Divvied $1,100 in Equities. IPOs to look out for as 2021 ends.
September 2, Activity Log
Reminder: Spend $300 to OWN some stocks today. :)
Disclaimer: Not a professional investor. Not investment advice. This is simply sharing a learning journey. For friends and the curious.
Asli and I invested $1,100 in the stock market today. Her dad refunded a loan he’d borrowed, and she thought, “Perfect time to invest!” Our original plan: split the amount into four parts of $275 each. Then invest three parts and leave the last part as cash. We ended up investing the entire thing.
Here’s how we thought about it:
Amazon: they have been leading only 10 years or less now. At 1.7T in valuation, they still have a long way to grow into full leadership. We’re bullish on their media/entertainment play (they will flog Disney, Netflix and everybody else) and their dominance in cloud is unparalleled. All that is outside the US’s almost spiritual dependence on their retail distribution.
PayPal: FinTech payments with growth potential. They are the original fintech guys, lost their shine and I believe, are coming back. The fact that they have enabled payments to Nigeria is massive (emerging markets don’t get more tricky than Nigeria). At 337B valuation, they can still double their size.
MSFT (2.28T) and APPL (2.57T): it’s a no-brainer to buy these. They are stable tech stocks that have grown, led over the last 25 years. Leadership is still unrivaled. If you hold these for 1–5 years, you’ll probably never have a problem. They’ve just gone up steadily.
The risk with this portfolio is that it’s mostly tech-related stocks. Also important to note that we are long-term investors. We will hold these stocks for at least 1 year.
2021 is almost over but these IPOs are still coming!
Remember, Robinhood allows you pre-IPO access.
Rivian will IPO soon (Nov or Dec). I first heard about them when my Kenyan friend graduated from MIT and landed a design engineer job there. It looked like electric vehicles for the outdoors back then but they’ve clearly expanded. Both Amazon and Ford have put money into Rivian. If they hit their IPO target, they’ll be worth more than Ford and GM. Ford’s main product, the F-150, is the truck everyone and their mama had when I was in college. It’s how I knew what the US cares about vehicle-wise. Same as the Ford Mustang. Looks like Ford is betting on Rivian to help them create demand for electric trucks (Ford also has their own electric F150 Lightening). Meanwhile Amazon has ordered over 100k Rivian vehicles to power their delivery network. See this Forbes analysis for more.
Stripe. We don’t know yet when Stripe will IPO but I believe this company will lead the future of payments. I see it as the platform behind the platform behind the platform that enables other fintech companies. Still private but a company that’s worth almost $100Bn means that it’s IPO might be spectacular. Stripe acquired Nigerian Paystack last year.
