The questions I ask before buying any stock
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Originally published in the Stock Savvy Dad newsletter on May 5, 2026. In the spring of 2023 a stock that had been on my watchlist, CrowdStrike, took a fairly significant dip. Most people saw a falling stock and moved on. I saw a potential opportunity. But I didn’t just buy it because it was cheaper. I ran through the same questions I ask before putting money into any company. • Do I understand what they do and how they make money? • Do they have something unique that’s hard for competitors to copy? • Is this a company I can buy and not think about? • What does the balance sheet look like? How much debt and why? • How much free cash flow are they generating? CrowdStrike checked every box. Cybersecurity is a growing and necessary industry. Their platform is not something a competitor can easily replicate. It was a company I felt confident holding without watching it every day. And the balance sheet was solid with healthy free cash flow to back it up. So I bought it around $116 a share. Then bought more a couple months later. No hot tip. No inside information. Just a process and conviction in my research. The stock went on to hit an all-time high of around $566. The shares I still own are up roughly 290%. But here’s what I want you to take from this. The return is great. What matters more is that I wasn’t guessing. I had a reason. And when you have a reason, you can hold through the noise instead of selling the moment it dips. That’s the difference between investing and hoping. Pick a company you’ve been watching, run through the questions, and see what you find. Maybe you have a winner (or loser) on the horizon. — Stock Savvy Dad |