 and the sheer misery of this whole deal in investing is that if you had just followed the crowd in 2023, you would have been absolutely misguided. There's no doubt about it. It's times like this at the end of the year where I reflect on the performance of the year. I don't typically take a whole hell of a lot of time to look behind me in the dust that I kicked up behind me. I spend a whole hell of a lot of my time looking forward, looking to where I need to go, setting new goals, extending goals out into the future. That's my wheelhouse, that's where I live. No doubt about that. But if there is any consolation in the message that can be gleaned from 2023 and they are hard lessons learned, no doubt about it. It's been a very, very challenging year. It's been a challenging year for the I-2, but just until I am able to reflect and take account of some of the strategic goals that I put forward for especially the latter part and especially the latter quarter of this year, which was to consolidate risk, to consolidate accounts. We will do a portfolio review tonight for the first time in a long, long time. We are sizably up above the half a million dollar mark again, having taken a ton of punches, right smack to the face, a lot of kicks in between the legs, man, a lot of kick in the nuts this year and going back really at the tail end and through the pandemic, it's been tough going in the markets and I'm not gonna sugar coat this stuff either, but if there's anything that we can glean and you come onto the Independent Investor Channel, you get a little bit of raw, emotional, not privileged content. I'm one of those people that believe that it's okay to take a strategic shot every now and then. It is okay to live life hard. If you're gonna live and die soft, then that's just your way, that is not my way, all right? With that said, with regard to investing, I think a lot of people can probably save themselves a lot of pain and anguish in just looking at some of the numbers that I disclosed to you and how a defensive posture in the stock market can give you a lot of, or avoid a lot of sleep less nights, give you a lot of sleep, easy comfort and understanding that the stock market is not as crazy and it's not as predictable, certainly as a lot of people would have you believe, but that's just the whole point. The Independent Investor Channel aims to put you in the empowered driver seat, you and you alone and for a lot of people, that's a scary proposition. I think if I were gonna say, hey, what do you think about the prospects of taking control of your own money? I think a lot of people would be attracted to that and then they wouldn't have the first foggiest clue on how to approach it. I break it down in the most simplest terms for people so they can really understand and embrace this idea of taking control of your own money, okay? You will not get a more deeper appreciation for opportunity, money in and of itself and understanding the value of that opportunity. The understanding of what it really takes to live day-to-day, take comfort in those things that are worth acknowledging that typically are far removed of any type of satisfaction that you could get through the rudimentary habit of spending money. I find that futile to try to come online and portray somebody who doesn't know anything other than just being bestowed upon opportunity in his life, okay? I've worked for everything I've got. A lot of people, that's all they know is success and being provided for their whole life only to come onto a social media opportunity and hope to convey that forward and convey a sense of a successful person and therefore people are supposed to follow the line and resonate with that. I challenge all that idea. I think the least amount of following you can do, the least amount of time that you can spend without your nose up somebody's asshole, the better off you'll be. 23 was a perfect example of that. I coached, I mentored through the last three years of volatility and at times I would do the Friday livestream and I didn't think there was gonna be anybody to come in and share in my message. The stock market can define extremes for you in the rost of terms and for a lot of people who aren't, they aren't accustomed to watching their money fluctuate in value. Most people are used to looking at the static state of a dollar bill and being satisfied with the static state of that dollar bill not wanting it to go down in value and taking comfort and solace in the fact that it does not leave their eyesight. They take comfort in looking at the dollar bill. We look deeper below the surface in understanding that by deploying that dollar bill and separating from the surface level euphoria you get from being way too connected with your money, you will understand that by releasing the power of your dollars over time is really the key in wealth building. I've separated so far from my money. I look at the wealth that's being generated. I look at some of the speculative investments that I've got on right now. Aduro technology is going to be the focus of our live stream tonight at the back end, but we are going to do a 2023 review of the Independent Investor Channel. People enjoy that. They wanna see how the money shakes out and how I allocate capital and I'm glad to share that. That's how I learn. By taking a tutorial from somebody it's always interesting to understand how others deploy capital with that said it's a topic that doesn't necessarily garner a lot of open conversation over wine spritzers, most generally, but more specifically you'll narrate a find a social media content creator and influencer is open as myself who will come on and drag people by their ears, kicking and screaming hesitant to the idea that, albeit, I never promised a straight line to success but I did promise success at some way whether it be through a long and winding road, whether it be through trials and tribulations and entering into speculative stocks like Hylian, which the verdict is certainly out but over the last three years has proven to be a significant drag on the portfolio. Somebody could learn from that perceived a mistake of mine and say, you know what, boy, that's a really tough beat and it was, it was a tough beat. Now the stocks doubled, I still own a pretty significant amount of shares in the company but quite frankly the holding has been ridden off because my focus now is on those companies where I feel like upper management is aligned with shareholders and shareholders' intentions and wanting to understand what value they hold in the company and the more aligned that we can get with the upper management in this cause the better off we'll be. And I have, Neriya, seen a company as well ran as Aduro Clean Technologies, which is the speculative play. I say speculative tongue and cheek, guys, when I look at it and assess the very aspect of where they are early stage in their evolution, I consider it a value play, no doubt about it. With the solidification in the financial statements that I do think will be forthcoming, which I think is the real bare case for Aduro Clean Technologies at this particular juncture, they really need to clean up and start to generate some revenues and the webinar that was released just this week was hosted by Abe Dyke, the head of investor relations with Aduro Clean Technology. The kind of championed and marshaled by the CEO, Mr. Ofer Vicus. Also on the call was Mina Bashay, their CFO. And finally, Mr. Eric Appelman, who quite frankly, I thought was the highlight of the show. Something that kind of irritated me and something that has not been talked about with the webinar is that there was 110. There was 160 patrons that were registered for the Aduro closing out of 2023. And there was 110 patrons to show up and show their interest. And what I think is one of the greatest ground floor opportunities. Now, one of two things, either people are not getting the message through the independent investor channel or they just don't care, all right? Or two, they're just too effing lazy to spend a few minutes understanding what these companies are doing across the spectrum or understanding specifically how Aduro separates themselves from the pack. I don't have a lot of sympathy for a lot of people. I think this is where a lot of people, when they do gain some level of success in this life and they realize what works, they get really, really burnt out in trying to bring people to the message because people prove over and over and over again that they just don't want to pursue any type of level of success. And for those people, I can't help you, all right? You're gonna have to come to the table with some level of rigor, all right? If you want me to bundle up some motivation for you and send it in a package FedEx with a big bow on top of it, I can do that because I can muster up a hell of a lot of motivation, that of which I give away every single Friday on the live stream. All you gotta do is tune in, okay? But I tell you what, man, for the people who justify expenditures far greater than the free content that I give away every single week, I tell you what, man, I'd be hard-pressed to understand that you couldn't get better information from the shrink that you pay thousands of dollars for, you can get it here free of charge. But look, chair, feel yourself an adult cocktail and enjoy the fastest 60 minutes on YouTube. I love this job. I have fun doing this project. We're closing out seven years on YouTube. It's such an honor to do this. I have a deep conviction as to why I do this monetarily. It makes zero sense as to why I do this and that's why it's right. That is why it's right. If I was forced to come onto YouTube and create content, my content is not content that appeals to the masses. I don't mind kicking you in the teeth. I really don't. I talk in real life to people like this. I do business with people all the time. 2023 was silently my best professional year of any other year on this earth. I'm 46 years old, happy to share. Most of the year, you know, the stock market was very volatile, ups and downs and had its significant drawdowns only to enter into the last eight weeks of absolute freaking euphoria. And it wasn't till this evening where I took account of the run-up in the portfolio, and it has been monumental. No doubt. I do sin on over 25% in a duro profit. It's been the performer of the year in 2023. I declared to everybody that follows my message that the duro shares have went long. Now, that's half the position. I've actually doubled up my position here on another short position. Hopefully by the fall of next year, we can have a nice long suite of duro shares, just over 50,550 shares is the actual position. I believe in the description of this video, I have shared my buy points going all the way back to, I believe starting in November of 2022. So spurring back over 12 months of accumulating shares. I'm happy to provide that to you in way of transparency. I got accused this week of being a pump and dumper. That was so that was nice. I was able to, and see I'm the wrong guy to do that with. So I won't engage with you. What I will just calmly retort is this. If you don't like the information coming through the Independent Investor Channel, well, first of all, you can piss off because I just don't care. See, I don't have to put food on the table with doing something as trivial as YouTube to put food on the table. But I also doubled down and suggested that if the stocks that I talk about on the Independent Investor Channel are not good enough for your palette, number one, don't invest in them. Okay, don't invest in them. If you feel like that's the case and you've got everybody figured out everywhere else, and pointing your fingers everywhere else in the world, then no problem. You definitely wouldn't want to follow the advice of somebody who comes onto YouTube and pumps and dump. I'm up six grand in the name. I'm happy. You can do whatever the hell you want. I don't care. I'm not your father. And quite frankly, I come on here. I'm not your friend either, okay? You can glean from this message what you will, all right? But I posed this rhetorical question on my Aduro recap this week. I've been putting out a lot of content because I think the timeliness of it is right. Sub $1, okay? Nah, it's a penny stock. I've had lots of bad luck with this. Fine and dandy, all right? You got your scars on your face like Rocky. You've had the shit kicked out of you a few times. I get it. You're gun shy, okay? If you want to invest in the S&P 500, I can guarantee no greater than a 30% return over the next 30 years in any one given year which each of those years as they passed has an equal and equitable chance to be down 30% or more over the course of that year. Why do I suggest that? My largest position is in the S&P 500, all right? It is predictable. It is predictable wealth. It is diversified wealth. It is low expense wealth. And it fits right in with the perspective on the independent investor channel of being one of those cornerstones in the portfolio that can absolutely crush it for you. I will declare to you guys my TSP just this evening is approaching the $100,000 mark. I started investing in it in 2012. So just over 10 years ago, my goal was to have 100 grand in that account by the time I retired, it's been just over 10 years. We are approaching the 100 grand mark now. What do I do? What do I do? Donate it to charity? I don't know. Give it to the kids? Hell, I don't care about the money. I don't care. Some people will come in here and they'll be like, God dang, listen to this guy talk, man. Most people just say, I really wanna be a millionaire. It keeps me up at night, really? And you're not willing to do one thing toward that goal? Me, if you listen to how I talk, I have separated myself mentally from my money a long, long time ago, okay? I don't care. I do this for the business of it. I truly am wired like a businessman. It is the very plan that I deploy, which I take value in. It's what makes me click. It's the very lifeblood of what pumps through me, okay? It's not the rendering. I expect to make money with High Leon. I expect to make money with Aduro Clean Technologies. Does my desire guarantee me a payoff on the back end? No, baby, that's business, okay? Step into the really real world. This is the major leagues here, guys, okay? There is no minor league stock market, all right? If you wanna play this game, you have to start to wrap your mind around this idea that you can't be a baby, okay? You gotta put your big boy pants on or your big girl pants on, okay? And you've got to try to define the fringes. You've gotta define the swim lanes that you're gonna be in. And I put those raw swim lanes out there to you. And a lot of people will be like, this guy's kind of an asshole. He's kind of an asshole, man. That's because you've never been kicked in the head before. All right? I'm not gonna sugarcoat this deal for you. I'm not gonna do that for you. A lot of people seek out their guidance in the stock market by following everybody else. Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me I'm wrong. Look, if I start to have other messages out there on YouTube that talk about, you know, I don't know, maybe motivating yourself or maybe lighting a fire under your own ass, right? I don't see those messages. Naria, will I ever see those messages? Why? Because that's what makes the Independent Investor channel unique in that I'm not looking to sell you on anything, okay? I'm looking to make sure that you take the ample opportunity to look yourself squarely in the mirror and ask yourself, do I want to do or not to do? And in true Independent Investor channel, as we close out 2023, I've got to pay homage to an old onus on the channel. It's great to have everybody on the channel, man. Be back with you in just a moment. There was probably a hell of a lot more than 110 sheep in that video. There's no doubt about it. I think there was probably 110,000 people that were probably looking for financial advice on YouTube, all right? And I would say that the vast majority of those 110,000, maybe more people who are seeking out sound financial advice over YouTube will end up with their nose up the ass of the person in front of them. And it smells horrible, horrible, okay? It truly does, all right? Let's rock into some portfolio reviews. This is something that I enjoy doing. Sometimes this can, you know, I really try to put myself into the recipient of the message seats and, you know, like it's hard sometimes to justify sharing what it is that I do on the wealth building side, okay? But I think it really does drive home what I've been talking about with regard to pursuing financial thresholds. What are some of the different accounts that you'll define in your makeup, okay? And you're like, and he's like, you've sat through the last couple of weeks of independent I2 live streams. Let's say this is your fourth one. And in one month, I guarantee I've lit in a fire under your ass. There's no doubt about it. The last four have been really, really good because I really do talk about those cornerstones of application, okay? But this is a joint holding account that I've got. Now, all of these are with fidelity now. So keep in mind a little bit of framework and context around these declarations here. I have switched a lot of accounts. I've closed Robinhood, Good Riddance. I have closed Webull, Good Riddance. For the first time in my life, I have walked away from a business that I absolutely would recommend all the way, 100%. I am 100% satisfied customer with M1 Finance. However, with the goal of consolidating I have taken those accounts like and kind and moved them over to fidelity, okay? There was a couple reasons for that. The ease of simplification of consolidating the accounts, number one. But more importantly, the consolidation of and the pursuit of a higher interest rate on idle cash fidelity really delivers on that front. I know if you guys probably have looked at this and thought it's about time, Ryan, thank you. It's nice to join the party. Very good, man, seven and seven tonight. Cheers to you guys. Oh, and happy the hell holidays. That's what I'm talking about, Clark. Hell yeah, that's what I'm talking about. So very simple, some larger positions in this in Amazon, Google, 3M, AT&T, Blackstone Group, the BTI position is fairly new. And the Warner Brothers Discovery, that was kind of a cool announcement today that they're probably gonna merge with Paramount. So kind of cool there with a 10% kicker there of cash. Again, making about 2.53% maybe higher on that idle cash in the joint account. That's $62,643. Route one, back comfortably into the six figure mark. Now mind you, these accounts, they really took a downturn. So when I show you these wavetops or these tips of the iceberg, you have to understand, again, look, hell, if you were with me over the last three years, you know that every single day was like a big Mike Tyson left punch combo to the face and to the gut about how horrible it can be in the stock market. I don't mean to scare anybody off. These numbers that I render to you guys bottom line on being as transparent as I possibly can are made possible through the power of the stock market. All right? I don't know where I would be if I would have tried to save myself to these numbers. I have no idea. Hell, I was just paid tons of dividends this week. I think I made shoot almost a dividend every single week, every single day this week. It was awesome. One day I woke up, I got an email. I got a dividend for $1.05 on one of my holdings. I was super happy. I'll disclose to you how I've moved to those M1 finance accounts over to Pidelity, like in kind, the one has transferred, the final two are awaiting to transfer. A little bit of tricks there. They weren't happy with a couple of my original submissions, but hey, no big deal. But $104.03, nothing to shake a stick out here with BlackRock is the governing holding Disney. JP Morgan Chase, Microsoft. O&L was a spinoff of realty income. Pepsi, VOO is half that value, close to $45,000. A VOO in there, VBK is up huge. There's a nice $10,000 position in there. VNQ, nice $10,000 position there, et cetera. Pfizer, which is at a 52 week low right now. Procter & Gamble O, Verizon, which just crept back into the black, and finally Verizon, that has been an absolute freaking dog crap stock for the last five years. So again, as a pump and dumper, I'd like to recommend to all the accusers of me of being a pump and dumper, they can go ahead and throw their entire net worth into Verizon and hopefully get a little bit better performance over the next five years, because I can guarantee you in five years, a duro, clean technologies, you wait. Just mark my word, okay? I will be reporting on that old girl for the rest of my life and I'm happy to do so. If you didn't watch the webinar, which look, if the odds are out of the nine billion people that are out of the world, the 110 people that were lucky enough to actually be on that webinar, I know I was one of them. I happen to probably know three or four other people, which we are gonna be meeting tomorrow on a webinar, kind of special, I'll post it as soon as we're done with myself, with Yazan Amsi, Mary Yusko Niitschkini, Penny Queen are going to do a reaction video. It's gonna be special, I'm gonna host it. I'm just the guy to host it, it's great, but I really wanna hear these guys' thoughts. I love all three of them. They're very, very sharp. I haven't talked to Penny for a while. She's an independent cover of the company. Mary Yusko has been just phenomenal through 2023 in really being the forward conveyor of the message. And that's why I just don't really understand how I can sit on a webinar. And I just about fell out of my FN chair. By some of the things that were said, I freaking couldn't believe it. The stock's trading for 90 cents, it does not go down. So good luck buying it on a dip if you'd like to do that. I've just initiated some new buy points and I started at 82 cents on the latest dip, picked it up as much as 86 cents. And I'm already up on every block of shares I've picked up. The stock has been on fire in 2023. Will that continue? Hell, I don't know. I'm not a freaking magician, all right? Nobody has ever bestowed upon me a crystal ball to rub before I come on to the fastest 60 minutes and give you all the answers so that you can just place your bets on Monday, okay? That doesn't exist. But if there has ever been a more exciting opportunity in the stock market, I have never seen that except for what has been made possible through what Aduro Clean Technologies is doing. And it was conveyed in a way that was just absolutely beautifully separated from the industry by the words of Eric Appelman, their Chief Revenue Officer with Aduro, recently brought on the team from Brightland's Camelot overseas. Been with the company six months. He said, look, I looked at the company. I looked at the technology two years ago. I've been looking at it from a distance. I had my doubts on the onset. Then I was proven that it worked. Then I ran it through its paces and it just failed to fail over two years, you know? And he said, now looking at it, I'm even more excited than I was on the onset because the technology works better than I thought it did. And that was the real separator for me on the webinar, but really more to follow when I host the panel tomorrow. I invite all you guys. It's gonna be awesome, man. It's gonna be great to hear the insights. Mary Yousha, I'm a little more in tune with. Penny, I follow her message. She's a featured channel on the Independent Investor channel because of how strong they both are with their independent research in the micro cap space. I am not one of them. So I defer to them for their expertise in the space. But there are some grumblings in the Russell 2000. There's some rumblings in the small cap space. My small cap ETFs are on par this year in 2023 with the NASDAQ performance. So for you guys that have been sleeping under a tree for 2023 because Mr. Nash told you to take the year off, perhaps maybe again, you can cut that, all those umbilical cords off and start to maybe, I don't know, follow somebody that you trust to hell of a lot more than anybody else on this earth. And that's yourself, all right? Here's Roth too. This is mine. This took some damage from Hylian, obviously, but being with fidelity now, I was able to accumulate some of those shares. Double, boom, boom. Double, boom, boom. Double, Aduro with the Roth protection. Yeah, that's big, okay? See, you guys get to deal with some cool stuff that I had to deal with when I first started accumulating Aduro shares. And that was that it wasn't available on 50% of the brokers out there. Socked. I told the story. I went on to, I called Bank of America and I was like, hey, man, I want to invest in this company. I have X number of dollars. I would've dropped a 20 spot right there. I would've dropped a 20 spot right there. And they were like, oh, we're gonna write till the stock goes to $5 a share, $5 a share. Shit, the stock goes to $5 a share. I'm sitting on half a million bucks. Get all me crazy. I really didn't want to wait until the stock went to $5 a share. I value it now at $5.75 a share. The technology alone is a $250 million technology. The market cap of the company right now is a nice, cool $65 million USD. Dare I say more? Do your own homework? Do your own due diligence? But the beauty of social media is such that we can put these very, very real opportunities out there. It's real. It's not a pie in the sky. It's not a pie in your face. It's right there in front of your face, okay? All you have to do is step out and say, God dang, Ryan, all right, man. I wasn't one of the 110 patrons. Let me just Google search this. I don't know, man, I'm sitting here watching Game of Thrones with my wife. I can actually search this out. Say it, Aduro, God dang, they are real. I got a dang if they have a website. I'll be damned. Adurocleantech.com. Adurocleantech.com. Find out, follow them on Twitter. I got a dang, Ryan's right, man. They are right. What the hell? This is great, man. Click onto the webinar. Watch the four minute video. If you don't have an attention span past that of a P, watch the video at the end. It was really awesome, man. It's really awesome. Some of the private companies now that are offering less than standard solutions to the plastic problem through paralysis are doing so in the private market. And they have plants built now. They have engagement from major players like Dow Chemical, Dow DuPont, at Lyandell Basel, many others. Why? Because the major industries out there, both the oil and gas industry, as well as the plastic producers, they are looking at this problem very, very seriously. And they are looking at the technology that is available out there. It's gonna be exciting times over the next coming years. I'll sit on my haunches. It's no problem. I own my shares long. I'm not trading in and out. I bought them. I haven't sold one share. And that's something cool, man. We saw a big block order come through this week is selling at 90 cents. I think that could be one of the most regrettable decisions that you ever make in looking at this company long term. I really do. I think you could look at that and say, God damn, I held the shares. I'm back, I had it. And I think that's gonna be the most challenging thing going forward is actually sitting on something and kind of understanding how we deal with a material position in the company. Don't worry about it. I'll shepherd you through that whole process. Man, it's all good. We'll throw a big ass party someday. It's all good. Don't worry about it. All right, I'll take care of you. So now it's the Fidelity Sector Specialty ETF portfolio. This is comprised of the 11 sectors, the S&P. For you guys that got a hold of the M1 Binance account, congratulations. Those have just absolutely whipped ass over the last couple of years that I've had them. This has been comprised of some surplus capital here filtering into these ETFs that I've owned for three years. I'm happy with the performance. It does nothing but kick ass. Gives me a barometer on what sectors are kind of hot and what sectors have cooled off. Gives me an idea of where the sector rotation comes from, pays me a touch of a dividend and makes me money over the long term. So it's a good thing. NERIA are looking to lead you astray on the independent investor channel. Just show you the facts. That's it. Fidelity dividend growth. So this is a combination of two, right? So one drawback of M1 Binance is that you can only buy maximum 100 equities per portfolio. And there's a lot of people who come on and be like, you're an idiot Ryan. Yeah, Warren Buffett says, put it in your top 10 horses. Look, I'm not Warren Buffett. All right. I never tried to be Warren Buffett. I think he's an awesome dude. I'd give him a big hug if I met the guy. Okay. However, I invest like me. I don't invest like anybody else on YouTube. I invest like me. If you don't like it, it's no problem. But I have done nothing but prove that this portfolio kicks ass over the last couple of years. What has been fairly rough markets? It's been tough. Okay. So 147 holdings, they're in the process of being in the stars. And once I bring those over to Fidelity, I'll have those all in one account totaling 46,384. I've held this account for two years, three years. What's the difference? Who cares? We're all gonna live and die. What's the difference? Two to three years. I'm happy with the performance it kicks ass. 147 times four equaling four dividend payouts per year. That equals what? 600? 600 paychecks I get for doing what? Jumping up and down, acting like an idiot, catching my hair on fire on YouTube so I can get attention. Nope. Nope. Just coming on and putting content through like this when my energy is channeled just right, you guys are getting the super goods. But the fact of the matter is it's almost 600 dividends a year times four per equity holding that rotates back into the portfolio and pays me to own the stocks. All right. If you guys want me to disclose those to you, I certainly can. I don't mind sharing every 147 holding, but it's companies like Intel, Home Depot, Procter and Gamble, Johnson and Johnson, Duke Energy, Southern, Linde. It does cover all 11 sectors, the S&P 500. It spurs across the material sector, covers some real estate, some energy in there, some energy transfer partners, some big ass dividend payers. This is a dividend portfolio. So there's not one company in there that doesn't pay a dividend, right? And a lot of people may come to the channel and they're like, damn, I don't know squat about money, but I have a lot of money. Be awesome, I'm just your guy, right? I'm just down to earth. I don't come from money like you do. And I don't know if I would be who I am if I came from money. That's the cool thing about it. There's a lot of people love Tony Robbins, who is like a mentor of mine, but would he have been Tony Robbins had he not had the turmoil that he talks about openly from earlier on in his life? Yeah. Yeah, you gotta expand your who you are and your range of like how you operate. Like when you're pissed off, be pissed off. It's okay. When you're really, really happy, be really happy, but don't go through life midline. Don't go through midline. Just kind of walk up through that bump. I still have some of the smell at the top and it smells sometimes. That's it, I'm gonna keel over and die. Don't do that. Come on. Be a little more dynamic with your program, man. This is the account that just this year had dipped down with a six in front of it. It now has a nine in front of it approaching the one. And I always say, look, it's never as good as you think that it is, but I couldn't be happier with this performance started it in 2012. I contribute 25% of my pay to this. So I'm taking in house 75% of my take home pay that I make every single couple of weeks with my career, right? And that's just an attempt in paying myself first. And I don't miss that money a bit. Hell, I could push it up to 50% and still survive. And we're chipping away at that maximum contribution gap, which I think is what guys 24, five, something like that. And this is cool because these are all Roth contributions, man. Pretty awesome, pretty special for the government workers out there who understand the TSP, blah, blah. I don't want to bore you. This is a really small set by RA I started last year. I still had it, get a little surplus. I'll contribute to that. Here's the business account. There's where the majority of the Aduro shares are held in the business account. So about half 29,500 shares held long, but in a taxable account, unfortunately. So we'll have to dwindle those holdings off if it ever materializes in an SEHD 100 shares there. So that's a $7,500 block there. And then Voxster, which is a really good company. It just hasn't caught any favor yet. It's been beat down with every other small cap offering out there. It's been a rough year for the Russell, been a rough couple of years actually. And what's happened after the last couple of weeks is now inflows are coming in and people are like that. They've been through this routine before and this is usually what happens is those down sectors beat down and forgotten and discarded and absolutely kicked in the gutter. We'll gain favor, but 521-842, that's where we are, man, securely back above the half a million dollar mark for what a half a dozen times now that I've reported out on the Independent Investor Channel. To be quite honest with you guys, I really don't care. I don't freaking care. A lot of people, man, would look at it and say, man, that's a lot of money. I wish to get there, you never will. A lot of people would say, I'm there now and you won't keep it. A lot of people will actually look at it and gain the right level of motivation and say, you know what, I'm right on if this Johnson can do it, so can I. And that's the God's honest truth of it. If you come onto the Independent Investor, I'm one of those guys to come on and tell you the truth in that nobody out there is special. Like you don't have to be special to make money. All right? You don't have to have lightning bolts shooting out your ass to make money. It doesn't work that way. There's nothing special. I said a couple of weeks ago to some of the patrons that come by the channel, and like, money doesn't discriminate. Okay? If you choose not to pursue wealth, then that's on you. That's not society's problem. That's not anybody else's problem, but yours. Okay? You can't blame me. I do everything I can do on the Independent Investor channel to give away the goods for free every Friday. I'm the least of your problems. Look in the mirror. Very cool stuff. See who's in the group, man. And then we'll get to awesome conversation. Remember, tomorrow, guys, when I post the webinar, it's gonna be really cool. I'm really looking forward to talking to them, the friends through the network. One of the very many things that I'm very thankful for with regard to my ability to network through social media. You guys are absolutely a huge, huge portion of that. And I'm just happy to know you. No doubt about it. I'm humbled at the opportunity. I'm humbled to know guys like this because I don't know, Matt, if I ran into you at Walmart, would you say what's up? Probably not, right? Cause we're pretty busy fellas, but I tell you, me and you have built a pretty good relationship over the years. And I am thankful for you, brother. There's no doubt about it. I think it's cool to come in and I think it's cool to talk about and hang out with like-minded people. You know, the old cliche is surround yourself with people who are successful. And I am. If you'd like me to have one or two million dollars in the bank to somehow put that tag on me, then that's no problem, but you can call it arrogance of my part. That's no problem, but the deep level of success that I have, fortunately for you, and I will define for you now, has very little to do with the size of my portfolio, but rather the amount of lifestyle that I'm able to provide for the family. And that really is where I'm at and where it stops for me. But Merry Christmas, Matt. It's great to see you, my brother. It's awesome and it's great to have known you over the years, man, no doubt about it. You're an awesome soul, bro. And Chris is in the house, man, very cool stuff. Chris has been with the channel long, long time. I'm just super, super, super thankful for your support over the channel and hopefully you get some, I don't know, some motivation or maybe some laughs out of the message. I don't know. I can be a pretty funny guy, I guess. I don't know. I'm laughing on the inside, trust me. I'm not sure what YouTube algorithm led me to this channel, but I'm grateful it did. I don't know what algorithm led you to it either, Steve007, but I'm glad to have you here, man. I'm not the one that is going to catch that slippery slope to hundreds of thousands of subscribers. You look at my featured channels, Matt's one of them. Matt's a good dude. Matt's a self-made millionaire. He was a self-made millionaire before 30. And I don't think he would mind me sharing that he's a successful career man in the oil and gas business. Those are the people that I wanna support. I don't care about supporting somebody that's come onto YouTube and decide that it's funny to jump up and down and act like a fool. No way. Now, this topic is very, very serious for people. Money is a very serious topic, okay? But the sheer fact that makes me funny is that I kind of throw that into the reality that this is FN YouTube, all right? How serious can it be for crying out loud? I wear the same shirt every Friday to prove a point. Would you take me more serious if I wore my suit and tie, you know? Come on, freak. That's not gonna help your bottom line, okay? My Oak desk in front of you and my fake plant in the corner and my awesome computer that I've got right here. That's not gonna help make you money. I'm a realist. Like I said, you wanna believe in the crystal ball? No problem. You can find 500 other channels out there. But I'm just hella glad to have you in the community, man, the greatest gift that you can give to the I do is to bring anybody on that you feel like could resonate with the message. It's a community environment, right? The very success of the channel is defined by every dollar that is made for individual portfolios, man. It's a freaking scoff at the man, right? It's a scoff at a system that would influence people to thinking the way that they would have you think and acting the way that they would have you think, all right? And being scared of things that you shouldn't be scared of and not pursuing things that you should be pursuing. Being independent, empowered thinker, man. It's super, super important. I don't care. And again, if you can render those dollars within your household, then that's the very success of the channel that we've always been striving for. No doubt. Horned dogs in the house. Fantastic. Right on, man. Yeah, Thomas in the house. This is Merry Christmas to everyone from New Jersey. Ah, throw a rock and hit you, my brother. Throw a rock, that was East, sorry. Throw a rock that way, all right? I can see Verrazano right out my window. Okay, he knows what I'm talking about. See, I'm very real, very real. You're from Maduro next year. We'll blow away from 38% green from this year. Yeah, so like if you review the webinar, I'm not gonna be, I may take not a bearish perspective. I'm obviously bullish in the company, right? There was a question that came out, when is Aduro gonna list to the NASDAQ? And I about fell out of my chair on that one too, because that would be the worst thing that would happen for the company right now. They need to solidify their financial statements. They really do. They need to start to generate some meaningful revenue on the top end. Profits not gonna come for a while, I don't believe. And with that much disconnect between what they're gonna make through tens of thousands, if not some contracts that might be a little more lucrative, 50 to 100,000. Ophir Vikas talks about this on the webinar. I'm just regurgitating what he said in the entry level customer, through their customer engagement program that they're gonna glean some revenue off of for three to six months time period, okay? Now that revenue increases once they bring them in and by Eric Appelman's admission is that this technology may sell itself, okay? And I don't wanna speak along the presumptuous lines. Aduro has to do a lot here. They've gotta do a lot, okay? Do I think that the stars are aligned enough to really put them in the driver's seat to be their own worst enemy? Yeah, I do, I do. I think they've really set a roadmap of the lot next three years to be the real tell. It will be a first look, either three years or $10 down the line. Either everything else until then is futile in my mind. But thanks for coming in, my brother, Merry Christmas to you too. It's awesome to have you. Very cool stuff, pump and dumper. I don't know, I laugh anymore. When you first start doing YouTube, man, it's like everything bothers you. And it's like, now I'm just entertained by it. I'm like, cool, man, don't buy the stock, man. You're the very type of person that I don't wanna see by the stock, don't buy it, okay? Go buy Verizon. Verizon is my hot stock pick conviction for anybody who wants to make anemic returns and underperform the S&P 500 in 2024. There you go. Explain why the December 2023 milestone one deliverable for Prospero was missed. I have to look into it. I don't know. The last I had heard is Prospero was one of the five majors that they were working for. So as far as missing a milestone, I will take that back to my source and run that to ground for you, Bill. But thank you for bringing it to my attention, absolutely. I don't know, I can't speak on that, I can't provide any level of color or transparency on that. But I guarantee there's probably somebody on this live stream that will probably take that for action and I'll probably see a text come through my phone. But thank you, Bill, I appreciate it. I don't know the nature of that, of what you speak of, okay? I just knew that they were in relations with Prospero, but outside of that, I don't know about any type of missed milestones. Okay, thank you. Merry Christmas, fantastic. Appreciate you, Jamie, one of the Vipers in the group. Awesome, awesome. Matt's in the house. Merry Christmas, all cheers for investing in growth in 2024. Yeah, I don't know, we can't have it any worse. Good grief, if the last couple of weeks have given you any taste of how powerful the stock market is gonna, can be. You know, it's an interesting game we play. There's no doubt. I'm not gonna tell you that it's always all bad. That's not the truth. It's awful dang good. You've gotta keep a level head about you. There's no doubt. Acknowledge what went good. There was a lot of restructuring as I disclosed in the portfolio for you guys that haven't sat through that for a while. Saw some of the changes that I had made in the interest of higher interest on idle cash as well as consolidating the accounts down into something that was a little more manageable and not spread out all over God's green earth. Okay, glad to see the stream is live. U.S. large caps are where I'm comfortable investing. Oh, it's fun. It's fun. I get a little edgy on the independent investor channel. I'm not a regrettable person. I don't regret things. I don't think like that. I'm not gonna beat myself up for taking a strategic shot or, you know, not buying a house at the perfect time in the stock market or not buying 15 houses in Suburbia, Detroit when I lived there when houses were going for like four and 5,000 bucks. I could have bought 15 houses, you know? I don't beat myself up over that stuff, man. Life is just life and there's no promise that you'll have a perfect life. But I tell you what, through my determination, I tell you what, sometimes in the short term, it appears as if maybe I'm actually running in quicksand but over the long term and especially when I take a step, stop to reflect and I'm like, hey, everything's pretty good. Things are pretty darn good. And I tell you, man, they've been good for a long, long damn time. I'm super happy, super happy, you know? When you come from where I come from, man, it's like so sweet, man, I can taste it, man. I can only wish that upon others to experience what it is that I experience with the nature of the fulfillment that I get every day to do what it is that I do, man. And again, that speaking, not having a whole hell of a lot to do with portfolio. This is, I too, livestream time when we talk about stock, et cetera, but what I do on my own time, man, is really what gives me the most fulfillment in my personal life, no doubt about it. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. You're funny about this, man, Matt. I'm super stoked about, this is my last payment on my Toyota Tacoma. I have three, 30,000 miles on the truck. It's my dream truck. It's my second Tacoma that I've owned. And I own one, I own one more $500 payment and then I own it. So how about when Tacoma? Look, if I ever have the means to treat myself, it will be after I've acquired a main home. We have some plans after I get stopped owned by the government to retire somewhere, maybe in the Carolina region, right? Be close to an airport so we can do some traveling abroad, et cetera. But if I ever have the chance to plant a car in the driveway, it will never be a Lambo. I don't think I could wrap my mind around it. One thing that I would aspire to as far as a luxury item that makes no sense whatsoever is the new Corvette. And I've disclosed that through the channel too, but I could buy five of them now. The fact that I don't fall on tilt and act like an idiot and go buy one now when it's a poor financial decision really speaks to where my devotion is, right? Let's tanger a tonight, man. Let's tanger a, tanger a, ginger ale. Ale, man, I'd make you one if you were here. Oh, in mind. Here in Manhattan, that's a $25 drink. Working the medello, fantastic Victor. Thanks again for all your support over the years. I'm thankful for you guys. Hair's on fire is a nice extra though. I know. Well, it'll be different if I came on and slept for 60 minutes. I don't think you guys would take too good to that. I've got myself over a thousand. You know, a thousand, you know, it's funny. You always talk about those positions that if you just took a few hundred bucks and put a little strategic shot at it, I really do think that the hardest decision with this company, if they can circumnavigate not being taken over, which is a real concern for me at 60 million market cap, hell, they could come out of this game changer and just be like Shell has made us an offer that we cannot afford. They're gonna pay 850 a share. Now I make a half a mill on that deal, you know, and I just, would it be in the best interest of the company and the initiative and how good the technology would be to take it and just accelerate its performance and way of tackling the plastic problem globally? Yeah. Yeah, it would. Would it take longer for Adura to do it on their own? Yes. Yes, would there be more money in it for share owners? But, you know, the power of a thousand share position for a company that goes from the bargain basement price that it is at now to something significantly material, you know, two, three, five, 10, 15 billion in market cap, which the company could do with its model and working with large petrochemical, you know, if they do, they'll have the ability to diversify across the entire value cycle, which is what Eric Appelman talked about. You've got to watch the webinar. Catch the panel discussion tomorrow. What can I say, man? Exciting times. Exciting times to be able to provide that content to you guys and at least trouble them. It's not as much as you add. And don't, don't, don't worry about that. You don't have to do anything that reflects anything of what I do. You really don't. I'm in a different position when compared to my greatest, greatest competitor and that's myself, you know? It's just cool that I come on and share that stuff through YouTube. You know what I'm saying? It's cool. And I'm humbled at the opportunity. Don't, don't get me wrong. Don't, don't think I'm coming on and being like, you know, hey, I was this and that no, no, no, no. No, I deliver that stuff with some care and I deliver it with some understanding that you guys understand a little bit about where I come from. I'm not looking to take a pie in the sky chance here. No, Aaron, I'm not looking at that. Keeping an eye on Parcel Pal. Paws, Merry Christmas. Have a fantastic year and thank you. Yeah, the CEO just, he hasn't spoken with me. No big deal. He's probably taken the holidays off and the last I had spoken with him, the idea was to re-engage first and next year. And that's probably what we'll do. The funny thing about what it is that I'm doing now for companies, you know, it's funny because when I was working with another company, and I won't name names, I was happy to do the work for them, but when I did the work for them, all of those companies went down. And it was like, holy smokes, man, like, okay, I don't mind pushing it through. Investors need to make their own decisions, et cetera, but I take a black eye. Every single time I come onto the channel and I'm like, hey, take a look at this, do some research, don't invest in the company. I'm not that type of thing. And the company loses 99% of its value, you know? Aduro has been one of those companies that I've started doing content for them for free. And I'll continue to do that. I don't, atypical, yes. There's nothing for free in life. Yeah, I don't know. I do what I want because I want. I don't need somebody, nobody asked me to do that. I don't need somebody to be like, hey, this would be a great idea. I mean, to come out with a discussion piece on Aduro every week. That was my idea. I wanted to do it. I don't charge that off on Aduro. I have credits with them. I wanna preserve those credits for the big announcements. Those are the ones that I'll take the charge off and they have compensated me for that. But, you know, all is fair. I wanna make sure that they understand that they're getting a good deal. And at the end of the day, it's really that preservation of that business deal that I'm more interested in at the end of the day. All right, well, let's see if this one can actually materialize for us. It can be a lot of fun, man, for sure. I did it. I think you were the one last week that told me to do that. I already did it. That was a pretty awesome feature. So that's a really cool takeaway. You know, down to the last minute of the fastest 60 minutes on YouTube, Mitra dates in here every freaking week. I just appreciate the hell out of the support. Man, I really do, but I did that. And it was a cool, cool feature because it's absolutely something that I was willing to exercise. It fit really well for me, because I'm a builder, right? I don't care about the outflow so much. But that feature was huge. I dug it. I thought it was pretty awesome. So Mitra date will end on that, man, for sure. I'm gonna tighten it up in 60, man. I feel like going for another 60. I'm pretty fired up tonight, but I do not wanna belinger the point, guys, as we close down 2023. A lot, very dynamic year. When I look back and I say I did it hard, I'm very proud of what we were able to weather in way of a storm. I'm gonna tell you, man, it was not a banner year. In some blessings, in some forms, it was my best year ever. In other capacities, we'll live to fight another year. The project continued to deliver on all fronts for me spiritually. And I hope you guys received the message the same. You know, my message is being delivered very, very razor sharp right now. I'm very satisfied with the level of compassion that I deliver the message on. If nothing else, even bringing it back a little more to center about where the channel's roots and really where the focus needs to be for the vast majority of investors out there looking to grow a few pennies under their household roof for themselves. And that's what we look to do is empower those investors out there to realize that it's not as scary as the society would have you believe. It's a small pocket of YouTube as disclosed by one of our patrons this evening to suggest that it was surprised to even find the channel. Hell, I'm surprised. I don't promote myself. I expect referrals to come through. If referrals aren't provided for me, then I just guess I won't get any more growth on the channel and I'm totally fine with that too. I could do this channel for the next 20 years with 30,000 subscribers. Be totally happy with that. But guys, just in closing, man, I will re-remind you guys tomorrow to tune into the webinar reaction. Myself will be hosting. Mariush will be with me. Yes, Anhamsi will be with me. Penny Queen will be with me. We will all be on the same panel looking very much forward to that and getting a consensus reaction to the 2023 webinar that was just delivered on behalf of Aduro Clean Technologies just this week, guys. So Merry Christmas to everybody. Have a great, happy holiday. Be safe. Don't be an idiot. That's my advice, Clark. Don't be an idiot, okay? All right, that's just government plastic between your brain and the ground below you. All right, so be careful. But if you do enjoy the content, man, and invite you to subscribe to the channel, it is the very least you can do to help us support the channel. Thank you so much for tuning in. And good luck, guys, in your investment future. We'll catch you next week on the live stream and the Independent Investor Channel. Be well. Cheers.