Fantasy Investing – Page 2 – Paul Vs The Market

Fantasy Investing – October 2019 Standings

November 4, 2019 paul.essen Comments 0 Comment

We’re nearing the end stretch of the 2019 Fantasy Investing season, with only one more check-in before we crown a champion. The order at the top has stayed the same, but we have a change in the bottom since the last Fantasy Investing check-in. Matt has overtaken Daniel thanks largely to a big rebound in Tesla (TSLA). Adrian continues to gain on Paul as the margin between first and second is down to less than two percentage points.

The S&P 500 is up around 21% year-to-date, so our three portfolios which are entirely individual stocks (as opposed to ETFs or index funds) are all still beating the market. Can this hold up for the rest of the year? We shall see.

Here are the updated standings:

Paul (39.2%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
AMZN	Amazon	1465.2	1776.66	21.3
IQ	iQiyi	14.56	17.43	19.7
MELI	MercadoLibre	285.61	521.52	82.6
SQ	Square	54.1	61.43	13.5
TDOC	Teladoc	48.19	76.6	59.0

Adrian (37.6%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
AMD	Advanced Micro Devices	18.01	33.93	88.4
AMZN	Amazon	1465.2	1776.66	21.3
NFLX	Netflix	259.28	287.41	10.8
NVDA	nVidia	130.64	201.02	54.1
SQ	Square	54.1	61.43	13.5

Gurkie (24.3%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
AMZN	Amazon	1465.2	1776.66	21.3
C	Citigroup	50.68	71.86	41.8
DIS	Disney	108.1	129.92	20.2
GE	General Electric	7.46	9.98	33.8
TCEHY	Tencent	38.865	40.50	4.2

Matt (20.4%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
FZROX	Fidelity ZERO Total Market	8.79	10.78	22.6
TSLA	Tesla	306.1	314.92	2.9
VGSLX	Vanguard Real Estate	103.48	133.59	31.0
VTI	Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF	125.75	154.18	23.8
VTSAX	Vanguard Total Stock Market	62.15	75.05	21.9

Daniel (17.4%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
VBTLX	Vanguard Total Bond Market	10.46	11.12	6.8
VFIAX	Vanguard 500	231.73	280.63	22.3
VFWAX	Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US	28.27	32.06	14.5
VIMAX	Vanguard Mid-Cap	170.59	209.89	23.8
VSMAX	Vanguard Small-Cap	63.17	74.98	19.4

Thanks, as always, for following along. As I mentioned before, we’re getting close to the end of 2019, which means the 2020 Fantasy Investing season is just around the corner. If you’re interested in participating, then start brainstorming what companies you might be interested in drafting!

Fantasy Investing – August 2019 Standings

September 4, 2019 paul.essen Comments 1 comment

It’s been a volatile month since our last Fantasy Investing check-in, and yet not much has changed in the standings. Everybody’s returns have suffered a bit, but every portfolio remains up for the year and only one stock (Tesla) is down.

Here are the updated standings:

Paul (37.9%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
AMZN	Amazon	1465.2	1776.29	21.2
IQ	iQiyi	14.56	18.29	25.6
MELI	MercadoLibre	285.61	594.6	108.2
SQ	Square	54.1	61.84	14.3
TDOC	Teladoc	48.19	57.88	20.1

Adrian (30.4%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
AMD	Advanced Micro Devices	18.01	31.45	74.6
AMZN	Amazon	1465.2	1776.29	21.2
NFLX	Netflix	259.28	293.75	13.3
NVDA	nVidia	130.64	167.51	28.5
SQ	Square	54.1	61.84	14.3

Gurkie (19.0%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
AMZN	Amazon	1465.2	1776.29	21.2
C	Citigroup	50.68	64.35	28.9
DIS	Disney	108.1	137.26	27.8
GE	General Electric	7.46	8.25	10.9
TCEHY	Tencent	38.865	41.27	6.5

Daniel (14.3%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
VBTLX	Vanguard Total Bond Market	10.46	11.21	7.7
VFIAX	Vanguard 500	231.73	270.93	18.1
VFWAX	Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US	28.27	30.37	9.1
VIMAX	Vanguard Mid-Cap	170.59	204.05	20.4
VSMAX	Vanguard Small-Cap	63.17	72.99	16.3

Matt (11.5%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
FZROX	Fidelity ZERO Total Market	8.79	10.36	17.9
TSLA	Tesla	306.1	225.61	-26.3
VGSLX	Vanguard Real Estate	103.48	130.77	28.3
VTI	Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF	125.75	149.04	19.6
VTSAX	Vanguard Total Stock Market	62.15	72.6	17.8

Thanks for following along. Next month is a Freedom Portfolio update, so it will be two months before we check-in on the Fantasy Investing standings again. Hopefully there’s a little more (positive) movement to report on and the standings remain static.

Fantasy Investing – July 2019 Standings

August 2, 2019 paul.essen Comments 1 comment

Two more months are in the books after last month’s Freedom Portfolio update, so where do we stand now? Frankly, not a whole lot has changed. Every portfolio is up, but the standings are unchanged. The S&P 500 is up around 16% year to date, which means three of our portfolios are beating the market, one is virtually tied, and a fifth is slightly trailing.

The best performer remains Mercado Libre, at a ridiculous 117% gain so far this year. No other position is really close, although the 69% gain for Advanced Micro Devices is nothing to sneeze at. The worst performer is Tesla, which also happens to be the only position that is actually down.

Here are the updated standings:

Paul (52.6%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
AMZN	Amazon	1465.2	1866.78	27.4
IQ	iQiyi	14.56	18.59	27.7
MELI	MercadoLibre	285.61	621.42	117.6
SQ	Square	54.1	80.41	48.6
TDOC	Teladoc	48.19	68.24	41.6

Adrian (39.8%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
AMD	Advanced Micro Devices	18.01	30.45	69.1
AMZN	Amazon	1465.2	1866.78	27.4
NFLX	Netflix	259.28	322.99	24.6
NVDA	nVidia	130.64	168.72	29.3
SQ	Square	54.1	80.41	48.6

Gurkie (32.4%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
AMZN	Amazon	1465.2	1866.78	27.4
C	Citigroup	50.68	71.16	41.3
DIS	Disney	108.1	143.01	33.1
GE	General Electric	7.46	10.45	40.3
TCEHY	Tencent	38.865	46.5	19.9

Daniel (16.3%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
VBTLX	Vanguard Total Bond Market	10.46	10.93	5.0
VFIAX	Vanguard 500	231.73	275.28	20.0
VFWAX	Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US	28.27	31.07	11.6
VIMAX	Vanguard Mid-Cap	170.59	209.75	23.8
VSMAX	Vanguard Small-Cap	63.17	76.04	21.1

Matt (13.0%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
FZROX	Fidelity ZERO Total Market	8.79	10.57	20.3
TSLA	Tesla	306.1	241.61	-21.1
VGSLX	Vanguard Real Estate	103.48	126.03	23.8
VTI	Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF	125.75	152.21	22.1
VTSAX	Vanguard Total Stock Market	62.15	74.09	20.2

I’m pretty pleased with my picks so far. A 50%+ gain in a little over half a year is pretty impressive, and even though Mercado Libre is the superstar, every pick is beating the market. As I write this, though, Square is down big and the market is suffering through a tough 24 hour period since the fed announced rate cuts, so we’ll see how things look next month. Thanks for following.

Fantasy Investing – May 2019 Standings

June 4, 2019 paul.essen Comments 0 Comment

Sorry for the late release this month, but I was out doing some speculative “investing” with my family in Las Vegas this past weekend. From what I can tell, it was a good couple of days to be gone and not keeping an eye on my portfolio.

There has been some turbulence in the market lately and every portfolio is down but one (*cough*mine*cough*). Every portfolio is still in the green, though, even if a few are losing to the market (the S&P 500 is up roughly 11% for the year). Somewhat surprisingly, the order is unchanged from last month.

Notable performers? MercadoLibre has been an absolute beast and has now more than doubled in six short months. Honorable mention goes to Advanced Micro Devices, up a very respectable 60%. Amazingly enough, Tesla is the only position that is down, but it’s down nearly 40%.

Here are the standings so far:

Paul (43.1%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
AMZN	Amazon	1465.2	1836.43	25.3
IQ	iQiyi	14.56	19.07	31.0
MELI	MercadoLibre	285.61	600.58	110.3
SQ	Square	54.1	65.82	21.7
TDOC	Teladoc	48.19	61.2	27.0

Adrian (31.0%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
AMD	Advanced Micro Devices	18.01	29.03	61.2
AMZN	Amazon	1465.2	1836.43	25.3
NFLX	Netflix	259.28	354.78	36.8
NVDA	nVidia	130.64	143.33	9.8
SQ	Square	54.1	65.82	21.7

Gurkie (21.3%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
AMZN	Amazon	1465.2	1836.43	25.3
C	Citigroup	50.68	63.79	26.8
DIS	Disney	108.1	132.62	22.7
GE	General Electric	7.46	9.36	25.6
TCEHY	Tencent	38.865	41.115	6.1

Daniel (10.7%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
VBTLX	Vanguard Total Bond Market	10.46	10.75	3.0
VFIAX	Vanguard 500	231.73	259.42	12.6
VFWAX	Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US	28.27	30.46	8.1
VIMAX	Vanguard Mid-Cap	170.59	196.69	15.7
VSMAX	Vanguard Small-Cap	63.17	71.7	13.9

Matt (4.4%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
FZROX	Fidelity ZERO Total Market	8.79	9.91	12.7
TSLA	Tesla	306.1	188.7	-38.4
VGSLX	Vanguard Real Estate	103.48	123.47	20.2
VTI	Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF	125.75	143.31	14.6
VTSAX	Vanguard Total Stock Market	62.15	69.77	12.9

Next month is another Freedom Portfolio update, so there will be no Fantasy Investing update, but we’ll be back at the end of July. Thanks for following.

Fantasy Investing – Apr 2019 Standings

May 3, 2019 paul.essen Comments 0 Comment

We’re back after a brief hiatus in March.

The market has slowed down a bit since its torrid start to the year, and while some portfolios have gone up while others have gone down, the order is almost unchanged since two months ago. Things have tightened up at the top where Adrian is under a percentage point behind me and Gurkie is pretty close on his tail. At the bottom, Daniel has leap-frogged Matt as Tesla (the only stock down among all our picks) proves to be a drag on his mostly index fund portfolio.

Biggest winner so far is Mercado Libre (MELI) up almost 70% for the year. The consistency award so far goes to Adrian, though, whose worst performing stock is still up over 30%. Check out the full results below.

Paul (41.1%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
AMZN	Amazon	1465.2	1926.52	31.5
IQ	iQiyi	14.56	22.11	51.9
MELI	MercadoLibre	285.61	484.14	69.5
SQ	Square	54.1	72.82	34.6
TDOC	Teladoc	48.19	56.88	18.0

Adrian (40.2%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
AMD	Advanced Micro Devices	18.01	27.63	53.4
AMZN	Amazon	1465.2	1926.52	31.5
NFLX	Netflix	259.28	370.54	42.9
NVDA	nVidia	130.64	181.00	38.7
SQ	Square	54.1	72.82	34.6

Gurkie (32.3%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
AMZN	Amazon	1465.2	1926.52	31.5
C	Citigroup	50.68	70.70	40.4
DIS	Disney	108.1	136.97	26.7
GE	General Electric	7.46	10.17	34.5
TCEHY	Tencent	38.865	49.24	26.7

Daniel (15.2%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
VBTLX	Vanguard Total Bond Market	10.46	10.66	2.2
VFIAX	Vanguard 500	231.73	272.15	18.1
VFWAX	Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US	28.27	32.03	13.7
VIMAX	Vanguard Mid-Cap	170.59	206.51	21.4
VSMAX	Vanguard Small-Cap	63.17	75.87	20.5

Matt (11.0%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
FZROX	Fidelity ZERO Total Market	8.79	10.41	18.4
TSLA	Tesla	306.1	238.69	-22.0
VGSLX	Vanguard Real Estate	103.48	123.00	19.7
VTI	Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF	125.75	150.39	20.2
VTSAX	Vanguard Total Stock Market	62.15	73.23	18.4

We’ll be back again at the end of May to see where our scores stand then. Thanks for following.

Fantasy Investing – Feb 2019 Standings

March 4, 2019 paul.essen Comments 0 Comment

Two months down, ten more to go.

It’s been a bit of a mixed month, with some portfolios gaining since the incredibly strong January that we had and others losing a bit of ground. The order is unchanged, though. Like last month, here are the current standings (overall portfolio return is in parenthesis after the person’s name):

Paul (48.6%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
AMZN	Amazon	1465.2	1639.83	11.9
IQ	iQiyi	14.56	27.16	86.5
MELI	MercadoLibre	285.61	458.79	60.6
SQ	Square	54.1	81.24	50.2
TDOC	Teladoc	48.19	64.36	33.6

Adrian (29.8%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
AMD	Advanced Micro Devices	18.01	23.53	30.6
AMZN	Amazon	1465.2	1639.83	11.9
NFLX	Netflix	259.28	358.1	38.1
NVDA	nVidia	130.64	154.26	18.2
SQ	Square	54.1	81.24	50.2

Gurkie (18.6%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
AMZN	Amazon	1465.2	1639.83	11.9
C	Citigroup	50.68	63.98	27.1
DIS	Disney	108.1	112.84	4.4
GE	General Electric	7.46	10.39	39.3
TCEHY	Tencent	38.865	42.81	10.2

Matt (11.6%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
FZROX	Fidelity ZERO Total Market	8.79	9.87	12.3
TSLA	Tesla	306.1	319.88	4.5
VGSLX	Vanguard Real Estate	103.48	119.01	15.0
VTI	Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF	125.75	143.46	14.1
VTSAX	Vanguard Total Stock Market	62.15	69.8	12.3

Daniel (10.9%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
VBTLX	Vanguard Total Bond Market	10.46	10.5	0.6
VFIAX	Vanguard 500	231.73	258.0	11.3
VFWAX	Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US	28.27	31.02	9.7
VIMAX	Vanguard Mid-Cap	170.59	197.11	15.5
VSMAX	Vanguard Small-Cap	63.17	74.13	17.4

Because of the quarterly Freedom Portfolio check-in, I’ll be skipping the March update, but will be back at the end of April to see how things stand then. Thanks for following!

Fantasy Investing – Jan 2019 Standings

February 1, 2019 paul.essen Comments 1 comment

January is over, so we’re officially 1/12th of the way through the 2019 Fantasy Investing season. I had written previously about my own FI2019 portfolio, but now you get to see the portfolios of our other entrants!

We had 4 brave souls submit portfolios to challenge yours truly and I’m happy to report that the first month results have gone a lot better for me than the Freedom Portfolio has gone so far. Here are the current standings (overall portfolio return is in parenthesis after the person’s name):

Paul (29.6%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
AMZN	Amazon	1465.2	1718.73	17.3
IQ	iQiyi	14.56	20.12	38.2
MELI	MercadoLibre	285.61	364.0	27.4
SQ	Square	54.1	71.35	31.9
TDOC	Teladoc	48.19	64.2	33.2

Adrian (25.1%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
AMD	Advanced Micro Devices	18.01	24.41	35.5
AMZN	Amazon	1465.2	1718.73	17.3
NFLX	Netflix	259.28	339.5	30.9
NVDA	nVidia	130.64	143.75	10.0
SQ	Square	54.1	71.35	31.9

Gurkie (19.9%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
AMZN	Amazon	1465.2	1718.73	17.3
C	Citigroup	50.68	64.46	28.0
DIS	Disney	108.1	111.52	3.2
GE	General Electric	7.46	10.16	36.2
TCEHY	Tencent	38.865	44.61	14.8

Matt (8.3%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
FZROX	Fidelity ZERO Total Market	8.79	9.53	8.4
TSLA	Tesla	306.1	307.02	0.3
VGSLX	Vanguard Real Estate	103.48	118.14	14.2
VTI	Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF	125.75	138.53	10.2
VTSAX	Vanguard Total Stock Market	62.15	67.43	8.5

Daniel (7.9%)

Ticker	Company	Starting Price	Current Price	Percent Change
VBTLX	Vanguard Total Bond Market	10.46	10.53	0.7
VFIAX	Vanguard 500	231.73	249.98	7.9
VFWAX	Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US	28.27	30.52	8.0
VIMAX	Vanguard Mid-Cap	170.59	189.11	10.9
VSMAX	Vanguard Small-Cap	63.17	70.72	12.0

A few things immediately jump out:

It’s been a good month for the market – By my count there were 22 different tickers picked and every single one of them is positive so far (although some are just barely…. I’m looking at you, Tesla). That’s pretty incredible. The worst performing portfolio is still up 7.9% in a single month. Extrapolated over the entire year, that would more than double the value of a portfolio over the course of the year. The 29.6% monthly return for the best portfolio (*cough*mine*cough) in January would turn $100 into over $2,000 in just one year. While that’s a fun example of the power of compound interest, it’s also a completely ludicrous pace to expect to keep up.

There are a lot of different ways to passively invest – We have two portfolios which are almost entirely dedicated to index funds. Amazingly, there is no overlap between the two portfolios. Just goes to show that there can be a lot of variety in style even when dealing with passive investing.

The stock pickers are winning… so far – Obviously I wanted to lead with this, but I didn’t want to brag too much. As I mentioned previously, we essentially have two portfolios which are proxies for the market. Those two portfolios are doing really well, and yet they’re also being crushed by the three portfolios that are based around individual companies. However, just like how I wasn’t too worried about the Freedom Portfolio under-performing the market after one quarter, I’m certainly not planning any ticker tape parades just because my portfolio is winning after one month. It’s a good start, but there’s a lot of time to go.

I’ll check back in at the end of February. Hoping we see another month like January.

Fantasy Investing – My 2019 Portfolio

January 13, 2019 paul.essen Comments 1 comment

The 2019 Fantasy Investing season is underway and we’ve already had a fast start out of the gate with a few portfolios already seeing double digit gains. If only I had decided to start the Freedom Portfolio now instead of 3 months ago…

The hope is to have monthly check-ins where I report on the current standings and a few thoughts on how the race is shaping up. In the meantime, I thought I should reveal my own 2019 Fantasy Investing portfolio and provide some thoughts on why I chose the companies that I did.

Go team TAMIS!

With the letters M, A, T, I, and S as the first letters of the stocks in my portfolio, it really seems like I should be able to come up with some clever name, but there doesn’t seem to be one. TAMIS at least seems like it should be a thing (and apparently it is a kitchen utensil), so that’s what I’ll go with for now, but I am very open to better ideas. So if you have any better suggestions, please hit me up in the comments. In the meantime, here’s some thoughts on my picks, in alphabetical order:

Amazon (AMZN)

I’ve already written a lot about why Amazon is the largest holding (and only Babylon 5 level position) in the Freedom Portfolio, so this might be a short recap as I’ll try not to belabor those points any more. Instead, I’ll just point out that I liked the company at over $2,000 a share around 3 months ago and I absolutely love it now at around $1,600 a share after it has lost around a quarter of its value. I didn’t think their third quarter earnings report was bad at all and they reportedly had a record breaking holiday season. I fully expect Amazon to revisit the $1 trillion market cap club in 2019, but even if it doesn’t and there continue to be some speed bumps, I love this company for the long term and not even a Bezos divorce can shake that.

iQiyi (IQ)

I also previously wrote about iQiyi and mentioned some of the moves that I made in the recent Freedom Portfolio check-in. In the less than one year since it IPO’d, iQiyi has been as high as $46 a share and as low as $14 a share. On some level, I understand how investor sentiment around the stock could swing so wildly (especially with concerns over a slowing Chinese economy and continuing trade war with the US), but changing investor sentiment doesn’t mean the business fundamentals have changed and I think this is a great opportunity to buy a company with a lot of potential at a discount. While there is a lot of competition, there is also a huge opportunity in the Chinese video streaming market, and if iQiyi can continue to be the leader, I really like their chance to outperform the market over the next 5 years.

MercadoLibre (MELI)

I can’t believe I haven’t written anything about MercadoLibre yet considering it is one of my favorite companies right now. For those unfamiliar with the company, the easiest description of what the Brazil-based (but founded in Argentina) company does is “Amazon for Latin America” (although Ebay might be a more accurate comparison). They are an up and coming eCommerce company that does a lot of business in Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico. While India and China seem to get all the publicity in our Northern Hemisphere-centric world, there’s an interesting emerging market opportunity in South America as well that MercadoLibre is well positioned to benefit from.

South America has seen a lot of volatility in recent years. Argentina has been grappling with debt and economic problems. Brazil has been hit by corruption scandals. Worst and most tragic of all, Venezuela’s economy has been basically disintegrating. It’s nothing short of miraculous, then, that MercadoLibre has been able to do as well as it has during this time (doubling in the past 2 years) considering how much business that it does in those markets. If there’s just a slight turnaround in some of those countries in 2019, it could be a major catalyst for MercadoLibre to really soar. Even if there isn’t a turnaround, though, management has proven that they are able to grow even in challenging environments, and I have faith that they will continue to do so.

It’s not just the eCommerce potential that has me excited, though. MercadoLibre also has a payments platform somewhat similar to Paypal called MercadoPago which has a lot of potential for growth as well. While this is getting incredibly ahead of things, it’s interesting to note that Paypal alone currently has a market cap roughly 7 times the size of MercadoLibre. So if MercadoPago can see even a fraction of the success that Paypal has, there is a lot of upside there.

Which leads to an unexpectedly good transition to…

Square (SQ)

There’s a good chance you’ve seen a Square device, even if you have no idea what the company does. Have you ever been to a farmer’s market or a small, independent coffee shop where they scanned your credit card using a small device plugged into the headphone jack of a phone or tablet? That could’ve been a Square reader. The technology has advanced since then, and so have the services offered by Square.

Square essentially creates tools and services to help small and mid-sized businesses accept payments. It started off with those cheap and easy to use readers, but has grown into a myriad of different services now. They’ve begun making loans and cash advances to clients who use their point-of-sale (POS… yes, that’s the real acronym… stop laughing) system as part of their Square Capital service. They’ve filed for a banking license to increase the number of financing services that they can offer. They’ve even begun encroaching on PayPal’s (PYPL) space by offering their own peer-to-peer payment service called Square Cash.

That’s a lot of irons in the fire, and as the country moves more and more away from cash, I think Square is well-positioned to benefit. The stock got whacked pretty hard in the last quarter of 2018 and lost around 40% of its value. Part of that seemed to be due to the general market downturn, but part of it also was because Square lost CFO Sarah Friar as she left to become CEO at Nextdoor. Friar was very well regarded, and so it was a big loss for the company, but a 40% drop seems overstated. It’s worth noting that even with the big drop, Square was still up around 50% for 2018.

I don’t see any reason why Square can’t regain their 2018 highs in 2019, which would be a near double from where it is now. I’m very interested in seeing what Square can do in the coming year.

Teladoc (TDOC)

Count this as a bet on the trend of the health care industry moving more and more to telemedicine with Teladoc being the leader in the space. It’s no secret that health care costs have been spiraling out of control and everybody is looking for ways to cut costs and increase efficiencies. I think telemedicine is a powerful tool in that fight. Not every health concern requires a visit to the doctor’s office and being able to consult with a doctor from the comfort of your home can not only be more convenient, but cheaper too. I think Teladoc has what it takes to capitalize on that trend.

If you’re interested in reading more about Teladoc and the opportunity in front of them, here is a good Seeking Alpha article about them.

What are your top stocks for 2019?

So those are the five companies in my portfolio for the Fantasy Investing 2019 season that also turn out to be my top 5 stocks for 2019. What are your best ideas for 2019? Let me know in the comments. Looking forward to checking in on the early results of the Fantasy Investing 2019 season in a few weeks. And don’t forget:

They may take our alpha, but they’ll never take our Tamis!

Okay… I definitely need a better name.

Fantasy Investing – 2019

December 6, 2018 paul.essen Comments 4 comments

The year is coming to an end. For many people that means it’s time to come up with new year’s resolutions. Some might be thinking of tax loss harvesting, using up the remainder of their FSA balance, or maxing out an IRA contribution. Those are all very noble endeavors. I’m looking forward to (and simultaneously dreading) the first quarterly check-in for the Freedom Portfolio. One other thing I am looking forward to? Starting the first annual Paul vs the Market Fantasy Investing season.

What is fantasy investing?

I have some friends who are interested in investing. Some are hardcore advocates of low-fee passive index funds who don’t believe that people can beat the market by investing in individual companies. Others are a little more open to the idea and have dipped their toes into some individual stocks. Still others are me, who has half their retirement funds in individual stocks and created a whole website based on the premise that he can beat the market.

Regardless of where we stand on individual stocks, we all occasionally talk about various aspects of investing, from what percentage of our income we try to save to Roth vs Traditional IRAs to what individual companies we’re invested in.

I enjoy investing. I enjoy games. I’ve played a bunch of “fantasy” sports games like fantasy football, basketball, baseball. I’ve even played more esoteric games like fantasy movie league. I had always thought that investing lends itself well to a fantasy game. The numbers are already there in abundance. The scoring is straightforward and translates well to real life. Most importantly of all? The studying and skills developed playing a fantasy investing game might actually be extremely useful in real life.

So around two years ago, I came up with the idea of a game to play with my friends. At the time, I called it the “stock market challenge”, but the basic idea was to make a “fantasy” version of investing where people draft stocks and see how they perform over the course of a year. So far we’ve only had one contest finish, while two more are in progress. I’ve really enjoyed it so far, and one of the best parts about it is how little time it takes. Because the focus is on long-term investing versus day-trading, there are no daily or even weekly line-ups to set. You basically draft your portfolio of stocks in the beginning and don’t have to do anything else (in fact, you really can’t do anything else) until the contest ends a year later.

Rules and Scoring

The rules are simple. Each player picks 5 tickers that they think will outperform the market over the next year. Each ticker must be different and each is weighted equally. There is no need to stress over how many shares to buy of each company.

Scoring is based on the combined return of the 5 positions in a player’s portfolio. What does that mean? Assume the example portfolio below:

Company	Return
Stock A	+30%
Stock B	+5%
Stock C	-20%
Stock D	-10%
Stock E	+15%

Then the score for this portfolio simply involves adding the returns together. In this case: 30+5-20-10+15 = 20. Dividends can be counted separately and added in if necessary, although none of the games I’ve played so far have been close enough to where dividends made a difference.

Other than that, there really aren’t any additional rules. The spirit of the game is to not pick penny stocks, leveraged ETFs, or different classes of the same stock (ie, GOOG and GOOGL), but there are no specific rules against it. When buyouts occur, the position is typically closed at the buyout price. We’ve been fortunate to not have to deal with any splits yet. Among my friends so far it’s been competitive, but also cooperative. We’re trying to win while also discover what other companies our friends are bullish on and why. The hope, at least for me, is that we’re all winners no matter what the final score is because we all become better investors.

The hope, at least for me, is that we’re all winners no matter what the final score is because we all become better investors.

As mentioned above, the competitions generally run for a year, although I enjoy checking in occasionally past the end date to see how things are going and to see if I am catching up to the winner.

This year’s contest

Previous competitions have been small affairs between a handful of friends and I, but I’m interested in formalizing it and opening it up a bit for the new year. For the 2019 season, I want to track things on the PvtM site, with quarterly check-ins on how people are performing. The competition will run from January 1st, 2019 to December 31st, 2019. Because the market is closed on New Year’s day, the first day of scoring will be January 2nd and the starting price for each ticker will be set by the price at market open on that day. The final price will be set at market close on December 31st.

Interested in playing? Great! Please fill out the form below. All entries must be received before January 1st. You don’t have to use your real name, any alias or unique identifier will do. If your stock isn’t traded on the major US exchanges, please provide additional information so I can find it and make sure I have the right one. As mentioned above, the spirit of the game isn’t to pick penny stocks or leveraged funds, so please keep that in mind. Lastly, please place something in the comments field to indicate to me that you are a real human being and not spam, especially if you’re going to be using an alias that I do not recognize. If you think there’s any chance I will mistake your entry for spam, you could include an email address there for me to double check on. Also, the plan is to make each portfolio (along with the stocks chosen) public once the contest starts, so if for whatever reason you don’t want it public, please let me know in the comments section. Entries are due in by midnight on December 31st so I can set things up on January 1st. Thanks! I’m excited about this and hope we get more entries than my “find the marijuana references” competition.

*UPDATE* Apparently the form wasn’t working properly, so please either use the comments section below to list your tickers or email your submissions to: paulvsthemarket@gmail.com. If you previously submitted, please submit again. Sorry for the inconvenience.