2024 year end reflection

A phenomenal year in reflection. Everything rallied mostly. Below is a list of some stuff I owned. Superbly happy with how the growth portfolio did this year (top performers Tesla, Amazon, Shopify), worst performers there are (Unity, C3AI and Alibaba)

Even traditional value / dividend stocks did well with my diversified endowus portfolio up 20% since inception. DBS rose +42% as well.

The biggest drag for my portfolio is United Hampshire US REIT -6%ytd, but I am confident that this thesis will work out considering that Blackstone buyout of ROIC for USD4b valued a larger business at 1.73x P/BV, 3.5% dividend yield, though UH reit is about 1/3 the size of ROIC. ROIC being East Coast assets, UH REIT being West Coast assets. 

+170% upside sounds exciting? (I added to my position recently and MCB real estate recently emerged with a 5% stake…activist activity incoming?). Who knows but as a decent yielding company about 8%, you get paid while you wait.

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Market discipline is needed today, today we are somewhere in the middle of the cycle with the equity markets having run ahead before the Fed cuts even begun. Optimism and animal spirits are strong for a Trump administration and I think it’s wise to turn slightly defensive.

So for 2025, going beyond the general rebalancing for equity, bonds and cash position…one may consider  raising your cash or short duration bond position to at least 20-30%. Prudence and defensiveness is needed to survive and thrive but there should not be a major recession around the corner (though inflation may return and cause a selloff fear again - potentially a buy the dip opportunity as seen on 18-20 Dec)

Fresh funds and potential reallocation going forward will largely be in things I own or am looking at below including:

1. US bond funds yielding 6-8% (PIMCO GIS Income)

2. Selective growth shares (Mercadolibre, Airbnb)

3. Spinoffs (FedEx, DuPont and Unilever ice cream anyone?)

4. Turnarounds (LVMH, Alibaba, United Hampshire US REIT)

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US stocks 

Tesla +206%

Amazon +155%

Shopify +141%

OTIS +111%

Brookfield asset management +81%

Hims and Hers +79%

Adyen +52%

Airbnb +40%

Paycom +14%

Snowflake +2%

Mercadolibre -3%

Elastic -21%

Alibaba -48%

C3.AI -56%

Unity Software -71%

Endowus portfolio +20% 

(34% S&P500, 31% US bonds, 25% msci world, 10% Msci EM index)

YTD returns

DBS +42%

United Hampshire US reit -6%