I want to preface that the contents of this post is for informational purposes. I do not condone or approve of any harassments or witch-hunting or the attacking of anybody.
 
Richard Lewis recently did a stream talking about the terrible state of CS esports and I thought it was an important stream anyone who cares about the CS community should listen to.
Vod Link here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/830415547
I realize it is 3 hours long so I took it upon myself to create a list of interesting points from the stream so you don't have to listen to the whole thing, although I still encourage you to do so if you can.
I know this post is still long but probably easier to digest, especially in parts.
Here is a link to my raw notes if you for some reason want to read through this which includes some omitted stuff. It's in chronological order of things said in the stream and has some time stamps. https://pastebin.com/6QWTLr8T

Intro

• "The last month has convinced me, that we are going to be heading into a dark place for Counter-Strike esports in 2021."
  • "I think I've seen the scene essentially kill itself."
• "For the past 5 to 6 years, we've basically been in a holding pattern of people coming into our game wanting to run it, wanting to run all of the esports and wanting to profiteer and its been sort of a concerted effort to drive them off and push them away."
  • "We're spread way too thin."
• "If Riot don't get involved and stop the scumbags that have moved over to Valorant from getting their feet under the table, Valorant is going to have real problems."
• RL thinks too much has happened all at once for us to do anything except watch it play out, like:
  • Recent CSPPA strike against BLAST
  • ESIC failures and them not being supported enough
  • Teams cheating i.e. coaches/bugs
  • Widespread match fixing
  • The Pandemic
    • "People who try to hold bubble events are so incompetent and fuck up and people get the 'rona and its their fault."
    • "People who say Flashpoint is a bubble is full of shit and is a lie and people are now suffering for that lie."
      • "To save money they let people go home and break the bubble for a week."
      • "Not just Flashpoint peoples decision, they have a partner that handles the production." (hinting FACEIT)
      • "People are trapped in hotels essentially under house arrest because of COVID restrictions and has fucked peoples lives up."
• "It's all too much, all of this incompetence, all of this greed, maybe we ride it out."
  • RL says he has talked to the Riot devs (the ones working on Valorant) and says, "They are so cognizant of all the fuck ups and all the problems we have in Counter-Strike."
    • He continues to say that this is factored into their business plan and that we never had a competitor, but just so happens to have one coincide, when we are at our worst.

CSPPA - Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association

"Who does this union really fucking serve?"

• RL believes that the CSPPA is a mockery.
  
  • He points out the hypocrisy that they wouldn't strike for the pros who were kicked out of ESL Pro League, or for Jamppi or dream3r.
    • He also says ESL paid CSPPA and are racketeering and many other TOs have to pay them to get their "seal of approval"
      • He says they would strong-arm TOs saying "well if you don't give us the money, these guys are so we'll just have to commit to playing their event."
    • Also points out that they will strike against a competitor they are not in agreement with (Flashpoint)
    • RL: "It's what it says about every other time you haven't done it and it's about every time you don't do it now moving forward." "The issues they've chosen to ignore this year alone are embarrassing."
    • Then he points out that there was no strike for Valve qualifiers even if we have no major but Jamppi and dream3r can't play in them.
      • "and Valve have said 'Oh yeah we know actually their stories are accurate, Jamppi didn't cheat, now in a legally binding document. Yep dream3r did have his account hacked in a LAN café', but they still can't play. Where is the fucking solidarity? Gone. Doesn't exist. It's not important [because] it doesn't affect you." "That's what the union does right now, it looks after all the tier 1 people."
• He says the CSPPA doesn't represent all players all the time and has driven a divide where you have the haves and have-nots
  
  • "We have a tier of players that operate with impunity and do not help their tier 2 or tier 3 players out at all." "If you are not a tier 1 player you do not matter, they don't event ask your opinion."
  • He tells chrisJ to admit and own the fact that the reason he didn't speak up during the ESL Pro League debacle is because it didn't affect him
  • "They are looking after some players at the expense of other players. How the fuck is that a union?"
• He says the BLAST situation is a reasonable dispute and supports the players but is not the right time for a strike and have not even identified the correct enemy
  
  • He thinks players are lashing out now due to previous incidents and are upset that BLAST are working with ESIC
    • He stated that CSPPA shouldn't beefing with ESIC and they should be working in harmony
  • He says what they need to do is talk with the teams/organizations that have sold that right to BLAST
    • RL: "Your employers, the people who pay you that massive exorbitant salaries, when you don't stream and you don't do interviews and you offer no value beyond your ability to click heads and you get 25k dollars a month." "Why don't you talk to them about it? Oh right. You're happy to take away BLAST's paper, but you don't want to risk your own."
  • "I am seeing such unbelievable cowardice from the players here with the battles you choose."
  • "Where was the strike action when in the qualifiers for the world championship, there were teams and players engaged in huge conflicts of interest?" "Where was the strike action when your image rights were taken and sold to every league you've ever been in every union type organization you've ever been associated with like, WESA, to your org every time you sign a contract, to the leagues you play in."
    • "Your image rights are essentially worthless now, there's about 10 fucking separate parties that have them, and how many of them are giving you anything for it? Not much pretty much your org by the way."
    • "That's a big issue. Your image is you, your image is your brand. What are you doing about that? Nothing."
• He is also angry at SirScoots who is "popping off" at people on Twitter who all want the same thing, which is 'A unified Counter-Strike scene for everybody, that works for everybody, that has a sustained ecosystem that nourishes everybody.' "We don't have that now."
  
• He also says their rankings are a joke
  
  • "Just so happened, oh look TACO, that very important prominent member of the board, we pushed his team artificially up when they weren't even in the fucking top 20, not by a long shot."
• He also says the ineptitude of the CSPPA cost Flashpoint a monitor sponsor
  
• "Is it really a player association or is it like a fucking agency at this point"
  

ESIC - Esports Integrity Commission

"They have been put in an impossible position."

• RL says that Ian Smith, the founder of ESIC and who was done work in mainstream sports, is a good and honorable man who has dedicated his life to integrity and sports. He takes on both sides, ensuring match fixers are punished, but also doing appeals and ensuring those punishments were fair.
• "ESIC is a tiny organization" and are in need of money, "They didn't run a grift like the CSPPA did."
  • "Saying 'you want our support and you want the players to turn up you better pay us.' They don't do that."
  • "Had startup seed money from MTG and since then they've been pecking shit with the hens."
    • Ian Smith made sure that the money given by MTG (Modern Times Group, parent company of ESL, ESEA, DreamHack) was nothing more than startup money and wouldn't be in debt to them
      • Ian Smith sat down with other TO's not part of MTG and wanted to partner with them. They declined and called ESIC "ESL spies and we will never align ourselves with you"
  • "They only were just able to afford, hiring a PR guy on a full time salary to deal with the press and send out those releases you've seen, this year."
    • "They have a tiny group of staff investigating these things and they have taken on the biggest problems in our scene: the cheating, the match fixing."
• ESIC have had "unprecedented levels of cheating to deal with, because there's something wrong with our scene ever since we went online. There's something wrong with it, everyone's lost their fucking pride and self-respect and they got no passion for it anymore, so they think fuck it, what's in it for me?"
  • He calls out coaches who are talking about players rights when they would rob and steal from them.
    • Also says more coaches being banned are coming
    • He also points out flaws in community's reaction to the punishments to coaches bans: "Half of the cunts still have jobs and some of the cunts got new jobs. We didn't even shun the cheating coaches."
• ESIC have "found I think another 2 or 3 exploits like that one and they are investigating them all right now, it's going on right now."
  
  • "I know that there are going to be more names getting banned, again."
  • "So they're doing that on a skeleton crew while, investigating 3 continents worth of match fixing in MDL and semi-pro level CS." "They're doing this with half a dozen people." "They don't have any money or any help. People barely even fucking cooperate with them, they are treated like pariahs. It's ridiculous."
    • "Why are the CSPPA popping off at ESIC on my Twitter timeline, when you should be working together." "because its all about what's in it in for me." "2020, the online era of CS: 'What is in it for me?' How can I cheat, how can I get my paper, how can I bleed this scene one last time before I fuck off and play shooty shooty bang bang Riot Games babys first fps."
• RL says that in the CIS region, teams have gone to tournaments and have been eliminated multiple times by the same team. We found out they were cheating and those players who lost, have been cut from their roster, careers ended because of cheaters.
  

Stream Sniping

"They're all at it in the online era, they're all at it, they're all cheating, they're all using exploits, probably that see through smoke bug got used a bunch of times"

• RL talks about how there is no integrity from dead (the player), always denying when caught doing something
  • On the topic of 'BLAST never said we couldn't stream snipe': "Lies, BLAST never said you could do that, they had to sort of retcon it." "because what happened after that they fucking started snitching and squealing"
    • "Suddenly you had like, 10 of the top 15 teams in the world, staring into the abyss of being banned for 6-12 months in line with ESIC recommendations."
      • He says that ESIC was put in a tough situation and couldn't enforce the bans because it would have resulted in killing CS. What resulted was, BLAST, ESIC, and teams came together and gave them a warning and told them, in RL's words "don't do this again or you're gonna get got."
        • He then says the top teams brushed this off and didn't give a fuck
        • The new MiBR team playing Flashpoint, that wasn't involved in the previous incidents are doing it again (stream sniping). He gave credit to Flashpoint for the quick resolution and punishment and respect for cogu's response to the situation.
        • "ESIC came out and said, once more, 'Guys, zero tolerance from now on.'" RL then got upset at community's reaction calling ESIC "pussies" for their non enforcement and said if we want competitive CS we cant ban the top 10 teams.
• He points out how players have no integrity and will do anything for an edge as long as they won't get detected or banned or it's within a grey area.
• "All of this shit was mad avoidable, even in the pandemic era."
  • He talks about why aren't we filming them. Why aren't there representatives for leagues and tournaments making sure players aren't cheating?

Match Fixing

"How many years have we let our scene be fucking pillaged by these greedy cunts?" "We just let it happen."

• RL says that gambling and skins betting which existed in moderation was "accelerated and blown up by the Call of Duty greedy fucks."
  • "Never forget TmarTn was on the board of EnVyUs." "His website, CSGOLotto, they had a bunch of off-the-books sponsorships." "NBK promoted them. People forget."
• "Those people who had access to the skins, go to the players" "Even people like s1mple, best player in the world, even he scammed knives and skins off fucking fans."
• Owners of skin casino sites would approach pros and lend them skins to use in tournaments and possibly keep them after reaching a deal
  • Players would tip off inside info about matches and teams in exchange for skins. Info such as: roster changes, how they played in scrims
    • They would use this info to bet and subvert the odds on their sites. "That happened religiously, I can't even tell you how many times it happened."
      • "I had access to the biggest database of information, from an inside betting circle in NA, and it would take information and screenshots from other pro players, who were feeding them info in exchange for money or skins."
        • "Some of these players are still playing." "Incredibly, there are players still in the CSPPA today, complaining about the BLAST recordings, that were embroiled in this murky shit back then."
• RL also says that there were tournaments where teams contrived with each other, who should throw, who should win.
• "There's a handful of people that are trying to fucking clean it up, and you think you get something over the line and you see something like the CSPPA and it's run by corrupt fucking chuckle heads, and now you've got another corrupt body you have to fight on a fucking daily basis, it's demoralizing."
  • "It's too far gone. Our entire semi-professional scene is compromised."
• "It's rife guys, I'm not going to lie any more. It's not just China, it's not just Russia, it's here, it's NA, it's Europe, it's Australia, so much more than you think, so much more than we can prove."
  • "I get sent chat logs all the time […] and they're morons, these players, short-sighted, amateur, morons and they're doing it on WhatsApp." People would get cut from the bets because they want to make more money, then they leak the logs. He says, from the chat logs, they spread "little" bets across every site they can (400 to 1k dollars) to prevent shifting odds
• He says the scumbags who've fucked off to Valorant will do the same there if Riot doesn't do something and says Valorant "is an esports scene heading for a very early fall based on the sheer volume of scumbags that are already there."
• "That's tier 2 CS in a nutshell these days. They know they're never going to play in a major, so what's the punishment?"
  • "All of these tier 2 fucks that are fixing games now they are like the fucking mafia compared to iBuyPower" "These guys are working with organized criminals to fix entire seasons worth of games. That's what's going on in your tier 2 CS."
• "I'm literally being told that there are players fixing games at all levels of Chinese esports and motherfuckers with guns are turning up to team houses and stuff."

North America

"Everyone in NA has left we've lost a continents worth of support during this pandemic and Valve haven't said a fucking word."

• RL says the Call of Duty "goblins" that destroyed CS for years are the same people who are now trying to leave CS. "The nerve to treat a game where the fans, and the community, and the TO's were nothing but good to you." "To just kick the players out now and go and leave and say 'It just doesn't make financial sense.' Oh you'll slither back when we have a major though for them stickers won't you."
• There's a cascading effect in NA where people don't bother with CS anymore and people like Chaos suffer.
• He says NA team owners are incompetent for always wanting it easy and always wanting a guarantee on their investment without skill or nuance.
  • RL says he would be able to market a team correctly and would have a good ROI and also points out how TSM wouldn't even be bothered to tweet that their team, which was one of the best in the world, was playing at the Major.
  • He also says not all NA owners are like that, compliments and respects Jason Lake who nearly lost everything to keep Complexity going.
• He then calls out the incompetence in Infinite Esports when they acquired OpTic Gaming and bought an Indian CS team.
  • He says HECZ is not to blame here and that they couldn't tell forsaken was cheating when it was so obvious.
    • They measured his reaction time to the likes of dev1ce and s1mple
    • When an enemy showed up on his screen he won that duel something like 44% of the time
    • "was like the number 1 player in the world statistically"
    • He brought a laptop to their bootcamp and refused to use the high end PCs that hey provided
• He respects Andy Miller (NRG CEO) and HECZ but says that the attitude of not being able to easily monetize their teams is "piss weak" and there needs to be a risk.
  • He says Chaos EC shouldn't be cutting their roster and should be competent enough to be able to figure out how to make money off their team.
• He says there are still opportunities in NA and people are panicking and pulling out, and says Valorant will be the same if not worse.
  • He also says "bums" who couldn't even get out of groups in NA competitions, are making crazy money in Valorant and says it will continue to inflate.
• He also said that he heard rumors that EG (Evil Geniuses) are done.
• He also thinks that the rumors of a Valve franchised league from before was sparked up from "these lazy fabled weak NA fucking team owners basically trying to see if Valve would bite at the hook if it was dangled and they didn't"
  • Slasher says NA team owners are really in favor of franchised leagues because they want to make more money. "Most of the powerful team owners right now are on board with ditching this third party organization structure, or they are trying to play this power politics with all the TOs, and that is contributing to a lot of the problems there"
• RL says that Riot has proved they can run a franchised league (LCS) and will be profitable in 2021 which is what a lot of team owners care about and says the competition will only serve to snatch people away from CS.
• RL continues to say, "I am so sick and tired of what we have done to this scene, I am just exhausted with it." "I think we have legitimately fucked it, I really think we have. I think we're staring into almost like a CGS (Championship Gaming Series) wasteland in NA." "Counter-Strike esports is a fucking joke."

Talent

"TO's have treated CS talent like absolute human garbage for years now."

• RL says that people like Sean Gares and ddk switching over to Valorant isn't for financial reasons because they are making less over there.
• He points out that TO's can't even give talent a 3 month in advance calendar.
• Because of the pandemic TO's won't hire certain people and some people are working more hours for the same money.
• He says we as a community don't respect journalists enough which is why we don't have good journalists.
  • He also says DeKay is leaving the scene soon and that Thorin is close to leaving also
• He says he had to talk a caster down from quitting and was struggling to find reasons.
• He says that DreamHack told Vince they would hire him but not if he wants to stick with dusT and says that this is the norm in esports. "Constant leveraging of people against each other." and says this is why we don't have a talent union.
• New gen casters are getting put into shit situations and the community's reaction to them is adding fuel to the fire
• He says the reason Moses left was because of the terrible conditions
• He says that Anders had to constantly leave his family and kid because someone fucked up or broke promises and had to constantly tell his kid to their face that "daddy can't be home this weekend."
• He says that esports has always been a lie to sell you this dream, "Meanwhile there's about 2% of the cunts getting all the checks."

Valve

"Anything that Riot does, is better than Valve's inaction"

• Slasher says that the larger aspect of esports as a whole compared to other entertainment mediums and Valve's lack of inattention are the bigger problems. He continues saying that the fact that Valve let their game be ran as an esport, they need to take on the responsibilities of it.
  • Both Slasher and RL wants Valve to take control but not on the level of Riot Games, there needs to be a balance.
• In case it was ever a question: Gabe Newell has been to 0 CSGO Majors.
• RL calls Valve out saying they could have done something during the gambling era.
• He says Valve used to come to the majors, but doesn't think they do anymore.
• RL had met with Valve at the Cluj-Napoca Major and had tried to appeal iBP's indefinite punishment and had also gave Brax's life story:
  • A recent family member passed away, they had lost a lot of income, they had to live in trailer, iBuyPower did not pay any salaries, and was pressured by family to make money who didn't support his career.
  • RL said that Valve told him, "How dare you try and make us feel guilty." "We shouldn't feel bad about enforcing the only thing that matters that we need to make players afraid of: cheating and match fixing"
  • RL also tried to share other info about match fixing and nothing came of it
• RL points out that Source 2 or a new engine is not something you will want based on the experience of transitioning from CS 1.6 to CS:S. "Valve's track record with brand new engines being launched, not fucking great from what I remember."
• Slasher says "If there is anything the community should do, is pressure Valve to hire a community manager."
  • They say that we need a commissioner, a community manager (not the person who runs the Twitter who posts memes all day), then we need to have a circuit
• RL reiterates that Valve doesn't care about CS esports and says they need to change the culture at Valve to make them care about CS esports
  • Slasher says a systemic problem is making it so working on CSGO would be a bad decision for you as an employee for Valve
• He also hasn't talked to Valve in ages and have sent over bugs and cheats and doesn't get emails back anymore
• Slasher says we should be directing attention at the developer leads, pointing out Ido Magal, if he even is still the project lead
  • RL thinks that Ido and Brian are the only people that "vaguely even give a fuck about CS" and were the only people that RL recalled that actually read Reddit and paid attention from time to time
• "It is really fucking precarious. Somebody has got to step the fuck up and start giving a shit"
  • Slasher suggests org owners, with CSPPA, with ESIC, with TOs have a concerted effort against Valve
• "Riot Games are doing better things than Valve in the esports space" which is something RL didn't think he'd say.
• "People who used to be talent, working with unions, arguing with other talent, when the unions fucked them over, can't understand their perspective, TOs fucking over broadcast talent, broadcast talent wanting to leave and go and work for orgs, orgs having no money, Valve might take coaches away because all the coaches are cheating, ESIC has about 4 people in a fucking call doing the investigations, everyone thinks they're spies for ESL, ESL are just the evil fucking overlords wanting to rule the scene and will just somehow, like cockroaches outliving a nuclear bomb, and Valve are in a fucking holiday in Hawaii thinking about the next Dota character because they don't give a fuck about us."

Closing Statements

"We've peaked. If we want to sustain and exist, now is the time to figure it out. No esports lasts as long as this, we've already done 8 years. We've already broke the records. We have got to figure out a way to coexist and drive the negative forces out and we need to do it as a collective and we're not doing that."

• RL compared the Counter-Strike scene to the people on the Titanic who ran around with guns robbing people while the boat was sinking.
• "We have given up on being a respectable esports scene." "We are now a conduit to make money for those who want to just milk it, just have one last ride, one last roll of the dice. It's done." "What a fucking mess. What have we done to our fucking scene?"
• "There's just too much self-interest driving all of this." "I don't see a way we stop the dominoes." "When it's that bad, when there's that many dishonest people that ESIC have to come out and say that if we punish them all there's no one left. What does that tell you?"
• "How many opportunities have we had to clean house? How many times have we said, 'this must never happen again', and another scandal." "The entire skins betting operations was the biggest criminal conspiracy in esports ever executed and no one has been punished for it." "The people who could be driving that don't want to."
• "Right now people are fans of those organizations because the scene has value. It is worth being a fan of Astralis because they are excellent at Counter-Strike. It is worth being a fan of s1mple because he is the best player in Counter-Strike, maybe the exception of ZywOo. If the scene is devalued, if the scene loses its meaning, those things lose its meaning too, and people will leave, people will stop tuning into the games. I have seen it happen in multiple esports, this is not my first time at the rodeo. I am getting big Brood War vibes right now and I don't like it."
• "The role you play in all of this as fans, as viewers, as listeners, as consumers of esports content, it's absolutely imperative that you know who the good guys are. It's absolutely imperative that you use your voice. It's absolutely imperative that when things are bad, you know who, at least, is trying to make them good, and you have to apply your criticism to the right targets."
  • He continues saying it's no good in continuing to attack ESIC and saying how they are bad, ESIC have it hard
• He says CSPPA are on the right side of the argument on BLAST but have been on the wrong side of many arguments many times.
  • "If you are not willing to stand along side the weakest member of the union, with the least amount of influence, and the least amount of power, then it is not a union at all and you shouldn't pose as one." "You wanna serve a bunch of special interest do it, everyone else in esports fucking does, but do not pose as something you are not." "We love the players. I've been fighting for players rights for as long as I've been able to, but the CSPPA is not what we needed."
    • "They are not applying the pressure to the right people, they are not fighting the right battles, they are not helping their weaker members."
• He says what orgs have done by keeping or hiring coaches is bad. "When you give up on holding an appreciable standard, you've lost the scene" "Competition matters, rules matter, punishments matter, achievements matter, excellence matters" "If you start stripping that away, you have nothing" "You guys need to take that knowledge and apply it sensibly."
• "Valve has sold you all down the river, they sold everyone in the esports scene down the river, tournament organizers are selling their talent down the river. Don't hate on them for sounding tired after a 16 hour day. Don't hate on them because the hype for a matchup they've seen for the 20th time in the past 3 months, they can't be as excited or it sounds contrived. Support your guys, they're there for you, these are your people."
• "This community has got to start acting like one for the first fucking time. Just put the petty shit away, let's try and fix this fucking scene while we still have one to save."
• "You can't rely on Valve, you can't rely on ESL, you can't rely on the CSPPA, you can't rely on anyone." "Once again, it's gonna be the likes of us, the amateurs, the people who give a fuck, rolling up our sleeves and grafting." "I'm old and tired and I don't want to have to do it again. People need to pick up the torch and do it."
  • "Like Michal did, like Dudenhoeffer did. You see something wrong, fix it. You see somebody doing something wrong, call it out. If you think something could be better, let people know."
• "Vote with your wallets if you're not happy with the direction Valve goes in. If when we do get to the Major, they serve up another subpar, same old bullshit stickers and signatures package again, do not buy it."
  • "You're a powerful block and if you use it correctly we can fucking avert this disaster."
• "I'm not doing another year in this broken, bust-up fucking scene, where everyone is miserable, everyone is broke, everyone is tired, and everyone is trying to fucking rob everyone else, blind, while the fucking people who are meant to be protecting you, are just fucking enhancing it and lining their own pockets."
  • "I'm not doing it anymore and you shouldn't want to do it either."
• "I stand by every fucking thing I said. I mean it, because this game fucking matters to me, this scene fucking matters to me. I put my life into this, my adult life, and to see it in this state is fucking sad."

Like most of you reading this, I’ve read too many terrible marketing & startup-related books.
Growth Hacker? I suppose it was okay, for it’s time.
This Is Marketing? Took nothing from it.
Traction? It could have been summed up in a blog post.
After searching for ‘Top 10 Marketing Books’ and reading everything I could find on those lists over the last few years, I’ve stopped buying marketing books because almost everyone was either aimed at beginners, were written as a lead-magnet with the aim of selling you consulting or a course, or they simply were written without anything actionable that I could actually ‘use’.
Like many during the last 9 months, my agency moved out of our office and we have worked entirely from home. A positive that came from that I started to read way more often, usually aiming for a book a week.
The first book I read was a gift that I received a couple of years back and had been on my shelf collecting dust ever since. It was the only book that I owned which I hadn’t already read, so to make things simple I started with that. It was The Brand Gap by Marty Neumeier.
It absolutely blew me away.
I read it from cover to cover in one sitting and then read it again the following week. I told everyone that would listen: “The Brand Gap is the single most important book I’ve ever read”.
After this, I spoke to friends working in branding, design, copywriting, and project management and asked for book recommendations. I specified that I didn’t want books that only scratched the surface, I wanted to read the books that changed their entire mindset and way or working.
I ended up with a huge reading list (and a few shelves full of books) which I worked my way through over the last few months. There was no filler, and nothing I’d consider to be average — I gained something significant from every single book.
I’ve compiled a list of seven of the books which I’d consider to have had the biggest impact on me.
For each book mentioned I’ll include a link to Bookshop, along with a testimonial and some of the book description.
1. The Brand Gap — Marty Neumeier

“A well-managed brand is the lifeblood of any successful company. Read this book before your competitors do!” ―TOM KELLEY, GENERAL MANAGER, IDEO
THE BRAND GAP is the first book to present a unified theory of brand. The second edition features a 220-term brand glossary and a premium softcover binding. Whereas most books on branding are weighted toward either a strategic or creative approach, this book shows how both ways of thinking can unite to produce a “charismatic brand” — a brand that customers feel is essential to their lives.

2. Everybody Writes — Ann Handley

“All your shiny new channels, properties, and platforms are a waste of space without smart, useful content. Ann Handley’s new book helps make every bit of content count — for your customers and your bottom line.” — Kristina Halvorson, President, Brain Traffic
If you have a website, you are a publisher. If you are on social media, you are in marketing. And that means that we are all relying on our words to carry our marketing messages. We are all writers.
Everybody Writes is your go-to guide to attracting and retaining customers through stellar online communication, because in our content-driven world, every one of us is a writer.

3. How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don’t Know — Byron Sharp

“…marketers need to move beyond the psycho-babble and read this book… or be left hopelessly behind.” — Joseph Tripodi, The Coca-Cola Company
Professor Byron Sharp is the Director of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science at the University of South Australia. The Institute’s fundamental research is used and financially supported by many of the world’s leading corporations including Coca-Cola, Kraft, Kellogg’s, British Airways, Procter & Gamble, Nielsen, TNS, Turner Broadcasting, Network Ten, Simplot, Mars and many others.

4. D&AD. The Copy Book

“The Copy Book convinced me that everyone in business should study the art of copywriting.” — Fortune.com
The book features a work selection and essays by 53 leading professionals in the world, including copywriting superstars such as David Abbott, Lionel Hunt, Steve Hayden, Dan Wieden, Neil French, Mike Lescarbeau, Adrian Holmes, and Barbara Nokes.
The lessons to be learned on these pages will help you create clearer and more persuasive arguments, whether you are writing an inspiring speech, an engaging web banner or a persuasive letter. This is not simply a “must-have” book for people in advertising and marketing, it is also a “should-have” for anyone who needs to involve or influence people, by webpage, on paper, or in person.

5. Junior: Writing Your Way Ahead in Advertising — Thomas Kemeny

“If my older and wiser brother were an ad book, these would be his exact words. If he’d ask me to wash his filthy car every Sunday in exchange for his wisdom, I’d say ‘No problem, ‘ knowing I got the better end of the deal.” — PAUL MALMSTROM, Creative Chairman and Co-Founder, Mother
There are a lot of great advertising books, but none that get down in the dirt with you quite like this one. Thomas Kemeny made a career at some of the best ad agencies in America. In this book he shows how he got in, how he’s stayed in, and how you can do it too. He breaks apart how to write fun, smart, and effective copy-everything from headlines to scripts to experiential activations-giving readers a lesson on a language we all thought we already knew.

6. Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: The Classic Guide to Creating Great Ads — Luke Sullivan

“Classic must-read Sullivan mixed with innovation master Boches make the perfect duo. This is the book that will help guide new talent to great career starts. Required reading for a new era.” — Deborah Morrison**,** Distinguished Professor of Advertising, University of Oregon
Hey Whipple, Squeeze This has helped generations of young creatives make their mark in the field. From starting out and getting work, to building successful campaigns, you gain a real-world perspective on what it means to be great in a fast-moving, sometimes harsh industry. You’ll learn how to tell brand stories and create brand experiences online and in traditional media outlets, and you’ll learn more about the value of authenticity, simplicity, storytelling, and conflict.

7. Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind — Al Ries, Jack Trout

The first book to deal with the problems of communicating to a skeptical, media-blitzed public, Positioning describes a revolutionary approach to creating a “position” in a prospective customer’s mind-one that reflects a company’s own strengths and weaknesses as well as those of its competitors.
“…Ries and Trout taught me everything I know about branding, marketing, and product management. When I had the idea of creating a very large thematic community on the Web, I first thought of Positioning….” — David Bohnett, Chairman and Founder of GeoCities

So, there you have it. It’s worth nothing, my list above is just that; my list. I’m sure there are plenty of people that read books from that list and for whatever reason, it just didn’t resonate with them in the same way that Growth Hackersdoesn’t do it for me, either. These are simply the books I’d consider to be game-changing, and now recommend them to anyone working in marketing & e-commerce.
Got a book recommendation? I’d love to hear! Share some recommendations below.

Like most of you reading this, I’ve read too many terrible marketing & startup-related books.
Growth Hacker? I suppose it was okay, for it’s time.
This Is Marketing? Took nothing from it.
Traction? It could have been summed up in a blog post.
After searching for ‘Top 10 Marketing Books’ and reading everything I could find on those lists over the last few years, I’ve stopped buying marketing books because almost everyone was either aimed at beginners, were written as a lead-magnet with the aim of selling you consulting or a course, or they simply were written without anything actionable that I could actually ‘use’.
Like many during the last 9 months, my agency moved out of our office and we have worked entirely from home. A positive that came from that I started to read way more often, usually aiming for a book a week.
The first book I read was a gift that I received a couple of years back and had been on my shelf collecting dust ever since. It was the only book that I owned which I hadn’t already read, so to make things simple I started with that. It was The Brand Gap by Marty Neumeier.
It absolutely blew me away.
I read it from cover to cover in one sitting and then read it again the following week. I told everyone that would listen: “The Brand Gap is the single most important book I’ve ever read”.
After this, I spoke to friends working in branding, design, copywriting, and project management and asked for book recommendations. I specified that I didn’t want books that only scratched the surface, I wanted to read the books that changed their entire mindset and way or working.
I ended up with a huge reading list (and a few shelves full of books) which I worked my way through over the last few months. There was no filler, and nothing I’d consider to be average — I gained something significant from every single book.
I’ve compiled a list of seven of the books which I’d consider to have had the biggest impact on me.
For each book mentioned I’ll include a link to Bookshop, along with a testimonial and some of the book description.
1. The Brand Gap — Marty Neumeier

“A well-managed brand is the lifeblood of any successful company. Read this book before your competitors do!” ―TOM KELLEY, GENERAL MANAGER, IDEO
THE BRAND GAP is the first book to present a unified theory of brand. The second edition features a 220-term brand glossary and a premium softcover binding. Whereas most books on branding are weighted toward either a strategic or creative approach, this book shows how both ways of thinking can unite to produce a “charismatic brand” — a brand that customers feel is essential to their lives.

2. Everybody Writes — Ann Handley

“All your shiny new channels, properties, and platforms are a waste of space without smart, useful content. Ann Handley’s new book helps make every bit of content count — for your customers and your bottom line.” — Kristina Halvorson, President, Brain Traffic
If you have a website, you are a publisher. If you are on social media, you are in marketing. And that means that we are all relying on our words to carry our marketing messages. We are all writers.
Everybody Writes is your go-to guide to attracting and retaining customers through stellar online communication, because in our content-driven world, every one of us is a writer.

3. How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don’t Know — Byron Sharp

“…marketers need to move beyond the psycho-babble and read this book… or be left hopelessly behind.” — Joseph Tripodi, The Coca-Cola Company
Professor Byron Sharp is the Director of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science at the University of South Australia. The Institute’s fundamental research is used and financially supported by many of the world’s leading corporations including Coca-Cola, Kraft, Kellogg’s, British Airways, Procter & Gamble, Nielsen, TNS, Turner Broadcasting, Network Ten, Simplot, Mars and many others.

4. D&AD. The Copy Book

“The Copy Book convinced me that everyone in business should study the art of copywriting.” — Fortune.com
The book features a work selection and essays by 53 leading professionals in the world, including copywriting superstars such as David Abbott, Lionel Hunt, Steve Hayden, Dan Wieden, Neil French, Mike Lescarbeau, Adrian Holmes, and Barbara Nokes.
The lessons to be learned on these pages will help you create clearer and more persuasive arguments, whether you are writing an inspiring speech, an engaging web banner or a persuasive letter. This is not simply a “must-have” book for people in advertising and marketing, it is also a “should-have” for anyone who needs to involve or influence people, by webpage, on paper, or in person.

5. Junior: Writing Your Way Ahead in Advertising — Thomas Kemeny

“If my older and wiser brother were an ad book, these would be his exact words. If he’d ask me to wash his filthy car every Sunday in exchange for his wisdom, I’d say ‘No problem, ‘ knowing I got the better end of the deal.” — PAUL MALMSTROM, Creative Chairman and Co-Founder, Mother
There are a lot of great advertising books, but none that get down in the dirt with you quite like this one. Thomas Kemeny made a career at some of the best ad agencies in America. In this book he shows how he got in, how he’s stayed in, and how you can do it too. He breaks apart how to write fun, smart, and effective copy-everything from headlines to scripts to experiential activations-giving readers a lesson on a language we all thought we already knew.

6. Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: The Classic Guide to Creating Great Ads — Luke Sullivan

“Classic must-read Sullivan mixed with innovation master Boches make the perfect duo. This is the book that will help guide new talent to great career starts. Required reading for a new era.” — Deborah Morrison**,** Distinguished Professor of Advertising, University of Oregon
Hey Whipple, Squeeze This has helped generations of young creatives make their mark in the field. From starting out and getting work, to building successful campaigns, you gain a real-world perspective on what it means to be great in a fast-moving, sometimes harsh industry. You’ll learn how to tell brand stories and create brand experiences online and in traditional media outlets, and you’ll learn more about the value of authenticity, simplicity, storytelling, and conflict.

7. Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind — Al Ries, Jack Trout

The first book to deal with the problems of communicating to a skeptical, media-blitzed public, Positioning describes a revolutionary approach to creating a “position” in a prospective customer’s mind-one that reflects a company’s own strengths and weaknesses as well as those of its competitors.
“…Ries and Trout taught me everything I know about branding, marketing, and product management. When I had the idea of creating a very large thematic community on the Web, I first thought of Positioning….” — David Bohnett, Chairman and Founder of GeoCities

So, there you have it. It’s worth nothing, my list above is just that; my list. I’m sure there are plenty of people that read books from that list and for whatever reason, it just didn’t resonate with them in the same way that Growth Hackersdoesn’t do it for me, either. These are simply the books I’d consider to be game-changing, and now recommend them to anyone working in marketing & e-commerce.
Got a book recommendation? I’d love to hear! Share some recommendations below.

In this post I am going to share my experience as I start a new portfolio from 0$ and keep adding funds to it every month as I try to grow it as fast as possible
Hey everyone Happy Thanksgiving and Welcome! So, I have deposited and invested in the stock market all the money I managed to save up in the last month as I deposited 3500$ in my eToro portfolio on the 12th of November and I am already up more than 7% in just two weeks.
As my portfolio has constantly outperform the big 3 indexes the Nasdaq100, the SP500 and the Dow Jones 30 almost every day since starting my portfolio. Here is a comparison of my portfolio vs the indexes since starting as I am up over 7%. Portfolio v Index
So i wondered? Is it really bad to own more stocks? Is less > more? What is your opinion on this subject? I believe that it is way better to be invested in more companies and to add and grow your position in time as you also see how the companies evolve and you can also do some price averaging.
So here is my current portfolio composition as I split all my money equally to start, I will go into very few little details about everyone so I don’t make this a 2 hour read time.
I will start now by going alphabetically and not in the most important order as the first company that I own is BYD which is a rival company for both Tesla and NIO in the EV market as they focus on cars, new energy solutions and electronics. They are also developing a lot of commercial EV like buses, coaches and taxis which will be a great addressable market for them as they are not rivaled in those segments at the moment. The company has gone up a lot in value this year as you can see in this graph and have a Forward P/E of more than 100 but I believe this company will greatly expand its sales and be one of the leaders in the segment especially in China which is the biggest EV market. https://ibb.co/gVVwpfR / https://ibb.co/z7YBGr9
The second holding is Apple, is there anybody that doesn’t know this company? They are the biggest company in the world and they continue to expand with new products and services every day, I don’t see this company going down in the short term or the long term as they have pretty expensive at a 35 P/E but earnings are still rising especially with more subscription based income coming in with the release of the Apple One Bundle. https://ibb.co/Tm3hWMZ / https://ibb.co/Q9YjJTx / https://ibb.co/BrzkHCY
AbbVie is a health company that produces a lot of great drugs and has more than 26 million patients in over 200 countries that are treated every year. They are one of the best companies in the sector and are still down about 25% from the all time highs while only trading at a forward P/E of 8 which is very low. https://ibb.co/9nn4z0q / https://ibb.co/mXh3JL5 / https://ibb.co/cwhJgB5
AMD is a well established companies that creates high performance GPU’s for both personal computer and for data centers, the company has turned around and have started a great path to success since the newest CEO took the job in 2014 as the stock was trading at 2$ and while the company is trading at a very high forward P/E they have a lot of room to grow in this new economy as the EPS is expected to increase by more than 40% quarter over quarter https://ibb.co/dpwYPcy / https://ibb.co/7vwWHtC / https://ibb.co/yF0RmQv
Amazon is the internet retail juggernaut and cloud servicing company that has also started to expand in more and more domains like pharmacy just last week, though the company is also trading at a very high PE they have a lot of room to grow internationally and also are expanding in a lot more domains at a very fast rate. https://ibb.co/4TnGhkt / https://ibb.co/c6W2Ypx
Aphria is a Canadian company that mainly grows cannabis for medical use but has recently acquired a beverage company and is look to expand its product line, especially with the legalizing of marijuana more and more obvious in the US. They are one of the companies that stands to benefit the most from this as they are also expected to be the first to reach profitability by next year compared to Aurrora Canabis and Cannopy Growth. https://ibb.co/KrfL267 / https://ibb.co/kJ8yxDR
Broadcom is one of the biggest American semiconductor solutions provider, they are a very good play for the sector as they only trade at a forwarde P/E of 17 which is very good compared to comptetitors. https://ibb.co/8KFmX88 / https://ibb.co/q18SzPb
Everyone also knows Boeing as they are one of the biggest commercial manufacturers of jetliners, defence, space and security systems. The have suffered a lot in the last 2 years after the 737 accidents and the recent stay-at-home economy, but the ban on the plain has been lifted in the US and will be followed by the European Union soon, they have a big backlog of planes to work through while this situation will improve and air travel returns slowly in the next years. https://ibb.co/JxZYZ6D / https://ibb.co/NVbhDLQ
Alibaba is a online e-commerce giant that has expanded into cloud computing services also and stands to benefit a lot from the stay-at-home economy while also having just a forward PE of 32 which is very low compared to Amazon as they are the Chinese version of them. The company also owns Ant Group which is one of the largest fin tech companies in the world and will likely gain a lot after they finally manage to go public. https://ibb.co/0JPN6DN / https://ibb.co/6NgjGNV /
Berkshire is the child company of Warren Buffet as they are a holding company that engages in diversified business like technology, banks, insurance and much more. The company is currently trading at a very low P/E an barely above the price/book value as even the founders of the company believe this as they have continued to buy back shares of the company in the last year at the fastest rate in company history. https://ibb.co/bP6VjpM / https://ibb.co/hf5hX39
Caterpillar is one of best companies in manufacturing, construction and mining equipment. They are trading at almost 3 time sales with a high P/E but this is likely to regain momentum with the China trade war relaxing with the new Biden administration as well as the reopening of the economy https://ibb.co/pnC17PM / https://ibb.co/2vsQSjt
Chipotle Mexican is one of the best companies right now in the fast food business as they continue to innovate and have just opened they’re first digital only store. The company is trading at a very high P/E but has substantial growth potential so I believe it will be a great buy for the future. https://ibb.co/GCqd3Y9 / https://ibb.co/JnBm3bx
Costco is one of the world biggest retailers that has a great business model as they are making most of they’re money through membership fees unlike other retailers that mostly rely on prices, the are trading at just 1 times sales which is very good and they have a lot of room to grow especially with improve China relationships. https://ibb.co/X4M76Vd / https://ibb.co/ypg3Gyc
Crowdstrike is a cyber security company that has seen a huge spike due to the transition to more and more digital presence for all the companies. They are a company that I believe is here to stay and just started to become profitable in the last quarter. https://ibb.co/zNbfhL9 / https://ibb.co/mBw2TKj
Carvana is one of the best players for the second hand car market as they operate a unique e-commerce platform for people to buy, sell or finance cars. They are one of my favorite companies as they are also just starting to make money as they continue to expand they’re presence. https://ibb.co/QPZ1wnt / https://ibb.co/0rS6LrQ
CVS is a health and pharmacy companies that owns the most pharma stores in the US, the company has been hit recently by the news that Amazon is getting into pharmacy delivery but I believe they will be a great play for the vaccine distribution play as the company is only trading at a forward P/E of 8 and is trading below value of sales while also offering a dividend of 2% https://ibb.co/KNH6v5G / https://ibb.co/8Ps3QRB
Delta is one of the major airlines in the US and as I wanted to be exposed to some recovery plays I choose this company as I believe air travel will come back in the next years. The financials are not great for the company but they did manage to cut the cash burn rate in the last quarter. https://ibb.co/gyrSYYb / https://ibb.co/KsNbFHg
Deere is another great industrial and manufacturing play for the recovery stocks. The company is trading at a pretty high P/E ratio for them as the stock has runed very high in the last months but they do offer a dividend of 1% which is much better than any bank savings account and also have the potential for growth and also are a pretty reliable way to diversify portfolios. https://ibb.co/NSsCGN1 / https://ibb.co/thrY6W2
Disney is a very diversified family friend entertainment and media company as they have a lot of great business that will benefit a lot from the re-opening while this contributed a lot to the huge expansion of the streaming business with Disney+ and Hulu so the financials are not great but I believe this will hugely improve in the next couple of years. https://ibb.co/BG0jctn / https://ibb.co/7GR9h3c
Draftkings is an American daily fantasy sport operator that has expanded into the huge market of online gambling as more and more us states are legalizing gambling so they have a lot of room to grow in front of them especially with a great online presence with financials not being very important at the moment as they continue to grow they’re presence https://ibb.co/k8dtJmM / https://ibb.co/HgGQvG2
Dominos Pizza is one of the biggest pizza companies in the world and are also one of the best in implementing they’re presence in the delivery services as they are way better at this than others companies like Papa John’s. https://ibb.co/NZXkQjg / https://ibb.co/FVGXXBY
Etsy is a e-commerce platform for creative goods and services and has seen a huge rise in popularity and will probably remain a big gainer from this past year, though they are trading at over 70times earnings this will likely improve very much in the next years as they are expected to expand and improve earnings substantaly. https://ibb.co/5MN9zb7 / https://ibb.co/PYz0NWK
Ford is one of the biggest car makers in the world, I really like this company as it having a big push to move to the EV world with the Mustang Mach E, the EV Transit and the hugely anticipated EV F-150, the company is expected to have huge improvements in the next year as they have decent financials and are one of the best companies to own for a dividend investing strategy. https://ibb.co/MhwMB47 / https://ibb.co/745w8vq
Facebook is the largest social media network in the world that also owns Instagram, they have been struggling in the last months due to the political environment but I believe they will continue to be a giant in the tech sector as they are finding new ways to improve revenue streams especially in the highly active Instagram platform as they are trading at pretty much the same P/E like the other big tech companies but are expected to see a growth in advertising money as companies move to a more digital presence. https://ibb.co/SVjFGvc / https://ibb.co/T1Ds8V8
Fiverr is one of the biggest marketplaces for freelance services as this kind of gigs have hugely exploded this year, the company is trading at an insane PE but we have to see what the next quarters brings to us as it may end up being a very profitable company in the future. https://ibb.co/st03fyj / https://ibb.co/zQk3Mgp
General Elecitrc is a conglomerate that operates in many business like aviation, healthcare, renewables, digital industry finance and more, they have suffered a lot in the past decade but the CEO has managed to turn things around latetly and might put the company back on track as it is way below all time highs and even recent highs of 30$ just 4 years ago, they might get a boost from the return of the aviation business in the next years. https://ibb.co/2nTc9mh / https://ibb.co/sybXXPQ
General Motors is the other big Detroit giant that I own in my portfolio as I really like where the company is going with its big push in the EV market in the next couple of years, they are trading at a 19 PE and are in a very good position to keep growing. https://ibb.co/37hqV2C / https://ibb.co/BNp0hht
Barrick Gold is one of the biggest gold and copper mining companies in the world and I use it for some hedging as I like owning this company more than I like owning gold, as this company also provides us with dividends of more than 1% while gold doesn’t https://ibb.co/P9cVDxs / https://ibb.co/6tpfDtH
I don’t believe google needs any introductions as I believe they are still one of the best companies in the tech sector despite lagging the other faang companies this year but they have regained momentum in the last quarter and I believe they can be a catch up trade and a long-term investment https://ibb.co/JRm07vw / https://ibb.co/mT7nWC8
Goldman Sachs is a global investment bank that seems to be back on track after the company has struggled in the last couple of years and are also a great diversification play as they are trading below book value. https://ibb.co/FqmNyFF / https://ibb.co/1zkLmfx
Home depot is a big retailer that has gained a lot of traction in the last year and stands to benefit in the future from the great move to online sales. The company is trading at a 25 PE but seems to be on a huge growth bath while also having a more than 2% dividend yield. https://ibb.co/KXpDM77 / https://ibb.co/cDBxJgK
Honeywell is one of the most diversified technology and manufacturing companies in the world that stands to benefit a lot from the reopening as a lot of companies need to upgrade they’re technology systems. The company has a good dividend yield and a great profit margin. https://ibb.co/kMxjNRz / https://ibb.co/TL67SRD
Intuitive surgical is a global technology company for minimally invasive surgery. As this kinds of surgeries have been postponed they stand to benefit from the world getting back to normal. They have huge profit margins that can see they earnings soar in the next years. https://ibb.co/Lz7j8td / https://ibb.co/kXdmzhQ
Johnson & Johnson is a great company that develops medical devices, meds and consumer goods and stat to benefit a lot if they manage to create e good vaccine. They are currently trading at a PE of 22 but have huge upside and also are a great dividend paying company. https://ibb.co/FWXqpH2 / https://ibb.co/c8qQXNF
JP Morgan is a global financial giant with over 3 trillion$ in assests, the company trades at about a 33% price to book overvaluation but stands to benefit a lot in the future from the huge money pumping in the economy by the FED and the return of higher interest rates. https://ibb.co/hBvLxV5 / https://ibb.co/Jtkn90L
Coca-Cola is another company that needs no introduction and is still a great company to own with a great dividend yield that stands to benefit from a reopening economy. https://ibb.co/G9CmsgL / https://ibb.co/C2FLSGy
Lemonade is a disruptive insurance company that is still expanding its markets. They have a great business strategy and can become a very big player in the industry. The company has more than double since the IPO earlier this year so I believe this can be a great long term investment. https://ibb.co/zhjYRct / https://ibb.co/PZ23M72
Lowe’s is another great retailers similar to Home Depot that has done a great job in transitioning to online sales. I really like the company as it trades at just 20 times earnings and has a great growth rate and dividend yield. https://ibb.co/zfpyLZC / https://ibb.co/MfS6QNg
McDonalds is the biggest fast food company in the world, the company has done a terrific job this year with drive thru orders and stand to benefit even more after the reopening while also having a great dividend of more than 2% and possibility of growing delivery sales even more in the future. https://ibb.co/CBTWtJP / https://ibb.co/v1cBqQn
Mercadolibre is a e-commerce company that is the Amazon or Alibaba of South America as they operate in a lot of sectors like cars, aircrafts, real estate and more. I believe this is a great company to own if you believe in the future of e-commerce. https://ibb.co/McFrBhZ / https://ibb.co/Cw3wSSk
Isn’t it already obvious that my portfolio must have included Microsoft also? As they are a big beneficiary of cloud services and tech evolutions. This is a staple for every portfolio with great growth and a better dividend yield than any bank can offer at the moment. https://ibb.co/cvMm8Md / https://ibb.co/FnYD1Y3
As I want to be diversified and exposed to recovery play I also picked the cruise line that I think will do best in the long run. So though Norwegian have diluted they’re shares a lot during this year, I belive not all cruise lines will survive and they will eat up market share when everything goes back to normal. So I don’t really care about the financials that much at the moment as this is a very long term pick. https://ibb.co/tHDcrMY / https://ibb.co/PTqK0dj
Next Era Energy is the largest electric utility by market cap and has the world largest generator of renewable energy from wind and sun and stand to benefit a lot from a Biden administration that is why they are trading at such high multiples at the moment. The company also has an impressive yield of almost 2% https://ibb.co/xjYVMx4 / https://ibb.co/q9hjp48
I also bought NetFlix as I believe them, Disney and Roku will be some of the largest players in the streaming business as traditional TV and cinema are a dying business at the moment.The company is trading at a premium but this is due to them dumping money in high quality content to grow they’re subscriber base while they also have steadily increase subscriptions cost in the last years. I believe they will do better next quarter and will see a re-test of all time highs. https://ibb.co/VN2TF6f / https://ibb.co/B6j9zTn
I also own NIO more as a spec play to be well diversified in the EV world, I believe this is a long term investment as the stock price has gone up like bananas recently, the company will have to have perfect growth in the next couple of years to justify an increase in value as they are still losing money. https://ibb.co/MZ2NL4v / https://ibb.co/mt8f3ZR
Nike is my favorite apparel play as I believe it is the most desired my a lot of people and keeps expanding. I really like how the company is managed and I believe in them for the long-run. https://ibb.co/jw1zjgj / https://ibb.co/RYR4QSP
Nvidia is my favorite play in the semiconductor sector as they will continue to benefit from more and more personal pc sales as well as huge data center demand especially for they’re super performing products. They trade at a huge premium right now but I believe they can become the next trillion dollar company in the tech sector. https://ibb.co/kgJS0w1 / https://ibb.co/k8D1MSL
I also like owning Pepsico alongside Coca Cola as they are the two biggest players in the sector and I believe that they will both benefit a lot in the next years from the economy recovery. With pepsico offering a 2,7% dividend and a great growth path I really like owning this stock https://ibb.co/2SY4xPY / https://ibb.co/Sdt2hGC
Pinterest is an up and coming social media platform that has a great ad friendly setup and could see growth in the next years. They are trading at insane PE ratios but that should catch up to the company in the future and I believe you must own it to be well diversified. https://ibb.co/gwGFbyb / https://ibb.co/5TYz4KS
Palantir is a highly controversial name right now but its products and services are really good as they are earning more and more stamps of approval with government contracts while also expanding to commercial use. Financial info is not that good as the company barely reported they’re first earnings after the IPO. https://ibb.co/fdQ42gc / https://ibb.co/wyTJSG2
PayPal is another great company that will do very well in the future as payments transition to a more digital approach and the company is transitioning to allow cryptocurrencies as well which will attract even more users. They have had a greet increase in revenue and eps in the last quarters and I expect that to continue to grow. https://ibb.co/9tXxhJZ / https://ibb.co/M5vCynn
Qualcomm is my favorite 5G play alongside apple as this will be a long cycle of upgrades for the communications services that will benefit them a lot.They are trading at an PE of over 30 but have great revenue and EPS growth while also offering an almost 2% dividend yield. https://ibb.co/NFsnKqW / https://ibb.co/x5sJLW6
Roku is a great play for the hardware and subscription based services for digital media players and has huge tailwinds that will benefit them while the old TV cycle is dying. They have had a huge year over year revenue growth and subscribers growth that has passed the 40 million mark for the first time recently. https://ibb.co/Fqd7sYP / https://ibb.co/ccKqzkC
While SunRun is another great play for the new Biden administration as well as the transitioning to more renewable energy as they may see a huge boost in revenue growth and earnings with more money being pumped into the renewable sector. https://ibb.co/0jr3TRg / https://ibb.co/NmdSdwP
Everyone also knows Starbucks, as I expect them to be a huge gainer on a improved US-China relationship so despite suffering a lot from this economy the stock is still up more than 16% in the last year while revenues have declined, expect this to bounce back by 2021-2022. https://ibb.co/s5nTzQX / https://ibb.co/fDyhvX3
Shopify is a multinational e-commerce cloud based platform for merchants like small and medium sized business so that can easily have an online store that they can manage payments for, orders inventory and much more. The company is trading at P/E’s that are crazy but the revenue and EPS growth is also amazing and has the potential for a lot more growth as the world is going more and more digital. https://ibb.co/6nt4GhC / https://ibb.co/QbFhybt
Store capital is a real estate investment trust that focuses on single tenant commercial real estate so they can negotiate much better rents and collections than other REIT. They are still more than 8$ under the highs and are a great diversification and yield giving stock to own. https://ibb.co/XzBY41g / https://ibb.co/TrGRZpR
AT&T is one of the largest providers in the us and seems to be getting back on track after they have struggled in the past decade, they trade at only 8 times forward P/E and have one of the best dividend yields at more than 7% so I believe this is a must have staple in your portfolio that brings stability and cash flow. https://ibb.co/cYcfYMm / https://ibb.co/8D3NzZr
While Target has been doing some amazing things as they operate as a general merchandise retailers and are doing some amazing things with online sales, they currently have seen a spike in the last months and are trading at a p/e of over 22 but I see them as a long term winner that offers both growth and value with a dividend yield of 1,5%. https://ibb.co/Fzd8TMw / https://ibb.co/NLnw4Lv
While the other communication provider that I like is T-Mobile US which has seen a huge spike in user growth and are poised to do a lot of great things with the 5G cycle, they trade at a very high multiple for this sector but the growth expectations are huge for this company. https://ibb.co/PCDFD38 / https://ibb.co/BTSzTMp
Moving on, one of the biggest gainers this year, TESLA is also one of my favorite companies to own as they continue to expand the products they offer and improve margins on vehicle, they are also expanding into more and more services, while manufacturing is growing exponentialy. They trade at insane P/E’s but they have just managed to be included in the SP500 so this may bring some stability to the stock as the company continues to grow in the next decade.https://ibb.co/6rNJf6q / https://ibb.co/CWN6wD4
Visa is the biggest global payments technology company and is expected to continue to grow as more people start using cashless payment options, they are a great growth and value company for the future as cash payments is a dying proposition worldwide. https://ibb.co/CVXgZD9 / https://ibb.co/BPKxFfZ
Wal-Mart, the biggest employer in the US continues to do amazing stuff as they continue to expand they’re online presence and compete with Amazon as they trade at a 23 P/E and also offer a dividend yield. they are a great play alongside with Amazon which trades at much higher valuations. https://ibb.co/Sr9s83J / https://ibb.co/0CvZKkD
Wynn is another great recovery stock that I like as recently we found out that foot traffic in Macau has ramped up, this bolds well for the company as they will be one of the biggest gainers on the reopening. So if you are a long term investor you should get into this stock I believe. https://ibb.co/6rk2qNQ / https://ibb.co/mC35VPr
Zoom is the one company that I will be selling in the next couple of days. I know they are one of the best video conferencing apps out there, but I believe they will have a lot of problem due to a number of free apps that also offer great quality while the company is trading at insane p/e numbers. I know this trend is here to stay, but I thing there are far better play in the stock market out there rather than Zoom at this price point. https://ibb.co/T1tStb8 / https://ibb.co/rmxh0x3
I know I didn’t get into in-depth stuff, technical analysis, fundamentals and more but I will continue go more in depth with this stocks as time goes on.
So here how I want to make my portfolio look like when I have enough money to open all the positions. TARGETED PORTFOLIo
As you can see a quarter of my portfolio will be invested in high quality companies that are pretty safe in my opinion. While over 45% of the portfolio will go to companies that I really like, that have a pretty low risk in my opinion and can offer great returns in the future. While I will also use about 22% of my portfolio into more risky companies that can bring very good profits for the portfolio but in my opinion are not as safe as the others.
And finally I will invest about 7% of my portfolio into more speculative stocks or hedge stocks like Barrick Gold and Goldman Sachs. I don’t want to keep money on the sidelines at the moment as I expect the stock market will keep rising for a couple of years at a rapid pace due to the recovery of the economy.
Thank you everyone for reading! Hope you enjoyed the content!
Be sure to leave a comment down below with your opinion on the matter of more or less stocks and other thoughts on the stock market!
Have a great Thanksgiving and see you next time!

In this post I am going to share my experience as I start a new portfolio from 0$ and keep adding funds to it every month as I try to grow it as fast as possible
Hey everyone Happy Thanksgiving and Welcome! So, I have deposited and invested in the stock market all the money I managed to save up in the last month as I deposited 3500$ in my eToro portfolio on the 12th of November and I am already up more than 7% in just two weeks.
As my portfolio has constantly outperform the big 3 indexes the Nasdaq100, the SP500 and the Dow Jones 30 almost every day since starting my portfolio. Here is a comparison of my portfolio vs the indexes since starting as I am up over 7%. Portfolio v Index
So i wondered? Is it really bad to own more stocks? Is less > more? What is your opinion on this subject? I believe that it is way better to be invested in more companies and to add and grow your position in time as you also see how the companies evolve and you can also do some price averaging.
So here is my current portfolio composition as I split all my money equally to start, I will go into very few little details about everyone so I don’t make this a 2 hour read time.
I will start now by going alphabetically and not in the most important order as the first company that I own is BYD which is a rival company for both Tesla and NIO in the EV market as they focus on cars, new energy solutions and electronics. They are also developing a lot of commercial EV like buses, coaches and taxis which will be a great addressable market for them as they are not rivaled in those segments at the moment. The company has gone up a lot in value this year as you can see in this graph and have a Forward P/E of more than 100 but I believe this company will greatly expand its sales and be one of the leaders in the segment especially in China which is the biggest EV market. https://ibb.co/gVVwpfR / https://ibb.co/z7YBGr9
The second holding is Apple, is there anybody that doesn’t know this company? They are the biggest company in the world and they continue to expand with new products and services every day, I don’t see this company going down in the short term or the long term as they have pretty expensive at a 35 P/E but earnings are still rising especially with more subscription based income coming in with the release of the Apple One Bundle. https://ibb.co/Tm3hWMZ / https://ibb.co/Q9YjJTx / https://ibb.co/BrzkHCY
AbbVie is a health company that produces a lot of great drugs and has more than 26 million patients in over 200 countries that are treated every year. They are one of the best companies in the sector and are still down about 25% from the all time highs while only trading at a forward P/E of 8 which is very low. https://ibb.co/9nn4z0q / https://ibb.co/mXh3JL5 / https://ibb.co/cwhJgB5
AMD is a well established companies that creates high performance GPU’s for both personal computer and for data centers, the company has turned around and have started a great path to success since the newest CEO took the job in 2014 as the stock was trading at 2$ and while the company is trading at a very high forward P/E they have a lot of room to grow in this new economy as the EPS is expected to increase by more than 40% quarter over quarter https://ibb.co/dpwYPcy / https://ibb.co/7vwWHtC / https://ibb.co/yF0RmQv
Amazon is the internet retail juggernaut and cloud servicing company that has also started to expand in more and more domains like pharmacy just last week, though the company is also trading at a very high PE they have a lot of room to grow internationally and also are expanding in a lot more domains at a very fast rate. https://ibb.co/4TnGhkt / https://ibb.co/c6W2Ypx
Aphria is a Canadian company that mainly grows cannabis for medical use but has recently acquired a beverage company and is look to expand its product line, especially with the legalizing of marijuana more and more obvious in the US. They are one of the companies that stands to benefit the most from this as they are also expected to be the first to reach profitability by next year compared to Aurrora Canabis and Cannopy Growth. https://ibb.co/KrfL267 / https://ibb.co/kJ8yxDR
Broadcom is one of the biggest American semiconductor solutions provider, they are a very good play for the sector as they only trade at a forwarde P/E of 17 which is very good compared to comptetitors. https://ibb.co/8KFmX88 / https://ibb.co/q18SzPb
Everyone also knows Boeing as they are one of the biggest commercial manufacturers of jetliners, defence, space and security systems. The have suffered a lot in the last 2 years after the 737 accidents and the recent stay-at-home economy, but the ban on the plain has been lifted in the US and will be followed by the European Union soon, they have a big backlog of planes to work through while this situation will improve and air travel returns slowly in the next years. https://ibb.co/JxZYZ6D / https://ibb.co/NVbhDLQ
Alibaba is a online e-commerce giant that has expanded into cloud computing services also and stands to benefit a lot from the stay-at-home economy while also having just a forward PE of 32 which is very low compared to Amazon as they are the Chinese version of them. The company also owns Ant Group which is one of the largest fin tech companies in the world and will likely gain a lot after they finally manage to go public. https://ibb.co/0JPN6DN / https://ibb.co/6NgjGNV /
Berkshire is the child company of Warren Buffet as they are a holding company that engages in diversified business like technology, banks, insurance and much more. The company is currently trading at a very low P/E an barely above the price/book value as even the founders of the company believe this as they have continued to buy back shares of the company in the last year at the fastest rate in company history. https://ibb.co/bP6VjpM / https://ibb.co/hf5hX39
Caterpillar is one of best companies in manufacturing, construction and mining equipment. They are trading at almost 3 time sales with a high P/E but this is likely to regain momentum with the China trade war relaxing with the new Biden administration as well as the reopening of the economy https://ibb.co/pnC17PM / https://ibb.co/2vsQSjt
Chipotle Mexican is one of the best companies right now in the fast food business as they continue to innovate and have just opened they’re first digital only store. The company is trading at a very high P/E but has substantial growth potential so I believe it will be a great buy for the future. https://ibb.co/GCqd3Y9 / https://ibb.co/JnBm3bx
Costco is one of the world biggest retailers that has a great business model as they are making most of they’re money through membership fees unlike other retailers that mostly rely on prices, the are trading at just 1 times sales which is very good and they have a lot of room to grow especially with improve China relationships. https://ibb.co/X4M76Vd / https://ibb.co/ypg3Gyc
Crowdstrike is a cyber security company that has seen a huge spike due to the transition to more and more digital presence for all the companies. They are a company that I believe is here to stay and just started to become profitable in the last quarter. https://ibb.co/zNbfhL9 / https://ibb.co/mBw2TKj
Carvana is one of the best players for the second hand car market as they operate a unique e-commerce platform for people to buy, sell or finance cars. They are one of my favorite companies as they are also just starting to make money as they continue to expand they’re presence. https://ibb.co/QPZ1wnt / https://ibb.co/0rS6LrQ
CVS is a health and pharmacy companies that owns the most pharma stores in the US, the company has been hit recently by the news that Amazon is getting into pharmacy delivery but I believe they will be a great play for the vaccine distribution play as the company is only trading at a forward P/E of 8 and is trading below value of sales while also offering a dividend of 2% https://ibb.co/KNH6v5G / https://ibb.co/8Ps3QRB
Delta is one of the major airlines in the US and as I wanted to be exposed to some recovery plays I choose this company as I believe air travel will come back in the next years. The financials are not great for the company but they did manage to cut the cash burn rate in the last quarter. https://ibb.co/gyrSYYb / https://ibb.co/KsNbFHg
Deere is another great industrial and manufacturing play for the recovery stocks. The company is trading at a pretty high P/E ratio for them as the stock has runed very high in the last months but they do offer a dividend of 1% which is much better than any bank savings account and also have the potential for growth and also are a pretty reliable way to diversify portfolios. https://ibb.co/NSsCGN1 / https://ibb.co/thrY6W2
Disney is a very diversified family friend entertainment and media company as they have a lot of great business that will benefit a lot from the re-opening while this contributed a lot to the huge expansion of the streaming business with Disney+ and Hulu so the financials are not great but I believe this will hugely improve in the next couple of years. https://ibb.co/BG0jctn / https://ibb.co/7GR9h3c
Draftkings is an American daily fantasy sport operator that has expanded into the huge market of online gambling as more and more us states are legalizing gambling so they have a lot of room to grow in front of them especially with a great online presence with financials not being very important at the moment as they continue to grow they’re presence https://ibb.co/k8dtJmM / https://ibb.co/HgGQvG2
Dominos Pizza is one of the biggest pizza companies in the world and are also one of the best in implementing they’re presence in the delivery services as they are way better at this than others companies like Papa John’s. https://ibb.co/NZXkQjg / https://ibb.co/FVGXXBY
Etsy is a e-commerce platform for creative goods and services and has seen a huge rise in popularity and will probably remain a big gainer from this past year, though they are trading at over 70times earnings this will likely improve very much in the next years as they are expected to expand and improve earnings substantaly. https://ibb.co/5MN9zb7 / https://ibb.co/PYz0NWK
Ford is one of the biggest car makers in the world, I really like this company as it having a big push to move to the EV world with the Mustang Mach E, the EV Transit and the hugely anticipated EV F-150, the company is expected to have huge improvements in the next year as they have decent financials and are one of the best companies to own for a dividend investing strategy. https://ibb.co/MhwMB47 / https://ibb.co/745w8vq
Facebook is the largest social media network in the world that also owns Instagram, they have been struggling in the last months due to the political environment but I believe they will continue to be a giant in the tech sector as they are finding new ways to improve revenue streams especially in the highly active Instagram platform as they are trading at pretty much the same P/E like the other big tech companies but are expected to see a growth in advertising money as companies move to a more digital presence. https://ibb.co/SVjFGvc / https://ibb.co/T1Ds8V8
Fiverr is one of the biggest marketplaces for freelance services as this kind of gigs have hugely exploded this year, the company is trading at an insane PE but we have to see what the next quarters brings to us as it may end up being a very profitable company in the future. https://ibb.co/st03fyj / https://ibb.co/zQk3Mgp
General Elecitrc is a conglomerate that operates in many business like aviation, healthcare, renewables, digital industry finance and more, they have suffered a lot in the past decade but the CEO has managed to turn things around latetly and might put the company back on track as it is way below all time highs and even recent highs of 30$ just 4 years ago, they might get a boost from the return of the aviation business in the next years. https://ibb.co/2nTc9mh / https://ibb.co/sybXXPQ
General Motors is the other big Detroit giant that I own in my portfolio as I really like where the company is going with its big push in the EV market in the next couple of years, they are trading at a 19 PE and are in a very good position to keep growing. https://ibb.co/37hqV2C / https://ibb.co/BNp0hht
Barrick Gold is one of the biggest gold and copper mining companies in the world and I use it for some hedging as I like owning this company more than I like owning gold, as this company also provides us with dividends of more than 1% while gold doesn’t https://ibb.co/P9cVDxs / https://ibb.co/6tpfDtH
I don’t believe google needs any introductions as I believe they are still one of the best companies in the tech sector despite lagging the other faang companies this year but they have regained momentum in the last quarter and I believe they can be a catch up trade and a long-term investment https://ibb.co/JRm07vw / https://ibb.co/mT7nWC8
Goldman Sachs is a global investment bank that seems to be back on track after the company has struggled in the last couple of years and are also a great diversification play as they are trading below book value. https://ibb.co/FqmNyFF / https://ibb.co/1zkLmfx
Home depot is a big retailer that has gained a lot of traction in the last year and stands to benefit in the future from the great move to online sales. The company is trading at a 25 PE but seems to be on a huge growth bath while also having a more than 2% dividend yield. https://ibb.co/KXpDM77 / https://ibb.co/cDBxJgK
Honeywell is one of the most diversified technology and manufacturing companies in the world that stands to benefit a lot from the reopening as a lot of companies need to upgrade they’re technology systems. The company has a good dividend yield and a great profit margin. https://ibb.co/kMxjNRz / https://ibb.co/TL67SRD
Intuitive surgical is a global technology company for minimally invasive surgery. As this kinds of surgeries have been postponed they stand to benefit from the world getting back to normal. They have huge profit margins that can see they earnings soar in the next years. https://ibb.co/Lz7j8td / https://ibb.co/kXdmzhQ
Johnson & Johnson is a great company that develops medical devices, meds and consumer goods and stat to benefit a lot if they manage to create e good vaccine. They are currently trading at a PE of 22 but have huge upside and also are a great dividend paying company. https://ibb.co/FWXqpH2 / https://ibb.co/c8qQXNF
JP Morgan is a global financial giant with over 3 trillion$ in assests, the company trades at about a 33% price to book overvaluation but stands to benefit a lot in the future from the huge money pumping in the economy by the FED and the return of higher interest rates. https://ibb.co/hBvLxV5 / https://ibb.co/Jtkn90L
Coca-Cola is another company that needs no introduction and is still a great company to own with a great dividend yield that stands to benefit from a reopening economy. https://ibb.co/G9CmsgL / https://ibb.co/C2FLSGy
Lemonade is a disruptive insurance company that is still expanding its markets. They have a great business strategy and can become a very big player in the industry. The company has more than double since the IPO earlier this year so I believe this can be a great long term investment. https://ibb.co/zhjYRct / https://ibb.co/PZ23M72
Lowe’s is another great retailers similar to Home Depot that has done a great job in transitioning to online sales. I really like the company as it trades at just 20 times earnings and has a great growth rate and dividend yield. https://ibb.co/zfpyLZC / https://ibb.co/MfS6QNg
McDonalds is the biggest fast food company in the world, the company has done a terrific job this year with drive thru orders and stand to benefit even more after the reopening while also having a great dividend of more than 2% and possibility of growing delivery sales even more in the future. https://ibb.co/CBTWtJP / https://ibb.co/v1cBqQn
Mercadolibre is a e-commerce company that is the Amazon or Alibaba of South America as they operate in a lot of sectors like cars, aircrafts, real estate and more. I believe this is a great company to own if you believe in the future of e-commerce. https://ibb.co/McFrBhZ / https://ibb.co/Cw3wSSk
Isn’t it already obvious that my portfolio must have included Microsoft also? As they are a big beneficiary of cloud services and tech evolutions. This is a staple for every portfolio with great growth and a better dividend yield than any bank can offer at the moment. https://ibb.co/cvMm8Md / https://ibb.co/FnYD1Y3
As I want to be diversified and exposed to recovery play I also picked the cruise line that I think will do best in the long run. So though Norwegian have diluted they’re shares a lot during this year, I belive not all cruise lines will survive and they will eat up market share when everything goes back to normal. So I don’t really care about the financials that much at the moment as this is a very long term pick. https://ibb.co/tHDcrMY / https://ibb.co/PTqK0dj
Next Era Energy is the largest electric utility by market cap and has the world largest generator of renewable energy from wind and sun and stand to benefit a lot from a Biden administration that is why they are trading at such high multiples at the moment. The company also has an impressive yield of almost 2% https://ibb.co/xjYVMx4 / https://ibb.co/q9hjp48
I also bought NetFlix as I believe them, Disney and Roku will be some of the largest players in the streaming business as traditional TV and cinema are a dying business at the moment.The company is trading at a premium but this is due to them dumping money in high quality content to grow they’re subscriber base while they also have steadily increase subscriptions cost in the last years. I believe they will do better next quarter and will see a re-test of all time highs. https://ibb.co/VN2TF6f / https://ibb.co/B6j9zTn
I also own NIO more as a spec play to be well diversified in the EV world, I believe this is a long term investment as the stock price has gone up like bananas recently, the company will have to have perfect growth in the next couple of years to justify an increase in value as they are still losing money. https://ibb.co/MZ2NL4v / https://ibb.co/mt8f3ZR
Nike is my favorite apparel play as I believe it is the most desired my a lot of people and keeps expanding. I really like how the company is managed and I believe in them for the long-run. https://ibb.co/jw1zjgj / https://ibb.co/RYR4QSP
Nvidia is my favorite play in the semiconductor sector as they will continue to benefit from more and more personal pc sales as well as huge data center demand especially for they’re super performing products. They trade at a huge premium right now but I believe they can become the next trillion dollar company in the tech sector. https://ibb.co/kgJS0w1 / https://ibb.co/k8D1MSL
I also like owning Pepsico alongside Coca Cola as they are the two biggest players in the sector and I believe that they will both benefit a lot in the next years from the economy recovery. With pepsico offering a 2,7% dividend and a great growth path I really like owning this stock https://ibb.co/2SY4xPY / https://ibb.co/Sdt2hGC
Pinterest is an up and coming social media platform that has a great ad friendly setup and could see growth in the next years. They are trading at insane PE ratios but that should catch up to the company in the future and I believe you must own it to be well diversified. https://ibb.co/gwGFbyb / https://ibb.co/5TYz4KS
Palantir is a highly controversial name right now but its products and services are really good as they are earning more and more stamps of approval with government contracts while also expanding to commercial use. Financial info is not that good as the company barely reported they’re first earnings after the IPO. https://ibb.co/fdQ42gc / https://ibb.co/wyTJSG2
PayPal is another great company that will do very well in the future as payments transition to a more digital approach and the company is transitioning to allow cryptocurrencies as well which will attract even more users. They have had a greet increase in revenue and eps in the last quarters and I expect that to continue to grow. https://ibb.co/9tXxhJZ / https://ibb.co/M5vCynn
Qualcomm is my favorite 5G play alongside apple as this will be a long cycle of upgrades for the communications services that will benefit them a lot.They are trading at an PE of over 30 but have great revenue and EPS growth while also offering an almost 2% dividend yield. https://ibb.co/NFsnKqW / https://ibb.co/x5sJLW6
Roku is a great play for the hardware and subscription based services for digital media players and has huge tailwinds that will benefit them while the old TV cycle is dying. They have had a huge year over year revenue growth and subscribers growth that has passed the 40 million mark for the first time recently. https://ibb.co/Fqd7sYP / https://ibb.co/ccKqzkC
While SunRun is another great play for the new Biden administration as well as the transitioning to more renewable energy as they may see a huge boost in revenue growth and earnings with more money being pumped into the renewable sector. https://ibb.co/0jr3TRg / https://ibb.co/NmdSdwP
Everyone also knows Starbucks, as I expect them to be a huge gainer on a improved US-China relationship so despite suffering a lot from this economy the stock is still up more than 16% in the last year while revenues have declined, expect this to bounce back by 2021-2022. https://ibb.co/s5nTzQX / https://ibb.co/fDyhvX3
Shopify is a multinational e-commerce cloud based platform for merchants like small and medium sized business so that can easily have an online store that they can manage payments for, orders inventory and much more. The company is trading at P/E’s that are crazy but the revenue and EPS growth is also amazing and has the potential for a lot more growth as the world is going more and more digital. https://ibb.co/6nt4GhC / https://ibb.co/QbFhybt
Store capital is a real estate investment trust that focuses on single tenant commercial real estate so they can negotiate much better rents and collections than other REIT. They are still more than 8$ under the highs and are a great diversification and yield giving stock to own. https://ibb.co/XzBY41g / https://ibb.co/TrGRZpR
AT&T is one of the largest providers in the us and seems to be getting back on track after they have struggled in the past decade, they trade at only 8 times forward P/E and have one of the best dividend yields at more than 7% so I believe this is a must have staple in your portfolio that brings stability and cash flow. https://ibb.co/cYcfYMm / https://ibb.co/8D3NzZr
While Target has been doing some amazing things as they operate as a general merchandise retailers and are doing some amazing things with online sales, they currently have seen a spike in the last months and are trading at a p/e of over 22 but I see them as a long term winner that offers both growth and value with a dividend yield of 1,5%. https://ibb.co/Fzd8TMw / https://ibb.co/NLnw4Lv
While the other communication provider that I like is T-Mobile US which has seen a huge spike in user growth and are poised to do a lot of great things with the 5G cycle, they trade at a very high multiple for this sector but the growth expectations are huge for this company. https://ibb.co/PCDFD38 / https://ibb.co/BTSzTMp
Moving on, one of the biggest gainers this year, TESLA is also one of my favorite companies to own as they continue to expand the products they offer and improve margins on vehicle, they are also expanding into more and more services, while manufacturing is growing exponentialy. They trade at insane P/E’s but they have just managed to be included in the SP500 so this may bring some stability to the stock as the company continues to grow in the next decade.https://ibb.co/6rNJf6q / https://ibb.co/CWN6wD4
Visa is the biggest global payments technology company and is expected to continue to grow as more people start using cashless payment options, they are a great growth and value company for the future as cash payments is a dying proposition worldwide. https://ibb.co/CVXgZD9 / https://ibb.co/BPKxFfZ
Wal-Mart, the biggest employer in the US continues to do amazing stuff as they continue to expand they’re online presence and compete with Amazon as they trade at a 23 P/E and also offer a dividend yield. they are a great play alongside with Amazon which trades at much higher valuations. https://ibb.co/Sr9s83J / https://ibb.co/0CvZKkD
Wynn is another great recovery stock that I like as recently we found out that foot traffic in Macau has ramped up, this bolds well for the company as they will be one of the biggest gainers on the reopening. So if you are a long term investor you should get into this stock I believe. https://ibb.co/6rk2qNQ / https://ibb.co/mC35VPr
Zoom is the one company that I will be selling in the next couple of days. I know they are one of the best video conferencing apps out there, but I believe they will have a lot of problem due to a number of free apps that also offer great quality while the company is trading at insane p/e numbers. I know this trend is here to stay, but I thing there are far better play in the stock market out there rather than Zoom at this price point. https://ibb.co/T1tStb8 / https://ibb.co/rmxh0x3
I know I didn’t get into in-depth stuff, technical analysis, fundamentals and more but I will continue go more in depth with this stocks as time goes on.
So here how I want to make my portfolio look like when I have enough money to open all the positions. TARGETED PORTFOLIo
As you can see a quarter of my portfolio will be invested in high quality companies that are pretty safe in my opinion. While over 45% of the portfolio will go to companies that I really like, that have a pretty low risk in my opinion and can offer great returns in the future. While I will also use about 22% of my portfolio into more risky companies that can bring very good profits for the portfolio but in my opinion are not as safe as the others.
And finally I will invest about 7% of my portfolio into more speculative stocks or hedge stocks like Barrick Gold and Goldman Sachs. I don’t want to keep money on the sidelines at the moment as I expect the stock market will keep rising for a couple of years at a rapid pace due to the recovery of the economy.
Thank you everyone for reading! Hope you enjoyed the content!
Be sure to leave a comment down below with your opinion on the matter of more or less stocks and other thoughts on the stock market!
Have a great Thanksgiving and see you next time!

For me, anyway. I posted this to my Facebook and will be following through. Its time to stop watching these guys air whatever they want. I will engage at every single opportunity. If I have time, I'll hunt them down on the news sites comments sections.
FAIR WARNING TO CONSPIRACY THEORISTS:
I try to stay low key and out of the political fray. I try to let people have their opinions and not to engage in online arguments. But it's starting to affect the health and safety of people and I've had enough of this shit.
If you are going to post your stupid anti-science "Covid19 is a hoax" rhetoric in the public domain where I can see it, I will call you on it. I will engage with logic, and I know that isn't your first language so this might get really uncomfortable for you. You've had a free ride while most thinking humans have ignored the rantings of the uninformed. Those days are coming to end. It's time you encountered resistance.
This applies also to your virtue-signalling #savethechildren antics. Just because you saw a video that says that Bill Gates is evil and some cobbler is making red shoes out of babies skins, doesn't make it real. If you haven't figured out that this propaganda is produced by the Trump campaign, then maybe it's time you did real research. Not the kind of research you're used to, where you watch a YouTube video on your favorite QAnon page and live within this echo-chamber of logical denial. If you want to actually save children, might I suggest looking at your shitty religion and asking the leaders why their reputation is more important than child safety and why they have to sweep child sexual assault under the rug instead of bringing it forward to be dealt with.
I'll give you 24 hours to unfriend me or block me or at least change your privacy settings so that I don't see you spreading the propagandist lies. Figure this out: when you accept unverified bullshit without any evidence at all to further the interest of political candidates, we are not the sheep. YOU ARE.
UPDATE: After 24 hours: I have 5 or six Qultists on my FB friend list. 3 of them are extremely active. posting at least 15 - 20 posts per day. (I'm pretty sure one of them does at least that on his own.) After the 24 hour mark, there is nothing.... NOTHING. Zero plandemic or #saveourchildren posts. In fact, I can't even find it in their history. They probably adjusted their settings... I don't know. but they're still active. Still posting controversial shit. But nothing QAnon-related. Seriously guys, resistance works.
EDIT:From a Redditor on cults:
Hoffer's True Believers are stimulation-seeking addicts of the behavioral sort (like gamblers, shopaholics, romance chasers, obsessive day traders, etc.)
The only way IKO (I am very experienced in treating behavioral and substance addictions' see my post and reply history on Reddit) to get to such people is to float ideas like those in the material at the links below at them and see if they respond. But if they are stuck in the first of the five stages of addiction recovery, I wouldn't expect much.
Will the Addict Ever Stop Using SOMETHING if He or She remains Depressed, Anxious or Shameful?, especially once those emotions become part of the Cycle of Addiction
Cult Membership as a Behavioral Addiction like Sex, Gambling & Over-Exercise

In this post I am going to share my experience as I start a new portfolio from 0$ and keep adding funds to it every month as I try to grow it as fast as possible
Hey everyone Happy Thanksgiving and Welcome! So, I have deposited and invested in the stock market all the money I managed to save up in the last month as I deposited 3500$ in my eToro portfolio on the 12th of November and I am already up more than 7% in just two weeks.
As my portfolio has constantly outperform the big 3 indexes the Nasdaq100, the SP500 and the Dow Jones 30 almost every day since starting my portfolio. Here is a comparison of my portfolio vs the indexes since starting as I am up over 7%. Portfolio v Index
So i wondered? Is it really bad to own more stocks? Is less > more? What is your opinion on this subject? I believe that it is way better to be invested in more companies and to add and grow your position in time as you also see how the companies evolve and you can also do some price averaging.
So here is my current portfolio composition as I split all my money equally to start, I will go into very few little details about everyone so I don’t make this a 2 hour read time.
I will start now by going alphabetically and not in the most important order as the first company that I own is BYD which is a rival company for both Tesla and NIO in the EV market as they focus on cars, new energy solutions and electronics. They are also developing a lot of commercial EV like buses, coaches and taxis which will be a great addressable market for them as they are not rivaled in those segments at the moment. The company has gone up a lot in value this year as you can see in this graph and have a Forward P/E of more than 100 but I believe this company will greatly expand its sales and be one of the leaders in the segment especially in China which is the biggest EV market. https://ibb.co/gVVwpfR / https://ibb.co/z7YBGr9
The second holding is Apple, is there anybody that doesn’t know this company? They are the biggest company in the world and they continue to expand with new products and services every day, I don’t see this company going down in the short term or the long term as they have pretty expensive at a 35 P/E but earnings are still rising especially with more subscription based income coming in with the release of the Apple One Bundle. https://ibb.co/Tm3hWMZ / https://ibb.co/Q9YjJTx / https://ibb.co/BrzkHCY
AbbVie is a health company that produces a lot of great drugs and has more than 26 million patients in over 200 countries that are treated every year. They are one of the best companies in the sector and are still down about 25% from the all time highs while only trading at a forward P/E of 8 which is very low. https://ibb.co/9nn4z0q / https://ibb.co/mXh3JL5 / https://ibb.co/cwhJgB5
AMD is a well established companies that creates high performance GPU’s for both personal computer and for data centers, the company has turned around and have started a great path to success since the newest CEO took the job in 2014 as the stock was trading at 2$ and while the company is trading at a very high forward P/E they have a lot of room to grow in this new economy as the EPS is expected to increase by more than 40% quarter over quarter https://ibb.co/dpwYPcy / https://ibb.co/7vwWHtC / https://ibb.co/yF0RmQv
Amazon is the internet retail juggernaut and cloud servicing company that has also started to expand in more and more domains like pharmacy just last week, though the company is also trading at a very high PE they have a lot of room to grow internationally and also are expanding in a lot more domains at a very fast rate. https://ibb.co/4TnGhkt / https://ibb.co/c6W2Ypx
Aphria is a Canadian company that mainly grows cannabis for medical use but has recently acquired a beverage company and is look to expand its product line, especially with the legalizing of marijuana more and more obvious in the US. They are one of the companies that stands to benefit the most from this as they are also expected to be the first to reach profitability by next year compared to Aurrora Canabis and Cannopy Growth. https://ibb.co/KrfL267 / https://ibb.co/kJ8yxDR
Broadcom is one of the biggest American semiconductor solutions provider, they are a very good play for the sector as they only trade at a forwarde P/E of 17 which is very good compared to comptetitors. https://ibb.co/8KFmX88 / https://ibb.co/q18SzPb
Everyone also knows Boeing as they are one of the biggest commercial manufacturers of jetliners, defence, space and security systems. The have suffered a lot in the last 2 years after the 737 accidents and the recent stay-at-home economy, but the ban on the plain has been lifted in the US and will be followed by the European Union soon, they have a big backlog of planes to work through while this situation will improve and air travel returns slowly in the next years. https://ibb.co/JxZYZ6D / https://ibb.co/NVbhDLQ
Alibaba is a online e-commerce giant that has expanded into cloud computing services also and stands to benefit a lot from the stay-at-home economy while also having just a forward PE of 32 which is very low compared to Amazon as they are the Chinese version of them. The company also owns Ant Group which is one of the largest fin tech companies in the world and will likely gain a lot after they finally manage to go public. https://ibb.co/0JPN6DN / https://ibb.co/6NgjGNV /
Berkshire is the child company of Warren Buffet as they are a holding company that engages in diversified business like technology, banks, insurance and much more. The company is currently trading at a very low P/E an barely above the price/book value as even the founders of the company believe this as they have continued to buy back shares of the company in the last year at the fastest rate in company history. https://ibb.co/bP6VjpM / https://ibb.co/hf5hX39
Caterpillar is one of best companies in manufacturing, construction and mining equipment. They are trading at almost 3 time sales with a high P/E but this is likely to regain momentum with the China trade war relaxing with the new Biden administration as well as the reopening of the economy https://ibb.co/pnC17PM / https://ibb.co/2vsQSjt
Chipotle Mexican is one of the best companies right now in the fast food business as they continue to innovate and have just opened they’re first digital only store. The company is trading at a very high P/E but has substantial growth potential so I believe it will be a great buy for the future. https://ibb.co/GCqd3Y9 / https://ibb.co/JnBm3bx
Costco is one of the world biggest retailers that has a great business model as they are making most of they’re money through membership fees unlike other retailers that mostly rely on prices, the are trading at just 1 times sales which is very good and they have a lot of room to grow especially with improve China relationships. https://ibb.co/X4M76Vd / https://ibb.co/ypg3Gyc
Crowdstrike is a cyber security company that has seen a huge spike due to the transition to more and more digital presence for all the companies. They are a company that I believe is here to stay and just started to become profitable in the last quarter. https://ibb.co/zNbfhL9 / https://ibb.co/mBw2TKj
Carvana is one of the best players for the second hand car market as they operate a unique e-commerce platform for people to buy, sell or finance cars. They are one of my favorite companies as they are also just starting to make money as they continue to expand they’re presence. https://ibb.co/QPZ1wnt / https://ibb.co/0rS6LrQ
CVS is a health and pharmacy companies that owns the most pharma stores in the US, the company has been hit recently by the news that Amazon is getting into pharmacy delivery but I believe they will be a great play for the vaccine distribution play as the company is only trading at a forward P/E of 8 and is trading below value of sales while also offering a dividend of 2% https://ibb.co/KNH6v5G / https://ibb.co/8Ps3QRB
Delta is one of the major airlines in the US and as I wanted to be exposed to some recovery plays I choose this company as I believe air travel will come back in the next years. The financials are not great for the company but they did manage to cut the cash burn rate in the last quarter. https://ibb.co/gyrSYYb / https://ibb.co/KsNbFHg
Deere is another great industrial and manufacturing play for the recovery stocks. The company is trading at a pretty high P/E ratio for them as the stock has runed very high in the last months but they do offer a dividend of 1% which is much better than any bank savings account and also have the potential for growth and also are a pretty reliable way to diversify portfolios. https://ibb.co/NSsCGN1 / https://ibb.co/thrY6W2
Disney is a very diversified family friend entertainment and media company as they have a lot of great business that will benefit a lot from the re-opening while this contributed a lot to the huge expansion of the streaming business with Disney+ and Hulu so the financials are not great but I believe this will hugely improve in the next couple of years. https://ibb.co/BG0jctn / https://ibb.co/7GR9h3c
Draftkings is an American daily fantasy sport operator that has expanded into the huge market of online gambling as more and more us states are legalizing gambling so they have a lot of room to grow in front of them especially with a great online presence with financials not being very important at the moment as they continue to grow they’re presence https://ibb.co/k8dtJmM / https://ibb.co/HgGQvG2
Dominos Pizza is one of the biggest pizza companies in the world and are also one of the best in implementing they’re presence in the delivery services as they are way better at this than others companies like Papa John’s. https://ibb.co/NZXkQjg / https://ibb.co/FVGXXBY
Etsy is a e-commerce platform for creative goods and services and has seen a huge rise in popularity and will probably remain a big gainer from this past year, though they are trading at over 70times earnings this will likely improve very much in the next years as they are expected to expand and improve earnings substantaly. https://ibb.co/5MN9zb7 / https://ibb.co/PYz0NWK
Ford is one of the biggest car makers in the world, I really like this company as it having a big push to move to the EV world with the Mustang Mach E, the EV Transit and the hugely anticipated EV F-150, the company is expected to have huge improvements in the next year as they have decent financials and are one of the best companies to own for a dividend investing strategy. https://ibb.co/MhwMB47 / https://ibb.co/745w8vq
Facebook is the largest social media network in the world that also owns Instagram, they have been struggling in the last months due to the political environment but I believe they will continue to be a giant in the tech sector as they are finding new ways to improve revenue streams especially in the highly active Instagram platform as they are trading at pretty much the same P/E like the other big tech companies but are expected to see a growth in advertising money as companies move to a more digital presence. https://ibb.co/SVjFGvc / https://ibb.co/T1Ds8V8
Fiverr is one of the biggest marketplaces for freelance services as this kind of gigs have hugely exploded this year, the company is trading at an insane PE but we have to see what the next quarters brings to us as it may end up being a very profitable company in the future. https://ibb.co/st03fyj / https://ibb.co/zQk3Mgp
General Elecitrc is a conglomerate that operates in many business like aviation, healthcare, renewables, digital industry finance and more, they have suffered a lot in the past decade but the CEO has managed to turn things around latetly and might put the company back on track as it is way below all time highs and even recent highs of 30$ just 4 years ago, they might get a boost from the return of the aviation business in the next years. https://ibb.co/2nTc9mh / https://ibb.co/sybXXPQ
General Motors is the other big Detroit giant that I own in my portfolio as I really like where the company is going with its big push in the EV market in the next couple of years, they are trading at a 19 PE and are in a very good position to keep growing. https://ibb.co/37hqV2C / https://ibb.co/BNp0hht
Barrick Gold is one of the biggest gold and copper mining companies in the world and I use it for some hedging as I like owning this company more than I like owning gold, as this company also provides us with dividends of more than 1% while gold doesn’t https://ibb.co/P9cVDxs / https://ibb.co/6tpfDtH
I don’t believe google needs any introductions as I believe they are still one of the best companies in the tech sector despite lagging the other faang companies this year but they have regained momentum in the last quarter and I believe they can be a catch up trade and a long-term investment https://ibb.co/JRm07vw / https://ibb.co/mT7nWC8
Goldman Sachs is a global investment bank that seems to be back on track after the company has struggled in the last couple of years and are also a great diversification play as they are trading below book value. https://ibb.co/FqmNyFF / https://ibb.co/1zkLmfx
Home depot is a big retailer that has gained a lot of traction in the last year and stands to benefit in the future from the great move to online sales. The company is trading at a 25 PE but seems to be on a huge growth bath while also having a more than 2% dividend yield. https://ibb.co/KXpDM77 / https://ibb.co/cDBxJgK
Honeywell is one of the most diversified technology and manufacturing companies in the world that stands to benefit a lot from the reopening as a lot of companies need to upgrade they’re technology systems. The company has a good dividend yield and a great profit margin. https://ibb.co/kMxjNRz / https://ibb.co/TL67SRD
Intuitive surgical is a global technology company for minimally invasive surgery. As this kinds of surgeries have been postponed they stand to benefit from the world getting back to normal. They have huge profit margins that can see they earnings soar in the next years. https://ibb.co/Lz7j8td / https://ibb.co/kXdmzhQ
Johnson & Johnson is a great company that develops medical devices, meds and consumer goods and stat to benefit a lot if they manage to create e good vaccine. They are currently trading at a PE of 22 but have huge upside and also are a great dividend paying company. https://ibb.co/FWXqpH2 / https://ibb.co/c8qQXNF
JP Morgan is a global financial giant with over 3 trillion$ in assests, the company trades at about a 33% price to book overvaluation but stands to benefit a lot in the future from the huge money pumping in the economy by the FED and the return of higher interest rates. https://ibb.co/hBvLxV5 / https://ibb.co/Jtkn90L
Coca-Cola is another company that needs no introduction and is still a great company to own with a great dividend yield that stands to benefit from a reopening economy. https://ibb.co/G9CmsgL / https://ibb.co/C2FLSGy
Lemonade is a disruptive insurance company that is still expanding its markets. They have a great business strategy and can become a very big player in the industry. The company has more than double since the IPO earlier this year so I believe this can be a great long term investment. https://ibb.co/zhjYRct / https://ibb.co/PZ23M72
Lowe’s is another great retailers similar to Home Depot that has done a great job in transitioning to online sales. I really like the company as it trades at just 20 times earnings and has a great growth rate and dividend yield. https://ibb.co/zfpyLZC / https://ibb.co/MfS6QNg
McDonalds is the biggest fast food company in the world, the company has done a terrific job this year with drive thru orders and stand to benefit even more after the reopening while also having a great dividend of more than 2% and possibility of growing delivery sales even more in the future. https://ibb.co/CBTWtJP / https://ibb.co/v1cBqQn
Mercadolibre is a e-commerce company that is the Amazon or Alibaba of South America as they operate in a lot of sectors like cars, aircrafts, real estate and more. I believe this is a great company to own if you believe in the future of e-commerce. https://ibb.co/McFrBhZ / https://ibb.co/Cw3wSSk
Isn’t it already obvious that my portfolio must have included Microsoft also? As they are a big beneficiary of cloud services and tech evolutions. This is a staple for every portfolio with great growth and a better dividend yield than any bank can offer at the moment. https://ibb.co/cvMm8Md / https://ibb.co/FnYD1Y3
As I want to be diversified and exposed to recovery play I also picked the cruise line that I think will do best in the long run. So though Norwegian have diluted they’re shares a lot during this year, I belive not all cruise lines will survive and they will eat up market share when everything goes back to normal. So I don’t really care about the financials that much at the moment as this is a very long term pick. https://ibb.co/tHDcrMY / https://ibb.co/PTqK0dj
Next Era Energy is the largest electric utility by market cap and has the world largest generator of renewable energy from wind and sun and stand to benefit a lot from a Biden administration that is why they are trading at such high multiples at the moment. The company also has an impressive yield of almost 2% https://ibb.co/xjYVMx4 / https://ibb.co/q9hjp48
I also bought NetFlix as I believe them, Disney and Roku will be some of the largest players in the streaming business as traditional TV and cinema are a dying business at the moment.The company is trading at a premium but this is due to them dumping money in high quality content to grow they’re subscriber base while they also have steadily increase subscriptions cost in the last years. I believe they will do better next quarter and will see a re-test of all time highs. https://ibb.co/VN2TF6f / https://ibb.co/B6j9zTn
I also own NIO more as a spec play to be well diversified in the EV world, I believe this is a long term investment as the stock price has gone up like bananas recently, the company will have to have perfect growth in the next couple of years to justify an increase in value as they are still losing money. https://ibb.co/MZ2NL4v / https://ibb.co/mt8f3ZR
Nike is my favorite apparel play as I believe it is the most desired my a lot of people and keeps expanding. I really like how the company is managed and I believe in them for the long-run. https://ibb.co/jw1zjgj / https://ibb.co/RYR4QSP
Nvidia is my favorite play in the semiconductor sector as they will continue to benefit from more and more personal pc sales as well as huge data center demand especially for they’re super performing products. They trade at a huge premium right now but I believe they can become the next trillion dollar company in the tech sector. https://ibb.co/kgJS0w1 / https://ibb.co/k8D1MSL
I also like owning Pepsico alongside Coca Cola as they are the two biggest players in the sector and I believe that they will both benefit a lot in the next years from the economy recovery. With pepsico offering a 2,7% dividend and a great growth path I really like owning this stock https://ibb.co/2SY4xPY / https://ibb.co/Sdt2hGC
Pinterest is an up and coming social media platform that has a great ad friendly setup and could see growth in the next years. They are trading at insane PE ratios but that should catch up to the company in the future and I believe you must own it to be well diversified. https://ibb.co/gwGFbyb / https://ibb.co/5TYz4KS
Palantir is a highly controversial name right now but its products and services are really good as they are earning more and more stamps of approval with government contracts while also expanding to commercial use. Financial info is not that good as the company barely reported they’re first earnings after the IPO. https://ibb.co/fdQ42gc / https://ibb.co/wyTJSG2
PayPal is another great company that will do very well in the future as payments transition to a more digital approach and the company is transitioning to allow cryptocurrencies as well which will attract even more users. They have had a greet increase in revenue and eps in the last quarters and I expect that to continue to grow. https://ibb.co/9tXxhJZ / https://ibb.co/M5vCynn
Qualcomm is my favorite 5G play alongside apple as this will be a long cycle of upgrades for the communications services that will benefit them a lot.They are trading at an PE of over 30 but have great revenue and EPS growth while also offering an almost 2% dividend yield. https://ibb.co/NFsnKqW / https://ibb.co/x5sJLW6
Roku is a great play for the hardware and subscription based services for digital media players and has huge tailwinds that will benefit them while the old TV cycle is dying. They have had a huge year over year revenue growth and subscribers growth that has passed the 40 million mark for the first time recently. https://ibb.co/Fqd7sYP / https://ibb.co/ccKqzkC
While SunRun is another great play for the new Biden administration as well as the transitioning to more renewable energy as they may see a huge boost in revenue growth and earnings with more money being pumped into the renewable sector. https://ibb.co/0jr3TRg / https://ibb.co/NmdSdwP
Everyone also knows Starbucks, as I expect them to be a huge gainer on a improved US-China relationship so despite suffering a lot from this economy the stock is still up more than 16% in the last year while revenues have declined, expect this to bounce back by 2021-2022. https://ibb.co/s5nTzQX / https://ibb.co/fDyhvX3
Shopify is a multinational e-commerce cloud based platform for merchants like small and medium sized business so that can easily have an online store that they can manage payments for, orders inventory and much more. The company is trading at P/E’s that are crazy but the revenue and EPS growth is also amazing and has the potential for a lot more growth as the world is going more and more digital. https://ibb.co/6nt4GhC / https://ibb.co/QbFhybt
Store capital is a real estate investment trust that focuses on single tenant commercial real estate so they can negotiate much better rents and collections than other REIT. They are still more than 8$ under the highs and are a great diversification and yield giving stock to own. https://ibb.co/XzBY41g / https://ibb.co/TrGRZpR
AT&T is one of the largest providers in the us and seems to be getting back on track after they have struggled in the past decade, they trade at only 8 times forward P/E and have one of the best dividend yields at more than 7% so I believe this is a must have staple in your portfolio that brings stability and cash flow. https://ibb.co/cYcfYMm / https://ibb.co/8D3NzZr
While Target has been doing some amazing things as they operate as a general merchandise retailers and are doing some amazing things with online sales, they currently have seen a spike in the last months and are trading at a p/e of over 22 but I see them as a long term winner that offers both growth and value with a dividend yield of 1,5%. https://ibb.co/Fzd8TMw / https://ibb.co/NLnw4Lv
While the other communication provider that I like is T-Mobile US which has seen a huge spike in user growth and are poised to do a lot of great things with the 5G cycle, they trade at a very high multiple for this sector but the growth expectations are huge for this company. https://ibb.co/PCDFD38 / https://ibb.co/BTSzTMp
Moving on, one of the biggest gainers this year, TESLA is also one of my favorite companies to own as they continue to expand the products they offer and improve margins on vehicle, they are also expanding into more and more services, while manufacturing is growing exponentialy. They trade at insane P/E’s but they have just managed to be included in the SP500 so this may bring some stability to the stock as the company continues to grow in the next decade.https://ibb.co/6rNJf6q / https://ibb.co/CWN6wD4
Visa is the biggest global payments technology company and is expected to continue to grow as more people start using cashless payment options, they are a great growth and value company for the future as cash payments is a dying proposition worldwide. https://ibb.co/CVXgZD9 / https://ibb.co/BPKxFfZ
Wal-Mart, the biggest employer in the US continues to do amazing stuff as they continue to expand they’re online presence and compete with Amazon as they trade at a 23 P/E and also offer a dividend yield. they are a great play alongside with Amazon which trades at much higher valuations. https://ibb.co/Sr9s83J / https://ibb.co/0CvZKkD
Wynn is another great recovery stock that I like as recently we found out that foot traffic in Macau has ramped up, this bolds well for the company as they will be one of the biggest gainers on the reopening. So if you are a long term investor you should get into this stock I believe. https://ibb.co/6rk2qNQ / https://ibb.co/mC35VPr
Zoom is the one company that I will be selling in the next couple of days. I know they are one of the best video conferencing apps out there, but I believe they will have a lot of problem due to a number of free apps that also offer great quality while the company is trading at insane p/e numbers. I know this trend is here to stay, but I thing there are far better play in the stock market out there rather than Zoom at this price point. https://ibb.co/T1tStb8 / https://ibb.co/rmxh0x3
I know I didn’t get into in-depth stuff, technical analysis, fundamentals and more but I will continue go more in depth with this stocks as time goes on.
So here how I want to make my portfolio look like when I have enough money to open all the positions. TARGETED PORTFOLIo
As you can see a quarter of my portfolio will be invested in high quality companies that are pretty safe in my opinion. While over 45% of the portfolio will go to companies that I really like, that have a pretty low risk in my opinion and can offer great returns in the future. While I will also use about 22% of my portfolio into more risky companies that can bring very good profits for the portfolio but in my opinion are not as safe as the others.
And finally I will invest about 7% of my portfolio into more speculative stocks or hedge stocks like Barrick Gold and Goldman Sachs. I don’t want to keep money on the sidelines at the moment as I expect the stock market will keep rising for a couple of years at a rapid pace due to the recovery of the economy.
Thank you everyone for reading! Hope you enjoyed the content!
Be sure to leave a comment down below with your opinion on the matter of more or less stocks and other thoughts on the stock market!
Have a great Thanksgiving and see you next time!

Not Financial Advice (NFA)
Warning: Wall of Text. If you hate reading just skim through the bolded/italicized
Ever since I publicized my findings on DKNG, the stock has underperformed & probably has fucked a lot of people here, especially given the overly bullish stance back in June. Unless you took my advice & got into Puts then, congrats, welcome to tendie town. For the ADHD retards, here’s what the next wall of text is going to summarize: I believe at the current price of ~$30, the stock is oversold.
A tech-focused, high-growth Company that has made sports betting easy to understand with an aesthetically pleasing interface similar to how Robinhood has neatly laid out stock market gimmicks so even high-schoolers can make sense of it I believe, is underpriced at these levels.
Let’s get into some details as to why the stock has underperformed:
First off, the news slate revolving sports with the rumored delay/cancellation of the MLB season & the NFL watching from the sidelines is in my view, just a part of why the stock has underperformed. We’ll revisit this later in this post, but I want to focus on the drivers of the stock’s recent underperformance, & why these factors are now in the rearview mirror.
Part I – The Past Has Passed – SPAC-related Equity Dilution
History lesson first: DKNG went public via a SPAC merger, which has exploded in popularity recently. Anyone serious about analyzing stocks going forward needs to do their homework on this, Google is your friend.
A feature of most SPAC merger to public listings that creates a headwind to near-term share prices are embedded equity dilution events, usually in the form of earn-outs (stock bonuses to execs, the SPAC sponsor) & conversion of Warrants.
On 5/24, the earn-outs were triggered, adding 6m shares to the share count.
On 6/26, 16.3m warrants converted to DKNG, netting them ~$188m of cash.
Stepping back a little, in addition to the above, on 6/18 DKNG launched a follow-on equity offering of 16M shares @ $40/Share [1], receiving $621M in proceeds.
The last part is tricky to understand from a dilution perspective. To simplify, historically it’s almost a coin toss whether a Company’s shares outperform on the onset of an equity offering. While issuing shares does dilute the existing shareholder base, it theoretically shouldn’t, if the proceeds from the offering are earmarked for investments/projects that yield outsized returns. This is the reality for the long term, theory for the short-term. For the short-term, the ‘reality’ isn’t that the proceeds will be used for investments/projects that yield outsized returns, it is more about how convincing management is to investors that the investments they intend to pursue with the proceeds will outweigh the dilutive effects of issuing incremental shares. That’s a mouthful, but hopefully you get what I’m trying to convey.
All of this stuff put together – the Company has increased its share count by ~39M, but now has a whopping ~$1.4Bn of cash [2]. More on this in the next section.
Part II – MLB News Should Not Fucking Matter & DKNG Is Positioned As the Leading Online/Mobile Sports Platform
DKNG should not be so tied to MLB news or any of this shit as the ongoing success of the NBA/NHL season + Soccer in Europe has effectively created a blueprint on how to regulate player behavior so that they maintain professionalism amidst the pandemic. I’m going out on a whim here, but I truly think the MLB threatening a cancellation of the season is pure posturing to get these fuckers to behave appropriately. Maybe a ‘bubble’ is what it takes to get these players to focus on their jobs instead of going out & contracting COVID, but I argue that isn’t necessarily required given Soccer in Europe. So there’s already a proven path here without the need for a bubble in Soccer, so MLB/NFL should be fine, and execs need to study how they got it done in Europe. Okay, back to some facts.
Anecdotally, I’ve kept in touch with a handful of sports bookies from California to New York & even internationally about what they’re seeing – all of them say that since the NBA season started on 7/30 & since Soccer (especially the Premier League) resumed in June, along with other leagues like La Liga & Serie A, they’ve seen massive increases in betting.
These numbers are also showing up in the official data [3]:

• Average % increase in sports betting handle from April 2020 to June 2020 (handle is the total $ wagered in sports bets) from the states that reported up to June 2020 (NJ, PA, MS, RI, WV, IA, IN, NH) of +258%!
  
  • Note: NV is left out due to the site I sourced showing a weirdly negative number – so I dug into the official filings & show specifically, Sports Mobile betting growth from June since April has growing by at least +73% [4]

REMEMBER: This is for June only! No NBA, No NHL, No MLB, just Soccer, Golf, NASCAR & UFC.
The data clearly shows that there was a ton of pent-up sports betting demand, which leads one Wall St. analyst to think that betting on the NBA/NHL could ABSORB the MLB’s sports betting handle (handle = total $ size of sports bet) [5]. Remember, the MLB season is still ongoing, with games being played. The entire focus is on the Miami Marlins & St. Louis Cardinals. Fucking retards.
Additionally, I want to remind everyone that DraftKings.com is the #1 Fantasy sports website in the U.S. [6]. Also, since April 2020 site visitations are up +86% [7] & Google Search Trends for “Draft Kings” is up ~3x compared to PRE-COVID levels [8]. What does this mean? They are piquing more people’s curiosity than prior to COVID/ongoing slate of sports.
This is important because remember that ~$1.4Bn chest full of cash I mentioned DKNG had assembled earlier? Well, that money is being put to work & results are already coming in, which is exactly what DKNG intended to do with it.
Part III – Legalization of Sports Betting in the U.S.
I could write a fucking bible on this topic alone, but for now we’ll stick to some basics. Due to COVID, it’s easy to understand that each State’s financial situation is clearly in shit. Because of this, you better believe that these guys are going to start taking a hard look at how they can extract additional tax revenues, & what’s one of the easiest ways to do this? Legalization & taxation of gambling.
The big players: CA, TX, FL & NY. First, CA pushing its legislation out to 2023 was fucked up, but here’s a twist I want to add to this: Anything that has to do with gambling in CA you better believe is lobbied against by not just the Tribal casino owners in CA, but by the deep pockets of Las Vegas money. Similar thing can be said for FL, but let’s take a look at some actions by LV/nationwide gambling companies that are starting to align financial incentives with guys like DKNG.

• MGM / GVC Holdings JV in BetMGM - $450m total invested
• PENN invests $163m into BS Sports
• Caesars has a 20% stake in William Hill plus partnership deals with The Stars Group (TSG) & our winner DKNG for operating its sports books

So it’s safe to say going forward, nationwide legalization of sports betting will reap rewards for everyone involved, & no longer be something LV money is completely focused on safeguarding.
Let’s also not forget that DKNG didn’t become the Company they are today because of their fancy app, but because their management team has a HISTORY of navigating the U.S.’s legal framework to get what they want out of it.

• The Crown Jewel – The Internet Gambling Prohibition & Enforcement Act: I said it in a previous post, but I want to emphasize that them getting Fantasy Sports to be labeled a ‘game of skill’ by FEDERAL Law as opposed to gambling is just something for the history books. Fucking genius shit. When this happened I bet every casino from LV to every Indian Tribe that has one was against it, yet DKNG & other DFS providers won.
• There’s more, but more recently: Getting into IL:
  
  • In IL, there’s an 18-month ‘penalty box’ for Companies that offer DFS to offer sports betting. Our guys at DKNG created a workaround to this situation with their partnership with Casino Queen [9]. DKNG being savvy again.

These guys are at the cutting edge of creating legal frameworks to successfully launch their products & now with more of their ‘competitors’ financially aligned with them, combined with financial deterioration of State budgets, we should see an overweighting of good news vs. bad on the legal front.
Final Part – Share Price Targets
Under-fucking priced at anything below $42.50
Near-term catalysts:
8/14: DKNG files 2Q’20 results, might be shitty, but you can bet that the Earnings Call is going to contain rhetoric on how massive the uptick in sports betting has been since late June/July.
Sometime from now until November: NY releases ‘study’ by Spectrum Gaming on online/mobile sports betting.
8/20 – 9/7: PGA Championship for FedEx Cup Title
9/5 – KY Derby
9/10: NFL KickOff Game
9/17: PGA U.S. Open Start Date
Month of October: NBA/NHL Playoffs
10/1: Estimated launch of online sports betting in TN
11/1: Estimated launch of online sports betting in VA
[1] https://draftkings.gcs-web.com/news-releases/news-release-details/draftkings-announces-proposed-public-offering-class-common-stock
[2] Wall St. Research – DKNG on 6/29/20
[3] https://www.legalsportsreport.com/sports-betting/revenue/
[4] https://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=16984; Note: Nevada did not break out April/May figures but from the Revenue difference of 3 month ended June 30 of 4,950 vs. month of June of 2,297 for a total difference of 2,653 spread evenly over April/May for a base case April estimate of 1,327.
[5] Wall St. Research - 7/27/20
[6] https://www.similarweb.com/top-websites/category/sports/fantasy-sports/
[7] https://www.similarweb.com/website/draftkings.com/#overview
[8] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=draft%20kings Feb 23-29, 2020 vs. Current Aug 2 – Aug 8, 2020
[9] https://www.legalsportsreport.com/42314/draftkings-illinois-sports-betting-market-access/