Discipline

Every year, at my birthday date, I write a little something about the virtues of discipline on a portfolio. 

I started investing during the fall of 2008. It was apocalypse by then and it was frightening for everybody. Also, 5000$ was much more money for me back then than it is now. So, I recall that it wasn't that natural and easy to buy my first shares. 

Now, almost 18 years later, my portfolio is up a lot. I've had some bad years, but the annual increase of my portfolio (including performance AND cash invested) has been 28%. Of course, every 1000$ invested in the beginning made a huge difference while it's now unsignificant. 

The net value increase of my portfolio between may 2025 and may 2026 has been 12% and I haven't invested that much money during that period. I often ask myself if I should inject more money in my portfolio and I often realize that what I would invest is unsignificant versus the total value of the portfolio.

I also now use my porfolio as a tool to profit from some promotions of transfer. It can bring a lot of money or other rewards and it's very nice because that's the true definition of easy money. 

Such is life: more comfort as you grow old but more concerns about your life, your health and the health of those surrounding you. Life's truly never well balanced. 

Life goes on

The year is almost over and I need to write a bit about it because it's been a very special year for me. That's only my second post of the year. I've never been this lazy about this blog that I own since 2014. 

In may, I separated with the mother of my kids. We've been together for 17 years but more and more apart for the last years. It was inevitable but yet, it's troubling when it happens. 

In june, I went for a one month trip with my kids to New Zealand and Australia. When we came back, she was officially gone. I was now alone one week out of two in my house. So, for the last 5 months or so, I live a very strange life full of parental tasks one week out of two and a life in the silence of a quiet home one week out of two. I'm not sure I like it even if I was wishing for loneliness when I was in a relationship. 

I made lots of trips this year: Portugal, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia and Belgium. Some trips alone, some with a friend, some with my kids. I loved New Zealand. It was wonderful. I also loved Portugal (Madera was incredible) and Georgia (I went to Ushguli, probably one of the most special places I've seen all over the world). But even though I saw in one year more than what normal people see in all their life, strangely, it didn't give a sense to existence.

On a financial level, the year has been OK. Not exceptional but not bad either. Some of my stocks got beaten a lot (United Heatlth, Novo Nordisk, Fiserv and even Constellation Software had a hard time) and some did well (Google, Parker Hannifin, Arista Network, Lam Research). I remember buying stocks at Seoul's airport in april when Trump said that he would put taxes on everything and the market got crushed. It was about 4 AM in Seoul and I bought lots of techno stuff like Nvidia, Lam Research and Arista Networks. And everything went well a few months later.

As of december 29th, my annual performance was 9% while the market is up by about 18%. So I guess my performance isn't that good but at least the portfolio is still up.

Anyway, money is not that much a bother for me. I still want to beat the market because otherwise, I'll just buy some fund that reproduces the S&P500. But one bad/average year is not enough to stop buying my own shares. 

What are my goals for 2026? 

1- Get a girlfriend that likes karaoke and that doesn't have mental problems;

2- Beat the market;

3- Travel the world. I have 4 trips already planned;

4- Stay in health and, hopefully, see my family healthy too;

5- Find a meaning to live. 

Discipline

It's my birthday again and it's time for the annual "Discipline" post which I didn't write last year, too bored with my life.

This annual post is a reminder of the power of discipline when it comes to investment. It shows that saving money and investing this money is super important. 

Here's my portfolio since may 2009. The portfolio progression over years is a mix of money saved and market performance. That's why the first years were so impressive. 

I should have started earlier. But I'm very pleased with my annual 29% growth since 2009 given all the mistakes I've made. 

(Please note that my car is 15 years old. That's a good ingredient for getting richer over time). 

Performance for 2024 and portfolio review

My portofolio's performance in 2024: 29%

S&P500 performance: 24% (+ a dividend of about 1.3% for the year so about 25.3% in total)

There's 14 stocks out of 20 in my portfolio that have been with me for all of 2024. The 6 stocks that are out were all very good (Richelieu Hardware, Lululemon, Pool, Intuit, Agilent, Align) but I felt that I could find something better and usually less pricey. Also, my rule is to stick with 20 stocks, maybe less but not more. They were all small positions which means that these sells are not that significant. 

I spent all of 2024 with 8-12% of my portfolio in cash (or equivalent). If I had been 100% invested all of the year, my performance would probably have been better. However, given the amazing performance of the market and it's valuation, I currently prefer to hold some cash and wait for a correction before becoming once again fully invested. 

Top 5 positions at the end of 2024: 

1- Constellation Software: 15.2% of the portfolio;

2- Alphabet: 11% of the portfolio;

3- Mastercard: 8.5% of the portfolio;

4- Microsoft: 7.6% of the portfolio; 

5- Unitedhealth: 6.3% of the portfolio. 

These 5 positions represent about 49% of my portfolio. Which means that they are my stocks of conviction. Most of my other stocks represent 2 to 3% of my portfolio. 

Obviously, I don't know what will happen in 2025. I can't believe that the market will continue to be more and more pricey because current levels are very high and the market always go back to it's mean level, sooner or later. So, if nothing changes, I'll stick with my 10% cash/bonds and 90% stocks. However, if I see some panic or a second pandemic, I'll be happy to use my cash to be fully invested at a time when the market will be at it's 52 weeks lowest point. 

Happy new year to everybody. I wish you some wealth in 2025 because that's about the only thing in life on which you have some control. 

There's surely someone around you who will get cancer in 2025 and I don't have any wish to protect you from that. 

Watch list for 2025

Today, I saw that a share of Netflix (NFLX) was sold for 932$. 

On may 2nd 2022, that same share was sold for 180$. By then, there was a panic that followed bad numbers for subscription, users sharing accounts and other stuff like that. 

I was very tempted to buy some shares. I noticed that the ROE and profit margin were interesting and everybody knew that it was a dominating business even though there were a few competitors and maybe some price war coming. 

But I didn't buy any share. And today, after only two years and a half, I would have made a profit of about 750$ per share.  

A performance similar to Meta/Facebook that dropped a lot and came back with strength within less than a year (about 88$ a share in october 2022 to more than 600$ today). 

I'm obsessed about what happened to these two stocks. Because they represented huge bargains. It's like seeing a very special and beautiful girl in a bar that looks at you with insistence and you say to yourself: "I'll find a better moment to talk to her later in the evening". 

Then, you wait and you wait, because you're not drunk enough. And eventually, that pretty girl was approached by other guys and there was never another better occasion. 

One of the best metric for me is the profit margin. However, most of the companies with high profit margins are expensive. Sometimes they're very expensive. But, if you find dominating companies (like Meta, Netflix or Nvidia) in a moment were it looks like their fantastic growth of the recent years is becoming to slow down, it's probably a good moment to buy them. 

Here's a list of companies with fantastic profit margins. It's a watch list for everybody because each one of these stocks offer a profit margin way beyond average. But not all of them operate in a high growth environement. Anyway, high profit margin and reasonable PE ratio = low risk (in my opinion). 

Nvidia: 55%

Visa: 53%

United Therapeutics: 42%

Microsoft: 36%

Arista Networks: 36%

Novo Nordisk: 36%

Canadian National: 33%

Copart: 32%

Intuit: 30%

Meta: 29%

Zoetis: 29%

Factset Research: 29%

Adobe: 28%

Crazy fucking performance which makes no sense

Can someone explain me how come my portfolio was up 45% last year and up 31% so far this year? It makes absolutely no sense. It's equivalent to a compound growth of 90% in two years, which is totally crazy. And yet, about 11% of my portfolio is made of which reduced my performance (because they're less performing than the market). 

That's fucking crazy and I'm constantly thinking that it won't last. But, at the same time, even when the market drops, good stocks drop too but not that much. It's usually stocks that have a hard time that fall even lower. Which means that stocks like Dollar General or Canadian National Railway which are close to their 52 weeks lowest point may be the best candidates to fall even lower given a substantial market drop. And Tesla would likely be less impacted. 

It's not because such things happen that such things are rationnal. But it's how it works and that's what I try to consider when I manage my portfolio. Because the performance of a portfolio is a sum of many things: intelligent allocation, stocks picks, a bit of timing, a bit of luck and picks that coincide with what the other investors will consider interesting too. 

I really like my position now regarding to investment. I'm pretty passive. I make very few transactions. I'm much more patient than before. My portfolio is doing well and I could retire tomorrow with enough money to live correctly (but not richly) for the rest of my life. Thus, I won't stop working in a close future because I want to live a bit more comfortably when I'm retired. 

Today, I bought some cannabis pills at the SQDC (Société québécoise du cannabis). I'm slowly sinking in that absurd rich and famous lifestyle where you begin with cannabis and end up fucking animals in some sect in South America. Life is meaningless and sometimes I say to myself that I may find the meaning of life in the ass of a sheep. 

Portfolio review (july 15th, 2024)

THE GREAT PENETRATOR IS BACK!

I'm back with a portfolio review because I'm now fucking rich and I want you to know it, you poor people looking for a guru. 

Getting an extra 100K$ is now a child's play and I can achieve that within a few months, as long as the market is in a manic phase. When it will be on a depressive phase, I guess I'll be able to get as easily a negative 100K or 200K. But a good peddler doesn't talk about the negative side of things. So, let's assume that my portfolio will only go up forever. 

Over the last 8 months, I made as much money as I made money between february 2013 and april 2017. That's how crazy it goes with time with your portfolio if you don't gamble too much on ridiculous stocks. Getting the equivalent of a year of income on the stock market in less than a year? Yes, it's possible, but only when you'll be older and afflicted with diabetes or cataracts or something else. 

Anyway, the S&P500 is at an all-time high. It's probably not the right time to buy stocks. My favorite time to buy stocks is when they're all down because I feel like I can't go wrong. Even if some great stocks of the recent years are at their lowest level of the last year (Five Below, Lululemon, Ulta Beauty, Estée Lauder), I'd prefer to wait for a better entry point because even stocks that lost 50% of their value can go lower. So, my advice would be to get some money ready for a drop of the market (which may still take some time but will eventually come). 

Anyway, here's my portfolio:

Number of stocks: 18

Top 3 positions:

Constellation Software: 15.8%

Google: 12.1%

Microsoft: 9.1%

Cash position: 12,3%

Performance in 2024: 16%

Performance of S&P500: 19%