Symba's July Portfolio Review
Here my second monthly portfolio update.
I continued my two strategies (Growth investing and Earnings daily play) with increased focus on number 1 due to the high volatility of the market. Still surprised by the reactions on earnings that have a beat history and increasing fundamentals delivering more than expected.
On the psycho side, June and July were very tough months with a lot of learnings and reminders. A reminder of psych basics even if a system and rules are written in place. I need to review them more often, habits are the way.
Doubling down the portfolio near the high in June impacted my performance and made me make mistakes that hurt it further. My habit when a stock is hurt is to add if there is no change on the thesis. I made some costly mistakes buying dips too early at -5%, -10%, being too confident after the April and May run (like IREN), instead of waiting for -15%. Lesson learned.
I also decided to stop earnings play on growth stocks with high confidence. I found myself victim of psychological bias and made costly mistakes when stocks go down first like CRDO or MU.
For CRDO, instead of piling up at $193 during earnings, I was selling because of the netliq increase (25%) and the lack of confidence being tied too much on one stock, giving back before the rally.
July was a lot of trimming from performing stocks (RDDT, PTRN, HNGE, LQDA) to add to hurt ones (not IREN as explained below).
I added new stocks: LQDA, BE, VIAV, COHU and HNGE
I trimmed IREN, RDDT, PTRN, APP
I sold DAVE, DSP, CIFR
I currently have 18 tickers, still too many and would like to reduce to 14 names. I haven't managed to remove the FOMO and watchlist habit yet, even though I think it's harder psychologically during downturns to hold too many names. I can't capture every opportunity and in fact lose many trying to.
Portfolio concentration is
| Portfolio Concentration | |
|---|---|
| Tier 1 | 50% |
| Tier 2 | 44% |
| Tier 3 | 6% |
Due to high market variance on AI names and the still unwinding Software names, I was looking to diversify into a tailwind sector. Very happy to have found LQDA and HNGE (thanks Bear for saying it out loud, it helped me start a position faster before the continuing increase) and still looking for more promising names. Today portfolio is 65% AI thesis, 6% Pharma and 29% Software. Target for August and September will be to cap AI thesis at 50%.
ALAB: I made a mistake selling my entire position around $350 based on valuation concern. It finally worked out with the July fall rebuilding a position.
LQDA: did a full post LQDA reddit. Good clue they'll crush earnings next week based on UTHR remarks on their earnings missing guidance due to competition, and the panic move doubling the sales team hoping to keep up. Very rare to have a pharma company being profitable with this growth rate at this stage. Will become a Tier 2 if they crush their earnings again.
IREN: Very confused about IREN. Promising name where I loaded up at the start of June because it hadn't rallied like NBIS, before a series of bad communications and mistakes in June reduced my confidence, making me cut from 14% netliq to 8% despite a -34% loss instead of piling up as usual with my strategy.
The ARR increase communication helped me hold a line that I want to reduce to 6% netliq. Still trying to make sense of the future success of Necloud despite their shady approach.
LITE: Very promising name. The stock's resilience during July and revisiting the last transcript made me very convinced on the remaining upside potential. Convinced that connectivity in datacenters tied to power will be the main bottleneck.
SIMO: Increased my position during the pullback. Made a mistake keeping it in Tier 3 confidence too long (thanks again WPR for the discovery). Very pleased to learn they're starting to evaluate robotics applications during the last earnings.
PTRN: Still medium confidence. Managed to trim during the rally at the top to buy back at the pullback end of July. A reminder of the importance of trimming winning stocks.
RDDT: Still medium confidence. Still confident the stock will rally once they finalize their AI deals. The slowing growth in US users doesn't worry me for now.
NBIS: Started a Tier 3 position as it seems to be the story stock backed with a great sales motion for the neocloud business. Due to the uncertainty on the neocloud business, waiting for Q4 to increase confidence.
VIAV: Added but will trim back after earnings. Good performance but LITE seems more promising and more resilient to me.
Would love to get your additional thoughts on three open questions:
- Found myself with 5 earnings on the same night yesterday, what is your method in these cases? Mine was catastrophic.
- General thoughts on memory plays like MU, SKHY and SNDK. Will their stocks follow a path like NVDA or have they already topped even with strong growth, because the market expects them to fall in less than 24 months?
- Daily performance was -10% on 07/29/26 and +16% on 07/30/26. Still not sure how to process that kind of volatility?