Any Stockpickers out there?

[PhilMongoose]

So at the beginning of the year, my portfolio is approximately per the table below. In 2024, I sold down the portfolio to fund my pension and also trimmed all positions so that none were >10% of the portfolio.

One result of the change is that the main part of my liquid bond portfolio has been sold off and put into the pension and all that remains are relatively illiquid single company bonds which will be held to maturity (represented by the symbol JNK) and a bit of BIL, BOXX.

I’d like to increase the liquid cash equivalent part of my portfolio (BIL) to >5% and also keep stock component in total >50%. I’d also like to reduce the portfolio volatility and exposure to low income consumers (e.g. eliminate DG position).

I’d like to consult the wisdom of the crowd and happy to receive your comments, criticisms and suggestions.

Symbol	Proportion of portfolio %
BTI	9.8
JNK	8.8
AMLP	3.5
WDS.AX	3.0
AWE.L	2.9
VICI	2.9
CAOS	2.9
U-UN.TO	2.9
GLD	2.7
URNM	2.3
VDY.TO	1.9
ADM	1.7
VALE	1.7
CCJ	1.7
O	1.6
VWO	1.3
BOXX	1.3
LNC	1.3
IAK	1.2
CMCSA	1.2
IMB.L	1.2
CRH	1.2
CALM	1.2
NNN	1.1
PRU	1.1
GDX	1.1
PFE	1.0
UGI	1.0
COWZ	1.0
BN	0.9
PBR	0.9
DG	0.9
MO	0.9
2914.T	0.9
VZ	0.8
RIO	0.8
UEC	0.7
RTX	0.7
ADC	0.7
PGR	0.7
NOVN.SW	0.7
LHX	0.7
ZD	0.7
VPL	0.7
FMC	0.6
PDN.AX	0.6
BIPC	0.6
OVV	0.6
VRSN	0.5
WHR	0.5
NEM	0.5
PM	0.5
CGT.L	0.5
MDT	0.5
LNG	0.5
NG.L	0.5
WHC.AX	0.5
XOM	0.5
GPN	0.5
AEM	0.4
PCG	0.4
BLN.TO	0.4
MOS	0.4
JD	0.4
NTR	0.4
ELV	0.4
KAP.IL	0.4
CB	0.4
FR	0.4
GUNR	0.4
ED	0.4
GDDY	0.4
ES	0.4
ATKR	0.3
WPC	0.3
YCA.L	0.3
GOLD	0.3
GEV	0.3
SBSW	0.3
RUI.PA	0.3
SLX.AX	0.2
SO	0.2
NCSM	0.2
BHP	0.2
SPPP	0.2
BIL	0.2
BYNN.F	0.1

[Your_Full_Name]

What’s your goal with Woodside?

Operating Cash Flow* in FASTgraphs:

They do seem undervalued, but then again their price hasn’t really moved in 20 years and their dividend is all over the place.

(For completeness here’s the Adjusted (Operating) Earnings:

)

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Somewhat similar with VALE – what’s your goal here?

Operating Cash Flow:

Seems undervalued, but price and dividend are all over the place over the past couple of decades.

(For completeness the Adjusted (Operating) earnings:

)

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Curious why you’re holding Pfizer.

I have half a position myself (for the dividend), but I dislike how they can’t really seem to be able to grow earnings. I keep going back and forth about selling it for that reason.

[jes]

@PhilMongoose

One result of the change is that the main part of my liquid bond portfolio has been sold off and put into the pension and all that remains are relatively illiquid single company bonds which will be held to maturity (represented by the symbol JNK) and a bit of BIL, BOXX.

I’d like to increase the liquid cash equivalent part of my portfolio (BIL) to >5% and also keep stock component in total >50%.

I was having a very similar issue. With large pillar 2 contributions over the last few years, it’s quite hard to have a large stock allocation without also having all the liquidity concentrated purely in equities. That seems bad both from a sequence of returns risk perspective, and in being unable to profit from a market crash.

Something has to give: either accept not having liquidity, stop extra pillar 2 contributions, or reduce the equity allocation. I’ve gone with the last one, until I get some control over the pillar 2 allocations (via a 1e or a a Freizugigkeitskonto).

So during January I’ve moved about 7% of NW from equities to SGOV. The story I’m sticking to is that it totally is not an attempt at timing the market, but maybe I’m just fooling myself

Reasoning for SGOV, based on <30 minutes of research (so take it with a grain of salt):

• Not BOXX, since I couldn’t explain to a 12-yo how box spreads work
• Not USFR, since I don’t have a mental model for what the actual effect of interest rate changes would be on a floating rate note ETF
• Not BIL since SGOV has a lower TER

(In retrospect, maybe this is more of a 2025 strategy rather than stockpicking topic.)

[PhilMongoose]

What’s your goal with Woodside?

I’d sold off almost all of my O&G portfolio but decided to keep some of the gas element to avoid being totally out of energy.

In December 2024, I got a bit nervous about the energy underweight so bought also into LNG, OVV and the more speculative NCSM as well as a small position in XOM (even if I do think the price is too high).

Somewhat similar with VALE – what’s your goal here?

This is to own real assets and so be a form of inflation hedge. I feel it is probably a bit still early/expensive to buy, but decided to take a position anyway.

Curious why you’re holding Pfizer.

Sold during Covid peak so now buying back in after the vaccine hype ended. Bought for the fairly defensive nature (and pays dividends) plus potentially undervalued.

[PhilMongoose]

Are there any tools that can process a list of stocks to produce a high level report? e.g. make tables of stats such as PE ratio, forward PE, print out a fastgraph for each etc.?

[rolandinho]

@jes

With large pillar 2 contributions over the last few years, it’s quite hard to have a large stock allocation without also having all the liquidity concentrated purely in equities. That seems bad both from a sequence of returns risk perspective, and in being unable to profit from a market crash

I don’t quite understand @PhilMongoose 's topic (too complex for me), but the “problem” you describe I also had and “solved” for myself, by in those last years (say 2 years before, when I was pretty sure of the timeline), by intending to use margin loan *1 in case of a significant crash, to keep equity to target allocation overall.
When I would’ve moved my pillar 2 from employer to vested benefits accounts (and thus from “100% bond” to high stocks allocation), this margin loan would’ve been paid back, by selling/reducing equity allocation again in my non-vested pots.

Now, currently January 2025, my “problem” is this liquidity being available in non-vested and only such poor “bonds” or savings account interest rates being available. Ah, first world problems. Oh, and I can add, I wouldn’t have been brave enough to exchange my CHF’s to USD’s at the high FX rates at begin January 2025 to “only” invest in SGOV…

1* PS there was no significant crash (in my portfolio value) in those 2 years, so no loans were necessary in the end.

[PhilMongoose]

@rolandinho

I wouldn’t have been brave enough to exchange my CHF’s to USD’s at the high FX rates at begin January 2025 to “only” invest in SGOV…

Why high? They’ve been around the average level of the last 5 years:

[Goyero]

@Your_Full_Name Could you please share some graphics of Dynatrace, Inc. (DT)? Despite increasing sales and reducing debt, their stock price has remained relatively constant since Q2 2023

[Your_Full_Name]

Dynatrace.

Seemingly impressive earnings growth of 28% annualized since IPO, but if you cut off that 1st year of 100% growth in earnings – clearly an outlier in their 2020 financial year – it’s a little less flashy at 17-18% annualized earnings growth. Still very nice, but not great.

The fair multipe for 17-18% earnings growth is a 17-18 x P/E. They’re currently sporting a close to 40 P/E …

Other aspects:

• I like that their earnings projections for 2025 and 2026 seem to be growing, albeit very slowly. For 2027 analysts’ forecasts have been going down, though …
• Very little debt: nice!
• No credit rating: meh

Looking purely at fundamentals, I’d expect a negative return if they returned to their “fair” multiple of about 18 …

… and a positive return if the stock price returns to the company’s historic “normal” multiple of about 40:

Certainly nothing that I would buy, but I am biased by a lack of dividend and a stubborn belief that most companies will eventually return to their fair value (as determined by their earnings growth).

To respond to your direct comments: sales might be great and if they’ve been able to reduce debt, all the better, but at the end of the day earnings and earnings growth is what counts in the long term: the price you pay today is supposed to reflect (at least) the earnings you get over the company’s lifetime.*

In my personal view, this company is able to continue to grow earnings, but probably not at a high cliff. The services they offer are great, but I expect the mega cloud providers to offer some of the same services “for free” (as part of their cloud offering) since both their customers want this and since the cloud providers’ internal devs and admins already have and use such tools internally. It’s a matter of making those internal products available to customers and making them “multiple cloud” capable.
That commodisation is happening as we speak.

Anywho, no investment advice, these were my “free” 2 cents, do your own homework, etc.

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* Image you're a financier with lots of money, and you want to invest (not speculate). You buy entire companies. You but Dynatrace as an entire company at the current price because you're convinced that the future earnings will compensate you for the purchase price (all future earnings go to you since you wholly own the company). You want all future earnings to at least reach your purchase price (adjusted for inflation) plus some premium to compensate you for the risk of buying this company instead of just owning US Treasury bonds which will pay out a guaranteed return (minus inflation).

As the theory goes, it’s fair to pay a different price depending on how fast the company is able to grow their earnings.
If the company grows fast, maybe pay more as earnings will (hopefully) increase in the future.
If the company grows at a normal rate, maybe pay a little less as earnings will increase more slowly.
If the company doesn’t grow earnings, maybe pay a lot less as you can only expect the current earnings times the years you own the company.

[Your_Full_Name]

Not aware of a product per se, but perhaps such a service might exist: send Beetcoin to a friend of Goofy’s address, and in return you receive tables and stats.

Can’t guarantee for sober numbers or neutral numbers – maybe Goofy’s friend just finally wants to get rid of his PFE position and needs a … ahem, interested buyer, but hey, this is as good as it gets if you don’t want to pay up for your Bloomberg terminal.

[Goyero]

thanks for the investment charts and insightful comments. I completely agree that if major cloud providers start offering similar services as part of their cloud solutions, it could be disastrous for Dynatrace unless they are already developing new services that customers will want

[PhilMongoose]

I got too nervous with my large BTI position and sold down half of it and put it into MO instead.

I had a cost basis of $41 in MO and kicking myself for not buying more at the time. $50 is more than I’d like to pay but parking it there now until I decide what to do.

Sold down half of PBR position too.

EDIT: got a bit carried away:

Sold: BTI, PBR, ES, DG, FR, WPC
Bought: MO, PCG, VICI, SGOV, BOXX

[cubanpete_the_swiss]

Actually one may call me a stock picker, but I use mechanical strategies for everything. Specially when to buy how much of what and when to sell how much of what.

Today my gambling strategy told me to buy CBRL, already a nice loss…

Here’s the content of my gambling (growth-momentum) strategy:

And that is my dividend portfolio:

[stojano]

There was a show on german TV: Glücksrad…

[PhilMongoose]

Ooh. A really nice effect of the transfer from BTI → MO is that it really smoothed out my dividend profile.

Previously, I’d have very big payments on the 2nd month of each quarter and not much on the first month. Now this is nicely smoothed out.

Now June is the only light month. Now I just need to find a company that pays dividends in June…

[Your_Full_Name]

Glücksrad (Spielshow) – Wikipedia

Personally, I believe this fortune wheel concept does not apply as much to companies that actually produce earnings / cash flow based on work that actually creates value versus say … gold, or similar things, that rely on people believing that other people will value it because of scarcity or what not.

Not meaning to pick a fight here, but since this is the Stockpickers thread, I’d rather not have a fortune wheel side show of … well, other things.

Thank you very much.

[Your_Full_Name]

Care to share (or link) your mechanical strategy here? I think you might have mentioned it on a different topic already, but linking it here might be useful to discuss it in the context of stock picking.

[Tester]

I found the same with SGOV, seems good enough, the tech part of the portfolio went recently insane ratio, had to harvest a bit. Wanted to buy TBills directly, but requires too much thinking and my final argument for SGOV was that the time I would spend on optimising bonds should be spent on research into companies. Definitely not investment advice to harvest (see Peter Lynch’s flowers and weeds), but it looks like there will be no cash inflow to the broker this year for us.

[cubanpete_the_swiss]

I started a thread “Mechanical Investment Strategies”: Mechanical investment strategies

I explain the filters there, but the stock picking, specially the initial one where I did need 25 positions for the divi strategy, is a bit tricky. I did use screens like finviz and there filter and sort through some of the (limited) criteria. One could start with an index too, like the U.S. Dividend 100 Index.

[Tester]

Anyone playing some long-term games on emerging companies like SoFi? Doing my research, but never analysed a bank/loaning service, all tips welcome