Sharing my personal journey here. My current portfolio:

13 companies (aiming to trim to 10). Mainly high-growth companies that I understand well.

FTNT LMND

SE PLTR

XPEV INMD

CRWD DDOG

ASML U

FLGT CRSP

UPST

My portfolio is down -30% since inception July 2020

$NYSE:XPEV

Q3 2022 - This was a tough quarter for $XPEV in an already brutal environment.

• Total deliveries are down Q on Q, but up 15% compared to the same Q last year.
• Total revenue down Q on Q by 8%, but up 19% compared to the same Q last year.
• Expanding sales network, personnel, charging stations
• Gross margin holding stable, slightly up Q on Q
• Slightly opaque reporting of SBC, this is likely to have made the net losses more significant than reported
• R&D, Sales G&A spend continue to increase

The hardest reading for me was yet to come. Management guidance/ Business Outlook for next Q:

• Deliveries of vehicles (20,000 and 21,000), a year-over-year decrease of approximately 49.7% to 52.1%.
• Total revenues to be between RMB4.8 billion and RMB5.1 billion, a year-over-year decrease of approximately 40.4% to 43.9%

This was a tough quarter and difficult forward guidance. Almost surprised that it didn’t cause more sell-off but perhaps the bad news is also priced in.

China is facing some serious issues with ongoing lock-downs. I don't know anymore if this is actually whats affecting total deliveries - are the factories still being affected by this? The latest car sales figures are dominated by BYD and Tesla and getting a sense of where XPEV market share is placed is not easy.

@kenchee any thoughts on above?...

$NYSE:LMND

Investor presentation day

https://www.youtube.com/watch

Finished watching this. Cautiously impressed. Main points that stood out to me were the superior nature of its digital substrate business in how it sells insurance. Probably no other legacy insurance company has this. No middlemen, the speed at which they sell and settle claims, and the sheer detail that their AI/machine learning models are generating. They can differentiate risk between houses on the same street. And the acquisition of Metromile has allowed them to expand their car insurance and offer bundles that should accelerate their business.

This was effectively the first time many of us investors got to look under the hood to see their AI/ML in action. They also shared the financials and explained how they are focusing on profitability (like so many other growth co.) Watching this I believe its moat is stable and even growing.

Things I’m watching in the next 2-4 quarters:

- The loss ratio really needs to come down in line with their predicted model, sub 90

- grow customer count to > 3m and total IFP >30% growth

- reduce cash burn, profitable GAAP by end of 2023...

Read $NYSE:SE latest earnings and found it useful to judge their progress.

Overall their adjusted EBITDA metric they like to use is improving, their gross losses are improving so for a company of this size I think they have executed well and quickly on their promise to pivot to profitability.

Their E commerce lead is stable and revenue continues to grow in a difficult environment. The competition is also facing similar headwinds eg Lazada and Gojek/Toko.

I’m keeping an eye on

- how they are going to compensate for the weakening of their digital entertainment arm

- can they maintain their e-commerce market lead in their major growth markets & the effects on their digital finance business.

Being my largest position I am considering either trimming or holding, but won’t be adding until I see more quarters

...

I know a few accounts I follow have shared this here too but I enjoyed listening to the recent interview with Alex Karp and Stanley Druckenmiller , mostly sharing on the current and future geo political tensions. For me it frames the place PLTR may take in future.

So many interesting questions...

Hi @vicollege

Is @vipress actually a bot? It doesn’t seem to take questions about it’s articles. I am aware some news services already have automated bots doing press releases.