FINAL SCORE =>>> JOE: +13.1% INFLATION: +3.3%

I had a pretty good year in the stock market this year. Many of you probably recall, I worked hard at getting myself back to being a low-risk investor over the past couple of years – and in 2024 I finally achieved that. So, my primary financial objective for 2024 (which will continue from this point forward) was to get back to being a low-risk investor – maintaining my spending power by beating inflation or at least not giving back the stellar gains I achieved over the past decade or so (my 12-year average annual gain through and including the losses from 2022 was 35% as you can see by scrolling through the following post: https://brighterdayslifecoaching.com/final-stock-market-score-joe-57-2-spx-24-2/). Core inflation was 3.3% year-over-year back in November – so I beat that number by a sizable margin (the December numbers have not yet been released).

Anyone who has met or exceeded their financial investment goal should be a low-risk investor like me. Everyone else should be taking a higher risk approach in order to achieve their financial investment goals. And if you need help with that, you know who to ask.

I adjusted my investment strategies this year as I normally do every year. For example, regarding Coinbase (COIN), if I had stuck to my more usual investing strategies, I probably would have sold all of my COIN shares back in February and not realized all of the gains I achieved. COIN was by far my top performing stock this year gaining 126% [my second and third best performing stocks were VMEO (64% gain), and GNK (51% gain)]. Towards the end of 2023, I somehow got the insight to treat COIN differently than my other investments. The strategy I used for this highly volatile stock was to sell 1/3 of my shares when COIN gained 33%, and buying more shares whenever COIN dropped 33%. This strategy really worked well and allowed me to experience much higher gains than I ordinarily would. I plan to stick with this strategy in 2025.

When I traveled through Portugal back in spring, people I met there became very interested when they found out I was a life coach – asking me for help with finances and investing so they could create a brighter future for themselves. This inspired me to write the Joe Brennan 6-Step Process to Financial Success with minimal effort post: https://brighterdayslifecoaching.com/how-to-invest-well-and-create-a-brighter-future-with-minimal-effort/. I followed this post up with a second post designed to help people even further with finance and investing: https://brighterdayslifecoaching.com/a-simple-lesson-in-finance-why-investing-invigorates-and-debt-devastates-your-finances/. So, I encourage you to read these two posts when you get the chance. You’ll become a much better investor if you do.

Amazingly, as a low-risk investor, I ended up beating three of the major market indexes this year: the Dow Jones Industrial Average index’s end-of-year (EOY) gain (+12.9%), the Russell 2000 index’s EOY gain (+10.0%), and the S&P 500 Midcap 400 index’s EOY gain (+12.2%). I didn’t come close to achieving the gains of the two other major market indexes this year such as the S&P 500 index’s EOY gain (+23.3%) and the Nasdaq index’s EOY gain (+28.6%). But that’s okay because as a low-risk investor, I should not be matching those gains – and whenever the overall markets drop, I’ll be thankful that I’m taking a low-risk approach.

My primary objective for 2024 was beating inflation which I was able to handily do. A secondary target I use as a low-risk investor is taking the end-of-year gain of the S&P 500 (SPX) and dividing by 5. I handily beat on that metric as well (23.3%/5 = 4.66%). So, overall, 2024 was a highly successful investment year for me. We’ll see what 2025 brings.

I’ve pretty much sold all of my stocks (I am presently only about 6.5% invested in stocks – the remaining 93.5% is in low-risk income) and am now awaiting a sizable drop before buying back into the stock market. My current estimate is that the stock market is about 20% overvalued. As such, as a low-risk investor, I plan to start slowly buying back into the stock market after about a 15% decline in the S&P 500 index (SPX) overall. Those who are higher risk investors should probably plan to buy back in after about a 10% drop or so.

You can learn about all of my investing techniques via my “Invest Like a Pro in 10 Minutes a Day!” series of 4 books where you can learn the “end to end” process to investing. So, use any downtime you might have to your advantage by gaining this knowledge and learning these skills and techniques (https://brighterdayslifecoaching.com/published-books-and-life-coaching-services/).

Make it your goal to learn these investment techniques so that you can progress towards achieving the financial freedom and independence you’ve always dreamed of. I would have done so much better if I had learned this stuff years ago!

Also, you can read all about my stock market activities here: https://brighterdayslifecoaching.com/stock-market-activities

I wish you much investing success for 2025 (and beyond).

#selfimprovement, #selfhelp #selfdevelopment #success #finance #stocks #investing #stockmarket #bonds #bondmarket