Ep761: Andrew Stotz – 27 Top Podcast Interviews of 2023 to Reduce Risk and Increase Return

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In 2023, I released about 160 My Worst Investment Ever podcast episodes, and this is a list of some of my and my listeners’ favorites. I have also created a free “Top 27 from 2023” playlist where you can listen to and view this curated list for free. Just go to My Worst Investment Ever dot com and click the button that says, “Top 27 from 2023.” Since starting this podcast, I have published 760 episodes and look forward to continuing this journey in 2024! I welcome you on my journey “to help 1,000,000 people reduce risk in their lives.”

27. Ep738: Neil Johnson – Take the Profit When You Can

BIO: Neil Johnson is a renowned finance expert with over 30 years of experience in investment banking, merchant banking, and research analysis in Canadian and UK capital markets. He is the Executive Director and CEO of Duke Royalty, a $300 million alternative finance investment company listed on the London Stock Exchange.

STORY: Neil invested in an internet company building website templates when the internet started. The company filed to go public, but the financiers kept delaying the process and never went public. Six months later, the company went to zero. Neil lost his entire investment.

LEARNING: Take the profit when you can. Take some money out and play with the rest. Do your due diligence.

 

“Try not to be overly greedy. There’s something about leaving a little on the table for someone else.”

 

26. Ep658: Jeroen Blokland – Know the Actual Business Outlook Before Investing

BIO: Jeroen Blokland is a multi-asset investor with a long-term track record. He worked at Dutch investment bank, Robeco for almost 20 and now runs his independent investment research company, True Insights. Find him on Twitter.

STORY: Jeroen’s first investment was in a Dutch company selling PCs. He barely did any research or due diligence. The company reported a loss of $27 million in the same year Jeroen invested. It later went bankrupt, leaving him with a massive loss.

LEARNING: Know the actual outlook of a company before investing. Diversify your portfolio.

 

“90% of the investing population doesn’t know the actual outlook of a company.”

 

25. Ep674: Jesse Felder – Don’t Rationalize a Lousy Trade

BIO: Jesse Felder started his career at Bear Stearns and co-founded a multi-billion-dollar hedge fund firm. He left Wall Street to focus on The Felder Report and hosts the Superinvestors podcast. Find him on Twitter.

STORY: Jesse found a “cigar butt” stock that was cheap and performed extraordinarily well in just a few months after he took a sizable position. A friend convinced him to hold the stock long-term instead of short-term as planned. Government legislation affected the business, and Jesse lost about 50% of his investment.

LEARNING: Don’t rationalize a bad trade; get out. Be very careful when you’re in a situation where the government is supporting an industry.

 

“When you’re in a situation that’s not working out as you would hope, rather than dig the hole deeper, move on and find something different.”

 

24. Ep668: Jason Hsu – The Market Can Be Crazy for Longer than You Have the Conviction

BIO: Jason Hsu is the founder, chairman, and CIO of Rayliant Global Advisors, a global investment management group with over US$15+ billion in assets under management as of June 30, 2022. Find him on Twitter.

STORY: Jason bet against the GameStop short squeeze and learned that John Maynard Keynes’ saying that “markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent” still holds true.

LEARNING: The market can be crazy for longer than you have the conviction to stay invested. Apply position constraints and diversify.

 

“In the short run, the market can really stay crazy for longer than you have the money to stay on. And if you forget that, the market will remind you in as painful of a way as possible.”

 

23. Ep646: Praveen Kumar Rajbhar – Don’t Fall in Love with Your Own Ideas

BIO: Praveen Kumar Rajbhar is an entrepreneur, founder, and CEO SkillingYou, an employability Skills Focused EdTech startup in rural India. Find him on Twitter.

STORY: When Praveen started his first startup, he spent money to hire many people, buy a lot of gadgets, and rent a huge office space. The business collapsed in less than two years.

LEARNING: Get the right mentor to guide you on how to make your startup a success. You don’t need a big team to be successful. Get on-time and accurate financial statements every month.

 

“Having the right mentor will help you create a great company.”

 

22. Ep731: Robin Wigglesworth – You Can’t Outsmart the Markets

BIO: Robin Wigglesworth is the editor of Alphaville, the FT’s financial blog. From Oslo, Norway, he leads a team of writers who dig into anything deeply nerdy or delightful that they spot. Find him on Twitter.

STORY: Robin invested in an ETF in Norway, a consumer durables company, and a fertilizer company after the 2008 financial crisis. These companies did incredibly well. Unfortunately, Robin reacted to short-term headlines when the European crisis started erupting and sold out.

LEARNING: You can’t outsmart the markets. Always let your winners ride.

 

“Always let your winners ride.”

 

21. Ep695: Jack Farley – Don’t Play in Markets You Don’t Know

BIO: Jack Farley is the host of the Forward Guidance podcast. He is interested in all things liquidity, macro, and central banking. Find him on Twitter.

STORY: Jack bought a lot of put options on the markets and individual stocks, notably Tesla, in February 2020 when the market was bearish. When the market crashed in March 2020, Jack made so much money (on paper). But, soon, the market started going up, and his position dropped to zero.

LEARNING: Don’t view the market as a place to create wealth; view it as a place to grow it. Don’t confuse being lucky with being an intelligent investor.

 

“When you get a windfall, realize those gains, and at the very least, trim the position down.”

 

20. Ep739: William Cohan – Get the Numbers Right Before You Invest

BIO: For nearly two decades William D. Cohan was a Wall Street investment banker and is now a New York Times bestselling author of seven non-fiction narratives, including Power Failure. Find him on Twitter.

STORY: In 1990, William asked a trader to buy him 10 shares in Berkshire Hathaway, thinking a share was selling at $1,200, only to be told it was $12,000. He decided to keep two shares and sold the other eight. Had William invested $120,000 for the 10 shares in Berkshire Hathaway in 1990, they would be worth $7.4 million today.

LEARNING: Get the numbers right before you invest.

 

“I decided to write this book for people who wanted to know about how Wall Street works but were afraid to ask how things work.”

 

19. Ep655: Pim van Vliet – Just Because It’s Cheap Doesn’t Mean You Have to Buy It

BIO: Pim van Vliet is Head of Conservative Equities and Chief Quant Strategist at Dutch investment bank, Robeco. He is responsible for a wide range of global, regional, and sustainable low-volatility strategies. Find him on Twitter.

STORY: Pim wanted to make more money investing, so he decided to go all in on a cheap stock. He believed the price would eventually go up as it had done a few years back. Unfortunately, the company went bankrupt, and Pim lost 75% of his investment.

LEARNING: Don’t be overconfident and over-optimistic when investing. Just because it’s cheap doesn’t mean you have to buy it.

 

“I thought taking risks gives you a return. That’s not always the case. Taking more risk could give you a lower return.”

 

18. Ep708: Phil Bak – Be Slow to Jump Onto Bandwagons

BIO: Phil Bak is the CEO of Armada ETFs, a REIT-specialty asset manager that delivers customized solutions to REIT investors through ETFs, SMAs, and proprietary AI and machine learning REIT valuation models. Find him on Twitter.

STORY: Phil got into baseball cards when he was 14. Rookie Greg Jeffries became the hype one year and was poised to be the next big thing. Phil bought the hype, sold all his cards, and invested in Jeffries’ cards. He believed cards would be worth $40 to $50 a piece in just a few years. It never happened because Jeffries’ career didn’t pan out, and the entire baseball card bubble collapsed.

LEARNING: Be slow to jump onto bandwagons. Expect the unexpected, be prepared, and have a backup plan. Be diversified in as many different ways as possible.

 

“As long as you can recognize your mistake, learn and grow from it, then you understand that investing is a risky business. That will make you a smarter investor.”

 

17. Ep719: David Kass – Don’t Invest in a Company Unless the CEO Owns a Large Stake

BIO: Dr. David Kass received his Ph.D. in Business Economics from Harvard University and has published articles in corporate finance, industrial organization, and health economics. He teaches financial management at the University of Maryland and has been blogging about Warren Buffett for more than a decade.

STORY: In his early 20s, David invested $2,000 in a company paying out high dividends. Only after he invested did he realize that none of the senior executives in the company owned its shares. Soon enough, the stock went down to zero due to accounting fraud.

LEARNING: Only invest in a company if senior executives, especially the CEO, own a significant stake. The value of the CEO’s stock in his own company to his annual salary should be at least 3:1.

 

“Look carefully at proxy statements and make sure the CEO and other senior managers have skin in the game, that their interests are likely aligned with yours and have a large stake through their stock holdings.”

 

16. Ep667: Shreekkanth Viswanathan – Qualitative Strengths of a Company Matter Too

BIO: Shreekkanth (“Shree”) Viswanathan is the founder and portfolio manager of SVN Capital, a Chicago-based, concentrated, long-only, global equity-focused fund. Find him on Twitter.

STORY: Shree’s biggest mistake was an error of omission. That is, after studying a particular business, he decided not to invest in it for various reasons. The stock turned out to be a multi-bagger a couple of years later.

LEARNING: The qualitative strengths of a company are not always readily apparent in the financials. Get out and work in business; it will make you a better analyst and investor. Shree introduced me to a study of 64,000 companies from 1990 to 2020, which showed that 57% of these stocks underperformed one-month U.S. Treasury bills in compound returns. Also, the top-performing 2.4% of firms, or 1,500, accounted for all US$76trn net global stock market wealth creation over the same period. Here’s a link to the study.

 

“If you don’t know who you are, the market is an expensive place to find out.”

 

15. Ep746: James M. Dahle – Don’t Buy More Insurance Than You Need

BIO: James M. Dahle, MD, is a practicing emergency physician who took an interest in personal finance and founded The White Coat Investor in 2011 to help fellow docs get a fair shake on Wall Street. Find him on Twitter.

STORY: James got sold a whole life insurance policy in medical school. He invested in it, thinking it would be a good option, only to realize seven years later that it was not. When he pulled out of the policy, he lost 33% of the premiums he had paid.

LEARNING: You must understand anything you buy. Don’t buy more insurance than you need. Focus on one catastrophe-related insurance product that’s reasonable.

 

“Insurance is expensive, so don’t buy more than you need.”

 

14. Ep756: Peter Goldstein – Check Your Emotions at the Door

BIO: Peter Goldstein is a seasoned entrepreneur, capital markets expert, and investor with over 35 years of diverse international business experience. He is CEO of Exchange Listing LLC. Find him on Twitter.

STORY: He and four others put a significant amount of money into opening a facility selling cannabis in Long Beach, California. This was a time when cannabis was in great demand and was in the process of being legalized for recreational purposes. At the time, there were no clear regulations, making compliance with the ever-changing rules costly to the point where the business was not making any profits.

LEARNING: Check your emotions at the door. Be cautious before you jump on a trend. Analyze and understand your risk. Get expert help if you don’t understand your investment.

 

“Check your emotions at the door. Ego and greed don’t have interplay when making a sound investment.”

 

13. Ep672: Vincent Deluard – Know the Difference Between a Trade and an Investment

BIO: Vincent Deluard is the global macro strategist for StoneX Group Inc., where he authors weekly commentary on global macro topics and advises pension funds on asset allocation. Find him on Twitter.

STORY: Vincent decided to overleverage an ETF during the financial crisis of 2008 in the belief that the economy would bounce back. Interest rates, however, fell, and he lost 70% of his investment.

LEARNING: Take into account falling yields and falling inflation. Understand the difference between a trade and an investment.

 

“The more volatile something is, the more likely it will lose its value over time.”

 

12. Ep686: Vineer Bhansali – You Create Real Value by Being Different

BIO: Vineer Bhansali is the CIO of LongTail Alpha. The firm was founded in 2015 to help provide risk mitigation strategies. Find him on Twitter.

STORY: In early 1993, most investors held a significant long position on the Eurodollar futures contract, betting that interest rates would go down. Vineer decided to follow the herd. The Fed increased rates, and Vineer kept buying until he lost his investment.

LEARNING: Don’t follow the herd blindly. Success in the markets is all about timing. Have an investment framework within which you operate.

 

“You’ve got to be very humble and disciplined with your loss thresholds and risk limits.”

 

11. Ep707: Jack Schwager – Never Stay in a Position That Violates What You Believe In

BIO: Jack D. Schwager is a recognized industry expert on futures and hedge funds and the author of the iconic Market Wizards series, in which he has interviewed about 70 trading legends of our time. He is a Partner and Cofounder of FundSeeder.com. Find him on Twitter.

STORY: Jack stayed too long in a position where his short was the strongest and his long the weakest, even though he knew this wasn’t the way to invest.

LEARNING: Never stay in a position that violates something that you believe in. In every position, know where you’ll get out before you get in.

 

“A mistake is not a trade that loses money. It’s a trade where you did something that violated whatever your approach is that makes money over time.”

 

10. Ep745: Harley Bassman – Sizing Is More Important Than Entry Level

BIO: Harley Bassman is an industry thought leader and commentator on macroeconomic issues spanning decades. He is the managing partner of Simplify. Find him on Twitter.

STORY: In 2019, Harley bought some calls and sold some puts on Citibank stock. He believed the stocks would increase because all its peers were trading above their book value. When COVID came, the stocks went south, causing Harley to make his biggest loss ever.

LEARNING: When something trades well below what you think its value is, consider why that’s the case. Size the investment.

 

“Forget timing; size the investment. Pick the size such that you’ll make enough if you’re right, and if you’re wrong, you won’t get wiped out.”

 

9. Ep645: Larry Swedroe – Beware of Idiosyncratic Risks

BIO: Larry Swedroe has authored or co-authored over a dozen books and is a master at reviewing the latest academic research. He is Head of Financial and Economic Research at Buckingham Wealth Partners. Find him on Twitter.

STORY: Larry chose to invest in an individual bank stock in the mid-80s instead of following his gut to invest in a portfolio of stocks. The bank’s President committed fraud, and the bank went bankrupt. Larry lost about 80% of his investment.

LEARNING: Avoid idiosyncratic risks by hyper-diversifying your portfolio.

 

“Focus on managing risks and not trying to generate alpha or risk-adjusted outperformance.”

 

8. Ep690: Chris Mamula – Take Responsibility for Your Financial Situation

BIO: After poor experiences with the financial industry early in his professional life, Chris Mamula educated himself in investing and tax planning. He is a Financial Advisor and Educator at Abundo Wealth. Find him on Twitter.

STORY: Because Chris trusted his parents, he also blindly trusted their financial advisor. It was only after he stumbled upon better financial advice that Chris realized he’d wasted well over $100,000 in fees and another $100,000 in taxes.

LEARNING: Gain financial literacy and take responsibility for your financial situation. Don’t trust financial advisors blindly.

 

“The less money you spend on your financial advice and financial products, the more money you’ll have to invest.”

 

7. Ep735: Swen Lorenz – Carefully Consider Liquidity in Your Portfolio

BIO: Swen Lorenz has been a public equity investor and is the face of Undervalued-Shares.com. With his 30 years of experience, Swen finds exciting investment opportunities in very unexpected places. Find him on Twitter.

STORY: Swen had a 12.5% stake in a German fund management company that was performing well. A competitor wanted to buy up companies in that space and approached Swen and asked him to ask other shareholders if they would sell. The company didn’t like this, asked the regulator to look into Swen’s affairs, and accused him of all sorts of things. It ended with Swen narrowly losing a contentious proxy battle.

LEARNING: Carefully consider the liquidity of the investments you’re holding. Going above the public disclosure threshold as an investor can be dangerous.

 

“I’m a big proponent of investing in stuff that’s liquid and where you can get in and out quite easily, even under extreme circumstances.”

 

6. Ep736: William Bernstein – Never Invest Based on the Headlines

BIO: William Bernstein is a neurologist, a co-founder of Efficient Frontier Advisors – an investment management firm and has written several titles on finance and economic history. Two of his books I found helpful and fascinating are The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio and A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World.

STORY: William lost money after investing in palladium futures under the belief that a couple of physicists had perfected the technique of cold fusion to get helium.

LEARNING: Never invest based on the headlines. Something that everyone knows isn’t worth knowing.

 

“Something that everyone knows has already been pounded into the market, so it isn’t worth knowing.”

 

5. Ep687: Richard Lawrence – Avoid the Stock That’s the Hype of the Day

BIO: Richard H. Lawrence, Jr., is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Overlook Investments Group, an independent fund management company established in Hong Kong in 1991.

STORY: Richard invested heavily in a successful Korean company that brought him great returns until the founder died. The son took over and brought the stock to its demise.

LEARNING: If it’s not working, get out. Invest in a company with no or minimal debt. Operating return (EBIT/Operating assets) is the purest way to measure profitability.

 

“I’m a big believer in modest self-financed growth.”

 

4. Ep660: Dave Collum – What Should the US Be Doing in Ukraine?

BIO: Dave Collum is a professor of Organic Chemistry at Cornell University who developed an interest in markets, which, in turn, led to an interest in geopolitics. Find him on Twitter.

STORY: Dave talks about his 2022 Year in Review: All Roads Lead to Ukraine.

LEARNING: Never trust politicians and bureaucrats.

 

“The more the fact-checkers, the more likely the thing they’re checking is true.”

 

3. Ep653: Louis-Vincent Gave – Your Success Comes Down to Portfolio Sizing

BIO: Louis-Vincent Gave is the Chief Executive Officer of Gavekal, a Hong Kong-based company he co-founded over 20 years ago with his father, Charles, and Anatole Kaletsky. Find him on Twitter.

STORY: Louis’s father invested one million dollars in a portfolio of 10 Asian companies. Louis was managing this portfolio, whose size was disproportionate to his earnings. He was earning $50,000 annually at the time and had never owned a portfolio this big, which made him sick.

LEARNING: Portfolio sizing matters tremendously. Never under or over-position yourself. Invest with people who have experience.

 

“Know your own weaknesses and don’t put yourself in a situation that plays to those weaknesses.”

 

2. Ep689: Michael Howell – Liquidity Is the Main Driver of Asset Markets

BIO: Michael Howell is CEO of CrossBorder Capital, a London-based FCA-registered, independent research and investment company he founded in 1996. Find him on Twitter.

STORY: Michael was once in a meeting with the governor of the Bank of Thailand, who told him they would cut interest rates the following week. Even though all possible data showed this would be a wrong move, Michael believed him. The Bank of Thailand didn’t lower the rates; instead, it increased them.

LEARNING: Don’t listen to what people say, particularly central bankers; watch what they do. When participating in macro investing, understand where you are on the liquidity cycle and where investors are positioned.

 

“Don’t buy a market with a low PE because you think it’s cheap. Instead, think about what it tells you about the liquidity background or about the investors’ positioning, which may be structural features of the markets.”

 

1. Ep751: Luke Gromen – Start Small, Then Grow as You Learn

BIO: Luke Gromen has 25 years of experience in equity research, equity research sales, and as a macro/thematic analyst. Find him on Twitter.

STORY: As a young man, Luke put a large portion of his savings in a private equity investment because it had a great founder who had previously created and sold some tech companies. Additionally, one of Luke’s dearest friends went to work there. However, he didn’t realize that the company was overvalued, so when the founder couldn’t raise funding, the company collapsed, and Luke lost all his money.

LEARNING: Position sizing is crucial. Don’t get too excited and emotionally committed to an investment. Be careful when investing in illiquid assets because you can easily get trapped.

 

“Start small; you can always get bigger. You’re better off chasing a higher valuation down the road of a more successful operation than starting too big and then having to put in more money or be stuck.”

 

 

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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.

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