This is a list of services I personally recommend to build wealth and increase your performance.
I hate clutter, and don’t like using a lot of apps or having a lot of memberships or accounts. So, I only focus on what I consider the best and highest-impact products and services that are simple but powerful.
Brokerages
M1 Finance offers a unique investing platform. You can construct a pie chart consisting of stocks and/or ETFs, and whenever you add money to your portfolio, it’ll automatically go to whichever slices are below your target allocations.
Fidelity Investments: An excellent one-stop-shop for index funds, as well as individual stocks and options. My retirement accounts are at Fidelity.
Charles Schwab: Another great brokerage, especially for individual stocks and options. I particularly love the free research you get, including Morningstar analysis. My largest account is at Schwab.
Interactive Brokers: The go-to broker for more advanced investors, especially those wishing to invest directly on foreign-exchanges. I have another taxable account at IB.
Research Services
My primary offering here on LynAlden.com is the premium membership research service that covers global macro updates and individual stock ideas every two weeks. It has a low cost and is ideal for long-term fundamental investors in a variety of asset classes. Whether you’re a retail investor or an institutional investor, there’s value for you in that service.
Stock Waves
If you’re an active investor that is looking to combine fundamental investing with technical/sentiment analysis, I also contribute to the Stock Waves research service. We have multiple analysts including myself that look for stocks where the fundamentals and the technicals align for a high-probability outcome. This is at a higher price-point, and includes my premium content along with these other technical charts.
Other Peoples’ Research
There are some specialist publications that focus on a market niche that I have a lot of respect for and have interacted with personally:
- Dividend Growth Investor: A low-cost streamlined newsletter with hand-picked dividend growth investments. One of the most affordable “growth at a reasonable price” newsletters on the market, with a great track record and zero hype.
- Undervalued Shares: A very low-cost service that provides research on value stocks with a European/international focus. It’s so cheap that I’m not sure why an investor wouldn’t have it, and Swen’s research is very detailed.
- Independent Speculator: A premium service catering to high net worth investors that want to invest in natural resource companies, including some of the smaller ones that require specialized research. The track record is great, and contrary to many researchers in this space, the author is very calm and measured with his expectations and analysis.
Bitcoin Services
I often get questions about how the Bitcoin network works, where to buy bitcoin, and how to hold it.
First, I recommend reading my book Broken Money or skimming through my article library on Bitcoin.
Second, there are other good books on the subject, such as The Bitcoin Standard, The Bullish Case for Bitcoin, Learn Bitcoin, or Inventing Bitcoin.
Buying Bitcoin
There are plenty of easy places to buy it, including the major exchanges.
My personal method of buying is through Swan Bitcoin, and I even became an independent board director for the company. They emphasize dollar-cost averaging over time, rather than trading, and they keep fees super low because their business model is very focused rather than spread around. You can also do one-time purchases, and they have extensive services for high net worth investors, businesses, and institutions. Read my full review here.
Many exchanges are fine, but they make most of their revenue from people actively trading bitcoin, as well as from trading various altcoins that investors often lose money on. Swan Bitcoin is not an exchange, doesn’t include altcoins, and instead is a bitcoin accumulation platform, optimized for savers rather than traders. And unlike a lot of exchanges, you can actually get in contact with a member of Swan Bitcoin’s support team if you have a problem.
In addition to Swan Bitcoin, I also have high regard for Cash App, River, and Strike in the United States, Relai in Europe, Bull Bitcoin in Canada, and Bipa in Brazil. These are all great places to buy bitcoin.
Storing Bitcoin
It’s fine to hold a small amount of bitcoin on exchanges, but if your stack starts to grow, it’s a good idea to take self-custody of it, or at least some of it.
I recommend Nunchuk as an on-chain bitcoin wallet application. It also pairs well with Tapsigner NFC card wallets and other cold storage wallet products. The Nunchuk+Tapsigner combination is a great, easy, and inexpensive method to hold moderate amounts of bitcoin safely.
If you hold five figures of bitcoin or more, it is ideally held in personal cold storage on a hardware wallet that has a screen, which gives you complete control and minimizes counterparty risk. However, you should read up and understand how to do it properly, including backing up a seed phrase, to ensure you don’t lose your coins by mistake via device failure or other issues.
For hardware wallets, Trezor is the longest-running and one of the most respected ones, but you should do your own due diligence on the available options. Prioritize ones that have been around for a while, have sold a ton of devices, and have extensive audits.
For very large allocations, you may want to consider a multi-signature solution like Swan Vault as well. Swan Vault is a collaborative custody multi-signature option. This is a bitcoin cold storage setup with three separate private keys, and you need 2-of-3 keys to send your bitcoin. You’ll hold two keys in hardware wallets, and Swan will hold the third key, which can be useful for backup and inheritance planning. As an alternative, you can also check out Unchained Capital, Casa, or Nunchuk collaborative custody services. I don’t think you’ll go wrong with any of them.
Venture Capital
I’m a general partner at Ego Death Capital, where we invest in bitcoin-related venture opportunities for accredited investors. Ego Death works closely with startup founders and has historically led or co-led most of the capital rounds that it has invested in, rather than just passively participating.
Investing Books
I have an article on my favorite investing books, which you can check out here.
My #1 recommendation is The Most Important Thing
If you’re interested in analyzing individual stocks, I recommend StockDelver, my digital download for analyzing companies.
Full Transparency
I don’t run random ads on this site. You can check out all my affiliate disclosures here.