In addition to my free newsletter that comes out every 6 weeks, I also offer a premium research service that comes out twice per month and takes a deeper dive into high-conviction investment opportunities.
Each month, I keep track of 30 countries, hundreds of stocks, and a variety of key commodities, and there are generally a small handful of ideas each month that really stick out as strong opportunities. That’s what this service will focus on: giving you my most high-conviction individual investment idea twice per month in one place. I also provide a high-level macro overview with each report.
My free newsletter focuses on “big picture” issues for investors of all types along with various investment ideas, with updates every 6 weeks. This premium service digs deeper into timely high-conviction opportunities and more frequent business cycle analysis.
Service Features
A subscription to this service comes with several components and is suitable for individual investors and asset managers with a long-term focus.
Macro Update
Twice per month, investors will receive a macro update about the business cycle and key developments worth paying attention to. Focuses will include the current state of the U.S. business cycle and notable areas of weakness or strength in international markets that may signal opportunity or caution.
A High-Conviction Stock Idea
In that twice-monthly article, you will also receive a high-conviction stock idea with a detailed breakdown of my analysis.
Some stocks will be on the conservative side of the spectrum while others will be more aggressive, but all of them will be of strong quality, meaning they have strong balance sheets and a wide-moat business model.
This stock will be the one that, out of all the opportunities I am looking at, seems to offer the best potential risk/reward opportunity for long-term total returns. I define long-term as 3-5 years or more.
Many of the investment ideas will be based in the United States, and some will be foreign. They may be of any size, but mid-caps and companies on the smaller end of the large cap spectrum are where I tend to focus on the most.
My goal in everything I do is to emphasize quality over quantity. Rather than inundate you with frequent investment ideas, I will patiently focus on my highest-conviction idea twice per month.
Plus, you’ll have access to all of the premium archives.
“Top Twelve” Updated Stock List
In addition to the detailed stock or ETF idea twice per month, the service maintains a regularly-updated Top Twelve Stock List.
- Four of the stocks will be conservative blue-chip picks.
- Four of the stocks will be more aggressive, with higher return potential.
- Four of the stocks will offer safe higher yields.
Real-Money Model Portfolios
The service includes a real-money multi-asset model portfolios that many members find useful for investment ideas.
In addition to my free newsletter model portfolio, this research service has three more:
- Fortress Income Portfolio
- ETF Portfolio
- No Limits Portfolio
The Fortress Income Portfolio emphasizes solid income streams and solid diversification. It consists primarily of dividend stocks, but also includes ETFs, CEFs, and some defensive elements for tactical rebalancing to offer some protection against bear markets. Compared to my free newsletter portfolio, it’s a bit more defensive, straightforward, and higher-yielding.
The ETF Portfolio maximizes simplicity by focusing on ETFs only. It’s great for people that want to focus on the big picture and skip individual stocks while still expressing my macro themes.
The No Limits Portfolio has a core of ETFs and several individual stocks to complement them. Unlike the other portfolios that stick exclusively to securities that are on major exchanges, the No Limits portfolio includes some over-the-counter securities.
Updates on My Moves
All of my personal investments are disclosed in real-time in the members area of the research service. In addition, in each twice-monthly issue, I’ll summarize what moves I’ve been making.
Every investor has a unique situation, so I don’t suggest following my moves, buy lists, or model portfolios blindly. They may all be useful as examples, but you have to apply them to your unique personal financial situation and investment goals and do your own due diligence.
My free newsletter comes out every six weeks, and many investors contact me in between newsletters asking for updates. This premium service provides updates three times as often (approximately every two weeks) so that investors can get more timely research.
Sometimes during extreme market volatility, I send out an extra report, between normal reports, to walk readers through what’s happening or to give advance notice of a top-level asset allocation change I’m planning to make.
My Investment Approach
It’s important to have an edge when it comes to investing. Retail investors are out-gunned by Wall Street firms that can employ countless people and have deep pockets for proprietary research, and yet most of those Wall Street firms still underperform anyway due to high fees and conflicts of interest.
Wall Street is saturated with what is known as “career risk”. Many decisions are made to preserve careers rather than maximize risk-adjusted returns.
Sell-side analysts have perverse incentives to be highly bullish for most stocks they cover, and focus on quarterly and annual performance only. Portfolio managers start losing clients and get in trouble with their bosses if they underperform for a couple quarters. Hardly anyone has the freedom to focus on long-term fundamentally-driven outcomes, wherever they happen to be. Investment management is mostly a sales business, with the majority of participants being forced to play checkers rather than able to play chess.
This research service is available for an affordable cost, and focuses on a low-turnover and tax-efficient investment strategy with a pure emphasis on long-term returns. It stays away from that shorter-term noise.
In addition, many Wall Street funds are limited to a single niche, like U.S. stocks, or mid-cap stocks, for example. If their niche happens to be overvalued across the board, well, they’re out of luck. If it’s the 2000 tech bubble and they happen to be a technology mutual fund, they still have to buy tech stocks.
In contrast, I go anywhere, find bargains wherever they are, and try to navigate around bubbles and look at unloved areas. This helps avoid the problem of market efficiency, because there are rather few “cross players,” meaning investors that are willing to put money in value stocks, growth stocks, emerging markets, developed foreign markets, or commodity producers, gold, or even Bitcoin, whenever there is a major opportunity somewhere.
Sometimes it’s a U.S. value stock that is stronger than people think, or it could be a reasonably priced powerhouse U.S. growth stock that has run into some short-term issues. Maybe it’s a fundamentally strong but out-of-favor obscure Russian stock that nobody on Wall Street cares about, or maybe it’s a fast-growing Indian stock. It could be a large technology company or a small gold royalty company. There’s hardly anyone out there doing this; moving capital to wherever value happens to be, with a long-term view and broad diversification for risk management.
It is value investing with a global macro overlay.
The Engineer’s Breakdown
My background comes from a blend of engineering and finance, as well as real-world management of a technical facility, so I approach investments with an engineer’s mindset.
Engineers solve difficult problems by breaking them down into smaller pieces that are much easier to solve. They then solve those parts individually and fit them back into the greater whole.
If you’re designing an electrical circuit, for example, there is the power component, the processing component, the sensor component, and so forth. Engineers will make the system as modular as possible so that they can focus on the requirements of each component, one at a time. Similarly, if they are trying to figure out why an existing circuit is not working, they start by testing things one at a time to rule out the various components that are working, to narrow down the problem.
Investing is hard. Human nature works against you, and the competition is fierce. So, I apply the engineer’s approach to solve difficult market problems. I break the investment opportunities down layer by layer and put them back into a conclusive whole.
Global Macro Layer- Starting with my global opportunities international report, I maintain a very high-level view of approximately 30 countries worldwide. Where the debts are, which countries have massive currency reserves, who has the biggest trade deficits, which regions have the most attractive population growth, and so forth.
Business Cycle Layer- Next, I monitor the business cycle in rate-of-change terms. I pay particular attention to the U.S. business cycle but also keep an eye on other parts of the world.
Revenue Layer- When analyzing an individual company, the first step is to figure out what its top line growth potential is based on conservative analysis.
Profitability Layer- After top line growth is determined, a company has various margin changes it may experience, or changes in the number of shares that can affect per-share returns.
Dividend Layer- Many of the stocks I cover pay dividends, and they are an important part of long-term return calculations.
Valuation Layer- Lastly, I determine what valuation changes I expect as a baseline for the company, which can add significant upside potential to an out-of-favor stock.
Risks Clarified
This isn’t a “double your money in no time, guaranteed!” scammy service. Let’s be real. Investing comes with risk. Everything has risk, including cash.
One of the best defenses against risk is to have a globally-diversified multi-asset portfolio. I generally prefer to keep all of my positions (except broad ETFs) at 5% or less of my portfolio to minimize risk associated with any one company. Preferably, I try to have my portfolios experience lower volatility than the S&P 500, even if some individual investments may be volatile.
Each investment breakdown will include a description of major risks that could affect the company.
Think of each stock outcome as a probability bell curve. Some stock investments will work out roughly as expected, a few will likely work out way better, and a few might turn out poorly. Rigorous screening methods can reduce problems, but there’s always the possibility of an outside event or truly rare occurrence. Investing in a diversified set of stocks and/or ETFs reduces the overall risk of the portfolio.
In addition, stock prices are a lot more volatile than company fundamentals. Although I try to design portfolios to minimize volatility wherever possible, investors must be able to hang through volatile periods, especially for individual stocks. That’s what makes a great value investor- to do your homework on a company, make a decision, and then be willing to ignore price fluctuations, as long as your investment thesis on the company’s fundamentals remains intact.
Join Below
This research service is ideal for long-term investors, value investors, growth-at-a-reasonable-price investors, dividend investors, retirees, and investors that want to have a globally-diversified portfolio including U.S. stocks and high-quality international stocks.
It is meant for both intermediate and advanced investors that want business cycle updates and high-conviction long-term stock ideas through all market conditions.
The price for the service is $25 USD per month or $199 USD per year. Upon purchase, members create login credentials to access the premium content member’s area on this website.
Members can receive technical support or cancel further renewals of their subscription at any time via support page.
Refunds are available upon request for anyone who feels that the research service is not for them within the first two weeks of subscription. This website is fully SSL encrypted for secure payment processing.