Stocks Of The Month: AMZN, INTC, KSU, NVDA, TSLA

It is a busy month for the portfolio. Gone is ULTA Salon, Cosmetics & Fragrance (ULTA), bought in January of this year, and sold at a 12% loss.

Bought are the usual suspects in NVIDIA (NVDA) and Tesla (TSLA); a recent repeat in Amazon (AMZN); a new piece on the Ticket To Ride playing board in Kansas City Southern (KSU); and the stock I really want to write about: Intel (INTC).

Last bought way back in 2010(!), Intel has quietly cranked out a 120% gain since. They are not the technological leader by raw processing horsepower anymore - NVIDIA's GPUs hold that title - but they are ubiquitous. If you need a silicon chip (and chances are that you do), Intel has a silicon chip for you. With $62B in revenue growing at 9%, and a dividend yield of 2.7%, Intel is an easy stock to own.

Here's my current portfolio (buy and hold). As always, I believe in all of these stocks - until I sell them.

Tesla (TSLA) 17.25%
Apple (AAPL) 11.28%
Amazon (AMZN) 10.33%
NVIDIA (NVDA) 8.55%
Alphabet (GOOGL) 8.03%
Facebook (FB) 5.88%
Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) 4.09%
Adobe Systems (ADBE) 2.27%
Nike (NKE) 2.16%
Salesforce.com (CRM) 2.12%
Visa (V) 2.01%
Chubb Limited (CB) 1.98%
Microsoft (MSFT) 1.93%
Intel (INTC) 1.93%
UnitedHealth Group (UNH) 1.89%
Starbucks (SBUX) 1.82%
Priceline Group (PCLN) 1.78%
Costco Wholesale (COST) 1.36%
BlackRock (BLK) 1.15%
Autodesk (ADSK) 1.08%
Comcast (CMCSA) 0.90%
Activision Blizzard (ATVI) 0.69%
American Water Works (AWK) 0.68%
Waste Management (WM) 0.58%
Canadian National Railway (CNI) 0.57%
Aqua America (WTR) 0.56%
Norfolk Southern (NSC) 0.54%
CSX (CSX) 0.51%
Kansas City Southern (KSU) 0.47%
Union Pacific (UNP) 0.47%

Stocks Of The Month: NVDA, TSLA, UNH

Another month, another purchase of Telsa (TSLA) and NVIDIA (NVDA).  Tesla is about 5% short of the goal allocation, while NVIDIA is about 10% short (yikes).

I do not want to ignore my dividend-paying stocks; so with Chubb Limited (CB) as the goal allocation of about 2% each, I bought some more UnitedHealth Group (UNH) to match.  I will be buying more of BlackRock (BLK), Comcast (CMCSA), and Intel (INTC) in future months - only Chubb is officially a buy as it is the marker for the entire dividend stock group.

Here's my current portfolio (buy and hold). As always, I believe in all of these stocks - until I sell them.

Tesla (TSLA) 17.33%
Apple (AAPL) 12.08%
Amazon (AMZN) 10.32%
Alphabet (GOOGL) 7.93%
NVIDIA (NVDA) 7.63%
Facebook (FB) 6.03%
Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) 3.97%
Adobe Systems (ADBE) 2.40%
Nike (NKE) 2.27%
Salesforce.com (CRM) 2.18%
Visa (V) 2.00%
Microsoft (MSFT) 1.96%
UnitedHealth Group (UNH) 1.94%
Chubb Limited (CB) 1.91%
Starbucks (SBUX) 1.89%
Priceline Group (PCLN) 1.79%
Costco Wholesale (COST) 1.34%
Autodesk (ADSK) 1.11%
BlackRock (BLK) 1.07%
Comcast (CMCSA) 0.97%
Intel (INTC) 0.82%
Activision Blizzard (ATVI) 0.72%
American Water Works (AWK) 0.68%
Canadian National Railway (CNI) 0.57%
Waste Management (WM) 0.57%
Aqua America (WTR) 0.56%
Norfolk Southern (NSC) 0.51%
CSX (CSX) 0.49%
Union Pacific (UNP) 0.44%
ULTA Salon, Cosmetics & Fragrance (ULTA) 0.36%

Capitulation In The Third Dimension: Sold DDD, SSYS, XONE; Bought NSC, PCLN, V

Pop quiz: which group of stocks would you rather own?

These 3...

...or these 3?

I don't know what the future of the 3D printing industry is. It could be the next wave of manufacturing, or it could be relegated to hobbyists and prototypers, or somewhere in between. I do know that the top 3 stocks are demonstrably awful stocks - the worst bit of "investing" I've participated in since the destined-for-bankruptcy Delphi - while the bottom 3 stocks are demonstrably good stocks.

So I've sold 3D Systems (DDD), Stratasys (SSYS), and ExOne (XONE); bought Norfolk Southern (NSC), Priceline (PCLN), and Visa (V); and have a substantial amount of cash (7%) to use wisely.

I'm going to make my bold forward bets on companies like Tesla (TSLA), NVIDIA (NVDA), and Amazon (AMZN); nobody's giving away extra money for degree-of-difficulty portfolios.