Category Archives: investing
Should you use $GOOGL google bard or ChatGPT for stock screening?
How to write, publish, edit & distribute a book – A resource for book writers in 2023
Writing a book is a big amount of effort and commitment!
There’s a ton of steps involved, from brainstorming to publishing. Let me break it down if you are so inclined.
Writing a Book:
- Idea generation: Think of a topic you’re passionate about and come up with some killer ideas.
- Research: Look up some background info and gather facts that’ll help you develop your story and characters.
- Outline: Sketch out a rough draft of your book, including the main plot and chapters.
- First draft: Start writing your first draft. Don’t worry about being perfect, just focus on getting your ideas on paper.
- Revision: Read through your draft and make any necessary changes to improve the flow and structure.
- Beta readers: Get some feedback from beta readers on what they liked and what could be improved.
- Edit: Use the feedback to make any necessary edits to your manuscript.
- Final draft: After polishing your manuscript, give it one final read-through before it’s ready for publishing.
Publishing:
- Self-publish or traditional: Decide whether you want to self-publish or try for a traditional publishing house. My publishing is Diamond Consulting, easy to work with. They helped with editing, proof reading, layout, cover design and distribution. The book is available now on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple iBooks (more coming soon).
- Submit your manuscript: If you choose traditional publishing, submit your manuscript to agents or publishers who accept unsolicited submissions.
- Negotiate the contract: If your manuscript gets accepted, negotiate the terms of your publishing contract.
- Editing: Work with an editor to make any necessary edits to your manuscript. My editor was ok, not a great experience. Choose one that knows your space. Its okay to pay more for this.
- Proofreading: Have your manuscript proofread by a pro to ensure there are no errors. I had an awful experience with Fiverr for proof reading.
- Layout: Format your manuscript according to publishing standards.
- Cover design: Work with a graphic designer to create a dope cover that’ll attract readers. My graphic design HDMXPublishing (Hamaad) was awesome. Based in London, the guy was fast, reliable and consistent.
- Print and distribute: Once everything is complete, print and distribute your book.
- Consider all book formats: Ebook (ePub), Hard cover (if this is a publication people will cherish), Paperback (for folks that like paper in their hands) and Audio book.
- ISBN: I got an ISBN for the eBook from myidentifers.com ($295 for 10) but used Kindle ISBN (free) for the Amazon paperback version and Barnes & Noble ISBN (free) for the B&N paperback version. Every version of your book needs a different ISBN – audio, eBook, paperback and hardcover.
Editing and proofreading:
- Editing: Hire a pro to review your manuscript and give suggestions.
- Revision: Make revisions based on the editor’s feedback.
- Proofreading: Have your manuscript proofread to ensure it’s error-free.
Layout and cover design:
- Layout: Format your manuscript according to industry standards.
- Cover design: Work with a graphic designer to create a sweet cover that’ll grab readers’ attention.
- Print and distribute: Once everything is complete, print and distribute your book.
- Think about size (5X8 is for Paperback Amazon and 5.25X8 for Barnes and Noble)
All newsletter statistics – Substack, Beehiv, Revue
The number of paid newsletters is about 131K (Substack, Beehiiv, Revue, MailerLite, etc.) across all the major subscription services.
Since I have an email list of about 300 email newsletter owners (none of them believe they are in the top 100 overall by newsletter subscription revenue), I thought I’d run a survey (via email – so meta).
Here are the numbers, without all the drama of charts and graphs.
The average newsletter has over 20+ paid subscribers and 100’s of free subscribers.
If you segment the newsletters there are 5 segments you can come up with.
- Topic / category : News , technology, finance, etc.
- Price of newsletter per month: <$5, $5 – $10, $10 – $25 and > $25
- By # of paying subscribers: < 100, 100 – 500, > 500
- By primary revenue model: Subscriptions or Sponsorships (advertising)
- By frequency of publication: Daily, Multiple times a week, Weekly
Topical news, politics and general news / sports make up the top categories.
Most newsletters are priced between $5 and $10 per month.
Over 87% of newsletters have fewer than 100 paying subscribers.
Only 21% of newsletters have ads / sponsors while 79% exclusively rely on paid subscriptions.
91% of subscribers publish multiple times a week, while 6% once a week and the rest daily.
Book launch: Easy Introduction to Stock Trading
I launched my book “Easy Introduction To Stock Trading“.
If you want to trade & invest in stocks and and options, but dont know where to start this is the right book for you.
This book is a jargon-free, easy to understand, question and answer format style publication. I will walk you through a series of frequently asked questions to help you understand the market, trading, risk management and options to get you started.
It is short (90 pages) and you can finish reading it in less than 3 hours. It is also very inexpensive at $9.99 for a Kindle version, since I wanted to have more people get access to it.
If you still cannot afford it, by all means, please email me and I will make it available to you.
What I would like is to please write about it (on WhatsApp), share this post on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
It would be a great help if you can leave a review on my Amazon page.
Apple $AAPL services revenue is something to watch for this quarter
Apple’s Services revenue comprises a variety of different products and services, including:
- The App Store
- Apple Music
- Apple Arcade
- Apple TV+
- iCloud
- Apple Pay
- Apple Card
- Apple News+
- Apple Fitness+
- Apple Books
- Apple Care+
These services are available to Apple customers around the world and are a key part of Apple’s overall business strategy.

As you can see, Apple’s services revenue has been growing steadily over the past few years. In the most recent quarter, Apple’s services revenue grew by 6.4% year-over-year.

I am watching growth from $AAPL card and fitness+ for future growth as Apple Mac sales slow down.
How to trade $MSFT earnings (backtesting Microsoft trades for 12 quarters)
The reliable Microsoft trade is as predictable as it comes.
Microsoft will announce earnings on April 25th 2023.
Here is a table with Microsoft revenue and earnings growth over the last 12 quarter. With the stock performance a day and week after earnings.
What is consistent is the 1.01% to 1.42% rise a week after earnings with a 0.35% standard deviation.
Should I trade $AAPL Apple before earnings? What does backtesting show?
Here is a summary of Apple stock performance for each week before their last 12 earnings reports:




As you can see, Apple stock has generally trended upwards over the past year, with only a few minor dips. The average change in stock price over the past 12 weeks is 0.17%
Backtesting $AAPL Apple trade before and after earnings using Trading View @tradingview
Let’s say you want to find a trade for Apple after and before earnings. How can you do it?
Here is a step-by-step plan to backtest an Apple trade before and after earnings on TradingView using 2-week increments of historical stock prices for 20 quarters:

- Log in to TradingView and select the chart for Apple’s stock (AAPL).
- Click on the “Settings” icon in the top toolbar and select “Interval” from the dropdown menu. Set the interval to “2 weeks” to ensure that the chart displays historical data in 2-week increments.
- Click on the “Data” icon in the top toolbar and select “Load Data” from the dropdown menu.
- In the “Load Data” dialog box, select “Historical Data” and set the date range to cover the past 20 quarters of Apple’s earnings releases.
- Once you have loaded the historical data, click on the “Strategy Tester” icon in the top toolbar to open the backtesting panel.
- In the backtesting panel, select “AAPL” as the instrument and set the date range to cover the same time period as the historical data you just loaded.
- Define your trading strategy. For example, you may want to buy AAPL stock two weeks before each earnings release and sell it two weeks after the release. You can define this strategy using TradingView’s simple point-and-click interface.
- After defining your strategy, click on the “Start Testing” button to begin the backtest.
- Once the backtest is complete, review the results. TradingView provides a range of performance metrics, including total return, Sharpe ratio, and drawdown. Analyze these metrics to determine the effectiveness of your strategy.
What is backtesting? How can I do backtesting?
Backtesting is a technique to evaluate the performance of an investment strategy or trading algorithm.
The process involves testing the strategy or algorithm against historical data to determine how it would have performed in past market conditions.

The goal of backtesting is to determine whether a particular investment strategy or trading algorithm would have been profitable in the past, and to use this information to make informed decisions about future investments.
By analyzing the historical performance of a strategy or algorithm, investors can gain insights into its strengths and weaknesses, and make adjustments as needed to improve its future performance.
Backtesting can be done using a variety of methods, including manual analysis of historical data or automated software programs that simulate past market conditions.
It’s important to note that while backtesting can provide valuable insights into the performance of a particular investment strategy or trading algorithm, it’s not a guarantee of future success.
Which tools help with backtesting?
- MetaTrader: MetaTrader is a popular trading platform that includes a built-in backtesting tool. The platform allows users to test and optimize trading strategies using historical data, and also includes a range of other features such as advanced charting tools and real-time market data.
- TradeStation: TradeStation is a comprehensive trading platform that includes a powerful backtesting engine. The platform allows users to test and optimize trading strategies using historical data, and also includes a range of other features such as advanced charting tools and real-time market data.
- Amibroker: Amibroker is a popular technical analysis and trading platform that includes a built-in backtesting tool. The platform allows users to test and optimize trading strategies using historical data, and also includes a range of other features such as advanced charting tools and real-time market data.
- Quantopian: Quantopian is a web-based platform that allows users to develop, test, and deploy trading algorithms. The platform includes a powerful backtesting engine that allows users to test their trading strategies using historical data, and also provides access to a range of other tools and resources.









