At the start of every month, my partner at The Wealth Advisory and I have a little competition. We each sit down and pick the five stocks out of the Wealth Advisory portfolio that we think will perform the best, and we create two model portfolios to track our picks in order to see who does better.
The loser has to endure some kind of humiliating punishment, while the winner gets bragging rights for a month.
And we do the whole thing on video every month.
In the November video, after a thorough trouncing, you could have watched Jason eat a jalapeño pepper…
(By the way, how do you know when a pepper is nosey? It gets jalapeño business!)
In the January edition, you could have been soothed by my dulcet tones as I donned a luchador mask to sing the Baltimore Ravens fight song…
Good times.
Now, collectively, we call these videos The Wealth Advisory Monthly Top 10. The point is to give our subscribers a feel for which stocks we think have the best immediate upside catalysts. After all, we typically cover about 30 different stocks in the portfolio, so it can be a little challenging to figure out which ones to buy right away.
Plus, it gives Jason and me a chance to comment on what’s going on in the stock market, the economy, the world…
Serious stuff, but who says you can’t have a little fun while you’re making money?
Fun and Money
Back in August, I got a fat 27% gain from Twilio (NYSE: TWLO), a stock I’ve told you about before (plus some other gains that month, handing me the win). Twilio’s pretty much got all the buzzwords with its cloud mobile messaging platform. As an example, Twilio is the company that lets Uber connect with its customers.
Twilio started really crushing earnings last February. I first recommended the stock to Wealth Advisory subscribers at $33. It’s breaking $100 right now…
That August defeat was an unfortunate one for Jason. Because he had a really nice 36% gain from one of our pot stocks. We both had a really good month…
Then in September, I took him to the woodshed again with a 50% gain on a different pot stock.
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I will tell it straight: I did not do well in November and December, as the market was getting a serious beat-down. Jason won two months in a row — hence the luchador mask. (And I should note, too, that starting with the October video, we were telling our viewers to take some gains, raise some cash, and get ready to buy some quality stocks like Twilio at a nice discount.)
It looks like I am back in the saddle this month. I’ve got one stock up 28%. And one of my old favorites — Bank of America — is helping me out with a solid 5% gain today after beating earnings this morning.
Funny thing about that beat. BofA reported $0.70 a share profits when analysts were looking for $0.63. Pretty solid performance. But just a week ago, analysts were saying they expected $0.65 a share. Ha! That’s right — just a week ago, analysts lowered their estimates, making today’s beat look even better!
I mean, I can’t say for sure that some investment banks were trying to give the market a little shot in the arm. But I will tell you that when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.
What Will We Do to Jason This Month?
Now, I’m about to do something really, really not smart. Maybe even downright dumb. I’m about to throw caution to the wind and gloat about my victory when there are still 10 trading days left in the month. I can hear Jason yelling “SWEET!” right now.
But seriously, I’m looking over my five, and I really think I got this. I took our December recommendation for one of my five this month, and it’s up about 15%. I also managed to nab our November recommendation, and it’s up a huge 31%. (I can’t share these stocks with you just yet — our subscribers get a six-month exclusive to our newest investment research.)
The laggard of my five is Palo Alto Networks (NYSE: PANW). It’s up *just* 11%.
We recommended Palo Alto a little over a year ago at $138. It’s breaking over $200 now and was as high as $240 before the correction. Palo Alto is pretty much the best cybersecurity play out there. Morgan Stanley recently loaded up and is calling it one of its top ideas for 2019. I don’t always agree with Wall Street analysts, but this time I do.
Because cybersecurity is only getting more important. China and Russia are basically trying to steal everything they can from U.S. companies. Protection from companies like Palo Alto is mission critical, regardless of what the economy or the Fed is doing.
Wall Street analysts currently have an average 12-month price target of $241 for Palo Alto. I’ll tell you right now: that is too low. $280 to $300 is much more likely.
I sent the January issue of The Wealth Advisory out today. Jason and I will be recording the February Top 10 video right after we get back from checking out a new pot stock in Medellin, Colombia, at the end of this month. All that for $99 a year. What.
Until next time,
Briton Ryle
@BritonRyle on Twitter
The Wealth Advisory on Youtube
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A 21-year veteran of the newsletter business, Briton Ryle is the editor of The Wealth Advisory income stock newsletter, with a focus on top-quality dividend growth stocks and REITs. Briton also manages the Real Income Trader advisory service, where his readers take regular cash payouts using a low-risk covered call option strategy. He is also the managing editor of the Wealth Daily e-letter. To learn more about Briton, click here.
