An Introduction

Welcome to Investing with Will

Hi there!

My name is Will and I am a retail investor. Like many people on the internet, I found myself full of time during the Covid pandemic of 2020. While I missed the rebound and the investing opportunities that presented themselves in March of 2020, when the Federal Reserve announced their extreme approach to support the economy, I soon found myself looking to participate in the retail frenzy of 2020.

By December 2020, I wanted to build a proper portfolio (for the first time ever) and invest for the long term. I remember buying $1000 of $CRM with the idea being that the Slack acquisition would empower the enterprise with a set of communication tools to create a powerful enterprise social network that would send $CRM to the moon. I knew nothing about revenue growth, small/mid/large cap, sectors, or the IRR of $CRM in the coming years. I did however put $3000 into Bitcoin at $25,000 CAD at the behest of a former coworker who told me to and I discovered, on Twitter of all places, the SPAC.

Now what is a SPAC you ask? It is a special acquisition company that is publicly listed and traded on the stock market and is a cash shell for the sole purpose of acquiring a private company, conducting a reverse merger and then essentially bringing that private company public by giving it the publicly listed designation of it’s sponsor SPAC. To begin my SPAC journey, I found @Chamath, who I had known of and quietly followed for the past couple years, was the owner of a couple SPAC’s at the time. $IPOA became Virgin Galactic, and $IPOB, $IPOC, $IPOD, and $IPOF were looking for targets. I discovered that the SPAC vehicle had in essence a built in put position of $10 exercise price where you would not lose more than $10 of your money.

Peaking my interest, I bought a couple SPACs and started learning more about this new investment asset thru Twitter and Reddit communities filled other retail investors. I soon used this community to buy more SPAC’s and the retail frenzy and cheap money would soon have these SPAC’s trade above their net asset value, trading up from $10 to prices of $12, 14, 16, 18, and even $20 for one share of the SPAC. A 100% price increase for a SPAC that had no definitive asset other than $10 cash. People were either banking on the cheap money lottery ticket or they were betting heavy on the sponsor’s ability to close a deal. In the truest sense of the word, it was a belief in both - the price action of SPAC’s and all small/med cap growth tech stocks were trading much higher than they should and a lot of easy money was made by arbitraging opportunities of buying low and selling higher. Doesn’t take a genius to do this and I soon found myself further entranced by the captivating stupidity of fintwit and self processed working class finance guru’s who knew nothing about investing.

Initially, this was fine. I bought SPAC’s, made some small amounts arbing them from $10-12 to $14-16 and then lucked out when I found out about $CCIV and the rumour mongering of Lucid Motors acquisition, Saudi Arabia investors, Michael Klein, Jony Ives on the board of $CCIV, etcetera… I bought some, told some friends to chase the pie, and when it crashed on that evening, I still 2x’ed my money but some friends bag held. By the time $CCIV bought and sold, we had almost hit peak SPAC frenzy with a record of 300+ SPAC’s being launched by that time, more than the entire 2020 SPAC IPO’s. This was smoke that signalled a soon to be fire. Unfortunately for me, I bought 500 of $IPOD and $IPOF at $13-15 and as soon as fed talks of covid reopening occurred, sector rotations of big money from whales occurred, the SPAC’s in question started to tank, I held and held but I soon found myself bag holding (still am) a couple thousand dollars of SPAC losses. Ouch!

Fortunately, a cousin of mine gave me pointers on micro/small cap Canadian TSXV penny stocks that him and his community were pumping and I had bought and sold some shares of those penny stocks to the tune of a couple thousand in gains that the bag holding from my SPAC’s really did not bleed me as dry as it should. I got lucky and I thank my cousin and my friend for the previous BTC suggestion as counter weights to these SPAC losses.

By May, after taking losses on SPAC’s and sitting on them in red, I’ve consolidated my portfolio and have shifted my focus away from speculative trading and into learning how to properly invest and build wealth the right way. The Warren Buffett way. The Tiger Global way. That is what I’m learning about since the second half of 2021 and that is the strategy that I will employ in the coming years.

So what am I trying to do now? I’m trying to learn how to be a long term investor that can build wealth the slow and steady way, using tried and true fundamentals research and applying the Buffett/Graham approach to the 21st century of technology investing. While I will maintain a portfolio mix that is not solely technology stocks, the primary drivers of long term growth will be from high growth technology. The consumer staples, big tech, value positions are only there to diversify and act as a bulwark as the entire US economy (and stock market) goes through a short to medium term “transitory” phase of inflation. Michael Burry says it will spike pretty badly and has positioned his portfolio as of now to reflect this. Tesla puts, Facebook and Google calls, and Consumer Staple positions that may rise due to their steady free cash flow generative businesses that will more likely benefit from inflationary pressures.

So what am I doing for the rest of this year and into 2022? Well for starters, I’m not fully invested yet and will not be by the time 2022 ends. I am trying to dollar cost average into consumer staples starting with the $VDC index and looking for value plays in $WMT, $PG, $JNJ when their prices look attractive on the technical charts (buying around 200 day MA), and I am looking to build a technology portfolio of 1) big tech that can generate free cash flow with their incredible business platforms, under inflationary conditions, and with substantial monopoly and pricing power - think $FB, $GOOGL, $AMZN at the right prices; 2) hypergrowth technology businesses growing at a rate of 50% YoY - think $RDFN, $SOFI, etc - these guys are volatile and many of these businesses spike and fall parabolically so caution is needed on which businesses to pick and buy, real faith, research and due diligence on the business is needed.

What is this Substack going to be about? Well for starters, it will be a journal of my learnings as I work on becoming a sophisticated retail investor. My goal is to be able to generate 15% CAGR YoY in my portfolio within two years time using fundamental research of primary technology companies under any market conditions. This is a hard task, especially when we hear so many stories of overnight stock trading millionaires that can persuade you that their methods are better. Should I become a better technical trader? Absolutely! Is that the right way to learn to become a sophisticated investor? Definitely not, that is gambling masquerading as investing.

I want to compound my wealth consistently just like Warren Buffet did. I want to buy the technology companies that define the rest of the 21st century and build wealth by making the correct investing decisions. I hope to share my learnings (and failures) as I make them and I hope that you will also take the opportunity to learn to become a sophisticated investor. After all, nothing good comes easy, and greatness only comes from hard work. Let’s get to work!