August 2023 Portfolio Update

Topics: Quote, Portfolio, Comments, Portfolio Discussion, Paid Substacks That I Enjoy Reading/Listening, Q&A, Books + Section for Paid subscribers.

Quote for this month:

"Investing should be more like watching paint dry or watching grass grow. If you want excitement, take $800 and go to Las Vegas." - Paul Samuelson

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Portfolio Update*

*I am NOT a financial advisor, I’m sharing my investing journey. Do your own research.*

As of 08.11.2023

As of 08.11.2023

For the month of July

As of 08.11.2023

Portfolio (Basic):

As of 08.11.2023

To get access to full (detailed) portfolio + some other extras consider seven day free trial to get a sneak peek “behind the curtain”

Comments From Me

Currently the numbers showed above go as: (total) $280,000 - (other) $25,000 = (mine) 255,000.

I had a pleasure of grabbing coffee with

The Charan Chronicles

in NYC and chatting about Substack, Social Medias, and Investing… if you would like to read about that check out the post below:

A Coffee Meet with Yegor Zaye: Insights on Substack and Investing

I connected with

Damia Othman

via Substack Notes and she offered to “interview” me. I really enjoyed the questions that Damia asked me as they were all related to investing, if you would like to get a glimpse of how I think about investing I highly recommend checking post below:

Interview: "from $100K to $1M"

Reminder, that I started monthly free chat/threads (like the one below)

Where you can ask questions and make conversations with me or other readers.

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Portfolio Discussion

Few things to discuss…

First, I have not fully sold out of anything any I have not bought anything new … I did move around a few names in the portfolio (you will be able to see actual detailed portfolio later on as a paid subscriber).

Second, there was quite a few earnings in the last couple of weeks, some good and some bad:

• IAC as my largest holding, market did not like the earnings and stock got hit… BUT I think overall earnings were not that bad ( I agree they were not good, but given how long its taking for Dotdash Meredith to get the ball rolling I have to be okay understanding that things take time + for the future maybe don’t invest into companies that promise great synergies … I’m looking at you WBD 0.00%↑ ) Management promises in 2024 for things to be better, I’ll give them that…

  IAC still has a lot of moving parts that I think in the long run will work out, lots of optionalities: DDM, Angi, MGM, Turo, etc.

• PYPL - just slowing and impatiently waiting for the new CEO but given how PYPL is “unloved” right now, I like … and no I do not think it will be next META 0.00%↑

• Nintendo came out with great earnings and yet stock is down? IDK …IDC … buying…

• Sprouts Farm is moving along as we like it

• Black Stone Minerals is moving along as we like it

• I lowered my exposure to Spotify, I still like it but they are fighting uphill battle and I would like to “give the money” to some other players

• LKQ is moving along + waiting to see how their pilot with State Farm will go (management states that its moving forward, slowly but surely)

• OMAB moving along as we like it

• The Container Store’s management says by the end of year will be back to FCF positive and so we wait…

• Oppfi is actually doing great, management is going back to the basics and they are deliveries on what they are saying, I think maybe next year is when OPFI will finally shine?

• Viemed is moving along with focus on staffing to not only rely on insurance (Medicare/Medicaid) as they major income + recent acquisition of another DME company into territories that VMD is not really in is a good sign. I still think they are candidate to be bought out but we will see. VA pilot is still there but takes much much longer and I’m not as hopefully with VMD as I am with LKQ

• United Guardian’s cutting of dividend was a bit of surprise but also I think it makes sense - dividend is still there just much lower + no debt!

  Devin LaSarre
  did a great timely piece:

  United-Guardian: Patience Is the Game

Dividends for July:

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Paid Substacks That I Enjoy Reading/Listening…

Continuing the theme from last month, this month I’m sharing substacks that are either only for paid subscriber or by authors that provide both free and paid or with full/partial paywall. Either way all are worth to at least check out…

• Asian Century Stocks by

  Michael Fritzell
  (Free & Paid)

• Overlooked Alpha by

  Joe Marwood
  Vince Martin
  (Paid)

• The Bear Cave by

  Edwin Dorsey
  (Free & Paid)

• Valuabl by

  Edmund Simms
  (Paid)

• StockOpine’s Newsletter by

  StockOpine
  (Mostly Paid)

• Mexican Investor by

  Mexican Investor
  (Free & Paid)

• Investment Talk by

  Conor Mac
  (Free & Paid)

• Margin of Safety Investing by

  Simon Handrahan
  (Free & Paid)

• Best Anchor Stocks by

  Best Anchor Stocks
  (Free & Paid)

• Capital Employed by

  Jon Kingston
  (Free & Paid)

• How They Make Money by

  App Economy Insights
  (Free & Paid)

• Genuine Impact by

  Truman
  (Free & Paid)

• Canadian Dividend Investing by

  Nelson!
  (Paid)

• Contrarian Investor Premium by

  Contrarian Investor Media
  (Mostly Paid)

• Neckar Substack by

  Frederik Gieschen
  (Free & Paid)

• Maxfield on Banks by

  John Maxfield
  (Free & Paid)

• KonichiValue by

  Rei Saito
  (Free & Paid)

• Yet Another Value Blog by

  Andrew Walker
  (Free & Paid)

• The Rational Walk by

  The Rational Walk
  (Free & Paid)

• Quality Value Investing by

  David J. Waldron
  (Free & Paid)

• TSOH Investment Research Service by

  The Science of Hitting
  (Paid)

• Security Analysis by

  Value Stock Geek
  (Paid)

• Hedge Vision by

  Hedge Vision
  (Free & Paid)

I personally am subscribed to all of them (but I am not paid subscriber too all of them, only some) and read or at least scan every issue. No one paid me for this.

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Q&A Section

This new section is something I would like to try out, every month I will try to gather some questions and answer them in this section…

If no questions, I would be skipping for that particular month.

Q: How do you like your writer’s journey so far?

A: My journey as a writer has been long and with lots of ups and downs. I started this newsletter in November (I think) of 2020 and put out first article in December of 2020. It took a lot of time to get traction and to show people that what I do is genuine / without any hidden agendas. My writing is not exciting (at least I think so) and I do not use any fancy language but I share myself and my thoughts.

I think I should really check my first posts and compare them to now and see if / how different they are … I been doing this for almost three years! and in the beginning I did it on weekly basis and yet after (almost) three years I still don’t feel like it a heavy task or boring … Yes it sometimes takes me a bit to get into the mood to write but knowing that with every month there are more and more people who actual care (and support) what I put out …. its an amazing feeling and its all thanks to my subscribers to sticking with me. Thank all of you who read my substack!

To answer the question… How do I like my journey? I love it because it keeps me in check with “being real me…through good and through bad”

Q: What is your worst habit?

A: This question came from NGL app and while most other questions made me feel like I was back in high school (questions like what is your fav food or color or sign) this one although very basic made think... “What is my worth habit and how does it affect my investing and my life?”

If someone would have asked me this question in my 20s I could name at least five and a few that are probably deadly, but somehow by some miracle in life I was able to get away from those bad habits and the ones that stayed with me to after birth of my first child, I consciously decided to working on ending the triggers and in so ending them (it was not easy or cheap)… Before the birth of my second daughter I would say being a workaholic was my (last?) bad habit but even this one I’m slowly trying to get rid of. I still work a lot by any standards but I first give time to my family then work and then investing and family always comes first…

So I guess at this point I don’t really have any bad habits, I even asked my wife to get her opinion on this since sometimes we are blind to ourselves. In conclusion its not that I never had bad habits, its that I’m consciously trying to prevent them and constantly trying to NOT trigger them.

If you would like to ask me a question for the next Q&A, you can do so by:

• To anonymously Ask Me Anything click here via NGL app

• Twitter/Instagram/Commonstock DMs

• Chat via Substack (there is a thread for free subscribers now)

• Email me with your questions to from100kto1m@substack.com

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Books

I realized that my descriptions of the books that I read may not always give them full credit as when I read these books and when I write about them, I only share one or two things that really stand out to me. So I have decided to also include a quick short description from Goodreads (no affiliations) so that way you get my thoughts but also more generic description to get a better feel for the books and in so hopefully adding them to your “to-read-list”.

This time around I finished two audiobook and one physical book:

A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine

YZ:

A guide to a good life is a book that gives basics on stoicism , like last book (The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga) I think it’s one of those that you read to get introduced to an idea to get out of “passive thinking” and to start being “present” in the now.

Again for me the book that is still “to go” is the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.

Goodreads:

One of the great fears many of us face is that despite all our effort and striving, we will discover at the end that we have wasted our life. In A Guide to the Good Life, William B. Irvine plumbs the wisdom of Stoic philosophy, one of the most popular and successful schools of thought in ancient Rome, and shows how its insight and advice are still remarkably applicable to modern lives.

In A Guide to the Good Life, Irvine offers a refreshing presentation of Stoicism, showing how this ancient philosophy can still direct us toward a better life. Using the psychological insights and the practical techniques of the Stoics, Irvine offers a roadmap for anyone seeking to avoid the feelings of chronic dissatisfaction that plague so many of us. Irvine looks at various Stoic techniques for attaining tranquility and shows how to put these techniques to work in our own life. As he does so, he describes his own experiences practicing Stoicism and offers valuable first-hand advice for anyone wishing to live better by following in the footsteps of these ancient philosophers. Readers learn how to minimize worry, how to let go of the past and focus our efforts on the things we can control, and how to deal with insults, grief, old age, and the distracting temptations of fame and fortune. We learn from Marcus Aurelius the importance of prizing only things of true value, and from Epictetus we learn how to be more content with what we have.

Finally, A Guide to the Good Life shows readers how to become thoughtful observers of their own life. If we watch ourselves as we go about our daily business and later reflect on what we saw, we can better identify the sources of distress and eventually avoid that pain in our life. By doing this, the Stoics thought, we can hope to attain a truly joyful life.

I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Junk to Gold: From Salvage to the World's Largest Online Auto Auction by Willis Johnson

YZ:

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by Junk to Gold. Story of Willis Johnson is amazing and reads (in my case listens) as a movie script. Mr Johnson (and especially his father) are hell of a entrepreneurs and workaholics. I’m guilty to say that reading Junk to Gold has (a bit) inspired me to keep going with the substack and investing as Mr Johnson (and his father before) both have shown that anything is possible if you are hard working, determinant, and a bit lucky individual.

Also books shows that fancy degrees and Wall St don’t know jack about real businesses and some things you just cant screen on computers!

Goodreads:

Junk to Gold is about one man's journey from humble beginnings to unimaginable success. Willis Johnson, the founder of Copart CRPT 0.00%↑ , offers up a personal and inspirational account of this journey to the top including lessons he learned from love, war and building a global, multi-billion dollar business. Even at the pinnacle of success, Willis remained grounded in his family-first values. His stories will inspire and provoke the entrepreneur in everyone to start building their dream.

I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.

More Than a Numbers Game: A Brief History of Accounting by Thomas A. King

YZ:

“More Than a Numbers Game” is interesting short-ish book on how accounting came to be (up to about 2004) it starts well and interesting about old America, European investors , and railroads and then goes into nitty gritty of accounting which I thought was a bit too detailed (and boring) and finished up with couple of case studies of fraud which were very interesting (and some you just couldn’t really predict, which meant you had to do a leap of faith). Overall I enjoyed it and it was a quick ish read

Goodreads:

The world certainly suffers no shortage of accounting texts. The many out there help readers prepare, audit, interpret and explain corporate financial statements. What has been missing is a book offering context and discussion for divisive issues such as taxes, debt, options, and earnings volatility. King addresses the why of accounting instead of the how , providing practitioners and students with a highly readable history of U.S. corporate accounting. More Than a Numbers A Brief History of Accounting was inspired by Arthur Levitt's landmark 1998 speech delivered at New York University. The Securities and Exchange Commission chairman described the too-little challenged custom of earnings management and presaged the breakdown in the US corporate accounting three years later. Somehow, over a one-hundred year period, accounting morphed from a tool used by American railroad managers to communicate with absent British investors into an enabler of corporate fraud. How this happened makes for a good business story. This book is not another description of accounting scandals. Instead it offers a history of ideas. Each chapter covers a controversial topic that emerged over the past century. Historical background and discussion of people involved give relevance to concepts discussed. The author shows how economics, finance, law and business customs contributed to accounting's development. Ideas presented come from a career spent working with accounting information.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Don’t forget to ❤️ this post. It helps a lot!

Also, I would really appreciate if you would share this post with one person who you think might enjoy it.

IAC 0.00%↑ SFM 0.00%↑ LKQ 0.00%↑ BSM 0.00%↑ WBD 0.00%↑ OZK 0.00%↑ VMD 0.00%↑ PYPL 0.00%↑ SPOT 0.00%↑ TCS 0.00%↑ MITK 0.00%↑ OPFI 0.00%↑ OMAB 0.00%↑ FGFPP 0.00%↑ UG 0.00%↑ VEA 0.00%↑ VTI 0.00%↑ C 0.00%↑ OPBK 0.00%↑ MKL 0.00%↑ URI 0.00%↑ CDLX 0.00%↑ LH 0.00%↑ RICK 0.00%↑ DJCO 0.00%↑ BAM 0.00%↑ RBLX 0.00%↑ DLTR 0.00%↑ BOC 0.00%↑ ONFO 0.00%↑ IDT 0.00%↑ BUR 0.00%↑ PBR 0.00%↑ FLWS 0.00%↑ ONON 0.00%↑ MASI 0.00%↑ GDOT 0.00%↑ PAR 0.00%↑ ASO 0.00%↑ U 0.00%↑ DBX 0.00%↑ SGA 0.00%↑ ZBRA 0.00%↑ BABA 0.00%↑ NNI 0.00%↑ IBKR 0.00%↑ SSSS 0.00%↑ UHAL 0.00%↑ LWAY 0.00%↑ CPRT 0.00%↑ DEO 0.00%↑ EDR 0.00%↑ KRT 0.00%↑ RACE 0.00%↑ MELI 0.00%↑ XPEL 0.00%↑ NU 0.00%↑ WWE 0.00%↑ ENZ 0.00%↑

Section below is for paid subscribers…

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