May 25, 2023
Soon, we will have a new billcara.com website. A clear business model and strategic planning will drive it. The homepage will serve as a concise representation of our purpose, identity, values, mission, and target market.
Our readers know this: At Billcara.com, we are committed free-market patriots who stand against interventionists such as self-serving central banks, Humongous Banks & Brokers, corporate media enablers, and politically-connected fraudsters whose actions undermine societal fairness.
Our mission is to educate individuals about investing in companies rather than trading Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). While owning a Fund is not an investment in the true sense, as it only reflects its market value and not its intrinsic value, we aim to emphasize the distinction between trading and investing through the following key points:
- All participants in the markets are traders, but not all are investors.
- Trading involves focusing on prices, whereas investing entails assessing companies based on their intrinsic value relative to market value.
Our target market comprises two groups:
- The majority of market participants who mistakenly believe they are investing by trading ETFs.
- Novices whom we can guide to invest wisely before Wall Street manipulates them into trading assets they manage. Despite ETFs being promoted as less volatile and diversified assets, buyers often remain unaware that they trade against the powerful resources of Wall Street, disguising themselves as their clients’ agents and supporters.
Led by the respected industry figure Bill Cara, our team consists of independent, objective, and knowledgeable community influencers. We possess exceptional firsthand experience in business and finance, demonstrable capabilities, extensive industry connections, an independent mindset, and an unwavering passion for challenging the influential financial establishment.
Our revenue streams will be derived from various products and services, including eBooks and printed books, virtual and live conferences, digital advertising, and lead generation. The value proposition we offer lies in our team’s outstanding expertise, our ability to provide clarity and guidance, our industry connections, our independent mindset, and our commitment to challenging the entrenched financial establishment.
Strategically positioned as counter-culture free market patriots, we strive to empower our community with financial independence. Amidst the prevailing group thinking, authoritative influence, and moves towards a command economy, we, more than the sell-side, comprehend the key drivers of buy-side success. We offer invaluable insights to those seeking to make informed financial decisions.
The website pages aim to communicate our capacity to educate, inform, and support investors with unparalleled competence and integrity. We want our readers to understand that even marginalized individuals can compete against Wall Street. We elucidate how government interventions, such as those related to the pandemic, inflation, bitcoin, and fossil fuels since the 2008 global financial crisis, have influenced both short-term and long-term corporate profitability, distorting markets significantly.
These topics highlight how governments have wielded their overreaching power to manipulate financial markets. At billcara.com, we have integrated these dynamics into fast-changing market trading strategies, empowering our readers to avoid exploitation.
The Covid-19 pandemic has deeply impacted society, leading to supply chain disruptions, mental and physical health concerns, and inflation. Billcara.com has fulfilled its purpose during these uncertain times by providing honest market guidance. Ultimately, our readers are free to accept or disregard our insights, but we take pride in addressing real issues that matter to people. In contrast, rigid editing often restricts financial media, preventing them from discussing some of these government overreaches.
We question the integrity of mainstream media, such as CNBC, which fails to criticize big pharma fraud while deriving 75% of its ad revenues from the pharmaceutical industry. In the crypto market, where we consistently emphasize the absence of intrinsic value, CNBC has lavished praise on former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. These cases, and similar ones repeated over the past two decades, highlight the inherent conflict of interest within the financial services industry and mainstream media that we continually address.
New readers quickly realize that billcara.com harbors no “market idols du jour.” Our independence and objectivity allow us to prioritize the interests of the buy side. We nurture investing and trading ideas derived from various non-personal influences, sharing our investment choices with readers. We encourage them to study our insights and form their own conclusions rather than unthinkingly following recommendations, as is often the case with the sell side.
Billcara.com has garnered recognition as the “Best of the Web” and “Favorite Blog” in Forbes magazine, solidifying our reputation as a trusted and reputable source of financial information.
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deneve83
Reply to Bill Cara
May 26, 2023, 1:20 pm
Modern investment theory, informed by the last 40 years of relatively benign financial conditions, tells us that a diversified broad-market investment portfolio headlined by ETFs will provide risk mitigation and portfolio returns suitable for the overwhelming majority of society. While such a practice does mitigate idiosyncratic risk, these kinds of partial truths are often more dangerous than an outright lie. Perfunctory, conflicted reporting exemplified by networks like CNBC reinforces the guideposts illuminating the way as we are prodded toward the slaughterhouse by central banks, too-big-to-jail banks, and a small cadre of insiders.
As bleak as things seemed in 2022 and as they will seem in the years ahead, the individual retail investor can achieve alpha and beta if you can seek out a signal through the noise. You will find the signal when you stop being a consumer and a product of conflicted advice. Start following the few people who devote their lives to helping people and are aligned with your values. Following the right people is a waypoint, not a destination. You will eventually need to produce your own intellectual capital. If you outsource your financial literacy, you will fund someone else’s retirement, not yours. Financial freedom (literacy) starts with reading, forging your talents, and challenging your thesis against reality. No one gets anywhere in life through the passive receipt of instructions.
I am glad to see the change coming to this website over the next few years. It will come at the right time as we face challenging financial markets ahead of us. As we enter the era of stock picking and the coming demise of ETFs, students of the market must stray from the herd and choose the hard right over the easy wrong.
Bill Cara Reply to deneve83
May 27, 2023 10:33 am
Well said, deneve83.
An ETF is a Wall Street construct designed for machine trading. Unless people learn to invest, they will lose to these Wall Street machines getting bigger and more sophisticated monthly. People must learn to invest.
The sell-side recommends ETFs for broader diversification. As a licensed investment advisor, I will not advise ETFs because you cannot research fundamentals and determine intrinsic value with an ETF. We need to invest in securities the same way we would any asset. For example, we invest in a house, not a subdivision, and a car, not a fleet of vehicles. When we do, we know what we are buying.
A more diversified portfolio may be important to reduce risk based on one’s risk tolerance. But consider this, Warren Buffett warns against over-diversification. His near trillion-dollar portfolio is confined to very few companies, and his staff de-risks the portfolio by understanding each company.
The latest filing of the Warren Buffett Berkshire Hathaway portfolio shows portfolio weighting of Apple at 38.9%, Chevron Corp at 9.8%, Coca-Cola at 8.5%, and American Express at 7.5%. These four stocks, all Dow 30 components, comprise 64.7% of the $350 billion portfolio. Bank of America is 11.2%, and the other 44 holdings are just 24.1%.
So, if this concentration is good enough for Warren Buffett and his partner Charlie Munger, my TWIC portfolio of eight Dow 30 holdings, including Apple, Chevron, Coca-Cola, and American Express, should be good for the novice investors I am mentoring.
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