On May 15, 2023, I bought two shares of Aercap Holdings (AER) at $57 each. Not a big splash, just a small, intentional move into what I considered a classic post-recovery value play. No clickbait thesis here—just the comforting smell of jet fuel, discounted cash flows, and a balance sheet that was beginning to shed its pandemic baggage.

At the time, AER was trading at a P/E of around 6, which—even in an airline-adjacent industry—felt almost aggressively pessimistic. The market seemed stuck on 2020 while Aercap was back to doing what it does best: leasing planes globally, collecting steady cash flows, and refinancing its mountain of debt at increasingly normal rates.

Speaking of which, debt was still heavy (as you’d expect from a company leasing $70B+ worth of aircraft), but the trajectory looked manageable. The debt-to-equity ratio hovered around 3.0, but free cash flow was solid, and they were deleveraging quarter by quarter.

No dividend, which actually reassured me—this wasn’t a company pretending to be generous while still healing its capital structure. Instead, AER was focused on buybacks (a $500M repurchase program was in place) and chipping away at its AerCap-GECAS merger integration. Long-term revenue growth projections were modest but real: mid-single digits, driven by rising global demand for air travel and constrained new aircraft supply.

So I bought my two shares, intending to wait.

Fast-forward to June 6, 2025

Two years and change later, I sold one share at $115.95, more than double my entry price. That one sale booked a 103% gain on the half-position, which means my remaining share is now effectively free—a textbook example of what I call the “Double-Up Free Stock” strategy.

It’s simple: buy two, sell one when it doubles, and let the other ride. It’s not groundbreaking, but it works. This isn’t about maximizing returns—it’s about creating mental clarity. That last share now represents pure optionality. No sunk cost to justify, no capital to recover. Just upside (or a future loss I won’t beat myself up over).

Lessons?

• Valuation matters. A low P/E isn’t always a trap—it can also be a time machine if you’re patient.
• Debt can be okay—if it’s productive, well-structured, and shrinking.
• Sometimes the best trades don’t need big narratives. They just need time, recovery, and a little bit of nerve.

I’ll hold the last share and see where AER goes. Maybe it becomes a long-term compounder. Maybe it plateaus. Maybe I forget I own it and rediscover it five years from now next to a forgotten REIT and a half-position in semiconductors.

But for now, I’m happy flying half empty.