The Swan Select Portfolio: Soaring into 2025
Market Leaders & Hidden Gems: A Balanced 10-Stock Portfolio
Happy New Year everyone! I first wanted to thank all the readers who have taken an interest and especially those who have subscribed to this newsletter as it’s starting out. I really appreciate it!
We’ve now been running for over a month! During this time, we’ve highlighted a few great individual investment for discussion. To start off the new year, I wanted to put together a portfolio of core holdings to better track how these companies perform as a unit. We’ll call this the 2025 Swan Select Portfolio and I plan to revisit the portfolio periodically in this newsletter
It’s a particularly interesting time to start a new portfolio with markets at frothy valuation levels and with Goldman Sachs predicting an annualized return of only 3% in the S&P500 over the next decade. Increasingly, we’re seeing questions on whether it’s better to sit out and wait for a pullback. At times like this, I’m reminded of the words of billionaire investor, Kenneth Fisher, who said “Time in the market beats timing the market”. In fact, in times like this, when the bull market is no longer assured, it’s even more important that we are disciplined and choose individual stocks carefully.
This portfolio is intended to be a concentrated portfolio of only 10 stocks from great companies bought under good valuation that I hope will outperform the overall market. After all, that’s the goal of every investor who spends time investing in individual stocks. Each stock selected here has been evaluated against my investment criteria. For a reminder of what those are, take a look at
My criteria for evaluating investments
Even though we’ve concentrated to only 10 stocks, the selection of these 10 were made with many consideration to perform as a unit diversifying across sectors, market cap, and includes international exposure. I plan to start the 2025 Swan Select Portfolio with $100,000 equally distributed across these 10 stocks:
Uber:
Investment thesis for Uber
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I recently opened an investment position in Uber after their Q3, 2024 earnings report. My initial assessment of this investment is that it is a fairly valued but has great potential synergistic growth opportunities looking forward into the next few years.
Lantheus:
Investment thesis on Lantheus
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Lantheus is a radiopharmaceutical company that has successfully brought several diagnostic products to market (PET imaging). This shows they 1.) have the expertise to successfully develop these products while navigate the complex regulatory landscape of CDRH and 2.) have the infrastucture in place to manufacture these specialized radiodiagnostics.
Tenet Healthcare:
Investment thesis on Tenet Healthcare
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My latest investment, Tenet Healthcare, is a position I recently started that is also in the Healthcare industry. Specifically, this company has significantly improved their business in the last year and I believe valuation is discounted from this point today.
Valero:
Investment thesis on Valero
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Valero is the largest independent petroleum refiner with 15 refineries currently across US, Canada, and the UK with combined throughput capacity of ~ 3.2 million barrels per day. It generates revenue from 3 segments: Refining, Renewable Diesel, and Ethanol.
Chubb:
Investment thesis on Chubb Limited
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Chubb Limited is a global insurance company that provides a wide range of insurance products including property and casualty (P&C), accident, and health insurance, life insurance, and reinsurance. They operate all over the globe in 54 countries and territories and service both corporations and individuals providing good diversification against any isolated catastrophes although the bulk of their premiums are still derived from the United States (57% as of 2023 annual report).
Amazon: (writeup updated 1/3/2025)
Investment thesis on Amazon
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Amazon is a company that needs no introduction. It’s evolved from an online book store in 1994 to one of the largest and most diversified companies in the world. Unfortunately, I can’t lay claim to having the foresight to invest in Amazon back then. The question here is whether Amazon in 2025 remains a good investment.
Paypal: (writeup updated 1/16/2025)
Investment thesis on Paypal Holdings
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PayPal Holdings is a pioneer in the fintech industry. Established in 1998, PayPal has fundamentally changed the way people handle online transactions. One might argue in this field, they made the biggest advancements since the invention of the credit card.
Alibaba: (writeup updated 1/9/2025)
Investment thesis on Alibaba Group
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Alibaba Group is commonly referred to as the “Amazon of China”. Like Amazon, it’s a leader in technology and e-commerce. Also like Amazon, it runs a conglomerate of ventures with their main pillars being e-commerce and the cloud computing segment. However, not everything is the same and the strategy employed between the two are actually quite differe…
Alphabet - Coming soon…
Qualcomm - (writeup updated 1/25/2025)
Investment thesis on Qualcomm
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When one thinks about Qualcomm today, the thing that likely comes to mind is smartphones. Although they own a whole range of products, they are probably best known for their Snapdragon processors and their wireless 5G modem technology. Founded in 1985, the company today is considered a semiconductor stalwart. Unfortunately, in recent years, the company has been plagued challenges and setbacks. Most notable among them has been the recent slowdown in the global smartphone market and falling out with Apple leading to the expected loss of a major customer.
As always, the most important aspect of looking at investments is the “Why” behind each choice and not the “What”. That’s why I’ve added the individual investment thesis for the first 5 previously posted here with links above. I intend to post the others over the next coming months. We’ll keep this post short since much of the groundwork to this portfolio has been laid out in previous posts.
If you want to stay up to date with changes to this portfolio throughout the year, please subscribe for free below. Here’s to a great 2025!
Consider stopping by the BlackSwan Investor Chat channel to discuss more about this or other investing topics.
Disclaimer: Any information contained here is not intended as, and shall not be understood or construed as, financial advice. I am not a financial advisor and this is only a documentation of my personal investment journey and decisions. You should always do your own research before making any final decision on investments.