2023 has been an excellent year for my investment portfolio. After a poor performance last year, I have seen strong double-digit percentage gains this year. Interested to know what stocks I own? Here’s a look at the top 20 stock holdings across my Stocks and Shares ISA and pension (with profit and loss) as we head towards the end of the year.
My goals and strategy
Before I reveal my top holdings, it’s worth touching on my financial goals and investment strategy.
I’m a long-term investor with a multi-decade time horizon. My goal is to build wealth for retirement and future generations.
As for my investment strategy, I pursue an approach that combines growth, quality, and thematic styles. In other words, I like to invest in high-quality growth companies that are poised to benefit from big picture trends and themes.
My risk tolerance is high – I’m very comfortable with portfolio volatility in the short term.
My top stock holdings
As for my top 20 stock holdings, here they are (as of 19 December). The performance figures don’t include dividends.
| Stock | Gain/loss (%) |
| Microsoft | 69 |
| Alphabet | 83 |
| Amazon | 5 |
| Apple | 197 |
| Mastercard | 35 |
| Visa | 20 |
| Nvidia | 141 |
| Diageo | 7 |
| Sage | 72 |
| Smith & Nephew | -17 |
| Unilever | -11 |
| London Stock Exchange Group | 12 |
| Rightmove | 18 |
| Nike | 3 |
| Cerillion | 63 |
| Volex | -8 |
| Reckitt | -14 |
| InterContinental Hotels Group | 20 |
| Lam Research | 34 |
| ASML | 9 |
Key takeaways
Zooming in the holdings, I do have a lot of exposure to US mega-cap technology companies. There’s a reason for this though. These companies are all absolute monsters today. And I’m convinced that they are only going to get bigger in the years ahead.
It’s not just tech in my top 20 holdings, however. In that list, there are consumer goods companies, healthcare firms, payments companies, a hotel group, an athletic clothing/footwear business, and more. So, there is plenty of diversification there.
The UK stocks in that list are generally high-quality large caps that have excellent track records when it comes to generating shareholder wealth. I do have a couple of smaller companies in the top 20 though – Cerillion and Volex. I believe both have a lot of potential.
The gains here show that my strategy is working. Of the 20 stocks, 16 are in the black.
There are a few paper losses. But most of the stocks in the red pay dividends and when dividends are factored in, the losses are minimal.
I’ll point out that this is only about half my stock portfolio. And the bottom half doesn’t look as good in terms of profit and loss.
But there are some stocks in the bottom half I’m really excited about such as Airbnb, Snowflake, Shopify, and Uber (I’m in the black on these stocks too).
Where to from here?
As for my strategy for 2024, I’ll be keeping the Big Tech stocks as my largest holdings.
They might not go anywhere in 2024. But that’s ok. They’ve done really well for me recently.
And I reckon some of the other stocks are capable of doing the heavy lifting next year.
Smith & Nephew and Volex look cheap and have a lot of potential. Meanwhile, Nike is rising again and getting a lot of broker price target upgrades right now. And payments companies Mastercard and Visa could get more love as the stock market rally broadens out.
There are a few stocks I want to add to on pullbacks. Chip designer Nvidia is one. I’m desperate to buy more shares here given its position in the artificial intelligence industry. Uber is another. I could see that having a place in my top 20 stocks soon.
I’m also keen to boost my healthcare exposure. I’d like to get a bit more of the sector into my top 20 holdings.
Overall though, I’m comfortable with my holdings as we head towards 2024.
