuals in the market. Berkshire makes up 10% of my portfolio and has provided a 15% gain to me since I bought at $359 and the price is currently at $411. The word I always hear from smart people in equities is “compounders.” You want your holdings to grow and grow, layering gains one on top of the other, and Berkshire Hathaway provides you with that compounding. Berkshire is one of the, if not the, best places to park your money in the market because you know leadership is not going to do something stupid with your money, and in all likelihood, will invest your money impressively. Stop reading this column right now and look at Berkshire’s price history. Past results do not guarantee future ones, but my lord. The stock just will not stop moving upwards. Berkshire is at all times a great place to put your money.
The next stock on the chopping block is an old friend of the website, DISNEY. Disney is a complicated stock of mine. Disney was my second personal pick after Microsoft that was all mine. I had stolen Costco from my grandfather and Microsoft from a lucky guess. Disney was one of the first I did a genuine analysis on, and I was sure I was right about the stock being undervalued. For a time, it looked as if I was right. During the pandemic, the stock surged up to record highs and I did not sell. On the way down, I learned many valuable lessons and once the stock got below my price paid, which was about $120 at the time, I started snapping up shares. NINE SEPARATE TIMES I bought the stock. Now, my price paid is $100. My price paid would have been lower, but I got scared. The stock was hovering around $80-$90 and I knew it was a buy, but a worrying amount of my portfolio (20%) had become Disney, and while I am pretty smart, I am not smart enough to gamble like that. However, a recent run-up has provided me with a 14% total gain. Disney is an odd company. I like Disney, and I will continue to like Disney. Never bet against The Mouse as they say, but as soon as Bob Iger leaves- I leave. I will pay the price to get back in if they get the wrong guy, but I am only here because of Bob Iger. In the market, finding a person you can trust to fight every battle with tenacity, love for the company, and see around every corner is rare, and there is zero chance I would be in Disney if not for Bob. IN BOB WE TRUST.
My sixth best-performing stock is Block. I check on how my positions are doing every day around noon, as my AP Human Geo class is excruciating, and every day, I see Block up 4% or down 5%. I truly have never experienced a company so consistently volatile. I think Block is the company in my portfolio with the highest Beta. Block’s Beta is 2.54. For those who do not know, Beta is mostly used in options trading, but it is a measure of a stock’s volatility. The market average is one. For context, Microsoft’s beta is 0.89, and Disney is 1.4. Block is three times more volatile than Microsoft and about 1.8 times more volatile than Disney. Block jumps up and down by a ton every day, making it a bit of a frustrating company. However, over the long term, I believe in this company’s ability to stay at the forefront of the transfer of money. Jack Dorsey is a bit of a nut, but sometimes that’s a good thing. Put a smidgen of your portfolio in Block and see how it plays out. Currently, I am up 7% on the stock, and it is 10% of my portfolio.
My seventh best-performing stock, AKA the worst stock, is a surprising one: Apple is my worst-performing stock. Apple would be performing much better on paper (up 0.28%) if I had not gotten greedy. I bought Apple at $145, which was a good call. I then went back in and bought Apple at $192……….a couple of times. Those double and triple-backs were foolish, I should have just let the stock run up, but I did not and have learned my lesson. Not much you can say about Apple, except that you should always believe in it. If Warren Buffett feels good enough about Apple to have it be 50% of his portfolio, it is good enough to be 9% of mine.
Like I said in my last article, I am extremely concentrated in just a few positions, and that is because I believe in them deeply.
