Day 20: ASML rocks, the future is bright!
Mother's Little Helper Portfolio was UP +.66% today lead by a broad based coalition of Regional banks, Technology, Healthcare, Airlines, Restaurants, Materials and more. Even with all that's going on in politics, interest rates, oil and the financial markets the MLH portfolio continues to perform because that's what good companies with good people do, they continue to follow their mission and innovate their little corner of the world regardless of what else is happening in the world.
While the markets were mixed today, DOW down -22.05, NASDAQ up +16.93 and the S&P 500 up +4.00; there was one thing that happened today that was really exciting. A company you've probably never heard of had a fantastic earnings call and the stock rallied over $7 a share causing a reversal in the S&P 500 today. So what! The company, ASML Holding (ASML) is a Dutch semiconductor equipment manufacturing company that makes the machines that make semiconductor chips. These are big, super expensive machines that require a huge commitment from the buyer, about a 10 year commitment that those machines are going to be active producing product that is in demand. Their customers are companies like the world's largest memory company - Samsung, the world's largest microprocessor company - Intel and the world's largest foundry - TSMC.
When ASML posts great numbers the down stream implications can be huge. Companies like Apple, Intel, Micron, Western Digital, Qualcom Analog Devices Broadcomm and many more can be expected to do even better than they already have. Semiconductor companies have been consolidating and breaking out higher for the past year. Companies like NXP Semiconductor, Broadcom and NVIDIA has seen huge gains; but ASML's report suggests there is a lot of upside left in this industry and the competition is going to be even more fierce for dominance in devices for the Internet of Things (IoT), autonomous cars, cell phones and those ever thinner laptops.
All this means is more high paying jobs, more growth and a generally more optimistic outlook for the global economy. But don't U.S. chip companies make all their chips overseas in China, Japan and Malaysia? NO! U.S. chip makers dominate with over 50% of the global market share for semiconductor chips. More important, most of those chips are manufactured right here in the USA. In fact US semiconductor exports rank 3rd behind Airplanes and cars for America's biggest export industries. Yeah, that's right the USA is the 800 pound gorilla when it comes to chips. The next closest competitor Korea, only has about 17% of the global market and china is in a distant 6th place. So the next time you buy a consumer electronic device be happy in knowing that it's full of mom and apple pie.
The portfolio closed the day UP with a gain of +0.66% for +$3,919.32, for an overall portfolio loss of -$3,418.89 -0.57%. Currently we have 50 companies in the green, up from 31 and 71 still in the red.
Top 5 investments to date by performance:
Mid Penn Bancorp (MPB) +10.93%
Facebook (FB) +9.22%
Greene County Bancorp (GCBC) +6.16%
Dynavax (DVAX) +5.95%
Masimo Corportion (MASI) +5.84%
