Market Bytes

Should you invest in index funds or individual stocks? If you’re confused about this, I don’t blame you. On this episode of the Build Invest Live podcast we break down the pros and cons of investing in index funds vs individual stocks and talk through the things you need to consider to determine what makes the most sense for you.

In this episode I reveal my $227,000 Dividend Growth portfolio, including all my different holdings, the actual strategy that I’m using to pick stocks, the dividend income I’m earning, and the different account types and tools I’m using now that I’ve mostly transitioned everything to Schwab.

00:00-Transparency matters

01:32-What’s my portfolio strategy?

03:22-Schwab account summary

05:18-Portfolio holdings

10:28-Portfolio dividend income

11:28-Portfolio performance

13:09-Portfolio tools

Apple was one of those companies that I never bought because I’m always waiting for it to come down in price and meet my value criteria. With big tech being overvalued right now, it definitely wasn’t a time for me to finally buy, was it? Well, it was.

00:00-I bought Apple stock at the top

01:22-Why I sold Waste Management for Apple

02:21-AAPL Valuation

03:19-The 3 main reasons I like AAPL even at these prices

04:26-Apple’s advantage with AI

06:17-Earnings recap: McDonald’s (MCD)

07:18-What I like about MCD going forward

08:29-Earnings recap: Valero (VLO)

10:21-Portfolio update

Forever I’ve told people new to investing to simply buy an S&P 500 index fund and focus on increasing their income and investment. It’s easy and it works. But after reading all the comments from the previous SCHD video I started looking into the past performance of a 2 ETF portfolio that absolutely crushes the S&P 500. In this episode of the Build Invest Live podcast we’re going to go over that portfolio that just happens to combine the best parts of the S&P 500 with the dividend growth and reliability of high quality, undervalued dividend stocks.

00:00-Comments on the last video got me thinking

01:05-The SCHD and VGT combination

03:16-2 concerns to deal with

04:06-Adjusting for exposures

05:35-Alternative: SPY and QQQ

07:31-Alternative: SCHD and SCHG

08:54-Alternative: VIG and VGT

10:13-Overall thoughts on SCHD and VGT

11:53-Weekly dividend growth portfolio update

SCHD is the Schwab Dividend ETF that is extremely popular and has performed very well over the past 10 years - but it has a secret to its success that pretty much nobody ever talks about and I’m not sure they even know about it. In this episode of the Build Invest Live podcast we’re going to break down the secret to what makes SCHD different from other dividend ETFs, show you how a little bit of effort can get you a wealth of information that no one is paying attention to, and walk through a head to head comparison of SCHD with some of its peers.

00:00-SCHD has a secret that no one is talking about

03:14-How ETFs are constructed

04:12-How do I find this information?

05:17-SCHD Stock criteria

09:48-VIG stock criteria

11:51-VYM stock criteria

13:07-DGRO stock criteria

15:16-Why has SCHD underperformed?

15:57-Is SCHD still the King of Dividend ETFs?

Sometimes we just buy things because we want to. We know we shouldn’t do it. But we do it anyway. Well I just did that with a stock that didn’t meet any of my primary value criteria. And that stock is Walmart. In this episode of the Build Invest Live podcast I’m going to walk through my Walmart evaluation, how my own personal experience with Walmart influenced my thinking, and why I decided to buy in spite of my rules. We’ll also do a quick update on my dividend growth portfolio and spoiler alert - we’re starting to see signs of life.

00:00-Walmart didn’t meet any of my criteria, but I bought it

00:38-The 3 things that intrigued me about Walmart

02:40-Evaluation of Walmart’s stock

04:32-Comments from Walmart’s CFO

05:57-Why I ended up buying Walmart’s stock

06:33-My experience with Seeking Alpha

07:49-Update on my dividend growth portfolio

Sometimes we miss out on a stock that we like because we’re waiting for a pullback that never happens. Well last week I was finally able to buy a stock I’ve been watching and waiting on for years - United Healthcare. In this episode of the Build Invest Live podcast I talk about what led to the opportunity to buy, my stock evaluation criteria and how UNH matched up to it, as well as why I decided to buy now.

00:00-I finally bought United Healthcare

01:53-How did an opportunity to buy UNH present itself?

04:02-My dividend growth stock evaluation criteria

06:51-How Does United Healthcare match up to the evaluation criteria?

09:26-Digging deeper on Price to Free Cash Flow

13:01-Looking forward on my new UNH position

Millionaire status is all you hear about online, whether in articles, videos, or tweets. But achieving a million dollar net worth shouldn’t be your primary goal with investing at the start. In this episode of the Build Invest Live podcast we dive into how generating income to pay your monthly bills is a better goal and helps you build up the right habits to build wealth for the long term.

00:00-Millionaire is overused online

01:26-Why “just do this for 30 years straight” doesn’t work

05:27-Why millionaire status can be misleading

06:14-Net worth example

09:05-Connecting dividend income to your monthly bills

09:40-A better approach - an income snowball

15:39-Another way to get excited about investing for beginners

NVIDIA's stock soared after earnings because of a good quarter and off the charts guidance. Is this a good time to buy though? In this episode of the Build Invest Live show we talk through that as well as the Ledger Recover controversy and if your crypto is safe. Lastly a quick update on my Dividend Growth portfolio after the first 6 months.

00:00-Welcome to the Build Invest Live show

00:31- NVIDIA stock is soaring after earnings

01:38-NVIDIA valuation breakdown and should we be buying?

06:14-Ledger causes controversy with recovery feature

07:52-Can Ledger give up your seed phrase?

09:29-Why would Ledger do this?

11:49-Why self-custody is one of the biggest hurdles for bitcoin / crypto

15:29-Is your crypto safe on a Ledger?

17:10-My dividend portfolio update