Portfolio Update: I Got Absolutely Smoked

Well that was fun. I just threw $10,000 in the trash. That’s okay, my kids probably won’t want to go to college anyways.

I’m being sarcastic…and harsh on myself. But I learned some important lessons that are far more valuable than $10,000.

Fortunately, I’m still up 15% YTD but what a silly mistake.

I have this thesis that the market is overvalued, we’re probably headed into a recession, and there’s a lot of stocks that seem like their back to “bubble” type valuations.

So I tried to get smart and use SQQQ/TLT to avoid potentially losing 10% - 20% temporarily in a market-wide pullback.

But then I lost 6% while the market was up. So in opportunity cost, it probably did cost me 8% - 9%.

Now I’m faced with a decision. I can stick to my guns or even double down because now that the market is even higher, I’m more convinced it’s overvalued.

But that’s not what I’m going to do. I’m going to swallow my pride. Admit I made a really stupid decision, and get back to investing the way I know how to.

Buy great companies that I want to own long-term and figure out how to pile as much money as possible into the market over the next 20+ years while still spending money on things I enjoy in life.

One thing that many investors don’t talk about is the non-investing costs of their style of investing. I can tell you for damn sure that investing in a way where I’m constantly adjusting my portfolio, shorting, and worried about losing 5% - 10% is a miserable way to live.

Over the last few weeks I haven’t been exercising nearly enough. I haven’t been present with my family, and I’ve just been obsessed with the market.

Even if I was right…. I don’t want to live that way. I’d much rather just stay invested and temporarily lose 30% of my portfolio, then just keep contributing to my portfolio and reinvesting dividends.

So yeah I’m done with SQQQ, I’m done with SARK, I’m done with TLT and I’m going back to owning boring old stocks.

You won’t hear me talk about hedging, or macro predictions, or what Powell’s going to do, or any of that junk. It’s all completely counter productive for how I want to invest, live my life, and educate/inspire others to invest through this newsletter.

What you can expect moving forward is 2 emails per week.

Saturday will be a review of any transactions for the week, and analysis of anything important that happened with the companies I own. This could be earnings call notes, investor presentations, or other big updates (not daily noise). I’ll also release deep dives of new companies when I have one to share with premium subscribers on Saturdays.

Tuesday will be cover things like investor mindset, important investing concepts, or lessons learned from legendary investor letters.

I screwed up and I realize some of you may feel compelled to unsubscribe. I totally understand that. I appreciate every single one of you and all I can do is promise that I’ll be honest/transparent and my true goal is to become a better investor in a way that aligns with living my life to the fullest and share that with the world through this newsletter.

Here’s the new long-term portfolio. There’s a reason I bought each one of these companies and I intend to hold them for years (for real this time!).

I’m excited to spend time in future emails sharing my thesis for each company instead of random emails about macro forecasts/shorting (how silly).

I hope at the very least, you learned a lesson about things that matter far more than money and how aligning you investing with your preferred lifestyle should always be prioritized.

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