I hope everyone has gotten to enjoy the long holiday weekend. This time of year, we get to celebrate America and appreciate all the freedoms we are given. On the investing front, we should acknowledge how fortunate we are to invest in a country that has provided long term annual market returns of 8-10%. If you can just keep up with the market over the long run, you’ll end up pretty well off.

Just like the market though, running a blog has its ups and its downs. Sometimes you feel the jolt of inspiration, a never ending flow of thoughts simmering at the surface just waiting to be written down. At others, writing a post can seem like the greatest hassle in the world.  Recently, writing for the blog has frankly been a challenge. This is my first post in three months, since my last portfolio update. What starts as a one week lapse, quickly turns into two, which inevitably carries on for many more. Just like investing, the weeks tend to compound.

It isn’t like I haven’t had any good ideas, I just haven’t been able to muster the energy to sit down and write out a full post. The year 2019 gives us a never ending supply of distractions, whether it was watching the NBA Playoffs or browsing through Reddit and Twitter, I always found something inconsequential to occupy my time. I can now say I understand how a famous author can keep fans waiting year after year without ever finishing a series(well maybe I don’t understand the whole having fans part). George RR Martin, you have my sympathy.

On the financial side of things, 2019 never ceases to surprise. After a calamitous end to 2018, 2019 started the year sprinting out of the gate. By the end of the the first quarter, I was sure the market had to give some back. Instead the market has continued its steady onward march. Luckily for me, my portfolio has been fully invested and my companies have continued to grow.  I’m not however ready to be too confident. The bottom could fall out at any moment, so who knows what will happen, I’m just along for the ride.

2nd Quarter Performance 2019

Reminder my 10K Portfolio started with $10,000 on and was bench marked against the SPY at 285.06 which as of the open on 7/1/19 stood at 293.

         Return(1)          SPY Return(2)         Difference(1-2)

Portfolio value $10,620.89:             6.93                          2.78                         4.14

My portfolio has continued to do well and I now outpace the SPY by over 4%. Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves, I am still shy of the 1 year anniversary of the portfolio. I’ll chalk this up to luck, but if I can still be beating the market 5 years from now, I’d like some credit! I am unlucky and perhaps a bit stupid for when I started the portfolio. Had I waited just a few months, that nearly 7% return would easily be double that amount.

More important than the stock returns however, the performance of my portfolio companies have been quite good. Let’s take a look at what’s been going on.

Best Performers

MSFT- Under Satya Nadella’s leadership, Microsoft continues to dominate. They may have taken a break from growth in the early 2010’s, but they are back and hungrier than ever. You would think that a company with a market cap over 1 trillion would have trouble growing. Right now, that couldn’t be further from the truth. This past quarter, MSFT grew operating income by 25% and diluted EPS was up 20%(both YoY). Buoyed by their cloud division, Azure, Microsoft’s dominance looks inevitable. Azure had revenue growth of 73% compared to last year. The company also now sits on a treasure chest of 131 billion dollars of cash and short term investments. Their balance sheet is rock solid and they are well positioned for years to come.

ODFL- Old Dominion Freight Line is much smaller than Microsoft, but their recent success is no less impressive. This past quarter they were able to grow EPS 23.3%, while also reducing the overall share count by 1.5%. It is almost always a good sight when you see EPS growing rapidly and the overall share count falling. You can get in trouble if the company is paying a price well above intrinsic value for those shares, but I do not believe this to be such a case.  I now own a greater percentage of a company that is performing excellently. Debt levels remain almost nonexistent and I feel comfortable holding onto this company well into the future. I am down about 7% in the company even though the market has gone up and the company has performed extremely well. This is probably a pretty good indicator that ODFL is trading at an attractive price.

Worst Performers

LEA- Unfortunately, not all of my companies have been great performers. Lear Corporation has had a couple of bad quarters in a row and my holdings are now down almost 20% in the company.  Sales were down 5% and adjusted EPS fell from 5.1 to 4. These are never good signs, I like to see companies going in the opposite direction. GARP investing is about finding growth, not watching sales fall. Lear is being impacted by the cyclical nature of automotive sales. We seem to have hit a peak and auto sales have fallen in recent quarters. On the bright side, the company continues to drive down the share count. On a P/E basis the company looks pretty cheap, trading around 8.5 but that isn’t necessarily a good enough reason to hold onto the company.

HII – Unlike Lear, Huntington Ingalls was able to grow revenue, up 11% YoY. It wasn’t all good however, operating income fell from 191 million to 161 million. This was primarily due to lower margins and how penchant expenses are accounted for. Either way, earnings were down considerably. The company also took on a substantial amount of debt and the balance sheet doesn’t look nearly as strong as it used to. Not all is bad though, HII did win some crucial contracts and the backlog now stands at a record 41 billion.  The company remains a high moat competitor with long term contracts locked in. I just have to wonder if this is the best investment opportunity available.

For the time being I am going to hold onto these companies and monitor how they do in the next quarter or two. Should things not improve, don’t be surprised if I sell out of one or even both of these. I like the future prospects of HII more at the moment, but they still need to be paid close attention. I don’t care how much a stock moves in the short run, if the business doesn’t perform up to expectations it may be time to move on. I would rather put my money into a company with better industry tailwinds.

As always thanks for reading, I appreciate it! Be sure to subscribe to this blog and follow me on twitter @TheGarpInvestor.