Gratitude: 2024
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What do you have to be grateful for? Pull up a chair and stay a while, and let us be grateful together this week. Let's reflect on our world at the end of another year. Let us rejoice in the good things that we have only on this rule breaker investing is the rule breaking .

investing podcast with muti full cofounder David gardener.

Welcome back to roll breaker investing. It's aid delight to have you join me doing what is, for many of us, one of the busiest months of the year. So thank you for taking the time to suffer fools gladly.

This week's theme is gratitude. Nearing the year's end, I do this every year. I want to reflect on its power.

This annual series began in twenty twenty after a conversation with my son, gay, who shared insight from the book. Thanks by robbert emos. The book highlights how cultivating daily gratitude can make durably increase our happiness.

But as much as twenty five percent, that's above the baseline that a lot of psychologists think you can't really move your own baseline that much as much as twenty five percent by cultivating a daily gratitude practice and sustaining that over months, even simple practices like keeping a gratitude journal for three weeks, which admitted i've never done, but you can improve your sleep in your energy. Emcees work weaves science with wisdom from philosophers, the allotments and novelists. He emphasizes the gratitude is essential for a full life.

One line from the book's introduction resonates with me here. IT is IT is gratitude that enables us to be fully human. So to my son, gay, I say, thank you for sharing this, you know, the great twenty the century humAnitarian physician theology.

And yet you won the nobel peace prize, too. Abbott iter called gratitude, the secret to life in one particular sermon. He summarized his position by saying, and I quote, the greatest thing is to give thanks for everything.

He who has learned this knows what that means to live. He has penetrated the whole mystery of life, giving thanks for everything. And quote, well, everything sounds like too long a podcast this week, but I do have seven things cued up to give thanks for.

And before I start with the first one, this era briefly considered the opposite, the opposite of gratitude. And that would be in gratitude. Now, for me, that sounds a lot like complaining, complaining about the opposite of, writes her about everything. I hope you don't have anybody like this in your life. If I ever did, I don't have now, i'm happy to say.

But people whose first instinct is to complain whenever I haven't mind those feverish, selfish little clouds of elements and grievances, I have to go back speaking of quotes to another of my favorite quotes, previously covered on a great quotes rule service investing podcast. And that would be the great George bernard shock quote from his play man and superman on living a great life. Let's do IT one more time here.

And I quote, this is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, that being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little claud of alliance and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion of my life belongs to the whole community as long as I live IT is my privilege to do for IT whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die for the harder I work, the more I live.

I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. IT is a sort of splendid torch, which i've got hold up for the moment. And I want to make IT burn as brightly as possible before handing IT on to future generations.

And quote, thank you, George bernard shaw, for that beautiful contrast between feverous clouds of alliances and grievances, complaining the world won't to vote self to making us happy and the exact opposite. And that is gratefulness inchers words for everything. All right, well, seven gratitudes this year for my first well done IT.

I do this every year I wanted. Thank you. Yes, you whoever you are, wherever you are and you are many places and you're all different. But i'm speaking to you right now.

You a rule break her brother or sister and arms, fellow fools, all a community to which I can say, with burner shaw, my life belongs. Thank you for being there, not just, of course, to my role. Price investing podcast lies, although most of all, of course, to you. But I want to thank all, mostly full members, and perspective, mostly full members everywhere, especially, I think, of people who are not yet members today, but who are awakened to the beauties of questioning conventional wisdom, which is at the hard of being a fool.

So for all fools everywhere, for that spirit of chAllenge, for doing IT in a fun way, which has to be the case if you're a Molly, it's one thing to be a full, chAllenging conventional wisdom as a fool bit if you are, if you're mostly full, you're bringing some humor to IT, just like shakespeare gestures. So to every fuller spirit everywhere with gratitude, number one, I say thank you because arguably, as much as I apparently enjoy talking to myself some weeks on this podcast like this one, or do friends and special guests other weeks, i'm talking not so much to me or to them all the way through, but to you. So I especially thank you for listening and extra thanks.

If you're somebody who's shared your story, if you shared your question, if you written into our mailbag, any of the mailbags this year or any other year, thank you. This podcast is powered a quarter of the time by you about one week and every four it's mell back and its your awesome stories, poems and questions which powered this podcast shown a special thanks to you. And by the way, our email dresses rbi at full dot comm.

So if you're moved by anything you're here this week, if you'd like to share your own gratitude, i'd love to share that on this coming. We cast email me right now r bi at full dot com only. By the way, this is always the time you're when I get especially to thank my producers this year, my long time producer rick and doll in my recent and sometime producer das Jones, my foolish friends, a brand news show every week with no skips and no repeats going back to july two thousand and fifteen.

Thank you, rick and dad, so much for helping to make this podcast the best version of itself weaken and week out three, twenty twenty four and beyond. Okay, onto gratitude. Number two, in this ones also pretty easy.

This one's obvious. Twenty twenty four was the year of an video. Thank you. And video on April fifteen th of two thousand, five yp tax day two thousand and five and video stocks traded at nine dollars and fifty six cents per share.

I know because that's the day I first picked IT for Molly full stock advisor. Since then, it's been one of the great stocks of this, or really any era. So let's follow its story. And for storytelling purposes, i'm using my original cost spaces of ninety dollars and fifty six cents, and I am going to trace and videos rise to today.

Now I want to note, four times over the past twenty years, the company split its stock, two for one in two thousand six, three for two in two thousand seven, four for one in two thousand twenty one, and ten for one in two thousand and twenty four. And thus shareholder today now have one hundred twenty shares for everyone share they own. Back in two thousand and five, when I first recommended IT stocks split, reduced the share Price while increasing the number of shares in equal proportion.

I think most listeners of this podcast already know that, but i'm always speaking to new people too. So I want to make sure you know that stock split add no value, the pizza stays the same size IT just has more slices. So while all right, investors do have one hundred twenty shares for everyone that existed back in two thousand and five, thanks to those splits, our original cost spaces has therefore effectively been reduced to just sixteen cents.

And I want to rush into add, especially for newcomer's and video was never a penny stock. Don't buy penny stocks. It's just that for rule check investors, when you have stock splits like these and you hold over a long period of time with an incredibly low cost basis, IT starts to look like you bought a penny stock.

But rest assured, IT was nineteen dollars and fifty six cents on tax day two thousand and five. Let's let's go through the story. Then by october two thousand and seven, the stock was making me look good as IT tipped the scales at one hundred twenty.

So that's up six times in value in two years, what we like to call a six baggar in omaha, Peter lyn, who coined the the baggar phrasing, but then came two thousand and eight one year later. Those of you who are invested then, do you remember the year two thousand and eight? And video dropped from one hundred twenty to eighteen.

We went from riding high to looking silly, the dang thing, about six times in value. And now three and a half years later, we were underwater by december two thousand and nine, and video had begun to recover. And for my new monthly mobile full stock visor pic, I picked one stock a month from two thousand and two to two thousand and twenty one from a lefuel stock advisor I will recommended.

And video, the stock was back to forty seven, I wrote at the time, and I quote, the timing is right, and so is the Price. Five years later, at the end of two thousand fourteen, the stocks finally hit sixty dollars a share. So yes, that that bullish, shy recommendation I bravely made in two thousand and nine and forty eight had only seen the stock rise twenty five percent over five long years.

And IT was still, by the way, just half of what I had been seven years earlier when I was at one hundred twenty in two thousand and seven, though I had now tripled. IT was a three beggar from our original two thousand five cost spaces, around twenty dollars a share. So the stocks at sixty, let's bump up four to two thousand and sixteen.

And video finally crosses one hundred twenty. So IT just reclaimed that early high that we've celebrated in two thousand seven, nine years earlier. I think you can queue jack nicholson in the shining with a little bit of we're back.

By the end of that year, the stock had tripled again. So having started two thousand sixteen at ninety six IT closed at three hundred and fifty and was far a way. The top performing stock on the S.

M. P. Five hundred in two thousand and sixteen IT was up one hundred and ninety eight percent. That means with our original cost basis of one thousand dollars and fifty six cents and that forty seven dollar reentry, we were sitting a bit higher in the settle with the stock at three nineteen.

Now I get dangerously foolish urges from time to time where we just have to chAllenge conventional wisdom and go further out on a limb to prove a big point. Sometimes that works in, by the way, sometimes IT doesn't. But now was one of those times I thought about all my regression to the mean friends, you know, people to say things like.

It's awful expensive now or what goes up must come down. You know, the ones who cite studies about how last years top performers are bound to under perform next year. Now I recognize this can be true, but I I love to point out when it's not because that'll shocked some people, which is kind of fun.

And when you're on the opposite side of a conventional wisdom and you're right, well, it's wrong. That's when you stand to make the most money. So the very month after the media was buzzing about NVIDIA being the top performer on the S.

M. P. Five hundred and two thousand sixteen, in january two thousand and seventeen, I made in video my new monthly recommendation from allele stock advisor.

So that was the third time IT had been my big monthly pic. I was show boating and IT worked this time IT worked. I wasn't picking a video just for two thousand and seventeen, of course, but IT was awful.

Ly, nice to see IT rise in two thousand and seventeen from our three hundred seven dollar recommendation Price in january to five hundred eighty that year. And video was the S P. Five hundred and tenth top performer in two thousand and seventy, and up eighty three percent.

Now quick side note. This has happened in recent times, not with a video, but with meta platforms. Kind of fun to note, last year, meta platforms, the former facebook, went from one hundred twenty two to three hundred fifty three dollars a share.

Last year, IT was up one hundred eighty eight percent. Crazy, right? Because for a company that today is a one point four trillion dollar market cap, IT was adding hundreds of billions of dollars of market cap in just that one year last year.

So did IT redress to the mean here in two thousand and twenty four. What goes up must come down. Actually, not at all.

Meta platforms has gone from three, fifty three to five hundred fifty three this year, up another fifty seven percent as of recording. So that kind of reminds me of that in video, a moment in two thousand and seventeen. Anyway, let's go back and finish the story here, because I ve never heard anyone follow the line.

What goes up with anything other than must come down. But isn't that kind of the point? Because when a everyone thinks that and b we don't and see they're wrong, then d whether not their eyes are open.

E, our eyes will likely take on the iconic dollar sign, dollar sign. Look of scrooge mcduck. Because with great rule breaker stocks, what goes up ends up going upper. So to continue this remarkable story, from two thousand five to present, after running from ninety six to five hundred eighty, from two thousand and sixteen to two thousand and seventeen, and video in two thousand eighteen touched over eight hundred and fifty, but couldn't hold IT and then fell all the way down to wo ouch three hundred eighty five I realize this is a lot issuer to shown a graph that IT is to speak truth with numbers in a podcast.

But i'm just gonna ep finishing in out here cause by early twenty twenty the stock cross back over eight hundred fifty again, IT ended twenty twenty at one thousand five hundred and sixty. And yes, we're still sitting on our original cost spaces of nineteen dollars and fifty six cents now seeing the possibility, the possibility of a hundred bagger because one hundred bagger would be one thousand nine hundred fifty six in the stock closed twenty, twenty and fifteen hundred sixty, by the way. As things turned out, we were actually shooting too low because in twenty twenty one, the stock crossed three thousand six hundred dollars, having started twenty twenty two, just over thirty six hundred shareholder watch their stock nose dive get this once again just months later, below fifteen hundred from thirty six hundred IT got cut in half in twenty twenty two and closed at eighteen hundred.

Now I hope you're noticing how much we are recurrently losing sometimes waiting years for any game at all, I hope so. But are you also noticing how much money we've made? Keep noticing. Because before I wrap up, let's take a moment now to reflect on the staggering volatility that NVIDIA demonstrated at its new scale.

Because when a company as significant, large and successful as in video sees its stock rise plume from thirty six hundred to eighteen hundred in a single year, its market cap shrinks from seven hundred fifty billion to three hundred seventy five billion. That's again, hundreds of billions of dollars proof all gone in a single year. To me, that's a striking example of how inefficient our markets can be, by which I mean sometimes certifiably crazy.

Yes, crazy. But that doesn't mean there still isn't a lot to learn from the invidia story as I share my gratitude this year and closing gratitude number two for NVIDIA, the company stocks sits at seventeen thousand, two hundred nine dollars a share from our cost spaces of one thousand, about fifty six now in real world terms. And video is today trading, if you quote IT, at one hundred forty three dollars a share or so.

So what i've done is i've taken out all of the stocks splits and just shows you the real world gains made by this stock, whether you want to account from sixteen cents or one thousand nine dollars and fifty six cents. But there are some really important takeaway before we moved to gratitude. Number three, first of all, the market is willing to bid rule breaks to exceedingly high, and I would also say exceedingly low points as stocks sometimes just separated by a year or two.

So the volatility you have to recognize and appreciate, you have to write IT if you want to have a hundred bagger as an investor, whether it's in video or any other stock. It's also proof positive though that, that original pic was a phenomenal pic. We are up eight hundred eighty times since two thousand five, but even my Prices, forty seven dollars share in two thousand nine and three hundred and seven in two thousand and seventeen look really great now that worth seventeen thousand plus dollars a share.

So each time we were buying higher. But IT was still a great pick. When you really think about IT.

IT was a heck of a buy every other year in between two thousand and five, in two thousand and twenty four and every single day of any of those years. Think about IT. This year included. It's now the most valuable public company of all time. IT is a classic rule breaker.

IT fulfills all six of my rule breaker stock trades and rule breaker investors who followed are six habits will recognize how valuable that combination of our six habits holding stocks for long periods, for example, how valuable that combination is when you combo IT with the six rule breaker stock trades that I talk about all the time. So yeah, i'm very great. I'm so grateful to assured all of that with so many of you.

In the end, the proof is in the putting. It's the business performance of the company, and it's five star CEO jenson wang that are the real reason for riches here. You're not to have great stocks without great companies.

You don't have great companies without great people. And that perhaps is the lesson to learn for all time. And IT was proven for all time this year.

And now because in video was a hot stock this year or last, IT was proven for all time because of the ride that mostly full members have been on from nineteen dollars and fifty six cents or in split, adjust the term today from sixteen cents to today's Price of one hundred forty three and a half for in video. Thank you. In video, alright.

On to gratitude. Number of three. In my old new barrow blue podcast earlier this year, I went deep with the color blue. I call that the study in blue brief ly on that podcast.

And i'm going to bring that back now into this expression of gratitude for this year, this week's podcast, a study in blue. In fact, I want to express for gratitude for blues here again near the end of twenty twenty four. So thank you.

In vancouver, blue four blues. Let's start with the first blue sky. The term blue sky, when we talk about thinking, represents boundless optimism and creativity. Free from the constraints of the current realities or limitations. It's about envisioning what could be rather than what is.

IT encourages an open minded approach to problem solving innovation, I think of three time will break investing guest warn burgers great book on beautiful question. A more beautiful question is all about that blue sky, blue sky thinking on the cover of the book, there's just a big question mark. And guess what color of that question market is? Yeah, it's blue.

And when I think more about blue and blue sky, I think of my friend, fellow optimist bill berk, who joined me on this podcast earlier this year. Bill heads up the optimism institute. He has a zone podcast.

It's called the blue sky podcast, the line that starts off every one of his podcast. And I love IT here. IT is there's always blue sky above.

Sometimes you just have to get your head above the clouds to see IT blue guy. Optimism is integral, I would say, to my own success as an investor, and certainly for entrepreneurs. S optimism is practically a required personality trade.

IT needs to be placed into your character for you to be a successful entrepreneur most of the time. So, so these things are enabled by the blue sky. The first of my study in blue gratitudes here.

And before I move on to the second, I should just mention blue sky laws, therefore protect investors against fraudulent sales practices and securities fraud. So of course, I love that phrase too. The whole movement, by the way, started state by a state about a century ago.

These days, many states in the united states have based their blue sky laws on regulations that were put in place decades ago, but it's all there for clear visibility. So blue sky embodies both the spirit of unbridled optimism and the foundational principles of transparency and protection in finance. Blue sky next let's go to blue ocean.

The blue ocean strategy is a business theory, is also a book that suggests companies are Better off searching for ways to gain uncontested market space, the so called blue ocean, rather than compete head ahead with other companies in an existing industry, the authors of the theory, which they did, as I mentioned, turned into a book they'd call ahead and ahead competition with existing competitors. It's say that's red ocean. So blue ocean strategy is focused on creating new demand so that the best way to make your competition irrelevant.

When you create new demand, you encourage innovation, you emphasize the importance of offering something unique to your customers. IT opens up new frontiers, opportunities for growth and profitability. And when I think about some of my maybe yours to my favorite rule breakers, these are classic blue ocean companies we've already talked about in video with its GPU.

How about, how about tesla creating so much demand with electric cars that IT is refashioned an entire industry. These have been fantastic stocks that are ones so worthy of holding for a long time. These are blue.

Ocean companies, so, so much for gratitude for blue skies. And now blue ocean. Let's next go from ocean next to to the moon.

A blue moon is when you get a second full moon within the same calendar months. I think it's every twenty nine and a half days the lunar cycle happens. The moon fully rotates around the earth. And because our months are not twenty nine and a half days every one of them, but closer to an average of just over thirty days. What that means is every couple of years we get a month with two full moon and that second full moon, that's what we call a blue moon.

Hence the saying, once in a blue moon, which we as humans generally mean to denote something that happens very infrequently, but in the context of gratitude, and here of investing in businesses, a blue moon opportunity can be seen as a rare and valuable chance that shouldn't be missed if those unexpected moments or or market conditions that have seized upon can lead to significant achievements or breakthrough. I'd say at a personal level, dear, listen or think of your once in a blue moon moments, the ones you took up, even the ones you may be failed to take advantage of a career leap that all of a sudden presented itself, involve some risks. But maybe you took IT once in a blue moon.

Maybe it's made all the difference or another context. How about that once in a lifetime travel adventure you got invited on, you said yes and you climb that mountain, or you went across the ocean and you've got the pictures to show IT and stories for the rest of your life or once in a blue moon opportunity. So let's be thankful for them, even if we didn't take up everyone that they exist, and especially when we say yes is so worthy of our gratitude.

Well, let me close my study and blue with the last blue. And that would be blue spaces. Blue spaces referred to the beneficial effects the bodies of water have on our mental and physical well being.

Research suggests that being near in or around water can significantly boost your happiness, reduce your stress, improve your overall health. The color blue itself is often associated with holders and serenity. Blue spaces tap into design principles.

They emphasize your connection of my connection with nature. So incorporating blue spaces in the our lives, whether it's walks by the beach, living near water, or just simply choosing travel destinations that offer equity requite, can be a profound source of rejuvenation and joy. So there you have a blue skies, blue ocean, blue moon, blue spaces.

Gratitude number three, thank you. Blue, all right, on the gratitude number four. And this one is the flavor of the year.

I have to express gratitude to artificial intelligence. I use ChatGPT everyday. I know some of you do two in there, many other forms of artificial intelligence.

Heck, before any of that, there was ways I remember using ways ten plus years ago, basically artificial intelligence, where drivers report in what's happening on the roads at large and gives you a much Better picture of where you should drive, navigate traffic than just a standard map or GPS. And so ways, as an early form of A I has added a measurable value to my driving life. Anyway, it's artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence takes many different forms, and I realized some of them are considered threatening. And often we hear things like it's going to be the end of the human race or artificial intelligence, by the way. I highly doubt that.

And i'm incredibly grateful so far for artificial intelligence, but most specifically, ChatGPT. So gratitude. Number four, ChatGPT.

Thank you for the birthday gift ideas. Thank you for proper pronunciations. Thank you ChatGPT for helping me learn fun facts whenever i'm traveling.

ChatGPT and artificial intelligence enhance all of my travel experiences. It's accelerated by thank you note writing this year as well. Thank you ChatGPT for another favorite ite use.

Thank you for your efforts at punching holes in all of my most confident notions in all of my new ideas are phenomenal used, by the way, asking artificial intelligence to give you a little bit of a push back about your favorite ideas, by the way ChatGPT. I also want to thank you for always answering in just seconds. IT takes me seconds to come up with a bad dad joke.

So thanks to ChatGPT great gratitude to all of the artificial intelligence ces that are helping to inform our lives and improve our society. That's not all of them, but that's most of them and for most good people, that their intent as they work on artificial intelligence. But for me, most particularly the one I use almost every day, I highly recommended you as well as free ChatGPT and all, by the way, one new use because I developed a new episode series for rule breaker investing this year, just did one last week.

My second ChatGPT asks, and David answers where I have a chAllenge, our notions about rule breaker investing. I had a lot of fun doing that podcast last week, and we did want earlier in the year to kick off. So there's yet another use of ChatGPT.

Okay, let's move on to gratitude. Number five, this one I shared a couple of years ago, and I felt moved again this year to express this gratitude again, I first had to articulated at a high school reunion. The year was nineteen and ninety four.

My class was gathering back in southern massachuset, where I graduated from sdec k school in one thousand nine hundred and eighty four. So in one thousand nine hundred ninety four, IT was our tenth reunion, one thousand nine hundred and ninety four, by the way. Side note also the year the moly full launched on amErica online.

Anyway, the joy of our regathering as high school classmates ten years later was bitter sweet, because early on that weekends, saturday morning, we gathered the chapel for a brief service in morning of one of our classmates, one of our brightest classmates who have enrolled in the naval academy after graduation, and IT died during a training flight in the atlantic ocean north of protection o. Having launched from, but not ever returning to the uss john f. Kennedy, i've been asked to say a few things at that chapel service, and I felt the weight of that without really knowing, as a Young man, what to say these days when needing to learn something.

I could ask ChatGPT, or maybe at least start by googling. But in one nine hundred and ninety four, google still wouldn't exist for four more years. So I don't know how I started searching about for what to say.

Maybe yahoo, but but I lighted upon upon this part of what we lose when we lose someone. Part of what hits us hardest is that we actually have just lost part of ourselves. The part of ourselves that blooms, blossoms, shows itself in only a certain way, in the presence of that friend or dear family member.

Now, by their death, that part of us has to go away. The part of me that is only with you is now gone. The part of me that is only with you is no more. I felt this earlier this year.

Once again, when my wife lost her dad, I felt that at the funeral and then at a separate memorial service, and of course, the number of times since I felt IT for all of us, for each of us there that day at the funeral, to pay tributes, because each was a certain version of themselves, only in the presence of that man, in the same way that you show different sides of yourself to your mother or father, different than you showed your best friend from high school or your cousin, or your favorite college prof, favorite, because he saw something special in you. That version of you, that unique version of you, with its own history of stories, differentiated from all other sets of stories. That version of you melts away when so many love is gone.

jd. Manley hopkins, in his poem spring and fall to a Young child, begins by asking his address. Sa, presumably a Young child named margret. Markets, are you grieving over golden grove on leaving? It's fall just like IT is here autumn and the beautiful golden growth is dropping all its leaves and perhaps the sensitive child cries at the site but as the pole bands to its brief and the pot asserts, IT is the blight man was born for IT is Margarett you mourn for George anders in his world beater of a book, a swim in a pond in the rain says that quote, there are many versions of you in you.

And quote, and nap puts me in mind of this same thought about loss, part of the loss, part of the morning and part of the healing. Very important parts, too, are the recognition and acceptance that we have now lost something of ourselves that we will never regain. IT is the blind man was born for.

IT is you yourself that in part you mourn for? And so during this season of fall in the northern hemisphere, where the leaves are dropping and we reflect back upon the years it's been, including our losses, which have been many, i'm here to underlying something to be to be thankful for here to to be self aware about this. Because though i've accounted a few stories of loss and reflection on what loss really includes, the part of me that is only with you is no more. How want to be the first to celebrate and underscore the part of me that is only with you, because that's very much alive.

If you and I both alive and worthy of gratitude for all those that were connected with, think of that joke from your school days that you can only truly appreciate with the person who was with you in those days, that spouse or partner or therion who knows only this or that thing about you, that person that you can or choose only to share something with that child who makes a hero of you, even if you don't feel hero yourself that way that you show up. That is only in that context, those context, those connections, those relationships, which one day may cease when one of us does. Those things are precious.

So an awareness of that, perhaps, especially over the thanksgiving table next week, that acknowledgement and appreciation of those with whom you are connected, that that part of me that is only with you needs to be felt, seen, I would say, acknowledged, if you like. Thanks, appreciated for however long and however rich you can make IT. That part of me that is only with you is gratitude.

Number five. Alright, on gratitude. Number six, this one's pretty straight up.

It's frameworks. I'm grateful for framework. They've held so much in investing in business and in life. In early days of this podcast, I went over the gartner hype cycle.

If you don't know what that phrase means, go head in google along with the phrase rule break or investing, listen to that podcast and learn yourself a really helpful framework for thinking through rule breaker stocks. I think of catton Christian sin, fantastic disruptive innovation paradise. I think of my six traits of a rule breaker stock.

I spoke to them a bit earlier within video. Those trades have guided my investing decisions without changing. The same trades since I first wrote role brokers, role makers with my brother in nineteen ninety eight. I'm still using the exact same six traits that help me pick well NVIDIA in two thousand and five. That's another framework or the twenty five point risk ating framework that we practiced on a podcast earlier this year when we compared kinsale stock to tui stock.

We did that on a podcast earlier this year introducing my twenty five point risk rating framework, a way to put a risk rating on a stocks, something that many people have a hard time doing. Or how about Debra mires five habits of mind? I blasted that, went out and blast from the past volume eight in january of this year. But that's a long standing, lovely framework. If you don't know what IT is, you could at least google IT or you could listen to IT on this podcast, even just style boxing.

What morning star has done the mutual fund industry by looking at funds that focus on large cap companies versus small cap companies or more growth oriented companies or more value oriented companies that in morning stars, pylons, I don't really use that myself, but that's a pretty effective matrix, alright, even just was reminded of one by my friend Victor show, the former CEO of evite a few weeks ago. A conscious capitalism who is talking about the ice, and however, may trick. Some of you will know this, but if not this one simple picture, two axis, right, sort like a plus sign in one of them at the top is important.

And if the bottom is not important, and then the sideways intersecting access is on the one side urgent and on the other side not urgent, so you've got a box that's important and urgent, the opposite would be not important, not urgent, and then the other two as well. So there's a framework you can use. And my friend Victor, I thought this is a pretty great line.

He said, you know, my goal in life is to go from one day to the next and not allow anything in that box. And he's pointing at the box that says urgent, important. And the goal, as Victory is conveying, is never to allow something that is important in his life to become urgent.

It's very adorable. I'm sure he does pretty well at IT. There's a framework you can use.

So I am thanking gratitude. Number six, the framework. You know there's an old line. It's sometimes you'll see you on t shirt, maybe on a bump er sticker, whoever dies with the most toys wins.

And I pretty sure most the time people are joking when they put that on their t shirt or their car. But more seriously, I would say whichever investor fills up his or her toolbox with the most frameworks and knows the right time to apply the right framework, that investor wins. And by the way, it's not just one person is not a zero sum game.

We can all win at this. In fact, you will win more and more as an investor. If you turn this gratitude number six frameworks into an action plan, keep filling up your toolbox with more good framework.

Gratitude number six, all right, in my final one this year. Gratitude number seven, I don't do this every year, but I certainly will when the S. M.

P. Five hundred is up twenty percent or more in any given year. And as of this recording, it's up twenty five point one percent in twenty twenty four. So I want to thank the stock market and why we invest.

I want to start by saying that, that we can even invest that is worthy of our gratitude for many of us hearing me right now, we were born into a society that were in danger of taking, sometimes too much for granted. Tes, it's hard to appreciate all of the things that have privileged us that we've inherit, in some cases, are just naturally been surrounded by or fAllen into through serendipity. I mean, let's go back deeply in the history.

One of those things is that we have currency that lets a store up value. My good friend wikipedia reminds us that originally, currency was a form of receipt representing grain stored in temple grain eries in summer in ancient pepeta and an ancient. They eventually realized that coin tage would be easier than grain anyway.

Yeah, thank you currency, and thank you banks, which enable us, most of us, though not everyone in the world today, most of us, to protect our savings. Guard IT know that I will be there for us from one day to the next. Thank you.

banks. And then actually through the stock market, we can translate our savings into part ownership of companies whose products and services and work in this world. We admire companies you can take pride in that you can actually become a part owner of through the small miracle of the stock market that we too often may take for granted that that's pretty great.

And even Better because IT does get even Better is if you've invested well in the stock market and you give time, time to happen, good stocks grow in value over time. In video, good news for you. With you and me doing very little, i've done very little to power the stocks that have powered my life in the lives of many of you who listened to this podcast.

Follow the Molly full over the years. I mean, i've done very little in the grander scheme to help amazon or intuitive surgical or mercado library. Each of those is one hundred baggar plus for me.

But they done so very much to empower my life and many, many others toward financial freedom. I've done so little in return. So thank you stock market that you were even there. And also thanks for being reliable.

You're quite predictable over the long term stock market, even though you can be flooded in the short, your reliability is squarely behind my enviable record as a market timer who is right sixty six point six percent of the time. That's my record. And yes, story ladies jensen fools.

Once again, this time last year I made this market call. I said I think the market in twenty twenty four is going up and boy did IT. And guess what? I think the market is going up next year too.

Well, I said at the start of this last gratitude, gratitude number seven, that is for the stock market, which which i've just spoken to. But also my gratitude is to why we invest, why we invest. That's another thing i'm extremely grateful for, not just the market itself.

why? So in closing, out to share with you a brief essay, which i've turned into an audio esa that requires only once a year on this podcast right around now as well as a poem that was inspired by IT to close this way, once again, my annual gratitude podcast. This is an si first wrote te in molecule stock advisor in two thousand ten.

I should mention, by the way, shortly after i'd written that on our discussion boards at full dcom, one of our members who went under the screen name kept in high co, which I later understood to be two Young women who are sisters, composed a brief poem on the multi full message boards in response. So i'm going to share both my auto sa, but also their poem to close. So here we go, gratitude.

Number seven, closing IT out with why we invest. My favorite episode of my favorite mini series, band brothers, is entitled why we fight. Without wishing to spoil the story, for those who haven't yet seen IT, I won't give away the answer to the question, but the episode is a beautiful, sad and gripping peace of hollywood poetry.

And the phrase why we fight has since stuck with me, and it's north into my own phrase, why we invest. So let's peal every layer of the onion away at the start, at the root of the fruit is this simple reality. We work hard in this world, build up savings.

That savings we call capital. Our capital represents the some total of our life's efforts express monetarily above, beyond what we've spent when we invest. We're doing something very wonderful and very difficult.

We're for fitting the enjoyment of the use of that money in the near term. All our instincts and temptations, many of our appears, perhaps even a spouse urges, sometimes directly or subtly, by association against saving spend. IT now reads or things or shouts any one of thousands of messages confronting the typical adult every day.

But investors take at least some of their capital and do the exact opposite. We forego the instant gratification that on its own is adorable. But we go on further. We investors, we crazy investors, forfeit the enjoyable, immediate use of our capital for no certain reward as stock market investors, in particular, we invest willingly, knowing that our unspent and unenjoyed capital may actually at least partly disappear.

If there's a Better reason for calling ourselves fools, I don't know that the world will ever find IT in particular practicing my own unique style of rule break er investing, seeking to maximize my returns. I flat out no that I will lose money on many occasions. If you throw the academic studies that say investing in individual stocks isn't worthwhile because you can't reliably beat the indexes, well, now you can see why do IT yourself?

Investing is a niche. I mean, it's a niche. We've been helping to grow at the Molly food, but it's still a niche. Here's why we invest for our children and grandchildren, because our parents and grandparents did and made our lives so much Better.

Because every dollar we invest help support the companies and businesses we admire and buy from, because we love and celebrate ownership and believe this world will be far stronger for more owners, not more renters. Because the academics are wrong, because with artha open acy and his old, we are the music makers. And where the dreams of dreams and investing is our instrument and making dreams come true is even more a mostly full thing than disney.

I I think a very real mobile full end in a hundred. Other reasons besides, these are all in part or in whole why we invest. So keep at IT fearful.

Now, before I close with, kept in a high cuz response, I went to remind you, next week is our role. Break your vesting mailed. So give me a gift.

Will you drop me a thought, story, question, poem of your own? All are welcome record next week's mailbag, probably on monday. So please get me a note now or over the weekend.

Our email address is bey de full out com and OK now to close captain high res response scribed by two foolish sisters in a short secrets of high cools that speaks so well to why we invest and IT goes like this, sorry, can't truncate each word, has import and heart, not selfish, we build many years gone by, hard work, hard times, good times, too high co needs little. Why do we invest so that our hard work and doors beyond our short years, so that our children start their journeys on a hill and see the mountain? We build battlements that endure shelter others from the worst of storms.

We launch study ships. We will not see the far shore, but have no regrets. We are a small part. Of all we set in motion and thus we invest.

As always, people on this program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and the male full may have formal recommendations for or against. So don't buy our self stocks based solely on what you hear. Learn more about Robert er investing at rbi, that fool at com.