(Important) Portfolio Update – 04/04/2025

This was one of the worst weeks for the stock market in the 21st century.

Why? Because Donald Trump decided to start a trade war by imposing massive tariffs on nearly every country.

I already shared my personal views on this and how it affects my holdings in yesterday’s article — feel free to check it out. Today, I’m just updating you on my portfolio and recent moves, with full transparency.

Portfolio Adjustments

One of my key principles is to avoid overtrading, but today I felt it was time to act. Here’s exactly what I did:

At the open, my portfolio was down nearly 10%. I wanted to buy the dip in NBIS and DLO, so I decided to sell HITI to fund those buys. Don’t worry, I only sold it because I didn’t have cash in my brokerage account, I plan to re-enter very soon. The main reasons I temporarily sacrificed it (instead of any other holding) were:

It was holding up way better than my other stocks.

Since I bought most of my shares a few years ago, the FX impact was positive. Even though my average cost was $1.86, I was effectively at breakeven due to EUR/USD fluctuations (I’m European, so currency changes affect my performance). As such, I didn’t realize any profit/loss.

So, I sold HITI in the low $1.70s and used the proceeds to buy NBIS in the high $19s and DLO in the $7.80s. I strongly believe both are trading at a steep discount to intrinsic value and could justify a price 2–3x higher than current levels.

Shortly after, the market bounced quickly. In just 20 minutes, major indexes surged over 2%, and high-beta stocks even more. Seeing this, I sold the remainder of my HIMS position in the $26s to free up cash for HITI (though I haven’t bought back in yet) and other potential moves.

Many expected Powell’s speech to fuel a stronger bounce, but based on his track record, I knew he wouldn’t care about Trump’s opinion. The market reacted negatively, as I anticipated. Powell reiterated that tariffs will likely drive inflation higher, meaning the Fed isn’t in a rush to cut interest rates. That initial rally quickly faded.

Why I Sold HIMS

As you know, I’ve been trimming HIMS since it was trading in the $60s. With everything that has been happening, I’m learning not to get too attached to any stock — if I had managed my emotions better, I would have sold a lot more when it was up 200% YTD at over $70/share. Yes, it wasn’t expensive relative to most stocks, but at that time, the market was running on hype. Managing a high-beta portfolio, I should have recognized the signals and protected the downside — especially since my portfolio was up 282% in just 14 months. That’s great, but never normal.

That said, I can’t complain about HIMS. My total gain on the position was nearly 300% on average (some exits were over 500%, others much lower), with a weighted average holding period of under two years — an incredible return, even if it could’ve been better. Given my initial position size, that profit alone is close to the full value of my portfolio at the start of 2024.

I want to make this very clear: I still believe in HIMS’ long-term investment thesis. If I had extra cash, I wouldn’t have sold it. However, I had to pick one position to trim, and HIMS had the highest potential downside in my view. Here’s why:

First, on top of the market risk that everything faces right now, HIMS also carries litigation risk related to its continued sale of GLP-1s following the end of the shortage. We’ve discussed this several times already, and the reality is that everyone knows how volatile the stock is — a single headline can move it 20% in minutes, in either direction.

The fact that Eli Lilly issued a press release just a few days ago, clearly stating they have no affiliation with HIMS after some news suggested so, makes me believe both Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk are seriously preparing to take action against HIMS soon, as they already started doing against other compounders. While that might not invalidate the investment thesis, it’s an added layer of risk I don’t need exposure to.

I also wasn’t particularly happy with HIMS spending marketing dollars on ads encouraging people to sign a petition against the end of the GLP-1 shortage. If the company had simply moved on and focused on its oral solution instead, this would’ve been a very different story.

Now, for a few reasons not directly related to fundamentals: HIMS was still one of the best-performing small-cap stocks of 2025 — up ~5% YTD, largely thanks to early-year hype — and one of the few not yet in oversold territory. However, it recently lost its 200-day moving average, and given it’s one of the most shorted stocks in the market, I think there may be further downside from here, depending on market conditions.

In the end, I just locked in my biggest absolute gain ever — I can’t be mad about that. The decision was mainly to protect the downside so I don’t risk giving back my 2024 gains.

Important:

Another lesson I learned is that I should have some cash on the sidelines for moments like this. That way, I wouldn’t need to rebalance my portfolio just to buy the dip.

But to be honest, the only reason I don’t is because, since July, I’ve been working full-time on X and Substack, and up to now, all my content has been 100% free — so I haven’t had the cash flow to build a proper cash pile after deploying everything I had during August’s market correction (curiously, I used every cent I had to buy RKLB under $5 — so it turned out to be a perfect decision regardless). As I’ve said before, being in this situation, I should’ve taken advantage of the hype earlier this year to raise some funds for opportunities like this. Lesson learned.

In a few weeks, I’ll start restricting part of my content to paid subscribers. As such, the current price (which was set lower on purpose, since it was voluntary) will change. If you choose to support me before then, you’ll get a 50% discount on the yearly plan. I spend countless hours working to bring you the best content I can, so I appreciate your understanding. Don’t worry — I’ll still publish plenty of free articles as well.

Final Thoughts

I remain bullish in the long term, as always. But there’s no denying the short-term uncertainty, and the market hates that. The only thing that could reverse this situation quickly would be a reversal or softening of the tariffs — which I’m still unsure will happen.

The difference between this crash and March 2020 is that today, we don’t have the Fed coming to the rescue.

This morning, Trump posted a video essentially admitting that he triggered the market crash on purpose — to force the Fed to lower rates in May and give the U.S. a cheaper way to refinance trillions in debt. But based on J. Powell’s speech today, the Fed doesn’t seem to be in a rush to cut rates, so we might be in for a bit more pain.

All in all, I think the best strategy for long-term investors is to slowly continue buying the dip in the names you have the most conviction in — the ones you believe will come back stronger. Moments like this always end up being remembered as some of the best times to invest, and this will be no different. Yes, we should remain cautious. But this is also a rare chance to buy quality companies at distressed valuations. If you’re investing for the long term, you should feel good about scooping up some of these opportunities.

Thank you all for the amazing support — and remember: stay away from margin, leverage, and gambling in short-term options.