Wow, 2019 started with a whimper and appears to be ending with a bang! There was doom and gloom in the air, with the threat of recession looming in December 2018. Federal Rate inversions were happening, high yield savings accounts were approaching 2.5%. The sky was falling. Fast forward to December 2019 and the champagne is flowing. “One of the best yearly returns of the S&P 500 since the Great Depression!”
Now if you are a prefect market timer and were able to get out of the market in late Sept 2018 and THEN jumped back in the beginning of 2019, you are looking pretty with a “28% gain” in the S&P 500.
Now, if you are like most folks… there is a good chance you were invested in an index fund tracking one of the major indices like… the S&P 500 and it was more likely you road the wave, achieving an 11% gain since the September 2018 peak. Yes your retirement account statement is showing a great year to date return but sometimes you need to step back and look at the big picture when you hear Bob from accounting exclaim his 401k is up 25% this year!
2019 was full of opportunities to buy great companies at crazy low valuations compared to their historic norms.
Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful. – Warren Buffett
We focused primarily on what we know and understand the best, cyclical “tech” type companies. Namely companies focused in…
- Mobile devices
- Smart phones, laptops, tablets
- Computer components
- Processors
- Memory chips
- Graphics cards
- Internet focused companies that have a large probability of scale
- Cloud storage/solutions
- Online merchant storefronts
- Online advertising
- Cyber security solutions
Lets see how we did looking back on our portfolio performance for 2019.
| Company | Ticker | Percentage Gain/Loss | Purchase Month |
| Advanced Micro Devices | AMD | 62% | August |
| Apple | APPL | 80% | January |
| CVS | CVS | 19% | February |
| CyberArk | CYBR | 20% | September |
| GOOG | 25% | January | |
| Micron | MU | 60% | June |
| Nvidia | NVDA | 40% | July |
| Shopify | SHOP | 35% | October |
| Splunk | SPLK | 25% | June |
| The Trade Desk | TTD | 50% | June |
| Zillow | ZG | 40% | September |
| Average return | 41% |
Will the good times flow into 2020? Who knows! How was your 2019?
Remember, we are not financial advisers and are merely sharing our experiences and make no recommendations to invest in any of the above mentioned securities.
So what are your thoughts? We would love to hear from you! Leave a comment below or send us an email via our Contact Page.
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