Presented By: The Early Bird from MarketBeat Official Affiliate Partner: The Early Bird from MarketBeat Hello again, investor! It's become my December tradition (three years running!) to reread one of my all-time favorite finance books: The Richest Man in Babylon, written in 1926 by publisher George S. Clason. It's a fictional story set in ancient Babylon that teaches a timeless lesson about becoming wealthy or "curing a lean purse." The storytelling is top-notch, uses fun "old-timey"...
14 days ago • 3 min read
Presented By: The Early Bird from MarketBeat Official Affiliate Partner: The Early Bird from MarketBeat Hello again, investor! This was a long one, so Godspeed to you, and good luck making it through! I was reading Buckle Up Buttercup: My Warning To Dividend Investors by Leo Nelissen on SeekingAlpha.com, and he had a few interesting takeaways from the recent "hawkish" fed rate cut. (BTW, I gifted you that article. Click the link, and you'll be whisked away to the other side of the article's...
21 days ago • 5 min read
Presented By: The Early Bird from MarketBeat Official Affiliate Partner: The Early Bird from MarketBeat Just say NO! After falling ill at his home and being brought to the hospital, Charlie Munger, who was just shy of his 100th birthday, was asked by a nurse how he was. “I’m dying,” he said. “How are you?” Charlie passed away on November 28th, 2023, and was cremated. Two ETFs started trading this past week, likely making Charlie swirl in his urn. On December 10th, Direxion launched "the first...
28 days ago • 4 min read
Presented By: Seeking Alpha Black Friday Sale* Hey everyone! At the 2022 Berkshire Annual Meeting, Warren Buffett said: “Wall Street goes where the money is, and you can sell almost anything if you stick a famous name on it.” Man, was he right. And today, I want to show you a perfect example of this - YieldMax ETFs. They’re slapping famous names like Tesla and NVIDIA on what I call “buckets of yuck,” and sadly, people are buying them up. I just finished reading the third edition of Marc...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Presented By: Seeking Alpha Black Friday Sale* Hey everyone! I was reading Agree Realty's latest annual report when I spotted their preferred shares (ADC.PRA) on the cover page. Source: ADC Annual Report It reminded me that many investors, especially newer ones, might not be familiar with preferred shares or where they fit in the corporate structure. Even for those of us who've been investing for a while, it's a good refresher on why I generally avoid these things. Let me show you something...
about 1 month ago • 5 min read
Presented By: Seeking Alpha Black Friday Sale* Hey everyone! I thought I was done with Vegas after seeing Social Distortion and Bad Religion in April. But then my daughter's favorite band, Panic at the Disco!, announced they're coming out of retirement for the When We Were Young festival in October 2025... and well, Vegas keeps pulling me back! You know what's funny? My daughters (15 & 17) were telling their friends about our Vegas trip, and these kids were like, "Vegas must have sucked...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Presented By: Seeking Alpha Black Friday Sale* Readers of this newsletter know we bought a car on October 7th, 2024, and plan to sell off our positions in PepsiCo (PEP) and Johnson and Johnson (JNJ) to pay for it in full. We shared lessons learned in that newsletter, but the biggest and most painful lesson came this week. There's prevailing wisdom that any money you know you will need to use within the next two years should be kept from the stock market. The idea is that just before you need...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Presented By: Seeking Alpha Hey there, fellow investors! When I'm welding, setting the perfect amperage is critical. Too high, and I'll burn straight through the metal. Too low, and the weld won't penetrate properly and could fail. Finding that sweet spot between too much and too little precision makes all the difference. It turns out that investing is similar. When Precision Becomes a Problem Curtis Jensen, who used to run billions at Third Avenue Management, nailed it when he said: "DCF is...
2 months ago • 3 min read
Presented By: Seeking Alpha What, Me Worry? Look, I get it. Between working long hours driving around, welding things all day, and checking my news apps, I see the same election headlines as you. Everyone has an opinion about what will happen after the votes are counted. But I've learned something from reading history and listening to those much smarter than me... Here's the Thing About America The American economy has chugged along through wars, depressions, and 46 presidents. Think about...
2 months ago • 4 min read