Ep53: Ralph Woodcock – Following the Crowd into Bitcoin Disaster

By Andrew Stotz | 02/11/2019 |

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Guest profile

Ralph Woodcock is an Associate Partner with St. James’s Place and based in Shenzhen, China. Ralph is an ACIS member of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI) and has worked in the offshore financial services industry for over five years. He is very passionate about delivering tailored and holistic solutions to his clients and committed to building long-term relationships by providing a source of trusted advice dependent on their financial needs. Because of this, Ralph is also an active member of the expatriate community in China. Ralph’s focus is on ensuring his clients receive the best help possible providing expertise with the design and implementation of customized investment solutions. These goals can vary from wealth management, retirement planning, education planning or specialized insurance needs. Ralph believes that investing doesn’t need to be complicated and it’s up to St. James’s Place to make it simple and transparent.

Outside of work Ralph likes to spend time with his family and explore the historical landmarks throughout China and visit their many hidden treasures. Originally from England, Ralph also enjoys following the Premier League and Formula 1 Racing.

In this episode, Ralph shares his bitcoin investment story, the due diligence challenges involved in his venture, his sentiments about his losses, the preventive measures he should have made and the lessons he learned from the experience. Catch this very relevant story and determine why you should not follow the crowd into the bitcoin disaster.

“Make sure we understand the assets we’re investing in and how something that looks so good can fall over.”

Ralph Woodcock

Topics Covered:

03:07 – Ralph recalls how his bitcoin investment in 2007

04:44 – Cryptocurrencies and ICOs: challenges in its the due diligence

05:51 – Ralph’s sentiments in his the losses, the preventive measures he should have made

07:07 – The lessons our guest learned from this investment

08:03 – Andrew sums up his takeaways

10:45 – One great advice from Ralph: “Just sit down with a professional, whatever you want to say, whether you agree with them.”

Main Takeaways:

Lesson 1: “In the case of cryptocurrencies, it’s tough to do their research because there’s very little to grab onto and you could.”– Andrew Stotz

Lesson 2: “The lesson I learned from it is not to pick my asset class.”– Ralph Woodcock

Lesson 3: “I’m talking to a lot of people that have invested in cryptocurrencies, and my conclusion is many of them have lost a lot of money. And the first thing is that it tends to be that different in your case, but in a lot of cases it’s people that know nothing about investing at all and therefore, they end up going in really aggressive.”– Andrew Stotz

Lesson 4: “One of many different risk management tools that we have is to move into something in a smaller position or move into something slowly.”– Andrew Stotz

Lesson 5: “The key thing from my perspective is that we have to have volatility over the long run because if something’s producing a steady return, it’s going to be a very low return.”– Andrew Stotz

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About the show & host, Andrew Stotz

Welcome to My Worst Investment Ever podcast hosted by Your Worst Podcast Host, Andrew Stotz, where you will hear stories of loss to keep you winning. In our community, we know that to win in investing you must take the risk, but to win big, you’ve got to reduce it.

Your Worst Podcast Host, Andrew Stotz, Ph.D., CFA, is also the CEO of A. Stotz Investment Research and A. Stotz Academy, which helps people create, grow, measure, and protect their wealth.