I love Father's Day. No, it's not because I think it's such a special day that everyone awaits with anticipation. Let's be real here, it's always going to be runner-up to Mother's Day; not that there's anything wrong with that.

Father’s Day-sized returns

No, there are two main reasons I love Father's Day: I’m a proud father myself and Father’s Day just makes me think of my dad and all the things he's done for me, simple as that. I owe my love of investing to my father. And with this in mind I give you the Father's Day portfolio. These are ten stocks that remind me of my dad and together they will form a formidable, market beating team that will offer investors outstanding returns for years to come.

Dick’s Sporting Goods (NYSE: DKS) is a family affair. CEO Edward Stack is the son of founder Richard Stack  and he owns close to 18%  of the shares outstanding. With a good share of the tremendous sporting goods market I like what this company has done and where it’s headed.

Boston Beer (NYSE: SAM) seems an appropriate call here. Having a beer with your dad is one of the great moments in life and given that the company sold more than 50 beers  under the Samuel Adams brand in 2012, chances are pretty darn good that there may be a Samuel Adams in dad’s fridge.

My dad drives a Ford (NYSE: F) Expedition and he’s owned a few Fords in his life. Every time I see the blue oval I think of him and I think this company will play a big part in the fast-changing automobile market.

Seeing my dad using his iPhone and  iPad courtesy of Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) makes me look like I’ve got a coat hanger in my mouth I smile so wide. The guy turned 71 this Father’s Day (Happy Birthday dad!) and he’s embraced technology like a 15 year old.

We all know that if you have a question these days you can just ask Google (Nasdaq: GOOG). These guys do a lot of things well, but search and maps are their specialty.

It’s not just iDevices for my dad either. He loves his new Kindle Paperwhite courtesy of Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN), not to mention the fact that he can order just about anything from the ecommerce giant.

My dad’s a doctor and St. Jude Medical (NYSE: STJ) is a device company that has a wonderfully diverse product mix. From heart devices to strokes, Parkinson’s and migraines th is company is playing a big role in up-and-coming medical technology.

Shout out number one to our Georgia roots, Home Depot (NYSE: HD) is the mac-daddy of home improvement retail and whether you rent or own you’re going to need to go at some point. The recent dividend boost and share repurchase authorization are signs of things to come for shareholders.

Ecommerce is in the early stages and my second shout out to Georgia is United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS) which is one of the two big shippers that should benefit. I love this company’s moat and the capital intensive nature of its market offers up some serious barriers to entry for competitors.

As a doc, my dad knows the trouble medical waste presents and Stericycle (Nasdaq: SRCL) is the company that’s taking care of business where this is concerned. Its competitive advantage only strengthens with time and with a market cap under $10 billion, there’s plenty of room to run.

For fathers and their children

Like I said, I owe my love of investing to my father. I’ll be tracking the results of this portfolio versus the S&P 500 indefinitely beginning with the closing prices from Monday June 17, 2013 and I’m confident that this one will be a long-term market-beater. This portfolio is just a simple way say thanks to my dad for the gift of investing. I count myself as very fortunate that we get to talk about investing (and golf...lots of golf) all the time. Maybe this is one more thing we'll get to talk about for a long time to come.

Quick, what do Twitter, Uber and MakerBot all have in common? No, they aren’t the most recent recommendations in Rule Breakers. But if that’s what you guessed, you’re close (sort of). No, what these three companies have in common is that they are all holdings of Bezos Expeditions. As in Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN). One of the biggest rule breakers out there.

That’s a really big clock

Bezos Expeditions is Jeff Bezos’ own investment vehicle. It’s his opportunity to do everything from invest in tech start-ups to recover pieces of Apollo 11 rockets to building a 10,000 year clock. And judging from its holdings today, Bezos Expeditions is certainly placing plenty of bets on the future.

Second screen

At some point I’m sure we’ll all be able to invest directly in Twitter if we want. All indicators lead us to believe that there is an IPO for the king of 140 characters sooner or later. But for now Amazon shareholders can take solace in knowing that our jockey was smart enough to get some money in on that game early on (at least as early as 2008).

Kind of like a cab, but pleasant

I can forgive you if you’ve never heard of Uber. It’s well beyond just a cab service. Their slogan “Everyone’s Private Driver” is spot on. My wife and I used the service one night to go to dinner in Washington DC. I downloaded the app to my iPhone, set up my profile and from there it was a matter of a click of a button and our driver was there ready for us in a nice car with everything from bottled water to mints and publications for its passenger. They’ve even taken tipping out of the equation; truly a pleasant (and affordable) experience from start to finish.

In 3D

MakerBot has been in the news lately thanks to reports that Stratasys (Nasdaq: SSYS) may be interested in acquiring the desktop 3D printing specialist. How that actually plays out is anyone’s guess at this point. Will Stratasys buy MakerBot? Or will Amazon buy it? No clue there. But one thing is for sure, we are in the early innings of the 3D printing movement and Bezos Expeditions had the wherewithal to get into the game before many.

What this means for investors in Amazon.com

These are only three of a number of investments Bezos Expeditions has made. In fact according to the site there are at least 24 such companies it has put money behind. Of course they aren’t all going to be winners, but some will be. And further it lends to the notion that investors in Amazon.com aren’t just investing in an “overvalued” ecommerce play. No, it’s far deeper than that. It’s just as much a bet on a man who appears hell-bent on making a dent in the universe. And so far, I think he’s pulling it off quite nicely.

JMo

I get the arguments for and against Amazon. I really do. Some see it as a company with a CEO who can’t control his spending habits and doesn’t like making money. Others see it as an Earth-changing company with a leader who has zippy interest in playing Wall Street’s little earnings games and sees the business years out in advance. I am the latter.

Let’s be clear; I own Amazon shares and can’t see getting rid of them anytime soon. I consider it an amazing company for so many reasons and Jeff Bezos has won my admiration for being one of the biggest risk-takers (Elon Musk is up there too) in the history of business.

We subscribe to Amazon Prime in my house. And unless something drastic occurs, it’s a lock like the sun coming up that we will be Prime members for the rest of my days. There’s simply too much value there for me to even consider not renewing. Three months of toilet paper shipping pays for the entire annual subscription, and the rest is just gravy. Two-day shipping, the Kindle lending library, free video streaming, it all adds up to a lot of value. Consumers can chalk it up as a huge win. But is it a win for Amazon? Some say yes; some say no. I say absolutely.

Here’s the thing: when you find a great business that provides a valuable service, that’s lovely. When that business can charge an annual membership fee which provides so much value that customers can’t justify not renewing, that’s living the dream. There aren’t many businesses like that out there. Costco is one of them and as time goes on, Costco’s focus on low prices and a great experience for their members has helped them ring up close to 27 million Gold Star memberships. And I think this is a nice comparable to Amazon Prime’s opportunity.

The Costco Gold Star is a $55 annual membership fee. As time goes on and families see the value in the membership, it becomes simply a cost of living. It’s a trivial amount when compared to the value consumers feel they are getting on an annual basis. And that’s why when Costco initiated its $5 price increase last year, memberships weren't impacted at all. Who cares about the extra $5? The value proposition is huge. Prime is very much the same way. This is just me personally, but Amazon could double the cost of Prime and I would still happily pay it because it still works out in our favor; the math is there along with all the extras that come with it. But we know Bezos more than likely isn’t going to do that. Heck I’d be shocked if he raised the price $5. That’s not the strategy…for now. But it’s clear to see that what he’s doing is creating compelling value-adds to Prime which make the 2-day shipping seem truly free. And all the research shows that free shipping is consistently one of, if not THE biggest considerations among online shoppers.

Morningstar estimates that Amazon has about 10 million Prime members. Not a bad start. And I think that Costco’s 27 million Gold Star memberships gives us an idea of the potential that Prime could have in store; particularly if management really starts pushing it. But they probably won’t have to (at least not much). That’s what the Kindle Fire is for. Check this graph out below, courtesy of Morningstar. Do you think Prime can reach 25 million members by 2017? I certainly think it’s reasonable to believe. And that would be a major cash cow for the company and investors:

Of course this is only one way to look at Amazon’s business. It’s not just an online retailer after all. You may have heard of this little thing called Amazon Web Services? AWS has reached $2 billion in sales and supports hundreds of thousands of businesses in 190 countries already. When we consider the actual potential market opportunity it gets downright exciting. In fact Barron’s research recently targeted that market opportunity at more than $150 billion. Even just a small piece of that makes a big difference. And the fact of the matter is that AWS does a lot of things that many other providers either can’t or aren’t willing to do.

There is the justifiable observation that Bezos has too many irons in the fire which is diverting his attention from what really matters. I choose to look at this a little bit differently (shocker). Amazon’s corporate mission is stated thusly: “We seek to be Earth’s most customer-centric company for four primary customer sets: consumers, sellers, enterprises, and content creators.” To me, Amazon and Bezos really only have one iron in the fire and that’s it right there. To be the most customer-centric company on the face of the Earth. Period. Full stop. And in order to do this their strategy is to offer up all of these different products and services that, in the end, help make our lives easier and more enjoyable than ever before.

Whether you believe in Amazon as an investment is totally up to you. And I'm also fully aware that because management holds a lot of their numbers close to the vest, these Prime assumptions may very well be robust. But in my opinion you should not be looking at this company through a traditional analyst’s lens of price-to-earnings or net losses. Amazon demands that you take a big-picture approach and look at what the company is doing to shape our world. Look at this company from the perspective of its competitive advantage(s) and its tenacious founder/leader. I cannot recommend highly enough taking a look at Jeff Bezos’ 2012 annual letter to shareholders. You can find the history of them all right here. It’s a short and sweet read that will provide you the best insight as to how he thinks and what he’s trying to do. From there it all just boils down to whether you choose to buy it or not. I choose to.

JMo

Some very good stuff here in a report commissioned by UPS and complied by comScore. The Pulse of the Online Shopper takes a look at just what the title implies and there's all sorts of data to chew on here. The links below will take you to the three segments of the report which was just released today:

• White Paper
  
• Executive Summary
  
• Infographic
  

A big takeaway from this (and there are A LOT) is that when you consider the fact that we are in the very nascent stage of online retail and where it can go, returns, shipping and selection are huge drivers. I would say it looks like Amazon.com is certainly focused on many of the things that matter and UPS (and FedEx) should continue to benefit from this long-term ecommerce trend as well.