Postcards: Publishing Ethics, Cars I Dislike, And the Week Ahead

Well, my wife is happy... and that's good. Also, let's talk about the week ahead, the ethics of the publishing industry, and another rant about cars. ͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­ Forwarded this email? [Subscribe here]() for more You are a free subscriber to Postcards from the Florida Republic. To upgrade to paid and receive the daily Republic Risk Letter, [subscribe here](. --------------------------------------------------------------- [Postcards: Publishing Ethics, Cars I Dislike, And the Week Ahead]( Well, my wife is happy... and that's good. Also, let's talk about the week ahead, the ethics of the publishing industry, and another rant about cars. [Garrett {NAME}]( Feb 18   [READ IN APP](   Dear Fellow Expat: The first night I met my publisher in person, he asked a question that put us on opposite spectrums. It wasn’t a political question. It wasn’t business-oriented. But if you’ve read the Butter Battle Book… it was a question that puts people into different camps. “Do you like cars?” he asked. I don’t. They are typically depreciating assets. I drive a 2016 Honda HR-V. I bought it two years after it was manufactured with 7 miles on it. It had fallen off a truck, and the door fell off when it originally arrived at a dealership. It took 18 months to fix due to backlogs. I scooped it up on the cheap, yet it involved a lot of protest from me. My wife convinced me to buy it ahead of my daughter’s birth. For some reason, I thought (in all of my unimpressive misunderstandings of parenthood) that you could just Uber a baby around Chicago. “It’s like London… where they put the carriage in the cab,” I told my wife before she yelled common sense into me. We needed a car. I went with a car I know will get me to 200,000 miles. The Honda HR-V. It’s as American as I am a poodle. The second I said the assets depreciated to my publisher, he immediately showed me a car I wanted to drive. You see, he drives cars that go up in value after he buys them. I didn’t consider that part of the equation. Yesterday, I didn’t write you a note because we bought a new car. And by “new,” I mean “used.” And by “we,” I mean my wife has a new car. The good thing is that I can work and write somewhere that isn’t this office. She homeschools my daughter in kindergarten, and they’re usually out. With a second car, I’m now a free-range man. I’ll drive to the gym and swim. I’ll get off the land… Today, however, is a rainy, cold day in Florida. So, I work while my daughter watches a nature show. A little while ago, she told me that “pigeons produce milk to feed their squabs.” You learn something every day. Speaking of learning, global liquidity is expanding… AND… more concentration in the Spot ETF space for Bitcoin, I anticipate BTC will increase. I’ll have a report on this soon. Scott and I are finalizing our “Hedge of Tomorrow” report. It’s exclusively for Republic Risk Letter readers. Join us. [Upgrade to paid]( On the Portfolio and Transparency This year, we’re up nicely on many different stocks in the Model Portfolio. We strictly adhere to strong F scores, low debt, strong Return on Invested Capital, and lower Price-to-Graham numbers, which can pay off. It’s how we found Skywest (SKYW) - [up 205% in a year](. We hope these companies experience a strong quarter and then catch momentum in a reversal. We are beating the S&P 500 this year with a tight conviction portfolio of 8 stocks. Our latest recommendation, Tower Semiconductor (TSEM), is up 17.5% since Feb 1. Ardmore Shipping (ASC) - which is a buy-and-hold for at least 18 to 24 months - is up 14.3%. Teekay (TK) is up 13.2%. Our worst performer is Tenaris (TS), down 6.1%. Give it some time. I’ll put out the full portfolio in Postcards on March 1. So you can see our performance. We believe in total transparency in the Florida Republic… Here’s why. On Ethics When I was a sophomore in college, I had a bad academic incident involving a professor. I made the critical mistake of “challenging” the professor’s research (at 20 years old) in a “final” paper. He was an expert on Vietnam media. I - inadvertently - wrote a term paper that went against his entire career’s argument around journalist Walter Cronkite’s coverage of the war. I didn’t know he had spent his entire career on this subject. I also didn’t know that one of the sources I’d cited had called him a “communist” in the early 1980s… when I was a toddler. It was a fiasco. While I do admit that I made a mistake, it kneecapped me badly. This grade and the year-long experience became the difference between attending Harvard Business School and Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business (where I went). It was a sloppy paper. I didn’t write it well… edit it well… fact-check it well… Things happen… you learn from mistakes. I ended up having to go through a year-long appeal process over the damn paper. But that ended up being one of the biggest blessings of my academic career. I was assigned an advisor within the Medill School of Journalism. His name was Dick Schwarzlose. Dick was an ethics professor in journalism. He altered my life. I would not trade anything for the 12 months he worked with me. Dick Schwarzlose made me think and appreciate the importance of diligence and honesty in the craft of journalism. He kept telling me how easy it was, to be honest with people. To not be biased. To just do the damn job… tell the truth… and be accountable. When I get upset about the state of journalism today, his arguments are why. I assume the worst when people are so bad at challenging authority and lies. My contempt for the Beltway D.C. media started in the meetings that I had with Dick. But also… We laughed. I don’t think I have ever laughed that hard in the company of another person outside of my wife. He taught me right from wrong in the written and investigated word. But he also had a silliness about him. This was a brilliant man who didn’t take himself too seriously. I have always followed his logic. Humility is a beautiful virtue. Dick also helped instill a mission to “do no harm.” I bring this view to the financial markets. I bring it to every word I write about economics and finance. It means so much to me. So did he. In the spring of my junior year, Dick and I planned a bike ride in the fall along the trail that takes you from Winnetka, Illinois, to the Wisconsin line. We said goodbye that June, and I spent the summer working in Maryland. And then, [he died of a heart attack]( biking on that very trail that summer. Looking back 20 years later, I realize his friendship was essential to my time at Northwestern University. It was my transition from a boy into a man. At that point in my life, I decided to grow up, listen, and be accountable. So - 20 years later - after all this time in the publishing industry. After all the marketing that I hated. After climbing the ranks and getting to where I want to be… I'll tell you this again. I am accountable to you as a reader. You won’t get messages from me hidden behind headlines like “[The one weird trick.]( I am available to answer questions. I am giving you the best of the research I have. I love this job and this industry, and I know there are bad actors out there. But you and I will breach the walls… and you have my word that I will not make a recommendation that I wouldn’t give to my father or my friends. And yes, you might be frustrated by the markets if they go against us, but I assure you that we are well ahead of the rest of the crowd. If something is going wrong, I know why it’s happening, and it usually involves the global credit system. We follow the things that drive the market. These are our secrets: Liquidity… momentum… insiders. These are the tools that you can use to be successful. I didn’t get a chance to go to Harvard Business School. I didn’t get a chance to run a $500 million fund. I didn’t get a chance to work for David Rubenstein. I probably could have if I had not written a sloppy paper about Walter Cronkite… But I also don’t care about those things today… There is real meaning in this work. There is meaning in helping you understand these markets and giving you everything you need to balance the playing field. The story of the world is in the financial markets. It is the ultimate form of journalism and information-gathering. And we have a unique blend of knowledge that we’re happy to give you in Postcards and share even more with my paid subscribers. I’m committed to protecting YOUR money… and helping you compound it conservatively yet profitably. And I will take the Pepsi challenge with any other person in this financial publishing industry… debate them on the stage or on camera… and show you… We’re different. On Trading So… we trade too… It turns out that we’re doing great selling credit spreads with Occidental Petroleum (OXY). [The Warren Buffett trade has been a consistent play for our readers](. And an Insider Buying letter I launched a year ago, which I’m working to bring to Marketwise, has… [Are you ready for this]( a 19-2 winning record, a 637.57% annualized return… a profit factor of 10x. And an average gain of 12.26%. A reader recently asked about the credit spreads we discussed at Republic Risk, suggesting too much risk and reward. But recall, all we’re doing is focusing on trades with an 80% probability of profit and a targeted return between 15% and 25%. TradingPub hired a German auditor to verify the numbers below. Here they are, based on a position sizing of $10,000. We’re also sitting on put spreads - that I’ve recommended at Republic Risk Letter - on PBF Energy (PBF), Occidental (OXY), and JetBlue (JBLU). All three are winning. I plan to be 22-2 by the time this becomes a new opportunity for you. It’s just year one of this strategy combining insider buying and momentum. When our Equity Strength Signal is Red, we do nothing. When our sectors and signals are Green… we sell these credit spreads. There will be an announcement soon on this opportunity for readers. Let’s get to the week ahead and put all this stuff into Republic Speak. [Upgrade to paid]( Monday, February 19, 2024 Event: Markets are closed for President’s Day Republic Speak: I just realized that I’m technically off tomorrow. Well, Founders - so you know - we’ll do a quick video tomorrow on the portfolio and some other things we’re seeing in the markets. My apologies for the delay this month. Tuesday, February 20, 2024 Event: Walmart (WMT) earnings. Republic Speak: Ninety percent of Americans live within 10 miles of a Walmart. It’s the biggest retail operator… and the largest grocery store operator. When they report - look for politicians to say that Walmart is the problem behind inflation - and not… monetary and fiscal policies that drive the problem. That video of the President blaming companies for shrinkflation during the Super Bowl utterly blew my mind. To quote Lewis Black, “I don’t even have enough bread crumbs to get home…” Walmart will split its stock at a 3-1 level on Friday. I also want to hear about its plans to buy Vizio (VZIO) potentially. I think that’s a terrific purchase. Wednesday, February 21, 2024 Event: Fed Minutes, Nvidia (NVDA) earnings Republic Speak: Well, now we get some updates on the Dot Plot and the timing of the first interest rate cut. Spoiler alert: There won’t be a cut in March, and inflation is bouncing back. Auto insurance is up 20% year-over-year. Great work, everyone… let’s cut interest rates so that it can go higher. I’ll be stunned if there is a cut in Q2. Then, we have Nvidia reporting earnings. It’s at 95 times earnings. It’s trading at 40 times revenue. Forty… times… revenue. This is Dot-Com-level insanity, yet it has completely defied the “rules,” much like Tesla did during its surge in 2020. Shares are up 250% in a year. And it just keeps melting up… melting up… melting up. If liquidity remains strong… this could quickly clear $1,000 by the end of the year. Logic is out the window. The rule here is not to be the person without a chair when the music stops. And the band is still playing… Pay close attention to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM), Lam Research Corporation (LRCX), and ASML Holding N.V. (ASML). They have very strong correlations to NVDA stock after the company reports earnings. Thursday, February 22, 2024 Event: Carvana (CVNA) earnings and a fireside chat with Ford’s CFO Navin Kumar Republic Speak: When the aliens finally arrive and conduct a thorough investigation of the life that lived on this planet, one of the top items they will report back to the mother ship will say: “Americans were so lazy that they bought automobiles out of vending machines. With Ford, I’m very interested in their numbers and plans for moving forward in the EV sector. Ford looks cheap, but I can’t get behind it. Friday, February 23, 2024 Event: The ETHDenver Conference Republic Speak: It’s the biggest event of the year for Ethereum-based developers. I’m still very interested in the Fetch.AI project, and the price of this coin has exploded since October. I own Bitcoin and Ethereum, and I expect they’ll continue to climb in the future - with so much capital sloshing around. I hope you enjoy your three-day weekend. Stay positive, Garrett {NAME} Secretary of Defense Disclaimer Nothing in this email should be considered personalized financial advice. While we may answer your general customer questions, we are not licensed under securities laws to guide your investment situation. Do not consider any communication between you and Florida Republic employees as financial advice. Under company rules, editors and writers cannot recommend their positions. The communication in this letter is for information and educational purposes unless otherwise strictly worded as a recommendation. Model portfolios are tracked to showcase a variety of academic, fundamental, and technical tools, and insight is provided to help readers gain knowledge and experience. Readers should not trade if they cannot handle a loss and should not trade more than they can afford to lose. There are large amounts of risk in the equity markets. Consider consulting with a professional before making decisions with your money.   [Like]( [Comment]( [Restack](   © 2024 Garrett {NAME} 548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104 [Unsubscribe]() [Get the app]( writing]()