February 2025 Growth Stocks Challenge Review

Continuing our investment journey, we have been consistently investing £10 per week into carefully selected growth stocks. This disciplined strategy is part of our long-term plan to assess how small, regular investments can accumulate over time. As February 2025 comes to a close, it’s time to analyse our portfolio performance like we did with January 2025 – Growth Stocks performance, including the new additions purchased throughout the month. If you missed it, we are also doing a dividend stocks challenge and we just recently published the February 2025 Dividend Stocks Performance with a nearly 5% return and 5% yield.

Stocks Purchased in February 2025

1. Monolithic Power Systems Inc. (MPWR)
   • Purchase Date: 03/02/2025
   • Quantity Acquired: 0.019294 shares
   • Purchase Price: $643.28
2. Applied Materials Inc. (AMAT)
   • Purchase Date: 14/02/2025
   • Quantity Acquired: 0.0727645 shares
   • Purchase Price: $173.34
3. The Trade Desk Inc. (TTD)
   • Purchase Date: 17/02/2025
   • Quantity Acquired: 1.26259961 shares
   • Purchase Price: $82.22

Bear in mind that the fourth week of February 2025 ends today, when we will be purchasing the fourth stock of the portfolio, however it would not make sense to add it to this article as it wouldn’t be representing anything being on the list for less than one day.

Portfolio Overview

Jumping on the review, we have made a table below with a chronological summary of the stocks purchased, including their acquisition dates, quantities acquired, amount invested, current values, and returns. As you can see, it has been one of the worst months in terms of performance for growth stocks, not only for us, for the wide market:

Overall Portfolio Performance for February 2025

February was a challenging month for growth stocks, with our portfolio experiencing weaker-than-expected returns. The volatility seen in the market this month can largely be attributed to macroeconomic concerns, including increased uncertainty around global trade policies under the Trump presidency. The reintroduction of tariffs on key technology components and semiconductor products caused a sell-off in high-growth sectors, leading to declines in some of our holdings.

While we did see some positive performance from stocks like Micron (MU), which benefited from strong demand for memory chips, others, such as AMD and Marvell (MRVL), struggled amid concerns about new trade restrictions, the one that suffered the most was Block (XYZ) with a massive sell off after their earnings report.

Despite this, our strategy remains unchanged—consistent investing over time will smooth out these short-term fluctuations and lead to long-term compounding growth.

Year-to-Date (2025) Growth Stock Challenge Performance

Since starting this challenge at the end of December 2024, the portfolio has been growing steadily as you can see in our growth stocks performance review of January 2025, however February has been quite bad and all started with Trump presidency, so we will have until it is stabilised a little bit to see good returns again.

The overall return on our portfolio, considering all stocks purchased so far with a total investment of £90, the portfolio value is sitting now at £78.45, so stands at approximately 12.8% loss. As said this figure has been greatly impacted by February’s market conditions, particularly the tariff concerns. However, this is a clear example of why dollar-cost averaging is crucial—it reduces risk and ensures we are not overly exposed to market timing, meaning that likely February and March purchases are getting a ‘discount’.

Key Takeaways & Future Outlook

1. Market Trends & Performance Justification:
   • The underperformance in February can largely be attributed to external factors such as geopolitical uncertainty and trade policy changes.
   • Semiconductor and tech stocks remain high-risk, high-reward, and will likely rebound as markets adjust to new policies.
2. Strategy for March 2025 & Beyond:
   • We will continue to invest £10 per week in promising growth stocks, ensuring a well-balanced and diversified portfolio.
   • A key focus will be monitoring earnings reports and market conditions to assess potential risks and opportunities.
3. Compounding Growth & Long-Term Vision:
   • This challenge is to demonstrate the power of consistent investing, showing how even small weekly contributions can lead to meaningful growth over time, sadly, the current return is not showing us that due to the massive sell-off, but we have confidence in coming back.
   • Future gains will likely be driven by continued technological advancements and the long-term adoption of innovation-driven companies.

As we wrap up February 2025, our growth stocks portfolio has faced some headwinds, but the long-term outlook remains promising. Short-term downturns are expected in investing and we have had them many times on our other investments. Sticking to the strategy of consistent investing helps us take advantage of market dips and compound our gains over time.

We will continue our reviews each month, tracking new purchases and assessing portfolio performance. Stay tuned for the next update in our £10 Weekly Growth Stocks Challenge, and let us know in the comments if you are also participating in a similar investment strategy!

Note: All stock prices are as of the last trading day of February 2025. Performance calculations are approximate and may fluctuate based on market movements.