Now that we have Trump on the office there is never be a dull moment! You have to be very careful about what you believe he is going to do when he says it or he tweets about it. The S&P 500 (now almost two thirds of world’s market cap) has started 2025 with modest positive return after all the tax-related selling of the last two years (profit taking).
The S&P 500 had its 4-day win streak snapped on Friday 23 January after falling 0.29% to 6,101.24. Despite the loss, the index still posted gains for a second straight week for the year, finishing up 1.74% from last week. Usually January defines the US market's performance for the whole year. Let’s hope this week and January end on the positive note.
We are in the middle of earnings season and this week we have serious tech heavy weights: Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and Tesla to finish the month.
A successful stock picking approach
Both years were very successful years after we started the USA column in September 2023. My personal picks have enjoyed great success with few exceptions – in order of the pick:
- September/23: Nvidia [NASDAQ:NVDA] $46.24 to $142.62 +208% or YTD 2025 +6.2%
- October/23: Skechers [NYSE:SKX] $48.29 to $75.95 +57.28% or YTD +12.94%
- November/23: Palantir Technologies [NASDAQ:PLTR] $17.79 to $78.98 +344% or YTD +4.43%
- December/23: General Dynamics [NYSE:GD] $244.83 to $266.43 +8.82% or YTD +1.12%
- January /24 Palo Alto Networks [NASDAQ:PANW] closed with zero profit or loss
- February/24: Live Nation Entertainment [NYSE:LYV] $88 to $140.74 +59.93% or YTD +8.68%
- March/24 Meta Platforms [NASDAQ:META] $506 to $647.49 +27.96% or YTD 10.59%
- April/24: RTX Corp [NYSE:RTX] $100 to $125.31 +20.2% or YTD +8.29%
- August/24: Ralph Lauren [NYSE:RL] $170 to $256 +50.59% or YTD +10.83%
- September/24: Agnico Eagle Mines [NYSE:AEM] $80 to $89.84 +12.3% or YTD +15%
- October/24: Hasbro [NYSE:HAS] $67 to $57.42 -14.3% or YTD +2.7% Now closed!
- November/24: Goldman Sachs [NYSE:GS] $590 to $636.90 +7.95% or YTD +11.23%
- December/24: Disney [NYSE:DIS] $113 to $112.16 -0.7% or YTD +0.73%
Compared to the US S&P 500 index end of September 4,514.87 to 6,101.24 being up +35.14% (all data January 24th, 2025).
Why I write this column
The main reason I write this column is to prove to all investors young and old that it pays to invest directly in individual stocks and you can beat the market. ETFs and especially index funds give you nice returns, but if you really want to retire early or enjoy your investments profits, invest in single stocks.
I have included YTD % performance in this column from now and will continue to do so. I will also use a very easy investment rule: if the pick does not perform positively, in the next quarter I will sell it (so every stock pick gets four months to turn profitable).
The other rule is that I am strong believer on the “let the winners run and cut the losers early” rule, so if I see that the stock pick is not participating in the market’s positive run – I will cut the stock before it becomes a problem.
Analysing my Wall Street stock portfolio
When we further analyze my holdings in the portfolio: we have two stocks: PLTR (344%) and NVDA (208%) as serious outperformers, but with the current AI boom these two stocks work especially well in this market going forward.
NVDA has a market cap of $3.49 trillion (bypassing AAPL last week to become highest market cap company in the USA), so the returns going forward will be hard to keep up with the market overall, but we will still enjoy the ride like I wrote in my first column in September, 2023.
I now have four large caps (over $100 billion) GS (+7.95%), PLTR, RTX (20.2%) and DIS (-0.7%) and I am expecting market-beating performances from them all in 2025.
PLTR reminds me of early NVDA as it had a monster year on 2024, but the analyst community in Wall Street is serious behind with growth prospects of the company. GS will have a great year with MA & IPO action set to really grow under Trump’s administration 2025-2028.
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