My 🔟 Biggest Investing Mistakes 🧵

My inflation strategy:

Own businesses with recession-proof demand and pricing power

1/ How to review quarterly earnings 🧵

A step by step guide using $DXCM as an example

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2/ The BIG question: Is the thesis on track❓

Other question:

❓Is revenue growing?
❓Are margins stable/expanding?
❓Profits?
❓Balance sheet?
❓New opportunities?
❓New threats?

3/ I open 4 browser tabs

Tab 1 - Current company earnings report / shareholder letter

Tab 2 - Previous company earnings report / shareholder letter (check guidance)

Tab 3 - Analyst estimates

Tab 4 - Call Transcript

4/ Tabs 1 & 2 - Find the current & previous earnings report

I search "Dexcom Investor Relations"

I click on "press release"

Open the newest quarterly earnings report and last quarter

It can also be a shareholder letter/presentation

5/ Tab 3 - Find the quarterly analyst estimates

Open up $DXCM in yahoo finance

The "news" section usually has a link to reports on whether the company beat/met estimates

The "analysis" tab is a good source, but sometimes it updates to the next quarter too quickly

Panic selling once can destroy years of good investment decisions in an instant

but keeping your head on straight when your portfolio is tanking is hard

Here are 13 investing tips/tricks/principles that I use to keep calm when my portfolio is in free fall:

1/ Know what you own and why you own it

You can borrow stock ideas from other investors, but you can’t borrow conviction

You must understand the bull AND bear case upfront, otherwise you won’t have the conviction to hold when the price is going down

Research builds conviction

Conviction enables patience

Patience builds wealth

If a 20% drop shakes your confidence in a business, you didn’t do enough research

2/ Know what drives long-term stock returns

In the short-term, emotions & computer algorithms determine stock prices

In the long-term, profit growth determine stock prices

This is a core investing principle that you must fully embrace

Look at these long-term charts of $MSFT, $HD, and $AAPL

Net income growth & stock price growth are closely linked in the long-term

That’s not a coincidence — profit growth IS WHAT DRIVES long-term value creation

I asked, “What's the biggest valuation mistake you've ever made?”

I recieved 135 replies

Here are the 6 biggest valuation blunders to avoid:

1: Overemphasizing growth

No surprise to see this one at the top of the list

Many investors (including me) focus too heavily on top-line growth

Growth is important, but ONLY when combined with other factors like business model, financials, management, & moat

2: Not understanding the “hype cycle”

AI. Metaverse. 3D Printing. Cannabis. Fintech. IoT. Plant-based meat.

There are dozens of promising markets on the horizon

If you choose to invest in them, you should study this picture intensely

3: Buying bad companies because they are “cheap”

Just because a company has:
▪️A low P/E ratio
▪️A high dividend yield
▪️Fallen sharply from its 52-week high

Doesn’t mean it's "cheap"!

A "cheap" valuation won't save you if the business is crumbling

4: Not buying because of a “high” P/E ratio

I’ve made this mistake many times

Companies in phases 3 & 4 are not optimized for earnings, so the P/E can look “expensive”

You must consider where a company is in the business growth cycle before you judge the valuation

1/ How to review quarterly earnings 🧵

A step by step guide using $DXCM as an example

⬇️

2/ The BIG question: Is the thesis on track❓

Other question:

❓Is revenue growing?
❓Are margins stable/expanding?
❓Profits?
❓Balance sheet?
❓New opportunities?
❓New threats?

3/ I open 4 browser tabs

Tab 1 - Current company earnings report / shareholder letter

Tab 2 - Previous company earnings report / shareholder letter (check guidance)

Tab 3 - Analyst estimates

Tab 4 - Call Transcript

4/ Tabs 1 & 2 - Find the current & previous earnings report

I search "Dexcom Investor Relations"

I click on "press release"

Open the newest quarterly earnings report and last quarter

It can also be a shareholder letter/presentation

5/ Tab 3 - Find the quarterly analyst estimates

Open up $DXCM in yahoo finance

The "news" section usually has a link to reports on whether the company beat/met estimates

The "analysis" tab is a good source, but sometimes it updates to the next quarter too quickly

Thread: Parabolic SAR Indicator

Parabolic SAR (PSAR) indicator was developed by J. Welles Wilder.

#PSAR #Indicators #Definedge

The calculation of this indicator is a bit complex, but the concept is extremely useful. I will try to simplify it and explain the logic. I will briefly explain the concept, calculation and reading.

Let us think about creating an indicator that shows the trend.

Using the indicator, we can identify & ride the trend using the trailing stop-loss method.

For trailing the stop in uptrend, indicator needs to be placed below the candle. Similarly, it should be placed above the candle for trailing in a downtrend. We will plot it using ‘dots’.

So, the indicator & stop-loss will be rising in uptrend & falling in downtrend.

Let us define the trend as:

If Low of the candle > Stop-loss level in bull market = Trend remains bullish.

If High of the candle < Stop-loss level in bear market = Trend is bearish

Imagine you are driving a car on highway; you would like to accelerate if the road is clear. You will slow down if the road is bumpy.

There is no shortage of takes about what's going on with Gamestop (and other surging stocks), Robinhood and Reddit's r/wallstreetbets, many of them contradictory - at least on the face of them. But I think it's possible for most of these takes to be right. Here's how.

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First you need to understand the underlying mechanics of the story. Stock markets are fundamentally a way of making bets, including bets on the outcome of other peoples' bets, and bets on the outcomes of THOSE bets.

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All this complexity creates lots of exploitable opportunities. Some of these opportunities are considered legitimate and are given respectable names like "arbitrage." Others are considered illegitimate, and are called disreputable things like "stock manipulation."

3/

A hypothetical Martian observing all this through a telescope could not tell you which kinds of bets were honest and which were dishonest, because the difference isn't about any objective standard, but rather, about power.

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The strategies of powerful people are legit, while the strategies of their would-be dethroners are not legit. Sometimes, even outright frauds are OK if they're done by people with enough power.

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Price + Open Interest (OI) + Volume = Deadly Combo

There are many tools for Open Interest. Options Decoder from @TrueData2 is one of the simple yet powerful tools on options and OI.

Below are the 10 Powerful Features of Options Decoder

Thread 🧵🧵

(1/N)

#1 - PE CE Difference

This feature combines the OI of call options and put options and plots against each other.

At one glance, we can know what big players are doing!

(If they are selling more CE means, they are bearish on the underlying instrument)

(2/N)

#2 - Advance/Decline

This feature displays all the F&O stocks in one place.

In one click, we can see the stocks in any order (like an increase in price, increase in OI, or decrease in volume, etc).

A highly useful feature for options traders!

(3/N)

#3 - Open High

This feature displays all the strike prices that have an open high (or open low) for the selected instrument.

If many CE strikes show "Open Low", then the market is bullish!

(4/N)

#4 - IV Price-OI Chart

This feature plots CE and PE vs. Open Interest (OI) for the ATM strike price.

Always Remember:

CE Long Build Up + PE Short Build Up = BULLISH

PE Long Build Up + CE Short Build Up = BEARISH

CE Short Build Up + PE Short Build Up = SIDEWAYS

(5/N)

Many traders have no consistency when sizing their positions.

The pros have this down to a science.

Here's my dead simple, 3-step guide to position sizing (and to outperforming 99% of other traders in the process):

Step 1:

Define how much of your account you're willing to risk per trade.

Personally, I never risk more than 1% of my account equity.

If I have $100,000 account, I will never risk more $1,000.

This ensures I will never blow up my account on one single trade.

There are successful traders who risk 2-3% of their account per trade, but I find it most calming to risk 1% or less.

The first step in this process is completely up to you - only you can dictate how much risk you can tolerate.

Step 2:

Look for entries & exits that are within 5% (preferably less) of each other.

This means if I buy a stock & have a 5% stop loss, I can put a 20% equity position on & still be risking 1% of my equity.

Your account will thank you w/ 20% in a stock that goes up 100%.

Step 3:

Position size using this formula:

Total equity (100%) / Trade Stop Loss %

So, if your stop loss is 4%, here's the math:

100% equity / 4% stop loss = 25% Equity Position Size

(assuming 1% equity risk).

Here's another hypothetical calculation: