Welcome to Compound & Fire, where I’m building wealth by investing in top-quality businesses that drive long-term shareholder value, paving the path to financial freedom. Join our Global Quality Investing Discord and Substack community to grow this journey together!Subscribe nowCompound & Fire Community PortfolioFirst of all: Happy New Year! As 2025 came to an end, Compound & Fire continued to grow, culminating in the launch of our Community Portfolio at year-end. Fifty members shared their top three picks for 2026, and from those, I curated a portfolio of the 12 most frequently chosen stocks:While this was a fun competition, it’s fascinating to track the performance of a group focused on quality stocks. The weights reflect how often each company was selected.My top 3 picks for the year are: Computer Modelling Group, Getbusy plc and Kelly Partners Group. I remain very bullish on Kelly Partners Group after my interview with CEO Brett Kelly, here is the link. For Computer Modelling Group I think this is the year where their strategy 4.0 will start gaining traction and their capital allocation strategy will result in a higher valuation for the company. Finally Getbusy plc might be a bit more speculative, but I have explained in this article why the company could return 2-4x in 3 years.Throughout 2026, we’ll have a live tracker comparing the Community Portfolio against the Compound & Fire Portfolio and the iShares MSCI World ETF. Here is the link to Google Sheets. In the Discord Community app we have created a separate channel to discuss the Community portfolio.Of the 12 stocks, three companies overlap with my Compound & Fire Portfolio: Kelly Partners Group, Constellation Software and Topicus. It’s exciting to see the variety and discover stocks on our investors’ radars, including lesser-known names like NameSilo Technologies Corp, Kitwave Group, and NowVertical Group.Alongside regular updates on the Compound & Fire Portfolio, I’ll share ongoing performance insights for the Community Portfolio.November and December updateIn November and December, the Compound & Fire Portfolio erased all its gains from 2025. November saw a steep 6.5% decline, which is unusually large for this portfolio, followed by a 0.8% drop in December. Overall, the portfolio declined 3% for the year. Compared to global indices, this was an underperformance; the iShares MSCI World ETF gained 19.6% in USD. However, adjusting for my base currency (EUR) and the dollar’s significant weakening, the ETF’s return was just 4.7%. Still better, but a narrower gap.Since I began sharing my portfolio publicly, it performed strongly through June 2025 before the downturn began. Am I worried? Not at all. I’m thrilled with my holdings, many of which I’d happily buy at current prices: Kelly Partners Group, Kinsale Capital, Dino Polska, Rightmove, Euronext, Computer Modelling Group, Judges Scientific, The Trade Desk, Topicus, Constellation and Getbusy Plc. In my opinion these companies are valued at very interesting levels at these prices.My outlook for 2026 remains very positive.In hindsight, would I change anything? I had reservations about Cogent Communications when I bought it. It fell short of my “don’t lose” strategy, with a Quick Scan score below my 80 threshold and substantial debt. I overlooked this because of potential upside from selling assets like data centers. In November the stock price declined 53.6% (!) after they announced they are pausing their dividend. This impacted my result for November significantly of course. Although my thesis actually didn’t change, it’s a lesson what can happen when you don’t follow your strategy and buy companies with a huge debt pile. That is why my main lesson for the year is: follow my strategy, don’t change paths and always buy with a margin of safety.Here is my result for December: The month in which I have sold M&A Research Institute and used the cash to add Kelly Partners Group at 7.85AUD. Watches of Switzerland was sold in November. Actually the main reason was I wanted to buy a position in Topicus Inc, which was almost 10CAD below my buy below price. Topicus is a great example of being patient. I liked the company a lot and if I didn’t have analyzed it like I did, I would probably have bought the company at a higher price.I am very happy with the addition of Kelly Partners Group and the purchase of Topicus. Portfolio holdingsThe Compound & Fire portfolio remains well-diversified across quality compounders. See the full allocation breakdown below for details on current holdings. After the addition Kelly Partners Group is my biggest allocation, followed by Nedap and Dino Polska. Euronext and Rightmove are two strong moat companies in my portfolio, but declined a lot in the second half of the year of 2025. These kind of companies will remain a corner stone in my portfolio and these temporary declines don’t worry me.That’s it for now. Thank you for joining me on this journey and being part of this free community to discuss quality stocks at Compound & Fire. Let’s keep building wealth the smart way and share your thoughts, join our Discord, and subscribe to my Substack for free. Subscribe nowDisclaimerThe information in this article is provided for informational and educational purposes only.The information is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice or any other advice, is general in nature, and is not specific to you. Before using this article’s information to make an investment decision, you should seek the advice of a qualified and registered securities professional and undertake your own due diligence.None of the information in this article is intended as investment advice, as an offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or as a recommendation, endorsement, or sponsorship of any security, company, or fund. The author is not responsible for any investment decision made by you. You are responsible for your own investment research and investment decisions.