Warning: Undefined array key "url" in /var/www/moneyandfreedom.com/public_html/wp-content/plugins/seo-by-rank-math/includes/modules/schema/snippets/class-author.php on line 41
Top 20 Best Websites for Stock Research

Top 20 Best Websites for Stock Research

by | Nov 15, 2020 | Investing in stocks, Value investing

There are a lot of tools available for you as an investor, but it’s easy to get lost on the internet.

This list will help you cut to the chase and find the best sites quicker. 

Here are the 20 best online tools and websites for value investors: 

1. The Company’s Own Investor Relations Site

The first source of information should be the original source, and by that I mean the annual report, quarterly statements, and other information from the company itself.

There should be a link to the subsite for investor relations on the home page.

If you still can’t find it, just google the company’s name + investor relations. 

2. Google 

You should google the company to see what comes up.

There could be awful – but truthful – reports from short sellers (people betting on the stock falling), big insider selling, or some lawsuit that hasn’t been settled yet.

Always, always google the company you are researching. 

3. News Media  

Take a look at the headlines on the major news sites every day.

I check:

Make it a part of your daily routine to check the websites. You don’t have to read a lot of articles from start to finish – this is about getting the big picture. 

4. Reuters 

Reuters.com contains a stock site that can be really useful to get an overview of a company’s development. 

You can use the search function to find the company.

On the “profile” page of the company, you can see things like how many shares there are. You’ll need that for several calculations when you want to figure out what price you would want to pay per share. 

5. Bloomberg

Bloomberg.com is similar to Reuters – they both sell data to the financial sector. 

Bloomberg has a more aggressive paywall on their website though, but you can still use it to look up the numbers of shares outstanding.

6. Insider Monkey 

InsiderMonkey.com is useful for checking if insiders are dumping the stock.

You don’t want to touch something that the insiders are doing a fire sale of.

History has shown us that insiders often try to unload the stock they own before it’s obvious to the public that a company is going bankrupt. 

7. Gurufocus

Gurufocus.com shows you what the big value investors invest in. 

You can see the portfolio and their latest trades. Just be aware that the investors only have to report their US investments every quarter, so the information is never going to be completely updated. 

8. Dataroma

Dataroma.com is a more simple version of a value investor tracker.

It includes different investors from Gurufocus, so it’s a nice addition – Li Lu is on Dataroma, but not on Gurufocus. Who wants to miss out on what Li Lu is doing? Charlie Munger trained him, and some people speculate whether he has a future role to play in Berkshire Hathaway.  

9. Whalewisdom       

Whalewisdom also tracks the big value investors. I like their heatmap.

10. Seeking Alpha 

On Seekingalpha.com you can find a lot of investors’ analysis and stock ideas.

They have a morning briefing podcast called Wall Street Breakfast. You can find Seeking Alpha’s podcasts here.

11. Investopedia

Investopedia.com is for investors what Wikipedia is for normal people.

If you find something in an annual report that you don’t understand, try looking it up on Investopedia before you panic.

12. The Motley Fool

The Motley Fool, also called Fool.com, is run by two brothers, and it helps you invest through blog posts, podcasts, videos and so on.

It’s possible to receive stock recommendations if you sign up for the paid version.

13. Morningstar 

I use Morningstar.com for researching ETF and other funds. It’s an easy way to look up their performance and costs.

You can also enter and track your portfolio on Morningstar. 

14. Yahoo Finance 

You can use Yahoo Finance for a lot of stuff, like setting up a stock screener, entering your portfolio, creating a stock alarm, and many other things.

15. Trading View 

Tradingview.com is great for charting.

It’s got plenty of other functions like a stock screener. If you’re into Bitcoin and other cryptos, you can chart them here too.  

16. Finviz 

On Finviz.com you can chart, build portfolio and stock screeners, get an overview of the news, backtest your latest trading idea, and much more.

17. Market Screener 

Marketscreener.com lets you chart, build a portfolio, a screener – and many of the other features that the two previous financial sites also offer.

You’ll have to test them and see which one suits you the best.

18. Simply Wall Street 

Simply Wall Street is a value investor site that evaluates investments for you.

I get a little confused about the warning signs that they show, so I prefer to do my own analysis, but I see no reason why you can’t get inspired by Simply Wall Street – as long as you go to the original source (the company’s report) and do your own analysis as well. 

19. SEC Edgar 

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s website Sec.gov contains a lot of information… if you have the patience for the not-so-user-friendly system.

The funds trades are there – which means you can find all the big investors investments and trades.

Be careful though – you might click on something that fills your screen with code language or html.

The SEC communicates in a semi-cryptic language – here are some of the most important form codes to remember:

  • 13F : Funds reports of their investments
  • 10-k : Annual report
  • 10-q : Quarterly statement
  • 4 : Changes in insiders’ ownership

20. Money and Freedom 

You’re here, aren’t you? It’s worthwhile following this blog for the weekly posts and lists. 

You’ll automatically be signed up for the weekly investment tips if you download the e-book. Which brings me to…

Don’t forget to read my free e-book that explains my whole investing process – including my favorite way to calculate what a company is worth. You can get it here.

Five Signs of an Owner-Oriented Management

Five Signs of an Owner-Oriented Management

by | Nov 7, 2020 | Investing in stocks

Good management can turn an ailing company into a great one, and bad management can ruin an otherwise good company.

When you invest, it’s important to evaluate the leadership.

You want a CEO who thinks like an owner of the business.

How do you find that? What should you look for?

No worries. I’ve got you covered.

Here’s my list of five signs of an owner-friendly management.

1. Management Is Honest and Direct

You want management who doesn’t try to sweep anything under the rug. Not even the smallest thing.

If they issue a press release about a problem that hasn’t previously been known to the public, you should see that as a good sign.

You want them to be very honest and admit to any mistakes that have occurred.

Looking back through history, we know that the companies who failed bigtime – with accounting fraud and bankruptcy – had a history of covering things up and reacting aggressively to criticism:

  • Like Lehman Brothers’ CEO Dick Fuld who wanted to “squeeze” and “rip out the hearts” of short sellers (those who bet on the stock going down).
  • Like German Wirecard who accused two Financial Times journalists of trying to manipulate the stock. The journalists had written about accounting fraud in the company before it was public knowledge that one-third of the balance sheet was fiction.

If the management is prone to lash out and throw lawyers and lawsuits at opponents, you want to stay away. 

You should also look at the language they use in general when speaking to the public. Is it straightforward? Or is it full of lingo and jargon?

You want to be able to understand what they say. If you feel like they talk a lot but say nothing, it’s a bad sign.

Don’t invest in something you don’t understand – or in companies with a CEO who you don’t understand.

2. Management Makes Owner-Oriented Decisions 

You want a company that isn’t afraid of making choices that are good for the stock in the long run but not in the short run.

This means:

  • You don’t want them to run up too much debt. They should be able to pay long-term debt back within three years with free cash flow. 
  • If they make buybacks (buying back their own stock), they only do this when the stock is cheap. They don’t do it when the stock is expensive.

Buyback programs make the share go up, because the pizza will be shared in fewer slices, so each slice should be more expensive.

This can make the current management look good almost instantly.

But at what cost? How much do they pay for each slice of pizza on the open market?

Is it fair to the owners?

3. Management Owns Shares – and Keeps Them  

Owning shares for the long run makes you think like a real owner. We like it if management is faithful to the company they work for. 

If they sell large chunks of shares it may be a warning sign that something is wrong.

Enron’s top management was very busy making a fire sale of the shares before it became public knowledge that they had cooked the books. Anyone paying attention to insider trading had a chance to get out before the company crashed and went bankrupt. 

4. Management Has an Ambitious Goal 

Companies that set big goals do better than companies with lukewarm goals.

What’s a big goal? You know it when you see it because it might almost sound like megalomania.

Let’s look at some examples (these are not stock recommendations at all – other things must be in place too):

  • Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg wanted to connect the whole world, and he did. He made it possible for everyone to find their high school sweetheart. When that was accomplished, he set another goal of building strong communities.
  • Tesla’s Elon Musk wants to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. With SpaceX he wants to reach and colonize Mars.
  • Amazon’s Jeff Bezos wants to create the world’s most consumer-oriented business. Imagine how that sounded when he was selling books out of his parents’ garage?

5. Entrepreneurial Managers  

There are two kinds of CEOs.

The kind that invites a journalist to his mansion, opens the door wearing shorts and flip-flops, serves a glass of Chardonnay, calls his wife to enter the room and tells the story of how he stole her from his best friend.  

Then there’s the other type who is all dressed up in the corporate attire when his secretary leads the journalist to his glass office. He stays behind a big desk and only he can see the family portrait on it.

It’s the difference between the founder CEO who built a business and the bureaucrat CEO who is hired by the owners to take the company in a certain direction – and who can get fired. 

If you can find a wonderful business where the founder is still somewhere in a leading position – either as CEO or as Chairman of the Board, you should pay extra attention.

Founders and entrepreneurs are excellent managers. They have vision and guts, and they can take the company to the next level in a way that bureaucrats can’t.

The second-best option is a company with a CEO that the founder picked and trained – like Steve Jobs groomed Tim Cook for running Apple. 

Evaluating Management Is Part of Your Investing Checklist

You don’t invest in Apple, Amazon, Tesla, or the likes just because you like the founder CEO.

There are a lot of other things that need to be in place. You have to make sure that:

  • You agree with the values
  • The company is profitable
  • The company is growing
  • It’s cheap enough to invest in
  • …and a lot of other things.

Evaluating management is just one step on a longer checklist. You have an investing checklist, right? If you don’t, you are welcome to use mine. You can download it right here. 

Don’t forget to read my free e-book that explains my whole investing process – including my favorite way to calculate what a company is worth. You can get it here.

 

The 20 Best Movies About Money and Stocks

The 20 Best Movies About Money and Stocks

by | Oct 31, 2020 | Investing in stocks

It’s so easy to get sucked up in the fear or the euphoria of the market and forget the bigger picture.

Fortunately, we have so many good movies that teach us about history and about the inner workings of the market.

Why not kick back and enjoy yourself while learning about money and the stock market?

I’ll give you a list of 20 great movies and documentaries (and a few series) that you might enjoy while getting educated about kessef, as Ben Affleck calls it. 

1. Becoming Warren Buffett (2017)

Because I’m a big Warren Buffett fan, I must place this documentary at the very top of the list.

It’s educational and entertaining at the same time.

You’ll learn about the power of compounding while laughing about Buffett’s quirks, such as offering his sick wife a strainer to puke in.

You’ll really discover that he’s no ordinary person.

You can find it on HBO or on YouTube right here.

2. The Big Short (2015) 

The Big Short is based on the true story of how Michael Burry (and others) figured out how catastrophic subprime lending was a long time before the market did.

It’s the story of how they shorted it (which means they betted on a crash) and made a lot of money while the rest of the world shattered. 

It’s really amazing how dry financial stuff like explaining subprime comes to life in the movie.

Want an example? You can watch a scene where one of the characters describes the problem with subprime loans right here.

You can find the whole movie on Netflix. 

3. Inside Lehman Brothers (2018)   

This documentary is like a thriller.

You get an insight into how the management of Lehman Brothers used methods that the mob would envy. They intimidated key female employees to keep them quiet about what was going on. 

The biggest takeaway?

You really want to evaluate the character of the top management before you invest in a company.

I’ll never forget this clip where Lehman’s CEO Dick Fuld shows us how psychopathic he is. He really does seem like someone who would hire mobsters.

You can find it on Amazon Prime Video and probably other places too. 

4. Wall Street (1987)

Oliver Stone’s original movie Wall Street is such a classic that you still have a generation of men trying to impersonate Michael Douglas in his role as Gordon Gekko. You still find them around town with slick hair, wearing light blue shirts, red ties and flashing their suspenders after hours.  

Michael Douglas was so good in this role as a corporate raider that he received an Oscar for it.

The most important clip from the movie is probably his “Greed Is Good” speech which you can see here.

You can stream the whole movie on Netflix or Amazon or rent it on YouTube.

Part two of the movie came out a generation later, called Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, and is worth seeing too. 

5. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

If you liked Wall Street, you’ll love The Wolf of Wall Street with Leonardo DiCaprio in the role as Jordan Belford.

It’s an incredibly entertaining rags-to-riches and riches-to-jail story with a big dose of cocaine, yachts, prostitutes, parties, fraud, and infidelity.

After watching this clip, you’ll never buy a penny stock again – not if someone’s trying to sell it to you anyway.

You can watch the movie on Netflix. 

6. Margin Call (2011)

Margin Call is another story about an underdog who discovers that the market is about to crash.

That’s the same story theme as The Big Short, but while The Big Short is based on a real story, Margin Call is all fiction.

Another major difference is that in The Big Short it’s the outsiders who discover the warning signs, whereas in Margin Call, it’s a junior inside the firm who predicts the crash.

It’s a lot about internal office policy, who gets sacked and who doesn’t and about being impressed when senior management lands in a helicopter on the roof in the middle of the night to fix it.

There are some truly excellent scenes, and Kevin Spacey is superb in his role as the head of the trading floor, a man who cares more about his sick dog than anyone else – including his family. 

You can find it on HBO or see the whole thing on YouTube here. 

7. Enron – The Smartest Guys in The Room (2005)

As investors, we do everything we can to avoid losing all our money.

We want to avoid investing in a company that’s at risk of going bankrupt. 

We check the numbers… But what if the company cooks the books to hide excessive debt like Enron did?

That’s one reason we want to study cases like Enron closely – to figure out how we can detect any early warning signs. 

One key takeaway is that the CEO and the Chairman of the Board began a fire sale of their own company’s shares  – insider trading – and that following how many shares they sold from their private portfolio could have worked as an early warning signs.

That’s why insider trading is a key point on my checklist. You can download my checklist here.

You can find the Enron documentary on Amazon Prime or even on Vimeo.

8. Inside Job (2010)

This is one of the best documentaries about the financial crisis.

It explains the crisis in simple language.

You get a good historical overview of how the financial sector was gradually deregulated – beginning with the Reagan administration and continuing under other presidencies – until the financial sector was so powerful that no one could stop them.

You get the feeling that the investment banks got to party all night without anyone watching over them and no one daring to complain about it.

You can find the documentary on Netflix.

9. Too Big to Fail (2011)      

Whereas Inside Job is a documentary, Too Big to Fail is the fictionalized version of the financial crisis.

You can see subprime loans explained right here.

Too Big to Fail is on HBO.

10. The Crash of 1929  

When  you’re done with the financial crisis, it’s time to investigate the crash of 1929 that reduced the value of the stock market by 85 percent.

Yes, it may happen again. In fact, there are many parallels between today’s stock market and the stock market leading to the crash happening almost 100 years ago (google Shiller PE ratio to find one).

The stock market of 1929 was driven by the naivety and greed of the common investor who invested with borrowed money and based investments on crazy things like the prediction of an astrologist. 

You can see the documentary on YouTube here.

11. Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)   

Al Pacino, Alec Baldwin, Jack Lemmon, and Ed Harris are on the set when a group of real estate agents get sacked and only have a week to earn their jobs back.

If you ever wonder why people say “Coffee is for closers”, you’ll know after watching Alec Baldwin’s alpha male pitch here. Something about winners driving BMWs and losers driving Hondas… and you only get to have a cup of coffee if you closed a sale.

You can watch it on Amazon Prime.  

12. Boiler Room (2000)

Welcome back to the traditional Wall Street crook movie where a young man discovers how corrupt Wall Street is and gets involved in all sorts of trouble like selling shares in firms that don’t even exist. 

This movie contains another famous alpha male peptalk here. In Ben Affleck’s version of the money monologue a winner drives a Ferrari.

You can watch the whole thing on Vimeo here.

13. Rogue Trader (1999)

Rogue Trader is a British movie based on the biography of Nick Leeson, a trader who caused the 1995 collapse of Barings Bank.

It begins with a little mistake on the trading floor that he tries to cover up, but it only becomes worse and worse. It’s pretty cringeworthy until it becomes straight out terrible and brings down the whole bank. 

Apparently, the autobiography – the book behind the movie – is supposed to be even better.  You can watch the movie on YouTube here. 

14. Equity  (2016)

With Equity, you’re back in the Wall-Street-is-corrupt genre.

But this time a woman is in the lead role, and that makes it stand out. Part of the theme of the movie is the trouble of a woman on Wall Street.

You can watch Anna Gum’s version of a Greed-is-good speech here. 

You can watch the movie on Amazon Prime. 

15. Panic: The Untold Story of the 2008 Financial Crisis (2018)

Because it’s the newest documentary about the financial crisis, Panic has sources revealing things that were previously not able to be talked about.

You can see it on YouTube here. 

16. Money for Nothing: Inside the Federal Reserve (2013)

In Money for Nothing, you’ll learn about how the Fed prints money, and what the problem with that is. 

You can watch the documentary on YouTube here.  

17. The China Hustle (2018)

This documentary will make you think twice before investing in Chinese firms.

It’s researched and produced by the same team that made the Enron movie. 

Because of the urgency and relevance of this movie, you could definitely make the case that it should be placed higher on the list. 

You can see it on Netflix.   

18. Billions

Billions is a fiction series, so here is something to keep you entertained night after night.

It depicts a battle between a New York attorney and a billionaire hedge fund manager.

You can watch it on Amazon. 

19. Wall Street Warriors

Wall Street Warriors is a reality TV show about 10 people who deal with big sums on Wall Street.

You can see it on Amazon and some shows on youtube.

20. Explained

The series Explained on Netflix has some episodes that are relevant and very useful.

Don’t miss the one about the stock market. You can find it here on YouTube.

What Else?

Honestly, the list could go on and on. 

Other things might worth watching could be

  • Trading Places (movie from 1993)
  • It’s a Wonderful Life (movie from 1946)
  • Dirty Money (Series on Netflix)
  • The Company Men (movie from 2010)
  • Gold (movie from 2017)
  • Arbitrage (movie from 2012)
  • The Wizard of Lies (movie about Madoff from 2017)
  • 99 homes (movie from 2017)
  • 97 Owned (documentary from 2012 about how money is created. You can find it here on youtube)
  • Goldman Sachs – The Bank that Runs The World (French documentary 2012)
  • Capitalism – A Love Story (Michael Moore documentary 2009)
  • Betting on Zero (documentary from 2016 about Herbalife)
  • The Queen of Versaille (documentary 2012)
  • Floored (documentary from 2009. You can see it on Youtube here)
  • Trader (documentary from 1987)
  • Scam 1992 (New Indian series that the Indians absolutely rave about)
  • Minimalism (documentary 2016)

Don’t forget to read this free e-book that explains how you invest like Warren Buffett’s. You can get it here.

How to Shatter the Glass Ceiling With Stocks

How to Shatter the Glass Ceiling With Stocks

by | Oct 24, 2020 | Value investing

The Me Too movement has swept across many countries and industries.

It has helped put an end to serial offenders, which is good, but there’s still a long road ahead to fight gender inequality in general.

We need a second movement to overcome gender inequality and break the glass ceiling.

The good news is that you can do this with stocks.

How, you might ask?

No worries. As usual, I’ve got you covered with specific steps you can follow.

1. Invest in Stocks

Many studies show that women shy away from the stock market and invest far less frequently than men.

The sad consequence of this is that many women miss out on growth and profit, and this deepens the financial divide between men and women.

If your finances are not strong (if you’re dependent on a monthly salary), you’re less likely to stand up to unreasonable treatment at work.

If, on the other hand, you are financially independent and don’t really need the salary, you’ve got the opportunity to make some bold career moves. 

2. Only Invest in Companies with Women at the Top

If they don’t have any women on the board and in top management, don’t invest in the company. 

The same goes for companies with only a few women in upper management. Where’s the limit?

You have to use some common sense. If there are only two women at the top and if those two are in charge of “soft” areas like HR or communications, it’s a sign that the company doesn’t take gender equality seriously. Someone in charge of HR or communications doesn’t have a say in big decisions.

Vote with your money and tell the public companies that you, as a female investor, no longer accept a world where women are excluded from power.

3. Only Invest in Companies with a Fair Gender Policy 

If they don’t mention diversity in their annual report, then you can rest assured that they don’t have any strategy or policy or goals to fight inequality. 

Let’s take an example from politics. How can you expect a political party to prioritize the environment if they don’t have any environmental policy written down? It’s a sure sign that it’s not a priority. They’ll the environment deteriorate if they reach power.

The same goes for companies. If there is no written plan, they don’t have one.

4. Engage and Use Your Voting Rights 

When you own stocks, you own the company, and you have power.

You have voting rights at the annual meeting. You can suggest things to be changed. You can ask critical questions.

In today’s world, many stockholders have the feeling that the CEO is in charge. When you listen to reporting calls, you often get the feeling that the CEO is the strict teacher and the shareholders the unruly students with silly questions.

The truth is that the CEO and the rest of the management work for the shareholders. They are hired to do the work that the shareholders – the owners – ask them to do. So the real boss is actually the owners of the business. It’s you, the shareholder. 

Use your power actively to make sure that women are treated well. Make suggestions, ask critical questions, and vote. 

The link between management and the shareholders is the board. The board is there to ensure that the company is run in the interest of the shareholders.

You, dear reader and shareholder, can run for a place on the board.

Many boards lack women – about half of the boards in my country (Denmark) have no women on them.

All-men boards are true catastrophes.

The tone is set in the board and trickles down through the company. If it’s okay to exclude women on the board, it sends a signal that it’s okay to exclude women further down the chain of command.

It sends the signal that women are not equals. 

5. Put Your Foot Down at Work 

I’ve ignored a lot of injustices because I was afraid of looking like a troublemaker and afraid of losing my job and my income.

I’ve discovered that my male counterpart was paid much more than me (the two of us were doing the exact same job, and I had more experience).

I’ve accepted that there was a whole layer of managers above me that consisted entirely of men.

I’ve accepted being demoted as some sort of absurd carrot and stick punishment for applying for another job internally in another department – and I kept quiet. 

Did not speaking up protect me?

No – in the end, I was fired while on maternity leave. 

I wish I could do it all over again and act differently. I wish I had spoken up. I wish I had resigned and had resumed my career somewhere else where women were valued. Not speaking up gave my boss the impression that this behavior was okay and that he could get away with it.

We all – men and women – have a moral imperative to speak up and be willing to risk our job.

Not just for ourselves, but for all the other men and women next to us and for all the men and women after us. We do it for ourselves, but also for our sisters, brothers, daughters, and sons.

We have to create pressure from both within the company as employees and from outside as shareholders and owners of the companies if we want things to change. 

Don’t forget to read my free e-book that explains my whole investing process – including my favorite way to calculate what a company is worth. You can get it here.

Ten Thoughts to Make You Rich

Ten Thoughts to Make You Rich

by | Oct 18, 2020 | Mindset

Our lives are built on the voices of our childhood. 

What do your voices tell you? 

That rich people are greedy? That investing is risky? That money is the root of all evil?

I hope not, because you’ll stay stuck with those thoughts.

Notice what the voices inside you tell you. 

What they tell you becomes your truth. 

If you think negative things about money or investing – or even negative things about your own ability to handle money or stocks – then that will be exactly how it turns out. 

No worries though. We can change your thoughts. One by one. 

It really works wonders when you begin saying something else in your mind.

Let’s look at some alternative beliefs. 

1. Money is Energy

Money isn’t the root of anything. You can do whatever you want with it.

Money has no intentions. You can buy guns or you can donate to The Red Cross. 

Money is just a way of exchanging goods and services. It has no value in itself. It’s what you spend it on that’s important.

You can say that money enhances the qualities you already possess. If you are goodhearted, you’ll be even more so with more money. 

It’s like energy. If you have energy, you can do a lot of things, but having energy doesn’t make you bad or good. It depends on what you decide to do with it.

2. My Money Works For Me and Multiplies 

Rich people aren’t rich because they have money. They’re rich because they have assets that give them money. 

They are, in other words, rich because they know how to make money work for them so they can work less.

What are assets? Assets are little money machines. Something that earns you money. They can be stocks, bonds or rental property- or even your own company.

The opposite of that is liabilities. They cost you money. This can be credit card debt, a mortgage, overdraft, or any other loan. 

A billionaire recently said when interviewed on his luxurious yacht: “It’s difficult to have a money-devouring yacht if you are paid by the hour.”

That really hit home with me, because isn’t that what most of us do? We get a nice degree, a nice job, but we are essentially paid by the hour and are working hard to pay off student debt and the mortgage.

3. I Am Enough  

I really love this sentence.

It comes from a hypnotherapist called Marisa Peer. According to her, a lot of people overspend because they don’t feel good enough.

They might buy expensive clothes for a party because they feel insecure. They might always pick up the bill because they feel unworthy of the company.  

The sentence “I am enough” removes a lot of that insecurity that a lot of people are struggling with.  Self-doubt is a common plague, like stress. You can fight it by changing the narrative in your mind. Just tell yourself:

“I am enough.”

4. I Create Generational Wealth  

Financial freedom is really just the starting point. It’s where you get a feeling of security and freedom for life. But I want you to aim above that level.

It really gives me a sense of being on a mission when I remind myself that I’m creating generational wealth. This isn’t really about me. There’s a lot more going on. 

5. I’m Financially Free   

Even if you’re not yet, just say it to yourself, because it gives your mind a command. It shows your mind which direction you want.

In a car race, the driver is never supposed to look at the object he is afraid of crashing into. If he begins focusing on the tree, he will unconsciously steer towards that. The driver has to keep his eyes on the track and the target.

Look at where you want to go and remind yourself of that. Tell yourself that you are that.

Don’t ever look at what you fear will happen.

6. I Exploit the Fear of the Market 

I like this sentence because it reminds me that I’m a value investor, and that it’s possible to get a higher return by investing in an intelligent way.

It keeps me rational when the market goes crazy. It does go crazy from time to time, and when it does, we should be chanting our ten sentences like a Buddhist monk.

7. My Money Will Do Good in the World 

I invest according to my values and principles. That’s why I can say that my money does good in the world – because I carefully monitor what it’s doing.

What does it mean to invest according to your values?

It means investing in companies that look after the environment if the future of our planet is important to you.

It means investing in companies with a fair representation of women in management and on the board if gender equality is important to you. 

It also means avoiding anything that you cannot vouch for. 

8. I Make More Money than I Spend  

This is really the root of financial independence: Always spend less than you earn and invest the rest.

This little formula will make you rich in time.

9. Whatever I Give Comes Back to Me Manifold 

There will be costs, and there will be necessary investments. 

Maybe you have to pay someone to build a website for a business you want to launch.

Maybe you need an investing course to excel at investing.

Sometimes you need to let go of some money in order to make more in the future. If you stay stuck and clutch your money too tight, you’ll have a hard time progressing to the next level. 

Think about what you send out into the world and trust that it will return to you manifold. Because it will. 

10. I Attract Money from Unexpected Resources

I like this sentence because it makes me look for new ways to make money.

It’s like a command in the computer of my mind to find money.

When I had less money than I have now, I was pretty good at renting out my apartment through Airbnb when I went on vacation and selling used baby stuff or pitching myself for a paid talk. 

Today I use this mindset in my business and my investing practice. It no longer makes sense for me to spend time on getting an apartment ready for Airbnb or selling stuff on eBay because I can use the same time somewhere else where I make more money with that time. 

And what a relief that is.  

Don’t forget to read my e-book ‘Free Yourself’ that shows you how I became financially free and how I invest. You can download it here.