When done correctly, there are very few things that change your life as much as becoming a parent. I say “when done correctly” because…well you know. There are plenty examples out there where it’s not.

But for the rest of us normal humans, becoming a parent is one of the most eye-opening, beautiful, challenging, draining, rewarding, hardest, best experiences we can ever have.

Earnings reports this quarter had 2 of my stocks (MSCI and SBUX) drop over 15% each in a single day. No matter how you look at it, that hurts. But if you pick stocks, it’s part of the process.

But you know what? I actually love picking stocks, and probably not for the reasons you might think.

When you're investing in stocks, there's a lot of noise that you have to deal with that can chip away at your confidence. Whether it's negative news stories about your stocks or comments from others who are quick to tell you all the things you're doing wrong.

It's tough for all of us, whether you're just starting or have been doing this for years.

But there's something we can do to help ourselves build and keep the confidence we need to see success long-term.

UnitedHealth Group (UNH) just reported Q1 earnings and on an adjusted basis they met or exceeded expectations. That is something that should’ve been expected, because UnitedHealth has been the best performer in its peer group and outperformed as a stock over the past decade.

McDonald’s (MCD) is my longest tenured stock, and the first one I bought when I started this portfolio. After 16 months, it’s actually down about 1% in terms of price return (not including dividends), and that includes me adding to the position when it dipped back in October of last year.

I spent 15+ years working in payments technology and infrastructure in my corporate career, and I’m here to tell you…Fintech as a high value category in stocks is nonsense.

When I was a kid, I loved Dr. Seuss books. They were fun, colorful, and they rhymed. As a parent I got to love them all over again reading them to my kids, which was great. But Dr. Seuss wasn’t just telling us about fish. He was telling us about stocks.

Well…kind of. Let me explain.

Researching stocks is hard. It takes time, effort, and thought. Plus, there’s no actual guarantee that it will help you do well in the market. For anyone who doesn’t have a real interest in it, it probably sounds terrible.

But what if I told you there was a research assistant that could take some of that time and effort away? It would still require though and it would still not be a guarantee of success, but it would be a significant step forward. Plus, it’s free.

Interested yet?

Knowing when to cut a losing stock can be tough. We have a tendency to believe they will turn it around and validate our initial analysis at some point. But there comes a time when we accept the reality that we were wrong and we get out.

But you know what’s even harder? Knowing what to do with a winner.

At the end of January, I talked about how GDP growth had been one of the catalysts of stocks soaring in the back part of 2023 and into 2024.

Since then we’ve received 2 more GDP updates and as far as I can tell, the pattern has continued.

When we talk about markets being irrational, we usually think about it in relation to bad companies at crazy valuations or great companies at really cheap valuations. But what about great companies with low growth prospects at crazy valuations?

It was announced this week that Capital One (COF) intends to buy Discover (DFS), which had a lot of people talking. Being that Capital One is the 4th largest issuer of credit cards in the U.S. and Discover is the 6th - together they would be the new largest.

Since the start of the year I’ve sold or trimmed my positions in Walmart (WMT), Schwab’s U.S. Dividend ETF (SCHD), UnitedHealth Group (UNH), and Hershey (HSY).

Some people have questioned why I would do that when value and/or defensive stocks are undervalued right now and other things are overvalued.

Six weeks into 2024 and my top four picks for the year have been off to a strong start. But now that we’re passed the initial earnings season for the year, it’s time to measure progress on how the businesses are actually doing.

A couple weeks ago I wrote about how I was adding a stock that didn’t pay a dividend and was at an 80 P/E ratio. That stock was Amazon.

Back in October I posted a video about how to monitor your stocks based on the expectations that the company gives you - not the headlines or even analyst expectations.

In my corporate career I used to manage planning teams for new development projects. I used to always say “the best plans never work” because in my experience…it was true.

The Magnificent 7 - AAPL, MSFT, GOOGL, AMZN, NVDA, META, and TSLA - are some of the most impactful, profitable and popular companies on the stock market. Combined they make up close to 30% of the S&P 500 index in terms of weight and all seven handily outperformed the total index in 2023.

If you’ve ever worked in a corporate job, and especially if you managed others, you’ve probably dealt with the challenges of having to hire or fire people.

The start of the New Year always brings hope for the future and a little bit of extra motivation to get going on that thing you’ve been wanting to start, whatever it is.