My New Way of Selecting Stocks in Year 2026
I have many stocks in my watchlist. Too many. So many, in fact, that watching them feels like trying to follow a hundred toddlers on a sugar high—prices ticking up and down every second, each one screaming, “Look at me! No, look at me!”
Inevitably, when I finally buy a stock, the price immediately goes down. And when I sell? That same stock suddenly remembers it’s supposed to go up. Every. Single. Time.
By the end of 2025, I finally accepted an uncomfortable truth: the stock market has a strange emotional connection to me, and that connection is mostly revenge.
Despite this, I like to think I’ve been investing responsibly. My usual method is very sensible. I look at the current price relative to the 52-week range and historical range. I check the company’s financial strength. I look at dividend yield. I do my homework. I make spreadsheets. I convince myself that this time will be different.
And then my portfolio underperforms anyway.
After watching this pattern repeat itself enough times to qualify as a personality trait, I realized that in 2026, I need a new strategy. Clearly, logic alone was not enough.
So here it is.
I will take my massive watchlist and split it into two equal halves.
One will be called The Lucky Half.
The other will be called The Unlucky Half.
I will completely ignore the Unlucky Half. I won’t analyze it. I won’t track prices. I won’t even accidentally scroll past it. I won’t even emotionally acknowledge its existence. It’s like a terrible ex—you don’t even need closure. Because no one wants unlucky stocks. If my past experience has taught me anything, it’s that attention itself might be the curse. Those stocks have already disappointed me in the future, and I’m choosing peace.
The Lucky Half, however, will get my full attention. This is where I will apply my usual analysis. For these stocks, I will carefully look at the current price relative to the 52-week range and historical range. I will examine financial strength. I will evaluate dividend yield.
The difference is that now, I’m only doing all this work on half the stocks.
At the very least, this new system saves time and most importantly, limits the number of stocks that can personally hurt me. After all, if a stock from the Lucky Half still goes down, that’s not my fault. Clearly, it migrated to the Unlucky Half without telling me. And if something in the Unlucky Half goes on to double? That’s fine. It was unlucky. The rules are the rules.
In summary, from 2026 onward, I will only buy from the Lucky Half. Not because the stocks are better, cheaper, or fundamentally stronger—but because they are lucky. And frankly, luck has a better track record than my analysis.
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Rklb is building a new medium lift rocket and all the infrastructure to support it for $350 to $400 million. Pretty much all the others have spent billions and billions. That’s because future strategy and resource allocation are aligned. And that’s only one tiny bit of what they are achieving.
Same for Iren, they generated cash from bitcoin mining to buy land, buildings, and power infrastructure to support their move into Ai compute. The management is exceptional.
But do your own DD, and sure look at past performance, but focus on future potential.
I put all my stocks into boxes, growth, dividend, value, cyclical etc. the two stocks I mentioned are growth. And my expectations are over 100% return. Been in rocket lab over 2 years now and the return is over 1700% pa. Been in Iren since October this year and it’s down 20%, so I’m buying more every paycheck.
Id enjoy hearing your thoughts on everything I have said. Here to support
Instead I do ALOt of research. If it was $4 and it’s gone to $40, I will buy it at $40. It might drop to $20, so I buy more. Because in two years it will be worth $200. So if it goes up to $60, I’ll buy more as funds allow.
That’s what I mean about conviction. Knowledge is power, knowing everything you possibly can about a stock gives you conviction. Know it, buy it, then watch it. But more if your conviction remains in tact. If you screwed up and made a bad decision, dump it and move on. Or ride the wave of a bag holder, because it’s just a short term issue. $Venture Global, Inc.(VG)$ and $Arbor(ABR)$ are both stocks that I own that suck for me atm. But both had outcomes I did not expect. But both are so cheap now, I’m buying more
First, you are not cursed. When you have true conviction about a stock and buy it, expect it to go down, and when it does, buy more. Any new stock I buy generally doesn’t perform for at least six months for me. Any most times I’ll be in it for a couple of years before it goes nuts.
Second, I don’t have a watch list. It’s ointless. I only have a portfolio of stocks I own. For me you committ or you don’t.
Third, I look at one stock at a time. I’m interested in past performance obviously. But that’s not a decider. As Warren buffet once said, a great management team will be terrible in a terrible company. So I look for great management in a great company. And while I look at the past, the future is way more important. I look at company resources, and management strategy that maximizes the deployment of those resources. I will give you two examples $Rocket Lab USA, Inc.(RKLB)$ and $IREN Ltd(IREN)$.