Even though I focus on a relatively small number of carefully chosen companies, in addition to a generally static portfolio of index trackers and income stocks, even this long weekend wasn’t long enough! Despite many stock markets being closed for three days I was presented with very exciting news (more on that in a moment) and events (not all positive) to consider in relation to the shape of my portfolio going forward. And after some deliberation I have made a number of share trades today…
Let’s start with the ‘≈$10k to $1m’ challenge related activity. Firstly and unsurprisingly for anyone that observes my blog and Reddit activity closely, Anna and I bought more EnSilica shares today. Even with the recent run up the company is undervalued relative to peers in my opinion as well as according to recent research by Allenby Capital. I expect more positive and notable news in the months ahead and so with our longer term perspective in mind, we collectively bought another 40,944 shares at an average price of about 107.5p. This takes us to over 1.3m shares including the 468,268 shares in the ‘≈$10k to $1m’ challenge.
In the ‘Less than $10k to $1m’ challenge I chose not to sell our Spectral AI (MDAI) shares (or those outside of the challenge) despite the extremely positive news that their novel automated wound imaging and assessment device is now FDA approved. There seemed to be quite a rush for the exit today and rather than take a lower price than I feel the shares are worth, I am going to be patient. As the commercial potential for this device becomes clearer, including the potential for a possible future handheld mobile / battlefield version of the device, I hope the share price will trend far higher in time, especially should a medical device major come knocking!
Today, was also a moment of notable change in relation to Reddit (RDDT), a social platform I probably spend far too much of my life currently using. Sometimes at personal cost both financially and in wellbeing due to the grief I often receive from insulting, foolish and or malicious individuals, who cowardly hide behind their online anonymity.
Having spent far too much of the weekend trying, yet failing so far to encourage Reddit’s legal team and r/Trading212 moderators to remove what I consider personally harassing and libellous comments, as well as market manipulation intended to undermine EnSilica shareholders (following banning the individual from the r/EnSilica sub) I have lost faith in the platform’s ability to support in a timely fashion (or at all in this case in my opinion) individuals who freely give up their time to moderate subs while helping others.
This is in addition in my opinion to the excessive stock based compensation awards and all too frequent selling of RDDT shares by management, as well as an apparent reluctance to fully pursue the previously announced buy back for reasons that make no sense to me, and I suspect may be due to a focus towards further stock based compensation awards and not shareholders outside of the business in my opinion.
So after making a profit on my first foray into RDDT shares, I will take a loss this time, even though I originally expected to hold the current shares for many years, and despite still expecting the company to prosper in time. Although the competition from Facebook’s new Forums may stymie user and revenue growth, as may a consumer spending and accompanying advertising downturn in the coming months should the Middle East conflict not be resolved soon in my opinion.
I also trimmed our position in Intuitive Machines, selling 289 shares each, to secure some of the approximate 276% gain, while retaining the bulk of our shares currently for the longer term. The cash won’t be immediately reinvested as I intend seek out another potential Double Bubbler stock in the coming weeks.
With some of the capital released from RDDT we also increased our Invinity Energy Systems (IES) shareholding, by 200,000 shares, given our rising confidence in the firm following their recent contract award for the Technology Centre Laufenburg in Switzerland, and ahead of hopefully positive news in the coming weeks from Ofgem’s Long Duration Energy Storage ‘Cap and Floor’ scheme.
May fortune favour the brave!
Mark aka Double Bubbler
P.S. I’ll update the various relevant parts of my blog (e.g. total shareholdings and average prices etcetera) when I get a spare moment.
