Spear Advisors Q3 2024 Fund Letter (SPRX)

That is the 3Q24 quarterly replace for our flagship fund. In these quarterly letters we share our efficiency highlights and tendencies which can be shaping our funding strategy.

NASDAQ:SPRX was down 3.48% in 3Q24 in comparison with the S&P 500 (SP500, SPX), up 5.89%, and the Nasdaq Composite (COMP:IND), up 2.76%.

The third quarter of 2024 was fairly brutal with macro headwinds, such because the carry commerce unwind, election uncertainty and rate of interest issues dominating the headlines. As well as, idiosyncratic occasions such because the Crowdstrike (CRWD) incident negatively affected our efficiency. We had been happy with how we navigated although these headwinds and positioned ourselves to seize the subsequent wave – extra particulars within the danger administration part beneath.

With many of those headwinds dissipating, we’re beginning to see underlying progress decide up throughout a number of areas. We now have now shifted our focus to offence from protection and added a number of engaging alternatives although the 12 months.

Abstract:

• Indicators of progress decide up throughout a number of areas, regardless of increased rates of interest and better anticipated inflation.
• Uncertainty created engaging alternatives in 1Q-3Q24 – upside is broadening from AI {Hardware} to different areas together with AI Purposes.
• Shifting to offense – purchase any dip.

Our base case assumption of upper inflation and better for longer rates of interest, which resulted in 2+ years of muted macro progress, hasn’t modified. What’s new?

We’re simply now beginning to see progress decide up throughout a number of areas.

1. In {Hardware}, Nvidia (NVDA) was the one firm with an outsized income progress in 1H24. Nevertheless, the upside is now broadening to customized chips, because the Cloud Service Suppliers (CSPs) are coming into the area, networking and energy era, as new information facilities require incremental bodily infrastructure. In consequence, earnings are revised upwards.
2. On the Knowledge Infrastructure aspect, new enterprise booked (internet new ARR) has been destructive for a number of quarters now, even for the businesses rising revenues at 20%+. This metric simply inflected positively this quarter.
3. In AI Purposes, we’re simply beginning to see use-cases that may have a transformational affect on the world make progress. Whereas it’s too early to see this within the earnings, a number of firms are hitting significant know-how milestones.

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The danger-off surroundings from the primary half of the 12 months continued to the third quarter, however the arrange considerably reversed as we entered 4Q24. With the elimination of the election uncertainty we’re noting important uptick in enterprise confidence. With progress selecting up, it’s affordable to imagine that inflation won’t subside, however from the market perspective progress + inflation is significantly better than stagflation (i.e., no progress + inflation) as company earnings act as an inflation hedge.

Whatever the macro, there isn’t any query that we’re within the early innings of the subsequent know-how cycle amplified by AI.

What offers us confidence trying into subsequent 12 months:

• Capex spending cycle is broadening. Whereas the primary wave of {hardware} funding in AI was targeted on processors which went into current infrastructure, the newer and extra highly effective system (equivalent to Nvidia’s Blackwell DGX) require new information facilities and bodily infrastructure.
• Rising AI Purposes. Whereas 2024 was the 12 months for {hardware}, we’re beginning to get a glimpse of sizable AI functions. The early functions had been largely targeted on productiveness enchancment (e.g. copilot, gross sales productiveness instruments and so on.) however we’re beginning to discover functions which have been unimaginable to progress resulting from compute limitations and are actually realizing a step change in efficiency with accelerated computing (e.g. autonomous driving, quantum computing).
• Engaging valuations. Valuations in sure areas have expanded however the encouraging angle throughout this up-cycle is that the upside has been pushed by earnings slightly than valuation growth. Valuations for mid-caps (<$100B), particularly on the software program aspect, have pulled again meaningfully and are close to the ’20 and ’22 lows.

Efficiency contributors and commentary

The largest adjustments to our portfolio over the course of this 12 months have been:

1. Increasing our information middle {hardware} commerce to tangential areas throughout the worth chain equivalent to networking and energy era
2. Increasing into the appliance layer

Here is a glimpse of our present portfolio and efficiency contributors:

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Knowledge Heart {Hardware} had combined efficiency through the quarter, with processors underperforming and energy era outperforming.

Processors: Nvidia (NVDA) outperformed the remainder of our portfolio and Marvell (MRVL) and AMD (AMD) considerably underperformed. We now have been including to our Marvell place however reduce our publicity to AMD as our analysis indicated that customized chips are gaining considerably extra traction.

Energy Era & Supplies: Constellation Power (CEG) was the highest performer for the quarter submit the announcement of a re-opening of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant. Energy era and the grid have been underinvested for over 20+ years, and we count on a significant cycle forward. In consequence, now we have continued to take a position on this space and added two comparatively new positions in GE Vernova (GEV) and Vistra Power (VST).

Networking has been one other space of focus as we consider it presents a big alternative. Right here, we grew our place in Arista Networks (ANET) and extra not too long ago added new smaller positions in Astera Labs (ALAB) and Credo Applied sciences (CRDO).

Knowledge Infrastructure and Cybersecurity has been a significant underperformer this 12 months. Software program, extra broadly, had a troublesome 12 months and firms levered to enterprise spending had slower than anticipated earnings progress. As well as, we had been negatively impacted by the Crowdstrike incident through the quarter.

We proceed to have important publicity to this space as we consider there may be long-term upside, however we’re managing the danger very actively as that is the one space of know-how that’s disproportionately affected by rates of interest. Our largest investments Snowflake (SNOW), Cloudflare (NET) and Datadog (DDOG) in Knowledge Infrastructure, and Zscaler (ZS) in Cybersecurity.

AI Purposes

Lastly AI Purposes are beginning to acquire important traction. Issues that had been unsolvable for 10+ years are actually in a position to make use of accelerated computing. In 2024 our publicity to AI Purposes was largely within the productiveness enchancment space with holdings like Hubspot (HUBS) and Shopify (SHOP). We now have taken some revenue right here and re-deployed it to newer areas equivalent to Autonomy and Quantum Computing.

Tesla (TSLA) is our prime decide right here as the corporate transitions from a cyclical EV play to full autonomy and robo-taxis. We consider that regulatory assist along with step-change enchancment within the security of the know-how will result’s important scale and upside for the inventory.

How can we handle danger?

We now have two major instruments for danger administration:

1. We enhance our concept velocity: in periods of consolidation, we enhance the tempo of producing new concepts (e.g., prior to now 9 months, now we have elevated our publicity additional down the information middle worth chain, particularly increasing to areas “outdoors of the rack” together with networking and vitality era).
2. We take earnings on outperformers and reduce/cut back losers. Crucial facet of that is that we attempt to keep the identical stage of danger in order that when the market turns to risk-on, we’re positioned to seize the profit.

Basic lively methods, on the whole, carry out higher in a risk-on surroundings as traders want to allocate to concepts that seize alpha and broaden their publicity past simply monitoring broader market.

We proceed to handle danger actively and asses the potential danger/reward of every particular person holding, incorporating the trajectory of earnings and valuation. We aspire to carry out according to diversified indices on the draw back, and generate differentiated efficiency on the upside, given our concentrated portfolio of investments.

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Editor’s Be aware: The abstract bullets for this text had been chosen by Searching for Alpha editors.