Invest in stocks, always

In order of investing, my approach is primarily centered around selecting individual stocks based on thorough analysis. It has a quite good stake of my portfolio.

To illustrate, during my long experience as a Professional Investor at a previous company, colleagues often made predictions about interest rate hikes, the trajectory of the VIX (volatility index), and specific currency movements. However, I firmly believe that such predictions are inconsequential and can be detrimental to an investor. Echoing the sentiment of Peter Lynch, who suggested that dedicating just 13 minutes annually to economics is excessive, with 10 minutes being a waste.

In essence, the essence of investing lies in acquiring companies at prices lower than their intrinsic value. Hence, a focus on fundamentals is crucial. The goal is to procure exceptional companies at reasonable prices.

My portfolio beats the market

While I acknowledge that certain stocks and sectors in the US exhibit elevated valuation levels, I am confident that attractive investment opportunities still exist in today's market.

Furthermore, I hold the viewpoint that the forthcoming fifty years may not match the prosperity of the preceding fifty years in the stock market. The rationale is straightforward—earnings growth in companies is fundamentally tied to economic growth, driven by productivity improvements and the expansion of the working population.

Analyzing the United States and Europe, it's evident that the working population is expected to plateau or experience a slight decline in the coming decades, posing a challenge to sustained economic growth.

Despite this, I advocate for continued stock investment. Stocks serve as a reliable hedge against inflation, and over the long term, they tend to outperform other asset classes.

How I invest, a personal approach to Wealth Growth

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth” What Tyson once said and investing is not far from this concept.

My journey in the realm of investing is a testament to the importance of strategic planning, diversification, and a commitment to long-term growth. In this article, I'll share my personal approach to investing and provide a quick look of my current portfolio.

Remember, time is your alley, use it wisely and start investing as soon as possible.
Let me show you how much money you’ll accumulate over time if you invest just $250 a month starting at different ages. It assumes an 8% average annual investment return.

If you start at age:
25: You’ll accumulate $878,570 by age 65
35: You’ll accumulate $375,073 by age 65
45: You’ll accumulate $148,236 by age 65

Ok, let’s jump on my portfolio, I built it after many years of researches and studies, it addressed good and bad times and it make me sleep good in the night.

At the core of my investment philosophy is the belief in the power of informed decisions and patience. I consider investing not just as a means to accumulate wealth, but as a journey of learning and adaptation. I prioritize thorough research, staying abreast of market trends, and understanding the fundamentals.

Diversification:
Diversification is the cornerstone of my investment strategy. Rather than putting all my eggs in one basket, I spread my investments across various asset classes, sectors, and geographies. That’s why I have a portfolio for the sunny and rainy days. This helps mitigate risk and enhances the potential for returns, even in the face of market fluctuations. My diversified portfolio includes stocks, bonds, real estate, and a carefully curated selection of alternative investments.

Stock Portfolio:
My stock portfolio is built on a foundation of well-established companies, mostly in the SP 500. I maintain a balanced mix of large-cap, mid-cap, and small-cap stocks, carefully selected based on their industry prospects and competitive positioning. Regularly reassessing and rebalancing this portion of my portfolio is a key aspect of my strategy to adapt to changing market conditions. Outperform the S&P500 with more than 3% in the long term (> 5 years) is my goal. I invest in the stock market through ETF. Percentage of the portfolio 30%

Bonds:
Fixed-income securities, such as bonds, form another crucial component of my portfolio. They provide stability and income, acting as a counterbalance to the volatility associated with stocks. I carefully choose long and intermediate bonds with solid credit ratings and favorable yield-to-risk profiles to ensure a steady stream of income while preserving capital. Percentage of the portfolio 45%

Commodities:
Diversifying with commodities can enhance portfolio resilience, offering a hedge against inflation, geopolitical uncertainties, and providing unique opportunities for long-term wealth preservation. Percentage in the portfolio. Percentage of the portfolio 5%

Gold:
Gold's timeless value as a tangible asset and store of wealth makes it a crucial component in a well-balanced investment strategy, offering stability and security in times of economic uncertainty. Percentage of the portfolio 5%

Real Estate:
Investing in real estate adds a tangible and diversified dimension to my portfolio. I own some properties which are located in different countries. Percentage of the portfolio 10%

Alternative:
To further diversify and explore unique opportunities, I allocate a portion of my portfolio to alternative investments. This might include private equity, venture capital, start ups, or other unconventional assets that have the potential for high returns, albeit with higher risk. Percentage of the portfolio 5%

Avoid feed and the middle man
I love stocks and bonds as much as I hate fees. A tiny fee to the bank or the middle mad end up in a dramatic result having a devastating impact on your performance if you think in term of compounding. I invest through ETF with minimal fees.

Long-Term Vision:
One of the key tenets of my investment strategy is a focus on the long term. While short-term market movements may present opportunities, my decisions are guided by a vision of sustained growth over the years. I remain disciplined in adhering to my investment plan, avoiding the temptation to succumb to market noise or short-term fluctuations.

My approach to investing is a blend of strategic planning, diversification, and a commitment to long-term growth. By carefully navigating the complexities of the financial landscape, I aim to build a resilient portfolio that stands the test of time. Remember, successful investing is not a sprint but a marathon, and with a well-thought-out strategy, the journey can be as rewarding as the destination.

One more thing, I always save a good amount of cash in case a sweet opportunity knocks on my door.

P.S. I don't invest in cryptocurrencies, for the simple reason that I don't know them and my prudence requires me to put my money in what I know. Investing is not gambling.

Investing for Beginners

How I Get Things Done Travelling

Many people have told me they are surprised by the amount of work I accomplish each week, from team members to clients, and I travel most of my time. In this post, I'd like to share some of my strategies. Although they aren't exactly secrets, I hope they can inspire you to take action on achieving your goals.

As I wrote is the previous post, being poor sucks so, please, invest your time and your brain on building something good, something that can help you living a fulfilled, rich, financial free life.

I don't belong to the productivity cult, which is only focused on completing tasks to feel like you're living your life to the fullest. I used to be a member of this group, but now I reject this idea. I am totally focused on results. All the rest is just conversation and I do not have more time for it.

Let’s analise my work:

At the end of each year, I review my previous year and reflect on what I want to achieve in the coming year.
At the end of each month, I do a review of my previous month and set targets for myself for the month, aligning them with my yearly targets.
Every Monday morning, I review the previous week and set targets for the current week, aligned with my monthly targets.
Every day, I put down in writing what I want to accomplish. Although I don't always complete everything on my daily list, the aim of creating these targets and goals is to make sure I stay on track. This system aligns my long term vision with my everyday tasks, making sure I don't lose sight of my goals.

Five THINGS
I do 5 things everyday, that’s it. I do not waste time on things that don’t matter.

Besides setting targets, I hold myself accountable to a group of entrepreneur friends, my coach, my team, and even my family sometimes. Accountability is power. It helps me move towards my greater intentions even when I feel like I want to remain in my comfort zone.

When I feel resistance, which happens very often, I use a focus session to overcome it. Yoga, breath exercises and meditation. These sessions work like magic.

I start my mornings with hot black coffee and a planning session that takes only about 5 minutes. I block things off on the calendar so I know I am making time for important tasks. I check my portfolio of stocks, ETF, options and commodities.

When at home
Every day, I clear out emails and messages and move on to work on my first task. The rest of the work session depends on what's on my calendar. I talk with my assistant and my team. Maybe I have a bunch of calls and videon-calls, in which case I can't do long focus sessions. In that case, I will schedule short sessions in the morning and late afternoon and leave space for exercise, self-care, and meditation. I always finish my workday with a short review and check-in with my team before moving on to spend quality family time.

When I travel
I concentrate everything in 30-60 minutes in the early morning then I enjoy the trip without calls and emails. My Sena interphone is set to avoid calls, I only get some directions tip from my Garmin GPS.

We all have 24 hours a day, 1.440 minutes. If you know what to do, you have a plan and a strategy, one or two hours a day are more than enough to manage business life.

I try to draw learning from whatever is happening around me and develop curiosity. I practice this by doing regular reviews every day, week, month, and year. This helps me catch whatever is happening around me and use it as an opportunity to learn something new.

Been poor sucks

I became a millionaire in my 30s. Let me tell you, it's something I strongly recommend for you too. Being wealthy at a young age is like a superpower, propelling you towards happiness. Trust me, being both rich and young is the ultimate dream come true. You have all the energy to embrace your freedom and pursue your passions. By the time I turned 40, I was financial free. At that point, I made a bold decision to retire early and embark on an exciting adventure around the world on a motorcycle. And boy, was it a wild ride!

I started from zero. No, under zero. At 27 I was $ 200k in debt.

No tricks.
No hustles.
No inheritance.

Here are 10 choices that made me rich and then financial free.

1. I decided to pursue a career with a higher potential revenues in finance instead of liberal arts.

2. I eliminated negative influences from my life. If all you want is to party and drink, then goodbye. If it’s not WOW, then it’s NO.

3. I didn't let the naysayers get to me. I lead my life.

4. I managed my finances wisely and never had any bad debts or paid interest on credit cards after turning 28.

5. I focused on a few important projects instead of spreading myself too thin.

6. I avoided watching the news because it mainly focuses on negativity, which doesn't contribute to personal wealth.

7. I surrounded myself with successful millionaires and learned from them by taking notes. Wealthy people can be great teachers.

8. I invested all my earnings for the long term since short-term investments can be volatile. Over time, the market is a more stable choice.

9. I never backed down from a challenge and fought hard to achieve my goals.

10. I prioritized my health and family above material wealth since without them, money doesn't mean much.

Trust me, been poor sucks. I was poor, I didn’t like it. I changed it.

I did so you can too. Don’t wast your time looking to the others lives, hit the jackpot and hack the poor society rules and join the club, became financial free.

Focus on career or building a business?

A common challenge people face is whether they should focus on career to have a high paid salary or building a business.

For me, the answer is "neither".

I don't focus on my career or building a business. I focus on developing my mental attitude as investor and make money works for me. That’s my focus.

What has happened is that my investments are doing very well, they pays my bills, and my gas.. I have a super lean life, I don’t carry useless stuff, useless investments, useless relationship. I developed the superpower to say NO and my life became breathtaking as a consequence.

This approach fosters sustainability & longevity, but also requires knowledge & awareness.
Always remember:

1. Energy Is The North Star
   Health is energy, it’s vitality. If you don't have energy, you'd better go knitting.

2. Health, mental and physical, is a must.
   Nutrition plan, workouts, meditation. Your body is your temple, your mind is your greatest asset.

3. Structured business.
   You’re still working for money? Ok, don’t worry, I was on that page too. Just start gathering information from the right sources and be consistent. Making money while you sleep is a sublime pleasure.

4. Have fun or die.

Living by passive income

I’m about to hit $50k/mo from my passive real estate investments, and let me tell you..
If you want to be a full time traveller, enjoy all the beauty things that this planet has to offer and live the life you really want to live, you have to be financial free. And with financial free I mean earning money while you sleep, enough cash to cover all the expenses the life of your dreams demands. Got the point?

I have 6 streams of income:

1. Real estate

2. Commodities

3. Companies dividends

4. NPLs

5. Portfolio

6. Interests from deposits

No amount of active income feels as good as passive income and today I’d like to say something about passive income from real estate.

An analysis, to use for your own passive targets:

Take your annual income, and multiply it by 10.

This will give you roughly the amount of net worth you need to have to COMFORTABLY replicate you active income.

Start with one piece of real estate and use leverage. Leverage is the key, stop thinking in terms of TFM “time for money” and start using the word “leverage”. TFM doesn’t work. If you’re still renting out your time for money, you are in the wrong side of the boat. Leverage, leverage, leverage.
Without leverage you’ll never be financial free.

Develop skills and critical thinking and use OPT (Other People Time) and OPM (Other People Money).

Make sure debt service coverage is at 1.3 or higher so the debt doesn’t cost you anything. And make sure it cash flows ~3% of the total “value” of the property.

Don’t spend the money for at least the first year.

Let it build up it’s on cash reserves. That way you never have to worry about it vacancy or maintenance costs.
Keep your lending to MAX 75% LTV.

That means even if a lender only requires 20% downpayment, put down 25%. This keeps you from over-leveraging and you’ll be glad in the long run.
Rinse and repeat.

And don’t rush through it. The process is fun if you make it fun!

Let's talk about money

There are 3 subjects topics that seam to be a taboo in our society, they are Religion, Sex, Money. It seams that people talk about everything but not sex, religion or money. Why? Because we have built a strong belief that these topic are something to keep personal. You probably have been educated to believe certain things about sex and sexuality, religions, money that are completely false. And it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that when you have erroneous beliefs about important things, they prevent you from creating the life you desire. Today we talk about money, something always useful if you won’t die tomorrow.

I’ve travelled in 72 countries, have met thousands of people and this stuff is pretty the same: Religion, Sex and money are taboos.

Family, government, school told you that rich people are evil, greed, they cheat on taxes, etc.. Maybe you remember some old says like “money can’t buy happiness” or “we are poor but at leas er are honest”; the environments in which we grew up are steeped in this nonsense.
As a result, it creates a lot of negative and erroneous beliefs, most of these emotionally-charged beliefs are based upon centuries-old stereotypes and superstitions. And people act the victims role sabotaging themselves and prevent them to be healthy, wealthy and happy.

So, the point is: if you want to be financial free, you first have to break these self-limiting beliefs. Otherwise you will keep sabotaging yourself and prevent you to live the life of your dream. It's amazing how the way you think about yourself changes the way you think about the world. You begin to understand that the only way to change the world is to change yourself.

I was asked hundreds times how I can afford to be a full time traveler without working and my answer is all the same: “I am financial free, living by passive income”, at this point I feel on me the inquisitive eyes of those who don't have the faintest idea of what I'm talking about. Guys, let me be clear with the next sentence:

If you have to do something to make money, you have a job. If you earn money while sleeping, then you have a business. So, my advise is to focus on build a business, not looking for a high salary. Monthly wage is a trap.

You can’t build a business overnight, but you can change yourself. To change yourself, you have to start from your thoughts, that leads you to change your approach to the life, then you change your behaviour and then you change your circumstances… and then you manifest prosperity in all areas of our life: relationships, health, finance, sexuality, and overall success.

So, change yourself first and then.. I strongly recommend to consider of build a business, not to find a job. There are plenty of books on it and you can find enormous amount of informations online, just start. The main point is “do not work for money, make money works for you”, that’s the only way to be financial free and travel full time.

How much you need to travel full time on a motorbike?

I have been asked so many time on how much does it cost to live on the road. Guys, I take it straight, living on the bike is not free but, to be sincere, money are not the main reason why many don’t travel (we will talk about the real difficulties we have to tackle in another post).
But, the good news is that it would be absolutely affordable and by my personal experience I can say that everybody can do it, only depends on the level of the motivation.
Just ask, what is important to you?

I know several full time travellers, some of them work on the way as Amazon sellers, some are computer engineers and draw codes, some teach English or Spanish or French online, some have kind of rent to rent companies.. I know a web-graphic freelance who makes money on freelancer.com - several SMM find clients on upward.com, the list is pretty long. The point is that there is always a way to make the money you need to travel full time, everything depends on you.

There are three different style to earn on the road:
1. Being financial free, this means that you’ve already built your cash machine and now you live by passive income.
2. You work while travelling, that means that you do something on your journey like sell online, web commerce, IT engendering or teaching something online (webinar, tutorial..).
3. You get a job and work a while, this means that you work, save, travel then you work, save, travel. Repeat.

How much you need to travel full time on a motorbike?
I know a guy in Argentina who use to live with $ 400/month, I know an american girl who spends at least $ 8-10.000 a month. Depends on what you want to do on your journey.
Roughly speaking, you can live with less then $ 3.000 a month, you would spend even less if you camp every night, much more if you love fancy hotels, that’s up to you.
If you are good enough to fix your bike, rewear it from time to time, travel without shipping the bike around the world, you can spend even less.
If you travel in US, then you can find several cheep places where to stay, gas is not that expensive and food is quite good and affordable. South America is super cheep, especially Argentina, Peru and Bolivia. South and East Europe like Italy, Spain or Portugal or are quite expensive, north Europe is very expensive. Africa is super cheep. Australia is mega expensive.
Never travel is Asia, I’ll let you know.
Here a rough example on an average month for a moto-traveller.
Assumptions:
Hotel or camping or tent, average 30€ a day.
Gas, you do not travel everyday, so 20€ a day would be approximately fair.
Food is just 20€ a day, so you won’t get fat!
Bike maintenance you would have some costs (tires, oil, damages..)
Insurance, you must need it, you can spend 50€ a month but a good insurance is a must to have, 300€/month is fair.
Unexpected events, trust me, something always crop up.