Stock Talk

With summer in the rear-view mirror, the markets hustle and bustle resumed in September, not that this past summer was sedate as I was making a fair number of investment decisions. The roller coaster continued. More trade trash talking. Flip-flops on a daily basis, Threats to delist companies from stock exchanges. More and more in the Mad King world this is becoming the norm and so it has and will...

We’re half-way through the year and so I thought it would be a good time to check back into my ROBO portfolio to see how it’s doing and if there is anything interesting going on.   I was all good to go on writing a very pedestrian update as the portfolio had not undergone any significant changes in over a year. Then I got a couple of emails.

Under Armour shares had been taking a beating recently, so I decided to take a look and see if there may be a good entry point.

What got me interested in Square was that it recently got beaten down on a “bad” earnings report, but when I took a bit of dive into it, I saw some interesting items.  They recently sold it’s online food delivery platform Caviar. It was a money loser and burning a lot of cash and to get $400 million back and getting rid of the cash burn meant to me that SQ would not be going cash flow positive.  N...

I really wasn’t looking at buying in to Amazon. I have been a bit of a critic of the company in the past, but a recent pull back in the stock combined with rumblings of regulatory oversight compelled me to take a look at the stock and weigh the possibility to buy in. Here is my mind map analysis that led me to my decision to buy shares.

Google or Alphabet has been on my wish list for a long time, so when the stock started languishing in the low $1100’s, I thought I should take a look. There has been a lot of chatter of more regulatory oversight of the big tech companies including Alphabet. That being said the company is a juggernaut and is one of the most profitable companies on the planet. It is in fierce competition to control...

One of ongoing challenges with my portfolio is I hold too much cash. A big reason is my ongoing pessimism on the valuation of stocks, so my risk tolerance has skewed to holding more cash. Given where I am in my life that’s not good. With the introduction of Asset Allocation based ETF’s, it’s now easier and cheaper to get a diversified equity exposure by holding a single ETF. I decided that I want...

The cornerstone of my investment coaching practice is to teach and engage with people on how to educated and ultimately successful investment decisions involving stocks and Exchange Traded Funds (ETF’s). It’s one thing to teach this stuff. It’s another thing to model the behavior and it’s a totally different thing to actually demonstrate tangible results.  There are tons of people out there who wr...

August arrived with a bang. The market barely had a chance to digest the recent lowering of interest rates by the Federal Reserve, and the subsequent strange messaging that this would be a one time deal. The market did not like that. To make this even more crazy, the Mad King decided to drop the bomb of threatening to put tarrifs on all China imports, only to see China counter with lowering the Yu...

After several uneventful months where I stood on the sidelines, I decided to make a fair number of decisions in July, even with all the trade-trash-talking going on. The big trigger for me I think was that it was becoming very clear that interest rates are going to track downward and that may put a floor on stock prices in the short to medium term. So I thought this would be a good time to build u...

In this first of a 3 part series, I share the thought processes that went into my investment decisions I made over the summer. In this episode I walk through the decisions I made in June. Investment Decisions Taken: Opened position in iShares Long Term Bonds (Ticker: XLB) Sold position in Electronic Arts (Ticker: EA) for 11.6 percent gain (net Forex)

With the Federal Reserve signalling that they intend to lower interest rates in the very near future, I thought I would do a quick mind map and scratch what the impact would be on the types of investment decisions I would make going forward.

For the second month this year, the only investment decision I made was…to make no decisions. I decided to stand pat. In this post I share my thought process that led me to decide to stand pat.

Like anything there are some things that we don’t like to do but have to do in order to get to the bigger goals we want to achieve. Sports offers some interesting strategies for success that port over quite nicely into the investing game. In this episode I share some insights on how what strategies we can adopt to allow us to stay in the investing game and improve our probabilities for success.

This episode is about how the game of basketball and specifically the strategies behind it can teach us a lot about investing as well. I was originally going to do this around March Madness time, but never got around to it, so the timing is great! The game of basketball is so much different than when I grew up. It’s all about 3 points shots and perimeter offensive strategies. In many ways, the inv...

April saw the markets continue to melt-up and regain their losses from 2018. In a couple of cases I was able to lock in some nice gains and pick up some shares in areas that have actually been lagging the market surge. What’s even more pleasant is that the stocks and ETF’s involved below are one’s that I’ve held in the past and I think there are some takeaways we can get from it.   Decisions Taken...

In the last of my 5 part series where I dive into answering a fundamental question that factors into every investment decision we make, I look at the nebulous concept of valuation from a perspective that goes beyond simply buying stocks with some low valuation multiple or ratio. I also try to bring the various concepts discussed together to provide some kind of framework that we can takeaway and c...

I continue on my deep dive into figuring out what drives stock prices by looking at the one metric the rules them all and factors into every investment decisions we make. There are numerous mechanical and technical methodologies and strategies that are available to us when evaluating investment opportunities. At the end of the day all that due diligence may go for naught when we bring in this impo...

For most people investing revolves around the application of rules. Buy stocks with P/E ratios below X and have Debt/Equity ratios below 0.5. Index investing is better than active strategies, which is better than value investing. The reality mechanical strategies work until they don’t. In the third of our five part series, I dig deep further to look beyond mechanical investing strategies and exami...

In Part 2, I start to drill down a bit further on trying to answer a fundamental questions that every investor is asking. In this episode I apply one of the core principles of market based economics. Supply and Demand. Makes sense as a stocks trade in a…market…that contains buyers and sellers. The way buyers and sellers behave plays a critical factor into how stock prices are set.

In this first of a five part series, I take a deep dive into trying to answer a fundamental question that works directly and indirectly into every investment decisions. What makes stock prices go up and down? What makes a stock valuable? In this episode, I start at a high level by exploring a core foundational element that we often overlook but plays a critical role in driving stock prices.

March came in like a lion for my portfolio. An angry lion. My portfolios took some body blows that I really didn’t see coming and it forced me to make some hard decisions. There were also some good outcomes as well as some stocks continue to benefit from the market reinvigoration thanks to the 180 pivot by the Federal Reserve to pause on future interest rate increases for the rest of the year. Inv...

After coming off the previous month where I made no decisions to buy or sell stocks and ETF’s in my portfolio, February couldn’t be more opposite. The trigger that got me to move was the louder chatter that the Federal Reserve was going to put the breaks on any future interest rate increases. To me this sudden 180 degree shift by the Federal Reserve was a game changer for the markets. In this epis...

With commodity prices including copper falling, I thought it might be a good time to take a look at some copper stocks. Southern Copper was one I've owned in the past so I thought I'd check in and see if there may be an opportunity to buy in.