August 2023 Newsletter In a few short months the portfolio has gone from a small beat to lagging by 2.4% - see performance stats further down. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a nice return, but its concerning as the situation worsened at one point during the month, lagging by 3.5%. I usually start looking … Continue reading Why Does the Market Have Bad Breadth?
Category: Monthly Newsletter
June 2023 Newsletter In my quest to beat the market, I am always searching for new ideas that could give me an investing edge. You can find these approaches anywhere such as in print, podcasts, Youtube and books. I recently read “100 Baggers: Stocks that Return 100-to-1 and How to Find Them”, by Christopher W. … Continue reading Another Way to Beat the Market?
May 2023 NewsletterIf you read my last newsletter, you will know that I made a speculative stock bet with First Republic Bank (FRC). Banks are normally not speculative, they are usually pretty safe, but not in this case. As mentioned before, banks exist almost solely based on the confidence that if you deposit your money … Continue reading How I Lost My Entire Investment!
April 2023 Newsletter In March’s Newsletter I complained about being locked out of my trading account but concluded that it was not the end of the world as most of the time we humans tend to trade with emotion, which in turn, statistically, lowers our annual returns. It just so happens that all the banking … Continue reading Is the Banking System Failing?
March 2023 Newsletter I have been locked out of my trading account... again! This is not the first time, it would appear that even with today’s technology it's difficult to ask for reliable service. To be fair, I am traveling in a van, in central Mexico, nevertheless, you would think that service continuity would be … Continue reading Locked Out of My Account!
February 2023 Newsletter After a big relative win in 2022 (7.6% over performance), I feel pressure to continue the winning streak, especially because I write a newsletter! The reality is that I (and you) can’t always be a winner. There are good years and bad years. It’s only in the long run that you can … Continue reading Rebalancing the Portfolio for 2023
2022 was a bad year for investors, but I’m going to let you in on a little secret that might make you feel better. You can still win in a losing year. Yes… even if you’ve lost money. The game is one of relativity, not Einstein’s version… but financial relativity.
Since last month, the market has swung back and surprisingly gained almost 6%. Who saw that coming? Keep in mind it’s early days… not yet time to start counting chickens. Nonetheless, as this is a monthly newsletter, I think it makes sense e to observe the effects of this latest market move on the hobby portfolio and assess how the new strategy is working out.
October 2022 Newsletter In my July Newsletter, I set out a strategy to start buying positions in the least loved sector if and when the S&P 500 falls below 25% year to date (YTD). After a couple of near misses, the market finally crossed over this threshold albeit for a short time. True to my … Continue reading The Market is Falling, So Why Am I Buying?
Every so often I review a sector within my portfolio to make sure that the individual positions still make sense. A review of my Energy stocks reminded me how much I despise that sector. Why? Because Energy stocks do not act like normal stocks. They have an additional level of complexity based on the underlying … Continue reading Why I Hate Energy Stocks… but Still Have Some
Money with Marc 