AMS PORTFOLIO REVIEW – APRIL 2021

AMS PORTFOLIO REVIEW – APRIL 2021

BACKGROUND & OVERVIEW

I run investments in both the UK (an investment legacy from my UK origins focused mainly on stable high yield income producing investments) as well as here in Singapore, (where I have been living for approaching 12 years).

My Singapore investments are split between a US portfolio and an Asia portfolio (listed equities in Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia). My US portfolio is principally a Saul style pure growth portfolio whilst my Asia portfolio is a mix of High Yield income producers (mostly REITs) and Asia located growth plays (e.g. Ali Baba, Meituan Dianping and Afterpay). This Portfolio summary will focus only on the US portfolio.

The US portfolio has produced outsized returns since discovering Saul’s board - I’m up ~300% since 2016 Year End (and that doesn’t factor in ongoing withdraws during the period whilst getting my own consulting business up and running with my business partner).

The portfolio has also gone through a considerable reconstitution. Going back 4 years I had 120+ stocks in my US portfolio and very low concentration amongst holdings, (my top 15 holdings were between 1.5% and 2.5% in value), I had a lot of long held positions with many investments under water and if I’m honest with myself a lot of equities where the investment thesis had changed and I had not acted accordingly.

As of today my US portfolio is down to below 50 positions with much more substantial investment sizes and higher overall concentration. My holding period has come down although I still own stocks for longer in duration than many on this board and will tend to stick with positions when conviction and investment theses remain strong even if there might be short term weaknesses in the share price or quarter to quarter transitions. Cloud and tech now dominate my portfolio in terms of holdings and value and I’m no longer allocating investment towards old economy plays no matter how favourable the situations or the tailwinds. I have also reduced my exposure to China considerably for a number of reasons, including; the tailing off of its hypergrowth emerging era, the delisting risk in the US and the availability of China plays on the HK market. In common with others on this board the position sizes are driven by a combination of performance and conviction – as a result positions are stratified into tiers within the portfolio. My investment selections, entries and exits are now financial/business performance driven as far as possible and there’s no room for story or narrative investing, turnaround speculation or value fishing. Key mega themes that I do pay attention to and am comfortable maintaining outsized exposure to include: eCommerce (~20%), Cybersecurity (~15%), Big Data (35%), Fintech (~5-10%) and throughout that – the Cloud. These mega themes are in part a function of secular tailwinds and in part the respective TAMs involved. I have also had exposure to Genomics although I have exited that sector for now.

PORTFOLIO COMPOSITION:-

The top tier ~10% positions include: Shopify, Crowdstrike, TTD and represent my highest conviction positions together with outstanding growth rates and market positions.

The second tier of 3-6% positions are high conviction strong growth plays including a mix of mature performers (MongoDB, Alteryx and Square) as well as young stars (Cloudflare, Zoom, Teladoc, Elastic, Datadog, Palantir and Snowflake).

The third tier of 1-3% positions is a mix of: early stage positions (ZScaler, Skilz and Exp World), deliberately lower exposure situations - either due to either lower conviction and/or lower growth levels (Pure Storage, Fastly, Digital Turbine and Nutanix) or sector over exposure and self enforced limits (e.g. eCommerce in the case of MercadoLibre and SEA)

Outside the top 20, other notable and/or recent positions that I am: following with interest, considering building a position in and seeing some high returns with include: Peloton, Asana, Digital Turbine, Acuity Ads, Lightspeed, Upstart and Fiverr.

Roku & Upstart and a few gene sequencing players are also on my watchlist. Snowflake, Fiverr and ZScaler are positions I am looking to build with most interest (or re-build in the case of ZScaler).

3 holdings I would mention that sit outside of my US portfolio include:

Afterpay at ~10% of my US portfolio in value (which I hold in my Asia portfolio and via an Australia listing), up over 300% in 2020 and up over 500% for me overall.

Ali Baba at ~5% of my US portfolio in value (which I hold in in my Asia portfolio via an HK listing) and is probably a candidate for a 2-10 trillion $ franchise.

Meituan Dianping at 1.25% of my US portfolio in value with stellar returns to date (250%) and another potential trillion $ business in the making

Buys & Sells in the Month

New positions: Upstart, UP Fintech Holdings & Futu Holdings
Additions: Fiverr, Snowflake & Palantir
Sells: Peloton
Exits: Lemonade, Magnite & Okta

PERFORMANCE REVIEW:-

Monthly Performance


Month US Port S&P
Jan   +6.42%  -1.1%
Feb   +0.16%  +2.6%
Mar   -13.98% +4.2%
Apr   +4.93%  +5.2%
YTD   -3.79%  +11.3% 

My portfolio ended up +4.93% on the month, having previously reached an all time high in February (up 20%+ for the year at that point from which I’m ~25% under water). I ended April down 3.79% for the year to date, (accounting for withdraws), having clawed back some of my March losses.

Overall portfolio allocation rankings, theme & YTD returns


**#  Holding        Portfolio(%) Previous Mth (%) Mega-Theme 2021           YTD-SP-Change(%)**
1  Shopify        17.1%        16.8%            eCommerce/Fintech/Cloud   +4.5% 
2  Crowdstrike	  12.4%        11.4%            Cybersecurity/Cloud       -1.6%	        
3  The Trade Desk 8.7%         8.2%             Digital                   -8.9%	        
4  Zoom           5.6%         5.9%             Cloud                     -5.3%
5  DataDog        4.9%         5.0%             Big Data/Cloud            -12.9%
6  Square         4.6%         4.5%             Fintech/eCommerce/Cloud   +12.5%
7  Palantir       3.7%         4.0%             Big Data/Cloud            -2.2%
8  Snowflake      3.4%         2.2%             Big Data/Cloud            -17.7%
9  MongoDB        3.3%         3.1%             Big Data/Cloud            -17.2%
10 Cloudflare     3.2%         2.8%             Big Data/Cloud            +11.5%
11 Teladoc        3.1%         3.4%             Cloud                     -13.8%
12 Elastic        3.1%         3.0%             Big Data/Cybersecurity    -17.5%
13 MercadoLibre   2.7%         2.6%             eCommerce/Fintech         +6.2%
14 Sea            2.6%         2.4%             eCommerce/Fintech/Cloud   +26.7% 
15 Fastly         2.4%         2.6%             Big Data/Cloud            -26.9%
16 Pure Storage   2.3%         2.6%             Big Data/Cloud            -10.6%
17 Alteryx        2.1%         2.2%             Big Data                  -32.9%	
18 Nutanix        1.9%         1.9%             Big Data/Cloud            -15.2%
19 ZScaler        1.6%         1.5%             Cybersecurity/Cloud       -6.0%
20 Digital Turbine1.3%         1.2%             Digital                   +33.4%

NB 2021 YTD SP Change are share price changes not portfolio position gains

Total % gain rankings


**#  Holding		%	Thesis Check	Conviction**
1  Shopify		1775%	On Track	High
2  The Trade Desk	967%	On Track	High
3  MercadoLibre         498%	On Track	High
4  Square		479%	On Track	High 
5  Crowdstrike		249%	On Track	High 
6  MongoDB 		215%	On Track	Medium
7  Zoom 		198%	On Watch	Medium
8  Cloudflare		157%	On Track	High
9  Teladoc		138%	On Track	High 
10 Digital Turbine	91%	On Track	Medium
11 Alteryx		73%	On Watch	Medium 
12 Datadog		68%	On Track	High 
13 Elastic		65%	On Track	Medium
14 Exp World		50%	On Watch	Medium
15 Palantir		45%	On Track	High
16 Sea			42%	On Track	High
17 Asana		30%	On Watch	Medium
18 Pure Storage  	10%     On Watch	Medium 
19 Innovative Ind Pr	3%	On Watch	Medium
20 Peloton		1%   	On Watch	Medium

NB Gains are actual gains of investment holdings not % change since beginning of the year

INVESTMENT BUSINESS PRFORMANCE AND POTENTIAL

TAM & Penetration Rates for Top Holdings


**#  Holding        YOY Rev Growth(%)  TTM ($bn) TAM ($bn)  Penetration (%) Comment**
1  Shopify        110.4%             $3.448bn  $250bn     1.4%            Calculated as 5% take rate of $5trn eCommerce mkt
2  Crowdstrike    74.2%              $0.874bn  $36.5bn    2.4%       
3  The Trade Desk 48.2%              $0.836bn  $725bn     0.1%
4  Zoom           369%               $2.651bn  $30bn      8.8%            Combining V/C & unified CAAS market
5  DataDog        56.2%              $0.604bn  $24bn      2.5%            Unified monitoring = $8bn
6  Square         141%               $9.498bn  $160bn     5.9%            TTM includes Bitcoin revs
7  Palantir       40.4%              $1.1bn    $119bn     0.9% 
8  Snowflake      117%               $0.592bn  $84bn      0.7%
9  MongoDB        38.4%              $0.590bn  $63bn      0.9%
10 Cloudflare     50.0%              $0.431bn  $35bn      1.2%
11 Teladoc        69.0%              $1.367bn  $121bn     1.1%
12 Elastic        38.8%              $0.555bn  $53bn      1.0%
13 MercadoLibre   96.9%              $3.973bn  $35bn      11.4%           5% take rate of 5% ecommerce penetration of a $5trn retail market + consumer banking
14 Sea            101.6$             $4.40bn   $150bn     2.4%            PC download and mobile gaming $97bn SE Asia ecommerce & payments $30bn
15 Fastly         40.2%              $0.291bn  $35bn      0.8%
16 Pure Storage   2.2%               $1.684bn  $50bn      3.4%
17 Alteryx        2.61%              $0.495bn  $50bn      1.0%
18 Nutanix        -0.1%              $1.31bn   $90bn      1.5%
19 ZScaler        55.0%              $0.536m   $72bn      0.7%            SAM
20 Digital Turbine146%               $0.258bn  $17.5bn    1.5%            Pre-installed mobile application media 

Comments & Notes

  1. Shopify – cornerstone investment in a top class business with the largest TAM in the world, supported by substantial tailwinds and expecting a future $1 trillion potential, watching for post covid new normal in eCommerce and 2021 laps with pandemic growth in 2020

  2. Crowdstrike – One of the fastest growing companies in a rock solid sector with an expanding TAM, watching for competition from ZScaler and others

  3. The Trade Desk – A disruptor in a massive TAM with a strong moat, watching for dynamics between DSP and SSP, CTV progress and browser/device privacy measures

  4. Zoom – a disruptor in the making with ultra high growth rates, looking for post pandemic new normal growth and laps with pandemic growth peak in 2020 and the emergence of Zoom phone which doubles its TAM and additional Zoom platform innovation

  5. Datadog – best in class in the unified monitoring space. Maintaining strong growth rates but dropping, watching for leadership position and declines in growth

  6. Square – strong fundamentals, very high growth rates operating in multiple significant opportunities. Bitcoin and fintech payment wallets offer massive potential upside. Watching for continued Cash App expansion and adoption.

  7. Palantir – AI disruptor and potential leader in commercial and military/govt space. If Palantir can genuinely become either the de-facto operating system for the organisation or the de-facto AI operating system this might have previously un-imaginable potential. Top quality visionary leaders with a strong track record.

  8. Snowflake – Incredible technology supported by the big data mega theme of our time. Has potentially the greatest sales efficiency of any business model with expansion coming from underlying data storage and usage growth. Extraordinary leadership and cornerstone investors. Triple digit RPO/revenue growth rates. Looking out for potential emerging competition and growth rate declines vs ultra high valuation.

  9. MongoDB – disrupting a sizeable space against an established player, benefitting from strong big data tailwinds. Watching for declining growth rates, penetration of Atlas and competition from native AWS DB solutions

  10. Cloudflare – strong CDN player with high growth rates, improving competitive position, strong customer acquisition count and new solution/offerings emerging. Watching for continued growth, edge computing adoption and potential competition from Fastly.

  11. Teladoc – leader in telehealth with the combined Teledoc and Livongo offerings with strong underlying growth with solid tailwinds irrespective of Covid. Looking for additional disease management solutions and geographic expansion together with threats from changes within the US healthcare system

  12. Elastic – undervalued but proven track record in a sweet spot of multiple optionalities including security, application monitoring and big data.

  13. MercadoLibre – the Amazon of LatAm with a strong moat and fintech business driving massive growth in a highly unbanked region. Watching for competition from Stone, Amazon and Sea as well as local market challenges in LatAm.

  14. Sea – in the sweetspot of eCommerce, mobile gaming and fintech and increasingly dominating SE Asia. Obtaining digital banking licenses and ramping up offsite & physical retail payment wallet/payment processing services. Expanding into India, MEA and LatAm. Backed by Tencent. Looking for continued triple digit growth and achieving profitability

  15. Fastly – former strong growing CDN player working through headwinds of TikTok bans in India and US and threatening interference. Looking out for client retention/expansion metrics and growth resumption

  16. Pure Storage – storage market disruptor with strong underlying fundamentals having passed through a business model transition. Supported by strong tailwinds. Looking for product set expansion and growth re-acceleration.

  17. Alteryx – former growth star with a pandemic growth challenge and accounting model transition together with a shift to cloud from on prem/hybrid solution. Looking for growth resumption, successful partnership outcomes and new product launch.

  18. Nutanix – under valued, under respected disruptor with a large TAM supported by strong tailwinds negotiating multiple business model transitions. Looking for growth re-ignition.

  19. ZScaler – vying with Cloudstrike for the premier cybersecurity player. Represents the next generation of fully cloud based security. Growth reaccelerating and positive operational metrics looking stronger by the quarter. Elite management calibre.

  20. Digital Turbine – uniquely positioned without direct competition with long term exclusive OEM and carrier contracts deriving revenues from preloaded apps and media advertising on Android mobile devices which is going through a massive 5G upgrade boom.

GLTAH!
Ant

74 Likes

Hi Ant,
Thanks for your writeup. I particularly like your look at Penetration vs. TAM. I was wondering how to calculated penetration for MELI. I think that the e-commerce vs. retail penetration would be straightforward, but how do you calculate Fintech penetration vs. TAM?

Thanks.

Best,

bulwnkl

1 Like

Hi Bulwnkl

The take rate of ecommerce includes fintech payments revenues and so I included that side of MELI within the ecommerce related TAM but to get the TAM for the Mercadolibre online banking/wealth management solutions I estimated the TAM associated with consumer banking in South America (not a very scientific estimate).

Of all the numbers in the table that one is probably the most under-estimated - the TAM could be 2-3x the number I estimated which would put the penetration rate back to low single digits and make sense.

(TTD is possibly the most over-estimated but has the least significance - if you only took 1/10th of the TAM given then it is still only reaches a penetration rate of 1% giving a massive runway ahead).

BTW one additional purchase I made but did not note down at the end of last month was Zoom Info. I will be sure to update this in the next monthly review when I hope to add more colour with the results commentary.

Ant

1 Like

Ant,
Curious to understand that you sold MGNI yet hold 8.5% TTD. Seems to me like they’re sort of like two sides of the same coin. I would like to understand your thoughts behind the sale of MGNI. What is it that turned you off on this company? I recently watched this interview and feel even more convinced that this is a premier investment opportunity, Laura Martin of Needham w/ Magnite CEO Michael Barret: https://wsw.com/webcast/needham103/mgni/2238594

3 Likes

Hi Brittlerock

Just coming back to your Magnite question, ok here goes.

Whilst I love the space and was happy to hold Magnite after making a good return and still see it as relatively lower valued than alternative Ad-tech plays with head room to grow and see them becoming the defacto leader of their side of the coin…

  1. Their organic growth rate has fallen to the 20-30% range (whilst TTD is accelerating back to 40-50% growth range)

  2. I don’t see them as well positioned or equipped to deal with disruptions from Google, Apple etc as TTD

  3. They are a recurring acquisition vehicle which is starting to feel like a substitute for organic growth and which also holds execution risk

  4. There were other companies I wanted to add to that were growing much faster with stronger conviction (Fivrr, Upstart, Zoom info and Snowflake)

So no massive red flags but all in all given I don’t have fresh capital to deploy, it had to go.

Hope that helps.

Cheers
Ant

11 Likes

Whilst I love the space and was happy to hold Magnite (but)…

1) Their organic growth rate has fallen…

4) There were other companies I wanted to add to that were growing much faster with stronger conviction (Fivrr, Upstart, ZoomInfo and Snowflake)

So no massive red flags but all in all given I don’t have fresh capital to deploy, it had to go.

Hope that helps. Cheers, Ant

Hi Ant, that is just exactly the kind of decision I have to make on a regular basis. You expressed it wonderfully. I agree completely (although I never had Magnite and am not currently interested in Fivrr). I did that (“it has to go”) with a number of companies a couple of weeks ago.

Saul

20 Likes

Hi,

Thanks for the info and for sharing it.

Quick questions:

  • When did you get EXPI for $13 - $14? (giving those amounts based on the return of 50% you mentioned you have gotten thus far).
  • Why are you still holding it? It has lost 66% of its value since Feb.

Thanks!

1 Like