Main Street Investor

  Summer Lull It’s been a while since I’ve checked in. July and August are the “depressive months” for teachers (mostly kidding). While I’ve been devoting more attention to my full-time duties, I’ve stayed as in tune with the market as ever. By mid-summer, I was astonished by the resiliency of this bull market. It has digested uncertainty after uncertainty and continued to push forward. It’s as if it’s immune to policy, geopolitical, and economic turbulence — and there’s been plenty of that. Federal Reserve leaders once again gathered in Jackson Hole, Wyoming — the annual summer get-together for top central bankers — to discuss future economic policy. (I should’ve been a central banker rather than a teacher.) It seems rate cuts are on the horizon. Markets were thrilled with this signal on Friday, but have since pulled back. I have no clue what the near-term macroeconomic picture will look like. Truly, nothing would surprise me in the next several months. My focus remains on identif...

I launched Main Street Investor during the sharp sell-off back in April. If you recall, I urged investors not to get scared out of the market during that downturn. If you kept a level head, you likely had much to gain. Now that we’re approaching all-time highs, I want to share my thoughts on investing in this kind of climate. As I said in Navigating Market Turmoil , investors often get spooked into poor decisions during downturns. Just as important, though, is avoiding recklessness when markets are going well. I believe the risk now lies more in the latter. I’m not here to call market tops or bottoms, but I hope to provide guidance on how to think both strategically and tactically across different market conditions. Incredible Market Resilience I’ve been astounded by the market’s ability to keep pushing upward despite serious challenges. Back in April, when pundits were calling for the end of American exceptionalism, the main threat was Trump’s trade war. While that was a major co...

Until now, I’ve used this blog primarily to share thoughts on market trends and macroeconomic developments. While it is important to understand current market conditions and have a general sense of macroeconomics, I generally find little interest in covering these topics. I am, at heart, a bottom-up investor. In other words, a bulk of what I do is analyze individual companies and invest through that perspective, rather than through a macroeconomic perspective. Today, I’m offering a first look into how I evaluate a company for potential investment. As always, this is not financial advice. I’m not recommending that you buy any stock. Instead, consider this case study a window into my investment process. Why Regeneron? Regeneron is a stock I’m currently watching closely. I already hold a position in my personal portfolio, and I may increase it significantly. That said, it’s currently one of my losing positions—down about 20%. Still, I believe the future could be bright. Th...

It’s been about two months since I published   Navigating Market Turmoil . In that post, I urged investors to remain calm despite rising concerns over the end of free trade and American exceptionalism. At the time, tariffs and unpredictable economic policies had understandably rattled investors. Still, I cautioned against selling strong positions out of fear. That advice has held up. Since then, the S&P 500 has climbed roughly 16%, and many individual stocks have seen significant rebounds. The portfolio I manage has recovered 30% and is now approaching all-time highs. I share this not to boast, but to reinforce a key point: as I said before, investors must be greedy—or at least not fearful—when markets are down. The political maneuvering we’ve witnessed has had real consequences, and the market was right to price in those risks. But as I noted in  Navigating Market Turmoil , these issues were either going to resolve themselves or escalate to a point where hedging wouldn’t ...

  If you're plugged into the world of investing at all, you're about to be inundated with bearish news. Calls for a recession, depression, and the end of the world as we know it will start to flood the media. You’ll hear statements like “Trillions of dollars lost in the market in one day.” People might start advising you to cash out your retirement account and stuff it in a mattress. The truth is, when markets take a downturn, the fearmongers emerge, offering their opinions on why stocks are a broken asset class forever. Here’s the deal: I’ve been on the record saying that I am bearish on stocks in the short-to-medium term. The recently ignited trade war under President Trump will likely harm the stock market in the near future. If current policies continue along their current trajectory, they present a real risk to the structure of the American and global economic systems. However, there are really only two possible outcomes: President Trump’s trade war persists, we...

     From an early age, my father instilled in me the importance of spending money wisely, saving money, and investing money. I didn’t realize the importance of these principles until I was a senior in college (5 years ago). I don’t know what happened, but it was as if I had a spiritual awakening. I suddenly became infatuated with money. I wanted to learn everything I could about winning with money. I watched every Dave Ramsey video available on YouTube, began watching CNBC daily, read books, and considered every possible business endeavor I could think of. Unfortunately, I learned quickly that there are no get-rich-quick solutions out there. I learned that the most probable way to win with money, for most people, is a long and boring process. Luckily, winning with money is something that nearly anyone can achieve. To win with money doesn’t require any special talents, skills, or even a high income. The recipe for success is a combination of time, consistency, and discipl...