Opened the portfolio today with $100,000 in virtual cash across eight positions. The rule for this book: every pick needs a one-sentence thesis and a named risk before it goes on the holdings page — no picks first, reasoning after.
Why each pick
CMG is the anchor and the subject of the full equity research report — Chipotlane throughput and pricing power without discounting are the core of the bull case, and the report walks through the comps and a simple DCF in detail.
NKE and SBUX are both turnaround bets — Nike on the direct-to-consumer shift and inventory reset, Starbucks on store simplification under new leadership. Both need the next two quarters to actually show it in the numbers, which is exactly why they're worth watching monthly instead of just once. MCD sits alongside them as the steady comp — a way to check whether CMG and SBUX are actually outperforming a mature player or just moving with the category.
AAPL, COST, and V are the stability leg of the book — services margin, membership renewals, and payment network economics respectively. None of the three has a dramatic near-term catalyst, which is the point: they're there to dampen the swings from the turnaround bets.
DIS is the highest-conviction, highest-risk pick — streaming profitability is inflecting, but content spend cycles and segment reporting complexity make it the hardest of the eight to model cleanly.
What I'm watching
Next earnings for SBUX and NKE are the first real checkpoint on the turnaround theses. Otherwise, watching for any China-related headlines that would hit NKE and DIS at the same time, and tracking whether CMG's pricing actions show up in same-store sales without denting traffic.
Starting numbers
Full detail lives on the holdings page and performance tracker — this entry is the reasoning, those pages are the record.