Hi Multi 👋
You probably know my name is Kris. This is me.
But I realized that it's a long time ago I talked about my background story.
Newer Multis may not know me and Multis who have been here for a while may have forgotten several elements. Or maybe I didn't even tell the full story. That's why it feels like a good time to introduce myself here again.
I hold a Master’s degree in Dutch and English, as well as a postgraduate Master in Media and Communication from the University of Ghent, Belgium.
My first job was as a reporter for the local TV station (AVS, if you are from Belgium). Then I worked 3.5 years in the Belgian Federal Parliament.
In between two elections, I became a teacher because the Member of Parliament I worked for moved from the Federal to the Regional Parliament and that meant I had to bridge 2 months. I was very bad at being unemployed, even if I knew it was for a limited period, and I planned to be a teacher for 6 weeks before I started working in the Flemish Parliament.
While I liked my job in the Parliament, I loved teaching. That's why I chose to stay a teacher after those six weeks. I mainly had 16- to 18-year-old teenagers. There was not a single day in 16 years that I didn't enjoy teaching. So, you may wonder why I'm not a teacher anymore.
In 2013, my wife got pregnant. I got some sort of primal feeling of having to gather for our unborn child. But how?
My first idea was investing in single malt whisky. You have to know that I gave whisky tastings now and then in those days, so I knew what whisky could be good to invest in. My wife didn't like it. She thought I was going to want to taste those whiskies. And yeah, that was my plan: buy three bottles, one for myself, two to invest. My wife's a lawyer and tax specialist. Her answer: "Oh, so you start with -33%." Ouch. I knew she was right.
After studying the investing side of art for months (which my wife also didn't like), I stumbled upon stocks.
I knew nothing about investing and I made every single mistake you can think of: value traps, trading too much, leverage, options, etc. All the things a beginner shouldn't do. Needless to say, it was not a great success. I was fortunate my wife said: "It's OK, but I don't want to know anything about it." She still says that today, by the way. 😁
Then it hit me 💡: with studying, you could become a better investor. And learning and reading had been two of my main hobbies since I was a child! Hooray.
I started with The Intelligent Investor because that's what everybody said I should read. I found it very boring, to be honest.
But fortunately, I didn't stop there. In 3 years, I devoured 82 books, listened to about 750 podcast episodes and read about 15,000 articles on investing. That's about 15 articles a day on average.
Many of those articles were on Seeking Alpha. I started sharing my thoughts about the articles I read in the comment section of articles. Until another Seeking Alpha reader replied to my comment: "Hey, I follow you because your comments are often more interesting than the article you comment on and almost as long. Why don't you start writing?" I had considered that, but I thought, "Who the hell is waiting for a teacher from Belgium to write about stocks?" That comment was the final push I needed.
In February 2016, my first article was published on Seeking Alpha. It was about WhiteWave, a company bought out by Danone a few months later.
As a teacher, my main enjoyment came from breaking down complicated stuff, showing the different parts to the students, and putting it back together. Not literally, as I taught Dutch and English. In my articles, I often do the same thing and I still enjoy that a lot.
I kept evolving. I gradually moved from deep value investing to GARP (growth at a reasonable price).
Then, in February 2017, I heard a podcast episode with Tobi Lütke, Shopify's founder and CEO. It made me so enthusiastic, I immediately bought 10 shares of the stock. That was just $558 at the time. Those 10 shares have become 100 shares through a 10-for-1 stock split. They would be worth $14,600, had I not sold a third in 2019.
But what really puzzled me was WHY I had bought those shares. I saw myself as a rational investor, but I had bought those shares impulsively after that interview. The stock was sooooo overvalued.
That's how I started studying multibaggers. Because I realized that if Tobi could make me enthusiastic, he could also do that with the other Shopify (SHOP) executives, its employees, investors and customers. You can't quantify that, but a fantastic CEO is extremely important in investing.
And so, I started Potential Multibaggers on May 2, 2017, with Shopify, which was already at (a split-adjusted) $7.78 then, as the first pick. To my amazement, about twenty thousand investors followed me already. I started a Twitter account and I got more and more followers there as well. I have about 34K followers now on Seeking Alpha and 113K on X, as Twitter is called now.
Since the launch of the paid version of Potential Multibaggers, with exclusive research, my portfolio, Best Buys Now and much, much more, I've been researching stocks and writing about them as a full-time job.
In January 2022, I launched a second service, Best Anchor Stocks, with Leandro, who leads it independently and excellently.
Over the years, I have picked many losers for Potential Multibaggers like Peloton, Skillz, Teladoc, Novocure and Fiverr.
But I also picked Cloudflare at $39, CrowdStrike at $98, The Trade Desk at $19.5, Sea Limited at $54, Mercado Libre at $1,202, Duolingo at $93, Nu Holdings at $4 and Hims & Hers at $22, for example.
My Best Buys Now (5 stocks selected every month on or around the 15th since 2022) outperform the S&P 500 by 30% per pick over a three-year period.
After 12 years in investing, I still enjoy it every day. I could turn my passion into a business. My biggest joy is when I get messages from Multis, who write things like: "Thank you, Kris. Because of you, I can pay for my daughter's university." or "I'm so happy you taught me to buy more when the market dropped in 2022. It's the first time I could do that, thanks to your support."
What also brings me great joy is that I know many Multis read the Overview Of The Week every week and have a ritual for it. There's a Multi who can't wait until his wife leaves the house to work on Monday morning (he works from home on Mondays) to start reading the Overview Of The Week in a quiet environment, with a fresh cup of coffee. He was the inspiration for this image I made.
I know another Multi who reads the Overview Of The Week every week on Sunday evening, just after his wife goes to bed.
A female Multi always copies the OOTW to her e-reader, then goes to bed and reads it there before falling asleep.
Multis are reading the OOTW on the train to work, or reading it when they arrive at the office before starting work (don't tell their boss!), and a Multi who uses text-to-speech software to listen to it on his morning cycling commute.
All these stories make me intensely happy, dear Multi. So, if you want to share your way of consuming the Overview Of The Week (or other content), feel free to share in the comments.
Outside of work? I feel blessed to have a fantastic family. My wife, Ruth, and our daughter, Romy, are the North Stars in my life. Romy's 11 now.
We have two cats: a Ragdoll named Quibus (a dialect word meaning "silly in a loving way") and a Maine Coon named Cooky.
I speak 5 languages. In declining order, they are: Dutch, English, French, German and Italian.
I enjoy reading (you already knew that), cycling (alone or with friends, mostly on my racebike, but I also have an MTB), playing board games (Dominion, Qwirkle, 7 Wonders, Keltis, Carcassonne, Blokus...) and music is important in my life, from classical music to metal and a lot in between. I used to play the guitar and sing, but I have not really done that anymore in the last decade or so.
In the past, I used to be a goalkeeper in soccer/football, and I sometimes watch important games of Club Bruges and the Belgian National Team (the Red Devils) or cycling races. For the rest, I prefer reading over TV.
And who are you? Let me know in the comment section!
In the meantime, keep reading!
Very interesting how you ended up doing full time. Juste en partageant ta passion. Ich spreche auch ein paar Sprachen. Je suis de france. The passion for a subject and willingness to learn leads to good results
We share a similar background: languages. With every language you learn, you realize there is more than one way of looking at the world. Much like investing. You can look at stocks like Benjamin Graham, like Charlie Munger, like Peter Lynch,… I dig your sense of humor and, more importantly, the way you refuse to go with the flow. You don’t get it right every time (who does?), but I want you in my team! To end with a Bruges analogy: I’m fielding you as Perisic.