Monthly Update #010 - October 2021
It is the end of October, the scariest month of all and Halloween is upon us. But let us get through this together with an update on how things are going. It might not be so bad after all!
Growth Portfolio
Unlisted on the graph from left to right: CRISPR Therapeutics, Xiaomi, Tattooed Chef, Unity & Coinbase.
As you may be able to see it has been an absolutely crazy month for Tesla (TSLA). My largest position has grown from 55.7% last month all the way to 60.8%. Tesla is now the 6th largest company by market cap and joins the exclusive list of companies with more than a one trillion dollar valuation. Their spot comes at the cost of Facebook (FB) which is now rebranding to Meta (META) - who with their new direction iconically has made me much more bullish on their future operation. If you would like to know why then check out my latest post on the metaverse. Tesla jumped on the news of Hertz (the car rental company) placing an order of 100.000 Teslas at a price of $4.2 Billion. The largest such deal for electric vehicles and an absolutely massive one for Hertz - who only last year was on the brink of bankruptcy. Interestingly and as Elon Musk himself also pointed out it really does not make much sense that this was what moved the valuation.
Tesla is production constrained and always has been. Demand was never an issue, but I guess this is what was needed for many people to realize this. Nonetheless, it will give a lot more people the chance of sitting inside one of their vehicles and trying what it is like concerning their technology and range - which in my own experience is the single best long-term sales strategy. Concerning the whole Hertz deal I will leave it with this wonderful little afterthought:
My second largest position Microsoft (MSFT) also managed to snap away Apple's (AAPL) number 1 spot and is once again the largest company in the world. This comes after another great earnings report with continued growth in Cloud. With this much growth in both my largest and second largest position it is fair to say that I have had an extremely good month.
Up nearly 30% in a single month, October 2021 has to be one of the best runs I have ever had.
Despite all the positives, there has still been room for the not-so-great. Amazon (AMZN) reported disappointing numbers for their Q3 earnings report - on top of already having a really flat year. This has been blamed on supply chain issues, and worker shortages among other,s and by the looks of it - many e-commerce businesses will have to deal with this in the short term. I remain bullish on the company but I am surprised to have seen so little growth for the stock over this timeframe. Singapore-based e-commerce competitor Sea (SE) which owns the platform 'Shopee' is looking more and more attractive by the day, considering that I already have exposure to cloud operations in my portfolio through Microsoft. That being said I am not quite ready to jump ship just yet and I still believe Amazon has the biggest potential in disrupting physical retail stores. In other bad news CRISPR Therapeutics (CRSP) has had a terrible month down over 18% and is now behind Nvidia (NVDA) in the overall share of my portfolio. This comes as a result of the company releasing some new findings from their latest trials which received mixed reactions. But I knew going in that this was a risky endeavor and that there was no telling where this stock might go in the short term. I continue to believe the company could be a top player a decade from now - I only wish that I had more cash to average down.
Finally, I just want to quickly mention that I continue to purchase shares in Xiaomi (1810), despite everything going on in China right now. I cannot wait for their earnings report in November, which I expect to be good despite the company reportingly losing its quick flirt with being the top smartphone vendor globally. In time I believe they will hold that spot once many - and for a much longer period.
Dividend Portfolio
My dividend portfolio consists of safer more established businesses with high dividend yields.
When the market seems all over the place as demonstrated by growth holdings it is always nice to take a breather and have a look at my quiet, strong dividend portfolio. I continue to enjoy a nice stream of consistent dividends from this one and I am extremely proud of the level I have managed to get it to in such a short amount of time. It has now been a year since I started and I have not come to regret it. One of my favorite dividend players AbbVie (ABBV) saw a nice little upgrade this month after declaring a raise of their dividend by 12.3%. Despite everyone's concern about their flagship product Humira going forward, AbbVie seems to be doing just fine and increasing returns in new areas.
My dividend portfolio has slightly underperformed the general market as of this month. This can largely be attributed to AT&Ts (T) continued bad performance. Since my last update on this company, regarding its upcoming spinoff/merger with Discovery (DISCA), a few new things have come to light about the new company: Most significantly we now know the name. It is to be called Warner Bros. Discovery - quite unsurprisingly and uninspired to be honest. AT&T leadership has managed to disappoint me even in the short term I have held the stock and I am now serious about looking into other ventures. As I have mentioned in the past I plan to hold my dividend stocks for the rest of my life - that is of course until drastically. The upcoming dividend cut in regards to this merger did just that and will result in AT&T leaving the list of Dividend Aristocrats.
I am however still torn as I could see this return to their core business as an upside for the company's conservative, slow-moving management style - and at the same time an upside for the future media company being freed of these ties. HBO Max by the way launched in my country this month with a somewhat head-scratching offer - A supposed life-long 50% discount on the service. But with the debt, they are taking on from AT&T’s mistakes I fear they will not be able to grow at the pace they should with content as great as the service offers. It is great to see as well that the new platform finally brought 4K and HDR to HBO content. I plan on sharing more on the companies I am keeping an eye on for potentially replacing AT&T in my portfolio sometime soon. I have found some great alternatives that fit well within my portfolio, but I still need time to think about if they should instead just be an addition to my portfolio rather than a replacement for this stock.
Here are the dividends I have received this month:
| Name of Position | Payout Date | Amount (USD) |
| Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM) | 15.10.2021 | $39.13 |
| Federal Realty Investment Trust (FRT) | 18.10.2021 | $21.36 |
| Realty Income (O) | 18.10.2021 | $12.96 |
| Total | Oct 2021 | $73.45 |
Total dividends received this month across all my portfolios – before taxes.
It is great for me to see the new much higher dividend I now take from Realty Income after I doubled down on them last month. They have now also finally announced a cut-off date and details on their upcoming spinoff deal. The new company will be called Orion (ONL) and the cut-off will be on November 1st. Realty Income owners will receive one Orion share for every 10 shares they hold. I am very much looking forward to this.
Website updates & Statistics
Things are looking very similar to last month here.
October is neck and neck with last month - which is not hugely surprising to me as I only had time to write for this site in the very last few days of this month.
Personal
I am still on the hunt for a new position after I, unfortunately, had to call it quits only a month into my new job at Lenovo. I have dedicated myself to finding the right place for me to be - at least thinking longer term in relevance to my studies. I created an online portfolio/CV to hopefully catch the interest of employers. You can have a look by visiting this link: hirejesper.com (Catchy, right?) if you would like to know more about what I have been up to over the last couple of years. That being said, I might have an interesting temporary position or side-occupation in the works already - so that is great news for my day-to-day - still not quite enough to fuel the allocation of cash to invest, while I study.
Speaking of studying - University is a little tough currently, especially time-wise - and I have come to realize that I might struggle a little with one of my subjects. I am hoping to change that before the exams are coming up early next year. As always, thanks for reading and I hope you all had a great October like me.
Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor, the opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own – always invest at your own risk.
