Good evening! No fresh trades for a while — nothing meaningful to add or to sell. But June 12 will stand out for two reasons. First, the portfolio crossed 10 million RUB — the original goal I set when I started this channel back in March 2020. Second, fresh sanctions were announced. The latter has been chewed over endlessly in every Russian news outlet, so I'll keep it brief.
The 10M milestone — feelings are mixed. On one hand, I hit the goal well before the original 2030 target. On the other hand, I now realize this amount isn't enough to "live off the interest and chill" as I wrote four years ago 😊. So the target will be revised upward, but the portfolio and the strategy stay the same.
Anyone else feel that whenever something rough happens in Russia, US markets do amazing? I sold my one (1) Facebook share for $97.26 on November 8, 2022 (because of the "extremism" designation, etc.) — today the same share is around $500. Right after the start of the conflict, SPB Exchange kicked Russian retail off US markets. Since then Nasdaq did dip lower briefly, then doubled from the bottom; from start of 2022 it's still up 30%+ even counting the deeper drawdown. Stories like NVIDIA are in the stratosphere. Yesterday was Russia Day, today Nasdaq gapped up at the open and TQQQ trades around $72.31.
Russian equities, as expected, are not having a great year. Most of my legacy Russian and Hong Kong positions are basically rounding error in the portfolio now — the bulk is TQQQ, with TCS Group as the second-largest. Nothing changes on the strategy side.