That’s what happened to me when I took a graduate-level class with one of my mentors in technical analysis, Dr. Hank Pruden.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term “technical analysis,” it refers to analyzing a market or an individual asset using charts.

I was expecting to learn about trend lines, bullish and bearish patterns, cycle analysis, etc., in this class. But instead, we dove deep into the psychology of the markets, trying to understand what motivates investors and traders to act the way they do.

Today, there are many institutions that teach behavioral finance, but at the time, it was groundbreaking stuff.

One of the most important concepts is that investors’ behaviors repeat time and time again. There are no guarantees, of course, and every situation will be a little different, but humans can be fairly predictable.

We typically fear the worst just before things get better… and we expect things will always be this good just before they get worse.

This course taught me a number of key ideas that I still use nearly three decades later. Here are a few of the most impactful ones.

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias occurs when you focus only on the information that confirms your beliefs. People do this with their political beliefs all the time, and the media plays into it by exclusively giving them information that aligns with their point of view.

In the markets, an investor may believe that a stock is a great buy because they see the company’s products everywhere… which may cause them to ignore the fact that the stock has been in a downtrend all year. Despite the market signaling that things are not great for the company, the investor buys the stock anyway.

Overconfidence

I’d bet almost everyone reading this believes they’re a better-than-average driver. In college, I had an argument with a friend about what a horrible driver he was. “How many cars have you totaled?” I asked. (The number was three in the previous four years.) “Yeah, but they were all somebody else’s fault!” he exclaimed.

Enough said.

When things are going well in the markets, investors often confuse a bull market with their own genius and think they’ll know when to get out. Of course, it doesn’t work out that way.

The Herd Effect

How many times have you been looking for a place to eat and walked past an empty restaurant to wait at a crowded one?

We’ve seen this time and again in investing, like when people piled into dot-com stocks, crypto, cannabis stocks, and meme stocks because that’s what everyone else was doing.

Being aware of these concepts can help you question your own decision making and ensure that you’re thinking critically about each buy and sell.

You can also use stock charts to test your opinion.

For example, in early 2021, AMC Entertainment Holdings (NYSE: AMC), the poster child for meme stocks, took off. The stock moved from the $20s (split-adjusted) to over $600 in a few months.

And keep in mind, this was not some new tech company or a biotech that had a cure for cancer. AMC is a movie theater chain. And you’ll recall that in 2021, no one was going to the movies. So it made no sense that everyone was piling into the stock.

Let’s say you were on Reddit or some other message board reading about AMC and all the reasons it should go higher. One look at the parabolic move on the chart would tell you to be very careful… because when the stock stopped going higher, it was likely going to reverse quickly.

Technical analysis is simply the visual representation of investors’ emotions. The more aware you are of those emotions and behaviors and how to interpret them, the better a trader and investor you’re going to be.

The post 3 Lessons Every Investor Should Know appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

Our New Year’s resolution in Wealthy Retirement is simple: Continue to deliver insights that can help you prepare for – or improve – your retirement and move one step closer to financial freedom.

One way you can help us do that is to share your feedback.

Could you please take a moment to answer a few questions about your experience with Wealthy Retirement?

It will take less than 60 seconds, and it will help us serve you and your fellow readers even better in the new year.

Thank you in advance!

– James Ogletree, Senior Managing Editor

There’s something about the start of a new year that flips a switch.

A clean slate.

A fresh calendar.

And a chance to finally level up a skill you’ve been meaning to master.

That’s why we’re starting the new year with something truly special…

We’re thrilled to announce an Oxford Club exclusive partnership with Peter Tuchman – widely known as “The Einstein of Wall Street” and the most photographed broker on the New York Stock Exchange – alongside veteran trader David Green of Wall Street Global Trading Academy.

If you’ve ever watched market coverage, seen iconic NYSE photos, or followed the pulse of Wall Street over the past few decades…

You’ve seen Peter.

Now, for the first time, Oxford Club readers are getting direct access to him and his business partner David in a FREE live masterclass kicking off the new year.

• Tuesday, January 6
• 8:00 p.m. ET
• Free – Oxford Club Exclusive

This isn’t about chasing flashy predictions.

It’s about building a real, rules-based foundation – the kind of knowledge that helps you approach the market with clarity, discipline, and confidence.

In this New Year masterclass, you’ll learn:

• How day trading actually works (no myths, no hype)
• What it really costs to get started
• Core principles of technical analysis
• Risk management techniques professionals use to survive and stay consistent.

If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to:

Then this is a powerful way to start.

It’s completely free to attend.

Just click below to add it to your calendar, and we’ll handle the rest.

Add to Calendar (Free Masterclass)

We’re incredibly excited to kick off the new year with The Einstein of Wall Street and Wall Street Global Trading Academy – and even more excited to have you there live.

Here’s to a smarter, more intentional 2026,

Rachel

The post Learn From “The Einstein of Wall Street” appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

The most important element to investing success is not stock-picking ability – it’s time. The longer you’re invested, the more money you will make.

Consider this…

A $10,000 investment in dividend growth stocks with a starting yield of 4%, dividend growth of 8% per year, and price appreciation that rises in line with the historical average of the S&P 500 is worth $17,757 after five years.

After 10 years, it’s worth $31,572.

After 15 years, you’re sitting on $56,208.

At year 20, your $10,000 has turned into $100,195.

Hold for another 10 years, and you’ve got $319,613.

And if you stayed invested for 40 years, you’d have $1,024,893.

That’s the power of compounding and time.

Legendary investor and trader Jesse Livermore once remarked, “It was never my thinking that made the big money for me. It was always my sitting.”

In fact, a Fidelity study commissioned years ago looked at its accounts to see if it could identify common traits among its most successful investors. What it found was remarkable.

The best-performing accounts belonged to investors who either were dead or had forgotten they had accounts.

Among the thousands of accounts that Fidelity looked at, the ones that just sat there – that weren’t touched – had the best results.

The biggest favor you can do for yourself as an investor is to put money into stocks and then do nothing (or very little) for as long as possible.

And if you want to leave a legacy for your children or grandchildren, do the same for them.

Can you imagine how you’ll be remembered if your grandchild has an account that you set up 40 years prior, and that money – which may not have been much when you funded it – can now help them buy a house, fund their child’s education, or even set up the next generation the way you did?

They say that in life, timing is everything.

But in the market, what’s more important is time. Regardless of how tough the markets might be, give yourself and your family the gift of time for your investments to grow.

The post How to Make Millions by Doing Nothing appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

It’s the kind of result everyone who’s ever been involved in a startup dreams of.

I’m happy for him. He’s worked incredibly hard over the past 10 years and spent a lot of time on the road away from his family.

But he could have done even better.

Let me explain.

When he started, he was given a small percentage of the company. But he also invested his own money in the business in order to hold a larger stake.

He invested $250,000 and will just about double his money.

However, had he simply put that money into the S&P 500, it would now be worth $723,750.

My buddy put a decent amount of his net worth into one new and speculative company. If he’d invested in the S&P, he’d be betting on hundreds of America’s best businesses.

Perhaps he wouldn’t have known to select Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVDA) as a stock to buy 10 years ago. But by owning the S&P 500, he would have had exposure to it as it became one of America’s hottest companies and stocks. He’d also have owned huge winners like Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY), Costco (Nasdaq: COST), and many others.

He would’ve experienced the power of compounding dividends as well. Over the last 10 years, dividend income was responsible for 23% of the market’s total return. That’s consistent with the 24% of the S&P 500’s average monthly total return that dividends have accounted for since 1957.

By betting $250,000 on that one company, he missed out on roughly 23% more returns by the simple fact that he wasn’t paid a dividend like he would’ve received from the broad index.

I see investors make similar mistakes all the time as they try to pick the right stocks. Sure, owning top-performing stocks can be lucrative (and I’ll admit that it’s fun owning individual stocks). For most people, however, owning a diversified group of index funds or ETFs is the best way to go.

Markets go up over the long term, and if you own the broad indexes, you’ll participate in those gains. But if your focus is too narrow, you have a good chance of missing out.

Make sure you’re receiving some dividends too. They will substantially boost your return over the long term, and they make bear markets easier to handle when they occur.

If my friend had asked me what I thought before he committed that cash a decade ago, he’d be sitting on about a quarter of a million dollars more – and he would’ve had a lot less stress about whether he was ever going to get his money out.

Investing doesn’t have to be complicated. Own the broad indexes and collect dividends. Over the long term, your returns will be strong and your stress will be lowered.

The post My Friend’s $250,000 Mistake appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

Bryan is one of the most accomplished traders I know, and I’m always interested to hear what he has to say about the market.

To learn more about the work Bryan and his team have been doing, check out their website.

– James Ogletree, Senior Managing Editor

Back in June 2025 – a Reddit user by the name of Nathan Smith posted an experiment.

He asked ChatGPT to pick U.S. microcap stocks (stocks with a market cap below $300 million) for him.

His goal?

“See how a language model performs in picking small, under-covered stocks with a $100 budget.”

Over the first four weeks of his experiment – the account reportedly generated 24-25% return on the $100.

A 24-25% return…

Sounds like a success, right?

Not so fast.

Soon after posting those results… Smith wrote: “I no longer can get chat to provide insights. I’m not sure what has changed but it is making up data and agent mode won’t work anymore.”

Oops.

It’s a good reminder that leaving investing decisions solely up to AI is a BAD idea… for a number of reasons…

Problem No. 1. It’s not hands-free

While ChatGPT generated the stock picks, the user still had to monitor the trades every step of the way.

He had to adjust if ChatGPT contradicted itself or recommended trades that were impossible.

He also had to impose his own stop losses and manually place the orders.

So although he was technically using ChatGPT to trade, it was more of an assistant than a “done-for-you” trading service.

Problem No. 2. He had no access to realtime data

ChatGPT can’t produce live price charts, track volume, see liquidity, or react fast enough to catalyst news.

It’s a language model… meaning it’s picking stocks based on text patterns from user data, not financial reality.

This sets it up for all sorts of false or outdated information that could lead to disastrous trades that crater your account.

Problem No. 3. It encourages the worst mindset

The idea that “AI will trade for me” is not a strategy.

Proper trading involves rules, discipline, pattern recognition, position sizing, risk control – and above all – patience.

Those are skills you can’t outsource to a language model.

You can only acquire them through getting in the trenches and learning how to trade using a proven system.

Problem No. 4. No long-term track record

Anyone can look smart with a small handful of winning trades over a short time period… in a rip-roaring bull market like we’ve had since April.

But could this ChatGPT trading model hold up during earnings season? A Fed meeting? A Black Swan event like COVID or the Housing Crisis?

YOUR ACTION PLAN

While this redditor experiment is a fun example of how a robot could trade for you, NO ONE should see it as a viable long-term trading strategy.

While AI agents like ChatGPT can help with stock research…

I’ll always favor using realtime data, risk management, and proper timing for long-term trading success.

But when you combine the research power of an AI agent with the expertise of an experienced trader… some real magic can happen.

At Monument Traders Alliance, we’re constantly using AI (the right way) to try to gain an edge for our readers.

Click here to learn more about our mission.

The post Can ChatGPT Really Make Winning Trades? appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

I told him I really liked Texas Instruments (Nasdaq: TXN). “The calculator company?!” he exclaimed. “Yes, the calculator company,” I replied, rolling my eyes.

I explained that while there are still calculators out there with Texas Instruments’ name on them, the company is one of the world’s leading semiconductor makers. And it pays a nice dividend.

He snored loudly, pretending to be asleep.

I then told him about Raytheon Technologies (NYSE: RTX). The government never gets tired of spending money on new toys for the military.

“C’mon, Marc… give me something exciting,” he demanded.

“Okay, how about Digital Realty Trust (NYSE: DLR)?”

I explained that this company is a real estate investment trust that rents out shelf space to household-name companies to place their servers. It generates a ton of cash and also pays a solid dividend.

“Booorrrring!!!” he cried.

Had he invested in those companies, he wouldn’t have thought they were boring at all. Texas Instruments became the second-biggest winner in the history of my monthly newsletter, The Oxford Income Letter, gaining over 450% in 10 years. I sold Digital Realty Trust in 2022 for a more than 220% gain in eight years. Raytheon, now called RTX, is still in the Oxford Income Letter portfolio and is up 792% since 2013.

But my friend wanted something tiny that could really move.

There’s a misperception in the market that low-priced stocks can move faster than high-priced stocks.

Tell that to anyone who bought Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVDA) at $400 or Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) for $300 two years ago. They’ll laugh in your face. Goldman Sachs has more than doubled to $760 since then, and Nvidia has more than quadrupled (it underwent a 10-for-1 stock split in 2024).

Still, there is something exciting about owning a lot of shares of a low-priced, very small company. And when tiny companies move, they can move fast.

Look at RedCloud Holdings (Nasdaq: RCT). It was trading between $1.40 and $1.70 in June of this year. But by July 1, it had tripled to $4.29.

PepGen (Nasdaq: PEPG) recently doubled – from below $2 to over $4 – in just a month.

And Dominari Holdings (Nasdaq: DOMH) skyrocketed nearly 13X, rising from $1 to $13, from mid-January to mid-February.

That’s the kind of action most people who get involved in microcap stocks are looking for.

And there’s nothing wrong with that as long as you know the risks and position size accordingly.

Many investors don’t know this, but you can also find microcaps that pay dividends.

For example, Kimbell Royalty Partners (NYSE: KRP) has a market cap of just $1.4 billion and yields almost 12%.

And $30 million market cap Crown Crafts (Nasdaq: CRWS) sports an 11% yield.

That brings me to another point: Microcaps don’t have to be startups that have recently gone public or are involved in Bitcoin or some other speculative technology.

Crown Crafts makes baby furniture and has been around for almost 70 years.

I tell investors that when creating a portfolio, they should diversify into various sectors, geographies, and market caps. There are times when large cap companies outperform and other times when small cap or microcap companies are better.

No doubt, my buddy was looking for one of those microcaps that are about to take off. Everybody is. And it’s okay to invest in these types of companies.

In fact, I recommend that investors include microcaps in their portfolios so they have exposure to these small companies that can double or triple in a short period of time in some cases and fly under the radar in others.

Just be sure you know why you’re buying a stock, and have an exit plan (like a stop) set up ahead of time. This ensures that you will sell if things change or grab profits when it’s time.

The post The Right Way to Own Small Cap Stocks appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

If you’ve been reading the recent headlines in the financial media, you might think the sky is falling:

“We will have a crash”

“Of course it’s a bubble”

‘Absolutely’ a market bubble: Wall Street sounds the alarm on AI-driven boom as investors go all in

Stocks have literally never been this expensive

But here at The Oxford Club, our strategists, researchers, and Members don’t just blindly follow the crowd. We stay grounded, think for ourselves, and come to our own conclusions.

That’s why we invited Chief Income Strategist Marc Lichtenfeld into The Oxford Clubroom on Thursday to share what he’s been seeing in the markets lately and break down some of the strategies and tools he uses on a daily basis.

Here’s just some of what he covered during the session:

• Why he’s not too worried about an AI bubble (despite all the fearmongers in the media)
• Some surprising data about buying at market highs and market lows
• The average length of bull markets and bear markets
• Why technical analysis can be so simple that a 5-year-old can understand it
• Three momentum indicators that reveal whether a stock is “overbought” or “oversold”
• His thoughts on the technology sector and how long the uptrend could continue
• A few sectors he’d avoid right now
• The chart pattern that has led to the strongest historical performance
• His latest thoughts on gold
• The one chart that EVERY investor should be paying attention to right now.

It’s not often that I include full Clubroom sessions in Wealthy Retirement, but since Marc covered so much ground, I thought it would be extremely useful to his readers.

To watch the full session, click the image above!

The post Are Stocks in a Bubble Right Now? appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

Today, Bryan answers one question that every investor is constantly wondering: “How can I decide which stocks to buy?”

To learn more about Bryan and his team’s mission at MTA, check out their website here.

– James Ogletree, Senior Managing Editor

One of the most common questions I get as a trader is…

“How do I know which company to trade?”

The truth is…

There are thousands of tickers out there, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed.

You’ve also got fear-based news headlines and social media hype hitting you on your smartphone and computer all day.

Overall, it can be difficult to know which strategies will actually lead to consistent gains.

But over my 20+ years as a trader, I’ve developed some tried-and-true methods for finding the best buy opportunities.

Here are 3 key factors I look for before trading a company.

Use these and watch your trading confidence skyrocket.

No. 1 – Notice the product in the real world

The first thing I look for when trading a stock is real world value.

For example, say I’m at a coffee shop, and I notice a lot of people wearing a certain kind of shoe.

That’s a strong buy signal because that company has demand.

This is especially true with women’s spending trends.

Women make up 70-85% of household purchases, so noticing what women are buying is one of my staple strategies for finding companies worth trading.

Start looking for these consumer trends and you’ll be ahead of 90% of other traders.

No. 2 – Look for an upcoming catalyst

A catalyst is a known date/event that could determine whether the market is bullish or bearish on a company.

These catalyst events include quarterly earnings reports, product launches, mergers, buyouts, ETF inclusion, and FDA approvals.

Before these events happen, you’ll often see traders buying, shorting or hedging a stock.

Then, the market digests the outcome and a stock either spikes or falls.

Keep in mind – this is not about guessing what’s going to happen to a stock ahead of earnings. However, when you’re aware of these events – you can position yourself in a way that increases your likelihood of a winning trade.

No. 3 – See if the company has strong institutional backing

Another factor I look for is institutional backing.

Institutional backing is when big players – mutual funds, hedge funds, pension funds – all put serious money behind a stock and hold it in size.

For example, before tech group Nvidia’s big run in 2023, it had whale funds like ARK Invest, Fidelity and BlackRock all with large positions.

This institutional capital acts as a liquidity base (price support) and a confidence signal for other funds.

Another term traders should get familiar with is “Supply burn.”

Supply burn is when the available float (shares that are available to trade) gets reduced or locked up.

For example, say company insiders use their own profits to buy shares of a company (also known as buybacks).

By doing this, they destroy the supply because the number of shares available to the public shrinks.

With low supply, this creates a squeeze effect where any catalyst (like earnings) could ignite major momentum.

Think of float like the kindling… and the catalyst is the spark that could light up a stock.

The post 3 Signals That a Stock Is a “Buy” appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

However, when the market falls, very few brave investors will put money to work.

Additionally, the odds of getting a better price than what you’d receive currently – regardless of when you’re reading this – are actually quite low. In fact, going back to 1928, if you wait for a bear market (a drop of 20% or more), you only have a 1-in-5 chance of obtaining a better entry point than the current price – no matter where that price level is.

This is an amazing statistic, because most people naturally think a bear market will provide a better opportunity.

Sometimes it does. The brief bear market during the early days of the pandemic provided a decent time to buy. At the very bottom in March 2020, prices were at their lowest point since December 2016 – nearly eight years after the bull market had started.

But how many people were buying stocks as the market was plummeting and the economy was shut down? Almost no one had the guts to buy at that time.

The most recent bear market ended in October 2022. At the low, you could have gotten a better price in the S&P than at any time after December 2020.

However, even if you possessed the nonexistent skill of market timing and waited to buy at the 2022 bear market low, that was still higher than the peak before the COVID crash and was roughly three times higher than where the S&P was in 2010.

Furthermore, even investors with the best intentions of buying low and selling high have a very hard time buying when stocks are falling. It’s too emotionally difficult. Sure, some folks are buy-the-dippers, but I’m not talking about a dip. I’m talking about a real correction or bear market. That’s a scary time to buy, and most people won’t do it until they believe things have stabilized.

At that point, the market is usually in raging bull mode.

Again, think back to the pandemic or the global financial crisis. Do you know anyone who was buying stocks in 2009? At that time, the economy was still a disaster. We were nowhere close to a recovery. Yet stocks bottomed and started their move higher. I know people who still have the emotional scars from the crisis and the terrible bear market that followed. As a result, they’re still scared to invest in stocks and have missed one of the great bull markets of all time.

Waiting for a better time to buy that may never come – or being scared to answer the door when opportunity knocks – could mean tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars of missed gains over time.

Invest at regular intervals regardless of what’s happening in the market – whether it’s a raging bull, growling bear, or anything in between. It may feel uncomfortable, but your future self will thank you for having discipline and not letting emotion get in the way of the most important element of investing success: the amount of time you are invested.

Remember, there’s an 80% chance you won’t get a better price in the future than what you see today.

The post The Problem With “Buy Low, Sell High” appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

Chief Income Strategist Marc Lichtenfeld is a huge fan of companies with strong and growing cash flow. Anyone who’s spent just a few minutes around him knows that.

If you think I’m exaggerating… think again.

Marc recently told me a story about a salesman coming to his house to sell a certain company’s products. When Marc heard the name of the company, he replied, “Oh, I’ve heard of it. Great company. Generates a ton of cash flow.”

(The salesman, of course, wasn’t sure how to respond.)

Last week, Marc sat down for an interview with our friends at MarketBeat to discuss why investors should pay much more attention to cash flow than earnings.

He also gave away the names and tickers of two potential diamonds in the rough to buy now and two “ticking time bomb” stocks to avoid:

• An established drugmaker whose free cash flow is projected to triple this year
• An under-the-radar way to get exposure to the AI space
• A household name (literally) that has been bleeding billions of dollars for the past decade
• A company that he says is “complete garbage” and whose earnings are “a joke”!

Click the image above to watch the full interview and get the details on all four stocks!

The post 2 Stocks to Buy That Are Swimming in Cash appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.