First Real Portfolio (30-Day Minimum Hold)

Proof required

Submit a one-page financial summary of a real publicly traded company. The summary must include: the company name and stock ticker, a summary of its most recent income statement (revenue, gross profit, operating income, net income), key balance sheet metrics (total assets, total liabilities, equity), free cash flow from the most recent cash flow statement, and at least three valuation ratios calculated from those numbers with the formulas shown. The source of the financial data must be named.

What gets checked

• The financial data is drawn from the company's actual filed accounts (annual report, 10-K, or equivalent), not from a pre-computed data aggregator where ratios appear without formulas — the submitter must show the calculation, not just the number
• All three financial statements are represented in the summary — income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement; a summary that covers only one or two statements has not completed this milestone
• At least three valuation ratios are calculated and shown with the formula used — for example: P/E = Market Cap / Net Income = $50B / $2B = 25x; showing only the ratio number without the calculation does not demonstrate that the submitter can perform the calculation independently

Common mistakes

• Using a financial data platform that displays all ratios pre-calculated without reading the underlying statements — a submitter who can produce a page of ratios without being able to read the income statement that generated them has learned to use a tool, not to read financial statements; the milestone requires the calculation to be shown
• Choosing a company so simple that the exercise reveals no analytical engagement — a single-product company with one revenue line and no subsidiaries is fine if the submitter can explain the numbers; choosing it specifically to minimise effort produces a superficial financial summary

Resources

What a verifier looks for

• Ask the submitter to point to where in the annual report or 10-K they found the revenue number — someone who read the statements can navigate to it; someone who used a pre-aggregated data source without reading the underlying documents cannot
• Ask the submitter to explain what free cash flow measures and why it differs from net income for this specific company — this tests whether the conceptual foundation is in place alongside the numerical exercise
• You do not need financial expertise to assess this milestone — the presence of calculated ratios with formulas shown, and the identification of data sources, are visible formal features that confirm the milestone's requirements are met

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Proof required

Submit your investment thesis (500-word minimum) dated before the allocation you make in milestone 3. The thesis must name: the specific asset (company name and ticker, or asset type and provider), the price at the time of writing, your primary argument for why it is worth buying, at least two specific risks, and your sell condition (either a price target or a trigger event — not 'if it goes down a lot'). Screenshot or PDF of the thesis with a visible document creation date is strongly recommended to establish the pre-allocation dating.

What gets checked

• The thesis is dated before the allocation recorded in milestone 3 — a thesis written after the fact to justify a decision already made is not a thesis; the pre-allocation date must be verifiable from the document metadata or the creation timestamp on the submission
• At least two specific risks are named and described — 'it might go down' is not a risk description; a risk must name the specific mechanism (e.g. 'if the company loses its main customer contract, revenue would fall by approximately 40% based on its disclosed customer concentration')
• The sell condition is specific and pre-defined — 'if something bad happens' is not a sell condition; 'if the stock price falls below $X for more than 30 days, indicating my valuation assumption was wrong' or 'if the company's next quarterly report shows revenue growth below 10% YoY' are sell conditions

Common mistakes

• Writing the thesis after making the investment and backdating it — hindsight bias makes post-allocation reasoning feel more rigorous than it is; the discipline of pre-allocation writing exists precisely because it is psychologically harder to write a thesis that acknowledges genuine risks before you have committed capital
• Setting a sell condition so vague it can never be triggered — 'I'll sell if the fundamentals deteriorate' is not a sell condition because 'fundamentals deteriorating' is not an observable, specific event; a sell condition must name a specific measurable trigger that does not require interpretation

Resources

What a verifier looks for

• The most important check is the timestamp: the thesis date must precede the allocation date documented in milestone 3 — if the submitter cannot produce a dated document, the pre-allocation requirement is not met
• Ask the submitter to explain what they have learned since writing the thesis that has confirmed or challenged their original reasoning — someone who wrote a genuine pre-allocation thesis has specific observations from the period between writing and the milestone 3 review; someone who wrote the thesis retrospectively cannot distinguish pre- from post-allocation learning
• The sell condition should sound unusual or even uncomfortable to the submitter — a good pre-defined sell condition often requires the submitter to sell at a moment that feels wrong in the market; if the sell condition sounds entirely sensible and comfortable to execute, it may not be specific enough

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Proof required

Submit (1) a screenshot or export from your brokerage account showing the position opened — asset name, number of units, price per unit, and date of purchase — with your name or account number visible to confirm it is your account; (2) your milestone 2 thesis for comparison; and (3) a 400-word performance review written at least 30 days after the purchase date, evaluating actual performance against the thesis's predictions and explicitly addressing whether each identified risk materialised or remains pending.

What gets checked

• The brokerage screenshot shows a real position in a real account — a paper trading account, a simulated portfolio, or a screenshot from a market data platform showing price history without a position does not satisfy this milestone; the position must have been purchased with real money
• The performance review is written at least 30 calendar days after the purchase date shown on the brokerage screenshot — a review written the same week as the purchase has not observed the position long enough to assess whether the thesis's reasoning was correct
• The performance review specifically addresses each risk identified in the milestone 2 thesis — not a general assessment of whether the investment made money, but a specific assessment of whether each named risk materialised, remained pending, or was resolved differently than anticipated

Common mistakes

• Using a paper trading account rather than real money — paper trading eliminates the psychological experience of loss, which is a fundamental part of what this outcome teaches; a paper trading position that went up 20% teaches the same cognitive lesson as a paper trading position that went down 20%, which is nothing; real money makes gains feel real and losses feel real in ways that paper cannot replicate
• Writing a performance review that only comments on the price movement and ignores the thesis's specific risk assessments — 'the stock went up 5% so the thesis was correct' is not a performance review; a genuine review evaluates whether each specific risk identified in the thesis materialised, partially materialised, or remains pending after 30 days

Resources

What a verifier looks for

• The brokerage screenshot must show a purchase date that precedes the performance review date by at least 30 calendar days — verify this from the screenshot's transaction date and the review's submission date
• The thesis and the performance review must be about the same asset — if the thesis is about Company A and the brokerage screenshot shows Company B, the allocation was not made on the basis of the thesis
• Ask the submitter whether they still hold the position and why — a genuine investor who wrote a pre-allocation thesis with a specific sell condition can answer this immediately: either the sell condition was triggered and they sold, or it was not triggered and they still hold; 'I sold because it went down' without reference to the pre-defined sell condition suggests the discipline broke down under pressure, which is itself a valuable learning outcome to reflect on honestly

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