Portfolio Update (October 2025)

I've generated a 23% CAGR over 22 years by investing in world-class companies committed to shaping a better future. Here's everything I own today: [Oct 2025]

⭐ = high conviction ⬆️ = bought / added ⬇️ = trimmed / sold

$CASH - Cash - 18.5%
$RKLB - Rocket Lab - 15.5% ⬇️
$ISRG - Intuitive Surgical - 9.9%
$GOOGL - Alphabet - 9.8% ⭐
$TSLA - Tesla - 5.9% ⭐
$MELI - MercadoLibre - 4.9% ⭐
$AMZN - Amazon - 3.3% ⭐
$ASTS - AST SpaceMobile - 3.0%
$WISE - Wise - 3.0% ⭐
$SE - Sea Ltd - 2.6% ⭐
$CRWD - Crowdstrike - 2.4%
$NVDA - NVIDIA - 2.2% ⭐
$IIND - India ETF - 1.9% ⭐
$PLTR - Palantir - 1.7%
$IREN - Iris Energy - 1.6%
$ADYEN - Adyen - 1.5%
$ZS - Zscaler - 1.5%
$AXON - Axon - 1.4% ⬇️
$NVO - Novo Nordisk - 1.4% ⬆️
$NU - Nubank - 1.1%
$TMDX - TransMedics - 1.1%
$CYBR - CyberArk - 0.9%
$BYDDY - BYD - 0.9%
$PANW - Palo Alto - 0.8%
$ASML - ASML - 0.6%
$UTHR - United Therapeutics - 0.6%
$SNOW - Snowflake - 0.6%
$GRG - Greggs - 0.5%
$LMT - Lockheed Martin - 0.5%
$CRM - Salesforce - 0.4%

Sold:

$AAF - Airtel Africa ⬇️

This month saw a significant rebalancing, prompted by some sleepless nights over high valuations and portfolio concentration! My biggest move was trimming my largest holding, Rocket Lab $RKLB. This was purely a risk management decision to reduce the position size, with a goal of getting to <10% exposure by year end, there's no change in my long-term conviction for the company.

I also trimmed Palantir $PLTR and Axon $AXON due to concerns over their demanding valuations (and also excessive stock-based compensation at Axon). My Reverse DCF model suggests they both need to grow free cash flow by over 42% annually for ten years to justify the current price, which seems rather a stretch! Axon Q3 results are due in November, and I plan to revalidate my thesis for the company as part of reviewing those.

On the buy side, I doubled my position in Novo Nordisk $NVO to a 1.5% allocation. My thesis is centred on the upcoming oral version of Wegovy, which showed superior results to competitors in clinical trials and is expected to get an FDA decision by year-end.

I also cleaned house by selling my entire position in Airtel Africa $AAF. While the original thesis remains intact, I was no longer tracking it closely enough, and prefer to concentrate capital into holdings where I have higher conviction and active interest.

The net result of this rebalancing is an increase in my cash position from 15.2% to 18.7%. Given prevailing market conditions, which seem stretched, my current target is to get closer to 22% cash (and fixed income) by year-end.

I had planned to add to Brazilian fintech NuBank this month, but it appears the company is making a serious attempt to expand into North America. This makes me incredibly nervous as an investor. Sea Limited $SE had a disastrous few years following a botched overexpansion into Europe and South America, and I'm still feeling the pain of this. I have a 1.1% allocation to $NU, so for now think I'm just going to wait and see how the international story plays out.

Much of this month's analysis was driven by a refresh of my Reverse DCF model for every company I own. This tool has been invaluable for stress-testing the growth expectations embedded in current stock prices and forcing a rational assessment of risk. I shared my Reverse DCF model in depth on E101 of the podcast, and a downloadable template is available here:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/lukes-improved-140885964

I believe in transparency and accountability, and post my full portfolio and returns every month.

We recently had a ten minute bull & bear debate on every company in our portfolio on the podcast, you can catch the highlights in this youtube playlist:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoIESJivEZuAYkninrE21JMxK0dce0EkF&si=AohiJDkDHcB5a7tg