SPAC Alert: Joby Aviation, Beauty Health Co (1 Bagger Alert), Circle Crypto | Prism: Is the Playing Field Equal?

 

Investing In Yourself – Using Pillars to Build Your Core	https://urbanomics.blogspot.com/2015/04/urbanomics-pillars-path-set-for.html
Setting Budgets + Saving for Black Swans	https://urbanomics.blogspot.com/2013/02/personal-finance-budget-101-free-credit.html
	https://urbanomics.blogspot.com/2019/11/hey-henry-high-earner-not-yet-rich.html
How to Open My First Brokerage Account	https://urbanomics.blogspot.com/2015/04/personal-finance-101-starting.html
Diversify your Life (Mind, Body, Soul, + Investments) HOW TO SEARCH MY BLOG:	Get Updates to Your Email When I Create A New Post:

Also Coming Soon - a series on #HowtoInvest. People have been reaching especially after the spikes in Gamestop, AMC, and other stock to learn the basics. I self taught myself how to invest beginning at the age of roughly 18 and have never stopped. To be a good investor and ensure you are not gambling (speculating), I'll cover (hardest parts of investing in RED):

Budgeting 101 - How to Fund Ur Investments?

Why Stocks as an Investment?

What is Ur Investment Profile + Personality?

How to Pick Stocks?

When to Buy Stocks?

How to Enter My Trade?

How Many Stocks Should I Own?

When to Sell Stocks?

Am I Speculating (Gambling)?

SPAC Alert:

Remember that example I gave you of how people pool money together to pay for things like a vacation. Well there are many ways my friends on Wall Street do this exact thing to buy companies that make them wealthy. They create companies called: Private Equity, Venture Capital, or Hedge Funds. The companies pool money together like we do except they ain't paying for a big vacation rental home. They pool their money together to buy a stake in babies, or 'infant' companies, that are still growing. Just like watching an infant grow, venture cap firms buy infant companies in hope the companies grow fast. This results in venture cap or private equity firms getting paid when the company goes public. This is like when the baby grows up and becomes and adult at 21. If a company goes public this is the perfect exit plan for venture cap investors. 

Remix Rewind: So to summarize for us regular folk: You buy something when young, like a baby and take care of it. Then you sell it when it officially becomes an adult. Who buys it then? Well, once public regular folk like you and me CAN FINALLY buy it on public stock exchanges. Take Coinbase, some investors have described making 100x on their investments like my buddy Garry Tan's firm Initialized Capital did. 

So why can't we all do this: Because us regular folk usually don't have access or are not considered qualified from an investment standpoint. Yep there are some rules that say you need to have a certain amount of money available to invest with venture cap firms.

To slightly level the playing field, investments called SPACs are becoming popular again and offer us regular folk a way to invest in younger companies. They are simply another way to pool money together (or raise capital) for investors who want to acquire companies that want to go public. Buckle up for a bumpy ride as many SPACs are unproven, high risk high reward investments. The trick is when I buy a SPAC, I don't know what company I will be getting. I am betting on the person who is organizing the SPAC to find a good company. So this is like me pooling our money together and you trust me to find the best beach destination for our vacation trip. You don't know in advance where we are traveling to. 

How to deal with High Risk: I like to maintain a small position (roughly 1-2%) in my portfolio. We call this risk allocation and we want to take smart risks. This is like buying a lottery ticket...but I think your chances are bit better in winning. 

Here is a breakdown of a few SPACs I own bought companies:

SPAC Investment I Bought: Reinvent Technology Partners

Public Company I now Own: Joby Aviation (JOBY) 

Why I May Hold This High Risk Investment: Electric Aviation Firm (think air taxis)

How is it Doing: Joby was recently trading under $10 dollars but is now up to $12. I now have a small gain on this lottery ticket.

SPAC Investment I Bought: Vesper Healthcare Acquisition Corp

Public Company I now Own: Beauty Health Co. (SKIN) 

Why I May Hold This High Risk Investment:  This CEO of SKIN, has the leader of Allergan, the maker of BOTOX. In the social media world of today, I think people are gonna spend big dollars to look young and healthy. I like to reinvest with people that have made me $$$ in the past. That's the power of the Mansa Musa network.  

How is it Doing: I now the proud owner of SKIN which makes HydraFacial or a spa-like treatment to to cleanse, extract, and hydrate  the skin.

Major Bag Alert: SKIN is officially a 1 Bagger, my small lottery ticket has already doubled:

SPAC Investment I Bought: Concord Acquisition Corp (CND)

Public Company I now Own: Per a press release, I WILL be the future owner of Circle, a cryptocurrency exchange like Coinbase which made a lot of people bank (pun intended)

Why I May Hold This High Risk Investment:  I do believe in the uses cases for Crypto because I own stock in Gold/Gold Companies and its to store value during times of deflation and inflation. So this is a good lottery ticket for the future.

What To Expect: 

- Circle Internet Financial Inc one will go public and be worth at $4.5 billion.

- Expect the deal close in the fourth quarter. (Like turning 21!) 

- The company will be called Circle and trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CRCL

- Circle issues and maintains a stablecoin known as USD Coin, a cryptocurrency that maintains an equal value to the U.S. dollar (think digital dollar...more research needed)

- Finally, I learned on of my A-Billi Squad billionaire buddies is in this investment as well. Dan Loeb, billionaire, who heads Third Point LLC is along for the ride.

To conclude, you can buy CND now or wait until the deal is closed in the 4th quarter when Circle (CRCL) will begin officially trading and use this trade an entry into the crypto space. 

I will do another post on the risky SPAC plays I am buying up and hope you share your thoughts.         

Prism - Separate But Equal

1) Florida Anti-Riot Law - Same Law Different Outcome for BLM Protesters: 

Why I'm Reading: Happy to see that Florida Gov. DeSantis DID NOT enact the swift penalties he said he claimed would occur if protesters shut down traffic. That was his language on the heels of BLM protesters but when protesters shut down traffic in response in support of change in Cuba he says "it's different". So why pass a law that one person can choose to enforce when he/she feels like. Sounds like crony capitalism to me. Picking winners and losers, a rigged game, maybe even outright racism. Is this a case of separate, but equal???

2) Being Outbid for Your Dream House - Corporations Outbidding Main Street:

Why I'm Reading: Who is behind the mad frenzy in the housing market. Yes, you guess it Wall Street. If you are wondering why there are 80 bids on a home in Washington DC, there were recent articles that you often are not competing against other homeowners... you're often losing that home to Hedge Funds.

3) Pay Your Taxes - Why The Wealthy Don't Pay Taxes:

 Why I'm Reading: I have visited many places across the world and I tell people it's never fun taking 2 hour trip for a car ride that should be 50 minutes. The reason some trips are longer in certain parts of the world is due to a lack of paved roads. So I remind the whiners that paved roads are what allow me to speed home from Chicago O'Hare and Midway and now the Indianapolis airport to get home. The concept of pooling together for the greater good is powerful. It's also why I am a big fan of masks and vaccines to eradicate this pandemic. Your health is precious and your time is. When taxes are used to give the public safety and more time...I am down for paying for that. So I'm sharing an article that exposes how the rich don't exactly pay their fair share and the tools they use. Sound a bit like separate but wait...we're all still equal.

              

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax

How To Buy - Week of 8/27: ROKU | SQQQ Hedge | Micron

 

Investing In Yourself – Using Pillars to Build Your Core	https://urbanomics.blogspot.com/2015/04/urbanomics-pillars-path-set-for.html
Setting Budgets + Saving for Black Swans	https://urbanomics.blogspot.com/2013/02/personal-finance-budget-101-free-credit.html
	https://urbanomics.blogspot.com/2019/11/hey-henry-high-earner-not-yet-rich.html
How to Open My First Brokerage Account	https://urbanomics.blogspot.com/2015/04/personal-finance-101-starting.html
Diversify your Life (Mind, Body, Soul, + Investments) HOW TO SEARCH MY BLOG:	Get Updates to Your Email When I Create A New Post:

How To Buy - Week of 8/27

I had 3 baby trades that closed this week, which put me 3 out of 3. Very small but we'll take it. You'll see some familiar friends on this list.

ROKU (ROKU) - Please search my blog for posts on Roku. When learning to trade heed this stock as a perfect example of why having a thesis and conviction is important. One day, I opened a COMCAST bill. The bill was toooo HIGH. I yelled to my wife why are we spending a mortgage on cable and internet. I did a bit of research and decided a Roku soundbar would kill 2 birds with one stone. I get a sound bar and we cut the cord. 

I wrote in this post: URBANOMICS: A Toast --- Refinance Your Future that COVID is was force of nature and the pandemic was like a recession. It made me reevaluate the services I use. Many would say I'm doing well but I still took the time to refinance and review all the things we were spending on. I eventually refinanced both of my homes AND we cut Comcast out. I had to go to AT&T kicking and screaming but my decent AT&T broadband service support our streaming habits and my growing consulting business. No fancy research just real life. This is called a tease BUT I held Roku through some rough moments and watched it flourish. If I had panicked I would have taken a big loss, now I'm sitting no a 1.5 BAGGER and we'll place guess that 5 figure number. I hope Roku goes down as one of my best trades and hits the 6 figure mark. Only time will tell:

SQQQ - A good example of how I was making a larger trade but the entire trade didn't fill. This is an income producing trade as I have a decent position hedging the markets in the event Technology stocks go down. This one is a bit complex but SQQQ is an ETF and I'm playing both sides. More to come when I do a Masterclass on leveraged ETFs.  

MICRON (MU) - Don't count Micron out yet. Simple bet, there is a semi-conductor chip shortage impacting most business. I looked at some of the weaker names in the semi sector and bet they will move of their lows. I like MU and Intel as diamonds in the rough.

Roadmap for Investing - Keep A Diary to Avoid "Whispers"

When it comes to buying stocks, you can guess or have a hunch and do just as well as I might do. But you will run into the same thing we all do eventually -- responsibility. In business, I call this the RACI model. I want to know who is Responsible | Accountable | Consulted | Informed (RACI) for your investment decisions.

When stocks are up, most people that contact me are excited to tell me they were accountable and responsible for making that great trade. Accountable because they made the decision and responsible because they executed the trade in their brokerage account. However, I often joke people don't often tell me about the trades that don't work out. Somehow, that Reddit board, website, podcast, or anonymous tip doesn't come up. You saw my Treehouse (THS) trade in my last post. Of my 9 recent trades that one, missed the mark and I have to own it. I have to go back and do the work to ask why did it not perform as I expected. I stay accountable for my losses just as much as I do for my gains. As discussed before, I should have closed my trade as it approached $52 and was very profitable but I've learned a few things about myself through investing. I could have been in the movie Tombstone...I'm Your Huckleberry and don't mind a good shoot out. So I log my trades and how they perform to gather insight into my tendencies and thinking before I buy a stock, during the trade, and to understand my rationale for why I sold. Keep a diary, get in your feelings the learn from them. A good life lesson, don't keep making the same mistakes twice whether it's dating, managing money, or investing in stocks.

No Sign Posts - Draw a Map

One of my favorite shows is "The Walking Dead". It makes you think, could you survive in a world with no sign posts or GPS? You better draw a map and try not to fall in the mud like Gabriel did in the most recent episode I watched. My map for investing is my diary and I use it to go back and repeat successful trades which trains my brain...like machine learning. If you've done your work, you don't listen to the whispers in your head telling you NOT to trade on a bad day. You trust your research and the process.

So here are a few items in the news that I'm jotting down to help me with my next set of trades:    

Real estate inventories are low and prices of homes are high. Existing home sales were up slightly in June and July and prices keep rising. Diary Note: Not excited to buy new property, but wonder if real estate companies like Zillow and Redfin are worth a look.

Data on people buying big-dollar purchases such as autos, fridges, washers, etc was up slightly. Next, I saw unemployment claims continue to decline setting a new low during the pandemic. I'm watching this close as the Delta virus continues to try and stall the economy. Diary Note: We as people are resilient so I'm watching Retail Stocks very closely. If you look back into my blog posts a year ago during the crisis, I'm searching my diary to see what I traded. Retail has been hit but it feels different this time. If we listen, like I posted last year and mask up and vaccinate...I think retail, cruise ships, restaurants and hospitality will thrive.

Extended Diary Notes:

I own Foot Locker (FL) and it just reported earnings (or it's quarterly health check). I think this trend will continue for retail, cruise ships, restaurants and hospitality stocks if we can all come together and do the right thing. Mask up and protect yourselves because it's the right thing for you, your family, and believe it or not...the economy. 

How To Buy - Week of 8/20

Investing In Yourself – Using Pillars to Build Your Core	https://urbanomics.blogspot.com/2015/04/urbanomics-pillars-path-set-for.html
Setting Budgets + Saving for Black Swans	https://urbanomics.blogspot.com/2013/02/personal-finance-budget-101-free-credit.html
	https://urbanomics.blogspot.com/2019/11/hey-henry-high-earner-not-yet-rich.html
How to Open My First Brokerage Account	https://urbanomics.blogspot.com/2015/04/personal-finance-101-starting.html
Diversify your Life (Mind, Body, Soul, + Investments) HOW TO SEARCH MY BLOG:	Get Updates to Your Email When I Create A New Post:

How To Buy - Week of 8/20

TREE HOUSE (THS) This trade started off profitable and then began it's slide. I could've booked a profit but I haven't been paying attention to my portfolio much lately. THS just recently shared their quarterly earnings report (i.e., healthcheck) and it was not was Wall Street was expecting. The stock has slid further and I now have to make a decision to book the losses or buy the stock.

Translate BIO (TBIO) - I decided to trade TBIO on May 6, as it began to drop under $20. This is a example of where I use data to set thresholds for when I want to make a trade. I just felt it wasn't going to drop much below $17.50. Reach out to be a paid subscriber and you'll receive these alerts. TBIO bottomed out around this level and even to my surprise I found out they are trading today at the $37 range. I traded this via options and made a very nice profit here in roughly 3 month. I just wish I also owned the stock.

FOOT LOCKER (FL) - This is my bet on things eventually reopening. Please mask up so my Foot Locker trade will skyrocket even further. Retail is based on our society addressing COVID and things getting back to normal.

ROKU (ROKU) - I've said enough about my best trade in the last year. It is giving Collector's Universe a run for it's money and most of my portfolio is in Roku.

CONTEXT LOGIC (WISH) - I continue to trade WISH options. I want to get rid of it, but as the stock declined these options have helped me earn income against a stock I no longer want to date.

JUNIOR GOLD MINERS (GDXJ) - Yes I own Gold and I think this is the right play as inflation is creeping in from all the stimulus pumped in the Trump and Biden era. It is also the right play if COVID is not contained and economies slow down. This is the old version of Crypto before Bitcoin hit the scene. Gold and oil have been on the decline but I look for Gold to bottom out as masks are up, fall and winter are coming, and things don't look so good at the moment.

INTEL (INTC) - Intel is an oldie but a good. I am playing Intel based on the new CEO, it being a strong value play, and the overall chip shortage. I have a few buddies in my A-Billi squad that were in this name as well and I'll be holding just NOT for the long-term.

AIG (AIG) - AIG is a play on financial stocks eventually rising as interest rates rise. Banks and insurance companies rely heavily on interest rates. They were increasing as inflation crept up, so if we can get through COVID as a collective country and world...financials will be a nice bet on the future.

These R The Breaks: Joby Aviation | Semi Chips | Cryptocurrency Scarface

 

Investing In Yourself – Using Pillars to Build Your Core	https://urbanomics.blogspot.com/2015/04/urbanomics-pillars-path-set-for.html
Setting Budgets + Saving for Black Swans	https://urbanomics.blogspot.com/2013/02/personal-finance-budget-101-free-credit.html
	https://urbanomics.blogspot.com/2019/11/hey-henry-high-earner-not-yet-rich.html
How to Open My First Brokerage Account	https://urbanomics.blogspot.com/2015/04/personal-finance-101-starting.html
Diversify your Life (Mind, Body, Soul, + Investments) HOW TO SEARCH MY BLOG:	Get Updates to Your Email When I Create A New Post:

Also Coming Soon - a series on #HowtoInvest. People have been reaching especially after the spikes in Gamestop, AMC, and other stock to learn the basics. I self taught myself how to invest beginning at the age of roughly 18 and have never stopped. To be a good investor and ensure you are not gambling (speculating), I'll cover (hardest parts of investing in RED):

Budgeting 101 - How to Fund Ur Investments?

Why Stocks as an Investment?

What is Ur Investment Profile + Personality?

How to Pick Stocks?

When to Buy Stocks?

How to Enter My Trade?

How Many Stocks Should I Own?

When to Sell Stocks?

Am I Speculating (Gambling)?

Joby Aviation Update (Ticker Change from RTP to JOBY)

I recently wrote about my investment in Reinvest Technology Partners (RTP). Remember that example I gave you of how people pool money together to pay for things like a vacation. Well RTP did that and invested in Joby Aviation. Joby Aviation is now a public company (similar to when a teen becomes an adult or like the corporate version of having a baby) and trades under the ticker “JOBY”. Joby went public so you and I can invest in their stock through our brokerage accounts. It is much more difficult to invest in a company when it is private. 

I won't disclose how I stumbled onto Joby as this is for subscribers, but I was happy to see some of my old friends have invested in this stock. I may have to add Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn) Marc Pincus (founder Zynga) to my Mansa Musa network under my A-Billi Squad. Yes both are billionaires and I was delighted to see they were leading a group of investors that pooled money to invest in Joby Aviation. (Tip: I was an avid listener to the podcast "Masters of Scale" and really appreciate Reid's guidance on how to scale businesses)

The Breaks: The lesson here is to determine who you are as an investor. I woke up this week to a headline "Joby surges on 1st Day of Trading". I smiled like Ice Cube and began humming "Today Was A Good Day". I thought about selling my shares and cashing in on a good day but this is not my trading style (however it may be yours). But these are the breaks: After the initial hype, Joby came down to earth and is now trading under $10 dollars. For a stock like this I like to play the long game and with Uber and Toyota also being big time investors I can't wait for air taxis to hit the mainstream. It may take awhile but "Meet The Jetsons" is coming. Joby make electric air taxis that take off vertically (cool). Pros: So not noisy, cool experience and potentially a traffic reducer. I have a small loss on this investment and that's okay because for high risk - high reward investments, I only maintain a small position (roughly 1-2%) in my portfolio. We call this risk allocation and I want to take smart risks.

Palantir

Palantir just reported earnings. Earning is like when humans get an health check, however; for a public company they usually report their health check 4x a year (or every quarter). Palantir happened to report their earning this week and the stock was up big. This investment continues to be a solid perform.

Trust but Verify:

• I first blogged about Palantir here: https://urbanomics.blogspot.com/2020/10/baby-on-board-roku-palantir-draftkings.html  (Note: PLTR was a new kid on the block and many didn't know that it first traded at $7 a share)
• I then reminded you about Palantir here: https://urbanomics.blogspot.com/2021/04/when-to-buy-playing-offense-side-hustle.html
• Then here: https://urbanomics.blogspot.com/2021/06/how-to-buy-june-17th-prism-invest-in.html

The Breaks: As you've heard me say in the past, while location matters... price matters even more. I've traded this stock 3 or 4 times  in the last year via options and it's been tremendously profitable. In my retirement account, I bought a bit high (around $28) and I'm taking a slight loss right how. I'm holding long term because they are the ultimate conspiracy theory investment. I joke people won't do the right thing, until their backs are against the wall. Take schools and mask mandates. Kids are being sent home in droves and FINALLY schools decide to reinstate mask mandates. Hmmm why stop something that's working. Because we don't want to feel like we have to live like the rest of the world --- reliant upon the reality that we need each other as a community to survive. I wear a mask for both me and you.

Palantir also reminds you of the realities of today. They store data for big government entities and promise military grade encryption in the cloud. Who could ask for anything more...except a Toyota. So they will grow as our need for data and surveillance increases by governments. Why because big brother is always watching 👀

 

Context Logic (WISH)

This is truly a speculation trade for me. I was listening to a momentum investor talk about the activity in this stock. WISH has been a great trade for me, a fling, not something I plan to hold for the long haul. But flings can hurt. 

Lesson: I try to avoid holding flings into earnings season (see definition above) because the combination of a volatile stock and not being in love with that stock can really hurt when they miss earnings (or fail a health check). I've been a tad bit distracted with a growing business and earnings just came out for WISH.

The Breaks: WISH reported horrible earning. But remember price matters. WISH suffered a drop in price of 20%, however; I'm not deep in the red because the loss from earnings was offset by the trading gains I locked in here:

So I will be trading out of this stock, because a good girl gone bad... thank you Jay Z.

Chips & Crypto: Intel, Micron, Coinbase, Circle

I might be called cryptocurrency's Scarface if I would have been an early investor in Coinbase like Nas and mad an estimated $100 Million. But I like value stocks --- stocks that trade for a discount. Remember my candy bar analogy...I only buy them when they trade for 50c. Well Intel and Micron have been on my VALUE radar. Both have been great trades for me. Intel is a value play because it's fallen from grace but still has the name recognition of an aging superstar in sports or Hollywood. Micron, is still a solid stock that seems to deliver. Both have fallen recently in the news and I plan to continue to trade around them (or date). This means, I don't think we have a long term future, like I do with Roku, but we'll be dating for the next year or so. Remember price matters, and I'm watching them closely to ensure my trades stays profitable.

Intel surprised me as it just disclosed they are investors in Coinbase, a crypto currency exchange. So as the value of COIN rises, Intel may have some growth potential that is tied to new generation technology that relies upon a massive amount of chips...too bad right the kings of chips are: Nvidia + Taiwan Semiconductor.

And last, I am an investor in Concord Acquisition Corp (CND). Like RTP and Joby, CND is raising a bunch of money to invest in Circle, a crypto currency exchange and competitor to Coinbase. This is a speculative trade but I'm hoping to be the next cryptocurrency Scarface...like Nas.

Sorry Not Sorry...Don't Mind Me I'm Living a Dream #getthebag