You Don’t Get a Trophy for Holding Forever

I bet you've heard it a thousand times: "Just buy great companies and hold them forever."

Sounds safe. Sounds smart. But is it really?

Check out the top 10 companies in the S&P 500 since 1985:

It’s a wake-up call

• 1985: IBM, XOM GE,

• 2005: GE, ExxonMobil, Citi

• 2024: AAPL, NVDA, MSFT

Notice anything?

Yesterday’s leaders didn’t vanish—they just lost their top spots.

IBM and ExxonMobil are still around. Still paying dividends. But their explosive growth is history.

Real wealth was created by investors who adapted—those who spotted new trends early and acted on them.

The Loyalty Trap

Holding a stock forever sounds cool. But loyalty doesn’t make you wealthy—adaptability does.

If you'd bought IBM in 1985 and held tight:

• You made modest gains.

• You earned steady dividends.

• I hope you sold covered calls

But you missed enormous opportunities:

• Microsoft’s incredible rise

• Amazon dominating e-commerce

• Nvidia powering AI

Why? Emotional attachment to yesterday's winners.

Successful investing isn’t ego—it’s balancing patience with agility.

The Winning Formula: Patience + Agility

Patience: Let compounding work for you. Stay consistently invested.

Agility: Adapt when leaders and industries shift.

Top investors adjust their portfolios, rethink positions, and capture new trends early.

My Playbook (Feel Free to Steal This Strategy)

You don’t need to predict the future perfectly—you need a flexible system.

That's why SPY is my largest holding:

• Constantly rebalances into new market leaders

• Moves away from declining giants

Here’s how I actively manage positions:

• Bought Google at IPO. I've been selling covered calls for over a decade.

• I sold half near the top last year.

• I sell covered calls on stocks like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Walmart to generate consistent monthly income (exactly what I teach in my free Covered Call Mini Course).

• Don't be afraid take profits—stocks aren’t trophies.

• Use put selling to strategically to re-enter positions (take my free Put Selling Mini Course, I give you my exact checklist)

Keep Your Investing Simple, Smart, and Effective

Forget complexity. Follow these straightforward rules:

• Core Holdings: An S&P 500 ETF should be your largest holding. Yeah it's super boring, but that's the point, let it rebalance automatically.

• Strategic Profit-Taking: Capture gains regularly. Use Moving Averages and Support and Resistance to determine where to buy and sell.

• Cash is a position: Have cash ready for opportunities, when others are afraid deploy your cash into stocks you like.

• Speculate: Look for exciting new companies, and put small amounts of your paycheck into these names on a REGULAR basis. Calculated bets in small names can create huge returns.

  
  

Today's giants won’t dominate forever. Tomorrow’s leaders are emerging now.

Stop treating stocks as permanent trophies. Build a portfolio that's built to adapt—even if that means embracing "boring" ETFs.

See you right here next week, much sooner in our free discord!

Happy Trading Good Kids!

-$Maxwell

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Remember I"m not a financial advisor, this is not investment or trading advice. This is educational content from someone who's been doing this a long time.