The Wrap: Happy Birthday Mr. Buffett

Grace Palos
Sep 4, 2018 · 4 min read

Financially Independent Retire Early — you?

Ever heard of the FIRE (aka financially independent retire early) movement? I’m on the hunt for Stake users who are using the market to free themselves from the 9–5 and retire before 40. Value time over money. Buy less stuff. Get more freedom.

Don’t need to have made it to mecca yet, just have fire in your belly and trying to break the mould. We’re putting together a community event and would love to chat through some ideas. DM @hellostake if this is you.

Top 5 traded stocks on Stake this week

A pot stock has hit all time highs becoming the first weed stock to reach the #2 most popular stock on Stake. CRON is up nearly 185% in volume of trading this week.

  1. Amazon
  2. Cronos Group
  3. Facebook
  4. Tesla
  5. Apple

A bull at 88

Happy Birthday Mr. Buffett

Warren Buffett celebrated his 88th birthday on Friday and because why not if you’re the God of long-term investing, he gave a birthday interview with CNBC.

Key outtakes: (1) He’s still buying stocks in this market — and on his birthday. (2) He’d pick stocks over real estate any day. (3) His plane costs him about $1M per year. (4) His tweet and hold strategy will likely continue into his 90s.

In celebration of the Sage from Omaha reaching the double eights, here are

…according to our friends at Motley Fool.

  1. Apple
  2. Teva Pharmaceuticals
  3. Monsanto
  4. Bank of New York Mellon
  5. Delta Airlines

Or you can just invest directly into Berkshire Hathaway Class B.

Square up to Cash

Square jumped 13% this week after global money manager, Guggenheim named it the best idea in fintech. Why? Square (SQ)’s Cash App, a peer-to-peer payment app, that competes with Paypal’s Venmo became the #1 P2P app in the US.

The Cash App looks pretty much like a digital bank. It allows users to pay, send and save money through the app. When making payments, users get between 5–15% cash back when shopping with partner retailers (incl: Whole Foods, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts & Chipotle).

And it’s nailing the market. Not only is there a frenzy of fun on Twitter when users get cash back but they’ve made people addicted to personalising their debit card.

Americans love a discount.
Winning on Twitter.

If you never thought you’d spend hours scrolling through personalised debit cards on Twitter, think again.

Guggenheim’s analysts are forecasting that Cash App customers will spend around $3 billion with the Cash Card this year and accordingly, they’re upping their projections for Square’s growth.

Since June, Square hasn’t been the top focus on Stake traders but this week users were cashing in with Square trades up 176% over the past 7 days.

Priming the ad pump

On Sunday, the New York Times published an in-depth look at how Amazon is prepped to become a leader in online advertising — an industry valued at $88 billion. The amount of data Amazon (AMZN) has about consumer habits is far greater than Facebook or Google and it’s the only player where users primary job on the site is to shop.

Major advertisers like Verizon, Hershey and Unilever have already upped the percentage of their ad budgets going to the Seattle giant and it’ll be interesting to see if their ROI is higher than that on FB and GOOGL. Stake traders are backing Bezos for now with Amazon trades up 110% on Stake this week.

What I’m trading: Roger

Roger spent his week between jobs working at the Stakeshop last month. He’s agreed to share his tech-loving portfolio with us and how he’s learned to invest. A Sydney-sider via Shanghai, Roger spends his days and nights working to improve new products.

SCOOP: what Roger’s trading this week.

As is tradition — this is not investment advice, just Roger’s thoughts. Do your own research. Make your own decisions. Stake your own claim… (see what I did there?)

5 stocks gaining like Serena Williams in any outfit, always

5 stocks dropping like the need for a catsuit

Survey cash: wish your name was Corey

Thanks to everyone who took a few minutes out of their day to share their hopes and dreams for Stake’s future.

We’ve published a quick recap of the most common feedback and are working on getting a public roadmap up so you can vote and comment on features anytime.

💰 Congrats to Corey who won the $200 trading credit and from what I’ve heard may be jumping into AXON with the winnings.

Stake stories

Stake is a community of people who are constantly learning by trading the US stock market. We’re sharing our stories to show that traders don’t wear suits, the jargon doesn’t matter and if you’ve got restless ambition you can do it.

Grace Palos

Written by

Taking the robot out of finance. Head of Growth & Community @ Stake. Formerly Strategist @ For The People. Here for the punch.

Stake stories

Stake is a community of people who are constantly learning by trading the US stock market. We’re sharing our stories to show that traders don’t wear suits, the jargon doesn’t matter and if you’ve got restless ambition you can do it.

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