If I Had to Start Over, This Is Exactly What I'd Do

[00:00:00]If I woke up tomorrow and had to start my investing journey all over again, no portfolio, no investments, but I still had the nearly two decades of knowledge that I have today, what would I do? What would I buy? What mistakes would I avoid? And most importantly, how would I build wealth as quickly and intelligently as possible? Well, in today's video, I'm going to walk you through exactly what I do if I had to start over from scratch, give you the makeup of an entire new portfolio with stocks and ETFs. And honestly, my approach would be very different than when I first started investing. How I started back then would be the same way I start today, and it's the same way I teach my students I work with every week inside my Investing Accelerator program.

[00:00:40]To build a successful portfolio, it starts with having a firm foundation. A firm foundation for a portfolio is an ETF as it provides diversification right out of the gate. My perfect three foundational ETFs would be S&P 500 ETF, so something like VOO. This ETF is going to give you access right out of the gate top 500 blue-chip companies in the US.

[00:01:02]This was the first ever investment I made. Now, I used an index fund, but the idea was the same. The position gives you exposure to the following top holdings: Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Broadcom, Meta, Tesla, and Berkshire. The second ETF is going to be one I talk a lot about on this channel, that's SCHD. I won't go into all the details of SCHD as there's a few recent videos I did on the ETF, but I will put it as I always do. SCHD is the greatest compliment to a tech-heavy or growth-focused portfolio, which includes the S&P 500 these days. It is the ultimate dividend ETF. Looking at this chart here I pulled from my ticker terminal, you can see SCHD has a total return of 250% over the past decade, which is not too far off from the S&P 500 chart I showed you a little while ago. The top holdings for SCHD include Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, United Health, Coca-Cola, Merck, Chevron, Verizon, Procter & Gamble, ConocoPhillips, and Amgen. 0% crossover of these top 10 positions with our first S&P 500 ETF. And now the third ETF that is a foundational position is going to be none other than QQQ. Unless you're in your 60s and even then this should undoubtedly be a part of your foundation, but for me I use QQQM which is essentially the same thing but with a lower expense fee. This ETF is going to be tech heavy and growth forward so there will be a lot of overlap at the top with that of S&P 500. Over the past 10 years the triple Qs are up 500% plus showing how strong it can be during real periods of growth. So those three ETFs, VOO, SCHD, and triple Qs are what I consider foundational positions in any portfolio whether you tell me you are a dividend investor, a growth investor, or like me a balanced investor. When I first started investing I spent far too much time looking for the next hot stock, the next big winner, the next shortcut. What I've learned is that wealth is usually built through a combination of time, consistency, and discipline. The biggest mistake many investors make today is believing they need to hit a home run right out of the gate and I'm here to tell you you don't.

[00:03:12]You need a repeatable process and if I had to start over that's where I'd begin. Now the next phase of the build out is very key because now we are going to start sprinkling in various components around our foundation. This is an extension of the foundation that can include both stocks and additional ETFs. And when it comes to choosing these positions it's important to focus on quality and valuation. That is my investing motto all the time, buy high quality stocks at great valuations. And one of the easiest ways for me to screen stocks for this is through the help of a very powerful platform called Ticker.

[00:03:47]Here's a look at the user friendly platform. Type in any stock ticker you want and they have a global coverage of over 100,000 stocks and you can see analyst expectations on how they expect earnings to grow, revenues to grow or cash flows and you can make your own model as well. The valuation tab is extremely powerful not only showing you various earnings multiple as it sits today, but you can easily compare to prior years and chart it out for yourself. You also get analyst price target updates that change in real time when new ones come out. Saving time for me is very key. Not sitting around and listening to hundreds of conference calls. Instead, I utilize their key takeaway section which summarizes the entire transcript with the use of AI.

[00:04:27]This is the platform I use on a daily basis and will help take your investing to the next level. And for a limited time, you can get 25% off this powerful platform. Try it out for yourself. Let me know what you think when you use that link down in the description below. All right, with that being said, let's jump into the next phase of the process and for you as investors, you need to understand the type of investor you are.

[00:04:49]What are your goals? Because knowing that will help you build out this phase.

[00:04:52]And this next phase is where we start to add more individual stocks. So, if you're in your younger years, say 20s or 30s, the focus should be more leaning towards growth. I believe a balanced approach is the best approach, but it's okay to lean a little one way or the other. But here is where I would not focus on hype stocks or speculative names. These first few positions are going to be extensions of your foundation. So, I would focus on blue chip type companies, established names such as Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Nvidia. Look here at Alphabet. It's a stock that's up 120% just in the past 12 months and over 900% gains in the past decade. The stock has a market cap of $4.5 trillion and it continues to not only grow revenues, but they're doing it efficiently evidenced by growing operating margins that are now above 30%. Alphabet is the largest single stock holding within my portfolio and one I have a lot of confidence in moving forward. And if you're interested in seeing my entire portfolio, get trade alerts, option plays, and my weekly market report and more, then join my investing community, the Stock Investor's Edge, which we're currently having our limited-time summer sale.

[00:05:59]Check out that link in the description below. Another key position would be Amazon, which happens to be another top holding inside my portfolio. Another well-diversified business just like Alphabet. They have a market cap of 2.6 trillion. Over the past 12 months, shares are up 16% Over the past decade, nearly 600% gains. Similar to Alphabet, Amazon has been growing revenues, growing operating income, and expanding margins, which are now above 10%. The third blue-chip idea is going to be Apple, the second largest company in the US markets, and just in the infancy stages of taking the next step into the world of AI. They currently have a market cap of 4.5 trillion dollars. Over the past 12 months, up 50%, and over the past 10 years, over 1,100% gains. Apple is not the growth driver they used to be, or unlike the others, but they continue to generate higher revenues, improving margins, and generating close to over 100 billion dollars in free cash flow. And then there's Nvidia, the largest company in the US, and I believe will be the first company to reach 10 trillion-dollar market cap. They are the leader in the world of AI and building their own ecosystem. The company has a market cap of nearly 5 trillion dollars.

[00:07:10]Over the past 12 months, shares are up 50%. Over the past 10 years, get this, over 1,700% gains. This company is a machine on all fronts. Fast-growing revenues, strong operating margins above 60%, and strong free cash flow growth. However you look at it, they are a superb company, and what I believe is a must-own in the world of AI. So now we have built a firm foundation of a few key ETFs mixed in with some foundational blue-chip individual stocks. And this is where I would do things completely different than I did before. I am a big believer in dividends and the power of compounding, but early on I focused far too much on it in my 20s. For starters, I'm a balanced investor leaning towards growth, but my portfolio was leaning very heavily towards dividends early on.

[00:07:58]I had J&J, AbbVie, Realty Income, Lockheed Martin's all at the top of my portfolio. All quality companies to own in a portfolio, but in my 20s those are not positions I need to have at the very top without growth exposure. In your younger years, it's okay to take more calculated risk. Not saying speculative risk at the top, but calculated and then mix in a few dividend players from there to balance things out. So now that we have what we have, we can build out the smaller parts of the portfolio.

[00:08:26]Something I like to put in three buckets. And those three buckets include dividend, primarily dividend growth for me. Then we're going to have a growth bucket of higher quality growth names, and then our ultra growth. So if you do want to take some flyers on some of those more speculative type names, that's going to go in the ultra growth bucket. So let's begin with the dividend bucket because again, producing growing cash flows is still important to me down the road, it's just not overly important early on and shouldn't make up say 80% of your portfolio. Not just appreciation is the goal. I like dividend growth with appreciation. So dividend growth investing creates that second engine of wealth creation. The combination of capital appreciation and growing income is what puts the power of compounding into overdrive. Again, this is why I like SCHD so much. Not because it's flashy, but because it helps create long-term financial flexibility. But let's go through five key dividend ideas to consider. The first is going to be DGRO, which is a dividend growth focused ETF with positions focused on generating cash flows and companies growing their dividends. Another similar ETF is going to be VIG. They're focused also on dividend growth. But if you want individual names, some dividend growth stocks I like still include AV, Broadcom, United Health, as well as Eli Lilly. Now comes the fun part. We're going to jump into growth. This is where I'd focus on the trends that I believe will shape the future. Today that includes artificial intelligence, cloud computing, cybersecurity, energy infrastructure. Instead of trying to predict the next meme stock, I'd focus on companies benefiting from long-term secular trends. I want to focus on businesses that could be a significantly larger 5 10 years from now. ETF ideas include VUG or SCHG, but stock ideas include AMD, Marvell, CrowdStrike, and Palantir. And the third growth bucket is going to be those ultra growth names. This is going to be those higher risk trades that you have to be cool with the volatility, knowing the upside potential is also very high. High risk, high reward. Stocks in this category I like today, but can change as more earnings reports come out, but they include things like Coreweave, IREN, Robinhood, SoFi, Joby, and not that this would be an ultra growth stock, but people are kind of underestimating it.

[00:10:45]It's going to be Meta Platforms. I believe one of the easier buys in the market today. And with the help of Ticker, here are the analysts' average 12-month price targets for each of those stocks. Coreweave we could see is at a $140 price target. That's implying 35% upside from current levels. IREN with an $81 price target. That's nearly 40% upside from current levels. Moving over to Robinhood, they have a $100 price target across all analysts on average.

[00:11:13]That's nearly 20% upside. Then there's SoFi, a digital financial play I like a lot. $21 average price target. That's 40% upside. And then Joby, 15% upside, but again this is a much longer-term play. Very speculative. And that brings us to Meta. People are seriously underestimating the future earnings power here of this company and analysts agree with me as they have an average price target of over $820 implying 40% upside from current levels. By now you have a well-rounded portfolio and as money managers you will want to take a good hard look at your portfolio at least on a monthly or quarterly basis to ensure your thesis is still intact to ensure your exposure is not out of whack. Remember the S&P 500 has 11 different sectors. Things like technology, consumer staples, consumer discretionary, energy and the list goes on. Make sure you're well balanced, not evenly balanced, but well balanced based on your strategy and right now it is important to be leaning overweight in technology because the growth trend is going to continue there for the foreseeable future. But if I had to start all over again, there are several things I'd push for my students to avoid. Things like chasing hype, panic selling, constantly checking your portfolio on a daily hourly basis and trying to time every market move. Most investing mistakes aren't analytical, they're emotional and emotional mistakes are expensive. Emotional investing is a losing strategy every day of the week.

[00:12:41]The longer I've invested, the more I've realized that controlling yourself is often more important than finding the perfect stock and understanding the technicals and fundamentals can take you a long way in building what I like to call generational wealth. And if I had to summarize everything into a simple framework, it would go like this. Step one build that financial foundation.

[00:13:02]That is those three ETFs, those core ETFs we looked at. Step two, strengthen the foundation with blue chip leaders.

[00:13:09]Step number three is going to be building those three buckets, dividend growth, growth and ultra growth, those speculative type names to sprinkle in.

[00:13:16]Step four, invest in long-term growth themes. Stop trying to move into a stock and out of a stock on a day-by-day basis. Step number five, stay invested.

[00:13:25]Notice what's missing. There's no magic formula. There's no secret stock.

[00:13:29]There's no shortcut, just a repeatable process. Sticking to your strategy, investing in high-quality assets at great valuations, not blindly investing in hype. The truth is, if I had to start over, I'd probably build wealth faster than when I first started. Not because I'd be smarter, not because I know the future, but because I'd develop a plan earlier and build a better structure for my portfolio based on that plan. And ultimately, that's what investing is really about. Not predicting the future, but constantly putting the odds in your favor. A little bit different type of video for you today, but I hope you enjoyed it. And if you did, please kindly smash that like button down below. Show your appreciation. And in the comment section, let me know your top three positions, so I know what your foundation is. And make sure you take advantage of that special 25% discount with Ticker, as the platform is extremely powerful tool that I use on a daily basis. Thanks again for watching, and we'll see you in the next one. Take care.

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