---
chapter: 4
title: "The veggie-bowl trade"
ticker: CMG
company: "Chipotle Mexican Grill"
domain: "chipotle.com"
entry: code
buys:
  - date: "2026-09-29T15:58:00-04:00"
    price: 31.935
    shares: 31.313
    note: "initial buy"
proofs:
  - /proofs/ch04-mun3u4ixrkt730.png
exitTest: "I'm not selling until it at least doubles — a 2x from my ~$31.94 cost, roughly $64 a share. Below that, I sit tight, drops included. If it gets there, I'll reassess from the top."
---

**Stock: Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG)**

**What it is** — Chipotle is the burrito-and-bowl place a lot of people already know, and I'm one of them. I order the veggie bowl, and I've eaten there enough to have an opinion about it. It trades as CMG.

**Why now** — I'll be straight about the trigger: my code flagged CMG. That's what set the timing and made me act today. I don't buy a stock just because I like the food — the signal is the reason this happened now.

**The bet** — What's different this time is that the code pointed at a business I actually know from the customer side. Every time I go in, there's a crowd. They keep trying new things on the menu instead of standing still. That's the kind of place I can believe keeps growing over a long time, so I'm betting my code and my own read as a customer are pointing the same direction.

**What could go wrong** — Loving a restaurant as a customer doesn't make it a good stock. Plenty of brands I enjoy would be bad investments, and a busy line on the day I visit tells me nothing about the price I actually paid. The code can be wrong too. If all the growth is already in the price, or the crowds thin out, I could sit here underwater for a long time. I'm okay with that — the waiting is the whole point of this book.

This is a small starter position. If I ever add more, it'll show up here as a dated entry in this same chapter — never a rewrite of what I wrote today.

> The record continues below this line — append-only, each entry dated.
> The original text above is never touched. Quarterly checks, splits,
> dividends, and any options hedge on this position go here.