1/ My most popular tweets of 2020 by month (thread)

January:

A reminder of @morganhousel cash strategy.

For every $1,000 in cash:

More: ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

Accounting is the language of business.

If you buy stocks, you MUST learn how to read a balance sheet.

Here’s everything you need to know:

The balance sheet is one of the 3 major financial statements.

It shows company’s:

▪️Assets: What it owns
▪️Liabilities: What it owes
▪️Shareholders Equity: It's net worth attributable to its owners

At a fixed point in time

That “at a point in time” part is key!

A balance sheet is a SNAPSHOT of a company’s net worth.

It is usually measured at the end of a quarter/year.

That’s different from an income statement or cash flow statement, both of which are measured over periods of time

All balance sheets follow the same formula:

Assets = Liabilities + Shareholders Equity

This formula must be in balance at all times

(Hence the term “balance sheet”)

Side Note:

This formula can be easily re-arranged into the “net worth” formula that you are already familiar with

Assets - Liabilities = Shareholders Equity (Net worth)

I asked, “What company is worth less than $10 billion today but you think could be worth $500+ billion in a few decades?”

I received 710 answers

Here are 20 top stocks that have 50x+ potential:

1: Alteryx - $AYX

Market cap: $5.1 billion

What it does: Big data analytics

2: Boston Omaha - $BOMN

Market Cap: $900 million

What it does: Berkshire Hathaway 2.0

3: Beyond Meat - $BYND

Market Cap: $7.9 billion

What it does: Plant-based meat

4: Desktop Metals - $DM

Market Cap: $2.3 billion

What it does: 3D Printing

My investing style: Buy and hold high-quality businesses

Here are 15 traits that tell me I've found a great business ⬇️

1/ Recurring Revenue

Types:

Business Services $MCO
Contracts $AMT
Consumables $MNST
Exchange $MKTX
Franchise $WINA
Membership $TDOC
Platform $ETSY
Razor/blade $DXCM
Real Estate $STOR
SaaS, PaaS, IaaS $TWLO, $NOW, $FSLY
Subscription $NFLX
Tollbooth $BIP

2/ Recession-Proof Demand

Great companies sell products/services that are in-demand in good times and bad

That allows them to grow regardless of what is happening in the broader economy

3/ Organic Growth

"Organic" growth: Growing by increasing sales of internally developed products/services

"Inorganic" growth: Growing from mergers & acquisitions

Organic Growth > Inorganic Growth

4/ High & Expanding Gross Margin

Indicates that the company’s products/services create a huge amount of value for the customer

Rising gross margin also indicates pricing power

What are the first metrics that you look at when evaluating a new stock?

I reached financial independence and quit my 9-5 job this week at 33 years old to work with my own projects.

A thread with lessons about:

-freedom
-time
-money

One day in 2018 when I was in my 9-5 cubicle, I thought to myself while I stared out of the window:

How could I continue waking up every morning and be totally unexcited about everything I was going to do day after day?

This led me to Google:

“How to quit my job forever”.

You know the rest of the story.

Early Retirement Extreme and Mr. Money Mustache are the first pages popping up.

I read everything in a couple of days.

There was really no way back.

WTF, could I quit my job in a couple of years by investing?

I have always been pretty good at handling money, but earlier on I'd just pay down my mortgage faster.

Now I was going all-in on investing.

I started saving and earning more money by changing my 9-5 job.

Starting out I had a savings rate of 40%.

Last 5 months SR: over 90%

I got addicted to investing.

It was like a game.

My salary was increasing every month and on top of that, I started earning more online than I did in my 9-5.

I started dreaming about $100M.

But, then I reflected:

"What will I sacrifice if I continue like this for 30+ years?

Why are states in Nigeria not paid their share of the oil and gas earnings in the currency it was earned in, i.e., the United States Dollars (USD)?

Crude oil in Nigeria is owned by the Federation — the Federal, State, & Local Govt. Shared as follows: 13% is deducted & paid to the oil and gas producing States; next, the Federal Government (FGN) gets 52.68%; the States get 26.72%, & the Local Governments get 20.60%.

When Nigerian crude oil is sold, the proceeds are in USD and get paid to the NNPC/CBN/JPMorgan Account in the US. The Oil taxes, e.g., Petroleum Profit taxes, are also in USD and are collected by the Federal Inland Revenue Service and paid to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN

The same thing applies to the royalty bonus collected by the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and paid to the CBN. The CBN then converts the USD sales proceeds to Naira.

The CBN and Ministry of Finance then fund Federal agencies like NEMA and the Consolidated Revenue Fund in Naira, even the 13% derivation is paid in Naira. In other words, while the CBN retains the USD, the Federal, States, and LGAs get Naira

@nivin27 Kenneth Andrade & all his interviews ever

Anyone have any opinions on how self-insured employers consider innovative healthcare offerings to pass on to their employees?

As I understand it, by shouldering the financial risk, self-insured employers can curate a list of more relevant benefits ... (1/10)

... thereby avoiding paying out lofty insurance premiums for services that its employees don't use or want. There seems to be a long list of intangible benefits having to do with talent acquisition and retention, but I'd like to understand the cost equations more fully. (2/10)

In the context of multi-cancer screening, I'm skeptical that it could be cost-saving for small or medium-sized employers (<500 employees). Assuming a representative sample of the population, there are simply too few cancers and too many false positives w/ expensive ... (3/10)

... diagnostic follow-ups to bend the unit-economics in the right direction. Indeed, for larger self-insured employers, maybe on the order of thousands of employees, the dynamics may change. Each true positive is a chance to save on treatment cost and (possibly) to ... (4/10)

... extend life. However, employers won't likely be able to distinguish between true life-extension and lead-time bias without prospective, randomized studies, which are due out in the 2024-25 timeframe. Still, these likely will include interim endpoints only. (5/10)