It has been nearly four years since we launched Spaceship Voyager.

In that time, we have grown to more than 200,000 customers and $500m in funds under management. We have added the Spaceship Earth Portfolio. We have added features and tools such as investment plans, goals, and boosts.

We have also had moments of stellar returns and moments that are not-so-rosy, such as now.

Whether you’ve been with us for all four years or joined more recently, there’s no hiding it: we are going through an incredibly turbulent time.

The worst part is there is no one thing causing this turbulence (there never is).

We have inflation at a 20-year high in Australia and a 40-year high in the US. In turn, interest rates are rising. The value of companies has come into sharp focus as a result, many times because they’re not yet profitable — and this is particularly harming high-growth tech companies that were trading at record-high valuations. These stocks are under pressure.

There are debt problems in the developing world. The COVID-19 pandemic remains.

And then finally, Russia invaded Ukraine, causing a supply-chain crisis.

So, what does all this mean for Spaceship Voyager, you ask.

Firstly, let me tell you a bit about us.

I’m Bryna, and I run the marketing and customer support teams. That means that I see and hear everything our customers tell us, and let me tell you, I get that it’s really hard right now. I also am a Spaceship Voyager investor and my investments are down. We are customers too, so we really do understand the pain you’re feeling.

We also have a four-person investment team: Jason, Phoebe, Tommy, and Maddie. They also feel the pain right now; this isn’t easy for anyone.

But we believe it’s really important that they stick to the investment strategy of each portfolio because we believe in our research and fundamentals.

Each of our portfolios has its own strategy. For example, the Spaceship Universe Portfolio invests in companies that we think meet our Where the World is Going (WWG) criteria. We have to believe the companies have the competitive advantages needed to benefit from long-term trends and addressable markets and ultimately become more relevant over time.

While we need the investment team to stick to the relevant investment strategy for each portfolio, they also keep their eyes on the portfolios and their ears listening to everything that is going on in the market. That’s their job.

It just means that if our investment thesis about an individual company hasn’t changed — and therefore, it still meets our WWG criteria — we aren’t going to remove it. Over the long term, share prices will reflect underlying business results, but in the short term they can reflect other concerns like inflation and war. These short term concerns will come and go, likely replaced by other short term issues, but over the long term, we believe its business fundamentals that drive long term share performance.

To be a bit more specific, let’s take a look at Microsoft.

Microsoft, which is in all three of our Spaceship Voyager portfolios, is down -13.48% since the beginning of the year. It is suffering due to the general downturn in the market, despite recent results showing its cloud revenue is up.

In addition, Microsoft is seeing its customers use this time to improve productivity and increase their addressable markets. Software and technology spend can help a company reduce its costs and improve business planning. Results so far show that Microsoft and its customers are weathering this volatility.

Just this week Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella remarked: “In the conversations we are having with our customers, the interesting thing I find from perhaps even past challenges, whether macro or micro, is I don't hear of businesses looking to their IT budgets or digital transformation projects as the place for cuts. If anything, some of these projects are the way they're going to accelerate their transformation or, for that matter, automation, for example. I have not seen this level of demand for automation technology to improve productivity because in an inflationary environment, the only deflationary force is software. So that's the second micro thing, the tone thing that's different.”

So, while the year-to-date drop seems dramatic, our investment thesis on Microsoft has not changed due to what is currently going on, and in fact we can see that the company itself sees this as an opportunity. Therefore, we believe this company still belongs in our Spaceship Universe Portfolio and Spaceship Earth Portfolio as it still meets our WWG criteria. (It will remain in our Spaceship Origin Portfolio as long as its market cap remains in the top 100 globally.) (And, of course, if there were other events that caused our investment thesis to change, that might cause us to remove Microsoft from the portfolio.).

Now, to get back to things, we have crafted our portfolios this way for a reason.

We wanted to make investment as simple and accessible as we can for Australians. There are very few micro-investment apps with in-house investment teams; we have years of experience and thinking behind each portfolio.

In addition, we aim to be as transparent about how we invest as possible. We tell you why we’ve picked each company. We tell you when we’re making a change. And we will continue to do that because we believe that is core to our purpose.

I really do understand how hard this is for so many of you right now.

That’s why I’m writing this; we’re here to listen, so please reply if you have any questions. We’re absolutely here to help, because we know how hard this is.

The Spaceship Universe Portfolio, Spaceship Origin Portfolio, and Spaceship Earth Portfolio each invest in Microsoft at the time of writing.

Important! We’re sharing with you our thoughts on the companies in which Spaceship Voyager invests for your informational purposes only. We think it’s important (and interesting!) to let you know what’s happening with Spaceship Voyager’s investments. However, we are not making recommendations to buy or sell holdings in a specific company. Past performance isn’t a reliable indicator or guarantee of future performance.

Newsletters

Invest in your future, so you can live the life you want to live