“Be quick to sell your losers and let your winners run”

The multiple on the S&P went from 14 to 18 in 2020. Clearly great earnings are needed to continue the rally into 2021

The consumer is crushing it, makes up 70% of the economy and manufacturing is starting to show signs of life. Low rates, fed accommodating, low unemployment, rising wages the rest of the world coming to life etc. China trade deal phase one all adds up to more clarity for business investment

Apples multiple went from 13x to 22.7x as the shift to services is becoming more robust, which lead to higher margins, around 64%

Apple has been grossly undervalued. Is it
still? No. But MSFT is at a 31x multiple

I don’t sell my core Apple position. I look to buy on dips. I expect that to continue over the next decade for me

TTD, AYX, MDB, OKTA, SHOP have been great small caps that I also like to buy on dips. TTD is my favorite. And I added PINS recently

Not intended as “investment advice” and “past performance is not indicative of future results”

For most investors, read this book 2 or 3 times and you will do better than 90% of professionals

https://www.amazon.com/Little-Book-Common-Sense-Investing/dp/1119404509/ref=asc_df_1119404509_nodl/

Great results, but keep in mind that if you're comparing yourself to the funds and indices, your compound annual growth rate is around 19% over that span.

This is a bad idea. I have 20% of my assets in AAPL and think that’s too much.

You should be diversified in case something happens to AAPL or if the don’t grow as strongly in the future.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/forbesfinancecouncil/2017/07/03/going-all-in-should-investors-put-a-significant-amount-of-capital-into-one-stock/amp/

My retirement accounts are just kind off my fun money only 10% of my total assets so have always been invested in other businesses. Years ago about the time the iPods craze started that the kids all wanted my adviser had me in a bunch of doggy funds and stocks that were going nowhere. I sold all that junk and went all in on apple. He has been telling me for years i need to diversify , Yea the whole thing could blow up but i have faith in them still . Every time i go to a apple store the place is just buzzing and people are warming up to there watches . Hey if Warren Buffet owns 5% of the company at least we are in good company.

Correct.

Ok, I was just checking because some people might have all assets in one stock. There was a famous internet thread I’ll try to post it. But some guys were in on an Apple supplier and they got fabulously rich quickly and lost it all in a matter of days. Some of the posts are heartbreaking to read.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fool.com/amp/investing/general/2014/11/02/heartbreaking-lessons-from-regular-joes-who-lost-i.aspx

I love Apple stock but I’m almost too into them but almost can’t sell right now because I don’t want to pay massive tax on gains. ( my holding in Apple are not in a tax shelter account).

Oh yea I know some retired workers from Lucent tech that had everything in that stock when it was around $100 buck during the internet bubble. People that worked there said something was going on as they moved products from one warehouse to another and calling it a sale . When the auditers found out they were cooking the books the stock tanked to around 10 bucks and they lost most of there retirement money .

Good old GTAT. I bought $10k worth of that for a swing when I saw it had gone from $20ish down to $10ish. I don't remember the details, but I sold out either the same day or a day or two later for essentially no gain or loss. It was less than a week later that it dropped 90% overnight. I was stupid to buy it and lucky I didn't still own it.

I'll tell you something though, when you have a year like 2019 and your portfolio appreciates more than 2.5 times what you and your spouse grossed...it starts to get REALLY hard to stay focused at work.

I'm finding my tolerance for the BS, sycophants, and V.P. wannabes that will say and do anything to climb the next rung to be quickly approaching zero. While they're chasing the next promotion and sacrificing crazy hours to get it, I'm sitting back and watching our bottom line appreciate by itself.

That has always been my goal of investing in the market coming out of college, to work only for as long as I needed to and having the flexibility to stop when I felt like it. It's what keeps me focused when I see the 30 something douchebag that got promoted above his abilities come rolling to work in a new Benz a few months after the fact (happened) and why I have just one pin.

I've seen markets meltdown before, 2000 was ugly and 2008 was scary in a different way. So I know 2020 could be the opposite and I'll be glad for that income, because we've not hit our number yet.

My point here is this...have a clear goal in mind with your investing and remember that money is a tool; the most important thing it can buy you is options.

For rich or poor, it’s always nice to have money.

After last year, I'm close to being able to retire. I could retire now (but would like to save above what I have already), in 40 months I get a stock option payout (not sure what it's worth but if I don't work 40 months I won't get anything it's all or none) still contribute to retirement and hopefully not lose what I do have. Also in 3.5 years my youngest will be out of college and so it lines up with my timeframe. I don't want to get conservative but I'm taking some equities some off the table to bonds.

I always pop into this thread when I see new posts. It is awesome to see some of you guys blowing away the returns. I have my 401K plugging away. It is broken up into large cap, mid cap and global sectors. I also have a modest non-retirement brokerage account with everything placed in VOO. I figure the entire country, and some of the rest of the world are working to make me money.

As for the day trading, puts, calls and other items I am assuming you guys are into, I have never been able to understand it. Maybe there is stupid amounts of money there for the taking, but without comprehension I am sure I would just be throwing away what little I have.

My luck would be a company becoming a Enron, or a car company or plane maker messing up big time.

I have a uncle that bought a lot of Home Depot stock when it first came out, and when the market is down he whines that he lost 2mil in a day. (he never really loses it, because he does not sell it, I get that).

I enjoy reading all about stock market stuff, and I am glad when it does good because it helps small businesses big time.

For me personally, I like rental houses. They can suck if you have the wrong tenant, but when you have the right tenant it does not matter if the market goes down, the rent stays the same and only the property tax goes down.

In the past I thought about parking some money in the stock market, but I seen first hand some things I did not like.

With stocks you hope they go up all the time, and sucks if they go down.

With rental houses I hope they go down to save me on property taxes and to buy more for a decent deal. And rental income stays the same no matter what the market is doing.

Sorry for the long rant, and I wish all of you the very best, and I hope this year the stock market triples and makes all of you very rich!

Of course stocks don’t always go up something like one out of four years there’s a loss. But overall long term they have gone up something like 6-9% a year. But what some people worry is that if we’ve had like more than 6-9% a year over the last x years then it’s expected there will be some lower earnings going forward to bring it back in line with historical earnings.

I noticed LITZ hasn't posted in awhile. I decided to give his service a try. Over 3 months I lost a couple of thousand dollars. It was a good lesson to remember that there's no timing the market and all his bullshit is just that, bullshit. He liked to talk a big game but all his screenshots are nonsense.

There’s been some good advice on this thread.

I try to learn from my mistakes each year and adjust. I had a great year and really the mistake was to sell some, not near all of my Apple stock after reading some articles about how their phones are not selling, trade war and this and that. My lesson I learned from this this is to pretty much drown out or be very skeptical of any financial news from the AP, random internet sites and definitely financial news on cable. I feel it is all negative BS to make you wonder and worry.

To pull away from this I subscribed to the Wall Street Journal and have been very impressed so far and have learned a lot about business and money. Their political views have a lot to do with the cost of making a new law, changing a tax code or starting a new government program. They seem to focus on if the numbers will work and how will a change effect business, consumers, and the markets. FYI - the numbers rarely ever work for new government programs.

Not sure if folks like the journal or not, but I am a fan. Oh here is an example of a same day headline of a AP financial article and the WSJ. Big difference what one reader will take away compared to the other. Crazy!
6F07A0D2-3C8C-4BEB-9C81-8E86FBE7A8B8 (resized).jpeg

I didn’t care that iPhone sales were slowing down. Apple has something like $300 billion in the bank with practically no debt.

My biggest regret 6 months ago, was not buying more Apple when it was at $142. I should’ve Gone all in on it.

I can’t be right every time.

Exactly. A lot of the general financial news focuses on the downside and not the upside. I learned a lesson about that this year and made a change of where and how I get my info from. I dig deeper now and not just read headlines or trust the reporter doesn’t have some kind of agenda.

My 78 year old Father is the man when he comes to Apple stock owning thousands of shares with a cost basis under $50. He says he likes the Apple dividends he earns since he is on a fixed income being a senior. Lol! He still can’t figure out how to link a blue tooth speaker up to his IPhone and needs help though. He told me to buy some Apple shares years ago before it split. Glad I listened. Cool guy.

I remember seeing that post and making the conscious decision to say nothing.

So, I never heard of Stocktwits before but had to check it out.

It took me back to the late 90s, and the Yahoo Stock message boards...where every dumbass pump and dumper was plying their trade and fanning the flames of HUGE wins, and BIG NEWS coming shortly.

Man, glad I passed that phase early and quickly.

I see the spirit carries on.

I like mutual funds for easy management and instant diversification.

Here is my 2019 performance:
Retirement and Kids College is all invested in Vanguard Growth Index Fund Investor Shares (VIGRX) and Vanguard Small-Cap Growth Index Investor Shares (VSGAX) returning 32.96% and 30.81% year over year each. Can't win every year, but very happy. S&P500 was up 29.6% in 2019. Both had expense ratios less than .17% so outperformed the S&P500 even with expenses.

Just a note, Vanguard does not benchmark those funds against the S&P500.

100% agreed. My point is that both funds beat the S&P 500 even with expense ratios included.

I know just enough about the stock market to know that I don't know what I'm doing, and mutual funds are a better option for me. Can you let me know where my logic is wrong above?

He did say that his retirement assets are only like 10% of his total assets. Some people like to say retirement assets to mean just tax shelter like 401K or IRA when in fact all my assets no matter if they are in tax shelter or taxable account are my retirement assets. (I don’t count my house as an asset in a sense of a dollar figure) so I just count all my assets except my house as retirement assets.

Sure. Let's say I'm invested 100% in bonds and I return 5% in 2019.

One could say I returned less than the S&P which returned over 25% in 2019.

But that would be a meaningless comparison, like saying the basketball team consistently outscored the hockey team.

The Vanguard funds you mention are not measured against the S&P because the holdings they are made of do not reflect the S&P.

Instead, you want to compare the performance against the fund's benchmark, net of mgmt fee, to guage how the fund is doing within its category.

Most passive funds are just under the benchmark each year. As one would expect, they just mimic.

Active funds are paying managers their salaries (fees) to do better. I avoid them.

This makes perfect sense. Thank you.

What % of your portfolio is in options

Get rid of all mutual funds and replace with ETF the fees are lower and there is no cap gains paid out at the end of the year that you have to pay tax on

You are on the right track, but ETF’s give out income though.

Go to Morningstar and punch in a ETF or Mutual fund to see how much they have paid over time to get a gauge. Pull up fund, go to performance and click on distributions instead of returns and you can see. Some can be higher than others.

If you are in retirement accounts, 529, HSA’s etc you don’t really need to worry about distributions as much with no annual taxes.

ETF payout div but do not payout cap gains both short and long at the end of yr short term cap gains have high tax rate

Buy buy buy

Your both right

It seems like the right time for a 15-20 percent correction at a minimum.

If DOW 29300 from around Thursday of last week is considered the starting point of a correction, the -20% would be approximately DOW 23440.

I have no idea if we’ll get a correction soon but wouldn’t hate it because I like to buy stuff when it’s on sale.

If you're into dividend payers, Exxon is at a 52 week low, Chevron is close. Walgreens is near a 2 year low, with 44 years of dividend increases and buys back shares each quarter. Plus they have the potential go-private buyout hanging over them.

They aren't the elegant high flyers, but a portfolio needs a few quality dividend payers to keep it grounded.

Look at div growth not yield CVX has 1 year growth of div %6.25 5 yr annual growth %2.15 AMGN on the other hand one yr div growth %21.21 5 yr annual growth %21.27 CVX yield %4.26 AMGN yield %2.84

Just sold 5 Amazon Puts 2/21/20 $1,780 for $31.99

I would like to do 10, but did 5 just incase there is more weakness in the stock.

Exxon and Chevron certainly has nice dividend returns, but I'm not sure I'm that hot on energy/oil right now. With that, any suggestions on solid dividend payers with potential for growth in share price?

Look up the holdings in Vanguard's Dividend Growth fund (VDIGX)

I buy small sets of stocks to hold over time, kind of making my own funds if you could call it that. Im not that great at it, but its never all that much, $1000 max.

The rest goes into ITOT and thats it. Im a grower not a shower.

NWL

Covered 20 Sands Casino Calls @ $0.43 (see previous posts for initial transaction)

Bought 2,000 shares of First Solar @ $51.22

Bought 1,500 shares of Exxon @ $64.87