Strengthening the Attack

As mentioned in the last post, I am looking at strengthening my team’s attack. So with the cash raised from the selling in October, I bought the following counters.

Adding to current positions

Arista Networks

Added twice over the past month at US190+ to bring my average price to US$240.  I believe that the slow down in order from the cloud titan is temporary and things will pick up eventually.

While the price might continue be under pressure in 2020, its long term outlook remains intact and once the growth returns as shown above, the price should jump.

Starbucks

With the strong growth in its comparable sales for the last two quarters, its price has jumped this year, providing me a return of more than 40% since my purchase in March 2018. With the price weakens from its peak of US$99,  I decided to add more as I think the CEO Kevin Johnson would be able to continue to lead the group to grow further.

New positions

I have added 4 new positions instead of 2, all of which take up less than 1% of my portfolio. It is likely I am going to add on to these positions in the next few years.

Intuitive Surgical

I sold it at US$408 for a 13% gain in March last year when I changed the platform for my US portfolio. Since then, the price just continues to climb higher as it continues to report good results. Even during the sell-down last December, its price of US$435 was still higher than my sold price.

As seen above,  ISRG trades at a premium, so its price is likely to drop substantially if there is market correction or if it reports of a “weak” quarter. But I decided that I should wait no longer to have a tiny stake of this leader in robotic surgical. Incidentally, Raffles Medical Group announced in its last quarterly report that they have purchased the Da Vinci system.

Microsoft

This purchase surprises myself. After converting to become a macintosh user a decade ago, I only uses windows machine at work. I still prefer mac over windows but Satya Nadella seems to be doing something right at Microsoft and I am certainly impressed by its growth rate for this giant. So a tiny stake for a great leader.

Shopify

Another company that I sold when I switched platform and did not buy back. Then I sold at US$136 for a 32% profit but if I have bought and kept it when I switched platform, I would have doubled my investment!

I like Shopify’s business idea and is definitely scalable. While it is still not making a profit yet, its revenue growth is impressive. With a softening of its price from its peak of US$409, I decided to have a tiny stake.

Adobe

Another expensive counter but look at its growth and with increasing recurring income, it could only bode well for Adobe. Forward consensus PE is around 30x, which makes it less inhibiting. A tiny stake for an established company.