What I'm Trading - Madden
From local managed funds to big tech on Wall St. Here's one Stake Trader who took the plunge on the US market and has never looked back. Featuring some impressive portfolio highlights, Madden continues to apply her learnings and invest in the opportunities she identifies in her everyday life.
Occupation: Communications (Government)
Age: 28
Location: Sydney, Australia
Stake Portfolio Size: ~US$10,000
In one sentence, define your trading style.
Still learning, I’m still pretty fresh to trading but my understanding of the markets has grown quickly. I think I’ve got my head around the markets now and I’m doing alright, although I’m aware it’s been a bull market almost the entire time I have been trading so I’m probably not as smart as I think I am. This is longer than one sentence, sorry!
Why are you in the market?
Investing is a (mostly) long-term thing for me so I’m regularly investing to hold for a long period. I’m investing in the US because the choices are so much more interesting to me than the ASX, investing in tech and renewables is important to me.
What’s in your portfolio on Stake right now?
Atlassian ($TEAM), VOO ($VOO), Sunrun Inc. ($RUN), Slack ($WORK) and my Nike ($NKE) and GoPro ($GPRO) referrals.
How are your returns so far?
Since joining Stake last April I’m up 15% overall – approx 600% on Sunrun (wish I invested more than $100 in it lol).
Any investments that are not on Stake?
I invest in a couple of Vanguard ETFs on the ASX. Long-term holds, nothing fancy, I’m concentrating on building out my US portfolio on Stake at the moment.
What are you watching? Why?
Square ($SQ), Salesforce ($CRM) and Apple ($AAPL). I have had SQ on my watchlist since April 2020, really bummed I didn’t buy back then but also I believe the potential is there for them long-term. Salesforce, because of my Slack positions and the upcoming merger in May/July. More generally, innovative tech is really interesting to me and these are companies I use in my everyday and work life.
Do you have a trading or investing role model?
Cathie Wood – huge star in the investing space for me (and everyone probably). But to be honest, I mostly try to do my own research and I actually weirdly enjoy reading about the markets.
What’s a piece of advice you’d give a newbie?
Don’t be scared, it’s not as difficult as everyone makes it seem! The investing world is full of jargon and I think to someone who hasn’t invested before it can seem much more complicated than it actually is. Do some reading/googling and get started. The best time to start investing is yesterday right?!
How did you first get into trading?
My mum is pretty savvy and helped me get started with a managed fund with my savings five-ish years ago. It’s taken a while to build my confidence up to investing on my own, which started by downloading Stake in April 2020.
What was your first trade on Stake?
TEAM (Atlassian) – I’m a bit of an Atlassian fan girl. I use Atlassian products everyday at work and believe they have so much potential for growth. They’ve been a great performer so far for me. Also it’s great to support an Aussie founded business even when they are listed in the US.
If you were to buy a US stock or ETF right now, what would you buy? Why?
$ARKK is my next planned buy. ETFs seem like a no brainer to me for the long term and of course Cathie Wood seems to know what she’s doing.
ICYMI: make your own decisions
This is not investment advice, just my opinion. It doesn’t reflect any opinions of Stake. I’m as fresh to this as the next person off the street. Do your own research and make your own decisions.