Title: Our Top Picks: 2025 Results — Your Favorite Stocks Show: Compounding Quality (Substack, compoundingquality.net) Guest: Pieter Slegers (author) Date: 2026-JAN-08 URL: https://www.compoundingquality.net/p/our-top-picks-2025-results Length: written post (paid) — no timestamps Note: Paid-subscriber post captured via Stephen's logged-in session (the top three were behind the paywall in the API body). Text verbatim; UI chrome (like/share counts, subscribe CTAs) removed. Charts referenced as "Source: Fiscal.ai" are images not reproduced here.
The wisdom of crowds is amazing.
At the start of 2025, you were asked to share you top 3 stock picks.
In this article, we review the 10 most-picked stocks. How did they perform in 2025?
Amazing results
Wow. That's the only thing I can say.
The S&P 500 increased by 17.1% in 2025.
It was almost impossible to beat the market if you didn't own any Big Tech.
But guess what? The average stock of Our Readers just did.
The results? Impressive:
Average return (2025): +19.0%
S&P 500 return (2025): +17.1%
Outperformance in a market like this is no small achievement.
It speaks volumes about the quality of ideas in the Community.
Just take this example of Micron from Craig Edwards. The stock is up +219% since then:
Now, let's dive into the 10 most-picked stocks and see how they performed
10. Melexis ($MELE) Performance 2025: +3.8%
Company Profile How does the company make money? Melexis makes small chips used in machines, especially cars. The more cars that are built, the more chips Melexis sells—and the more money it makes. For example, its chips are used in sensors that measure a car's speed. Electric cars need far more chips than traditional cars. As a result, Melexis is benefiting from the electrification of our vehicle fleet.
But the company disappointed in 2025:
The car industry is having a tough time
Melexis faces more competition
However, the company is diversifying its revenue streams.
As you can see, they are launching more and more products outside the automotive sector:
Source: Melexis
9. Dino Polska ($DNP) Performance 2025: +3.1%
How does the company make money? Dino Polska runs grocery stores across Poland that sell fresh food and everyday essentials. The stores are mainly in small towns and rural areas.
2025 was an interesting year for Dino Polska.
The market was not happy about the slowing like-for-like growth.
What is like-for-like growth? Like-for-like growth measures how sales change in existing stores, excluding new store openings. It shows whether a company is actually selling more to customers, and not just growing by expanding its store count.
Here's a graph that shows the declining like-for-like growth of Dino Polska (blue line) and its most important competitor Biedronka (orange line):
Alexander from the community
Am I worried about this? Not really.
I'll give you two reasons:
1. Poland is in a secular trend
Poland benefits from a secular trend. Their economy is growing way faster than Western European countries.
Michael Gielkens of Tresor Capital highlights just how striking this is: Poland's economy is currently growing ten times faster than the UK.
The numbers speak for themselves. In 1995, Poland's GDP per capita was only $13,600, about 36% of the UK level. Today, it stands at $44,500, or 81% of the UK's GDP per capita, and the gap continues to shrink rapidly. Since the end of 2019, Poland's per capita economy has grown by nearly 18%, compared with less than 1% for the United Kingdom—meaning, in real terms, Poland is growing ten times faster. To state the obvious, as the Polish economy expands, the growth potential for Dino Polska does too.
2. Overall revenue growth looks great
In the first nine months of 2025, total revenue grew by 14.9% compared to the first nine months of 2024.
The limited sales growth of existing stores is more than offset by the sales growth from new stores.
Source: Dino Polska
8. Kelly Partners Group ($KPG) Performance 2025: -22.9%
How does the company make money? Kelly Partners Group is an Australian serial acquirer in accounting businesses. They offer services like accounting, tax advice, and business planning to help these companies grow and succeed.
Kelly Partners Group grew its intrinsic value (Owner's Earnings) by 22.6% last year.
Yet the stock moved in the opposite direction, falling -22.9% year to date.
Source: Fiscal.ai
The result? The company became 45% cheaper!
And that's not all.
Brett Kelly recently said they're overwhelmed with opportunities.
This is a good problem to have. It's why KPG hasn't been buying back shares recently:
"We are currently limited by the capital available to take on opportunities to bring new firms into the group. We're overwhelmed with opportunities, so we haven't done any buybacks… If we had extra capital, we would be buying back shares enthusiastically and on a large scale." - Brett Kelly
Brett Kelly clearly thinks the stock is undervalued at today's price.
7. TransMedics ($TMDX) Performance 2025: +82.9%
How does the company make money? TransMedics makes technology for organ transplants, including hearts, lungs, and livers. The company works with hospitals worldwide to make transplants safer and more effective. Instead of storing organs on ice, TransMedics devices keep them warm and working outside the body.
This helps doctors better evaluate organs before surgery, which leads to more successful transplants and saves more lives.
In 2025, investors realized TransMedics is a fast-growing leader in organ transplant technology.
Revenue increased sharply. The company remained profitable despite higher costs from expansion.
That's exactly what a high-quality compounder does.
Source: TransMedics
6. Alphabet ($GOOGL) Performance 2025: +65.2%
How does the company make money? Alphabet, Google's parent company, leads the online search and digital advertising markets. Every Google search or YouTube video you watch generates ad revenue. They also make money from subscriptions like Google Workspace, devices such as phones & smart home gadgets, and cloud services.
The sentiment around Google completely changed last year.
Google's search faces its biggest threat: people are turning to AI chatbots like ChatGPT, which give answers instead of just links.
Since most of Google's revenue comes from search ads, fewer searches mean less ad money.
But today, many believe Google is leading the AI race.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has declared a "code red" as the company scrambles to catch up with Google's Gemini 3 models.
5. Topicus ($TOI) Performance 2025: +1.2%
How does the company make money? Topicus buys software companies that serve specific industries. This lets them dominate niche markets, since their products are hard to replace.
Topicus had an amazing 2025.
The company spent more capital on acquisitions in 2025 than the last three years combined:
Source: Seeking Winners
However, the stock didn't do well in 2025. Investors worry that VMS businesses are an easy target for AI disruption.
The topic sparked so much interest that Constellation Software, Topicus' parent company, held a conference call specifically to discuss the (potential) impact of AI. You can listen to it here.
I personally don't believe AI will disrupt VMS companies like Constellation Software and Topicus.
4. ASML ($ASML) Performance 2025: +33.5%
How does the company make money? ASML makes advanced machines that create computer chips used in phones, laptops, and video games. These machines use light to draw tiny patterns on silicon, which makes the chips.
ASML dominates the market for EUV lithography machines.
In fact, it's a monopoly.
As a monopoly, you can regularly raise your prices because no one makes the same products as you.
That's what makes ASML so interesting.
Also, the company benefits from a secular trend in Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The market clearly noticed this in 2025:
Source: Fiscal.ai
Now let's dive into the top 3.
Spoiler alert: Two of these three stocks are key convictions of Our Portfolio.
In other words, I would buy them right now.
3. Kinsale Capital ($KNSL) Performance 2025: -13.9%
How does the company make money? Kinsale Capital is an American insurance company. They provide specialty insurance for businesses with unusual or higher risks that other insurers often avoid.
Kinsale Capital had a tough year.
Currently, the company is facing increased competition.
The market punished this compounder too hard if you ask me. It could be a great buying opportunity.
You don't believe me?
Gregory M. Share, a director of Kinsale, recently bought shares for $1.05 million. This indicates he thinks the shares are undervalued
A few weeks ago, Kinsale Capital Group authorized a new $250 million share buyback program (equal to 2.7% of their Market Cap)
François Rochon, one of the best quality investors in the world, recently increased his stake in Kinsale Capital
How many buy signals do you want?
Kinsale currently trades near its cheapest valuation level ever:
Source: Fiscal.ai
2. MercadoLibre Inc ($MELI) Performance 2025: +14.1%
How does the company make money? MercadoLibre is the Amazon of Latin America. It's an online shopping platform where users can buy electronics, clothes, toys, and more. MercadoLibre also has a payment system called Mercado Pago, which makes it easy for people to pay online safely.
MercadoLibre is the only public company to grow its revenue for more than 22 consecutive quarters at +30%.
Source: X
Yet the stock was 'only' up about 13% last year.
In other words, MercadoLibre became cheaper last year.
Today, MercadoLibre trades at about 40.2x forward earnings.
This is obviously not cheap but it could be justified if MercadoLibre keeps growing at attractive rates.
Source: Fiscal.ai
1. Evolution AB ($EVO) Performance YTD: -28.5%
How does the company make money? Evolution AB makes live online games like Blackjack, Roulette, and Baccarat. Players don't just see a computer version. They interact with real dealers streamed live from a studio.
Evolution AB is the top pick of our Partners for 2025. It got nearly three times as many votes as the second pick, MercadoLibre.
However, it was a terrible year for Evolution.
Their growth slowed down,
And Asia remains a weak spot: revenue from that region declined due to ongoing issues with cyber-attacks
The company went from a high-growth stock to a value play.
At this price, the company looks really cheap. I think a lot of bad news is already priced in.
As you can see here, Evolution AB is trading at its lowest valuation level ever:
Source: Fiscal.ai
Overview
That's it for today.
You want to see all the companies Our Partners picked?
You can take a look here
Top Pick Partners 2025
On Sunday, you'll receive the Top Picks of Our Partners for 2026.
Everything In Life Compounds Pieter
Book Order your copy of The Art of Quality Investing here
Used sources Interactive Brokers: Portfolio data and executing all transactions Fiscal.ai: Financial data
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