What I got right – and wrong – in my daily e-mails in 2025
1) I'm a firm believer in both accountability and learning from experience. So as we kick off 2026, today I'll review what I shared with my readers over the roughly 250 daily e-mails I wrote last year (archive here)... And tomorrow, I'll share my 2026 outlook.
My goal is to entertain, educate, and, most importantly, enrich.
Overall, I'm proud – I might even go so far as to say delighted – with the advice I gave. I didn't get everything right, but I got a lot more right than wrong.
The most important thing I got right was staying optimistic on stocks last year.
For some context, longtime readers will recall that I turned bullish in late 2022 as the market bottomed and that I've remained optimistic ever since – not just through 2023 (that was easy, as it was the consensus view) but also through 2024 and 2025 (which was much harder, as it became more and more contrarian).
Back in late 2022, as the markets were collapsing, I didn't run for the hills...
Being the contrarian that I am – following the legendary Warren Buffett's famous maxim of being "fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful" – I turned bullish.
On October 12, 2022, I pointed out that "though most people fail to understand this, declining stock prices are good news for long-term investors." I also shared an excerpt from Buffett's 1997 letter to Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B) shareholders explaining why this is the case.
I'm especially proud of how I applied this thinking when the market had a mini-crash after President Donald Trump announced "Liberation Day" tariffs on April 2, 2025. Less than a week later, the S&P 500 Index had tumbled 12%!
But I urged my readers not to panic. On April 7, the day the market hit its intraday low for the year, I cited six reasons why "I'm getting more bullish on stocks."
And the next day, I asked whether "I think things are going to get a lot worse – in which case I would sell aggressively" and replied:
My answer, as I've discussed in recent e-mails, is likely no...
The U.S. economy came into this mini-crisis quite healthy. And the damage is self-inflicted, which means it can be mitigated with a simple statement/social media post (though admittedly, the long-term damage to business confidence and investment is harder to gauge).
Since then, the S&P 500 is up a stunning 38%.
I was also right on other macro factors, namely:
- The U.S. economy would slow somewhat (from white-hot levels) but remain strong.
- Inflation would remain muted, a bit above 3%.
- The Federal Reserve would cut rates many times but quite a bit less than consensus expectations.
2) Turning to individual stocks, I stayed bullish on the tech giants – especially the most hated one of all, Facebook and Instagram owner Meta Platforms (META).
I pounded the table on Meta in six consecutive e-mails in 2022, from October 31 through November 7, when it was around $90 per share. (You can see the summary in my March 30, 2023 e-mail.)
Even after META shares soared during 2023 to close at $353.96, I stayed bullish... and when they closed 2024 at $585.51... and closed Friday at $650.41 – up more than 600% in total since I wrote those e-mails in 2022.
Meta has pulled back nearly 20% from its peak, and I still think it's a buy. (For my latest thinking, see my analysis of its most recent earnings report in my October 30 e-mail.)
In the past year, however, my favorite tech stock has been Alphabet (GOOGL), about which I've pounded the table again and again (archive here – I also analyzed its earnings in my October 30 e-mail).
The stock has soared 67% since the beginning of 2025, as you can see below:
Alphabet remains a buy as well. But my favorite tech stock for 2026 is Amazon (AMZN), which I'll discuss in tomorrow's e-mail.
Here are quick thoughts on other stocks I wrote favorably about in the past year (again, you can search the archive here):
- Electric aircraft maker Joby Aviation (JOBY), which I've consistently named as my favorite speculative stock for more than two years, rose more than 60% last year.
- I handed drugmaker Eli Lilly (LLY) to my readers on a silver platter on September 25. Since then, it's up 51%.
- On April 4, I wrote that discount retailer Five Below (FIVE) "is still a good company, and its stock would be a huge beneficiary if Trump eased the tariffs." Since then, FIVE is up 241%.
However, not every stock I liked did well (at least, not yet!):
- Travel website Tripadvisor (TRIP) is roughly flat since I wrote about it a year ago.
- Dating site operator Match Group (MTCH), payment processor Global Payments (GPN), software maker Adobe (ADBE), and aircraft financing company Willis Lease Finance (WLFC) are all down.
3) Lastly, while I don't recommend that most investors short stocks, I regularly warn my readers about stocks to avoid. The key to long-term investment success isn't just picking winners but also avoiding losers!
Here, my track record has been especially good...
My "Dirty Dozen" stocks to avoid that I named four years ago on January 4, 2022 are down an average of 67% versus a 43% gain for the S&P 500.
I later dropped GameStop (GME) and Trump Media & Technology (DJT) from the list and renamed it the "Terrible 10" on January 2, 2024.
A year later, on January 2, 2025, these stocks had dropped an average of 21% versus a 23% gain for the S&P 500. And in that e-mail, I wrote that "I continue to recommend avoiding the remaining 10 stocks on this list."
Sure enough, these stocks have dropped an average of 18% over the past year, while the S&P 500 has risen by the same amount.
And here's the Terrible 10's two-year performance versus the S&P 500:
(Note: For this table, prices are adjusted for splits and spinoffs.)
On October 29, I named a new group of stocks to avoid: the "Stinky Six." QMMM's (QMMM) trading was suspended, so I replaced it on the list with used car seller Carvana (CVNA) on December 12.
All six are down by an average of 13% versus a flat S&P 500:
I continue to recommend avoiding all 16 stocks on these two lists.
Tomorrow I'll share my outlook for 2026, so stay tuned.
4) Greetings from South Africa! After my wife, youngest daughter, and I visited my parents in Kenya for two weeks, I was supposed to fly home nine days ago. But I saw that I didn't have anything important scheduled until the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas at the end of this week.
Also, my parents have aged a lot in the past few years, now 85 and 83. My dad in particular has slowed down due to, among other things, AFib and two ablations, which I wrote about a half dozen times in 2022 (archive here). So I don't know how much longer they'll be able to do the type of adventurous travels we've done together our entire lives. (They met and married in the Peace Corps in 1962 and have lived all over the world, which I wrote about on December 16.)
So at the end of our Kenya trip, I rebooked my flight home to this Wednesday and arranged a 10-day trip to South Africa with my parents.
We're having the time of our lives! I'll share details and pictures in upcoming e-mails, but in the meantime, here are some pictures from our first week in Kenya:
We spent three days at the beautiful Olepangi Farm, a five-hour drive north of Nairobi. We relaxed, hiked, learned to make ice cream, milked cows, collected eggs, and fed and pet rabbits.
Best regards,
Whitney
P.S. I welcome your feedback – send me an e-mail by clicking here.