My Portfolio Got Destroyed in September (-$18,000)

September is over and my portfolio got destroyed by the market down $18,000 in a single month. Today we look at the damage across my seven holdings and my plan now that bond yields are climbing over 5%. We will also look at last week earnings of Nike and Micron, should we buy? To conclude, five contrarian stocks I find cheap right now. I show you the details you bought on them. Let's begin with my horrendous portfolio performance in September, down 6.73%. At the beginning of last months, right here, I took this screenshot of my holdings. For the first time, everything was green. I swear I thought about closing every single position including Dualingo, take a 25% return and calling it a year. Of course, I didn't. And look where I am right now. Quite painful. Dualingo down 12%, Sofi down 19, Adobe down 17%, Novo down 21, and the worst of all, Booking.com down 22%. The result is that I'm back to 14% returns year to date, basically in line with the S&P 500. Definitely not what I was hoping for. Total returns since I started ad economics are still over 75%. Still great overall, but this is mostly thanks to an incredible 2025 back when my videos got 200 views. >> So, this is my first video. I put a lot of time and effort in order to do it. In 2026, I am struggling. I feel the pressure of you guys actually watching. Please don't stop even if my performance is Actually, what's really stressing me out are US bonds. The 10-year Treasury yield is sitting around 5.3%. I hope you guys know enough macro to understand why this is really bad for stocks. If you don't, let me quickly show you the problem. With yields are 5.27, 27. You can buy US bonds, reinvest the interest, and double your money in under 14 years risk-free. Since equities are a much riskier asset class, an individual stock need to offer a way to double your money faster than 14 years to justify the risk. Right? The problem now is that most popular stocks fail to compete against bonds. Take AMD at a forward PE of 57. Without growth, it will take 57 years of earnings just to return your initial investment. Clearly, AMD will grow, but it's very unlikely that they will generate enough cash to return your money in 14 years. Apple sits at 36 forward PE, Tesla almost at 200, and even my beloved Dualingo at 54 forward PE faces a tough competition against risk-free yields. If yields go up, the economy breaks because institutional investors will rotate capital out of equities and into bonds. Let's listen to Jeremy. even if I disagree with him. >> Uh the other way you can get the stock market to crash is if treasuries go too high. What does too high mean? You start approaching a 7% number or certainly an 8% number. Dunzo. Dunzo. Yeah, you get a crash in the market. Listen, there's a big gap between 5.2 or 5.6 and let's call it the sevens, right? But I'm just telling you like if we win 78 on the treasuries, oh gosh, like we're going to have major damage in the market. >> I disagree. Seven 8% would be insane. The market is going to break at much lower rates. I believe that even at today levels, if the rates don't come down, the stock market will. But the question is when how long do we have? Clearly impossible to know with certainty, but my main guess and hope is that we have a bit more time. First, because rising interest rates take six to 12 months to have a real effect on the economy. Second, because sentiment is already fearful. The CNN fear and greed index is down to 31. A AI sentiment shows 46% bearish. As a contrarian, I hate to sell into fear, even if I am fearful. So, I'm hoping for a final wave of greed to trim my positions. On the bright side, rising yields are also an opportunity. we can finally earn over 4% on our treasury bills while we wait for a market correction. So if I rank my holdings by how likely I am to sell them at today prices to protect against a bare market, it goes like this. Duolingo. I see nothing fundamentally broken with the business, but at 29% of my portfolio and a volatile stock, I might trim a bit. So, it gets penalized if rates stay higher for longer. Higher rates, higher credit fraud, higher risk for SoFi lending. It is cheap, but I might trim Adobe. This is just too cheap. I am losing $4,000, but I am not selling Adobe at a loss unless I see the revenue deteriorates, and I'm not seeing that yet. My fears are connected to AI, but recessionwise, Adobe is chill. Novo Nordisk. It's the only company I own that is really recession resistant. Total Zen. I am holding at this price. Booking holdings. I don't want to sell now because the price came down a lot lately and we are back under my entry price. I am increasingly convinced Muse and Agentic trip planners pose a real long-term issue for booking recession and high oil prices are bad for travel. I am sweating Microsoft the fear here is open eye as a recession trigger. I'm not that worried, but I will probably sell mostly because I want to lock in the profit 35% in five months. It's good enough for me. So, since it's my personal ranking, I put it down here. Himsoners healthcare should theoretically be defensive like Novo up there, but the market trades tellalth as speculative tech. I don't see him doing well on a bare market. So, I would prefer to close my position before that happen. I think I'm going to sell it. This is just how I am feeling right now. Tomorrow, news or market volatility might change my sentiment. Let me know in the comments your feeling with your holdings now that interest rates are rising. Next, last week earnings. Micron reported Wednesday, incredible results, 54 billion in revenue, 37 billion in earnings, stock price more or less flat. That proves that incredible results means nothing if the market has already priced them in. Do I think Micron is cheap? In part, yes. Forward price to earnings of 6.55 is considered very cheap. However, I'm not investing because I find it too risky. What happen if the AI build out slow down? Is memory still a cyclical sector? Personally, there is too much uncertainty about the future and the stock is already very hot and trendy for a contrary investor like me. Then we had Nike earnings that were awful but interesting. Revenue down 4%. Direct consumer down 8%. Converse down 28%. Horrible guidance, I singledigit decline. As I mentioned some weeks ago, in my experience, beaten down stocks often experience a final panic breakdown before the true turnaround begins. Is this the final leg down? Possible. However, my valuation assumptions are coming down as well. I used to model a 4% kagga revenue growth for the next five years. Now I think one 2% is more realistic. I was thinking 11% normalized operational margins. Now I'm lowering my assumption to 9 10%. The result is that Nike looks cheap but is not an irresistible must buy. Finally, let us look at five contrarian stocks I find discounted. Right now, you find the ranking in the pin comment. Please cast your vote which one is the best stock pick and which one is the worst. Why do I ask? Well, I want engagement, but it's because the last couple of time we did this, you guys voted to buy Meta at 550 before a 40% rally. Then you voted to sell booking right here. Now it's down 25%. My audience is smarter than the market and the wisdom of the contrarian crowd is real. Please place your vote between these five beat and down large cap opportunities. Deckers revenue is up but slowing growth share price down. The result is the lower price to free cash flow ever at 9.68. Fashion has a horrible mode but I find it cheap. Next, new bank. Same story. Revenue up, share price down. Same results. Price to book the lowest of the last years at 4.86. But are you comfortable investing in South America? There are extra risks that must be considered. Choice number three. Everybody is talking about it. Uploing. I'm considering making a video dedicated to it. Do you want to see something new? Revenue going up. Share price going down price to free cash flow at 21. Next, Autodesk. Shout out to my dear friend Codo to make me think about it. Surprise, surprise. This is the revenue. This is share price. It's funny because people believe like it's impossible to beat the market. Yet, I'm showing two data points. And even if my investing strategy is more complex than this, my guess is that in the next three years, all these companies will outperform the market. So lastly, let's pick something different. Kaspi, do you have the guts to invest in Kazakhstan? >> Kazakhstan, greatest country in the world. All of the girls, >> I'm thinking about it. Revenue is going up, but the share price is going up as well, but not so much. To conclude, YouTube algorithm works in mysterious ways. This video of me rambling about my portfolio get more views than the last week video where I literally give away $2,500 to the best stock pickers. If you want to enter the stock picking contest, there is still time. Click this video right here. Please also drop your vote on the five stocks. Leave a like, subscribe. Peace out.