so I’m starting out investing, I got some basic advice whenever I first asked a few days ago about investing into the S&P 500.

here’s what I’ve done so far:

I put money into VOO in the beginning and learned later after doing more of my own research that this money should be kept in a ROTH IRA until I max them out (I’m playing for the long game with these.) so I sold my current stocks and funded my ROTH IRA slightly.

I funded a total of $120 into my ROTH IRA and put it into VOO.

$100 Deposit with a 1% match: $101

$20 Deposit with a 1% match: $20.20

I bought $101 @ $622.93 a share

I bought $20.20 @ $623.39 a share

I plan to fund the ROTH with $20 every Monday and putting it into VOO until I at least have $500, and then I’ll put money into other stocks. ($160 by April 15th.)

160 + 1% match = 161.60

I plan to fund at least $100 to my ROTH every Friday starting on February 27th (for a total of $700 by April 15th.)

700 + 1% match = 707

I also plan to fund an additional $116.48 to the ROTH by this Friday (I have to move it from my cash balance on Robinhood)

I’m doing all of this in my 2025 ROTH calendar year so I expect to fund it with at least $1,106.28 by April 15th.

I've been working on extracting supplier/customer relationships out of 10-K filings amongst other stuff. Like when a company says "our major customer is XYZ" in their annual report, I grab that and map it.

Anyway I was going through next week's earnings and LPX, BLDR, TOL. All three are reporting.

So why does it matter? Because LPX literally supplies BLDR. It's in their filing. And BLDR sells to TOL. Also in their filing. Lumber company -> building materials distributor -> homebuilder. The full chain, all reporting within days of each other.

And here's the part that got my attention. LPX's earnings surprise probability is -100%. Negative one hundred percent. BLDR's is about -5%. Both expected to miss.

LPX reports first. If they come out and say demand is soft... I mean BLDR is their customer. That's not a sector rotation thing, that's a "your biggest supplier just told the world orders are down" thing. And if BLDR misses, TOL is next in line.

BLDR does like $12B in revenue with $1.87B in operating cash flow btw. Not some micro cap. TOL did $11B rev and $1.35B net income. These are real companies.

I'm probably overthinking this but I've never seen an actual verified supply chain all reporting in the same week where every link has negative expectations. Usually you get sector correlations which are like, vague. This is literally "Company A sells to Company B sells to Company C" from their own filings.

Gonna be watching LPX's print pretty closely since they go first. Volume specifically, not just pricing.

edit: BLDR reports BMO, insider ownership ~2%. Also the price correlations back it up too. Over the last 3 months, LPX and BLDR have a 0.81 correlation. BLDR and TOL have a 0.78. Both "high". These companies don't just have a business relationship — they actually move together.

Gold choices you might be interested in are $GLD of course, but better yet $SHNY or $GDXU

Most stock screeners are clearly built for momentum or swing traders. RSI, moving averages, volume patterns, all that stuff. But when I try to screen for value investing criteria it's always an afterthought.

What I want to filter by: price to free cash flow below a certain threshold, consistent ROE above 12% for five years, debt to equity below industry average, and trading below estimated intrinsic value. Standard Graham/Buffett type criteria.

Finviz lets you do some of this but not all, especially the historical consistency filters. Been using valuesense lately and their screener has backtesting which is cool because you can see if your criteria would have actually worked historically. Also looked at stockanalysis and koyfin.

What screeners do other value investors here prefer? Specifically for quality plus valuation type screens.

ALAB just hit a 104% Y/Y revenue growth rate. Is this the ultimate 'picks and shovels' play for the 2026 AI infrastructure build-out, or is the 118x P/E ratio too much of a gamble for a semiconductor stock?

Literally 99.9% of what you see online, the main stream media or read in papers is all an advertisement. Literally.

An advertisement of how to lose everything you’ve got in less than 3 months to feed the beast. The lender.

There are methods of making constant returns in stocks but to believe in 100000% returns in a year or less is a fairy tale. Sure some get lucky. Lucky is all that it is, or illegal.

The only way I was finally able to turn things around after 13 years of nothing but consistent losses was to educate myself in the field and realize what was behind the curtain.

This is how not to loose your money:

1.Never use leverage. Never.

2.Don’t trade forex

3.Trade only US financially sound companies

4.Trade only companies that have a market cap of over 1 billion

5.Trade only companies that have a more than 15% ROE

6.Trade only companies that have Momentum picking up on Net Profit Quarter over quarter

7.Trade only companies that have Earnings per share momentum picking up Quarter over quarter basis

8.Growing EBITDA quarter over quarter

IF ANY OF THE ABOVE DON’T MAKE SENSE. DO NOT TRADE.

After you put a checkmark beside each one point above, go to the chart and pull your trigger whenever you feel like it. Meaning, use whatever indicator you want. All the same as they are all backward looking and bogus. Reading charts is at the very end of the process. This eliminates the guessing and many many many surprises.

You’re welcome.

P.S. I have a few videos up on the tube under “My Long Short Portfolio” Take a look. It’s free and I’m not selling anything.

I share my process and if you got to this then you’re in for a treat. Trading is not hard and I’m not finance guru but I spent some money to learn this sh1t and don’t mind sharing what changed my future outlook.

Regards,

P.

Fellow investors,

Confronted with sharpening international relations and a more inward looking USA, I have since early 2024 invested in the stock of companies of strategic value to European and other democratic countries (ex. Canada, Australia and Japan). The four sectors I selected as 'strategic' are (1) defense, (2) critical raw materials, (3) digital and (4) high tech. I purchased only when stock price was below the yearly and monthly midpoints.

Currently, my returns have been around 20% - this includes stock that I bought two years ago, but also much more recent. This journey has been rewarding, not only financially, but also knowledge wise, as I have learned about the 74 strategic companies that now shape my watch list. Moreover, I feel content that my money is strengthening the democratic world.

I now wonder if other people are also interested in this investment strategy, which I refer to as the 'GeoValue' approach. Does this appeal to you?