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 (7)

• Primary stock exposure portfolio
  • Facebook (7) – Facebook reported a monstrous quarterly report a couple weeks ago. Again. And the stock rocketed right up to near all time highs. Again. I wonder where Facebook’s stock would be if they hadn’t spent $25 billion on acquiring WhatsApp, Instagram and Oculus Rift. Facebook’s market cap is more than $300BB now and I’d guess that $FB would be worth $200BB and the $25BB he spent acquiring those companies makes up another $100BB of Facebook’s market cap. While Microsoft and so many other companies are writing down billions of goodwill from their balance sheets from dumb acquisitions in years pst, these are quite the nice investments from Zuckerberg.
  • Google (7) – Google’s figuring out how make billions of dollars while investing in wild cards for the future. Android, YouTube and Search are clearly big winners in their own right already. Which other ventures, fiber networks, autonomous cars, artificial intelligence, virtual reality or something else entirely will create the next $100BB in value for Google? That said, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google rangebound between $550-750 for the next year or so.
  • Apple (8) – In the previous Latest Positions Round Up, I wrote about Apple that “I do think the stock will pullback 5-10% at some point soon, I fully expect to see this stock back to $130 or so by the end of the year, as I’ve been predicting for the last few months.” The stock pulled back about 15% since then and I’m not so sure the stock will get all the way back to $130, but I do think it will get back towards $120 later this year. I’d trimmed some near $110 a few weeks ago and might be buying those shares back around $90 in coming days or weeks.
  • Sony (8) – 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.
  • Amazon (6) – These days I see Amazon being touted as a $3 trillion dollar company (you read that right, $3TT!) and traders are loving Amazon again. Which means it’s probably time to trim a little bit of it, something I’ll probably do again soon.
  • Qualcomm (7) –  Qualcomm is currently a “Show Me” stock, as the market continues to focus on Qualcomm’s potential competition from the likes of Intel, even as Intel appears to be throwing the towel in on their mobile chips business. I would buy more QCOM in the mid $40s and would trim some if it rallies toward $60, but I plan on owning a core position in Qualcomm for a few years if the company executes.
  • First Solar (6) – First Solar, along with every other solar stock, has been trashed in the last month. First Solar is still the best positioned, best financed energy company that I can find and while it will likely be volatile for the next couple years or so as the energy cycle tries to find a bottom.
  • Nvidia (8) – Nvidia is rolling out new chipsets focused on AI and VR, two of the fastest growing sectors on the planet. I’m planning on adding another tranche of this stock in the next week or two, but have been patient waiting for it to give us a chance to buy it on weakness.
  • Ambarella (8) –Ambarella is still growing very quickly and has managed their former largest customer, GoPro’s, decline as well as it could have. Over the next few quarters, Ambarella’s going to set itself up to be a huge long-term winner over the next five to ten years or we’ll need to finally let it go. I’ll be interested in their next couple quarterly reports in seeing how diversified they’ve been able to make their customer base away.
  • FitBit (6) – So mad at myself for having ridden this stock down like I have. The growth is strong, future profitability is highly doubted by the market and this stock has a binary future ahead of it– it’s either going back to $40 or its going to $4. I’m soul searching about what I should do with this stock in the context of our broader portfolio.
  • Axogen (8) – We’ve had some nice gains in this stock over the three quarters that we’ve owned it and I think there’s still much upside in years ahead though I wouldn’t be surprised to see this stock head back to $5 at some point near-term as the recent momentum seekers have plowed into it. 

• Primary short portfolio
  • Pandora (7) – In the previous Latest Positions Round Up, I wrote this about Pandora “The stock is at new lows and I think it’s headed into the low single digits in coming months.
  • Hubspot (8) – Our most recent short, Hubspot is down 10% from its highs after its earnings report. There were some HUBS shorts who covered in a panic after the report. Now reality setting in perhaps. I don’t think unprofitable highflyer stocks are going to stay highflying as the market is punishing such things as I noted above. 
  • Spy (8) – The markets have been trying to crack the last couple weeks, and our SPY puts are nice hedges for this action.
  • GW Pharmaceuticals (7) – This company that’s valued at $1.7 billion, GWPH, reported another quarter with almost no sales — $3MM total. If GWPH can growth their sales 1000x larger, the valuation would probably be compelling. Haha.
  • IBB Biotech ETF (7) – 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 (8) –  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 Speaking of health care pricing scrutiny and valuation repricing, Valeant is the poster child.
  • Kandi Tech (*no rating, too hard to short, puts too expensive) –*Tiny Position 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.