InvestingWithBrandon

Retail investor: Your strategy sounds complicated. All these moving pieces.
Me: My entire system is four steps on a loop. Want it?
Retail investor: ...sure.
Me: Buy the base... $VOO & $Q & great single companies. Sell portfolio secured puts when something great gets cheap. Take the premium & buy more $VOO & $Q & great companies at good prices.
Retail investor: That's... it? That's the whole thing?
Me: Rinse & repeat. All day. All year. For decades. The premium buys shares, the shares secure more puts, the snowball grows itself.
Retail investor: So the complexity everyone adds is just...
Me: Th

I've scaled to multiple millions in the market.
I have NEVER met anyone who scaled to millions trading spreads/CCs/CSPs/The wheel as their primary strategy.
Not one. Ever.
Think about why. You don't see Buffett buy a company & then buy puts against it the same day "as a hedge."
That's not risk management. That's paying money to doubt yourself.
Every leg you add to an options trade, you're usually betting AGAINST your own conviction. Spreads look great on paper... & in the real world they cap the exact wins that build fortunes.
Meanwhile: great companies, portfolio secured puts, LEAP calls on t

One question filters out 90% of bad options trades before you make them:
"Am I willing & ABLE to own this at my strike?"
Willing... would I be genuinely happy holding this company for years at that price?
Able... could my account actually take the assignment without breaking a sweat?
If either answer is no, there's no trade. Period.
That one filter kills the meme stock puts. The oversized positions. The premium chasing on garbage. The spreads people use because they're secretly terrified of the companies they're trading.
Every put I sell passes both. Elite company. Great price. Base portfolio

The single most important math in investing, & most people learn it AFTER they're wiped out
Lose 50%... & you need a 100% gain just to get back to even.
Read that again.
Lose 80% on some YOLO play? You need 400% just to break even. That's YEARS. Maybe a decade. Maybe never.
This is why my rule #1 is the same as Buffett's: don't lose money. Rule #2: don't forget rule #1.
It's why I only allocate to elite companies below their fair value, with ratios always in check

Retail investor: I bought a great company two months ago & it's DOWN. I think I got it wrong.
Me: Did the earnings change? Did the moat crack? Did the story break?
Retail investor: ...no. Honestly the business is doing great.
Me: Then you're not wrong. You're just early. Those are completely different things.
Retail investor: But shouldn't a good buy go up right away?
Me: That's the key thing... the market owes you NOTHING on your timeline. A great company below its fair value can stay stretched down for months, even a year+... then snap back all at once.
Retail investor: So the drop isn't bad

Retail investor: Market's dropping so I just loaded up on puts to protect my portfolio.
Me: You know you just bought insurance at the top of hurricane season, right?
Retail investor: ...what do you mean?
Me: Fear inflates put premiums. You're paying 3-5x what that same protection cost a month ago, at the exact moment stocks got cheap.
Retail investor: But I need protection NOW. It's falling.
Me: That's the key thing... that panic feeling is precisely why the premiums are crazy. You're paying top dollar for fear relief, not protection.
Retail investor: So what's the move instead?
Me: I'm on the

Here's the dumbest part of put spreads that nobody talks about.
When you sell a put & buy a lower put as your "hedge," think about what that lower put actually IS.
It's the right to SELL shares at an even CHEAPER price.
Why... would you want that?
The entire point of selling a put is to BUY great companies cheaper.
CEOs spend every waking hour making their companies MORE valuable over time.
So you're paying money, out of your premium, for the right to dump shares of a great company at a fire sale price?
If you need that hedge, you don't trust the setup... so why are you in the trade at all?
Ha

Retail investor: I won't sell long dated puts. What if it dips in the money & I get early assigned?
Me: You know early assignment is a MANUAL thing, right? Someone has to literally call their broker & exercise.
Retail investor: ...wait, it's not automatic?
Me: Not before expiration. & when they exercise early, they torch all the time value left in their own contract. They're lighting their own money on fire.
Retail investor: So it almost never makes sense for them to do it?
Me: That's the key thing... most put buyers don't even own the shares to sell you. They're trading contracts, not shares.

Call an insurance company in Florida & ask for flood coverage in the off-season.
$2,000. Easy.
Call back when a hurricane is on the radar?
$10,000. Same house. Same policy. 5x the price.
Why? Because NOW you're scared. & scared people pay up.
When the market's calm, put buyers pay little.
When it's crashing, they'll pay ANYTHING for protection.
I'm the insurance company. I sell portfolio secured puts INTO the fear, when the premiums are 5x fat, on great companies that just went on sale.

A lot of people day trade, do cash secured puts, covered calls, poor man covered calls, & spreads.
A lot of people also underperform the Nasdaq in the last 6 years...
$HOOD publishes this to show how bad the investors on their platform do in relation to buying $Q and doing literally nothing.
This should open your eyes...
Buying great companies for less than they are worth & only magnifying ultra bullish setups with 1+ year options is where the money's at.
One day you will believe me...

The most profitable word in investing is NO.
Mr. Market throws prices at you all day.
Your feed pitches you the "next NVDA" hourly.
Your buddy's got a hot tip weekly.
I say no to 95% of ALL of it.
Not because I'm scared.
Because I'm waiting for a compelling setup.
& when it shows up, I don't nibble... I buy shares, sell portfolio secured puts, & buy LEAP calls.
Less trades but better trades is always better than more trades but crap setups...
FEW GET THIS.

Retail investor: I feel like I have to trade every week or I'm falling behind.
Me: You know the best part about the market? There are no called strikes.
Retail investor: ...what do you mean?
Me: It's like baseball where you can stand at the plate ALL DAY & never swing. Mr. Market throws you a thousand pitches... you don't have to swing at ANY of them.
Retail investor: So skipping trades doesn't cost me anything?
Me: That's the key thing... you only lose when you swing at garbage. I say no to 95% of what gets thrown at me & wait for the ball straight down the middle.
Retail investor: & when tha

Retail investor: The market makes zero sense. Great earnings & the stock DROPS? It's all random.
Me: It's not random. You're just watching two different games at once.
Retail investor: ...two games?
Me: Short term is fear & greed. A pendulum swinging between panic & euphoria. That's the game you're watching every day.
Retail investor: & the other game?
Me: Long term, price follows ONE thing... earnings growth. Plot the earnings line on any chart & watch the price bob & weave around it for decades.
Retail investor: So the daily chaos is just... noise around that line?
Me: That's the key thing..

If you put $100 into $NVDA in 2010, you would be rich today.
Well...
Let’s play it out if you somehow did nothing & held until right now.
You would have $230 by the end of 2015
and did nothing
Then watched that $230 climb to about $2,000 by the 2018 peak
and still did nothing
Then watched $2,000 get cut in half to under $1,000 in the late 2018 crash
and still did nothing
Then watched it rip to around $9,500 at the November 2021 peak
and still did nothing
Then watched $9,500 collapse to about $3,200 at the October 2022 bottom
and still did nothing
Then watched $3,200 explode to a little over $5

Your buddy tells you about a hot stock at $100
Next day it's $105. "Told you"
Day after: $110
Then $115
Every day it climbs & every day the FOMO gets worse
Day five you finally cave & buy at $125
The SECOND you're in... it drops
Here's why:
By day 5, you were buying the fear of missing out
& at that point... chasing got you smoked
I do the opposite. The stocks I want are the ones NOBODY'S excited about... great companies stretched BELOW their fair value.
That's where the opportunity is.