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The month that was:
June was a mixed month. The Dow went up by about 2.7% and small companies did well, but the S&P 500 went down by about 1% and the Nasdaq went down by about 2.75%. Inflation rose again to 4.2% in May, the highest in three years, and the Fed kept interest rates the same on June 17th. On the same day, the U.S. and Iran signed an agreement to extend the ceasefire for 60 days while they negotiate a final peace deal.
The biggest event of the month was the SpaceX IPO. On June 12th, SpaceX, Elon Musk's rocket and Starlink satellite company, started trading on the Nasdaq. Its IPO price was $135 a share, which valued the company at about $1.77 trillion, making it the largest IPO in history. On its first day, the stock closed at $161, up 19%.
Some of the worst stocks of the month were Oracle and Accenture, which each fell about a third. Oracle fell about 12% on June 11th alone, after it said it would spend about $70 billion this year building data centers and needs to raise another $40 billion of debt and stock to pay for them.
Oracle is a good example of a company that is borrowing a lot of money to grow. Borrowing is not always bad. If a company borrows money to build something that earns more than the interest it pays, the company and its shareholders can make much more money than if it had waited. But borrowing also adds risk. The company has to make its interest payments no matter what happens. If the new projects take longer to pay off than expected, or if customers like OpenAI don't end up paying as much as promised, the company can get into trouble. This year, Oracle's free cash flow, which is the cash left over after paying for its investments, was about negative $24 billion. That means it spent much more cash than it brought in. That's why investors became so nervous. It is one of the reasons I prefer companies with strong balance sheets and not too much debt.
Sells -
Sold 7 MU at $959.59
Sold 18 MRVL at $278.53
Sold 6 AMD at $501.43
Sold 1 LRCX at $306.74
I trimmed more of my chip stocks that have gone up the most. The Micron shares were sold for a profit of more than 1,300%, the AMD shares for more than 450%, the Lam Research shares for almost 390%, and the Marvell shares, most of which I bought this spring, for more than 180%. The Micron, AMD, and Lam Research shares were all bought during the tariff crash in April 2025, when everyone was scared. It shows how buying great companies during a panic can pay off, even though it felt scary at the time.
Sold 2 WSO at $357.70
I sold my Watsco shares for a small loss.
Buys -
Bought 7 CASY at $757.43
I added to my position in Casey's in early June. It is one of my favorite steady companies.
Bought 15 CBOE at $263.71
Cboe runs stock and options exchanges. When the market is volatile, more people trade, and Cboe makes more money. I started a bigger position.
Bought 15 ABT at $88.45
Bought 2 MCK at $768.42
Bought 1 COR at $278.81
Bought 20 NVO at $46.02
I added to my healthcare positions in Abbott, McKesson, and Cencora, and bought back some Novo Nordisk.
Bought 30 ASTS at $69.35
I bought more AST SpaceMobile after the SpaceX IPO got investors excited about space companies.
Buys and Sells -
Bought 4 ADBE at $274.15
Sold 15 ADBE at $205.26
On June 11th, Adobe reported earnings and announced that its CFO was leaving, and the stock fell to its lowest price in years. I sold my shares for a loss of about 22%. Adobe has been one of my most disappointing investments.
Bought 21 ORCL at $171.39
Sold 33 ORCL at $159.12
I sold most of my Oracle shares after its big drop on June 11th, for a small loss.
Bought 4 INTU at $272.27
Sold 15 INTU at $276.14
I sold more Intuit for a loss of about 11%.
Bought 10 AVGO at $389.39
Sold 10 AVGO at $372.15
Bought 25 AVGU at $37.38
Sold 25 AVGU at $32.63
I traded Broadcom and AVGU, a leveraged ETF that moves twice as much as Broadcom. Broadcom fell after I bought it, and I lost about 4% on Broadcom and about 13% on AVGU in just a few days. This shows how leveraged ETFs make losses bigger.
Bought 19 FDS at $233.96
Sold 5 FDS at $225.32
FactSet bounced from its lows, and I sold a few shares for a profit of about 10%, then bought more at the end of the month.
Bought 48 BLDR at $81.81
Sold 31 BLDR at $76.89
Bought 83 TREX at $46.88
Sold 63 TREX at $46.21
Bought 13 LOW at $220.59
Sold 10 LOW at $216.76
I traded Builders FirstSource, Trex, and Lowe's, which are all connected to housing. I think these companies will do well when mortgage rates finally come down, but with inflation rising, that may take a while.
I made many short-term trades. Most of them ended in small losses.
June was a reminder of two things. My best results by far came from the chip stocks I bought in a panic and then held patiently for more than a year. My worst results came from short-term trades and from software stocks like Adobe and Intuit, which have been hurt by AI.
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