Over the last few weeks, I’ve made quite a few trades across my ISA and Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP). With markets at high levels, I’ve trimmed some holdings to bank profits and free up cash.
It hasn’t been all selling activity however – I’ve also spotted some buying opportunities and fired on them. Here’s a look at my activity in more detail.
Taking some profits
Let’s start with my sales. One stock I trimmed was tech giant Microsoft. This stock had become my largest holding after a huge run in the share price. I added to it back in April near $350 and since then has jumped around 50%.
I’m still really bullish on the stock and I can see it hitting $600 in the next 18 months or so on the back of strength in its cloud computing division. But the position size in my portfolio was making me uncomfortable so I sold about 20% to reduce risk.
It was a similar story with Nvidia. I bought more of this stock when it was under $100 in April. However, since then, it’s jumped to $180. At that price, my position size was getting a bit too big so I sold 20%.
I remain bullish here though. Today, Nvidia’s still in my five largest holdings and I’m targeting $200 in the next year or two.
Capitalising on opportunities
So those two sales freed up some cash. This could come in handy if markets experience a decent pullback in the next few months.
I decided to put a bit of this cash to work instantly however. Because, as I said above, I’ve been spotting some compelling opportunities recently. One trade I made on the buy side was adding to London Stock Exchange Group. I won’t go into the details here as I wrote about it in another article.
However, in short, the tech stock‘s 24% off its highs and I see a lot of value. So I boosted my holding.
I also took advantage of weakness in cybersecurity stocks, CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ: PANW). Both of these names have come down in price recently so I bought more as I’m bullish on the cybersecurity theme.
It’s worth pointing out that Palo Alto Networks’ Q4 earnings, posted on 18 August, were excellent. For the quarter ended 31 July, the company posted revenue of $2.54bn, up 16% year on year. Earnings per share came in at $0.95, up 27% year on year and comfortably above the consensus forecast of $0.88. Guidance for Q1 of FY2026 and FY2026 as a whole was above estimates as well.
One reason this stock has underperformed recently is that the company announced the acquisition of CyberArk. The market didn’t like this news due to the size of the deal. I think it could work out well however. CyberArk’s a leader in identity security and the acquisition should significantly enhance Palo Alto Network’s offer and help it protect customers in the artificial intelligence (AI) era.
I’ll point out that Palo Alto Networks is still a small position for me. Cybersecurity’s a complex, dynamic field and there’s no guarantee this company will have success.
CEO Nikesh Arora has a really good track record though. And I see a lot of potential in today’s digital world (and believe the stock’s worth a closer look).
