I had this thought today and wondered, what does everyone use? What do you use for investing, day trading, swing trading, or any trading for that matter.

Do you use 2 monitors or 4 monitors? Do you use a desktop PC or a laptop? Are you mobile with your setup, or is it pretty anchored? Are you using your smartphone to trade and invest in fractional or full shares? Hardware is tricky, there is so much out there and I sometimes get lost in the details.

I also want to know what platform you use to invest and trade with. Are you fully mobile, using your smartphone apps to the best of your ability? Or do you have a full blown desk setup, utilizing ToS (Think or Swim) or some other software?

These questions would love to be answered, so let me know! I am always interested in checking out products, learning new ways of investigating stocks or companies, and figuring out the best set up.

Currently, I use a desktop PC with one 32″ curved monitor and a smartboard/projector to utilize CNBC and other TV shows, but also to interact with charts better. Keyboard, Mouse, and a nice Bose soundbar. Besides that, I use my Samsung S21 Ultra 5G and the apps to trade on the go.

Let me know what you use!

If you have been paying attention to the market this year, or even starting late last year, you may have found yourself hearing the same words over and over again. The CPI/Inflation rose to 7.5% for January, highest since 1982, and the Fed is going to speak soon, and blah blah blah.

If you are getting nervous, if you are getting scared that the market may crash or correct and your holdings may go down, step away, and stay away for a little while. This is where you have to start doing your DD or Due Diligence because you shouldn’t be scared. You should be happy to pickup more shares and own more pieces of companies that you believed in. If it’s a solid company, and they aren’t going anywhere, then your money is best left alone. ESPECIALLY if they are a dividend paying company.

I also have to remind myself that when the market looks bleak and all of the news and information you read are negative, it’s time to step back. Let the market and all the participants go crazy, and when it all calms down, see where the bottom may be, and start picking up more shares.

Part of this blog is therapeutic for me. It’s easier said than done to watch that red number, climb higher and higher, and do nothing about it. What would be the point of selling? To lose money? If you don’t sell, you still own the shares. The price could go up, it could double, or triple. If you have done the work and selected good companies, they should be able to emerge, even through the rubble of a “crashed” market.

Personally, I don’t mind red days. Actually, the only red days I do mind, are the ones where I can’t allocate capital to the market. I just think of the bargains or the reduction in average cost that could help when times are good.

Really what I wanted to accomplish in this post was to say, forget about the rate hikes, or the CPI, or the Fed talking, causing the markets to act even crazier. Forget it all, remember you purchased good companies, and bargain prices or lower averages is what we are looking for.

Have a great Friday in this choppy market, have a great weekend where we all can step away. And if you feel you need to sell, remember to ask yourself why did you buy it in the first place.

Let me know your market fears and what drives you crazy!

I wanted to give an update, as it’s been a while since my last post. I have been using M1, Public, SoFi, Fundrise, Coinbase, and Webull for a long time now, almost a full year for each of these applications.

Although it may feel like a lot of upkeep, I find it fun to keep different portfolios and different strategies on separate platforms. It’s been a lot of fun, testing out different ways of thinking, especially the more I read and explore the market.

There has been a lot of rocky days, up and down, chaotic movement in the market lately. Inflation, interest rates rising, and general fear, are big factors for these movements, but the training and reading I have accomplished during 2021 and so far into 2022, I have had confidence to keep buying instead of fear selling.

My wife encouraged me to read the most daunting that was on my list to start 2022 off. I read, The Intelligent Investor, by Benjamin Graham. It is a lengthy book, but it smacks you in the face with irrefutable evidence of how to play a better game with the market.

I’ll be the first to admit how impressed I am with myself that I have read so many books lately, it definitely shows how interested and excited I am about this topic in general. I love to talk about the market, what it’s doing, what’s new, what companies are doing to increase their worth and price. It’s all very exciting, but it can burn you out as well.

All that information, numbers, and input from so many different opinions can send your brain into tailspin, but remember to take it all with a grain of salt, and do your own due diligence. Read more, learn more, and figure out the best strategies for your overall taste in risk.

With all of the information I have absorbed lately, through reading and general inquiries into words and services I may not understand, I have become to brush off what seems to be fear posts, ignore the negative “The market is going to crash” and really just take it day by day. It’s not a sprint, it’s long distance relay, if you are lucky to create generational wealth to pass along.

I would like to take more time to update this site more often, give my thoughts and fears on what’s going on in the market. I think I have finally started to get my portfolios shaped to match the market, next will be to attempt to get higher returns, imploring the margin of safety to many new purchases.

I have a set of rules that I now follow when investing into my specific portfolios. I go through the numbers, the profile, the moat, the product, I investigate a lot more than I did previously, and the more I am reading and looking into these companies, the more I am understanding the numbers.

It’s very exciting and feels like a whole new career path that I have been loving for over a full year now. I started with Webull in February when I saw the redistribution of wealth with the GME and AMC stock crazy and Meme stocks with WallStreeBets on Reddit. I think it’s amazing, given the right amount of interest and willingness to do something different or more risky than your average person, could be what sets you a part financially from your average person.

I am always looking for fun conversations regarding companies, strategies, valuations, trading, investing, ETFs. REITs, and everything else! Please feel free to comment or send me a message.

Thank you for your time!

After taking a few days off to celebrate my daughter’s birthday, I wanted to come back and address the red you might be seeing in your portfolio. I have dropped, most have dropped, it’s a tough time right now.

This is the time that we hold and wait, you don’t lose money unless you sell. A perfect quote from Warren Buffett that I constantly think of when days or weeks are red like this. “The Stock Market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.”

Hold, don’t sell. Give it a while. Give it a year. Don’t look every day if it makes you squeamish, because if you sell, you are missing out on what could be. Those prices could correct, those stock values could go higher, something might happen to an industry or sector that allows those stocks to soar. When the markets are red, lots of stocks and ETFs are also red, you are not the only one.

I am writing this out, not just for you, but for myself. I look at the numbers every day and when I am in despair, my wife tells me, “Just sit on them, you know this.” It comforts me to hear her say this and gets me right back into the game.

So if you’ve only been holding for a few days, weeks, or months, give it the year. See where it takes that stock. If you are getting good at waiting, give it more than a year if it needs it.

If you’re like me, you work for the weekends. In fact, I’m not too sure there is anyone else out there who is a bigger fan of weekends than myself!

I have worked many jobs in my working career, starting in retail, upgraded to an office job, forced back to retail, and then I landed within IT. IT has been an eye opening industry into so many different companies. From software to hardware, there is no shortage of businesses there. It’s often a great place I start when looking at a company to invest. Where are they within the industry and have I heard of them before?

Well, back to the reason for this post. I love the weekend. Getting to spend time with my wife and daughter without work is absolutely priceless. It’s one of the many reasons for why I want to be financially independent. My wife and I want to give our children options that we might not have had. Traveling and experiencing other cultures, learning about the world, and more importantly, give back to the world.

Of course, I would ramble on again. One thing I never thought would be possible since living in the 9-5 world with weekends off. I have loved weekends and loathed Mondays as many of us do, but I now have a guilty pleasure in the stock market. Never would I have ever thought I would be excited for a Monday. Never. Not unless it was a vacation day or a package was getting delivered, or something other than work. Work makes us all dread Monday’s, but now I have a reason to make Monday exciting.

Even though I might not place a trade for a week or two, I still have fun looking at the market, watching it fluctuate, wonder if it would be a green day, or a red day, hope that I have unrealized gains from Pre Market, and maybe some fun news to go along with it.

Honestly, I have questioned myself, and found that I must truly enjoy this, investing, stock buying, selling, and trading industry. It’s become a lot of fun, I have learned so much, but I am excited for the weekend, because it can become too much, very easily.

One thing I am working on is, even though I have purchased a stock, just because it goes down, does not mean to sell. Let everyone panic, sell, then, eventually, that stock’s price will come back to it’s true value. Grab it at a discount and average down even if you can.

Well, I’ll be spending my weekend with my family, dreaming and thinking of the ways to increase my family’s wealth, learning, and reading, and continuing my journey into this new career path. I hope you spend your weekend without worry of the market or anything else for that matter. Soak up some family time, that’s who were doing this for.

Even though my thoughts are fragmented, I hope whoever reads this retains something positive and to be reminded to be thankful in life.

As of writing this, I am sure many have received their stimulus money from the Biden Administration. The big question is, what should I do with this money. Well, first off, if you search that into Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, or wherever you search, you are going to get pretty much the same answers.

The number one thing to do first, pay down debt. I know it doesn’t sound fun, but realistically, if you are able to pay down your debt, less of your money is going to interest, therefor, reducing the amount of time you will be paying that debt.

Reducing debt is really such an important factor to becoming financially stable, it’s pretty basic, and it may be a “Duh” thing to say, but sometimes we need to be reminded that credit cards and purchases bought with interest, add up to so much over time.

While I am reading this book, Invested by Danielle Town and Phil Town, I really enjoyed the idea of Voting With Your Money. I have already been doing this with most of the investing and stock market applications I’ve been using, all without knowing it.

It’s a pretty simple idea, vote for the companies you wish to see succeed. Don’t put your money into a company that you don’t agree with, you don’t like, you may not buy yourself. If you don’t like what they are doing to the environment, then vote with your money into a company that’s doing something positive. Don’t like a CEO, let that company know by not investing in it. Danielle Town relates this to voting in an election, where one vote might not mean much, but there are others who think like you and want to see a company that does business for the good stay, while watching the companies that do business for bad, leave.

With your stimulus money, you can choose to vote with your money if you are choosing to invest. Make sure you have correctly invested in yourself, first. aka, savings account emergency fund, pay down debt, etc.

But if you are ready, and wanting to grow your financial future and you decide to invest your stimulus money or even part of it, try voting with your money. Research good companies that you are happy to have in your portfolio. Also, make sure it’s a good price point as well, and if you don’t know, then I suggest you keep reading books and learning.

As I continue to read and learn, I am constantly changing my viewpoint on the stock market as well as businesses. One of the things I was planning on doing was taking some of our stimulus money and invest it, so I am currently searching for great companies at great prices, making sure that I pay attention to the company, the business they are in, and the industry. You can never do too much research, unless you never pull the trigger.

What are some of the ways you plan on spending/saving/investing your stimulus money?

As I am writing this, I just started a new book, “Invested: How I Learned to Master My Mind, My Fears, and My Money to Achieve Financial Freedom and Live a More Authentic Life (with a Little Help from Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, and My Dad)”.

I am only in the first chapter, but I am already enjoying the style of writing and the sense that I can easily connect with the writer as I am a novice at this whole, investing thing.

What I wanted to do is recommend a few books that I found from a YouTube video, showcasing that new investors don’t have to have a background in investing or finance in order to become financially independent. Here are the books below, and I am sure some of you have already read them and if you haven’t, I strongly suggest doing so. It not only gave me an eye opening view as to how and when to invest, but what to look for. Too often is the Stock Market a headache, up or down, erasing the previous days winnings. But this is a long game, these are not day trading books, these are long term investing options that will absolutely blow your mind.

1. The Little Book Of Common Sense Investing – By John Bogle, who is credited as the first one to ever introduce a passively managed Index Fund. John Bogle also started Vanguard, and even being new to investing, I know the name Vanguard.
2. The Little Book That Still Beats The Market – By Joel Greenblatt, who is a very well known Value Investor who has increased his wealth an incredible amount. Inside of The Little Book, Joel Greenblatt shares information regarding a “Magic Formula” for investing. It’s a great read and a great strategy, if you are able to purchase, and walk away.
3. The Dhandho Investor – By Mohnish Pabrai, who is a very intelligent person who decided to look at what other Low Risk, High Uncertainty Value Investors were looking at, often playing by the exact same rules as some of the most successful investors in history. The book goes through some history that is absolutely amazing to read and learn.

I am just starting my 4th book, and I am very excited about diving deeper into it. The most important thing about the beginning of investing, is reading. You must read, learn what you have to get into, learn formulas, how to look at a stock as a business, and when to NOT hit the sell button.

Let me know what your favorite investing and financial books are!

I have been looking at some of the best ways to get into investing with small amounts of capital. If you’re like me, you might not have a ton of extra capital to just throw at the wall and see what sticks. You don’t have a personal money manager telling you to put your money here or there.

You have to figure it out, just like myself. In another post, I’ll talk about a few of the books I’ve read to get better involved with investing. It’s such an important part of becoming financially independent and I want to understand as much as I can. The best way to do that, is read. Read a lot. That’s what I’m doing right now.

Within my research, a few items continue to pop up. With some of the newest fintech, investing, and stock market applications, they come with a huge benefit of $0 commissions and fees on most trades. With that, buying and holding ETFs became more attractive, at least for me.

I know that if you put your money into an Index fund that you can generally grow your money over time with pretty low cost fees, but sometimes you need a minimum to even invest within those funds. Mutual funds are the same way, they may sound attractive, but often we find ourselves put off by the minimum that is sometimes over $3000. Well, I did find one that appeared to not have any minimum, and currently testing it out, Fidelity. More specifically, Fidelity’s S&P Index 500 Index Fund, FXAIX.

I am happy to report that having no minimum, you can deposit some money into your Fidelity brokerage account, and immediately invest within this Index Fund, FXAIX. This way, not only are you covered by following the natural uptrend of the S&P 500, you can continue adding to it, increasing your shares over time.

If you need another option, there are ETFs, Exchange Traded Funds. These are very similar to Index Funds, but they are traded on the stock market just as regular stocks are. They are anything but regular stocks. They hold within them, depending on the ETF, about 80% to 90% of a certain sector of the market. They have anything from Energy ETFs to Bond ETFs, Marijuana ETFs, Gold ETFs, you name it, they have it. They also have social media or meme stock ETFs coming like, BUZZ and FOMO.

These ETFs have management fees, but for the most part are very low cost. Make sure you do your due diligence before purchasing an ETF, find out what sector it is tracking and what are the top companies within. Also, make sure how much the management costs and fees are for the ETF, as higher costs and fees eat away at your returns.

I am new to this world, so I apologize if I have anything wrong here, but I am learning more and more every day. I am attempting to take what I learn, and apply it. I may not always have the most money to throw down, but hoping to take advantage of these products, see what happens to be my best strategy, and then move more directly with that strategy.

Another option are REITs, Real estate Investment Trusts. Many of these are also on the stock market, trading as normal stocks do, but looking closely, you can find the differences within their profile and stock information.

REITs are great because real estate is a tried and true money maker. When investing within a REIT, you can get high dividends, and reinvest them within so that your return is higher. Real estate is a proven giant so you know it’s not going anywhere.

If you are able to invest into a REIT that is not on the stock market, you can find yourself not only getting dividends, but extras as properties become more valuable or even when they sell.

An example of a non stock trade REIT is the application Fundrise, which I plan on taking a good look at before pulling the trigger. This application allows you to invest into a REIT or multiple REITs for as low as $500.00 to start. They have some fees that I would like to read up on and become more familiar with the company, but the reviews have been generally good, with earning between 9%-12% every year.

With everything that is out, it’s good, but it also takes a lot of research and learning so you know exactly what you are getting yourself into. You don’t need a money manager, you just need to learn a little bit to make better decisions.