Aug 2025 Trade Update
"It is important not to get ahead of yourself. Go at a rhythm that could be sustained. Do just as much as you could do and still be able to get up and do again tomorrow. No more, no less."
1. Portfolio Commentary
Since the portfolio pivoted to activism, performance has improved. We will have the quarterly performance review out in September where we could discuss more things in details. For today, we hope to provide the big picture, recent trades and some commentary.
The market and the investment community continue to focus on the Mag 7 and the usual megacaps, or should we say ultracap names as well as fly-me-to-the-moon stocks like Palantir and RobinHood. We now have 11 companies above a trillion dollars in market cap (see screenshot below) and could see more.
Value investors tend to miss out all these names because their valuations do not make sense. It is frustrating and sometimes it is tempting to just bet on momentum. I think it is important to understand that investing is not binary, so every investor is free to buy whatever they want. But you must know what you are doing.
Don’t bet the farm on a momentum stock that you cannot explain how they make money!
Ultimately though, anchor the value philosophy over the long term it the best investment strategy to preserve and grow capital in my view. Our activist portfolio aims to take this one step further to target activist names because the activists can catalyse changes that could unlock value trapped in cheap listed companies. It has proven to be a successful strategy.
Japan remains the biggest hotbed for shareholder activism. We recently published a full list of activist stocks in Japan. The Nikkei has also done well on the backdrop of both activism and general spillover euphoria from the bull market.
