Regular readers know that I started a project last year called Zero To A Million. The goal of this project is to prove that anyone can become a millionaire by investing a small amount into the stock market each month. It’s also to prove that you can invest in individual stocks and you don’t have to […]
Investing
10 Trading Strategies For A Bear Market
Interest rates are low, taxes are low and the stock market is firing on all cylinders. The current bull market is already the longest in history and just a few percent away from being the largest in history. But bull markets cannot last forever. Some time in the not too distant future a bear market […]
Five Lessons For Investors In 2020
It has been already been an interesting start to 2020 with the flaring up of hostilities in Iran. I never imagined the S&P 500 could hold up so well with this kind of news but it just goes to show how strong this bull market is (and also how complacent investors are becoming). As we […]
December Review – Starbucks And Chewy
Regular readers will know that I started a new project last year called Zero To A Million. The goal of this project is to prove that anyone can become a millionaire by investing a small amount into the stock market each month. It’s also to prove that there are viable alternatives to index funds and […]
November Review – Disney And Alibaba Top Up
If you have read some of my recent posts you will know that I’ve started a new portfolio called Zero To A Million. This is a project where I am attempting to reach $1 million in equity by investing a small amount into the stock market each month. This strategy is part quant, part discretionary […]
What Are The Best Performing Stocks Of The Last 20 Years?
20 years ago we were in the middle of the dotcom bubble. This was not a great time to invest since many stocks were at their peak earnings. Many never recovered and a few went bankrupt. However, some companies grew out of the rubble and posted mouth-watering returns. I decided to look at which stocks […]
October Update – I’m Backing Britain
October was a fairly busy month. I published a new class to Marwood Research and made three more stock investments for our long term portfolio. As I mentioned in a previous post, this portfolio is part of a project called Zero To One Million where I am attempting to get to $1 million in equity […]
What Is The Truth About Zero Commission Trading?
Popular brokerages like TD Ameritrade and Schwab have cut their trading commissions to zero and more brokers are following suit. A reader asked about the impact of zero commissions on trading so I thought I would share my thoughts below. Mixed Feelings My first impressions of this news are mixed. It’s great to have zero […]
Are Treasury Bonds Really Better Than Stocks?
There’s a study that has been doing the rounds for some time called “Do Global Stocks Outperform Treasury Bills?” In the study, the authors come to the conclusion that most stocks fail to beat the return on cash (1-month Treasury bills). In fact, across a sample of 62,000 global stocks between 1990-2018, 56% of US […]
What Did I Buy In September?
If you read last month’s update you will know that I recently started a new investing portfolio called ‘Zero To One Million’. This is a project where I am attempting to hit $1 million in equity through the process of investing a small amount (typically $1000 – $1500) into one or two different stocks each […]
Only Optimists Make Money In Stocks
I came across the following quote on Twitter: Unless you’re a perennial short seller, pessimism about the future is of no help. Only optimists make money in the markets. D Mutukrishnan Mutukrishnan has a great way of words and I think this quote is very true. If you’re too pessimistic about the market you’re going […]
August Stock Picks And Updates: Amazon And Alibaba
First off, a few updates. You may have noticed that this website now has a shiny new name, Decoding Markets! The old one, jbmarwood.com, was too ambiguous and made me sound like an author of fantasy novels. Decoding Markets reflects the new direction that I want this blog to go in. It’s not about me, […]
How I Messed Up With Bitcoin
I thought I would write an article about bitcoin because it might be valuable to go over what happened. I bought some bitcoin in 2017 and made some money with it. In fact, percentage wise it is the best trade I have made in the past few years. However, I still think I messed up […]
Investigating Skewness And The Lottery Effect In Stocks
The lottery effect explains our willingness to accept poor odds for a chance to win a huge sum. It’s why millions of us play Lotto or the PowerBall despite huge odds of one in 292,201,338*. We don’t mind spending a few bucks for the chance to win a gigantic sum, even though the odds are […]
What Is The Long Term Performance Of Microcap Stocks?
Microcap stocks are great for day traders and swing traders because of their volatility. But I wanted to know how well they perform on longer timeframes. In this article we analyse a decade of performance data to see what you can expect from investing in microcap stocks. Data Preparation To do this analysis we will […]
