When to Buy Stock | Prism - What Would U Do? | Tech + Finance | Music 2 My Ears

 

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:

Coming soon is a post on Health -- The Body. You have to invest and know the data about your body. Like many people of color, I get nervous about hospitals and doctors. Thanks to my corporate job, I was exposed to annual exams and blood tests. Unfortunately, when I made the shift to being an entrepreneur I didn't keep up with my annual exams. And it may be costing me...stay tune for a future post on Health and how that impacts your Wealth. 

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)?

When to Buy A Stock

Enough talking -- pictures and videos are worth a thousand words, so I plan to move into the digital age here soon. I'm an old soul in a millennial body with a 9-5 job and a side hustle empowering underrepresented groups to find employment in the technology field (and it's cash flowing almost better than my 9-5 job!). Oh by the way, I own real estate (with tenants) and trying to grow that portfolio. So be patient as I plan to do a video series that will help you invest in yourself and #getthebag. My best asset class is my stock portfolio and yes, it allowed me to semi-retire at 37. I've documented how I've done it here on my blog (mistakes and all) for the last 15+ years. Don't believe people that say it's easy --- Trust But Verify. If they are NOT teaching you how to do it yourself --- Then You Are The Product. #facts

Leading up to my video series, which you've been asking for, here is an example of how I hunt for stocks. Sometimes I rely on my network of friends in my #MansaMusa network. They've helped me build my mini empire and I appreciate all of them as they've support me in different ways. When I got started I had a few #whentobuy rules. So today I'm sharing Rule #2 - Follow Da Leader | Whale Watch | Griot Rule.  When I first started I read so many books from my mentor Warren Buffett...we just clicked personality wise. So it took me awhile to ease away from Rule #1 but after reading and reading about Warren I understood I had a job and could never dedicated as much time as he did to investing. So instead I incorporated Rule #2 of investing is assets to my stock game. Like in Africa, we place our elders in high regard, so my Griot Rule is to follow leaders that have dedicated their lives to investing. My Grade A college degree helped me realize that mathematically I'm not going to follow just anybody...I want to follow those leaders that have outperformed over time. Wall Street calls these people "Whales", I like to call then Griots. I've gotten so good at learning from these leaders over time that I've sometimes made an investment and come to find --- they made the same investment AFTER I did. Yes vindicating, but it shows me their is enough to grow the pie for everyone. I am not competing with Warren or the other leaders...we are planting seeds together.  Here are 3 Griots, I've learned to trust very much over time and hold in high regard:

Learning From Warren Buffett (Street Cred: #ABilliSquad Member, Net Worth: $100B, Patient, Philantropist, Teacher): Shareholder Letters (berkshirehathaway.com) - This link is to his shareholder letters, which teach you about life, investing, and stocks he buying.

Learning From Ray Dalio (Street Cred: #ABilliSquad Member, Net Worth: $20B, Hedge Fund Worth: $140B, Brutal Honesty, Teacher) : Top 3 Investments: ABBVIE (Ticker: ABBV); BlackRock (Ticker: BLK); Linde PLC (Ticker: LIN) - If you've not read Ray's work on Principles...please do. I to am brutally honest and Ray was a shining force for me NOT to change. Here are his top 3 investments.

Learning From Michael Blurry (Street Cred: Net Worth: $300M, Contrarian Views, Brutal Honesty, Wants People to Do the Right Thing : NOW Inc. (NYSE:DNOW); Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC); GEO Group (NYSE:GEO); Molson Coors Beverage Co. (NYSE:TAP); CoreCivic Inc. (NYSE:CXW); HollyFrontier Corp. (NYSE:HFC); and he owned GameStop (NYSE:GME) before Ryan Cohen and I jumped in. - If you remember, I unfortunately called the beginnings of the Financial Crisis in this 2006 article: URBANOMICS: Huff, Puff, & Blow the houses down. Now fast forward to one of my favorite movies: "The Biggest Short". I, in my mid 20s didn't know how to invest in assets (housing) that I believed was going to fall hard from being overpriced --- guess who made hundreds of millions because he did -- Michael Blurry. My only solace was I bought my first property during the crisis at a steep steep discount.

Learning from a Griot is the way we've always done it. Elders have been there and done that. I then research on my on and try to understand why and make a decision for myself if I agree and should I invest. Remember my #LexusMentality - take the best from others especially when its not your main hustle.

Tech + Finance

1) Main Street America is "cashing out" or cashing in on their homes at the highest rates since the 2008 Financial Crisis.  

Why I'm Reading: I like to look at trends and I'm not a fan of debt so we'll see how this plays out. It didn't end well before and history has a strange way of repeating itself.

Link: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/cash-out-refinancings-hit-highest-level-since-financial-crisis-11615458602

2) 3D Printing Homes of the Future

Why I'm Watching: Game changing trends of the future make for great investments and help the culture. I see affordable housing for the masses??

Prism

Why I'm Reading: For those that don't believe many of us face racism or unconscious bias on a daily basis need to read this story. I am a shareholder of Tegna Inc (NYSE: TGNA) stock and found this in my news feed. Read this story about Adonis Hoffman and then tell me --- What Would U Do?

Link: https://www.reuters.com/article/instant-article/idCAKBN2B11TP

Music 2 My Ears

Why I'm Reading: I like to dig for new artists like I do for stocks. The hard thing with Freddie Gibbs is deciding if he's new or at 39 just finally get his dues. Amazing story of one man's struggle to get to the top.

Link: https://www.theringer.com/platform/amp/features/2021/3/10/22319899/freddie-gibbs-grammy-nomination-profile-alfredo-alchemist

My Predictions On the Upcoming War... (Free Picks Included)

Well I had a very interesting discussion last week on wars...and that was in a bar, so I figured I'd keep going I guess.  I could talk about North Korea but I'd rather talk about a different possible war.  I started off believing that only athletes and musicians "make it rain" and usually in dimly lit places :)

At Urbanomics, we don't leave you out in the cold, here is a quick definition from URBANDICTIONARY.COM:

Make It Rain: When you're in the club with a stack, and you throw the money up in the air... The effect is that it seems to be raining money. 

Then, I learned about Central Bankers around the world and their endless access to cash and they put guys like Lil Wayne, Adam 'Pacman' Jones, and P. Diddy to shame.  Central Bankers (around the world) are the equivalent to the US version of Ben Bernanke, the head of the Federal Reserve.  Earlier this year, I wrote about Ben and how some very smart investors (see David Tepper, Ray Dalio) were telling us that when the Fed 'makes it rain' it's our job to pick up the money and buy stocks.  We did just that and we've rode the stock market ALL THE WAY up to all time highs in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the SP500.

Here is where the war begins...other countries don't usually like when one country prints money because their goods become cheaper and the people across the world begin buying those cheaper goods and so far this has helped the US economy. So guess what they in turn do...THAT'S RIGHT, they sometimes do the exact same thing.  So who is ready for battle, see JAPAN.  They have an official that has promised to 'make it rain' at levels that only we've seen in here in America.  Here's why I find this interesting...and how we make money:

Dow At 14000 (Pt.2) - The Markets Are Going Higher!?!

You heard it here, the markets are going higher!  Okay that was in my best Jim Cramer voice.  In reality, I am actually a little nervous about the markets.  I guess I start to get nervous when family and friends usually begin to take more interest in stocks.  Usually by the time my sister is talking about the markets it means that its probably moved significantly HIGHER and she along with other non-investors are late to the party.  If you followed my last post on the Dow @ 14000 I gave you a video from billionaire investor, David Tepper.  That video was from September 24, 2010 and in that video he indicated WHY the markets were going to go up. Since September 2010 until now, the markets have soared up over 31%.  Yes believe it or not, I actually listened to this video when Tepper made his revelation that markets would go up because the Federal Reserve was continuing quantitative easing (QE). I won't bore you with what QE means, but my best analogy is he was saying the Fed is 'Making It Rain' in the club.  And think about what happens to the person that benefits when its raining money in the club...the next day they go shopping.  Well when the Fed 'Makes It Rain' on our economy guess what goes up, yes: STOCKS.  Which is why he was telling us to buy back then.  So in my mind...if you weren't picking up stocks back then you are a little late to the party and you do need to be mindful of this.

The next question is where do we go from here at Dow 14000.  Well listen to our friend David Tepper on December 17, 2012 about where he thinks the markets are headed now.


Listen for the following beginning at 2:02 in the video:
- He talks about tailwinds or good things going for the economy (Housing, Car Sales)
- There is 1 Trillion Dollars Worth of Stimulus Coming from the Fed
- The Fed will keep it up until the Unemployment (Jobs) Rate Drops to 6.5% Target

I would say he is in the camp of markets going higher until the Fed stops. And considering that the Job Rate is at 7.9%, maybe the markets go HIGHER.  But one thing I've learned is markets don't go straight up...so tread carefully.  But he's not alone, my ears perked up when I heard that Ray Dalio shared a similar point of view...stay tuned.

Competing Interests...

The current economic environment and its effects over the last few years has made the competing interests of various groups more pronounced during these times. This is why I wanted to write a post about competing interests. Recently, I was reading about the self interests of people as it relates to the low interest rates, which have been rock bottom for a long time now. I was surprised when I learned that savers and risk adverse people (think older adults nearing retirement) are not too excited about the prolonged low interest rates which are not earning them much money on their safe assets in their savings and retirement accounts. Even though the general thought is low interest rates are helpful in stabilizing and spurring growth in the economy, some competing interests say enough is enough. They are saying this because they would prefer to go back to living off higher interest rates. As I begin my data dump of thoughts for the month of April, I find myself torn like many of the elderly who likely want the economy to do well but want their interest income to jump back to life.

March Matrix Notes

I could do a follow up on why I'm a MACROVALUEQUANT, but who has time, its time to unload my thoughts and unplug from the matrix. I do a lot of reading on the train and listening to the radio and have started taking notes. In the past few weeks, I've tuned into the following discussions and readings:

Ray Dalio (find his discussion on CNBC)
Mr Dalio is the hedge fund titan who runs Bridgewater Associates and rarely makes tv appearances (I heard). After a few moments of defending his unusual methods running his firm, the man behind the world's largest hedge fund was very open about the cycle of leveraging and deleveraging and where the US is at in its cycle after the crisis. He talked about the following subjects:

He noted US Equities are cheap and will benefit from currency devaluations
The money flows will benefit equities
Portfolios are not properly weighted, too much in dollar denominated currencies
Gold is a currency that many are underweight
Stimulus will last through the 4th quarter, and private credit growth will be needed

MacroValueQuant

Why I am a MacroValueQuant
I can tell that I take trading too seriously because I have named my strategy. I couldn’t really describe it many years ago when I first started but I know that it has changed over time. The reason why I describe it as a MACROVALUEQUANT is because it represents a combination of what I slowly have morphed into. The first part of my anagram is MACRO, which describes my growing focus on truly understanding macroeconomics or the working of national economies. So I spend a large part of my reading and listening to stats about the US economy and even global economies. I truly believe that this is a strong approach when evaluating stocks because it gives you a lay of the land. So if you flashback over the past few years, I believe my investing alerts are more likely to be successful if I have better sense of the possible economic scenarios stocks face in the US. A few timely examples of MACRO events that were helpful to be aware of were the housing crisis and the financial crunch. The goal can be either to direct investments to areas that may benefit the most or to simply identify times where it is best to preserve capital.

QUANT represents my love affair with all things quantitative. Purdue University gets a little (okay a lot of) credit for the great mathematical emphasis on quant and statistical analysis. I’ve come to appreciate analytical models and scenarios that may produce highly probable events over time. I remember when I first learned about the January effect and the inefficiencies that exist at times in the efficient market theory. Some of these inefficiencies are due to human nature, things like fear and greed, and a quant approach can help alert when opportunities are available to benefit or stay away from.

VALUE helps to determine whether or not a stock is cheap. I truly have personally experienced not much good can come from buying something overvalued…stocks included. I don’t even really like buying many things at their normal value and prefer discounts and ‘margins of safety’.

So to summarize MACRO helps me find the most likely sectors and industries to benefit from. QUANT screens alert me of opportunities. And VALUE helps me verify that when I buy an alert, I am buying most of my stocks at a discount.