Cody’s Latest Positions Round Up

Here is a list of my latest positions with updated commentary and ratings for each position.

I’ve broken the list into Longs and Shorts. And from there, I’ve broken down each list into refined categories in order from the largest positions within each category to the smallest. I also give each stock a current rating from 1 to 10, 1 being “Get out of this position now!” and 10 being “Sell the farm, I’ve found a perfect investment.”

So here’s the list:

Longs –

• Forever assets and other permanent holdings –
  • Media and other private investment/business holdings (9+ because betting on yourself and running a business is always a best bet)
  • Real estate, including land and the ranch I live on in NM (8)
  • Physical gold bullion & coins (8)

• Primary stock exposure portfolio
  • Facebook (8) – The good news is that nobody seems to be talking about FB, the stock right now. The even better news is that Facebook continues to monetize their more than three billion monthly users (including Facebook’s 1.5 billion users, Instagram’s nearly 1/2 billion and Whatsapp’s 1 billion). I’m holding my long-held Facebook stock steady and would buy more if it get hit in a broader market sell-off near-term.
  • Google (7) – Google has a lot of ventures from Nest to Android to Chrome to driverless cars to Maps and so on. But it’s still search that’s the cash cow and Google’s dominance in mobile is being monetized strongly these days too in addition to their long-time primary cash cow, desktop search, which is now facing full secular decline as people are never going to use desktop computers in the future as much as they still do today.
  • Apple (7) – Apple’s $30 off its all-time highs because of worries about China, iPhone innovation/upgrade cycle, and mostly a lack of innovation. I’m flabbergasted at the lack of innovation in the Apple TV, not to mention the declining iPad. Apple Music sucks. Apple Watch is almost always needing a recharge. I don’t know. I’m frustrated about Tim Cook’s leadership I guess.
  • Sony (8) – Not much to update on my commentary from the prior Latest Positions as it still holds true: “Sony’s stock action has been driven by two forces lately — whenever the Yen rallies hard, Sony gets hit because their export-driven business is aided by a weaker Yen and hurt by a strong Yen. Virtual Reality buzz makes Sony’s stock rally some days. I continue to expect to see this stock $30 or higher in the next year.” SNE’s now within 3% of that $30 target, just a month later. I do think the stock can continue to rally from here though and am holding mine steady.
  • Amazon (7) – Amazon is becoming the new Apple. Jeff Bezos is the closest thing to a Steve Jobs running a public company today. The valuation is scary and I wouldn’t be a big buyer of Amazon at these levels right now, but it’s a must own stock as long as Bezos is running the show. PS. I love my Amazon Echo and am ordering more for friends and family.
  • Qualcomm (8) –  Qualcomm’s positioned to a winner in driverless cars, smart car dashboards, drones, IoT and wearables. The company’s already generating billions of dollars in earnings each year from smartphones and tablet sales too.
  • First Solar (7) – Solar is a long-term winner in the energy wars and First Solar has a clean balance sheet, leading position and lots of earnings. Not sure when it will finally rebound back towards new highs, but I do expect to own this one for many years to come.
  • Nvidia (7) – Nvidia is nowadays constantly being hyped as a Tesla supplier in addition to being a play on the Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence Revolutions. The action, hype and momentum in the stock, including being a 99-rated stock on the Investor’s Business Daily Leadership Board, remind me a bit of Ambarella when it was tripling and quadrupling — before it dropped more than half. We need to be mindful of how quickly this stock will drop if the fundamentals don’t live up to the hype in the quarters ahead, but for now I’m holding my $NVDA steady.
  • Twitter (8) – Periscope is getting better and bigger. Twitter’s got lots of ways to finally start monetizing their news/celebrity outlet dominance. Jack Dorsey’s got to get it done though.
  • FireEye (7) – FireEye’s growth is strong, but it’s got to get profitable and it’s got to keep growing quickly. The stock’s rallied nicely since we added it, and I’m going to be vigilant watching this company’s fundamental execution.
  • Lion’s Gate (7) – A recent strong earnings report has popped this stock out of the teenager status, but it’s still quite cheap and still has a ton of content that’s in demand by the richest and most valuable companies on the planet like Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, etc.
  • Ambarella (7) –I wrote this in the prior Latest Positions Round Up: “I’ll be interested in their next couple quarterly reports in seeing how diversified they’ve been able to make their customer base away.” Well, GoPro’s not as big a customer anymore, but Sony’s image sensor business, which supplier iPhone and virtually every high-end smartphone out there, has become a nearly 40% customer now.
  • FitBit (7) – Still holding Fitbit steady for now. The stock is very cheap and likely headed higher as long as Fitbit can meet its own goals for topline and earnings this year and next.
  • Axogen (7) – Still holding this long-term speculative venture capital-like investment steady.

• Primary short portfolio
  • Pandora (8) – Not sure how this company ever justifies its market cap as there is still a long way to go towards being profitable and the company’s got competition growing from Amazon, Google, Apple, Spotify, etc.
  • Hubspot (8) – Hubspot’s been on fire lately and I’m down about 10% on my starter short position. I’m not in a rush to add to it just now, in part because of my bullishness about the stock markets here, but I’ll probably do at least one more tranche of shorting this one in the next week or two.
  • Spy (6) – I lost on my SPY puts that I’d bought back in April to help hedge the broader portfolio. That’s okay, they were a hedge. I’m going to let these expire worthless and might buy some more protection at some point.
  • GW Pharmaceuticals (6) – I’ve been re-evaluating this name afresh as several friends of mine are long the stock. I’m still short but will do a new full report on this stock soon.
  • IBB Biotech ETF (7) – Same as last update: “Biotech/health-care pricing is getting ever more scrutiny from the government and I think a general repricing of these health-care related valuations is playing out in front of us right now.”
  • SeaDrill (6) –  Same as last update: “SDRL is a tiny put position for me. The debt wasn’t really restructured other than to extend some deadlines six months. I think the company is a zero unless oil rallies to like $70 in the next few months and lots of sea drilling gets ordered. I highly doubt either will happen.”
  • Valeant Pharmaceuticals (6) – *Tiny Position I’m amazed that so many hedge fund and money managers and analysts on Wall Street were blind to this company’s problems, debt, accounting issues, pricing profiteering and so on. The stock’s at new lows and down some 85% since we shorted it. Still holding a few shares short, if only for ego at this point.
  • Kandi Tech (*no rating, too hard to short, puts too expensive) –*Tiny Position Same as last update: “This stock is still fading lower and I’m likely to finally close out this position and lock in those profits.”

Remember: I wouldn’t rush into a full position all at once in any of these stocks or any other position you’ll ever buy. Patience and allowing the market and time to work to your advantage by buying in tranches is key. Maybe 1/3 or 1/5 of whatever you  might consider to be a “full position” in any particular stock. And I wouldn’t ever have more than 5-15% of your portfolio in any one stock position at any given time. The younger you are and/or the higher the trajectory of your career income, the more concentrated and risk-taking you can be with weighting in your portfolio. But spread your purchases and your risk out over time and over a several positions no matter your age or risk-averse level.

Scaling into a position using an approach of buying 1/3 or 1/5 tranches over time is how I build my personal portfolio positions, but there’s no scientific way to go about investing and trading. Sometimes you have to pay up for the latest tranche but I try to be patient and wait for a temporary sell-off to add to the existing position.

** NOTE FOR NEW SUBSCRIBERS:

If you’re new to TradingWithCody or if you’ve been a subscriber for a while but haven’t acted on much of my strategies yet and/or if you haven’t been in the markets, but you’re sick of getting 0% on your CDs, Treasuries, savings, checking, etc while the markets have been continually hitting all-time highs this year, what should you do now?

Before you ever make any trade, step back and catch your breath before moving any money anywhere. Rank your positions and your whole portfolio and make sure you’re not about to make any emotional moves with your money.

If you haven’t yet read “Everything You Need to Know About Investing” then spend a couple hours doing so, please. It’s a quick read but chock-full of important ideas, concepts and strategies that amateurs and pros alike should understand.

Then, take a look at my own personal portfolio’s Latest Positions and slowly start to scale into some of the ones you like best and/or the ones I have rated highest right now. I’d look to start scaling into a few of the many stocks in the Latest Positions that are at all-time highs along with a couple that we’ve recently featured in our Trade Alerts that I’ve personally been scaling into.

You can find an archive of Trade Alerts here.