𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗢𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗸 𝗜 𝗕𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱

The most important investing lesson I learned this year was not about valuation or timing.

𝙄𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙩𝙮.

When you run a concentrated portfolio of businesses you admire, every new investment has to clear a brutal hurdle. Not “good.” Better than what you already own. With better risk-reward asymmetry.

𝘽𝙚𝙘𝙖𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮 𝙞𝙣𝙫𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙙𝙚𝙘𝙞𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙖𝙣 𝙤𝙥𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙘𝙤𝙨𝙩.

Out of the hundreds of businesses I studied this year, only one met that bar:

dLocal Limited ( $DLO ), which is now 8% of my portfolio.

𝙒𝙝𝙮 𝙙𝙇𝙤𝙘𝙖𝙡?

It is uniquely positioned business with a strong moat, almost 50% insider ownership, with massive growth potential.

dLocal acts as the middleman in connecting 700 global merchants with 900 local payment systems in 40 countries, enabling people in emerging countries without a credit card or even normal banking services to make online purchases from their phone.

For example, if someone wants to pay for Netflix in Kenya, they can do so with M-Pesa, a local mobile payment service. $NFLX won't bother bother setting up the option for such a small market while M-Pesa doesn't have the resources to connect to all these merchants.

𝘿𝙇𝙊 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚𝙨 𝙞𝙩 𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙚𝙣.

Competitors such as $ADYEN.NV , Stripe, and $PYPL are more focused on developed markets and for them to go into each country build their operations from the bottom-up is almost impossible. This leaves DLO with a strong moat.

And given that they are diversified across 40 countries, the emerging market risk is reduced. There's always going to have some issues in some countries. But collectively, they can only grow.

Here's my Substack post on dLocal (keep reading till the end and you'll find your Christmas present):

https://open.substack.com/pub/ishfaaqpeerally/p/the-only-stock-i-bought-in-2025