About
Thank you for visiting Daniel's Report. My name is Daniel and I love investing and trading. I created Daniel's Report to share my passion with others.
What is the Objective of Daniel's Report? The objective of Daniel's Report is to help you build and protect wealth. To accomplish this goal, I provide: 1) Detailed write-ups on Stocks I Own, 2) My personal Options Trading activity and strategies, 3) Specific long-term Investment Allocation targets and techniques, and 4) Market Outlook Reports. With a little bit of help and your own natural intelligence, you can build and protect wealth.
Who is your Target Audience? My target audience is anyone who wants to build and protect wealth. Whether you are a seasoned veteran or brand new to investing, I know I can help you. I provide access to unique perspective, quality information and new ideas that can help any investor become better, smarter and more profitable.
What Types of Stocks do you Buy? I buy stocks that I believe will make money. I usually look for companies that will grow earnings and that are trading at an attractive valuation. I don’t “flip” stocks, and I expect to own every stock in my portfolio for at least 10 years and hopefully longer (I do, however, actively trade options, which you can read more about in the following paragraphs or by accessing my options trading page). I tend to get annoyed with typical Wall Street equity research because many analysts are too caught up with quarterly earnings and populating their own quantitative models. Stocks represent ownership in businesses, and I like to invest in good businesses with quality management for the long-term.
What is the difference between Trading and Investing? I generally view trading as a short-term strategy and investing as a long-term strategy. The Trading Activity I post on this website includes my actual options trades in my personal trading account, and all of these trades are designed to capture significant profits in short periods of time, often several weeks, days or hours. The Investment Allocation information I provide on this website is designed to help you understand where short-term options trading fits into a long-term asset allocation strategy.
What Types of Options do you Trade? I generally trade options (puts and calls) on the S&P 500. However, I also trade options on sector-specific, currency, commodity and levered exchange-traded-funds (ETFs). My S&P 500 options trades tend to be based on macro-economic conditions, monetary policy and the recent proliferation of “financial crises” that I believe have been brought about mainly by too much regulation and government intervention around the world. The recent explosion of short-term trading and exotic investment products has drastically increased market volatility and asset class correlations, which I believe creates many of the short-term trading opportunities that exist today. These are high-risk/high-reward trades, and if market conditions revert to what they were in the past then the trading opportunities could quickly evaporate. Short-term trading represents a small portion of my overall investment portfolio, and the majority of my money is allocated to long-term individual stocks.
What is your Background? I am a free market capitalist. I believe individuals should take responsibility for themselves. I also believe if you have the ability to help your fellow man by donating time and/or resources you darn-well better do it.
I have a bachelor of science degree in an analytical field from a school with a decent Division I basketball team. I studied business in graduate school, and I believe the best education, by far, is real-world experience. I have lived on both the East and West Coasts of the United States. I also believe you need to create your own success in life. No one is going to do it for you, and this is one of the reasons I love the stock market. It doesn’t take huge amounts of capital to get involved, and it doesn’t discriminate. When there is a will there is a way. Hard work and determination is the key to success in any field.
I have been investing and trading for over two decades. I started with bank certificates of deposit (back when rates weren’t so close to 0.0%). I quickly moved on to individual stocks, I tried mutual funds and a variety of investing and trading strategies. I’ve had a lot of success (and made a lot of mistakes) along the way. The investing and trading strategies I provide on Daniel’s Report are the result of many years of experience and determination, and if I can help fast-forward your learning process and help you avoid some of the mistakes I’ve made, then I consider it a huge success.
Do you implement the Trading and Investing Activity posted on this website? Yes. All of the Investments and Trading Activity posted on this website is real. The trades are actual trades that I am completing in my own personal brokerage account, and the stocks are stocks that I own. I don’t cherry pick only my best trades and I don’t exclude any of my bad trades or investments either.
What are some Common Mistakes you see investors and traders make? The most common mistake I see individual investors make is to overpay for investments. For example, some investors continue to pay very expensive full-service broker fees when they could be managing more of their investments on their own and keeping more of their money in their own pocket. It’s not uncommon for financial advisors to sell mutual funds with sales charges as high as 5.75% of your assets. Many investors could easily cut out the middle man and eliminate the sales charge by purchasing comparable mutual funds directly or simply by purchasing an index fund, exchange traded fund or assembling their own portfolio of individual stocks that will deliver better results at a much lower cost. Another common mistake investors make is to chase returns. Investors frequently invest in whatever was the best performer last week, last quarter or last year, and this is often the exact wrong thing to do. Lastly, a lot of traders don’t diversity enough. It’s critical that traders understand where short-term trading should fit into an overall asset allocation strategy. Subscribers to Daniel's Report have access to long-term investment allocation strategies to address this topic.
Why is your service so inexpensive? For $25, I provide 6-months of access to the members only area of Daniel's Report. The $25 is intended to help me continue to administer the site. Also, from a psychological standpoint, I believe the $25 helps give readers some appreciation for the amount of work and experience I bring to the website. If I had to put an actual value on the content I provide it would be a lot more than $25.
Who are your greatest investing and trading influences? I admire Warren Buffett for his track record at Berkshire Hathaway of consistently outperforming the S&P 500. Buffett is a very bright fundamental investor who gets it right over and over again, and when he speaks I listen. I also admire hedge fund manager Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies because he has amassed an incredible track record of performance by hiring a bunch of very bright scientists, PhD’s and analytically-minded people with no investment experience; Simons demonstrates that there are patterns and signals in stock market performance that can be used to generate profits. I’ve also been influenced by Eugene Fama, often referred to as the “Father of Modern Finance.” The analytical work Fama has completed regarding asset class returns and modern portfolio theory have been an excellent guidepost for me when assessing stock market performance. Lastly, I’ve been influenced by a small group of online investors, traders and bloggers who demonstrated to me that you can have a job that you absolutely love.
Is a subscription to Daniel's Report right for me? Only you can decide whether or not a subscription is right for you. I bring many years of experience and education to Daniel's Report as well as a true passion for investing and trading. You can read more about the benefits of subscribing to Daniel's Report by clicking here.
