PIMPING STOCKS

[call_me_ishmael]

Yeah I'm generally with you but I have substantially outpaced the S&P in that time frame - I mean I bought 50K of NVDA in like 2018 or something like that so I made just an absurd amount on that. My SOFI has tripled since I bought it a few years ago, I got an 8 bagger on COIN, 10 on HOOD, 7ish on PLTR, etc, 26 on TSLA, roughly the same on AAPL which I bought in 2010ish and finally sold.

I will say not all of my stuff is a home run so there's some validity to what you say. I was just looking at my stocks and a lot of my recent shit is down 50% right now. I suspect it will bounce back though.

I have definitely lost most of the principle on stuff like PTON, OPEN, NET.

But overall my strategy of swinging for the fences has gone pretty well. I don't put big bucks into stuff I'm not very confident in. I'm okay throwing 50K at stuff now - I definitely wasn't 5 years ago for instance. The bulk of my money is in BTC, ETH, TSLA, AMZN, GOOG, META, NVDA, HOOD, XYZ (outlier, I get it from work), SOFI. Aside from SQ, which of those isn't a good buy or hasn't been recently?

I already drive a used car. I have about 4.2-4.3 net worth (including house) but spend as little as possible (although it's still a lot, total expenditures last year were like 90K, everything is expensive these days). We live frugal and try am trying to get to 5M excluding house before AI eats all of big tech. Just hoping to bust ass and hold on for a few more years and then start my own company.

[call_me_ishmael]

Actually I definitely didn't buy 50K of Nvidia, I stand corrected. But I did buy ~20K. And it wasn't 2018, it was 2020 but still got in at a great time.

[call_me_ishmael]

I inventoried my holdings today across the several different accounts. This is the current balance of everything that I own - not including my current 401K and my previos jobs. I typically roll them over and manage them myself.

19.53% BTC
10.44% AMZN
9.67% TSLA
8.51% SOFI
8.43% SQ
5.41% PYPL
4.33% HOOD
4.06% CLSK
3.33% ETH
2.98% COIN
2.90% PLTR
2.90% GOOG
2.82% AAPL
2.78% SPY
2.71% NVDA
2.32% SHOP
2.05% META
1.70% SOL
1.59% MARA
1.16% HIMS
0.39% MSFT

I need to increase the holdings in HIMS and MSFT. SQ is through work and I hold it - but I also think some other stuff will outperform it.

I will likely sell some HOOD and buy AMZN with it. I will also probably sell a little SQ in exchange for MSFT.

It is surprising when you do this exercise. I guess the numbers might look quite different if I took crypto out.

Here is the same table without crypto. Anything jumping out to you all that I should balance better?

13.84% AMZN
12.81% TSLA
11.28% SOFI
11.17% SQ
7.18% PYPL
5.74% HOOD
5.38% CLSK
3.95% COIN
3.84% PLTR
3.84% GOOG
3.74% AAPL
3.69% SPY
3.59% NVDA
3.08% SHOP
2.72% META
2.10% MARA
1.54% HIMS
0.51% MSFT

These are my holdings Bobble. Although I sold PYPL and bought a slew of ETH and BTC companies like BMNR. SQ is higher now because I get it granted every 3 months and I just refuse to sell until we figure out shit out.

[bobblehead]

yea, I can see you beating it for sure with your tech heavy focus. Probably not a bad move either at your age and given that you work in the industry so have a decent understanding of a lot of them.

I'm an old dog learning a lot more about LLMs than I ever intended. I usually hold 3-4 growth positions to go along with enough dividends to pay my bills. It also sounds a lot like me 10 years ago as far as saving and making sure to get my number before I got too old to work (I have worked intermittenly for 30 years. Even now I think about going back even though I don't need the cash).

I often went 50% of my portfolio on a core conviction and it worked out 4/5 times. Apple in late 2015 worked out the best over about a 6-7 year holding period. I mean, apple at 10x earnings. That was just stupid. I may have missed a little more upside when I sold it, but can't get everything perfect. Right now I'm long Amazon, Coreweave and Micron. Micron is probably the one I would be all in on if I were young. 16x earnings wih 80% projected growth over next 3 years. It could go up to a 25x earnings easy netting me near a triple up. I think something over 80% over the 3 years is almost a lock.

edit: there are no locks. But its as close to one as I can see in investing.

[bobblehead]

And Micron pops 8.5% this morning. Sometimes random luck makes me look smart. But I expect it to run up much more in the coming couple of years.

[Patler]

How about ORCL yesterday? 36% pop yesterday, and holding most of it today. Random luck didn't help me on this one. Been thinking of buying since earlier this year. Never did.

[Patler]

ABBV has been one of my favorites. I've owned it since 2018, maintaining a core position but also buying and selling the swings. Still own some shares I bought in the mid $60s. Has always paid a nice dividend that has increased very nicely with the increasing stock price.

I have made a lot of money with ABBV the last seven years, but not sure how long I will stay with it. The yield has been in the neighborhood of 3.5% recently, which is nice if the stock price grows, but I'm not sure about the long range growth outlook.

ABBV is currently about 17x with good cash flow and a pipeline. Best analysts are projecting about 15% growth next 3 years so I would say it definitely has room to run yet. I'd expect it to at least hold that multiple so adding in the dividend looking at maybe 17% for forseeable future. Thats one I'm not letting go of yet.

ABBV back at all-time high.

[bobblehead]

How about ORCL yesterday? 36% pop yesterday, and holding most of it today. Random luck didn't help me on this one. Been thinking of buying since earlier this year. Never did.

Yea, I don't own it either. They actually didn't impress on earnings, but announcements in backlog and vision were very positive.

[bobblehead]

ABBV back at all-time high.

I still think it runs from here. I'm not selling. Generally I sell too early, but by self reflecting and "improving my game" I'm working on not flinching. I'm thinking I'll probably sell some around 265 and most by 290. 300 is a fair valuation end of 2027 and also a psychological price point so any attempt to touch 300 will probably not occur until 2028 and a lot can happen between now and then to change my thesis, but if it ran up to 290 at any point next year or even early 2027 I'll probably let it go barring some news to make me feel otherwise.

[Patler]

I still think it runs from here. I'm not selling. Generally I sell too early, but by self reflecting and "improving my game" I'm working on not flinching. I'm thinking I'll probably sell some around 265 and most by 290. 300 is a fair valuation end of 2027 and also a psychological price point so any attempt to touch 300 will probably not occur until 2028 and a lot can happen between now and then to change my thesis, but if it ran up to 290 at any point next year or even early 2027 I'll probably let it go barring some news to make me feel otherwise.

I sold a very few shares at $212 because the position was getting large for me and I wanted some cash for other things. I still own shares I bought in the $60s.

[Patler]

I still think it runs from here. I'm not selling. Generally I sell too early, but by self reflecting and "improving my game" I'm working on not flinching. I'm thinking I'll probably sell some around 265 and most by 290. 300 is a fair valuation end of 2027 and also a psychological price point so any attempt to touch 300 will probably not occur until 2028 and a lot can happen between now and then to change my thesis, but if it ran up to 290 at any point next year or even early 2027 I'll probably let it go barring some news to make me feel otherwise.

ABBV announced the settlement of litigation regarding RINVOQ (which I believe also impacts SKYRIZI) allowing biosimilar manufacture after 2037. Four or five years ago, ABBV was hopeful the two drugs would eventually help make up for the lost sales of HUMIRA, on which patents were expiring. They have done that and very much more. Combined sales for the two are projected to exceed $31B in 2027. I think HUMIRA peaked at about $21B.

[Patler]

Starting in about 2015, I bought and sold Progenics Pharmaceuticals several times for a handsome profit. ...

In 2019/2020, PGNX merged with LNTH. My PGNX stock was converted into (shares of LNTH) ... selling at about $14/share.

LNTH shares (had) .... ups and downs, but broke $100 ... following a Medicare announcement that they will cover costs of the imaging agents.

(Then)... LNTH broke $120....

Sure wish all my drug company investments went that well.

An update on this rollercoaster. After the above post, I sold more LNTH. It started to drop and I sold all I had left at $95. The old CEO retired, a new one came in and some of his comments to questions at quarterly press conferences seemed wishy-washy to me. I got a bad vibe. Since I was completely out, I quit following it, other than noting from time to time that the share price had dropped into the $70s. Hadn't looked at it in months, so I checked today. It's at $52.

Glad I got out when I did.

[bobblehead]

ABBV announced the settlement of litigation regarding RINVOQ (which I believe also impacts SKYRIZI) allowing biosimilar manufacture after 2037. Four or five years ago, ABBV was hopeful the two drugs would eventually help make up for the lost sales of HUMIRA, on which patents were expiring. They have done that and very much more. Combined sales for the two are projected to exceed $31B in 2027. I think HUMIRA peaked at about $21B.

Actually being aware of your investment. Seems to be a novel concept nowdays. I've been on ABBV since it was going for around $105. I figured they could fade loss of patent on Rinvoq back then, but I never dreamed they would actually be able to extend it at all much less over a decade. They had a nice pipeline and I knew they would be fine, but this management team has proven as adept at business as it is at creating blockbuster drugs.

Currently Merck is in a similar position of losing some important patents but having a nice pipeline. I've got some money in it, but not super confident the market will respond anytime soon. ABBV was paying 5+% dividend when I bought it so the market wasn't letting it fall lower. Merck is only around 3.9% so the market doesn't have the same patience. I may suffer a little more pain before it turns around.

[Patler]

Actually being aware of your investment. Seems to be a novel concept nowdays. I've been on ABBV since it was going for around $105. I figured they could fade loss of patent on Rinvoq back then, but I never dreamed they would actually be able to extend it at all much less over a decade. They had a nice pipeline and I knew they would be fine, but this management team has proven as adept at business as it is at creating blockbuster drugs.

Currently Merck is in a similar position of losing some important patents but having a nice pipeline. I've got some money in it, but not super confident the market will respond anytime soon. ABBV was paying 5+% dividend when I bought it so the market wasn't letting it fall lower. Merck is only around 3.9% so the market doesn't have the same patience. I may suffer a little more pain before it turns around.

I bought a little ABBV in 2018 at $115 because of the dividend. In 2019 I bought a lot of it when "the market" suddenly realized that HUMIRA patents were expiring (shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone) and began to panic, because HUMIRA was the single largest drug in sales ever. The stock dropped all the way into the $60s, and the dividend yield at the time was nearly 7%. The price made no sense, even if you looked at worst case predictions for HUMIRA decline and RINVOQ/SKYRIZI ramp up. Over a couple days I bought more and more between $65 and $68. I figured a nearly 7% dividend gave enough of a cushion as the HUMIRA decline and RINVOQ/SKYRIZI increases played out that it was worth the risk. Management was so clear about how they were handling the transition, it was difficult not to believe in them.

Two things happened; the decline in sales for HUMIRA was later and more gradual than predicted and both RINVOQ and SHYRIZ took off much faster and to much higher levels than predicted.

I still have shares I bought in the $60s and I have bought some of the dips since then. I have also sold all of what I bought in 2018 and some of those I bought in 2019 as the position got larger than I wanted it to be.

[bobblehead]

I just saw a Peter Lynch quote that I absolutely loved. Since he was a genius investor it goes here:

"Its really hard to go bankrupt with zero debt". Buy your stocks accordingly.