Meituan (3690.HK) owns one of the leading apps in China — mainly on‑demand food delivery, in‑store services and consumer reviews.

After achieving profitability in 2024, it was caught up in a food delivery war after the likes of Alibaba and JingDong (and also Douyin) decided they also wanted a piece of the food delivery market share — which was dominated by Meituan.

Last year the company took hit after hit, mainly because of Alibaba’s deep pockets and the ability to throw obscene amounts of money into that competition.

The result: the stock is down 47% since last 12 months.

From profitability to disaster, now you know the context. Let’s start with what matters: what’s gonna happen from now on and if a turnaround is likely (it is).

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UBER Technologies, is one of my favourite stocks and in this article I want to tackle how I see it and most importantly, what I see in it and what doesn’t matter.

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As of February 27, 2026, SoFi Technologies experienced a sharp decline of 7% with trading ended at $17.76 per share.

While the company recently reported strong Q4 2025 earnings, the drop is driven by a combination of sector-wide sentiment shifts and technical factors.

First, this was not a one-off thing: SoFi was caught in a wider “risk-off” move affecting the entire fintech and digital lending sector. Peers like LendingClub and Upstart had a rough day as well.

Even big banks like Goldman Sachs and Bank of America saw declines.

Now back to SoFi: look at these numbers.

Profit grew consistently every quarter, with Q4 profit being nearly 2.5x higher than Q1 profit. By the end of Q4 2025, SoFi officially reached 9 consecutive quarters of GAAP profitability.

In Q4, SoFi also achieved a “Rule of 40” score of 68% (combined revenue growth and EBITDA margin), which is exceptionally high for the fintech sector and explains why the stock rallied so hard before the recent February pullback.

Do these numbers look good? Yes.

But there’s more to the story.

While 2025 was a record year, management’s guidance for 2026 suggests a slight deceleration in growth compared to the hyper-growth seen last year, leading some institutional investors to trim their positions.

Let’s touch all these perspectives.

Insider activity, dilution

The market is still digesting the impact of recent capital moves. Recent filings showed minor but notable selling by board members (such as Director Steven Freiberg), which can dampen retail investor sentiment.

However, A bigger point of concern would be the $1.5 billion equity raise.

This massive equity raise actually stems from an underwritten public offering that was priced and executed in December 2025.

While the deal closed late last year, the market is still digesting the big influx of shares as SoFi moves through its first full quarter of 2026.

Here are the specific details of that raise and why it is affecting the stock price today:

Offering Amount: $1.5 billion in gross proceeds.

Share Count: Approximately 54.5 million new shares of common stock.

Offering Price: $27.50 per share (the stock is currently trading significantly below this level).

The deal was announced on December 4, 2025, and closed shortly after.

The reasons

CEO Anthony Noto described the move as “opportunistic”. Unlike a company raising money to survive, SoFi capitalized on its stock’s massive 2025 rally (where it nearly doubled in value) to strengthen its position like so:

• Enhancing Tangible Book Value: The move successfully boosted SoFi’s tangible book value by about $2 per share, bringing it to roughly $7.00 by the start of 2026.

  The funds are being used to fuel capital-light revenue streams, such as their technology platform (Galileo) and new crypto/remittance services.

• Lending Capacity: More equity allows the bank to hold more deposits and issue more loans without breaching regulatory capital ratios.

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Consequences

Adding 54 million shares to the float increases the supply. When the market turns bearish, this extra supply makes it harder for the price to recover.

Because the offering was priced at $27.50, investors who bought into that raise are currently crying in the bath.

This sudden 7% drop is likely triggering stop-losses for institutional funds that have been holding since December, leading to a cascade of selling.

It is worth noting that this was actually the second of two major raises. SoFi raised roughly $3.3 billion in total between July and December 2025. While this makes the company incredibly liquid and safe from a banking perspective, it has frustrated some retail investors who feel their ownership has been diluted too quickly.

However, based on the latest financial data and management’s update following the January 30, 2026 earnings call, the $1.5 billion equity raise has created a “tug-of-war” between dilution and profitability.

While the stock is dropping, the fundamental EPS projections for 2026 are actually higher than they were before the capital raise.

The bright side

Despite the roughly 5% to 6% dilution from the new shares, SoFi management officially guided for an adjusted EPS: $0.60 and a net Income around $825

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The MSCI Brazil ETF is going through a massive bull run. It went up almost 55% in the last twelve months against a mere 15% of the S&P500.

A lot of foreign investors are buying Brazil at the moment. Here’s some of the reasons:

1. The situation in the US: the money is flowing into Brazil and other emerging markets because investing in the US has become more expensive and less safe. With the Fed slowly cutting interest rates and the dollar losing value against most currencies it is becoming less and less interesting to invest in America. This money has to go somewhere and Brazil is one of the destinations.

2. The situation in Brazil: two major factors are driving up the stocks here. First, there will be elections in October and with it comes the hopes of a government change — from the current fiscal mess to a more market friendly one. Second and most importantly, the interest rate trade.

The interest rate trade

Brazil’s current interest rate is sitting at a whopping 15% since June of 2025 in hopes to control the inflation. However, such high rate stalls the economy and presses the stocks down.

Official data points to the target: the inflation is actually going down for some months. That signals to the market that 15% would be the peak and from now the rates will go down.

The market is already expecting that for a while and it does not wait for the actual rate to go down. This expectation is the primary factor for the stock market to have gone up so aggressively in the last 12 months. As a matter of fact it expects a cut already in the next COPOM (Monetary Policy Committee) meeting.

Make no mistake. Brazil is an emerging economy with historically high interest rates. It’s currently at 15% but no one really believes that it can go down below 10% in this cycle (well, it could even happen, who knows).

But even a small rate cut cycle gives space for more upside.

The bear case

“The Brazilian market has gone up way too much already. It’s time to sell and take profits.”

Here’s the chart for the Bovespa index (rather similar to EWZ) P/E ratio for the last 10 years. The average for the period is 11.5 times earnings and right now it’s at 13.5 times.

After several years it’s gone up a little bit above the average, at last.

Many analysts state that it reaching above the average mark is a sign that you should just sell and leave. Given the current fiscal situation in the country, it’s too risky to stay longer.

The bull case

Let’s try to look at the glass half full for a moment.

We’ve just crossed the average mark.

Consider this: for basically 5 years straight (from 2016 until 2021 — except during the COVID crash), the Brazilian market stayed way above its average P/E ratio.

On top of that, the interest rate will most likely go down now. The market sees it as a certainty at this point.

This shall reignite the economy. The businesses will be able to take loans at more modest rates to finance their growth. The people will spend more. The bonds will pay a smaller premium. All these create a favourable scenario for stocks.

A scenario that didn’t even begin.

One of my favourite investors, Stanley Druckenmiller, believes in that.

In his last 13F portfolio update (Dec 2025) he revealed a new bet in Brazil.

How I’m positioned and what I’m doing with my own money

I have a relevant long position in Brazil which is helping me to have returns above the S&P 500 for more than a year — 26.9% against 16% of the index in the last 12 months.

I’ve been able to surf this upside so far. However, I think we’ve come to a crucial point, so right now I’m tweaking my position a little bit.

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It’s time to find out how my portfolio performed in January, the transactions I made and how I’m positioned for the future.

In January, my portfolio went up 6.3% against 1.3% of the s&p. Not too bad.

Asset allocation

For those who don’t know, I divide my portfolio into 5 different asset classes. On the last day of January, my money was distributed like so:

itm cc: selling in-the-money covered calls is the method I use to generate recurring income in the stock market. It usually yields much more than bonds here in Brazil, and it doesn’t generate taxes cause I’m accumulating accounting losses through the current bull market in Brazil.

long Brazil: allocation in Brazilian companies on the B3 stock exchange.

long US: allocation in American companies on the NYSE and Nasdaq (and some BDRs as well).

long China: allocation in Chinese companies on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

store of value: currently gold (tokenized, self-custody), bitcoin (self-custody), and silver.

Transactions and trades

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So yeah we have a bitcoin bear market for many reasons I won’t mention here, basically because I don’t understand all of them and secondly because I genuinely don’t care.

What I care is that I, as a fellow with little capital, might have the chance to buy a relevant amount of bitcoin now.

Without leveraging, without borrowing money. What I need is just 2 things:

1. the little capital I have

2. stomach

The strategy

I like simple strategies that are very well executed, and this is just one more.

What I’m doing is a simple DCA. I’ve already decided how much capital I’ll deploy. The uglier the bear market becomes, the more money I’ll spend. I’m ready for the bitcoin price to drop until $4,000 per coin. Bring it, baby.

The risk: if bitcoin goes to zero, I’ll lose money, but I won’t be bankrupt. That’s my worst case scenario and I’m OK with it. Scared money doesn’t make money, after all.

First things first, apologies for the figures you see below. This is at the time I’m writing this post, it might be completely different to when you read it. High vol stuff, there’s nothing I can do about it.

Secondly, I’m buying it in Brazilian Real (R$). So below there’s the current exchange rate, which also fluctuates.

I’m buying more satoshis every time the price of bitcoin drops $5,000 from $79,000 down to 4 grand (if it happens).

Let’s understand the spreadsheet:

Price ($): the price of 1 bitcoin when I make a purchase.

Price (R$): the exchange rate from US dollar do Brazilian real.

Cash (R$): how much cash I spend buying btc.

Cash ($): the equivalent of that cash in US dollar.

BTC: the amount of bitcoin purchased.

Increase: every $10,000 drop in the bitcoin price, I apply this increase (66%) to my amount to be deployed. So if the price drops from $69K to $59K, it means I’ll use 66% more money to buy. That continues down until $4,000 per coin.

At the end, in case the price of bitcoin drops down to this level — which most don’t believe, but it’s a possibility — I will have bought 0,96 bitcoin for $9799.64. That is equivalent of $10,166 per coin.

Let’s see what the future holds.

Duolingo is a very popular stock today.

Some people think it’s going to be disrupted by AI.

On the other hand, some investors claim that AI will help Duolingo widen its moat instead of hinder it.

Both are right. But the first group is more right — not for the reasons they think.

AI as a tool for language learning is definitely not a foe. Duolingo is using it in is favour, masterfully.

The problem is that language learning is not Duolingo’s Achilles tendon.

Translation is.

AI might enable us to learn a language faster. That doesn’t matter.

The point is: AI will eliminate the need to know any other language in the first place.

It will translate everything you say immediate and seamlessly, to any language.

Have you seen those forum talks between heads of State where they have a translator that translates what they say in real time?

AI will do that better, very soon.

And this is not one of those super dystopic predictions like:

“oh, an AI attached to a 3D printer will create me a car in 5 seconds so I won’t even have to buy one — all car manufacturers will go out of business”.

No, this right here is very easy and achievable. There is way more computational capacity than enough for AI to pull that off today.

The only thing that needs to be figured out here is the economics of scale.

Bottom line

No one might be able to compete with Duolingo in terms of language learning. Yeah, maybe. Possibly…

But Duolingo is no match for an eventual AI immediate and seamless translation device that you’ll buy online for nothing, soon.

I’m out.

Last year I’ve managed to beat the market by a substantial margin and I have intentions to keep it that way.

In this post I invite you to have a look at yet another one of the strategies I use in the stock market.

This one is more conservative, less aggressive. It’s more about consistency and long term.

If you’re not familiar with how I invest my money, I can say that the backbone of my strategy is asset allocation. I determine a certain (but dynamic) about of money that I want to have deployed into different asset classes.

To make sure my portfolio grows in the long term I have to make sure I deploy some cash into it.

You can have a look on how my updated equity portfolio looks like here.

Here’s where things get a bit conflicted

At the same time that I love valuation and stock picking (so I don’t tend to buy stuff that I consider overvalued) I know that I might have wrong assumptions about price every once in a while. On top of that, I also have no idea of how the market will behave in the future.

Because of these reasons I allocate an amount of money into my portfolio every month regardless of if I think there’s an amazing opportunity or not. This money is basically what I’ve made in the stock market the previous month minus the money I need to live. Yes, I live off of my stock market performance.

First things first

To decide where my money goes, first I have to look at how my portfolio stands, and then invest considering, in this order:

1. asset allocation;

2. opportunity;

3. price.

My long allocations are Brazil (BRA), United States (USA), China (CHI) and store of value (STV). For this strategy I focus solely on those.

Notice that at the moment they are roughly the same size, which is my intention. With that being said, the asset allocation goal has been met, which means I can look further into opportunity and price.

Reinvesting the money (actual figures)

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One of the strategies I use to generate consistent income off the stock market is selling in-the-money covered calls. I own some underlying assets specifically for that purpose.

In this cycle I’ve managed to pull a staggering 2.80% monthly gain.

The goal is simple: beat the Brazilian bonds that pay 100% of the country’s interest rate, at the moment at an obscene 15%/y.

If you want to know how this strategy works, click here.

This month however, I attempted something a little different. I’ve put up with more risk in order to grab a higher alpha. It worked.

Here’s the payoff chart for the strategy executed normally:

Notice that the profit line is flat and the reason is simple: you get a nice fee (extrinsic value) even if the stock drops down to the strike price, so that gives you some security. However it’s a trade off: you will miss any eventual upside.

In Brazil we’re having a strong bull market at the moment, so missing that potential upside was kind of hard to watch, even though the strategy is working and I am making money.

So I’ve found a way to keep in the strategy but at the same time being exposed to the upside.

In order to do that here’s what I’ve changed:

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The year’s a wrap and now it’s time to analyse what happened with my money in 2025.

I talk a lot of shit about investments here in my newsletter and even started some paywalls now in 2026. But can that be justified with an “above average performance”?

Well, looks like it can.

For 2025 I can say I’m part of the exclusive group that beat the market, at the same time that countless professional hedge fund managers couldn’t. So that’s cool. Up 25.3% against 17.3% of the S&P500.

Not trying to brag here, as a matter of fact I’m rather disappointed. Too many hours for just 800 bps above the index, that’s really low if you ask me.

That means some things need to change. For the better, preferably.

Asset allocation

As of Jan 1st, 2026, my portfolio looked like this:

In-the-money covered calls (ITM CC): that’s the portion of underlying stocks I use to sell covered calls from. That is a somewhat steady income I make with some control of the downside risk. I write about this strategy’s performance monthly and you can read about it here.

Current size: 20.88%. Target: I’m fine with 20% at the moment.

Long Brazil (BRA): my allocation in Brazilian assets, mainly in B3 (the stock exchange of Brazil).

Current size: 13.39%, target: 15-25%.

Long United States (USA): my allocation in US assets.

Current size: 10.92%, target: 15-25%.

Long China (CHI): my allocation in Chinese equities, mainly in the SEHK (stock exchange of Hong Kong).

Current size: 10.92%, target: 15-25%. Coincidentally, exactly the same size as the US allocation (2 places after the decimal point!) at the moment. Target: 15%-25%.

Store of value (STV): bitcoin, gold, silver and whatever else I might have.

Current size: 11.33%. Target: 8-15%.

Cash (CASH): it speaks for itself. Divided into 2 Brazilian bond ETFs that make roughly 1% per month in BRL after tax at the moment (should drop during the year). It is used as collateral to trade options (aside from the ITM CC).

Last but not least: financial power for when (not if) the market crashes. I believe we’re very close to that moment.

Current size: 32.56%. Target: 5-10%.

In the previous Sheetshow instalments I was not adding the cash position to the pie chart. That’s because cash is not an investment. But I’m adding it now because… well, I forgot the reason at the moment, but I guess it doesn’t matter. I’ve just decided so.

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Let’s take a look about the movements in the portfolio during the month of December 2025.

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Hello. In 2025 I beat the market.

Roughly +30% against +17% of the sp500.

I see some of my fellow Substackers doing the same at the beginning of their posts, so I thought I would as well.

With that out of the way, let’s dive in.

I think this post is useful basically because both of these strategies seem very interesting to me.

Should you just find that amazing company and keep buying more shares as soon as you have any cash from your pay check or you should patiently wait to load big when the opportunity presents itself?

I’ll share my thoughts here, which should address the same doubts that you, who’s reading this, might have. After all, we’re all trying to do the same in the stock market: beat the index and make money.

Dollar cost averaging

The biggest advantage of that strategy is simplicity. Choose a stock, hopefully analyse what the heck is going on with the underlying business (due diligence), separate a designated cash amount periodically (monthly for most) and invest. If the stock goes up, buy. If it goes down, buy. If if goes sideways, buy.

If you choose well, in the long term you’ll have a big amount of shares of a great business for a good av cost/share.

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Buying the dip

Of course, if you only buy the dips, your returns will be higher on the long run. The problem is: you don’t know when the dip dips. No one does.

There’s no such thing as buying the dip, as the dip only shows up in the past. What you can do is buying the “falling knife” only.

Here’s the sp500 2025 dip now that we know where is the dip.

Here’s the sp500 2025 dip when you don’t know the future:

Looking at this graph, which is what you have at the time the market is falling and you have no clue about the future, it makes it a little more difficult to invest, make decisions and so forth. Are you ready to pull the trigger when the market looks like that?

To buy the dip or, more realistically, buy the falling knife, your valuation must be on point. You have to constantly re-calculate your projected alpha based on your assumptions and see if you’re making a good deal buying a certain stock at the current levels, without knowing if it will rebound or keep falling after that.

The amount of cash you have might also be an issue. To take advantage you must load accordingly. To load accordingly you might need money you don’t have if you’re not prepared.

Bottom line

Buying the dip is way more profitable but it’s way more difficult. It requires planning, valuation and more money. To have all that in a strategic manner you need time to plan. And time is worth more than money.

I like doing valuations so I prefer to know how much I’m paying for a business’ profit and/or cashflows. That requires all that work I previously mentioned. However, it doesn’t mean I don’t do DCAs for other assets I might have (less volatile, dividend focused, squeezed valuations constantly, etc).

For example: I own some and I don’t do DCA in UBER. For me buying UBER at any price is nonsense for a number of reasons, including volatility and knowing how much the business is worth. If I know that I need a margin of safety. Without one, I don’t make money.

However, I have a real estate fund in Brazil, GRUL11 (read about it here) which I DCA. Low volatility, monthly dividends, stressed valuation. I’ll just keep adding monthly, cause it doesn’t make sense to wait for a dip that might not occur. Make no mistake, if it does I’ll deploy cash accordingly. Until then, I just re-invest the dividends without paying much attention to price, and that’s fine.

At the end of the day, you can adjust which strategy is better depending of the characteristics of the underlying asset, and what you want from it.

I think it’s very important to know why the heck you invest in a certain asset. So this is an exercise to go back to the basics and do a quick analysis — with valid points hopefully — on the reasoning behind investing my money in these assets.

In financial literature, it is believed that the value of a company can be measured by its capacity to generate cash from now into the future. You do a discounted cash flow and find out how much is the company worth today. That is absolutely true.

However, in my list you’ll notice that some names, at the moment, are burning cash instead.

That is because I believe capacity to generate cash is not the only thing that has value in an asset at a given time. It is the end goal, probably. However, I try to look a bit further, for example what are the qualities an asset has today that will eventually transform it into a true money printer.

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If you’re familiar to my newsletter you know that I have long only allocations in 3 countries. Brazil, China and United States. We’ll go through all my assets in these countries.

Here’s the full list of my positions as of end of 2025 (long only, excluding bonds), why I invest in them and how much do I think they’re worth (target price for 1/1/2030). Remember, I may be completely wrong (and chances are I am).

Current prices as of 12/26/2025.

Brazil

Klabin (b3: klbn3, otc: klbay): the largest paper producer and exporter in Brazil with verticalized operations. Valuations squeezed by low kraft pulp prices (cyclical). High FCF yield nonetheless.

Current price: BRL 23.3 billion — cheap.

Target: BRL 45 billion. CAGR: 17.8%.

Wiz Co (b3: wizc3): insurance brokerage firm that has been restructuring and diversifying its operations in the past 3 years. Valuation squeezed by BR interest rates, with relevant upside potential (already +64% in 2025).

Current price: BRL 1.46 billion — moderately cheap.

Target: BRL 2.5 billion. CAGR: 14.4%.

Marcopolo (b3: pomo3): Brazilian bus manufacturer, with good margins and dividends. Intl operations in many countries. Valuation also squeezed by BR interest rates, with big upside potential if interest rates will be cut.

Current price: BRL 7.37 billion — moderately cheap.

Target: BRL 12 billion. CAGR: 13%.

Icatu Vanguarda GRU logístico (b3: grul11): exchange-traded investment fund (more or less like a REIT in Brazil) that has the rights to explore the logistics warehouses at Sao Paulo Intl Airport (GRU) until 2062. Unique asset, irreplicable, pays monthly dividends.

Current price: BRL 212 million — fair.

Target: BRL 290 million. CAGR: 8.15% (ex-dividend).

AF invest CRI (b3: afhi11): this is another exchange-traded investment fund that holds debt that finance several real estate projects and pays monthly dividends. Excellent asset but at the moment I’m considering whether or not to divest.

Current price: BRL 435 million — moderately expensive.

Target: BRL 450 million. CAGR: 0.34% (ex-dividend).

Kinea Credito Agro (b3: knca11): another exchange-traded investment fund, it holds agroindustry real estate debt. I’m in the process of getting rid of this one as well.

Current price: BRL 2.1 billion — moderately expensive.

Target: BRL 2.3 billion. CAGR: 2.29% (ex-dividend).

China

Xiaomi Group (sehk: 1810, otc: xiacy): multinational tech company from Beijing,

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It’s 2026 and I have all intentions to obliterate the market. This year, I just beat it, but I want to widen my gap between the index and my performance. To the upside, obviously.

Here’s some of the investment strategies and philosophies I’ll use for the next year. I’m already implementing all of them, but improvements must be done.

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The backbone: asset allocation

I define a specific percentage for each asset class in my portfolio. Specific is a strong word, let’s say dynamic.

At the moment, the division is more or less like so:

• 20% underlying assets to sell ITM covered calls

• 15% long Brazil

• 11% long China

• 11% long USA

• 11% store of value

• 32% cash (margin, bonds).

These percentages are not static. As for the countries, I’ll cap the allocation so the percentage long in one country can’t be bigger than that of the other two combined, at any time. This gives me some flexibility to operate in favor of opportunities, eventually allocating more capital in a stock if I see reasonable, regardless of its geography.

ITM CC

As previously stated, I dedicate a good chunk of money to sell in-the-money covered calls. The goal is to generate me a monthly income, higher than what bonds in Brazil tied to the country’s interest rate would pay. More about that here.

Value investing

The bread and butter of my investment logics. Buying quality stuff for less than they’re worth and eventually sell for more. Yeah, I normally don’t get married to stocks, but when I buy I’m prepared to stay with them for as long as necessary.

Options

Apart from the ITM CC, I venture myself in other options strategies for that extra spice (or spike, hopefully) in my performance. Or at least that’s the intention, as sometimes things don’t go as planned.

I’ll keep trying assembling some ratio and vertical spreads, mostly in the Brazilian index.

What I did right in 2025

I’m pretty satisfied with my asset allocation this year. Most stocks went up and the ones that didn’t I’m still hopeful will in the future. I almost didn’t make any mistakes on this matter.

The only problem though was my constant lack of conviction. I lack conviction to park more money when I see an opportunity. If I’d bought the same assets but just invested more capital, my performance would’ve been way better, to the point of actually changing my financial status into a new level.

As for the ITM CCs, it went pretty good as well. As of end of 2025, I’m getting an average of 1,92% per month in profits with it.

What I did wrong in 2025

If I almost didn’t make any mistake when buying shit, I certainly did when selling. Some Brazilian positions I sold partly or wholly went up very aggressively. I would’ve done better by simply doing nothing with those.

My biggest fault, by far

The amount of equities in my portfolio annoys me at the moment. With around 25, this is not a respectable number. It’s more like a mess, really. Ideally I would like to have a maximum of 10. To be honest, not more than 5 in total would be great, even though I consider this number unrealistic.

I firmly believe that having a lot of stuff in your portfolio is counter-intuitive. It’s a remain of a bad human bias. You leave a lot of money on the table at the same time that you’re probably not “protected” against non-systemic risks—just because you’re diversified.

Diversification is an art. It has to be strategic and coherent. Otherwise it’s just throwing money down the toilet.

I’m up a respectable 26% YTD as I write this. The problem is, I don’t have much money, so that performance won’t make much difference to me. I would need something like 5x that, or 125%. And I won’t get that with 25 stocks in the portfolio. To make matters worse (or better?), I firmly believe that this rentability is totally possible. You just have to be really good at this game.

At last and as previously stated, in terms of options trading I’ve gotten some scratches with some strategies that didn’t perform well. Well, that’s actually an euphemism. I got beat up and tossed around like an old, useless rag quite frequently in 2025. But I’ll insist. Whether that’s a good or a stupid idea, time will tell.

Happy 26

One of the strategies I use to generate me monthly income is to sell ITM covered calls. That flattens a bit the volatility of the underlying assets at the same time that I collect some extrinsic value.

The main goal with this strategy is to beat the Brazilian bonds that give you 100% of the country’s interest rate, which is at an obscene 15% per year at the moment. That translates into roughly 1% per month after tax1.

So the intention is to beat that primarily collecting extrinsic value.

Briefly, the strategy provides me a monthly fee even if the stock falls. Above the ITM strike, I get the max fee (extrinsic value) at the same time that I’m hedged to the downside until the breakeven point.

Results

I’m using 3 underlying assets for this strategy.

Vale (VALE3), Itaú (ITUB4) and Btg Pactual (BPAC11). The first two are also traded in the US via ADRs — . The 3rd one is a Brazilian bank, not traded in the US.

The options’ expirations occur on the 3rd Friday of the month, so roughly between the 15th and the 20th. This month, I rolled the 3 call options between the 8th and the 11th of December, and compared to the monthly appreciation of the CDI (Brazilian bond paying 100% of the interest rate, roughly speaking).

The series ending mid December ended with a 7,67% capital appreciation since the beginning, an average of 1,92% gain per month so far.

CDI -IR indicates how much I would’ve made by simply parking the money in a 100% interest rate bond, minus tax. That would’ve given me 4% since August, or exactly 1% per month.

Here it’s evident that the strategy is working, since I’m getting almost double that selling ITM covered calls.

This strategy is one of the simplest you can do with options. If you want to understand it in detail, I explained how it works in this post.

I’m talking about Chipotle which is basically nosediving in 2025:

On the day I’m writing this article the stock is down 43% YTD, against a positive 16% of the SP500.

I’ll be honest. I don’t like Chipotle’s food. Actually, I don’t like Mexican food at all.

However, the company’s performance in the last decade has been amazing, so I’m trying to be pragmatic here. I don’t like the food but apparently Americans do, and Americans have money—until further notice.

What is wrong with Chipotle

Chipotle is facing macroeconomic and economy-related headwinds primarily because its core younger and lower-earning customer base is pulling back on discretionary spending. These customers (specifically the 25- to 35-year-old age group and those earning under $100,000) are experiencing significant financial pressures.

The main factors contributing to this trend include:

• Unemployment: Higher rates of unemployment among this demographic.

• Student Loans: The burden of increased student loan repayments.

• Stagnant Wages: Real wage growth has been slow and has not kept pace with inflation.

• Inflation: General cost inflation is rising for the company (e.g., beef, labor, tariffs), which can make menu price hikes difficult without losing customers.

As a result, these customers are opting to eat out less frequently, choosing instead to save money by buying groceries and preparing food at home. This has led to slumping sales and flat same-store sales for Chipotle, a trend also seen by other fast-casual chains.

There’s also a lot of negative press from consumers themselves, pointing that the size of the burritos change dramatically depending on if you order them in person or online. And when your customers at talking shit about you, you should pay attention.

Earnings 3Q2025

On the other hand, the most recently earnings showed a not too bad performance, even though the company is definitely not showing great numbers. Here’s the main takeaways:

Total revenue increased 7.5% to $3.0 billion.

Comparable restaurant sales increased 0.3%, driven by a 1.1% increase in average check, but partially offset by lower transactions of 0.8%.

Diluted earnings per share was $0.29, a 3.6% increase from the prior year.

Operating margin was 15.9%, a decrease from 16.9%.

Restaurant level operating margin was 24.5%, a decrease from 25.5%.

Net income for the quarter was $382.1 million.

Margins are lower but just a little bit. I don’t find these alarming.

The company continues to be profitable and generate cash. Free cash flow for the months ended in Sep. 2025 was $406 Mil. Free cash flow (TTM) ended in Sep. 2025 was $1,573 Mil.

Bottom line

I don’t like the food. There’s concerns about their main customer base. Negative press from the customers themselves. No wonder the stock is down 43% YTD.

However, Chipotle’s latest earnings results showed a company that keeps a decent balance sheet and keeps printing money.

What do I see if I combine all these info? I see a buy.

On November 21st, I started a small position in the stock, buying 32 shares for $31.50 each.

The headwinds look rather strong, but I myself don’t see a catastrophe that justifies a 43% decline in the stock just yet. Time will tell if I’m right or wrong.

Previous portfolio updates:

Sheetshow ep#4

Sheetshow ep#3

Here’s another month of me publicly sharing what I’m doing with my money in the stock market. Let’s dive into some of what I’ve done in this month and why.

If you’re new to my newsletter, I divide my investment portfolio allocation in 5 distinct pieces. The first is the underlying securities I use to sell ITM covered calls to generate me a monthly income (ITM CC).

Secondly, my long positions in Brazil (BRA). Then long USA (USA) and long China (CHI). Lastly, my allocation that is not tied to any specific geography, which I call “stateless” (STL).

Ending November 2025, my portfolio allocation looked like this:

Underlying stocks for ITM covered calls (ITM CC): 32.71%

Long Brazil (BRA): 22.65%

Long USA (USA): 15.74%

Long China (CHI): 14.84%

Stateless (STL): 14.05%

I’ve been determining a “fixed” allocation for each of those asset classes, but I’m considering going a little more flexible from now on. Also, for next year I will consider the money “parked” in fixed income vehicles that I use to give me margin to trade options as well into the pie chart.

3 new stocks

I’ve added 3 new positions this month. One in Brazil, one in the US and one in China.

In Brazil my new position is Klabin (B3: KLBN3) traded in the US as $KLBAY. This is the country’s biggest paper exporter and producer. If you want to know more about it and some of the reasons why I added it, I wrote a post about it recently and you can read it here.

In the US I added Chipotle , a stock which the market has been beating down this year. Maybe I’ll write a post about it as well.

In China I added Xiaomi (SEHK: 1810), traded in the US as $XIACY, one of the most prominent tech companies in China. The stock took a considerable dive recently. I understood it as a good entry point so I added it to my portfolio.

Those a new and therefore very small allocations, as I never tend to put a big amount of money when opening new positions. Let’s see how they behave and I’m ready to add more if the opportunity arises.

One stock gone

On the other hand I ended up getting rid of Sofi Technologies as I don’t want to be too exposed to US tech at the moment, considering I already have 2 American tech names in my portfolio. Great company, but a bit too overvalued in my opinion. Will consider reinvesting if the price drops.

Moreover, I also added to my existing Nio Inc (China) and Uber (USA) positions, and cut a bit of Marcopolo and Wiz Co (both Brazil).

Portfolio performance

As of last day of November, my portfolio is up 27% YTD, against 16,4% of the S&P500.

One of the strategies I use to generate monthly income in the stock market is selling ITM covered calls.

Briefly the strategy provides me a monthly fee even if the stock falls. Above the ITM strike, I get the max fee (extrinsic value) at the same time that I’m hedged to the downside until the breakeven point.

The goal here is to beat bonds issued by banks in Brazil that pay 100% of the country’s interest rate, currently at an obscene 15% per year. These bonds are paying roughly 1% per month after tax1 and they’re considered one of the safest places to park your money in the country.

I’m considering after tax because options trading are also subject to taxation, which are included in the calculation as well.

I’m using 3 stocks to do that:

Vale (VALE3), Itaú (ITUB4) and Btg Pactual (BPAC11). The first two are also traded in the US via ADRs — . The 3rd one is a Brazilian bank, not traded in the US.

So far the strategy is working well:

ITM CC is the strategy itself: it has gone up 5.60% since inception, an average of 1.87% per month.

CDI would be the bonds that pay 100% of Brazil’s interest rate, before tax.

CDI AF is what these bonds pay after tax, my benchmark. It came at 3,01% as of end of November, an average of 1.00% per month.

As of now I’m 87% over the benchmark, which is a good performance.

I still want to push it for a 2% per month rate. Let’s see what happens in the coming months.

So in November I first wrote here about yet another options strategy to generate monthly income, which was a ratio spread on the iShares Brazilian index BOVA11 — similar to but traded in Brazil.

I started buying 1,000 K34 (strike 145) and selling 2,000 K35 (strike 147). The results, after some desperate adjustments ended in a loss of $2,011.1

First thing: massive bull market in Brazil. Second: I didn’t know that the fuck I was doing (maybe still don’t).

Adjustment: let’s decrease the sizes first and foremost. After closing the previous mess, I assembled this, still for November:

Turned a loss, again. But this time, $24. Then tried yet another one, now for December. Got me beaten up as well:

I closed it today, losing $99 and immediately opened yet another, still for December.

What I’ve learned so far

Nothing, I’m fucking losing money ain’t I.

Apart from that, instead of selling double the calls, I’m selling only 50% more, on a 1 to 1,5 ratio. What’s more, I’m pushing as much as I can but will stop if I see I’m starting to flirt with losses.

What I want for now is to remain in the game, with minimal losses until I get one of those right. Need some more months on this to do a good evaluation. And obviously will keep posting about that here.

There’s a lot of financial gurus on the internet telling about the marvels of investing for the long run. This is kind of a worldwide mantra.

Well, because it makes sense.

The multi-bagger investors that invest for the long run are some of my idols too. Think Munger, Pabrai, Lynch.

In Brazil some of these internet financial advisors sell online courses teaching you how to make money in the long term. Dividends, value investing, portfolio diversification…

Average returns for a very long time.

Just make 10% a year and you won’t believe the amount of money you’ll have after decades.

All these things are true. It is possible to become wealthy like this, relatively easy. You just have to be very patient.

I also allocate my “retirement money” into the stock market. I also want to have a comfortable life when I’m old.

But for me the stock market is more than that. Actually much more.

Image you’ve acquired a Ferrari. But then you only admire it from the garage. You contemplate how beautiful the design is, etc. And nothing more.

The stock market has the ability to make people earn money in the long term and in the short term. Ignoring its short term potential is like having a Ferrari and only admire it, instead of admiring and driving it.

I don’t want to sound desperate or arrogant. This is just what I believe: the stock market is the most incredible vehicle to make a person change their financial status, even in the short or mid term.

I don’t want to be rich when I’m old. That is the title of this post and obviously a little clickbaitish. Let me rephrase it:

I don’t want to wait to be old to become rich.

The reason is not arrogance. It’s actually simpler than you think.

When we try to measure a person’s wealth, we go straight for their nominal amount of currency (or equity measured in currency) they own. Well that’s inaccurate.

If you ask a billionaire in their 70’s if they were willing to give all their money in exchange to be 18 years old again and broke, they would probably say “yes” without hesitation.

That’s because billionaires understand wealth and thus understand that time has more value than money. It is a measure of wealth as direct as nominal value of currency.

Of course, it takes risk and a lot of study to make money in the stock market in the short/mid term, amongst other behavioural qualities. I won’t extend myself into that this time, but I’ll write about it soon. Anyway, I believe it’s possible.

I aim for at least 18% CAGR or 500 bps above the S&P500 every single year, whichever is higher. This is not purely a numbers game, rather, could be an indicator that I’m on the right track even in the short term.

After almost 6 years since I started, knowing absolutely nothing, I think I’m ready to beat this numbers.

At the moment I’m sitting at a 26% return in 2025 (against 12,5% of the index) if I’m not mistaken. So far, so good. But honestly, it could be better.

In conclusion, I don’t think those goals are impossible, even if we have market crashes. To be honest, I believe we will have a big one soon, comparable not to 2008, but to 1929. But that’s a story for another day.

It’s rather common not to feel that slight inner disgust when you’re on the red. Bought something you deemed to be a good deal and suddenly, it’s not. It cost $100, it dropped to $70 and you bought it. But now it’s $50 and you mentally punish yourself because you’ve obviously made a bad deal.

Or have you?

It depends. Of course you can’t control what the market thinks that stock is worth. And the market has the last word. Whether or not it is correct or efficient, it doesn’t matter. What is available for buying, selling or trading is what you see on the screen, not what you think or what you want.

Now let’s dive into the nicer part: what you can control.

You know what price you paid for that stock. But do you know why did you agree that price was a good deal? This is the question you have to ask yourself.

If your answer is “because it dropped a lot” well, you can stop reading this article. And I have bad news for you, which I’ll reserve the right not to mention.

You see, when you by a stock, the moment you click “submit order” in your brokerage account you are agreeing that that price is a good deal.

But why?

When I buy a stock what I’m doing is hiring a profitability stream I predicted for the future, based on my assumptions of that company and the price I paid for it. This equation leads to a stream of profit or cash flow or dividends or whatever I decided had a certain value at the moment of purchase for that price.

I’ll give you a real example with an actual stock I bought yesterday.

The stock was trading around its $90-100ish per share for the past couple of months. It’s a stock I already had. What I had also was a DCF model for it. And my DCF model told me that below $80 I had a very good margin of safety, tens of dollars away from what I think this stock is worth.

So I took it. I hired the profitability I predicted based on my model (that is rather conservative I would say) by buying the stock a bit above $80.

This is locked. This is done. And I think that this profitability I hired is a good one.

In a week I might open Yahoo Finance and I maybe I’ll see the stock dropping further to $70/share or less.

I don’t give a sh"*t. I’d made a good deal based of my assumptions — considering they didn’t change, obviously.

Now with the stock at $70/share, I can only see the opportunity to hire an even better deal than that, which I can take or not.

Bottom line

You can’t control what the market decides a certain stock is worth on a given day. What you can control is only how cheap or expensive it is based on your understanding of the company behind that stock.

You have to know the intrinsic value of it. Why are you buying it? Why are you not buying it? Why do you think that that price is a good deal? Or a terrible deal? Only then you’ll feel comfortable with the short term market volatility and know the exact time to take action, disregarding what will happen next.