Welcome back to the Wolf of Harcourt Street Newsletter.
Every month, I'll provide you with an update on my portfolio, including all of the transactions, the current allocation, and my buy list. In addition, I'll share a recap of the articles you may have missed from the previous month.
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Transactions
Nubank (NU)
I added to my position earlier in the month as the stock traded lower despite no apparent news. Then, last week, rumours emerged that NU was in talks to acquire UK neobank Monzo for between $10 billion and $13 billion.
In my opinion, this would be a bearish signal. I am not a fan of a large deal like this because, at almost a quarter of NU’s current market cap, the potential dilution for shareholders would be significant.
Revolut is massive here in Ireland, while Monzo has recently tried to enter the market with little success so far, despite having 11 million customers in the UK. That highlights just how difficult and expensive entering a new market can be.
I would much rather NU focus on its existing markets and potential expansion into the US than pursue a costly and time-consuming acquisition with no guarantee of success. The execution risk would be significant and, importantly, acquiring Monzo would do little to mitigate the risks NU already faces in its core markets.
I’m not taking any action on the position, but I am hoping this remains nothing more than a rumour, perhaps one circulated by Monzo’s investment bankers as they look to get the best price possible for the sellers.
Amazon (AMZN)
I added to Amazon after the Muse disruption narrative swept across the internet.
If you have not heard of it yet, which is understandable given it is still not available in Europe, Meta recently launched Muse, its new autonomous personal AI agent. Rather than behaving like a standard text chatbot, Muse acts more like a digital assistant that can take actions in the background on your behalf.
The early feedback has been impressive, with one of the main use cases being finding ways to save users money.
The market is assuming Amazon will be a loser from agentic commerce. The thinking is that AI agents will increasingly make purchasing decisions on our behalf, resulting in less human traffic flowing directly to Amazon.
That may well happen, but logistics, fulfilment and distribution still matter. Nobody is replicating Amazon’s infrastructure overnight, and the end consumer’s hierarchy of needs is unlikely to change dramatically. People will still care about price, selection and speed.
Agentic commerce could create some downside for Amazon’s advertising business if fewer consumers browse the platform directly. On the other hand, I see demand for cloud computing only increasing as AI agents become more widely adopted. Somebody still has to provide the compute powering all of those agents.
Allocation
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Performance
Q2: +6.9% vs. S&P +2.5%
YTD: +2.7% vs. S&P +12.2%
Top Contributors YTD:
ASML: +67%
RBRK: +50%
ABBV: +15%
META: +10%
AMZN: +8%
Largest Detractors:
ADYEN: -39%
NIO: -33%
NU: -24%
SE: -23%
UBER: -16%
Buy List
Sea Limited (SE)
SE is another stock that has come under pressure recently for no apparent reason. Meanwhile, the underlying business has continued to outperform market expectations in 2026.
I came across the chart below, which demonstrates just how well the company has been executing. In only three years, ShopeeFood’s GMV market share has increased from 5.6% to 14.7%.
That is all the more impressive considering the strength of the competition from the likes of Grab and Gojek across the region.
In Case You Missed It
Some of the articles you might have missed during the past month:
Final Words
Q3 was another good quarter for the portfolio. After a challenging start to the year, it is now back in the green, although still trailing the S&P on a YTD basis.
I’m continuing to sit on a cash position of almost 3% following my trim of ASML a couple of months ago.
What continues to stand out to me is the massive disparity between the perceived AI winners and losers. The market remains willing to pay increasingly large premiums for companies directly exposed to the AI infrastructure buildout, while sectors I have traditionally favoured, including e-commerce and fintech, remain out of favour.
I’ve continued to accumulate in these areas where I believe the market has become too pessimistic.
AI will undoubtedly change how we discover products, shop and transact. But I still believe humans will want to buy stuff, and they will still need to pay for it digitally.
AI or no AI.
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Happy investing
Wolf of Harcourt Street
Contact me
Twitter: @wolfofharcourt
Email: wolfofharcourtstreet@gmail.com
Disappointed by NU. Broadly agree on amazon. I mean Facebook only signed a new deal with amazon earlier this year. Interesting to think how consumers might buy online products in the future though. Will it be fully autonomous. Will users ai agent subscriptions become the new Amazon prime I.e only on this tier plan so we guarantee to find you the cheapest price product.
Great update! Enjoyed the read.