Investing in undervalued securities worldwide
info@triangulacapital.com
SIGN UP

Weekly Update 1 July 2024

Share Article:

The first half of 2024 was positive overall. The strategy returned 22%, beating the 12% return of the MSCI World index by 10 percentage points.

I am content with this result. My investing style, Value, has been out of favour this year. Value stocks ($VTV) have returned 9%, Growth stocks ($VUG) 21%. To return 22% despite a style headwind is acceptable.

In the last month the portfolio fell 7%. International value stocks fell 5%, so the performance was not way out of line with the part of the market the portfolio is invested in. Performance would have been much better if I had invested in Tech or Growth, but those are not my areas.

Today French election results are boosting the market. I am not quite ready to declare the all clear yet. If anything I am becoming more concerned about the market in 2025. Donald Trump’s chances of winning the US presidential election are rising. If Republicans end up controlling both the presidency and Congress, the US budget deficit could widen, interest rates will probably increase, and a market downturn will result.

For the time being, though, it is unclear when the market will start to focus on US budget deficits. There is a window of about 6 months, the second half of this year, when the currently strong economy could remain the main focus and stocks could rally further. I do believe that the US market is overvalued and when the recession finally arrives, stocks will fall substantially.

The plan is to maintain balanced exposure to the market and perhaps reduce the risk level of the portfolio at some point during H2 to prepare for a market downturn in 2025.

2024 performance
@triangulacapital +21.8%
$SWDA.L +11.8%

Portfolio changes
ISS and Stellantis were sold following negative news flow about the companies. They were replaced by Cellnex and Vonovia.

Copy Trading does not amount to investment advice. The value of your investments may go up or down. Your capital is at risk.

Share Article:

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Please refer to important disclosures.

Linkedin-in Twitter Facebook

© Pietari Laurila 2024 | All rights reserved.

Disclosures

eToro is a multi-asset platform which offers both investing in stocks and cryptoassets, as well as trading CFD assets.

CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 51% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work, and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

eToro (Europe) Ltd., a Financial Services Company authorised and regulated by the Cyprus Securities Exchange Commission (CySEC) under the license # 109/10.

eToro (UK) Ltd. is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) under the license FRN 583263.

Your capital is at risk. Other fees may apply. For more information, visit etoro.com/trading/fees.

Pietari Laurila is not a registered investment advisor and does not offer investment advisory, fund management or wealth management services.

Triangula Capital is a brand name, not an incorporated entity.

This page is provided for information purposes only. It is not a recommendation to copy the Triangula Capital strategy or to invest in any fund or security.

2009-2020 performance figures are from Pietari’s personal Interactive Brokers account. They are time-weighted returns calculated in accordance with the Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS).

From 2021, performance is calculated by eToro.

Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Track Record

It is often said that past performance is not a guarantee of future performance.

That is true. But there is also some evidence indicating that portfolios that performed better in the past, do perform better in the future.

“[…] top-decile prior-alpha funds produce annual future alphas of about 150 bps, net of fees” Source

Risk warning: That is only one study. In general, past performance is not indicative of future results.

Aligned Incentives

Pietari invests the majority of his net worth in the strategy. This ensures that his interests are aligned with investors who copy the strategy.

“Funds with high-incentive contracts deliver higher risk-adjusted return, and the superior performance remains persistent. The top incentive quintile of funds outperforms the bottom quintile by 2.70% per year” Source

Risk warning: Pietari holds accounts with multiple brokers and may therefore have a conflict of interest when deciding which accounts he should trade in first.

Unconstrained Investments

The strategy has fewer constraints on its investments than traditional mutual funds.

The strategy portfolio can be invested in stocks, bonds or cash and these allocations can vary over time.

Compared to traditional mutual funds, the strategy also:

  • holds fewer securities
  • trades more
  • avoids following the index

Each of these points has been shown to be an important predictor of portfolio performance.

“We […] find that portfolio concentration is directly related to risk-adjusted returns for institutional investors worldwide” Source

“A one-standard-deviation increase in turnover is associated with a 0.65% per year increase in performance for the typical fund” Source

“We find that truly active funds significantly outperform closet indexers. Further, we find that the truly active funds are able to outperform their benchmarks on average by 1.04% per year” Source

Risk warning: Concentrated portfolios with few positions can suffer large losses if bad news arrives about any of the companies in the portfolio.

Cheap Stocks in Cheap Sectors

The strategy invests in geographies and sectors where values have collapsed due to macroeconomic problems.

Within these geographies and sectors, the strategy overweights stocks that trade at low valuations on measures such as price-to-earnings or price-to-net asset value.

Every stock in the strategy portfolio must also be a good company, with no obvious red flags or long-term threats to its business model.

The aim of the strategy is to maximize returns, even if this means taking more risks than usual.

Risk warning: The strategy portfolio tends to be concentrated in risky stocks, which means that its losses in any market downturn will likely exceed those of the market index.