-Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai

If you’re the most successful person ever but you don’t share your life, it doesn’t count.

2. The secret to success: work hard + be brave

If you work harder than everyone else and take chances no one else will take, you will succeed.

3. Health is probably the best gift you could ever give yourself

Everything you are is only facilitated by your physical being; so to not preserve that is to cut everything short.

As heard in the Lewis Howes podcast from 9/2/2015

General Dynamics

In this monthly series here on Medium I share what investments I’m making and my thoughts around them. Each month I use my earnings from YouTube to purchase a single stock. I’m not an investment professional — so don’t take this as investment advice and follow along at your own risk. If nothing else, this public journal will be interesting to read back on in ten or twenty years.

Last month I wrote about my first pick of the series, the tech company led by Evan Spiegel Snap Inc. Their terrible earnings report led to a great discounted buying opportunity last month so I purchased a small chunk of shares. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with the opportunist buying strategy so long as the company is fundamentally a good investment over the long term.

This month I decided to purchase a stock that I’ve had on my radar for many years yet never purchased, like a fool. This stock has done nothing but creep up and gain since 2009, slowly chugging along: General Dynamics.

General Dynamics is an American aerospace and defense company made up of several subsidiary companies. My primary interest is in the Electric Boat division, which arguably is the most important company in the world considering it’s products are primarily responsible for keeping world peace. And what’s more important than that?

During my first two years of undergraduate study I attended UConn’s Avery Point campus before later moving to the main campus in Storrs, Connecticut. Avery Point is located in Groton, Connecticut — right on the coast and right down the road from Electric Boat. So, my daily commute to get to class took me right past the sprawling General Dynamics EB campus where the nuclear submarines are built. In fact, some of my engineering professors at the time were leaders from EB.

So that brings us to today. My portfolio is probably overweight in tech and social media stocks so I knew that my next move would be to put some dollars into a different industry. Defense isn’t going anywhere, and arguably will continue to grow in importance as time goes on. Most people don’t think about this, but the nuclear submarine truly is the backbone of the United States’ national security.

Additionally, with the current administration’s support of military defense spending and focus on national security, defense stocks have seen billions in new spending contracts. That will keep projects flowing for years to come, despite what the economy does or doesn’t do.

For that reason, General Dynamics is my pick for this month’s purchase.

Cost basis: $196.77

Quantity: 5 shares

Total: $983.85

I’ve decided to start a new monthly series here on Medium where I share what investments I’m making and my thoughts around them. Though I did work a Wall Street job for a brief period of time, I’m not an investment professional - so don’t take this as advice and follow along at your own risk. If nothing else, this public journal will be interesting to read back on in ten, twenty years.

I’ll preface this new series by saying I’ve never gone all-in on a consistent investment plan for several reasons. One of the main reasons is that I graduated from the University of Connecticut with about $45,000 in student loan debt in 2009. I had always felt that I’d rather take the conservative route and pay down the student loans before investing in securities; little did I know what kind of a mistake that was as we’ve experienced an incredible bull market since 2009.

And who’s to say that starting to make monthly securities purchases now is even good timing. A correction will come eventually, but you can’t time the market. My horizon is far enough out that it shouldn’t matter anyway. Like they say, time in the market is more important that timing the market.

Back to the story. I became serious about paying off my student debt in 2014 once my second business became viable as a source of income. I paid off two loans in 2014, one in 2015, four in 2016, one in 2017, and two in 2018. Now that they’re gone forever, my appetite for risk has changed.

In 2015 I started a YouTube channel based around BMW repair and tutorials. This has been generating income each month, monetized through Google AdSense and Amazon Affiliate links. I was using this income to pay down the student loans, and now that they’re gone, every penny goes into my investment accounts.

Using my YouTube income, my first purchase for May 2018 was 100 shares of Snap Chat (Snap Inc) stock right after it’s disastrous earnings report. Most times these huge drops are an overreaction by the market, and I felt it was way oversold. Just as prices started to rebound from the bottom, I purchased 100 shares with a cost basis of $11.29 for a total of $1,129.45.

Despite the negative press and report around the future of Snap Inc, my feeling is: worst case scenario is they could be acquired in the next few years — maybe living under the umbrella of Facebook. Best case scenario is they continue to innovate and figure out their ad product against the 191 million daily average users.

I’m also a huge fan of their hardware product, Spectacles. I ordered a pair right after confirming the trade. You can watch my unofficial review here. Growing up in the 90’s I had always dreamt of experiencing technological inventions such as the iPhone, Apple watch, Snap spectacles and the internet. Now that they’re real and available I want to be a part of all of it!

Stay tuned for the June 2018 stock selection

Cost basis: $11.29

Quantity: 100 shares

Total: $1,129.45

Quote of the day from one of my favorite creatives, Mr. Ben Brown.

Ben is one of the hardest working, most inspiring and genuine people I’ve had the pleasure to have met. He inspires me to keep making creative content, travel, and pursue the things that make me happy.

Here’s one of my favorite videos which Ben recently produced, part of his Visual Vibes series from the Arctic.

Dalai Lama