This portfolio update follows the completion of Q3 earnings results (for companies reporting their 30Sep or 31Oct quarters). NVDA was the last of my portfolio companies to release their Q2 results (19Nov). I intend to continue posting detailed portfolio updates on a quarterly basis, typically after the end of an earnings reporting cycle. For more frequent updates on the portfolio composition, I post regularly on X (formerly Twitter). The posts there can be seen by following @gauchorico. I have also been posting weekly changes to the portfolio’s allocations (which I no longer include in these quarterly updates) on X.
PRIOR PORTFOLIO UPDATES
PORTFOLIO PERFORMANCE
The GauchoRico Growth Stock Portfolio closed November 2025 +29.0%, compared to +17.8% for the S&P 500 total return index. This year the portfolio experienced two significant drawdowns: 1) from 17Dec 2024 through 4Apr 2025 the portfolio’s value declined about 35%, and 2) from 3Nov 2025 until 20Nov 2025 its value declined 18.1%. The second 2025 drop was less than the majority of big portfolio drops during the 2018-2021 period. However, the recent drop happened quickly and appears to be over. The portfolio was up 48.7% on 3Nov and only up 17.7% on 20Nov.
| DATE | GauchoRico Portfolio (YTD) | S&P500 Total Return (YTD) |
|---|---|---|
| Jan25 | 5.0% | 2.8% |
| Feb25 | -6.5% | 1.4% |
| Mar25 | -19.2% | -4.3% |
| Apr25 | -12.1% | -4.9% |
| May25 | 3.7% | 1.1% |
| Jun25 | 15.1% | 6.2% |
| Jul25 | 19.9% | 8.6% |
| Aug25 | 29.0% | 10.8% |
| Sep25 | 41.8% | 14.8% |
| Oct25 | 46.4% | 17.5% |
| Nov25 | 29.0% | 17.8% |
Since 1/1/17 (8 years and 11 months), the cumulative return for the portfolio is +1320.9% with a CAGR of 34.6%. By comparison, the cumulative return of the S&P500 (total return including dividends) is 255.5% with a CAGR of 15.3%.
| Year | GauchoRico Return | GauchoRico Cumulative Return | S&P 500 (TR) Return | S&P 500 (TR) Cumulative Return |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | +61.6% | +61.6% | +22.8% | +22.8% |
| 2018 | +55.9% | +152.0% | -5.2% | +16.5% |
| 2019 | +41.8% | +257.3% | +31.5% | +53.2% |
| 2020 | +245.6% | +1134.7% | +18.4% | +81.4% |
| 2021 | +27.7% | +1477.3% | +28.7% | +133.4% |
| 2022 | -71.4% | +350.5% | -18.1% | +91.1% |
| 2023 | +33.9% | +503.0% | +26.3% | +141.4% |
| 2024 | +82.7% | +1001.5% | +25.0% | +201.8% |
| 2025* | +29.0% | +1320.9% | +17.8% | +255.5% |
| * through 11/30/2025 |
OVERALL ASSET ALLOCATIONS
The GauchoRico Growth Stock Portfolio now comprises slightly less than 50% of my total assets. The following posts explain my reasons for no longer having virtually all of my assets in the Growth Stock Portfolio:
July 2022: When Should the Game Change?
July 2024: How I Changed My Money Game
May 2025: Safe Bucket and Investing for Fixed-Income: What Are the Risks?
Overall asset allocations are as follows:
Growth Stock Portfolio: 47.9%
Fixed-Income Portfolio: 27.5%
Crypto Portfolio: 3.4%
Other Assets: 21.3%
ALLOCATIONS
| 11/30 | 10/31 | 9/30 | 8/31 | 7/31 | 6/30 | 5/31 | 4/30 | 3/31 | 2/28 | 1/31 | 12/31 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| APP | 22.3%* | 16.6% | 14.0% | 10.2% | 5.1% | 4.4% | 1.0% | — | — | — | — | — |
| NVDA | 20.2%* | 21.5%* | 20.0%* | 19.9%* | 27.0%* | 25.4%* | 22.1%* | 20.0%* | 22.2%* | 21.5%* | 16.8%* | 18.1% |
| MELI | 15.0%* | 13.2% | 13.7% | 15.8% | 15.4% | 19.6% | 21.3% | 22.1%* | 21.2% | 21.2% | 19.3% | 17.4%* |
| RDDT | 13.9% | 14.7% | 15.6% | 18.2% | 15.1% | 13.8% | 11.9%* | 9.0% | 8.8% | 2.4% | — | — |
| AXON | 13.1% | 13.9% | 12.9% | 13.5% | 13.8% | 14.7% | 16.8% | 15.6% | 15.7% | 13.3% | 11.1% | 10.6% |
| IREN | 11.0% | 11.6% | 9.0% | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| ALAB | 8.2% | 3.0% | 3.2% | 3.3% | 2.5% | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| AMZN | — | 4.3% | 9.2% | 14.3% | 14.4% | 13.1% | 13.1% | 13.4% | 15.0% | 12.2% | 11.8% | 11.4% |
| SNOW | — | — | — | 2.0% | 1.9% | 2.7% | 2.6% | 2.3% | 2.3% | 2.3% | 2.1% | 1.9% |
| GOOGL | — | 1.2% | 1.1% | 1.0% | 1.0% | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| SEZL | — | — | — | — | 3.9% | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| TSLA | — | — | — | — | — | 2.6%* | 8.4%* | 6.2%* | 6.1%* | 19.5%* | 25.7%* | 27.3%* |
| IOT | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 1.1% | 1.1% | — | — | — |
| ROOT | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 4.1% | 4.3% | 5.1% | 6.7% | 5.3% |
| BORR | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 0.9% | 1.1% | — |
| ASPN | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 5.3%* | 5.8%* |
| Cash | -3.5% | 0.2% | 1.2% | 1.7% | 0.4% | 4.0% | 3.4% | 6.6% | 4.8% | 2.2% | 0.4% | 3.3% |
The allocation details described below are as of November 30, 2025. Three of the seven positions (shown with an asterisk) in the portfolio are leveraged with long-term call options. APP: Of the 22.3% position, 17.1% is in shares and 5.2% is in Jun2027 $600 call options. MELI: Of the 15.0% position, 13.9% is in shares and 1.0% is in Jan2028 $2000 call options. NVDA: Of the 20.2% position, 14.1% is in shares and 6.1% is in Jan2027 $125 call options, Dec 2027 $170 call options, and Dec 2027 $185 call options. The portfolio composition includes 91.3% shares, -3.5% cash, and 12.3% long-term call options.
PORTFOLIO CHANGES
My last portfolio update was on 31Aug 2025. While I no longer report detailed changes in my portfolio updates, I continue to post weekly portfolio allocation changes including buys, sells, and conversions between shares and LEAPS on my X account: see @gauchorico.
EARNINGS RESULTS
Since the last portfolio update, all portfolio companies reported their latest quarterly results. I’ll review them in the order they reported.
MELI (reported results on 29Oct)
MELI reported Q3 2025 results on 29Oct. Revenue growth showed a big acceleration in the quarter, up 39% compared to Q2’s revenue growth of 24%. Most of the other KPIs also showed very solid metrics. The stock didn’t move higher and has been down since MELI reported the Q3 results. It appears that the market didn’t like the net income margin of 5.7%, which is lower than in recent quarters (in the four quarters prior net income margin ranged between 7.5% and 10.5%). Adjusted FCF was also much lower due to big investments in CapEx and growth of MELI’s credit portfolio. I must give MELI the benefit of the of the doubt and believe that these investments will pay off in the long run. I decided to keep the MELI allocation unchanged but sold some shares to buy long-term call options when the share price dipped to near $2000.
GOOGL (reported results on 29Oct)
I’ve held a small position in GOOGL since the middle of 2025. I had two reasons for owning shares. First, fears about Google Search getting disrupted by AI and anti-trust concerns were overblown. Second, Google’s efforts in AI could have huge unforeseen benefits. I still think that Google could have huge potential, but I decided to sell my small position in order to concentrate into faster growing companies like APP, RDDT and ALAB. After selling the GOOGL shares, the Company released Gemini 3 and its latest ASICs TPU chips began to show some big traction. This vaulted the stock to new heights.
I think that GOOGL has the potential to continue to be a great investment, and I may have foregone some returns. However, I will generally concentrate into hyper growth companies when I can find them. During the 2022-2023 period, it was more difficult to find companies that were growing revenue more than 40%, so I settled for some slower growing companies. During 2025, I’ve been able to add some companies that are growing faster (e.g., ALAB at >100%, APP and RDDT at 68%). Thus, my reason for selling GOOGL is primarily to concentrate into faster growers that I think will continue their hyper-growth and outperform the market’s expectations.
AMZN (reported results on 30Oct)
AMZN reported Q3 results on 30Oct. Like GOOGL, AMZN can continue to be a great investment, but I sold my remaining AMZN position to further concentrate into faster growing companies. The goal of the portfolio is to maximize long-term CAGR, and this is best done by finding hyper growth companies.
RDDT (reported results on 30Oct)
RDDT reported a very solid Q3 2025 on 30Oct. Revenue growth was 67.9% y/y and 7.3% above the top end of guidance. Other revenue, which is essentially licensing revenue, was up 7% y/y, so advertising revenue was up 74.3%. Some have pointed out that the number of users is growing too slowly to support such high revenue growth for much longer. Daily average users (DAUs) and weekly average users (WAUs) grew 19.3% and 21.5% y/y. Yes, those growth rates are much lower than 74.3% advertising revenue growth rate. Average Revenue Per User (ARPU), another KPI important for advertising revenue growth, was up 40.8% Multiplying the user growth with the ARPU growth should approximately equal the advertising revenue growth rate; the calculation gives 70% vs 74%. If we assume that user growth won’t reaccelerate, we must rely on fast ARPU growth to keep advertising revenue growth high. I think two factors will keep APRU growth high for the coming quarters. First, higher user engagement (i.e., more time spent on Reddit and/or more channels frequented by the users) gives more support for further strong ARPU growth. Second, increasing the number of advertisers so that there can be enough highly relevant ads for RDDT’s more than 3000 communities. To fully realize RDDT’s unique asset of so many specialized communities there must be an equally broad set of advertised products and services with which to match. In Q3, RDDT increased its advertisers by 75% with good growth among enterprise, mid-market and SMB businesses; this is great progress. I suspect most advertisers are not yet placing ads in RDDT communities. This is an opportunity for RDDT to increase its advertiser count, which in turn should help drive APRU higher. My hypothesis is that ARPU still has significant room to grow because 1) users can, on average, spend more hours on RDDT, and 2) RDDT can increase the number of ads served per average hour of engagement. In short, despite RDDT’s ~20% user growth, advertising revenue growth can remain higher for longer thanks to these additional levers.
RDDT’s “Other Revenue” is predominantly licensing revenue. It’s been growing modestly for the past four quarters. the Company currently has licensing agreements with Google, OpenAI, and unnamed “others”. In addition, RDDT has filed lawsuits against Anthropic (Jun 2025) and Perplexity (Oct 2025) for scraping RDDT data for training their AI models. given the value of RDDT’s dataset and its existing partnerships, the Company has considerable capacity to secure new licensing deals to further monetize the data in its ecosystem.
AXON (reported results on 4Nov)
AXON reported its Q3 results on 4Nov. The market reacted negatively with the stock currently 39% below its all-time high. Was the quarter truly that bad? In my view, not at all, but the stock price had run up significantly after the Q2 earnings result in August. After Q3, AXON increased guidance only slightly. It seems the market was expecting more.
In my view, the quarter was solid and well within my expectations. Revenue grew 30.6%, the lowest in seven quarters but still above the 30% threshold I view as attractive. My main takeaway is that AXON’s long term story remains firmly intact. Management hinted at a big Q4, and the Company’s future growth vectors remain solidly on-track. AXON continues to have excellent growth opportunities in international, AI, enterprise, and drones. I remain very comfortable to continue holding a large allocation.
ALAB (reported results on 4Nov)
ALAB reported Q3 results on 4Nov and beat its 85.7% revenue growth guidance by delivering 103.9% y/y revenue growth. Revenue growth guidance for Q4 is 79.3%, but my expectation is that this will be handedly beaten.
ALAB continued to show improving operating leverage, increasing its non-GAAP operating margin by 250 basis points compared to the prior quarter. ALAB’s networking equipment and software remain in high demand as it rides the AI infrastructure CapEx spending wave. I intend to continue to ride this wave with ALAB. During November, I added significantly to the portfolio’s allocation as the shares fell from a high in the $260s to the $140-150 range.
APP (reported results on 5Nov)
APP reported Q3 results on 5Nov. Revenue growth was 68.2% y/y, down from 77% in the prior quarter. Guidance was beaten by 4.9%. The margins continue to be unheard-of: gross margin 88%, EBITDA margin 82%, non-GAAP operating margin 81%, and FCF margin 75%! While APP’s growth remained excellent, the Company’s potential and total addressable markets is enormous. APP rolled out its Axon Ad Manager, a self-service AI-powered advertising platform (not to be confused with AXON the company), to a group of referred customers on 1Oct. This launch was earlier than expected, and, as of the Q3 earnings call, management reporte no major hiccups or bugs. While it’s still early, the referral cohort has been showing 50% week-over-week growth, a very encouraging sign. Axon remains on track for a broad launch in 2026.
With Axon’s launch, APP will have an automated way to acquire new advertisers across all industries and more geographies. APP has shown tremendous success within the gaming advertising segment, and from there will soon expand to the broader advertising market. Currently, APP has a limited number of advertisers, which hinders the Company’s potential because it can’t always serve the most relevant ads (not enough advertisers and not enough product and service categories to serve up) despite APP’s world-class recommendation engine. In addition, the plan includes the implementation of AI-generated ads that are highly targeted and relevant; this should increase conversion rates. Since APP’s advertisers only pay when there is a conversion, there is an incentive to use APP and there should be no cap or budget on the ad spend. My expectation is that APP will be able to broadly replicate its success in the gaming advertising segment. If my expectations are even partially fulfilled, APP should realize explosive growth in 2026 and beyond, and when combined with APP’s asset-light and highly efficient business model, most of that growth should drop to the bottom line and benefit shareholders. For these reasons, I’ve been aggressively adding to the portfolio’s APP allocation, including a significant stake in long-dated call options. APP is now the largest holding in the portfolio.
IREN (reported results on 6Nov)
IREN is a new position in the portfolio with the vast majority of the portfolio’s shares acquired on 9Sep and 10Sep at prices between $28.75 and $32. The $19B deal between NBIS and MSFT on 8Sep was the catalyst which led to my IREN share purchases. IREN, historically a Bitcoin miner, is transforming into a neocloud. While the most well-known neoclouds, CRWV and NBIS, have valuations much higher than IREN’s, IREN has more secured (and lower-cost) power. In addition, IREN is vertically integrated so it’s able to control both its costs and its own fate.
IREN’s contracted power includes 2910 MW, 810 MW of which is already active. An additional multi-GW pipeline of power has been disclosed by IREN. The Company is in the process of switching its Bitcoin mining operations to high performance computing use, mainly for AI-related datacenters. On 3Nov, IREN and MSFT announced a $9.7B deal for 200 MW of IT load datacenters. Included in the deal were 20% in prepayments. IREN’s management has been very adept at acquiring financing with minimal dilution and great terms. My expectation is that IREN’s management will continue to execute to acquire customers and financing to quickly build and energize datacenters, and, in a world that’s power-constrained, those with available power for datacenters are in an enviable position.
SNOW (exited position on 10Sep)
I exited the remainder of the SNOW allocation on 10Sep. The thesis was that SNOW would be a big AI beneficiary. It still may be a big beneficiary, and the stock may do well. I had been patiently holding SNOW, so why did I sell? Primarily, I was looking for funds to add to IREN. Sometimes I will sell a company when I find a better opportunity. Also, after listening to the ORCL earnings call on 9Sep, it became clear that ORCL is going all-in on AI and with its dominant position in the database market, ORCL will likely become a formidable competitor to SNOW. Databricks is already outperforming SNOW in terms of growth. Therefore, I decided that SNOW is no longer a horse I want to bet on.
NVDA (reported results on 19Nov)
NVDA reported results on 19Nov. The results and guidance were better than expected. Revenue increased 62% y/y with datacenter revenue climbing 66%. Recall from my last portfolio update that analysts were expecting 31% revenue growth for calendar 2026. Their price target was $207. That price target consensus is now around $248. Both revenue growth for Q3 and guidance for Q4 were higher than expected, yet the stock price hasn’t moved significantly from the price three months ago. Several fears continue to circulate surrounding NVDA.
Never in the history of human civilization has there been a technology that’s as complex (1.2 million components in a Blackwell NVL72) and as consequential as artificial intelligence. For the past two years, the world has been building out the infrastructure for AI. The growth has been nothing short of breathtaking, and it’s completely natural for humans to question how long the boom can continue. Past booms have ended in busts, so we look back to those times and assume a bust must be around the corner. There are comparisons to the internet boom/bust and CSCO’s fall from grace during the dotcom bust. The list of NVDA fears is now longer than at any time in the past two years. This list includes the circular financing argument, the debt-financing that’s now beginning, the question of where’s the ROI for purchasers of GPUs, and the idea that Google’s TPU is about to eat NVDA’s lunch or at least compress down NVDA’s 75% gross margin. While each concern has some truth, I don’t think NVDA’s leadership position or financial performance will be impacted in the coming quarters.
I already have enough dollars invested in NVDA, but I see the market’s pricing of NVDA shares below $185 as an opportunity. Since I don’t want to commit more dollars, I decided to sell my highest cost basis shares to buy some more long-dated call options. I intend to reverse this trade and begin switching the call options back to shares when the share price reaches what I believe to be a fairer price. When NVDA delivers higher growth than the market consensus, the share price should adjust upward. A doubling occurs after two years of 41% growth. NVDA’s revenue growth guidance for Q4 is for 65% growth, and a beat of $3B, — inline with past beats — would deliver 73% growth for Q4. NVDA has many quarters of order visibility, so it seems highly unlikely that growth would drop below 41% any time soon. If NVDA is undervalued at $180 and revenue doubles in the next two years, we could easily see the stock price above $360 by the end of 2027. I think this outcome is likely even without the resumption of sales into China.
NVDA remains my highest conviction position in the portfolio. It has the second highest allocation behind APP, which I believe has the most potential.
FINAL THOUGHTS
If isn’t obvious by now, I’m extremely bullish on AI. My positions in NVDA, APP, ALAB, IREN, AXON, and RDDT reflect that conviction. There are many problems and uncertainties in the world today, but AI could be the counterweight to unleash a massive productivity boom and GDP growth boost.
The opinions, thoughts, analyses, stock selections, portfolio allocations, and other content is freely shared by GauchoRico. This information should not be taken as recommendations or advice. GauchoRico does not make recommendations and does not offer financial advice. Each person/investor is responsible for making and owning their own decisions, financial and otherwise.