Stock Talk

FedEx has been known to be a bellweather stock for the economy. If the economy is indeed slowing down then FedEx will be the first to show it. The stock has been taking a hit, so I thought this may be good time to take a look at it. In this episode I walk through my thought process that led me to buy shares in FedEx.

With summer in the rear-view mirror, the markets hustle and bustle resumed in September, not that this past summer was sedate as I was making a fair number of investment decisions. The roller coaster continued. More trade trash talking. Flip-flops on a daily basis, Threats to delist companies from stock exchanges. More and more in the Mad King world this is becoming the norm and so it has and will continue to become very difficult for investors to process the information flowing. It's easy to hide, but we have to continue and stay true to our investing playbook. Despite the chaos, I continued to build positions and even added new ones. In this episode I share my thought processes that led to my decisions below: Decisions Taken Bought more shares in iShares Pharmaceuticals ETF (Ticker: XPH) New Position: Bought shares in Shopify (Ticker: SHOP) Sold partial position in Goldman Sachs (Ticker: GS) for 18.5% gain (Net Forex) New Position: Bought shares in Fedex (Ticker: FEDX) Sold position in iShares US Financials ETF (Ticker: XLF) for 10.1% gain (Net Forex) Bought more shares in Square (Ticker: SQ) Bought more shares in Amazon (Ticker: AMZN)

We're half-way through the year and so I thought it would be a good time to check back into my ROBO portfolio to see how it's doing and if there is anything interesting going on.   I was all good to go on writing a very pedestrian update as the portfolio had not undergone any significant changes in over a year. Then I got a couple of emails.

Under Armour shares had been taking a beating recently, so I decided to take a look and see if there may be a good entry point.

I really wasn't looking at buying in to Amazon. I have been a bit of a critic of the company in the past, but a recent pull back in the stock combined with rumblings of regulatory oversight compelled me to take a look at the stock and weigh the possibility to buy in. Here is my mind map analysis that led me to my decision to buy shares.

What got me interested in Square was that it recently got beaten down on a “bad” earnings report, but when I took a bit of dive into it, I saw some interesting items.  They recently sold it's online food delivery platform Caviar. It was a money loser and burning a lot of cash and to get $400 million back and getting rid of the cash burn meant to me that SQ would not be going cash flow positive.  Next, SQ is a pure North American play. Very little in the way sales outside, so any of the trade war rhetoric doesn't really play into SQ's wheelhouse. Finally, the new Cash App appears to be a big money maker, especially in the crypto space. In this episode, I share my analysis of Square which you can check out below.

Google or Alphabet has been on my wish list for a long time, so when the stock started languishing in the low $1100's, I thought I should take a look. There has been a lot of chatter of more regulatory oversight of the big tech companies including Alphabet. That being said the company is a juggernaut and is one of the most profitable companies on the planet. It is in fierce competition to control the ecosystem of many important industries so I couldn't avoid an opportunity to pick it up at a bit of discount. In this episode I share my analysis that led me to open a position. Sure enough the day I bought it the earnings report came and the stock popped 10 percent!

One of ongoing challenges with my portfolio is I hold too much cash. A big reason is my ongoing pessimism on the valuation of stocks, so my risk tolerance has skewed to holding more cash. Given where I am in my life that's not good. With the introduction of Asset Allocation based ETF's, it's now easier and cheaper to get a diversified equity exposure by holding a single ETF. I decided that I want put some of this cash into these types of ETF's. I put together a video and podcast that walks through my analysis and thought process of evaluating a few ETF products.

The cornerstone of my investment coaching practice is to teach and engage with people on how to educated and ultimately successful investment decisions involving stocks and Exchange Traded Funds (ETF's). It's one thing to teach this stuff. It's another thing to model the behavior and it's a totally different thing to actually demonstrate tangible results.  There are tons of people out there who write and podcast some wonderful, thought provoking ideas about investing. They really know their stuff and often do more justice than I could ever do. I'm not a financial philosopher.  I usually defer to their thinking. That's the thing. There are a lot of people who write ABOUT investing, but I wonder at the back of my mind if they PRACTICE it just was well as they write about it? In this episode I share the results of my most recent and updated my list of my last 100 investment decisions I've taken and to see what were the outcome of those decisions and see if I can discover any interesting patterns or observations in my behaviours, both bad and good. 

August arrived with a bang. The market barely had a chance to digest the recent lowering of interest rates by the Federal Reserve, and the subsequent strange messaging that this would be a one time deal. The market did not like that. To make this even more crazy, the Mad King decided to drop the bomb of threatening to put tarrifs on all China imports, only to see China counter with lowering the Yuan and triggering a trade/currency war. The market threw up on the possible scenarios. Then the Mad King walked back the threat. Essentially he blinked, leaving with US with no cohesive strategy. The Chinese are now fine to wait the whole thing out which is may put more pressure on stock prices…until…they started to walk it back and then the market got all happy again. If that's not enough the US 2yr-10yr yield curve inverted and all of a sudden the countdown to the impending recession was joined. The Dow Jones plunged 800 points, marking the 4th worst daily drop in history. In early August the Dow dropped the first 6 sessions. Are you following this? What a time to be investing! Stocks? Who wants stocks? I started to go through my wish list to see if anything appealing. There were a lot of stocks on my wish list that started to look really good.  A few items popped up and despite the roller coaster ride the markets were going through, I decided to dip my toe in a few names and I also decided to bank some profits in a few other names. In this episode I share my thought process that went into these decisions. DECISIONS TAKEN New Position: Bought shares in Square Inc. (Ticker: SQ) Bought more shares of Canadian Natural Resources (Ticker: CNQ) Sold shares in iShares Gold Bullion ETF (Ticker: CGL.C) Sold shares in Vanguard Consumer Staples ETF (Ticker: VDC) for 19.5% gain (net Forex) New Position: Bought Shares in Under Armour (Ticker: UAA)

After several uneventful months where I stood on the sidelines, I decided to make a fair number of decisions in July, even with all the trade-trash-talking going on. The big trigger for me I think was that it was becoming very clear that interest rates are going to track downward and that may put a floor on stock prices in the short to medium term. So I thought this would be a good time to build up some positions. I still think stock prices are overvalued and continue to have a short position, however we can't fight the Fed. Maybe I decided to jump in because I haven't done anything in the past few months and I was itching to put some more money to work? I'm not going to deny that emotions and a certain level of a Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) could be at play here.  Decisions Taken Added to position in iShares Long Term Bonds (Ticker: XLB)New Position: Bought shares in Vanguard Growth Asset Allocation ETF (Ticker: VGRO) New Position: Bought shares in Alphabet (Ticker: GOOGL) New Posiition: Bought shares in Amazon (Ticker: AMZN) Bought more shares in iShares Pharmaceutical ETF (Ticker: XPH) Bought more shares in JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs (Ticker: JPM and GS) New Position: Bought shares in CVS Health (Ticker: CVS) Bought more shares in iShares Germany ETF (Ticker: EWG) Bought more shares in Vanguard Emerging Markets ETF (Ticker: VEE)

In this first of a 3 part series, I share the thought processes that went into my investment decisions I made over the summer. In this episode I walk through the decisions I made in June. Investment Decisions Taken: Opened position in iShares Long Term Bonds (Ticker: XLB) Sold position in Electronic Arts (Ticker: EA) for 11.6 percent gain (net Forex)

With the Federal Reserve signalling that they intend to lower interest rates in the very near future, I thought I would do a quick mind map and scratch what the impact would be on the types of investment decisions I would make going forward.

For the second month this year, the only investment decision I made was…to make no decisions. I decided to stand pat. In this post I share my thought process that led me to decide to stand pat.

Like anything there are some things that we don't like to do but have to do in order to get to the bigger goals we want to achieve. Sports offers some interesting strategies for success that port over quite nicely into the investing game. In this episode I share some insights on how what strategies we can adopt to allow us to stay in the investing game and improve our probabilities for success.

This episode is about how the game of basketball and specifically the strategies behind it can teach us a lot about investing as well. I was originally going to do this around March Madness time, but never got around to it, so the timing is great! The game of basketball is so much different than when I grew up. It's all about 3 points shots and perimeter offensive strategies. In many ways, the investing world has evolved quite similarly with the shift more index, low cost strategies.

April saw the markets continue to melt-up and regain their losses from 2018. In a couple of cases I was able to lock in some nice gains and pick up some shares in areas that have actually been lagging the market surge. What's even more pleasant is that the stocks and ETF's involved below are one's that I've held in the past and I think there are some takeaways we can get from it.   Decisions Taken: New Position: Bought shares in Cal Maine Foods (Ticker: CALM) Bought more shares in iShares Pharma (Ticker: XPH) Sold shares in Disney (Ticker: DIS) for 39 percent gain (net Forex) Sold shares in Southern Copper Company (Ticker: SCCO) for 18.2 percent gain (net Forex)

In the last of my 5 part series where I dive into answering a fundamental question that factors into every investment decision we make, I look at the nebulous concept of valuation from a perspective that goes beyond simply buying stocks with some low valuation multiple or ratio. I also try to bring the various concepts discussed together to provide some kind of framework that we can takeaway and carry with us as we go forward and make investment decisions.

I continue on my deep dive into figuring out what drives stock prices by looking at the one metric the rules them all and factors into every investment decisions we make. There are numerous mechanical and technical methodologies and strategies that are available to us when evaluating investment opportunities. At the end of the day all that due diligence may go for naught when we bring in this important metric that drives stock prices.

For most people investing revolves around the application of rules. Buy stocks with P/E ratios below X and have Debt/Equity ratios below 0.5. Index investing is better than active strategies, which is better than value investing. The reality mechanical strategies work until they don't. In the third of our five part series, I dig deep further to look beyond mechanical investing strategies and examine the importance of how tendencies, principles, and to a certain extent fate, play critical roles in the setting of stock prices and how we frame our investment decisions. I also look at how we react to what market does, can also be a critical factor to setting stock prices and what investing competencies we need to develop to manage these tendencies to make more successful investment decisions.

In Part 2, I start to drill down a bit further on trying to answer a fundamental questions that every investor is asking. In this episode I apply one of the core principles of market based economics. Supply and Demand. Makes sense as a stocks trade in a…market…that contains buyers and sellers. The way buyers and sellers behave plays a critical factor into how stock prices are set.

In this first of a five part series, I take a deep dive into trying to answer a fundamental question that works directly and indirectly into every investment decisions. What makes stock prices go up and down? What makes a stock valuable? In this episode, I start at a high level by exploring a core foundational element that we often overlook but plays a critical role in driving stock prices.

March came in like a lion for my portfolio. An angry lion. My portfolios took some body blows that I really didn't see coming and it forced me to make some hard decisions. There were also some good outcomes as well as some stocks continue to benefit from the market reinvigoration thanks to the 180 pivot by the Federal Reserve to pause on future interest rate increases for the rest of the year. Investment Decisions Taken: Sold shares in CVS Health Inc. (Ticker: CVS) Bought more shares in Winpak Inc (Ticker: WPK) Bought more shares in Southwest Airlines (Ticker: LUV) Sold shares in Tiffany Inc (Ticker: TIF) Sold shares in Tyson Foods (Ticker: TSN)

After coming off the previous month where I made no decisions to buy or sell stocks and ETF's in my portfolio, February couldn't be more opposite. The trigger that got me to move was the louder chatter that the Federal Reserve was going to put the breaks on any future interest rate increases. To me this sudden 180 degree shift by the Federal Reserve was a game changer for the markets. In this episode, I walk through the investment decisions I made in February. Investment Decisions Taken: NEW POSITION: BOUGHT SHARES IN ISHARES GOLD BULLION ETF (TICKER: CGL.C) NEW POSITION: BOUGHT SHARES IN VANGUARD EMERGING MARKETS ETF (TICKER: VEE) NEW POSITION: BOUGHT SHARES IN SOUTHERN COPPER COMPANY (TICKER: SCCO) NEW POSITION: BOUGHT SHARES IN CANADIAN NATURAL RESOURCES (TICKER: CNQ) NEW POSITION: BOUGHT SHARES IN ISHARES PHARMACEUTICAL ETF (TICKER: XPH)

With commodity prices including copper falling, I thought it might be a good time to take a look at some copper stocks. Southern Copper was one I've owned in the past so I thought I'd check in and see if there may be an opportunity to buy in.

With commodity prices falling off and the Federal Reserve signalling they will pause on future interest rate hikes, the dynamics of a falling US$ and rising commodity prices including oil could be in play. I decided to do a quick analysis of CNQ which is considered among the big players in the Canadian Energy scene to see if there may be an opportunity to jump in.

Yes it been a full 4 years since I opened up my Robo Advisor account. For those new to investing, a Robo Advisor is a new wave of wealth management companies that invest on behalf of others using an online platform and a combination of algorithms and computer coding to buy and sell specific investments and manage portfolios. Four years ago these firms were just stepping into the investing conciousness, but since then they have mushroomed and even traditional investment companies are now offering some flavor of online investment management services. It all seemed quite appealing however there was one thing that many marketing materials, blogs, and mainstream media was avoiding (and still are I might add)…do these types of services make money for investors?  Since no robo advisor company back then was interested in disclosing their performance (they still avoid it) other than citing research that their strategy is superior, I decided four years ago to try an experiment and find out for myself. I setup an account with one of the big Robo Adviser firms. My goal was to go through the process and blog about my experience and more importantly, the results. I've always said that we need a good five years to really get a handle on how effective these services are compared to traditional wealth management services. Well, we're at the 80% mark of my ROBO journey, so let's check back in and take a look at how it's doing now and see if we can squeeze any conclusions about the service.

The way 2018 ended in the markets with culminating in the Christmas Eve massacre followed by the post-Christmas bounce, it looked like 2019 would be more of the same. Turned out the market continued to bounce high and at one point erased most of the damage of last year. In this episode, I share the Investment “Decisions” that I made in January.

I always get questions from people about investing. In this episode I share a few questions and offer my takes: Is stock picking more art than science? How do you come up with different investment ideas? What is the first metric you look at when you research a stock? What are the tricks in investing in the stock market?

One of my motivations as an Investment Coach is to make people more street smart when dealing with the investing industry (banks, mutual funds, wealth management companies, brokers, robe-advisers etc). Even though more people today are investing on their own, the reality is you cannot invest in a bubble, and whether you go the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) path or work with someone, you will still have to work with the industry. You have to co-exist with them. So loyally and faithfully we will march into our local branch (or lounges), or a financial adviser's office, or a Starbucks and begin the dance. The thing is before you even make contact they have you sized up. They think you're an idiot and they are going to go out of their way to make you feel like one. The industry has developed a rather air-tight formula for getting us to shell out our hard earned savings and the core component of their value proposition is to make us feel inadequate or give us a bad money image. In this episode I will share with you this formula and give an example of this ritual and more importantly how we can overcome these negative connotations they are projecting to us.

December brought more pain and angst in the markets. It forced me to make some tough decisions and take some losses, but it didn't dissuade me from staying true to my investment ideology and my search for buying quality investments at a discounted price. In one case I had to do a 180 and retract my decision.  Decisions Taken: New Position: Bought shares in Vanguard FTSE Canada All Cap ETF (Ticker: VCN) New Position: Bought shares in Goldman Sachs (Ticker: GS) and JP Morgan (Ticker: JPM) New Position: Bought shares in Exon Mobil (Ticker: XOM) New Position: Bought shares in Tiffany (Ticker: TIF) Sold Shares in Johnson and Johnson (Ticker: JNJ) for 7.5 percent gain (Net Forex) Bought more shares in Big Lots (Ticker: BIG)….and then sold it all Sold shares in MGM Resorts for 21.1 percent loss (net forex)

Luxury retail stocks were taking a pounding along with the broader market. Stocks like Tiffany had been falling from the $140's to the mid $80's. Tiffany is a stock I've held in the past and had on my watch list to look at if it were ever to fall back. So with the tumble I did a quick analysis to see if there is an opportunity to jump in which I share in this episode.

Happy New Year indeed! It seems like many investors are more than happy to turn the page on a new year and fast! So much for the Santa Clause rally. The markets continued to roll over as 2018 wound down. While it will definitely crimp some of my returns for the year. I actually viewed it as an opportunity to do some Christmas shopping. This is the type of shopping I like where the money I spend on high quality assets that will have a good chance of growing into more assets in the future. The core tenant of investing is to buy low and sell high. The times where you can buy low are unfortunately when the market is cratering. The later part of the yea is a usually quiet period for making decisions but this year some companies that I really never would considered in the past because they've been just too expensive looked very appetizing to pick up on the cheap. So I made a fair number of investment decisions in November and December. I bought small positions, because given the negative sentiment in the market, I wouldn't be surprised to see prices fall further, which is fine because I'm happy to slowly build up these positions at a lower price point. So in this first of two posts, I share with you my investment decisions from November 2018. In part 2 I will review my decisions in December 2018. Decisions Taken: Sold shares in Starbucks (Ticker: SBUX) for gain of 29.6%, net FX) Bought more shares in Activision Blizzard (Ticker: ATVI) Sold shares in Activision Blizzard (Ticker: ATVI) for 25% Loss – Net FOREX Bought more shares in Electronic Arts (Ticker: EA) Sold shares in Walmart (Ticker: WMT) For 20% gain (net FOREX) Bought more shares in iShares Germany ETF (Ticker: EWG)

Throughout the year I've shared with you the investment decisions I've made. It's important to me that as someone that teaches people how to make better investment decisions, that I model the concepts and principles I teach. Well it's that time of the year where in this episode I walk it back and see what I did right and more importantly what I did wrong…and what if anything did I learn from the experiences of the past year that will help me become a better investor?

One of the most under performing asset classes so far this year has been German equities. As of this writing, German stocks were down over 20 percent year-to-date. Everyone complains about the weakness in the Dow Jones indexes, but the German markets have been in a serious downfall. This despite some of the most well-known and dominant global companies like Daimler Benz and Seimens. The German economy is the enginge of Europe and the opportunity to get exposure to that market at a 20 percent discount was appealing to me. I decided the best way to get the exposure was to passively own a basket of German stocks and that led me to evaluate some German equity ETF's. In this podcast episode, I walk through my analysis of several German equity ETF's.

There was a fair bit of hand wringing going into October, a month where there have been historically some iconic stock market meltdowns. The market was starting to show some signs of fatigue. At one point the S&P 500 index crossed below its 200 day moving average which hasn't happened in literally years. Interest rates keep tracking up. The Mad King continued to elevate the trade trash talking and investors were getting nervous and stock prices in the early part were trending downward, but nothing crazy that motivated me to look into buying. Sue enough on October 23, the market had a fit. Suddenly words like “crisis” and “turmoil” were being thrown around, when historically they weren't even scratches. It's times like this where having my investing playbook is critical as it gives me an anchor to check in and review my investing ideology and how should be executing. It makes me review my Wish List to see if there are any stocks I've liked are now more affordable.  The last thing I should be doing is panicking and reacting. It's these stress points where we need to be put all the upfront hard work and making thought-out decisions.  In this episode I walk through the various decisions I made during the month. With quite a few stocks that I owned had fallen in value enough that I thought it was worth jumping in and buying some more shares to lower my average cost down. There were also a couple of stocks/ETF's that I had on wish list that had become a lot cheaper and thought it would be good to start building a position. 

With Emerging Market stocks taking a hit, I thought it would be a good time to explore building up a position in the sector. In the episode I evaluate several ETF's to determine which would be an appropriate one to add to my portfolio.

It's a golden age for investors. Never at any point in history has it been this cheap to get into investing. Management fees and trading commissions have been falling over the past 20 years, thanks mostly to technology which have improved speed and efficiencies of transactions. In the last year or so, the competition over lower fees has been quite intense with ETF companies like Vanguard and Blackrock going back and forth lowering fees to almost zero. This has trickled down into traditional investment products like mutual funds which have lowered their fees, albeit less aggressively.  Well the race to the bottom in fees has reached a new level. Free. As in nothing. Nada. Rien.  It's a great time to be an investor. Eliminating a focus on fees can allow more due diligence on the investment itself, however I've been wondering if these products and service offerings are really free and is free in the grand scheme of things a good thing for investors? In this episode I dive into the the illusion of free that the investment industry has been pushing on us.

Amazon has been one of the “It” stocks for the last decade. It has had an epic run.  If we were to look at Amazon from a 1st level thinking perspective, the conventional thinking behind buying Amazon is that they are disrupting retail. Any space Amazon enters, be it grocery, streaming, pharmaceutical drugs, diapers is met with fear and doom by the existing players. 1st level thinking would tell us that in the future we will shop at Amazon only. I would consider Amazon to be a Fear of Missing Out or FOMO stock. Many have missed the moves up and feel compelled to jump aboard so they won't miss out. In this episode I try to take a look at Amazon from a 2nd level thinking perspective.

With summer done, I was thinking I may be due to make a few investment decisions, but it was quiet month with one selling decision which I wasn't counting on making anytime soon along with one decision to buy more shares and one new stock I added to my portfolios. At the same time, I was faced with a decision that challenged some of my personal values and given the times we're in, I don't think I'm the only one that may be facing similar decisions. In this episode I walk through my most recent investment decisions from September. Investment Decisions Made: Bought more shares in Tyson Foods (Ticker: TSN) Sold shares in JD.com (Ticker: JD) for 28.5 percent loss (Net Forex) Bought more shares in MGM Resorts (Ticker: MGM) New Position: Bought shares in Las Vegas Sands (Ticker: LVS)

In Part 1, I shared some thoughts on a recent report by the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) outlining the challenges the financial services industry is having in getting Millennials to invest. The OSC report had a great opportunity to address those investing pain points, but like so many financial literacy initiatives, the messaging is not clear, consistent, and understandable. The report identifies solutions, yet they are separate and not integrated and use a lot of industry jargon that people just won't connect with. They emphasize processes over results. What is the outcome we want Millennials to achieve with investing? Another way? In this episode, I'd like to share from my experience as Investment Coach and as someone who works with people to develop their investing competencies, some ideas that I found have better motivated people and not just Millenials into become more engaged with investing. They address the pain points people have with expressed about investing which include; being scared of investing, feeling overwhelmed by the process, feeling paralyzed when trying to make a decision, and not knowing how to start and take that first step. These are my takes and perspectives. They are by no means the most definitive and all encompassing. 

My motivation in starting my own practice to teach and engage people on investing revolved around financial literacy. I thought that if I could improve someone's financial literacy, they will have a better chance at becoming a successful investor. I was always a big supporter of financial literacy programs, especially in schools. It made sense and I thought it was the right thing to do. The reality is over the years I've learned and witnessed first-hand that while noble and done with good intentions, financial literacy programs just don't work. A revolving door of programs, a lot of them government and industry sponsored have been rolled out over the years, starting out with enthusiasm and then just petering away in obscurity. Here in Canada, we even have a Financial Literacy Commissioner that acts and cheers Canadians into becoming more financially literate, but to no avail. So much effort, again all with good intentions, has been put into improving financial literacy but it just doesn't seem to stick.  So queue the latest attempt at cracking the financial literacy daVinci Code. A 42-page report commissioned by the Ontario Securities Commission and prepared by a dream team of consultants and personal finance thought leaders. The report attempts to answer why people, specifically Millennials are not investing and what financial institutions can do to get them to invest. In this first of a two part series, I walk through the report and highlight some of the good points as well why the industry continues to make the same mistakes when it comes to engaging people about investing. In Part 2, I offer some some solutions that I have developed from my own practice and from my own experience helping people make more successful investment decisions.

I continue on with my analysis of video game stocks with a quick dive into Take Two Interactive. They are known for their Grand Theft Auto franchise.

Continuing on in my analysis of video game companies is my review of Electronic Arts. EA is more known for its sports games such as Madden Football and FIFA Soccer. It seems like a natural fit for EA to leverage their sports expertise into the E-Sports domain. In this episode I do a quick mind map analysis to see if EA is worthy of adding to my portfolios.

We're half-way through the year and so I thought it would be a good time to check back into my ROBO portfolio to see how it's doing and if there is anything interesting going on. Three and half years ago I decided to try an experiment and find out for myself. I setup an account with one of the big Robo Adviser firms and invested $5000 of my own money into it. My goal was to go through the process and blog about my experience and more importantly, the results. I said that we need a good five years to really get a handle on how effective these services are compared to traditional wealth management services. Well, we're coming upon the 4th anniversary of my ROBO account, so in this episode I take a look at how it's doing at the mid-year mark.

The cornerstone of my investment coaching practice is to teach and engage with people on how to educated and ultimately successful investment decisions involving stocks and Exchange Traded Funds (ETF's). It's one thing to teach this stuff. It's another thing to model the behavior and it's a totally different thing to actually demonstrate tangible results. Several years ago I decided to dig up my past trading records and to identify the most recent 100 investment decisions I made and to see how faired. In this episode I review my most recent results for my last 100 investment decisions.

You can't go one direction in the stock market these days without hearing something about Tesla. It has become the classic retail stock. Their CEO has said a few things recently that have had the markets in a tizzy. I've never really looked at Tesla stock because just eyeballing it, it looked overpriced. Well I thought with all the hysteria going on that maybe this is a good time to dive in and have a look at the company. This is my mind map video on my quick analysis of Tesla to see if it may be worth picking up.

Just because it's summer doesn't mean you lift your foot off the investing pedal. I ended up making several moves in June as some of my positions had crossed my return threshold and I had to make some decision on whether to hold on or sell and bank the profit. I also made a decision to add another stock to my portfolio as well as remove a hedging  position.  Decisions Taken: Bought more shares in Big Lots (BIG) Bought more shares in Southwest Airlines (LUV) Sold shares in Williams Sonoma (WSM) Sold shares in Baidu (BIDU) Sold shares in Gold ETF (CGL) New Addition: Bought shares in Starbucks (SBUX)