Portfolio Update: July 2025!

As per Goldman Sachs: SPECULATIVE TRADING HITS RECORD HIGH!!!

Goldman Sachs reports its Speculative Trading Indicator is at its highest level since the dot-com and pandemic bubbles, driven by heavy trading in unprofitable, penny, and high EV/sales stocks. Trading volumes are high in "Mag 7" names, digital assets, and quantum computing, reflecting rising risk appetite. Call option activity has surged to its highest since 2021, and IPO/SPAC issuance is at a multi-year high, with SPACs raising $9B in Q2.

We are officially in Meme Stock Mania 2.0 as the retail crowd is once again pumping the stocks with extremely high short interest.

As a result, Hedge Funds (HFs) running long/short (L/S) strategies are facing unprecedented drawdown, the highest in the last few years.

Source: ZH

Furthermore, the HF pain was exacerbated by the momentum names witnessing unwinding this month (-7%).

Source: ZH

All in all, nobody in their wildest dreams anticipated the price action that we are witnessing three months ago.

Nevertheless, we have not only outperformed our benchmark but also outperformed all hedge funds.

When we examine the Macro HFs, the discretionary directional strategy has been the best performer with an average return of 7.4%.

Compared to them, we are up by more than 17.5% YTD (just 15 bps from ATHs achieved on Thursday).

Furthermore, we are outperforming our benchmark by more than 135 bps.

PS: Before we begin, we will increase our paid subscription prices to $29.99/M or $ 299.99/Yr starting 1st September 2025.

Note that subscribers who are currently enrolled or will enrol by September 1st will be subscribed at the mouth-watering current prices ($24.99/$249.99) “FOREVER”.

Furthermore, those who have subscribed at the original price of $14.99/$149.99 two years back will see no change in their plans.

Therefore, anyone who wants to take advantage of a 16% lifetime discount can subscribe until midnight on August 31st at the current prices.

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Equities!

When we examine the overall performance, we are unsurprised by the YTD returns of equity markets globally, as we were among the first to question the “American Exceptionalism” narrative that was prevalent before Trump took office in January.

The chaos he has caused due to tariffs and the constant questioning of the Federal Reserve as an institution is leading to credibility issues. As a result, we have seen a 10% depreciation in the dollar (DXY) across the basket of currencies.

Nevertheless, there are structural issues at play here, and today we will discuss our macro view, which we are altering for the first time this year.

We have had a roaring success with our Thematic Investing Series.

Since we first introduced them in 2023 (after going paid), we have had multiple multibaggers and significant outperformance.

Thematic Investing Part 1 & 2 focused on the Aerospace and Defence Sectors (A&D).

We had two stocks on our watchlist and bought the other two. Even one of the stocks on our watchlist is now up 80% since we recommended it.

Overall, the equal-weight basket is up 112% against an 80% performance by the benchmark ITA.

Thematic Investing Part-3 was released in October 2023, and since then, the two-stock equal-weight PF has risen by 54% against a modest increase of 6.6% for the benchmark LUX.

The Thematic Investing series focused on the luxury segment, and despite the slowdown in the sector, our stocks have massively outperformed.

Thematic Investing Part 4 focused on clean energy and the green transition.

We had selected around four stocks, and the PF is an equal-weight portfolio with 25% weightage to each of the stocks.

We have selected XME as the benchmark here, as the traditional clean energy ETFs have underperformed with negative returns.

The Thematic Investing Part 4 is up 76% against the benchmark's 40% performance since February 23, 2024.

Our title for Thematic Investing Part 5, written in March this year, was “Amid Doom and Gloom, the AI Capex Beneficiaries”, as the Deepseek announcement led to concerns that the AI bubble had burst.

Guess what?

The Thematic Investing Basket, comprising two stocks that we screened out of the 5 potential stocks, has blown even our expectations by an enormous margin.

Since we wrote the piece, the equal-weight basket is up by 72%.

We were pleasantly surprised by the demand for data centres as one of the companies reported earnings on Thursday and was up by more than 20% yesterday.

Let us explore the details: