What Matters Most About Advice from an Advisor?
What do you expect from a financial advisor or broker who manages your investments and gives you advice? Let me give you a checklist: Integrity, Transparency, Clarity, Profitability , Cost-conscious Investing, Educational and Solutions-Oriented.
The word “integrity” is first on purpose. It probably isn’t a shock to anyone, but there is often a serious lack of honesty and truthfulness in the things people say. What they say is often far different from what they do, which is another wrinkle in the integrity deficiency we face when trying to determine what is true and what is false.
When I write, preach, teach, or communicate in any manner, I strive to be truthful and transparent in the things I say. Therefore, I have to share what I have done that worked and things that I did that were not successful. My goal is to educate others so that they can move forward and make many more decisions about life and investments on their own.
The goal is to Educate for Wise Decision-Making
I encourage you to avoid mimicking my top five or top ten investments or to just buy what I bought. Also, while I have a specific focus in three sectors, I don’t necessarily recommend that everyone follows my example. Having said that, I think there is considerable merit in my reasoning for why I have some favorites that align with The Rule of 72 and dividend growth income.
Dave Ramsey and I agree on some points, but not everything. We agree financial advisors should help educate their “clients.” On the Ramsey website you can see this: “If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times: You need to invest for retirement, especially if you want to build wealth and retire with a nice nest egg. That means you’re going to need a financial advisor at some point—someone who can explain complex investments in ways you can understand.” – Ramsey Solutions
Later on that same page, he says, “Ask a lot of questions. You should never be afraid to ask financial advisors questions—a lot of them. And a good investment pro should always give straight answers. The interview phase is a great time to get all the information you need so you can choose the right pro for you.” – Ramsey Solutions
While you aren’t my client in the sense that you pay me for my advice, you may be tempted to think I have the secrets to successful investing. As a result, you might buy investments simply because I did. That would not be prudent unless you think carefully about your own big picture.
To that end, I am sharing two high-level portions of my actual 2026 investment work and the results. The first part is about the investments I purchased so far this year. Then, in my next article I will share our current top positions and some insights about our overall investment mix.
Buys By Seeking Alpha Quant Rating
Hopefully you will be a bit surprised that several of the investment buys have questionable Quant ratings. Only a handful have “Buy” ratings, the vast majority were “Hold”, and there are a couple of ETFs (ULTY and NFLY) that are clearly higher risk.
I definitely like CRDO, and it has been very productive for options trading. However, the largest investment by dollars is NVDA. That investment is in the “Hold” category. That is also an options income investment. So far in 2026 I have earned $1,849 in options income trading covered call options on my NVDA shares and an amazing $5,231 trading CRDO covered call and cash covered put options.
You can see that the Quant rating is not my only criteria for trading any investment. In fact, $2,891 of the income I received from CRDO came before I owned any CRDO shares. That is the beauty of trading cash covered put options. After I bought shares in March I started trading covered call options on my 100 shares. In less than a month I have earned $2,339 from trading CRDO covered call options.
Buys By Cost Basis
Another way to view the new 2026 investments (some are adding shares to existing positions) is to compare total dollars spent in the buys. When you look at this chart, be aware that there were multiple smaller buys for some of these investments. For example, I did not buy the MAIN or CAG shares in one purchase. It is also clear that a significant investment was made in NVDA and MAIN.
Again, because I trade options the NVDA investment is focused on that type of trade. I purchased more shares of MAIN because I think the market wrongly sold this asset and that provided a lower price entry point for adding more shares.
Buys By Current Value
Some of the investments have gone up in value, and some have not. However, because I bought a diverse set of investments in multiple sectors for different purposes, my total results are not yet fully known. For example, part of the total return is the dividend income and the income from trading options. Also, it sometimes pays to take on additional risk for the potential for a longer term reward.
Buys By Gain or Loss
The final chart shows the investments that have performed well and those that have not. Again, bear in mind that this does not include dividend income or options trading income. Before I created this graph I wasn’t certain how my new shares were performing. To see a total gain of $10,472 on an $135K cash spend is encouraging. Again, remember that my options income from CRDO and NVDA should be added to the $10K.
Recommendation
The focus of this was educational. If you have an interest in any of the things I purchased, please do your own homework. Think about how any of these would strengthen your own investment portfolio. Please DO NOT buy investments just because “Wayne did.” That is a very poor way to pick investments unless you intend to trade options and you understand the risks of each of the investments I bought.
Seeking Alpha Subscription Information
Of all of the resources I use, the most helpful is Seeking Alpha. The Seeking Alpha QUANT rating is a huge factor in my investment success. If you decide to explore a Seeking Alpha subscription, please use the following link. Seeking Alpha
SEEKING ALPHA INFORMATION AND SUBSCRIPTION
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