Weekly: Your stocks discussed (1)

Weekly 23 2025 + Portfolio overview May

This Week

On Tuesday, the lesson in our Introduction to Value Investing series was published: Lesson 15 – Assessing Management.

The rest of the week has been quiet in terms of company news for the stocks in our selection. Apart from reports of share buybacks, there was hardly anything to find, certainly nothing worth reporting.

That gave me plenty of time to look into the stocks you submitted last week in the survey.

I had expected that one or a few stocks would be mentioned multiple times, and that there would be a clear “most popular” stock to discuss. But that wasn’t the case. Some stocks were mentioned twice, but no more than that.

So I’ve decided to just go through the entire list, especially since I’m expecting little company news in the coming weeks as well.

Of course, as you’ve come to expect from me, I immediately start looking for reasons not to buy. That’s why today we’re covering 16 out of the total 46 different names submitted. One of them is on the watchlist; for the other 15, I found reasons not to buy, some more detailed than others.

I also have to admit that I really enjoy doing this. There are stocks I normally wouldn’t look into further based on price alone, but now I’ve taken a deeper dive. I ended up spending quite a bit of time on Terravest, for example, because I was intrigued by how a company in storage tanks could have come such a long way.

But first, here’s the overview of our portfolio in May.

Doubler Portfolio Overview April 2025

For those not yet familiar with our Doubler Portfolio, read more about it here.

In the first half of May, the upward trend that began after the April 7 low continued. The second half of May moved more or less sideways. As mentioned above, there was no news to report. We did collect some dividends into our account.

By the end of May, the portfolio was up 8.31%, measured from the beginning of January. Since inception, that return is 5.81%. Last year was negative, mainly due to the costs involved in building the portfolio.

Of course, we’re still talking about a relatively short period: the portfolio has only been active for just over a year. As of the end of May, 28.69% of the portfolio is still held in cash. That’s partly due to the five sales we’ve already made in this short time.

The fifth sale, Smartphoto, was, of course, somewhat of a forced one, a sale we wouldn’t have made if the company had stayed listed. Incidentally, competitor CeWe is one of the stocks that was suggested twice and will be reviewed in the coming weeks.

All five sales were profitable, which obviously won’t always be the case. A good rule of thumb is that one in three will be loss-making.

So far (as of 05/06/2025), we’ve achieved a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.12%. That’s not enough to double our portfolio in five years, we’d need 14.87% for that. But as mentioned at the start, the target lies somewhere between five and seven years. In numbers: between 14.87% and 10.41%. We’re not there yet, but the CAGR is trending upward.

The large cash position is of course weighing on performance. But if we happen to get lucky and markets crash within the next two years—and I’m not talking about a temporary 15% correction, during which we might only make a few selective purchases, but a real crash of 25–50%—then that cash position will be worth its weight in gold, and we’ll deploy it fully. That’s when we’ll see our doubling timeline shrink significantly.

For now, though, we’ll have to work with what we’ve got, and purchases will follow gradually.

You’ll also notice that I don’t compare our results to market indexes. That’s for two reasons: first, because our target is set in nominal terms. I want to double the portfolio in five to seven years. What the indexes do in that time doesn’t really interest me.

Second, I noticed last year that when the indexes rise sharply and our carefully selected stocks lag behind, it creates a certain pressure on me to perform. It makes it harder to ignore short-term noise and focus on what really matters: our companies.

It also pushes me to put our cash to work too quickly, which wouldn’t be the right move if we want to reach our stated goal.

May Recap

It’s impressive how quickly the market adjusts to a new reality. Trump pulling wild stunts and announcing bizarre tariffs? After the initial shock in April, markets have already gotten used to it and are no longer reacting.

While I fully agree that this kind of short-term noise should be ignored as much as possible, there are consequences to these antics. Trust in the U.S. is being undermined. If Europe plays this smart, it could benefit significantly.

From what I read in the international press, there are promising developments aimed at improving the European capital market. In Belgium, though, no such news; just ridiculous debates around a counterproductive capital gains tax.

Let’s take a look again at the extremes of the past month: the companies that moved more than 10%.