The Tortoise and the Hare LLC

Where to invest today- a beginners guide to building a wealth creation portfolio

Tortoise & the Hare by Tmoney — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 13:03:00 GMT

Welcome to all our new free and paid subscribers. We appreciate each and every one of you and welcome your comments and feedback.

Over the past few days, we have had a few questions from some of our international subscribers and wanted to provide a brief template for those just starting out on their investing journey.

We have a few core beliefs we feel help investors navigate times of stress, geopolitical tensions and other events along the way that inevitably occur to rattle financial markets.

Time is on your side
Dislocation is Opportunity
Slow and Steady builds your base
Pivoting periodically to leveraged ETF’s provides outsized returns
Price Matters

Whether you are 20 or 60, starting out investing can be unsettling. You have worked and saved and now you are essentially taking that money out of your primary savings or checking account and investing it in markets you may not fully understand with the hope that those investments will remain safe, grow and provide you future benefits many years down the road.

Investing takes patience….we have been wrong more than once, early many times, late as well, but one thing remains true, TIME can be the equalizer if one chooses wisely up front.

If I were starting today, I would build my portfolio around a handful of large diversified ETF’s.

We favor SPY, XLK, XLF as the core holdings and would sprinkle in some other sectors and even cryptocurrency exposure as well.

If income is more your thing versus growth, you could own SPYI and QQQI. Both produce a return of capital thru covered call options strategy’s while also participating in the overall market rise with both funds producing cash flow ranging from 12-14% currently, 90 plus % of which is NOT taxable.

In our post on December 18th 2025, we highlighted our core ETF’s. Since then, the returns are as follows, NOT including the dividends that were also paid.

SPY-up roughly 14%; trading at 769; support at 729.50; dividends paid 1.9035 on 6/18 and 1.797 on 3/20 and 1.9934 paid on 1/30.

XLK-up roughly 33%; trading at 166.50; dividends paid .2279 6/22, .1675 on 3/23, .2188 on 12/22.

XLF-up roughly 7.5% ; trading at 58.10; support at 55.83; dividends paid .1871 6/22, .2515 3/23 and .1908 on 12/22.

We also would consider the following sector ETF’s we believe have continued upside.

Remember, PRICE MATTERS

IGV-the software sector; would add around 102

DRAM-the chip sector; would start a position if shares fall below 55.

MSTR -Microstrategy-for some crypto Bitcoin exposure. We believe Bitcoin is beginning a new up cycle and would advocate no more than a 10% weighting. Support around 94. Would begin starting a position slowly with shares currently trading at 127 after last months rapid rotation upward once again. We are looking to add to our positions on any significant rapid pullback of Bitcoin prices.

We hope this is helpful and invite you to share our newsletter with your colleagues, family and friends.

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Thank you to each of you!

Disclaimer: The strategies and opinions shared in this newsletter are provided for informational purposes only and are not intended as individualized investment advice. We are not registered investment advisors and do not manage investments for any clients. This newsletter is designed to help educate subscribers about financial strategies and different investment vehicles that you may choose to use to manage your own financial assets. From time to time we will publish market outlooks and information about strategies and opportunities we are using for our own accounts. You should consult with an investment advisor on whether employing any of our strategies into your overall investment strategy is suitable for your specific investment goals and plans. Investing is risky and investments may lose value. We are not responsible for any loss of value you may incur.

Nvidia and Salesforce fuel market rally; Microstrategy breakout

Tortoise & the Hare by Tmoney — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 17:29:07 GMT

In the last few days, two notable earnings reports provided even more insight into the AI revolution and where markets are likely headed.

Notable Goldman Sachs Investments

Tortoise & the Hare by Tmoney — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 22:02:50 GMT

Normally, I wouldn’t comment on a company making new investments but when Goldman Sachs invests, they do it for a reason-Growth and Incremental Returns for their shareholders, partners and investors.

Two things happened in the last 24 hours with Goldman Sachs worth noting.

First, they will be participating in newly created AI Infrastructure Funds alongsid…

Thematic ETF's for outsized returns

Tortoise & the Hare by Tmoney — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 14:43:32 GMT

Where's the Beef? or where's the money flowing into month end

Tortoise & the Hare by Tmoney — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 13:30:40 GMT

The last two months have been decidedly sideways. The S&P 500 first reached current levels on May 13th.

Recent pull backs have left some sectors oversold. Markets rallied sharply Thursday after Wednesdays historic sell off and look to continue that rally this morning.

The meat on the bone in thematic ETF’s is notable…Technology is seeing a pivot back to…

Interesting Options Trades-TRADE ALERT

Tortoise & the Hare by Tmoney — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 18:41:35 GMT

Today, I offer 3 interesting short term trades that could produce nice returns with limited downside risk by selling covered calls on shares you already own.

Trade 1-TECL currently trading at $193.39 Sell a covered call at the August 22nd expiration and the 215 strike price. You will collect $1150.00 for each contract. NOTE-You must own at least 100 shares of any stock to be able to write a covered call.

Options Income Trades

Tortoise & the Hare by Tmoney — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 18:15:10 GMT

Periodically I look at the options markets for insight into where some of my larger holdings may be headed….flat, rising or falling.

Options are a great tool if one understands how to use them effectively.

They can be used to create income streams from your current holdings, minimize downside and create upside gains.

For my accounts, I generally am only in…

Another Epic IPO-SkHynix debuts today-SpaceX update

Tortoise & the Hare by Tmoney — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 15:19:58 GMT

Korean memory chip maker SKHynix, the worlds largest high density memory (hdm) chip manufacturer, made it’s US stock market debut yesterday on the Nasdaq with a market valuation of nearly 1 trillion dollars under the ticker SKHYV.

The company maintains a dominant market leading position with a 58% share of the high-density memory chip market over rivals …

Mid Year Review-Returns of 2x the market

Tortoise & the Hare by Tmoney — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 11:05:23 GMT

At the end of 2025 in our post, “The year in review-Positioning for the Year Ahead”, we highlighted the frequency of volatility, specifically the times the S&P 500 had pullbacks of 3% or more along with new investments we made during the year and our year end cash positions.

Year to Date, our total returns for both qualified and non-qualified accounts si…

TRADE ALERT-SpaceX debuts

Tortoise & the Hare by Tmoney — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 14:23:42 GMT

We are sharing this TRADE ALERT for all subscribers since this is a bit of an usual situation and one that we have disclosed our desire to participate in the SpaceX IPO publicly already.

We received a partial allocation for SpaceX at $135.00 of 1000 shares.

Early indications are for an open at $175.00

Where it opens and ultimately trades today is to be de…

The SpaceX IPO-What the markets are saying

Tortoise & the Hare by Tmoney — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 11:16:55 GMT

The SpaceX IPO is now reportedly 3.5 to 4 times oversubscribed. That means that as of yesterday, upwards of 300 Billion in funds have been earmarked to purchase SpaceX shares in the IPO or otherwise. You can expect that to likely rise by Friday. For reference, the offering is 75 Billion.

The prospectus, which is visible on a variety of platforms now, s…

The SpaceX IPO, ETF's and market index dynamics

Tortoise & the Hare by Tmoney — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 13:40:39 GMT

In what will be the largest IPO in history, SpaceX is set to go public late next week, likely on Friday the 12th.

There is ample commentary on the structure of the offering as well as the potential effects on various market indexes like the S&P, Nasdaq and other sector ETF’s. Will those fund managers participate in the initial offering potentially offer…

Trade Alert

Tortoise & the Hare by Tmoney — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 22:14:04 GMT

As we referenced a few days ago, we exited our position in JEPI today.

After holding this ETF for several months and collecting 7 months worth of dividends, the dynamics of the ETF are not suited for a rising market in our opinion.

With the continuing momentum in technology, artificial intelligence and other sectors more narrowly continuing to push higher…

Year to Date Updates

Tortoise & the Hare by Tmoney — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 10:57:56 GMT

If you follow our content you know two things.

JP Morgan's income ETF-Laggard or Value?

Tortoise & the Hare by Tmoney — Sun, 17 May 2026 15:43:00 GMT

We purchased the JEPI etf back on November 21, 2025 at a basis of 56.61.

At the time, we felt the estimated income of around 8.5% and stability of the underlying share price with the opportunity to rise with the rising S&P 500 index was a better alternative to cash/government securities where those funds had been sitting.

Since that time we have collect…

Memory Chips and the real AI Bottleneck

Tortoise & the Hare by Tmoney — Wed, 13 May 2026 13:41:41 GMT

Since its launch in early April, this memory chip sector ETF from Roundhill Capital has more than DOUBLED and pulled in over 7.3 billion in assets under management with a billion of that coming in a single day last week…a record launch by any ETF in recent history.

This one is intriguing as the global memory chip market is forecasted to grow significan…

What is the Options Market telling us today?

Tortoise & the Hare by Tmoney — Wed, 06 May 2026 20:36:41 GMT

Any time markets rally as rapidly as they have the last few weeks, I tend to look at the Options market for an insight into where things may be headed over the near term.

Momentum indicators along with the Put Call Ratio are telling us there is likely more upside ahead.

The Put/Call ratio sits at .57. For reference, a ratio below .70 signals bullish sent…

Trade Alert-Position Adjustment

Tortoise & the Hare by Tmoney — Tue, 05 May 2026 17:17:49 GMT

In November we added the ETF TECL to our taxable account at a cost basis of 109.24 as we noted in our paid subscriber post on 11/21/25.

94.67% Year over Year Returns-Why not You?

Tortoise & the Hare by Tmoney — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 12:10:07 GMT

Pretty proud of these results…a snapshot on Tax Day 2026 from the prior year.

I have self managed my retirement account for many years using mostly thematic ETF’s and the results continue to speak for themselves.

We achieved these results without using margin, day trading or futures contracts.

We invite you to Subscribe to our paid content for real time tr…

POSITION ALERT-Four stocks you can buy today

Tortoise & the Hare by Tmoney — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 20:54:14 GMT

With the S&P 500 sitting at record levels, you may be wondering how we got here and where we could go from here.