How To Get Rich On Stocks

UPDATE: On November 9th, 2023 I did a live YouTube video to review all of my investing rules. I’ve done many educational videos (and recommend ALL of them), but this is the latest and one of the best for getting all of my rules in one place, so START HERE:
https://www.youtube.com/live/oXKO35ZVxMY?si=FHepSTWTHLvoPXy6

THEN MAKE SURE YOU COME BACK AND READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE!

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OK, let’s get into it…

INTRODUCTION

I know what you might be thinking.

“How can I take a guy who calls himself Money Mark seriously?”

I don’t blame you.

To be honest, that name was given to me in the early-90s and for some reason, it attracts more followers than skeptics. Sometimes, the means justifies the end. In reality though, my credentials and track record as a 30-year Wall Street veteran are well-documented and summarized on my other website: https://pipelinedatallc.com/

There are three things you’ll find, which distinguish me from almost any other “stock picker” you’ll find on the Internet:

1) I don’t hide behind anonymity or pseudonyms — I use my real name, 2) my entire track record of picks (the good and the bad) is on public display and timetamped live, so there’s no room for funny business, and 3) I have a 30-year reputation as a Wall Street professional, who made his living by selling winning picks to Wall Street professionals.

If someone can’t give you those three things, I would respectfully STAY AWAY.

So, why am I doing this?

Simple.

I started out as a poor nobody, with nothing except a desire to become a good investor. That wasn’t enough. Nor was a Northeastern University education. Contrary to popular believe, college doesn’t truly or fully prepare kids for the real world.

What saved me was a Wall Street mentor who learned about the real world on Wall Street from some of the best professionals on Wall Street.

For some reason (which I may never fully comprehend), he took me under his wing. The rest is a long story, but it ends with me going from a $143 per month basement to a multi-million dollar penthouse next door to Jamie Dimon and Mark Cuban.

In short, after 20+ years of SELLING picks to Wall Street, I retired. After that, I figured that the best way to pay it forward would be to pass my picks and accumulated knowledge on to everyone else.

The way I teach it, it’s not hard… but it’s not easy either (anything worthwhile rarely is). You have to do a LITTLE work… but only a LITTLE. If you do, you can join the THOUSANDS of people who are following my work… and YES, it’s FREE (just like my mentor did it for me).

p.s. It will ALWAYS be free… with NO catches.

FYI, I don’t expect you to believe any of what I just wrote… but you can easily ask any of my followers (there’s a community of them on WhatsApp, along with thousands who watch / comment on my YouTube videos every week).

So, once you check me out, if you decide to jump on this ride, let me make one thing clear — WE’RE NOT HERE TO TRADE or watch stocks on a daily basis.

WE INVEST.

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INVESTING THE EASY WAY

I only make about TEN “official” moves per year. In fact, the easiest way to follow my picks is to keep up with my 1% Portfolio and/or Easy Money Portfolio.

In you’re just getting started, the Easy Money Portfolio is the best way to get your feet wet IMHO. It doesn’t go up as much as the 1% Portfolio over time, but it provides safer and less volatile starting point. The “Shares in the Tracker” tab shows what percent of the portfolio is in each pick.

 

The 1% Portfolio is for investors who don’t fear market volatility. It’s is more volatile, but has also been (much) more successful over time! Most investors who follow that spreadsheet simply buy my picks WHEN I ADD THEM to the sheet and vice versa.

 

Important — unlike the Easy Money Portfolio, the 1% Portfolio is a equal-weighted portfolio (it assumes that a fixed amount of money is invested into each pick). FYI, DON’T play favorites. Buying the pick that sounds the best is the BIGGEST mistake my followers make!! In reality, the stocks that sound the coolest are often the worst to invest in. Don’t ask me why. That’s just my experience from 30 years of investing.

 

For both spreadsheets, if you click on Tools > Notification Settings > Edit Notifications, you can make it so you get notified anytime there’s a change made to the spreadsheets.

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GETTING MORE ADVANCED

If you want to take your game to a higher level, all you have to do is learn my simple lessons.

The first lesson is perhaps the most important — “When you get a powerful new machine, read the instruction manual BEFORE putting it to use.”

So, finish reading this entire post and check out the associated educational materials (because this is an education, like a college course). It might take a few times for you to understand it all, but IT IS SIMPLE!! You can start by subscribing (again, free) to this blog (at the bottom of this page) so you get all my picks and articles.

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A Retired Wall Street Insider

Over time, it’s easy to make money on stocks. All you have to do is buy and hold.

As a result, when the stock market is rising, it’s easy for anyone to think, claim, or pretend to be a great stock picker. However, when the market drops, you start to realize that almost nobody has professional training and skills.

You see, a STOCK is literally a piece of a COMPANY… and every company has a value that you can estimate, IF you have the required training.

It’s not just about math. In fact, math is the simplest part, but STILL takes years to master. I won’t bore you with the details. Just know this — whatever you’re an expert at doing, imagine me telling you that I know more about it without any education, training, or experience.

Pretty insulting, right?

But forget about insults. This sort of overconfidence often leads to a loss of their hard-earned money… and yours, if you’re listening to them.

I was lucky enough to become a professional stock analyst. I retired young and have spent the last 10+ years helping people online… FOR FREE.

You can read all about my background & qualifications here — http://pipelinedatallc.com/

How To Follow & Profit From My Picks

Over the past 25+ years, I’ve averaged a profit of ~40% per year on the money I’ve invested. To put that in perspective, that level of performance turns $10,000 into over $1 MILLION in 14 years… and keeps doubling every two years after that (on a pre-tax basis).

To help others follow in my path, I developed a method that enables anyone to invest in my picks (including the right time to buy and sell) without my personal assistance.

Subscribing to this blog and my YouTube channel is obviously the first step.

After that, following me on StockTwits (instructions below) will give you free updates on my activities in real time.

WHY DO I DO THIS FOR FREE?  It’s simple…

I have thousands of friends, family members, and followers who ask for personal advice and stock picks. For many reasons (including time… and LAWS), I can’t do that. So, if you want to do this, YOU will have to learn the lessons and follow them.

It’s important to note that I follow a similar, but much more complex method. Just know that the one I discuss here was designed such that MOST people can learn and profit from it. At first, it might seem daunting, but trust me, it’s easy (especially compared to the impact it can have on your future).

As mentioned above, I have literally thousands of people doing it.

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Now, you’re ready to watch my other educational videos on how to properly take advantage of my picks. You can start here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b-zdK7S3lk&t=300

Then, follow all my work via the 100% free “MoneyMark Official” App (available on iOS & Android in the U.S.) https://apps.apple.com/us/app/moneymark-official/id6444786044

AFTER all that, you might choose to start watching my Friday YouTube show, Stock Talk LIVE.

On Stock Talk… LIVE!, I teach lessons, provide stock market updates, provide my stock picks, show my risk/reward charts, and answer everyone’s questions. FYI, you can find the charts in my LIVE presentation slides HERE.

You can get notified of these LIVE broadcasts by subscribing to my YouTube channel (free) or downloading the StockTwits app and following me there (@MasterCap is my StockTwits handle). Alternatively, you can simply watch the replay.

Other things to check out are:

“The EASIEST Way To Get Rich With Me” on YouTube

“Money Mark University” playlist on YouTube

My “Easy Money Portfolio” spreadsheet

My Complete List Of Current / Historical Picks (the “1% Portfolio”)

For more simple lessons on my method, just start here:
https://www.youtube.com/live/UZQlME9VYIY?feature=share

I’ve also been working on a document that provides easy reference to all of my personal investing rules. It’s not complete, but you can see the draft-in-progress by clicking this link.

Some books you can read to learn about investing by clicking this link.

Last, but not least, for those looking to learn how to build an operating model (my cheat code to finding great stocks) here are a few links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIV22emVVtU

https://youtu.be/k4yEVmjlBRg

https://youtu.be/YXjAVqUF5BU

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Just remember: THIS WILL NOT WORK with just any stock!!!

The stocks I pick are meticulously researched and chosen with a team of Wall Street professionals. A BIG problem in the world is that thousands of people think (or just pretend) that they are stock experts. If they aren’t TRAINED “EQUITY ANALYSTS”, THEY ARE NOT… and this includes BROKERS and FINANCIAL PLANNERS (no offense, to you brokers and financial planners, but I’m not an expert at what you do, either!!).

Unless you’re confirmed the stock-picker’s credentials as a EQUITY ANALYST, you’re likely taking on undue risk.

The same goes for charts. ANYONE can build a “Technical” chart.  But my charts are “Fundamental” and custom-made by me. VERY FEW people in the world can make them. Even though they often look like technical charts (if you don’t know what that is, don’t worry), they are NOT. It’s just a common coincidence that my risk/reward charts (which are fundamentally based) will appear similar or identical to technical ones.

FYI, I don’t provide real-time access to my risk/reward charts. Nor is that important, because I don’t change them often. However, I DO frequently share them in presentations. Links to those presentation can be found in the description of my YouTube videos (see the bottom of the pic below for an example)

I know it seems like a lot, but as I said earlier, THOUSANDS of people are following and profiting from this method. I can’t tell or advise you to follow this method. That’s a choice YOU must make for yourself… but if you do, be sure to learn all the lessons before jumping in. After all, it’s YOUR money and FUTURE!

Good Luck!

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Bonus Lesson: Managing Market Risk / Reward

FYI, my personal tracking sheet also shows what mode I’m in: Green Light, Yellow Alert, Orange Alert, or Red Alert.

I use LONG-TERM charts (like the 40 year S&P 500 chart below) to gauge the overall risk / reward of the stock market (I also use them for my individual stock investments).

Anything near the top of the chart has proven to be a great time to take profits out of stocks and seek to make money elsewhere (long-term government bonds usually work great from those points).

Anything below the gray line has been a safe buying zone, with the exception of Red Alerts…

…and I’ve only been in Red Alert mode twice EVER (in late-1999 5-months before the Internet crash and in mid-2007, 5-months before the financial crisis).

Anything near the bottom white line represents a generational (near once in a lifetime) long-term opportunity.

I’ve saved (and made) a LOT of extra money over the past 25 years using this as a guide:

During a Green Alert – Unless otherwise noted, I’m in Green Light mode (owning stocks without fear).

During a Yellow Alert – Conceptually, I want to keep most of my favorite stocks, but get rid of the third I like the least. With that money, I want to buy something like RWM, which goes up when the market goes down (and vice versa). By doing this, I’ll be 50% “hedged” (hedged = protecting the stocks you like/own against a stock market drop).

Explained: if you have $3 of stock and sell a third, you now have $2 in stocks… and if you put that other $1 in RWM, you have protected/hedged half of the $2 you still have invested in stocks).

During an Orange Alert – Just before the COVID crisis, I issued my first-ever Orange Alert. I saw the crisis coming, but didn’t see it impacting the market quite as badly as the crashes of 2000 or 2008 (which proved correct).

Conceptually, for an Orange Alert, I want to sell 50% of my positions (the ones I like the least… keeping pretty much everything I “LOVE LOVE”). With that money, I want to buy something like RWM to protect those positions. In doing so, I’m FULLY hedged.

Explained: (if you have $3 of stock and sell half, you now have $1.50 in stocks… and if you put that other $1.50 in RWM, you have protected/hedged 100% of the $1.50 you still have invested in stocks).

During a Red Alert – I sell almost everything and bet AGAINST the market by being heavily invested in things like RWM (which, again, goes UP when the market goes DOWN)… but again, these instances are extremely rare. I’ve only been in Red Alert twice in my life (luckily, those two times were 2000-2002 and 2007-2009, which resulted in big profits).

How / When To Get Back In – When the market is dropping, I don’t want to try to call the bottom. Only God can do that. Instead, I make my best guess and START buying EARLY. The reason is simple — my guess has a 50/50 chance of being too optimistic or pessimistic. So, if I wait for the market to drop as much as I expect, I have a 50% chance of missing the bottom (and with it, the great opportunity to buy low).

So, I try to think of it as 5 stages: very early, early, on time, later, and much later. I want to buy a LITTLE “very early”. I want to buy a decent chunk “early”. I want to buy a LOT near the levels where I think the market will bottom, but I also want to keep a little in cash in case we go even lower, so I can buy later or much later.

Good Luck !

p.s. I deleted some info from this article, which you can still read here, if you choose. Cheers.

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Disclosures / Disclaimers: This is not a solicitation to buy, sell, or otherwise transact any stock or its derivatives. Nor should it be construed as an endorsement of any particular investment or opinion of the stock’s current or future price. To be clear, I do not encourage or recommend for anyone to follow my lead on this or any other stocks, since I may enter, exit, or reverse a position at any time without notice, regardless of the facts or perceived implications of this article.

I am not a financial advisor. Nor am I providing any recommendations, price targets, or opinions about valuation regarding the companies discussed herein. Any disclosures regarding my holdings are true as of the time this article is written, but subject change without notice. I frequently trade my positions, often on an intraday basis. Thus, it is possible that I might be buying and/or selling the securities mentioned herein and/or its derivative at any time, regardless of (and possibly contrary to) the content of this article.

I undertake no responsibility to update my disclosures and they may therefore be inaccurate thereafter.  Likewise, any opinions are as of the date of publication, and are subject to change without notice and may not be updated. I believe that the sources of information I use are accurate but there can be no assurance that they are. All investments carry the risk of loss and the securities mentioned herein may entail a high level of risk. Investors considering an investment should perform their own research and consult with a qualified investment professional.

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am receiving no compensation for it, nor do I have a business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. The information in this article is for informational purposes only and should not be regarded as investment advice or as a recommendation regarding any particular security or course of action.

The primary purpose of this blog/forum is to attract new contacts with professional industry expertise to share research and receive feedback (confirmation / refutation) regarding my investment theses.

 

Read more: How To Get Rich On Stocks