BetterStocks was born out of a problem our founding team faced in our own lives.

As US citizens living in Europe, we are subject to a combination of US tax law and EU regulation which effectively block us from investing in index funds, no matter where those index funds are offered.

Faced with the task of building a portfolio of individual stocks, we became students of the value investing tradition, absorbing the wisdom of Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, Bruce Greenwald, and many others.

In the age of meme stocks and fast-and-loose investment hype, value investing articulates a set of principles which, when well-applied, enable private investors to build portfolios of “wonderful businesses” (to borrow a phrase from Warren Buffett) which can serve as the foundation for long-term wealth.

Unfortunately, being a good value investor is not easy. It demands a considerable investment of time to become fluent in the language of finance—like income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements—learn about particular industries and individual companies, and then stay on top of the latest developments as the fortunes of some companies rise and others fall.

For precisely those reasons, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger have often spoken about the need to stay in one’s “circle of competence”. It’s impossible for a single person to truly understand the thousands of public companies offering their shares for sale in public markets.

Facing this difficulty ourselves, we began developing the approach that eventually grew into BetterStocks.

What we’re launching today

Our long-term mission is to provide individual investors with unparalleled analysis of every publicly traded company in the world. Our launch today is the first step along that path.

We aim to make high-quality information available and understandable to individuals just beginning their investment journey while also giving seasoned investors tools to simplify and improve their investment process.

For every company in the S&P 500, we’re providing analysis of three fundamental areas:

• Business quality: Is the business well-run and financially sound?
• Long-term potential: Does the business possess advantages that are likely to persist?
• Price: Is the business currently overvalued or undervalued by the market?

Taken together, we have designed these measures to identify businesses that are more likely to experience sustained growth but that the market currently undervalues.

Our philosophy

We built BetterStocks around the philosophy that value investing is the best approach for individual investors, rather than “technical” methods which seek to time stock purchases to profit from short-term price fluctuations.

A value investor sees themselves as a co-owner of the businesses they invest in. They assess the quality of a company’s products and services, the capabilities of management, competitors in the same industry, and ultimately judge whether the business has an enduring advantage that will be reflected in superior financial performance.

Value investing stands in contrast to the idea of “trading stocks”. There are schools of thought that focus on technical stock price analysis, attempting to predict whether the price will rise or fall in the short-term and trying to time the stock purchase to profit from these movements. We think this approach poorly serves individual investors.

BetterStocks provides tools that help you build a portfolio of great businesses so you can simply sit back and let your investments grow.

About us

We are a small team with experience as founders, executives, and hands-on product builders in the financial technology space.

Kevin has been working in technology and financial services for over two decades. He was the co-founder and CEO of P.F.C., the first neobank in Sweden. He has held senior technology and product leadership positions at prominent financial technology companies, including Klarna and other European banks. Kevin is passionate about investing and helping others invest.