2025 Week 13 - Performance Evaluation
Performance - Amazing, BaaBaa and Croak Croak
31st March 2025 marks the conclusion of the “Laksa” portfolio. For those who are not familiar with this dish, I think Singapore has the best version1 of this dish. In the last episode we unveiled the Laksa Portfolio, now we reveal its performance
LAKSA PORTFOLIO: PERFORMANCE GRADE - AMAZING!
HP and I decided to host the next round of contest (Jan - Mar 2025) with the reward of going to an even more atas2 restaurant. This time, the stock pick is supposed to consist of 1-3 stock with the highest weighted returns by the end March 2025.
As expected3, the US market retreated and HIMS gave up most of its gains for the quarter. But the best performing stock for this quarter remains a stock called Root Inc $ROOT. It is undeniable that US continue to be the most dynamic stock picking ground for enterprising investors.
Newborn Town $HKG:9911, The growth of the stock is due to the revenue and profit growth they are experiencing in Middle East. At current price of HKD 5.98, I would still deemed it to be pretty cheap in relative to its growth prospect.
XPeng $HKD:9868, Gained handsomely on their new car and humanoid endeavours? This is a story which I did not follow intimately. My guess is that the humanoid narrative would have legs to run on for a very long time. George Soros famously said ‘When I See a Bubble Forming, I Rush in to Buy’. Maybe this qualifies as that type of stock.
A handful of stocks also have performance coming in between 23% - 55%, like Alibaba $HKG:9988, Nam Cheong $1MZ.SI, CCID $HKG:2176, LeverStyle $HKG:1346 and Dynamic Holdings $HKG:0029.
It has been a stellar 3 months for Hong Kong stock.
We are on the midst of organising another round of contest. If I am lucky and the organiser allow me to write a post on it, you may just have the chance to have a peek at our stock picks for the next quarter.
INTERACTIVE BROKER (IB) PORTFOLIO PERFORMANCE GRADE - BAAA BAAA
It has been a crazy few weeks for my portfolio. After grinding4 very hard in HK for the past 2.5 years to just maintain in positive territory, it is nice to see my portfolio catching some wind and doing much better without the grind. This IB portfolio consist of all my stock picks except for companies that is listed in ASEAN5.
When I turn full time, my aim is to have a decently high annual returns like 24% per year. But after being humbled by the HK market for the past 3 years, I am happy6 with any positive returns. I guess I am very sheep7 like now.
This return is achieved on the back of 25% cash holding. If I had swing harder, I may have achieved higher returns but I named this Weighted for a reason. I want to weigh each and every position in relation to its risk reward, its path of getting there and probability that come associated with it.
This reminds me of the quote where Stan Druckenmiller said that he learned from Soros that position sizing was 70 to 80% of the game.
It’s not whether you’re right or wrong, it’s how much you make when you’re right and how much you lose when you’re wrong,”
- Stan Druckenmiller.
Portfolio construction is something I had struggled for the past 5 years and I think I am closer to a mathematical way of constructing a portfolio which best suit my temperament.
One reader asked to know the makeup of my portfolio.
I used to provide a summary for my readers but it is just too much work8 and restrictive to my thought process. I want to have the freedom to chase any stock I want without any need to spend a few hours writing about it9. That meant that I will only write when the thesis is in its infancy or is in the midst of playing out.
every short post is just a fleeting thought with a possibility of following up or not…
any long post meant that I owned the stock
If I write it twice, then this must be a significant position which leads me to a stock that I am going to talk about next.
ESSEX BIOTECH HKG:1061: PERFORMANCE GRADE - CROAK CROAK
I talked about my position in Essex on 14th April 2023 followed by more thoughts on it on 19th May 2023 and YES so this is a significant position in my portfolio.
It has been almost exactly 2 years and I have not followed up with another article. The reason is that there is really not much to update except that the business is progressing along while experiencing various shocks to the system.
For those who knows the China pharmaceutical industry intimately, there is indeed lots of changes on the ground in 2024. Minus the usual talk of central procurement10, the business environment has gotten more challenging. Hospitals are struggling to pay their bills as local government run out of cash. Doctors have been hauled up for questioning for suspicion of corruption. Any doctors who are “clean” are unwilling to prescribe any medicine that is beyond the “standard of care”. Instead doctors only prescribe what is way within the standard of care which usually meant under-prescription of various drugs. No wonder patients are complaining that the drugs are not working11.
But at the same time, the thesis for Essex has never changed. Their current drug patent will end in 2030 which meant that I can underwrite their current profitable business for another 5 years. Their potential ground breaking new drugs12 are simply not priced into its stock price.
Since 14th April 2023 (HKD 3.74) the stock price has progressively gone down with the broader HK market till HKD 2.14. I averaged down till HKD 2.20.
At every point of the journey, I questioned my thesis and my sanity.
Then suddenly everything changed. The market decide to price in the possibility of the new drug and the stock is up 56%13 in the past 5 days.
For now, Essex is still a Croak Croak…
A frog waiting to be turned into a prince.
no hate from the Malaysian. My grandfather is from Malacca and I still think Singapore version taste so much better. My recommendation is Sungei Road Laksa.
singlish usage of atas is commonly used to describe something that is high class and of good taste.
I may have said this at least 20 times in the past 2.5 years since I swap out of US stocks to HK stocks.
what i meant here is trading at every opportunity to grind out some meagre returns
That resides in my local brokerage account at MayBank Kimeng for countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines
happiness in life comes from a reduction in your expectation, or better yet no expectation.
sheep always look like very happy animals, just following the crowd… brainless…
and not very fun
that doesn’t mean that I do not do any diligence on it
which despite it been happening for the longest time is still the talk of the analyst town
the common narrative in the press is that the generic does not work as well as the branded, I believe under prescription is the cause. Up the dosage and health metric get righted even with generics.
the TAM for both WetAMD and dry eyes are huge.
suddenly, i feel like a genius … until the share price drops right back down…