Ep666: Jeremy Kokemor – Tread Carefully When Investing in Metals and Mining

Andrew Stotz 00:01
Hello fellow risk takers and welcome to my worst investment ever stories of loss to keep you winning in our community we know that to win in investing, you must take risk but to win big, you've got to reduce it. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm on a mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. So join me go to my worst investment ever.com and sign up for my free weekly become a better investor newsletter where I share how to reduce risk and create grow and protect your wealth. Fellow risk takers this is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz from a Stotz Academy, and I'm here with featured guest, Jeremy Kokemor. Jeremy, are you ready to join the mission?

Jeremy Kokemor 00:43
Sure, am Andrew, thanks for the opportunity today.

Andrew Stotz 00:46
Yeah, I'm excited to have you on and I want to introduce you to the audience. Jeremy founded right tail capital, a concentrated fundamental equity investment firm based in Richmond, Virginia, Jeremy loves helping people with their investments through owning high quality undervalued companies for the long term. Jeremy grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana, prior to attending the University of Virginia after working in investment banking, investment management, Jeremy graduated from Harvard Business School, he then worked with several fantastic investors at global mutual fund company, T Rowe Price before managing concentrated portfolios at private advisors, and Thomson Siegel, wams, the Jeremy, take a minute and tell us about the unique value that you are bringing to this wonderful world.

Jeremy Kokemor 01:32
Yeah, thank you answer it. So as you noted, him right tail was one that really just jumped out to me and kind of has four special meanings to me. So first and foremost, I want right tails returns to be excellent, and to be in the right tail of, you know, kind of a normal bell shaped distribution. Secondly, as you mentioned, I'm typically going to be investing in high quality businesses that have proven themselves to be in the right tail relative to their peers or to companies at large. And then thirdly, and fourthly, there are two personal elements. One is, I just love the process of how do we all get a little bit better together, and hopefully a little bit better each day. And whether that, you know, is investing, whether it's health and wellness, you know, whether it's reading a million books, like Charlie Munger does, I love that process of how do we get better and improve our own outcomes over time. And then, and then the last, the last reason why the meaning is special is, like you said, I grew up in New Orleans, I was the oldest of three kids, my parents got divorced when I was young. And so I really felt the financial hardships of our family and ended up, I had my first job and sixth or seventh grade tutoring math, and that did work study to pay for my high school education and finance, my college education. And so I mentioned these things, just to say that the opportunity to manage other folks wealth, and improve their financial outcomes over time, is one that I take really seriously. And so when you ask about, you know, the value that I try to bring into the world, it's really that opportunity to work with other passionate long term investors, help improve their financial outcomes and find great investments. And also, you know, part of that is writing in turbulent times, like the one we're in today. And then I just say, you know, beyond that, I'm very active with my family, I have three children that are school age, and so I'm fortunate to be able to find a little time to help coach them and some of their sports and activities.

Andrew Stotz 03:51
Yeah, I mean, it's one of the things interesting when I, when I was young, my parents kicked me out when I was 18. And said, you can go make it on your own. And, of course, I had nothing. And I think when I think about, you know, your six circumstance, you know, when you were younger, that there's just this, there's a fight there that you got to say, I want to, I want to reverse this course, I want to make sure that I don't end up in a difficult situation. I mean, a lot of fear drove me in my younger age that to study to work to try to figure out Holy crap, I've got to do something here or else, I'm not going to be able to, you know, accumulate anything. And you know, I just love that, you know, that drive that drove me and it sounds like to some extent that drove you.

Jeremy Kokemor 04:37
Yeah, you're spot on Andrew. And, you know, whenever I think about it, I you know, I'm extremely thankful for those circumstances because it creates, you know, it helped create the work ethic and the drive, just like you said, to really push for greatness. On the other hand, you know, I wouldn't wish some of the circumstances on others either but but in terms of, you know, I think A lot of a lot of good developments along the way. You know, I'm very thankful.

Andrew Stotz 05:05
Yeah, I had, I had a little brush with Louisiana and my parents, I was 17. And my parents put me on a bus from Akron, Ohio, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and they gave me about 30 bucks, you know, and they said, This will last you down there to get your meals along the way. And don't, you know, do anything, you know, be very careful, it's dangerous as you go through these cities. And you're going to be get off the station. And then you're going to go to a hospital called Baton Rouge General Hospital. And you're going to check into the drug rehab unit that they have there. And you're going to find it and go down there and get it in, you need to get in there. And if you don't get into it, and you don't get through it and graduate from it, well consider it a one way ticket. And that's that was my experience in Baton Rouge was a pretty damn scary place for a guy like me from Cleveland, Ohio. In fact, there's a song written about me, it's called skinny little boy from Cleveland, Ohio, come to drink your women and chase your beer. There was a guy Alex Bevan that wrote that song in Cleveland. But yeah, that was my little brush with Louisiana.

Jeremy Kokemor 06:17
Well, hey, congrats. Yeah, congrats to you for, you know, getting through those times. And, you know, and learning from them and creating so many great opportunities for you. So

Andrew Stotz 06:25
yeah, I got some questions I want to ask you, before we get into the big question, the first, and they're kind of big picture questions. The first question is, how difficult is it these days to start a fun, you know, if someone's listening to this, and their 25 year old or 30 year old, and they're thinking, you know, I've got the skills, and I think I want to do some sort of management. I've looked at ETFs, I've looked at managing my own money in personal account, you know, should I be just managing people's money in their accounts? Or should I be setting up a fund? Can you just give your background on what it what what are the options? And what have you learned from that experience?

Jeremy Kokemor 07:04
Store? Sure. So, you know, I would say there are really two routes that I see a lot of people pursue, at least at least in the United States. One is you could set up a partnership structure, you know, where your company is the general partner, and you bring on investors as the limited partners, there are some benefits to go in that route. The challenges I would say are, it comes with a higher level of upfront cost primarily legal, so you're probably looking at 25 $30,000, at least of legal expenses. And then your ongoing expenses are also higher, because you need to have a third party administrator to kind of prevent a Bernie Madoff situation from happening and kind of bless the numbers, you need to have an audit done each year, you need to have tax work done each year. And so going that that partnership route just comes with a higher level of fixed costs, both in terms of upfront, and in terms of you know, sort of annual fixed costs. The positives of that approach are, there are several, but if you're doing shorting if you're doing anything more complex with derivatives, then the opportunity to pull all of your investors capital together, into one fund can have some advantages, you know, when you're working with a prime broker and trying to try to get short borrow, there's another there's another pass, and which is what I've done. And so I have set up separately managed accounts for all of my investors with right tail, and so that includes my family and our investments. And then each investor that has joined us. And so we use a custodian who kind of sits in the middle, they do all the reporting, the separately managed accounts are in each individual investors name, so they actually only own the assets, right tail does not have custody, right tail only has trading privileges or these assets. And so for what I do, which is you know, kind of long only, and a concentrated portfolio of securities. It's a structure that works great to just basically trade the different accounts parry pursue, and it is much lower in terms of upfront cost, and much lower in terms of annual operating costs as well. So you can always add resources on over time as the business scales and a lot of folks do that but you The approach I've taken, I think it's fantastic for my investors. And it's also great for retail, because I've seen a lot of folks over the years, like one of the mistakes, Andrew that I've seen, investment managers make often is, you know, a lot of times if you decide to start your own fund, you're a great investor, but you may not have ever managed business before. And so I've seen a lot of folks who have overburdened the business with a ton of cost either built too big of a team, or they get this shiny office space in Manhattan. And, and almost unintentionally ended up shortening the duration of what you can do on the investment side, because the business is burning cash. And so I've always wanted to take the exact opposite approach, let's keep expenses low, let's invest for the long term. And let's keep everybody aligned with that long term mindset.

Andrew Stotz 10:54
And what's the regulatory burden for yourself with this type of method, when separately managed accounts?

Jeremy Kokemor 11:01
It's pretty reasonable, you know, so I've registered in the state of Virginia. And until I get to a certain level of assets, you know, it'll be regulated by the state, and then at some point, it'll switch over to the SE C's jurisdiction. But it's a manner of updating certain regulatory filings each year, like a form, like your Form ADV. And then I'll get audited every 12 to 18 months by the state. But you know, so, so far, it's been very manageable and very reasonable, and in the States being quick from the standpoint, because whenever I have a question, you know, about, you know, the right way to do something, or, you know, then I just pick up the phone and give them a call and seek some of their input, which has been great.

Andrew Stotz 11:57
That's interesting. And the next big question I have is, when you think about your type of investing, what's the universe size that you're looking at? I mean, is it all companies listed? I mean, obviously, the universe sometimes I look at is all companies in the world, but I suspect what you're looking at all companies in the US, and then you're reducing that, forget about the ROI see type of reduction right now. But just like what's investable for you?

Jeremy Kokemor 12:24
Yeah, for the most part, anything in North America is investable. So I have one add one Canadian investment today. But I think I'll, you know, stay in North America, most likely if I do. But I do broaden out a bit globally, I would want the system of laws and rules and regulations of the country to be understandable and to be you know, more similar, what I know and kind of understand in the US. So, you know, in general, that's still several 1000 companies that I can invest in.

Andrew Stotz 13:04
And then once you look at that investable universe, and you start kind of bringing it down to a more manageable universe, maybe you could just describe that process that you do to kind of get down to a smaller universe that you can start to really think about to find new candidates

Jeremy Kokemor 13:22
store. Sure. So there are certain areas that I don't expect to invest in over time. And, you know, one, one area would be something like biotech, that I would argue has, you know, a lot of very specific domain expertise, where a lot of professionally trained doctors are also professional investors, you know, and I, you know, I recognize that, you know, they're, they're the folks who are most knowledgeable and are going to do a great job there.

Andrew Stotz 13:54
Is money there, too.

Jeremy Kokemor 13:56
Yes, yeah. Like you said, investing is hard. Everybody makes mistakes. But, you know, so that would be one area. Another area would be, you know, I don't expect to do you know, many investments were getting an input price Correct. Like the price of a commodity or something like that is the primary determinant of the business's cash flows. And so it, it's still a broad universe that I can invest in. But over time, you know, some areas where I've happened to find more investments have been areas like software, business services, certain distribution companies, certain high quality retailers, but there's so many, there's so many itchy businesses that couldn't be a high quality business for one reason or another. But I tried to keep the aperture fairly broad, but do have some guardrails around, you know, certain industries that I don't plan to touch.

Andrew Stotz 14:56
So let's say that you eliminate some areas like I can't be bothered with biotech or I've got no advantage in commodities or something like that. Now, you've eliminated a certain number of areas that you're not going to play in, do you have any restriction like, Okay, I'm not going to invest in a tiny cap company or something like that related to size or volume.

Jeremy Kokemor 15:18
I don't have any restrictions. Today. I do, you know, I do think about volume a bit more as it just relates to building a track record and thinking about the long term. But another factor I think about quite a bit, Andrew is, you know, I recognize that, you know, sometimes really tiny companies may not have the best management teams, or maybe maybe the company has been a tiny public company for 100 years. And there might be a reason why it stayed tiny and public. And, and, and, look, they've been very successful to get where they are. But I mentioned it just to say, I do like to be able to see what the company has done historically. And that is not to say that it's going to repeat either its successes or its failures. But typically, it lends itself to having, you know, a company, that's at least a couple billion dollars of market cap, if not bigger, and a bit of a public history that I can just sort of study, you know, what has management done, would have the companies in the industry done over time, than if it was just sort of, you know, kind of a random micro cap company that's kind of been around forever, but hasn't really created much value for shareholders.

Andrew Stotz 16:42
So I'm picturing this funnel, and we're coming down, you know, through some, you know, some processes that you're going to, maybe you could just explain, like your investment philosophy a little bit, and how, as you apply your investment philosophy to kind of bringing that funnel down to a manageable number of companies, what number of companies do you end up with?

Jeremy Kokemor 17:05
Versus today I own right around 15 companies, and, you know, I've communicated to my investors, you know, I expect that on somewhere between a high single digit amount of companies, maybe up to 20, or so. And there are several reasons for that. Andrew, one is, you know, managing a concentrated portfolio has always felt very natural to me, even before I've managed portfolios. For others, I was always investing in my personal account. And it was typically investing in, you know, a dozen or so best ideas, and it comes with the advantages of, you know, when, when certain investments work out, well, they can have a very punchy and meaningful impact on the overall portfolio performance. That being said, I really want those underlying 15 positions, to be idiosyncratic and diversified enough, that we're not taking, you know, an undue amount of risk in any one industry or business or anything of that matter. And so that's, that's kind of how I think about building a portfolio when I have, you know, 15 exceptional businesses, but haven't be, you know, fairly diversified from each other as well.

Andrew Stotz 18:30
And if you go to the next step up, where you say, Okay, now there's a whole nother layer of companies that could potentially make it into your portfolio, you know, we know there's a lot that wouldn't make it in your portfolio for different reasons. Is that like, another amount? I'm trying to understand? Like, what's the opportunity set in, in the US these days? For someone that's doing something like you're doing? Is it 20 other stocks? Or is it 500? Or what is that number? That would be the next layer that you're looking at?

Jeremy Kokemor 19:02
Well, you know, one of the great things about this business is that, you know, the knowledge that we, you know, learn can really just accumulate over time. And so, you know, each year I kind of view as one of my, you know, sort of key performance indicators is to just continue to learn new businesses and new industries. And so I think it's several 100 companies that could theoretically end up in the right tail portfolio at some point. But they're always, you know, new companies and new business models that are being created or being brought, you know, kind of to the public stage. And so I'm always surprised you know, I'll find, you know, a great business and maybe a pretty good or average industry and that can work out fantastically. Well. Also, you know, I've owned at about a company that gets classified as a homebuilder, but it's much more capital light, and that they don't own the underlying land that they build on, that ends up being taking up a big portion of the company's balance sheet and also ends up being even more cyclical. And so that's one where I would say, Wow, this is an exceptional company that has proven itself over the last three decades. But it sometimes gets lumped in with these other kind of lower quality businesses maybe maybe a little bit unfairly. So.

Andrew Stotz 20:37
And last question for me, before we get to the big question is, I've heard you on other podcasts talk about ROIC return on invested capital and you know, other measures, but I'm just curious, is that your preferred measure? Relative to I don't know, let's say ROA, or return on equity or something like that. Maybe you could just give us some idea about the way you think about how to assess a company's success or failure?

Jeremy Kokemor 21:05
Sure, sure. So you hit the nail, you hit the nail spot on Andrew, I care a lot about rates of return. And also rates of return on incremental capital. Right, because we all could probably name a lot of examples of businesses that have historical high returns, and those may repeat. Or they may not, you know, and living in capitalist societies, there are always going to be new companies that are coming to, you know, attack businesses that have high returns. So, you know, ideally, I can find companies that can invest at high incremental returns, and not only invest a little bit, but hopefully invest a lot of their cash flow. And if so, that can really lead to a lot of value creation over time. Now, I'll also say I do care like, well, I don't Well, I don't focus solely on earnings multiples or anything like that. I try to balance the two, right. So if if a business is trading at 50, times, Evie to sales, like some software companies were trading at a few years ago, well, even if they're reinvesting a ton at a really high rate of return. To me, it's still going to be hard to make the math work if you plug in your assumptions into a DCF model or something like that. But on the flip side, you know, sometimes you can find a business that is trading below market multiple, or maybe it's trading at or a little bit above a market multiple. But the rate of reinvestment and the returns on incremental capital are high enough and sustainable enough that it can kind of overwhelm whatever differences you have in the short term multiple. So I look at many valuation techniques. And I also consider the qualitative side to have, you know, I want to be able to explain you why does this company have sustainable competitive advantages that lead to these higher returns on invested capital?

Andrew Stotz 23:16
Okay, well, that's a great introduction. And for the listeners out there, and I know for my students, my valuation masterclass, that was a masterclass in the idea of incremental capital. Because if you find a company that has had historically high return on invested capital, good on you, you've got something exciting, but chances are, that's already in the price. And therefore, what matters is what happens with the next dollar that they invest. And if they could invest that Now, the problem you find with a high return on invested capital company, is it's hard to get the next invested capital to be even higher. And I always use the example with my students where I talk about how we started selling Nitro Cold Brew, in our coffee business, and that was a higher margin product with a little bit less investment compared to a huge espresso machine that can be very expensive. Just need a fruit frigerator and a keg for our clients. And we can produce that ourselves. So therefore, there's more margin there. And then the question is, how much can that? How much? Could we increase that as a percent of let's say, our total revenue? Could it only grow to be 1%? Or could it grow to be 15%? And how much higher is that, let's say gross margin than our traditional business. And once you start to put together that story, that helps you to understand, you know, okay, if these guys can invest in a new project that's going to have higher return. You know, that is a possibility that we could see multiple expansion we could see, you know, real, a real run in the share price. So, I think that you know, what you've explained is kind of the foundation in fact, I think I need to Explain it even more in my valuation masterclass after listening to you explaining so great, great information there.

Jeremy Kokemor 25:06
Thank you. Yeah, no, I agree with you, Andrew. Yep. Well,

Andrew Stotz 25:10
now it's time to share your worst investment ever. And since no one goes into their worst investment thing here will be. Tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to it, then tell us your story.

Jeremy Kokemor 25:20
Absolutely, absolutely. So as you mentioned up front, I had the great opportunity to work for tiro price coming out of the financial crisis, and because it was coming out of the financial crisis view, folks were leaving the firm, because it was a great firm, it was a hard seat to get. And so for my internship, I covered a portion of the technology sector, I really enjoyed it. And I remember kind of saying, you know, they were, they asked me if there were any industries that I did not want to cover, because each analyst was kind of in charge of one industry. And I was like, No, you know, I like learning about a lot of different businesses, I would just rather, you know, maybe not do something that's totally commodity dependent. And so I was traveling with my wife in Western Canada, of all places, when I got an email asking me if I would cover small cap metals in mining as my first assignment. And so I said, Yes, I went, I went to do it, even though I, you know, my natural inclination was like, hey, this, this is going to be really hard. And so you talk about businesses where you don't get to control the main input, which is the price of the commodity, and particularly within small cap metals, and mining, a lot of times these companies don't even have a mine under production. And to build the mind, you know, that they're trying to, oftentimes the budget is greater than the enterprise value of the whole business. And so that lends itself to having very promotional management teams, because they need to always be out raising capital. And so while covering metals and mining, and I had a lot of great experiences, I got to travel to some really cool places via a lot of great individuals and companies. But I made every mistake imaginable, investing in metals and mining. So I remember the morning that my first daughter was born. This small kind of hometown Canadian company announced that they were doing a big acquisition of a copper project in Peru, and they had never done anything before in South America. So that was one, I was trying to figure out that one. Another one was an investment in a gold mining company, that, you know, when they, when they began production, their operating costs were just through the roof and dramatically higher than they had ever envisioned. And then also made the mistake of, you know, not realizing that a company's results that they were publishing on, on the ore body that they wanted to develop, that they had gone with was sort of the lowest degree of confidence feasibility study, and they were using that to go out and raise capital. And so, you know, it was just, it was just a really, really difficult industry. And I'm really happy, you know, especially as each day goes by, I'm really happy that I had that opportunity, at an earlier point in my career, to, you know, have learned some of those lessons and make some of those mistakes, and, you know, arguably get duped a little bit by management. And so, you know, for me, for me, the lessons are several, you know, I tried to communicate to listeners don't invest in metals and mining, because there are lots of ways to invest. And there are lots of ways to make money. I do think it's a more difficult industry to make money and you don't see as many companies that survive for long periods of time. But if you know that going in, and there's some people that do really great. So I'd say more the lesson is, to know thyself, you know, and to, and to get those investing reps and figure out, you know, where you've done a good job where you've done, you know, maybe haven't done as good of a job where you've gotten lucky or unlucky. And really getting those reps is really, really valuable. And also just trying to figure out, hey, is there a certain type or style of investing that really appeals to you as an individual? For me, it's, you know, paying a reasonable, you know, or hopefully even an inexpensive price for a really high quality business that I can own for many, many years. But that business and that management team, continue to create value and to reinvest. And so I'll pause there, those were, those were some of the mistakes and some of the lessons learned.

Andrew Stotz 30:08
So maybe I'll share a few things, I think one of the things that I think is really important lesson is that sometimes in some sectors, it's the Wild West. And they really are promoting in a much more aggressive way, for various reasons, you know, they've got to raise a huge amount of capital, they got to be a big dreamer, it's a, it's a, it's a binary outcome. And sometimes in some cases, so you know, the facing that failure is just right there. And I like to come back to my my business partner, Dale, here for our coffee business, whenever we go out and we meet with someone, you know, just friends or whatever they asked him about the coffee business, it's just all positive, he is all positive about the business, which is, then I just think about, I'm kind of I would call myself the chairman, though, I'm not officially chairman, you know, our relationship is kind of I'm Chairman, I'm not running the business. He's the CEO or the managing director. And you realize like, Managing Director, Chairman, growth, growth growth, Chairman or board risk risk. And so I think one of the big lessons that I want your listeners to get from this is just to remember that there's overconfidence, bias and over estimation bias that we're all subjected to. But when it comes to a CEO, pumping their stock talking about their company, they may not even be purposely trying to like pump it up, but they just are going to do it. And certain sectors are more prone to that, then, you know, I don't know a convenience store that adds you know, 500 new stores every year, there's just not a story to pump. So I think that's kind of my biggest thing that I take away from it, anything you would add to that.

Jeremy Kokemor 31:50
Yeah, I think that's a, I think that's a really good way to describe it. And I think, you know, as, as public market investors, we always know less than we think we know, you know, and it's and so it's that, it's that tricky balance of on one hand, you want to have, you know, you want to have done enough work, and you want to have enough conviction to, you know, to actually make the investment, but I also feel like you want to hold that conviction loosely, and recognize that there are a lot of things, you know, and at times, you might get duped, and to be willing to change your mind, you know, when when sort of the circumstances maybe call for it. So that would be one and, and the second one would be just, you know, it's, it's a lot different when, you know, when I'm the person making the mistake, I'll learn a lot more than if I just read about it in a textbook. And so I think, you know, it just, it just goes to show like, you know, get as many reps as you can, and maybe even before you're a professional investor, if you're a student, you know, try to even if it's small amounts of money, just try to, you know, start building your investing acumen. And it'll really pay great dividends over the long run.

Andrew Stotz 33:09
I think you just answered my next question, which I always ask, you know, as you've learned from this and other experiences, what action would you recommend our listeners take to avoid suffering the same fate? And part of what I'm hearing from you, as is kind of go out and do it, but do it on a small scale? Make some of those mistakes? Because you're gonna learn so much from him? But is there anything you would add to that?

Jeremy Kokemor 33:31
Absolutely, Andrew. Yeah, I think that's a great way to approach it. And I'll even say, you know, I've been fortunate throughout my career that I've done a fair amount of recruiting and mentoring as well. And, you know, there are so many times where I'll speak to a candidate, you know, and he or she is saying, hey, all I want to do is investing and, you know, I could never dream of doing anything else. And then you start asking them, well, you know, what investing books have you read? Or what other books have you read? Have you done any personal investing on your own? And a lot of times, the answer is no. And all these things are very accessible. And it's a, you know, it's a tough business to crack into, you know, it's a privilege to be able to invest and invest on behalf of others, as well. And so yeah, I think anything you can do to, to kind of get the experience and learn from it is extremely valuable.

Andrew Stotz 34:27
Yeah, it's, for a lot of my young students that ask how do I break in as an analyst or something and I always tell them a story of one of my friends RJ RJ came and I didn't know him. He came to interview with my boss. And my boss was this really brilliant guy and he was very considered and he would never make a you know, he would take a lot of steps before he would hire someone. And basically, I asked my boss, what are you doing today? He goes, Oh, I got a meeting with this guy, you know, applying for a job. And so the guy walked in. I didn't know RJ at the time he walked in, went into the office with him. My boss an hour later, my boss left, RJ left, I wanted to talk my boss, I said, what happened? He says, I hired him as like what? And he said, you know, he showed me his portfolio of 10 stocks that he's been owning for the last five years and how he's made some changes. He explained why each one of those stocks is in his portfolio. It was right after the 290 97 crisis. So he had come from America to Thailand with a pretty good chunk of money. And he managed to buy a lot of good quality companies at low prices. And he says, that's the exact guy I want, working as a sell side analysts talking to the clients about what they should own and why. And so the lessons for the listeners and the young people out there who want to break in build your portfolio, and for those that say, Well, I don't have any money. Well, that's fine, build a model portfolio, build a mock portfolio of five companies, and just write down why you own them track them. I think that is a very valuable piece of advice. Well, sir, what's the research piece or resource speaking of, you know, the books and the different things that you've learned from? What would you say is a resource that you'd recommend for the listeners?

Jeremy Kokemor 36:08
Sure, I mean, there are so many great, you know, investment books out there, you know, one of the first that always really appealed to me was you can be a stock market genius by Joel Greenblatt. Over time, you know, I've I've, I've really, you know, come to admire Nick's sleep and his letters. You know, I love anything that Buffett and Munger do, you know, so there's just, there's so much great material out there, you know, and if, and if folks are interested in, you know, learning a bit more about me, you know, feel free to check out my website, which is www dot right tail capital.com. And I'm also on LinkedIn, Twitter, and I'm always looking to connect with other kinds of smart, long term investors.

Andrew Stotz 36:51
Yeah. And we'll have links to all that in the show notes, ladies and gentlemen. So just go to them click and reach out and learn. Alright, last question, what's your number one goal for the next 12 months?

Jeremy Kokemor 37:01
Number one goal for the next 12 months is just continue to learn new businesses and industries. You know, that's the biggest thing, you know, that that will help, you know, my long term, you know, investment performance, it's just continue to, you know, find great opportunities. And so many times I, you know, I can think back to, you know, maybe I said no to an investment, the first time I studied it, either I didn't like the valuation, or maybe I didn't realize, you know, some competitive advantage or what made the company special. But then all of a sudden, maybe you get a period where the market sells off, and all of a sudden, this company is down 30% or 50%. And oftentimes, I'll find myself going back to like the library of companies I've researched in the past. And so my number one goal is, you know, just continue to learn new businesses and industries that never can kind of be can kind of be on that debt roster of potential investments.

Andrew Stotz 38:04
Well, listeners, there you have it another story of loss to keep you winning. Remember, I'm on a mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. If you have not yet joined that mission, just go to my worst investment ever.com and join my weekly free become a better investor newsletter to help you reduce risk in your life. As we conclude, Jeremy, I want to thank you again for joining our mission and on behalf of a Stotz Academy, I hereby award you alumni status for turning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for the audience?

Jeremy Kokemor 38:38
Thank you very much, Andrew. I really appreciate your time and you know, just encourage listeners to you know, keep learning and keep trying to get a little bit better.

Andrew Stotz 38:46
Well, that's a wrap on another great story to help us create, grow and protect our well fellow risk takers. Let's celebrate that today. We added one more person to our mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz saying. I'll see you on the upside.