Introducing Your New Editor

Editor’s Note: Before we get into today’s topic du jour, I wanted to take a few lines to introduce a new editor to you. 

He’s been working with our colleagues at Outsider Club for the past few months and is making his debut in the pages of Wealth Daily today.

Besides working together, Alex Boulden and I have a long history. We both attended the same honors college (albeit several years apart) in Southern Maryland. We both grew up on the water.

And unbeknownst to me until we met at a work conference, he attended the high school that my mother presided over as head of school. I checked with her and Mom gave him the thumbs-up too.

That means Alex is not only a smart guy (you have to be to graduate from that school) but a good one too. Mom can spot the bad apples a mile away after working with kids for so long.

So I’m happy to have Alex as a new member of our team here at Wealth Daily. And I’m looking forward to having him share his investing insights with you, our valued readers.

Today, I have the privilege of introducing you to one of our newest and most promising editors. So, without further ado from me, I’ll let Alex take it away…

— Jason Williams

On May 17, 1792, 24 stockbrokers and merchants gathered under a buttonwood tree outside 68 Wall Street to sign the Buttonwood Agreement, a document that would set the foundation for the New York Stock Exchange as we know it today.

Revered as one of the most influential financial documents in history, the Buttonwood Agreement sought to stabilize the securities market after the Panic of 1792, a two-month financial credit crisis when prices of U.S. debt securities and bank stocks fell, eventually resulting in a bank run (when people withdraw their money from banks en masse).

The agreement proposed the creation of a system where brokers and merchants would trade only with each other and for a set commission per transaction. The contents of the document are short but sweet:

We the Subscribers, Brokers for the Purchase and Sale of the Public Stock, do hereby solemnly promise and pledge ourselves to each other, that we will not buy or sell from this day for any person whatsoever, any kind of Public Stock, at a less rate than one quarter percent Commission on the Specie value and that we will give preference to each other in our Negotiations. In Testimony whereof we have set our hands this 17th day of May at New York, 1792.

By creating a membership-only exchange, the signers effectively set up the beginnings of an investment community that we now refer to as Wall Street…

Of the 24 signers, one name stands out to me: Bleecker, my grandmother’s maiden name. Two Bleeckers spilled their ink on the Buttonwood Agreement.

Sadly my grandmother was the last Bleecker in her line. But my uncle, who’s a self-proclaimed amateur genealogist, has done much research on this, and what he uncovered started me on my financial journey. So here’s what we know.

Anthony Lispenard Bleecker, the namesake for Bleecker Street that runs through Greenwich Village in Manhattan, was a prominent banker, merchant, and vestryman at Trinity Church in Lower Manhattan. He owned a 106-acre farm where Bleecker Street is today and a house on Broadway. His brother and son were signers of the Buttonwood Agreement, which makes Anthony Lispenard Bleecker my fourth great-great-grandfather, if I’m doing my math right.

The Bleeckers were buried in a vault below Trinity’s churchyard, which can be seen off Wall Street. My family was lucky enough to visit the vault and get a private tour of the New York Stock Exchange, along with a viewing of the original Buttonwood Agreement.

You could say this whole finance thing is in my blood…

A New Age of Investing

It’s this family financial history that drew me to one of the largest financial publishers in the world, where I rubbed elbows with former Chicago Board Options Exchange floor traders, Wall Street hedge fund managers, and International Monetary Fund analysts.

There I cut my teeth and was introduced to little-known but very profitable financial instruments that only the insiders knew about.

But I felt something was lacking…

No one talked about the new investing trends. The meme stocks and cryptocurrencies were being pushed aside as illegitimate forms of investing. But I think these old-timers were just jealous they weren’t privy to the greatest transfer of wealth in our lifetimes.

For example, the first single stock I bought was GameStop (NYSE: GME). This was years before the Reddit “GameStonk” run-up. Everyone I worked with thought I was crazy. They said the company was doomed to fail and that the dividend was unsustainable. I simply thought it was undervalued. Turned out to be a pretty good buy for me. Not long after, I did the exact same thing with AMC (NYSE: AMC), netting a personal profit of 2,129%.

It’s this outside-the-box thinking that drew me to our colleagues at Outsider Club, where I’ve covered crypto, tech, and corruption.

And although I’m not fully behind cryptocurrency, I’ve made tons of connections over the years with people working in the industry. I used to live with a couple of now-Silicon Valley tech bros who mined Bitcoin in the basement. At the time, I questioned its legality and shunned it. So I made sure to do my research before putting any money into it.

As of now, especially with today’s inflation, it’s frankly irresponsible not to own any crypto. Sen. Rand Paul agrees, saying this in a recent interview with Axios:

But here’s what I’ve started to believe now, that the government currencies are so unreliable — they’re also fiat currencies, they’re not backed by anything. The dollar’s been more stable than other countries, so it’s the reserve currency. Well, I’ve started to question now whether cryptocurrency could actually become the reserve currency of the world as more and more people lose confidence in government.

I love hearing congressmen speak the truth. One thing you’ll learn about me is that I can’t stand hypocrisy, especially when it comes from our keepers in Washington. While they toil away at finding new ways of taking our hard-earned money, we can use only a handful of strategies to beat them at their own game, and crypto is one.

Another strategy I’m obsessed with is following the insiders’ own financial transactions — insiders meaning company CEOs, high-level executives, and directors. We can even dig into what members of Congress are buying.

I’ve used this reliable and profitable technique for years to get an edge over the average investor, and I’ll be diving into it for Wealth Daily readers in the weeks and months ahead.

The Way Forward

Though I consider myself part of the “new school” of investing, I’m still a humble student of the old-school masters, including Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, and Burton Malkiel, among others.

I believe in analyzing businesses, in having a strong stomach for short-term market turbulence, and that stocks outperform all other asset classes (even though these cryptos are outperforming everything right now).

We’ll also touch on current events, new tech, and historical trends that have an impact on your portfolio. I’ll even discuss personal finance as it pertains to your investing strategies.

Look, the pandemic and the crooks in Washington have devastated our economy for far too long. And the only way forward is to use the financial instruments already in place to beat these villains at their own game.

So join me in the pages of Wealth Daily as we take back the financial freedom that’s rightfully ours.

We won’t settle for anything less than greatness.

Stay frosty,

Alexander Boulden
Editor, Wealth Daily

Check us out on YouTube!

After Alexander’s passion for economics and investing drew him to one of the largest financial publishers in the world, where he rubbed elbows with former Chicago Board Options Exchange floor traders, Wall Street hedge fund managers, and International Monetary Fund analysts, he decided to take up the pen and guide others through this new age of investing.

Alexander is the investment director of Insider Stakeout — a weekly investment advisory service dedicated to tracking the smartest money on the planet so that his readers can achieve life-altering, market-beating returns. He also serves at the managing editor for R.I.C.H. Report, a comprehensive service that uses the highest-quality investment research and strategies that guides its members in growing their wealth on top of preserving it.

Check out his editor’s page here.

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