About my recipe

Why and how I make my Pie

The Pie I make here at The Investors Pie Shop, the model portfolio I use, is a technology-oriented large-cap growth model. I use a core-satellite strategy with broad market ETF's as the core and individual stocks as the satellites. These represent the ingredients, flavors, and spices I use in my recipe.   

I use the following types of analysis in constructing my Pie:

• Sector analysis (ex. Tech, Financial, Consumer Cyclical)
• Factor analysis (ex. Value, Momentum, Quality)
• Economic analysis (ex. Inflation rates, Federal interest rates)
• Security analysis (ex. P/E and P/B ratios, Profitability, LT Debt, Legislative issues) 
• Volatility analysis (ex. Implied volatility metrics, VIX movement, Futures markets)
• Technical analysis (ex. Long and short term price movements, Moving averages)

Why not just buy an S&P 500 index fund?

The reason I build my Pie is goal is to seek better outcomes for investment performance and/or risk management.

Any stock market investor can get good results using basic passive investment tools such as an S&P 500 index fund. Maybe add in a broad-market bond fund or two if you need to manage risk or you're on a shorter timeline, and viola. Easy peasy. 

Picking individual stocks and ETF's increases the risk you are taking of both underperformance and the chance of delaying achievement of your investments goals. So why do it then?

My view here at The Investors Pie Shop is that, in addition to the potential for better performance and risk management outcomes, buying and selling stocks and ETF's has other positive attributes. One of which is increasing your engagement with your investments. Staying engaged and focused on your goals greatly increases your chance of success.  

DISCLAIMER: All information, analysis, articles, and videos are provided for educational purposes only. I am not a financial advisor and although I may answer general questions about the information I present, I am not licensed and registered under securities laws to address your personal investment situation. Here at the pie shop I am showing you what I do that works for me, but you must decide for yourself whether or not it will work for you. There are certainly simpler and lower-risk methods of investing in the stock market. If you rely on any of the information I present, you do so entirely at your own risk.

My portfolio model is a medium-high risk, all-stock model designed for long-term investors and investors comfortable taking on higher degrees of risk. Attempting to follow along with my strategies on a short-term timeline greatly increases the likelihood of losing money.

While I maintain my models by exactly mirroring what I do in my own accounts, the performance reporting contained herein, although extremely realistic, is for a number of different reasons modeled from simulated trades rather than the output of a specific account or brokerage. There are a number of other aspects that come into play which ultimately affect performance outcomes, such as taxes, fees, and trading costs.

Please consider your goals, timeline, and risk tolerance before making choices about how you invest, and remember- past performance is not indicative of future returns.

I do not have formal affiliations with any company or persons included in the material I present. While I make no recommendation as to where you should invest or what type of account you should open, what I do with my portfolio relies heavily on the feature set of brokerage firm M1 Finance and would be challenging to execute elsewhere. Because of this, taking full advantage of a yearly subscription to The Investors Pie Shop is best served using an investment account from M1 Finance.