More Money Podcast - 340 How to Avoid Investing Clickbait - Joseph Hogue, CFA and Host of Let's Talk Money

Episode Date: October 19, 2022

Learning never ends when it comes to investing, which is why I’m always keen to have new guests on the show to share their unique perspectives and knowledge on the subject. This week, I’m joined by an investing expert and popular YouTuber Joseph Hogue. After serving in the Marine Corps, Joseph Hogue went on to work in corporate finance and real estate leading him to a career in investment analysis, in which he holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation. In 2014, Joseph left behind the corporate world to build his own online business, which included starting his wildly popular YouTube channel Let’s Talk Money (seriously, he has over 550,000 subscribers!).  In this episode, Joseph shares the good and the bad about YouTube, his own investing strategy, and the terrible investing advice to avoid at all costs. Since clickbait thrives on social media platforms, Joseph also shares why you should be aware that some creators treat investing as if it's part of the entertainment industry. We get deep and nerdy about investing, so be prepared! For full episode show notes visit: https://jessicamoorhouse.com/340 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, and welcome back to the More Money Podcast. This is episode 340 of the show, and I am your host, Jessica Morehouse. Welcome back. And what an episode I've got in store for you, for everyone listening who's interested in investing. Well, that's what this episode is going to be about, and I can't wait because I have someone who loves to talk about it on his YouTube channel all day long. I've been following him for a number of years, so I'm so excited to have him on the show. He's honestly a huge YouTuber. I think, gosh, how many? Like he's got over half a, no wait, yeah, half a million subscribers on his channel.

And I'm talking about Joseph Hogue, of course, of Let's Talk Money on YouTube. That's his YouTube channel name. So Joseph Hogue graduated from Iowa State University after serving in the Marine Corps, but he worked in corporate finance and real estate for a number of years before starting a career in investment analysis. And he's appeared on Bloomberg and CNBC and also led a team of equity analysts for a venture capital research firm. And he also holds a master's degree in business and, of course, is a team of equity analysts for a venture capital research firm. And he also holds a master's degree in business and of course, is a CFA, a chartered financial analyst. Now,

despite his very successful career in finance, in 2014, he made the big, big move of leaving the corporate world and building his own online business first through creating websites and later through his YouTube channel, Let's Talk Money. And since then, he has grown his community to over 550,000 and he reaches more than 1.8 million people a month through his blog's YouTube channel and, of course, his weekly market newsletter. And so in this episode, we're going to dive deep into investing and investing philosophy and some of the things that you should be aware of when finding investing information on YouTube. So I can't wait to share this interview with you.

But before I do, here's just a few words I want to share with this podcast season's sponsor. This episode of the More Money Podcast is supported by Desjardins. Does your financial institution share your values? Because Desjardins is about more than just money. They are on a mission to enrich people's lives and improve the economic and social well-being of Canadians everywhere. Desjardins' main goal as a cooperative is to support its members and make a positive impact on their communities by providing exceptional customer care, offering a variety of financial services, and above all, listening to its members. They've also been at the forefront of sustainable investing as one of the first financial institutions to offer responsible

investment portfolios. To learn more about Desjardins and how they're a cooperative making a difference, visit Desjardins.com. Thank you so much, Joseph, for joining me on the More Money Podcast. Jessica, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me. You're so welcome. So I've been following you for many years. I feel like I've never actually talked to you or met you, but I've been aware of your presence and especially your rise, especially on your YouTube channel for a number of years, probably because of your wonderful bowtie. And it's kind of the thing that I recognize the most about you. I'm like, oh, I still got that bow tie. I love that. I think it's so smart of you to have a little signature style like that. So I appreciate that. But before we kind of, because I have so many great questions for you,

because yeah, I mean, it's insane that your channel, Let's Talk Money, has grown to over 500,000 subscribers, but you're kind of unique in terms of like the other kind of YouTube finance creators. You have a very long, you know, successful career that you had in corporate finance and real estate, and you're a CFA. Honestly, it's very difficult to find a YouTube content creator that has any credentials. So I'm so curious, can you kind of walk us through and also you were in the Marines, which I think is wild to me. Can you kind of share a little bit about your kind of origin story? What, you know, brought you into the Marines and then corporate finance and then who

would leave a successful career in corporate finance to run a YouTube channel? Sure. Love to. First, let me say that if you ever want to build a brand for yourself online or differentiate yourself, pick the most tedious thing you can do, but that you have to do before every, every video, right? Because I can guarantee you 90% of the people out there do not want to have to put on a bow tie for, for every single video. Is it really? You didn't get a clip on, you know, that could have been a time saver. I would feel horrible. You'd be called out. Okay. I'd save time, but I wouldn't be able to sleep at night.

But, but yeah, I, I actually, I finished my service in the Marine Corps. It was always drawn to that kind of that service and that community, you know, in the, in the Marine Corps. It was always drawn to that kind of service and that community in the Marines, that pride of being a part of something bigger than yourself. And I think that really shows through or comes through in a lot of what else I've experienced in my life. Went back to college and really, through an internship in commercial real estate analysis, really fell in love with that idea of making your money work for you, right? None of us love our first jobs during or out of college. And so I think it's a really attractive idea that, hey, you can put down a little bit of money, have that working for you so you don't have to work.

And so I really, really fell into that equity analysis, that investment analysis kind of industry. After college, I went into venture capital where I worked for a Canadian venture capital firm, actually set up a sell side research department for them and managed some other analysts there. Worked in equity analysis, so stock analysis and that kind of thing, and then private wealth management. And by, you know, by 2013, I really decided that, you know, it's, I love, love the industry, love being able to, again, figure out ways to grow your money. But I was only working, only able to work with one specific type of person. And that is rich people, right? With venture capital, with private wealth management, you're only working for the people that can afford those

services. And it's really not where I was from, not the mindset that I had. So I knew I wanted to have more control over my own business, have my own assets as well. So I started blogging in 2013, left the corporate world, and fortunately had enough saved up to last a couple of years because blogging does not pay the bills. No. But I had a lot of fun, you know, connecting with people out in love again with that sense of community and the face-to-face that you get through YouTube and that sense of community. And the growth has just been exponential. It's been amazing. Like I said, started in 2017 up to about 560,000 people in the community now on YouTube, reaching out, reaching them every

video and back and forth with the live streams. So just really love that idea of being able to connect with people more closely and really Main Street investors. Yeah, I'm curious. So when you started your blog and then your YouTube channel, what was your kind of idea behind it? Because there's so many different routes you can take. There's just general personal finance or investing, or you can get really niche specific. So what was your kind of plan? Because I'm curious, because now looking on your YouTube channel is very focused on investing. And obviously, you have a website that's focused on educating people about stock market investing. Was that always the goal? Did you want to try out new things or how did you kind of figure out what was the right thing for you?

Sure. Oh, not at all. I think everything I do and anything I've ever done successfully has been from mistakes that I've learned, things that I've tried and little experiences with failure. Because when I did start in 2013, I wanted to be the generalist, right? I wanted to have a lot of different blogs. I still wanted to kind of niche down each blog, but I wanted really a conglomerate focus of blogs, right? So I had a peer-to-peer lending blog. I had a personal finance blog. I had an investing blog. I had a make money from home blog. And it was really to the point of wanting to talk about so many different things, so many facets of my personality, but still wanting to niche and focus on any particular blog, right, to kind of satisfy the gods at Google. When I took that to YouTube, I, again, tried to have three different YouTube channels.

Oh, wow. That's difficult. Very quickly. Exactly. I found out very quickly that that was not going to work. Um, and, and so I tried doing, uh, all three of those. I tried doing personal finance, investing and making money, uh, videos on one channel. And that didn't work either because YouTube likes people to be very much niche focused and very much talking to a specific group in a specific topic. And that's just a matter of building the authority in that specific topic, having people come back to you for that topic because you are the authority and the signals that that sends

to YouTube. So I very much fell back into that old love, the old industry of equity analysis. And really, that's probably 90% of the videos that we do now is talking about stocks, investing, stock picking, how to invest, and some of the biggest mistakes. Again, I'd say, even within my investing experience, despite 10 plus years as a professional equity analyst, I think the bulk of my experience or the bulk of what I talk about and the information just comes from personal mistakes and personal investing. I started investing in 1999, which, of course, it was the best time to start investing because we all know what happened the year after that. So I can relate, I think, to a lot of people that are just now starting investing over the last couple of years are seeing a lot of their stocks just fall apart. And I've been through that experience. I've been through many recessions, many bear markets. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm so curious because it's not saturated, but there's a lot of financial content creators on YouTube these days. And again, it's a variety. And even if you just look at the niche of investing, there's a ton of channels. I'm curious, what do you feel like does it give you a bit of an edge having that experience as an analyst and being a CFA? Or I know you mentioned a lot of what you talk about comes from your personal experience, but I'm curious, you know, you probably see what other people are creating. Does it give you, I guess, maybe a different lens a little bit? I think that's one part of my differentiation, but I think really focusing on and honing in on how you can be different and your personality is really anyone can be successful. That's just one of the things that sets me apart. The bow tie, the background in my videos is very much focused towards branding and the beliefs and the value system that I have. My experience as a professional analyst is part of that. But then that's not to say that someone has to have 10 plus years as an equity

analyst. That's not to say that somebody has to have some of those other experiences because YouTube is very much a personality-based platform, right? Like you said, there are thousands, there's 26 million plus channels, but they're even in within the niche of investing and even further down into the niche of like maybe dividend investing or, you know, molesting investing for millennials. There are hundreds and thousands of channels. So really your success depends on having that personality that people want to come back to no matter what you're talking about. And that's something that's going to build over a year or two or even more where you slowly build up that community of people that just like to hear you talk and just like to feel like you're part of their community, feel like you're a friend, and they're going to listen to you, whatever you're saying. Absolutely. And I know you mentioned values. And that's also, I think, a big thing is when you're looking for someone to watch their content, you want someone

who you can connect with and you understand where they stand. So I'm curious, one of my questions is, what is your investing philosophy? Again, there's so many content creators, they all have their biases or what they think is the right way to do things or their own philosophies for you. What does that look like? Sure, sure. Well, let me back up. One more thing I wanted to say on YouTube is a great analogy I think I would make is, you know, I've done very well in self-publishing as well. And it was one of my first real income streams that helped support me while the blogs were growing. And I always recommend self-publishing to people, but they always come back with, oh, I don't know what I would write about, or I don't know enough about something to write about. And it is the same way in YouTube and

blogging and whatever you do, really. It's not the information you're sharing. That's important, but that is not your primary driver. That is not what drives your success. Your success is being able to relate your own personal story, your own personal experience, make that relatable to someone, whether it's through a book, whether it's through a video or whatnot. Because people can find all kinds of information online. They can find whatever you're going to say in a book, even the smartest person out there, whatever they're going to say in a book, it can be said, it's probably said on a hundred blogs out there. What people come back to you for is that personal story, how it relates, you know, how it makes them feel like they can

relate to it and they can make it their own and make, make their own success story. So really whether you're, whether you're videos, whether you're self-publishing, it's, it's all about you being able to share that personal story and make it someone else's. Now, as far as my, my own investing style, my, hi, I'm Joseph. I am an addict. Okay. And I say that because for 90% of the people out there, the best investing style is a very simple three to five funds, ETFs, maybe a couple of index funds that give you the broad market. And we're talking, so three asset classes, right? Stocks, bonds, and real estate, three different types of investments that tend to kind of move separately from each other, differing in the economy. You want exposures to those, right? So you have maybe three index funds, and then you have maybe a couple of ETFs, right? Exchange-traded funds

trade just like stocks, but they hold hundreds of stocks, even thousands of stocks, some of them, in maybe different themes, maybe dividends, maybe some value, maybe some growth stocks. And you just invest every month, a little bit of money, whatever you can afford, put them in those same three to five funds and don't worry about your investments. Don't try to, don't try to beat the market, but be the market. Okay. That is for 90% of the people out there, that is the best investing strategy you can ever have. So now I know that means not those 90% of the people out there won't watch my videos because they don't need to see how to pick stocks or they don't need

any more information. But why I say I'm an addict, and I think a lot of people, a lot of other people out there are as well, because I love following the stock market. I love, you know, looking at stocks, looking at different investments, trying to eke out that 1% or 2% extra returns, or just investing in those long-term growth stocks or those long-term stocks that I really love. And I know that if I didn't have maybe 10% or 20% of my money, of my portfolio, as a way to be able to pick those stocks, to buy individual stocks rather than just those three to five funds. If I didn't have that, then I would end up doing it with the rest. I would end up buying and selling those funds. I would mess up that part of my portfolio.

So what I suggest to people, if they have that itch, that need to pick stocks and invest in individual stocks, then they have 60, 70, even 80% of their money, of their portfolio in those three to five index funds or ETFs have maybe 10 individual stocks that you really love and you're going to hold them for 10 years at minimum, 10, 15 years. You love these companies, you love their products. And then with that additional 20%, 15, 20% of your portfolio, sure, maybe you go after some of that stock picking that you like to do. Maybe you go, maybe you invest in cryptocurrencies or some of those other investments that you want to follow, right? What that's going to do, it's going to satisfy that

itch. So you don't go back to that core part of your portfolio and mess that up by trying to game the market with that part. But it's also going to give you the market return, right? You've got that 60, 70, 80% of your portfolio of your money that is the market. It's going to give you that market return over decades, and it's going to help you reach your financial goals, right? So you got the kind of the core portfolio and the satellite portfolio kind of philosophy. I love that. And honestly, that's exactly what I see with people who are like, you got the kind of the core portfolio and the satellite portfolio kind of philosophy. I love that. And honestly, that's exactly what I see with people who are like, you know, and I get questions, you know, should I, you know, get individual stocks? It's like, well, honestly, I find the people that can do that successfully.

They usually do the same thing that you do. They have the core portfolio and the satellite. But also it's, yeah, they have that itch or they're just really passionate about it. I mean, there's friends of my husband's and they love talking stocks because it's their passion. It's their hobby. They, it's not just about, I want to make sure I retire because if it was just that, then they probably wouldn't be spending all their time doing research. It's a passion of theirs. So I guess it's a passion of yours. That, that, that small, you know, satellite portion of your portfolio, that 10%, 15%, 20% of picking stocks, it will never compensate you enough for the time that you spend actually researching stocks and following the market. You have to get something else out of it.

You have to get that intrinsic reward. Because if all it is is about the money, about reaching your goals, then just index invest, buy some funds, put your money in the market, have a direct deposit from your savings account each month. And don't worry about it. Do what you do best. Do what you enjoy to make money, whether that's a side hustle, a passive income stream, or your regular job. That is always going to be your best money-making idea right there. And let the market do its work. Mm-hmm. So I guess for the other side of it, the other 10 or 20% of individuals who do have that itch, I'm sure you get questions from beginners all the time, but it's okay. So now I've got this, a little section, some play money that I

can do something with. What do I do? I mean, I obviously you have hundreds of videos I can show you, but I guess, you know, if someone were to ask you that question, what is like the first thing that you would tell them or what would something you would tell them to not do? Sure. Well, first I would ask them what type of investor are they, you know, even with that satellite portion of their portfolio where they want to maybe pick individual stocks, that's not to say they should just jump into like the fastest growing stocks or the growth stocks or or the most trendy stocks. Because if there's someone that that does get stressed out by, you know, by big drops in their portfolio or by stock market crashes, things like that, then that is going to be the exactly the wrong thing to do. Right. Because we're going to have a crash like we've had this year and they're going to panic sell out of those long-term investments and they're only going to lose money. So really

understand, you know, whether you can take that kind of risk and be able to see your portfolio rise and fall without panicking. That's really going to guide your decision, whether you want to do those riskier growth stocks or things like cryptocurrency or those things that are just a little bit more volatile and offer that kind of risk reward trade-off, right? Higher risk, higher reward. Or if you're more of a value investor or a dividend investor, the kind of stocks that don't tend to jump 5% or 10% in a single day. But they're going to provide that slow and steady income stream through the dividends or through the value stocks. So that's one thing you really have to decide.

Absolutely. I'm curious, with your satellite portfolio, what do you do? Are you more of a dividend person? You're more of a growth person? What do you kind of do? Not that this is telling people to do anything. I'm just curious what you're doing with your money. Do you want to share? Sure. Well, I am, I am sometimes my own worst enemy cause, cause I I'm kind of a middle of the road, right? Uh, standing right in the middle of the road with a lot of different, a lot of different stocks, but, but then it's,

it's, again, I think it goes back to just my passion for following any kind of theme, the growth stocks, the dividend stocks, the value stocks, things like that. Right now, I do have a lot of growth stocks. And it's just because with the market environment that we're in right now, where we could crash further or we could start that next bull market, then I like to have a lot of risky or growth stocks. But then I also like to have a lot of really cash-like investments, like cash, I-bonds, bonds, things like that. So that if the market does start higher, like it has been over the last month, then those growth stocks are really going to do well and pay off. But then if we do see lower lows on the market, if the market crashes back down once again, then that cash is going to protect me. So it's kind of, it's called a barbell strategy where you

have two very different types of investments or investment strategies, one, you know, overweighted, but nothing, really nothing in the middle. Right. So I'm probably a little light, a little light on those dividend and value stocks right now. Interesting. Interesting. I'm curious. So now, you know, a lot of what you talk about on, um, your website, but also your YouTube channel is, um, kind of how to actually do the thing. And I think that's like, sometimes, you know, we're talking before I hit record, you know, there's a lot of short content that's really popular on TikTok and Reels that can't really get into the nitty gritty and the specifics. And I think that's why so many people have subscribed to your channel, because you really aren't afraid to go in any direction and to really

dive deep. So what are some of the key things that you want to make sure that, you know, especially new investors, young investors, you know, especially new investors, young investors, you know, know about getting into the market, picking individual stocks, because, gosh, there's a lot of crap out there. And obviously, you know what you're doing. So I know you want to kind of guide them in the right direction. So what are some like key things or mistakes that you want people to avoid doing? Sure. Well, first, just get started, right? And don't worry if it's only $25 a month, $50 a month, whatever that is, just get started. You can actually invest in $50 a month over a period of 20 or 30 years. You can actually grow that into hundreds of thousands of dollars with just a really simple market return. So not trying to beat the market, just really

trying to be the market with some of those index funds. So get started investing. But then don't start off feeling like you have to overcomplicate it. I hear a lot of people say, okay, so I want to get started investing, but I don't feel like I'm ready. I don't feel like I understand how to pick stocks yet. Well, that's fine. Just start investing, start depositing your money into an investing account and pick those index funds and those ETFs, right? Stick with those until you feel comfortable with individual stocks. So again, you're going to want three index funds and those are just basically ETFs that follow a very broad market. Okay. So you've got something like the SBY, which is an ETF that invests across the S&P 500, the 500 largest companies in the United States. Or you've got index funds like maybe the VT, which is the Vanguard Total Stock Market Fund Index, which basically covers all the stocks in the world.

Very broad. Then you're going to want an index fund or an ETF that covers bonds. Okay, so maybe something like the AGG or the Vanguard BLV, ticker BLV, which invests in corporate bonds, US treasuries, things like that. Gives you kind of a little bit of safety there. And then in real estate, a fund in real estate to give you exposure to that kind of asset class. Then you pick a couple of ETFs, a couple other funds that are in maybe themes like dividend investing, value investing, growth stocks, anything like that, but they're holding

hundreds of stocks, right? So you're really not picking a single stock. You're just getting the market return from that theme and from that topic, right? So just start with that. Invest your money. Try to find a platform, an investing platform that lets you do fractional shares, right? And what that means is you can invest any amount of money. You can invest $50 and break it up into, you know, different chunks into different investments, no matter what the share price is, right? You could buy $50 worth of Amazon, which I think now is something like $250 a share, right? And you get a fraction of a share of that stock, right? So you don't have to necessarily save up your money until you can buy a whole share, right? So you can invest that $50 a month or whatever you have a month and invest it across

this whole portfolio of five funds and just be happy with that. Just be absolutely fine with that until you get comfortable with actually picking individual stocks, which stocks maybe you want to hold on for that 10 or 15 years, and then kind of ease into it. Yeah, just on the fractional share, for anyone who's listening who's Canadian, I think the only platform or discount brokerage that allows that as well, Simple Trade in Canada. So let's say someone is like, okay, I'm comfortable. I want to start picking individual stocks. I've got more money to kind of contribute. I I, so, so let's say, you know, someone is like, okay, I'm comfortable. I want to start, you know, um, picking individual stocks. I've got, you know, more money to kind of contribute.

I guess, yeah. The next question would be, okay, which, which stocks do I buy? Everyone has an opinion. My gosh, does everyone have an opinion online? Uh, and you know, obviously I know, you know, part of, um, your philosophy is too, is you're not about, you know, the, the, the getting rich quicker, the day trading, you're really about the, you know, buy and hold looking looking for opportunities, and kind of that long term mindset. But I guess, yeah, when you're trying to find that, you know, company that you're like, Oh, you know, I wish I

invested in that 10 or 15 years ago. You know, what is, you know, something that you would do in terms of like your own analysis as you know, seeing that you're an expert in that field? You know, what are some things that you need to look out for when you're doing your own research about a particular stock? Sure. Well, my favorite strategy is really kind of a top down approach, right? Where you look at those big universal forces that are changing our world. Okay, so things like things like demographics, like the aging population, things like electric vehicles and automation and artificial intelligence, those big multi-decade forces that are going to drive whole sections of the economy and of our lives. So you start there and you start to learn, kind of reading into the information and the

research, and you start to learn, okay, what sectors of the economy or what industries are these going to affect? So if you look at what example would be self-driving cars, right? Automated cars, automated driving. And you look at the massive shortage in truck drivers that we have now through the US and Canada there. And you say, okay, if this, if if this is really going to drive the, you know, drive help, help alleviate that shortage, then really all the all the transportation companies in that sector should should benefit from this. Right. You know, labor costs, driver costs are upwards of 20 or 30 percent of a lot of these trucking companies operational costs. So once we do get that kind of level five automation of trucks, they're going to be saving a ton of money and just profits are going to go through the roof, right? So the way you're looking at this is you start with those big universal forces

that are pushing, that are going to be a tailwind behind all the stocks within a group. And then you go within that group and you use some ideas to try to find the best stocks within that group. But even if you don't pick the best of the best within that group, then you know you've got this tailwind behind all of the stocks and all of the stocks are going to do well. So that's really where I'd start out. Now, one thing to consider is something that Peter Lynch, one of the great fabled legendary investors, always recommended was invest in what you know. And, of course, so many people think this just means invest in what you like. Or what you buy. Or what you buy.

So if I go to McDonald's and just love the breakfast at McDonald's, then I should invest in McDonald's stock. But that's not what it means. That is so not what it means. Invest in what you know actually means invest in those industries where you have a very strong and deeper professional experience or deeper experience than most people would have. So if I worked in fast food, and in fast food and, you know, not necessarily just as a cashier, but if I actually had some some operational experience in fast food, in that fast fast service restaurants, then I would know how you know what makes it what makes a company profitable in that industry. And I would be better able to really analyze those stocks within that industry and pick pick which ones should have a stronger future.

And so what he would suggest is, yeah, find those that one or two industries where you do have that experience or you can build that experience. Right. You don't have to don't have to have professional experience, but you do have to really research deeply into those through through the magazines, through the trade journals, websites, really understand those industries. And it's within those industries that, yeah, you go in and you pick those. You really find which companies really stand out as the best to breed. So that's one strategy, really. And then so you're really only picking individual stocks within those industries where you have that kind of experience. And for the rest of the market, you just have those index funds, right? You just be the market instead of trying to beat the market because you really don't have any, you don't have that level of experience that's going to help you pick better stocks than anyone else really, right?

So that's something that a lot of people should consider, right? I think if you're going to pick individual stocks, do it from a position of strength and a position of knowledge where you can pick the better stocks versus just some Joe Schmo out on the street. There's always a friend of a friend who has a hot stock tip and you're like, why am I investing in this company? I don't know anything about it. That's kind of probably red flag number one. I think what probably worries a lot of people, I'm curious, is, okay, let's say you've done your research, you pick a stock that you know about, you feel really confident about it. You know, sometimes, you know, things don't work out how you expect, even though, you know, in general, the best way to grow your wealth is to, you know, hold on for a long time. Sometimes you have to let these stocks go. And I think a lot of people are like, just unsure, time. Sometimes you have to let these stocks go.

And I think a lot of people are just unsure, when do I know when to let something go? Sure, sure. And I would say that a lot of times, often, very often, it's not in why you think. And it's not because the stock price has gone down. You don't sell just because the stock price has gone down. In fact, a lot of times when the stock price has gone down. You don't sell just because the stock price has gone down. In fact, a lot of times when the stock price goes down and in these kinds of bear markets,

like what we've had over the first six months of 2022, where stock prices have come down, these are the best times to invest. It always amazes me. People love to buy stocks. People love to push money into stocks as the market is going up. But you never know when that bull market, when stocks are going to stop going up. You never know when we hit that peak. In comparison to people getting panicked and stopping saving and stopping investing during a bear market when stock prices have come down, you know you're getting a discount now. You know stock prices are lower than where they've been in the past. So it is a great time to invest. But yeah, there are times when you would want to want to kind of cut your losses and, and abandon the company again, though, it's not, it's probably not in what you think. It's not just because the stock price has gone down. It's

because there's been some kind of fundamental change in that company or in that business that changes really, you know that changes really their future and what you thought of them as a company. So these are things like if management is believed to be involved in some kind of a scandal or bad accounting, or if there's some kind of a fraud within the company, that really harms the brand and the outlook for that kind of company. If they kind of change their strategy for growth, a great example of this would be something like an AT&T, right? Who for years was a great company, a bellwether of the telecom companies. But then, you know, since they struggled to find that growth because telecom

just wasn't growing. So they figured, Hey, we'll buy up all these other companies. And they paid, they paid tens of billions of dollars for direct TV, satellite networks. They paid tens of billions of dollars for AOL Time Warner, right. For internet and content. And it was just that acquisition strategy that really changed the business and just loaded up the company with debt and was really more than management could handle. So for the past decade, of course, AT&T stock has gone nowhere. They actually ended up just at the beginning of this year selling off everything other than the telecom business kind of returning to their root focus.

And hopefully it's a brighter future now. But yeah, I'd say if a company really changes the business model in which it's in, loads up with debt to try to drive these acquisitions, then that would be a red flag, a warning sign of when to sell. And I'm just thinking, you know, this is probably also why you kind of suggest investing in companies that you know and you're familiar with because likely you're not suggesting that um you should have like a huge stock portfolio and what i mean is like you're investing in hundreds of stocks like it sounds like the the strategy is to um be very specific in what you invest because you know i imagine it

takes a lot of time to to do the research and keep tabs on everybody. If you have hundreds and hundreds of individual stocks, that's a lot of work. That's a full-time job. Oh, absolutely. And it is a full-time job for a lot of people, right? All those stock market analysts that really go blind over cash flow analysis. And yeah, so there's actually research that shows once you have more than, more than 20 or 25 stocks, individual stocks, as long as they're, you know, in different sectors and that kind of thing, your returns are basically going to look a lot like the market, right? So

there, there's just no, there's no benefit to having more than, more than about 25 individual stocks. Now what, again, going back to that core satellite portfolio, uh, you get all the diversification you need in that core part of the portfolio in those, you know, three to five funds, you've got so many stocks, so many bonds and real estate in that, that you're going to get the market returns, right? So within that satellite portion of your portfolio, all you need is maybe 10 companies, 10 to 15 companies at the most, really, to really give you that chance for an extra percent or two of return or even more if you really do well. But yeah, you really don't need that much more. It's really the beauty of that core satellite strategy is that because you are getting the

market return on most of your portfolio, and you've only got 10 or 15% of your money to put into these individual stocks, you can't go out and find 20 or 30 stocks, right? Because you wouldn't have anything in them. You would have maybe 50 bucks in each. You've only got enough money set aside for 10 or 15 stocks. It's going to greatly limit the amount of research you have to do and the amount of research you need to do to keep up with these every quarter. So it's just a great, simple, stress-free or less stress strategy where you're only following 10 or 15 stocks that you really love. You really know a lot about those stocks and those companies and you're investing in those for the long term. Absolutely. Now, you've been running your channel

for quite a few years. I'm curious, have you heard from anyone who started following you at the beginning, maybe started doing their own investing? And, you know, have they kind of come back to say, hey, this is what my experience has been like? I'm curious, have you gotten any feedback from some of your early subscribers? Sure, Sure. Yeah. I love, I love getting messages and emails and comments, comments like that. I get, you know, one or two each month at least. And, and a lot of them that, that have been pretty active or engaged in not just the YouTube channel, but in our private Facebook group as well. A couple of the moderators have been around since, since the beginning and, and yeah, they love it. You know, they love the, the, the idea that it's a little more grounded in, you know, experience and rational, you know,

simple investing. I wouldn't say maybe not stress-free investing, but, but a little bit simpler approach than, than I think you see on a lot of the other channels, especially the, a lot of the channels that have popped up just over the past couple of years where everybody, everybody was an investing expert, right? Oh, yeah. It was that time. I'm sure you saw it. You're like, this looks familiar. I've seen this before. When stocks go nowhere but up, then all you have to do is throw a dart at a dartboard. Yeah, and you're like, look at AE. I'm a genius. But yeah, it's really the channels that can survive through the periods like now where stocks are falling and be able to say, hey, not every stock has gone up, but I stand behind my track record and pretty proud of it. Just because I think because we weren't chasing a lot of those momentum stocks and a lot of the growth stocks uh then the the portfolios

have done really well well since you mentioned and because i feel like yeah definitely in the past two years that was what i feel like was everyone was bombarded with was this this idea of momentum like oh this is a stock you haven't heard about you want to get in on the ground floor just as you know cryptocurrency was the hot new thing because coin there's always a new coin and then the nfts and all that kind of stuff which is it makes me honestly feel validated for telling everybody just don't don't worry about them just like my philosophy is very similar to yours like index funds are great just you know ignore the noise and now everything's down um so i'm curious like do you you know from seeing from you know again being in your perspective and seeing all

that now i think a lot of things have quieted down. What was your perspective when you were seeing all these people just talking about these stocks you've never heard of that you knew? You're like, this is this reminds me of, you know, the the the big tech bubble and then the last crash. You know, what was your perspective on that? Sure. Well, it's it's it's too bad because you do see it pop up every five to 10 years. We saw it with the dot-com bubble. We saw it with the housing market bubble. We're seeing it now over the last couple of years. And it's really because investing has become an entertainment industry. Investing in the advice, the information you get, by and large, obviously, I would hope that my channel is the exception, that your podcast is the exception, and there are a lot of exceptions out there. But by and large, a lot of the media out there, whether it's CNBC, whether it's YouTube, or a lot of these other channels, it is there just to drive clicks and get those ad-supported dollars.

So whether they chase every trend, they are as sensational as they can be, and whatever is getting clicks. And a lot of times, if you follow YouTube like I do, then you notice it happens with every topic. You have to become more and more sensational with every video that those pranks that, that started out in, you know, 2010, they, they were just, they were pretty mediocre compared to what we have now. Oh yeah. They're crazy. People can actually die from some of these pranks that people are doing on their channel. You feel like you have to one up every single video as well as one up, you know, what everyone else is doing.

And that's come over to to investing as well. You know, you you're no longer exceptional if you can if your portfolio gets 10 or 20 percent return a year, which if you look at market returns over the past 50 years, I mean, seven, eight, nine percent, 20 percent a year would be outstanding. But yeah, but but nobody, you know, seven, eight, 9%, 20% a year would be outstanding. But yeah, but, but nobody, you know, nobody would click on that. Nobody, nobody is driven by that anymore. So it's really, yeah, it's really too bad that, that investing is such an entertainment industry now where it's become not so much about making you money, but about making, you know, about getting clicks and getting views. Well, since you say that, and, you know, about getting clicks and getting views. Well, since you say that, you know, and again, you have such a huge reach on your channel, how are you able to, I guess, combat that and stay relevant? Like not, because honestly, I've seen it with a few YouTubers that I used to love. And they said really great, you know,

good practical content. And now it's very sensationalized. Like, okay, I mean, hey, they've got a bigger channel than me. So they know something, they're doing something that I'm not doing. So it's working, I guess. But, you know, for you, you've been doing this for so long, how do you make sure that you always stay in line with your, you know, your philosophy, your values, but also still, you know, attract new subscribers? Sure, sure. Well, you know, I would love to say it is because I am such a character driven person and my, my sense of integrity is so high. I can't altogether say that though. What I can say is that, yes, you know, I, I, I, I'm very proud of, of you know, my character and you know, my sense of integrity, but some of it is just, I've already, I've already made my money. Right. You know, it's,

I, it sounds smug and it sounds, you know, I don't know. It sounds so many things, but, but I, yeah, I, you know, I mean that, that 10 plus years in venture capital in private wealth management, you get paid very well. Um, so, you know, when, when I did make that transition into blogging, into YouTube, uh, it was, it was that it was more of a passion project. It was more of a passion and, and that need to, to reach out to main, main street investors and build that community, not necessarily to, to make a lot of money. Right.

And I think, uh, you know, that has helped help the channel grow because it's, it's much more of an honest type of communication rather than sensationalized. And it's, I don't know, it's too, it's too bad that, you know, a lot of people aren't in that same position that, I mean, I understand, I fully understand you got to pay the bills. You know, if your kids are hungry, then you're going to say what needs to be said to get those views and get those clicks. True. But then once you say it, you can't unsay it. And that's like the thing that, you know, as someone who's also been, you know, been a content creator for a while, it's, I've always, even just like when I had my little blog that no one was reading, I was always very conscious of what I put out there.

Cause once it's out in the internet, you can't take it back. And especially when it's in a field like, you know, finance and personal finance, you, people are listening and they could, even if you say the disclaimer, not advice, you know, people may take what you're right. You see those just not advice. They can't continue to tell you some air quotes. They can't see our air quotes with not financial advice. Oh, I hate that. I so hate that. I'm sure you do. I see it with so many people. And then they literally give you, they're like, but this is not advice, but please buy this stock or this stock is going to blow up. And you're like, wait a minute. Exactly they're like but this is not advice but please buy this stock or this stock is gonna blow up and you're like wait exactly exactly you know this is finance

not financial advice but i'm gonna make you a millionaire in five minutes wait a minute you can't just you can't do that but yeah i don't know i haven't heard of a a big money youtuber being sued yet i'm surprised i don't know if you have but i haven't so maybe that just disclaimer is working i don't know you know i think I truly think we are, and it's, it's so overused. It is cliche, but, but we are in the wild west of, of the influencer era, right? Because there are very little regulations, very little oversight about what people are saying online, what people are recommending. And again, you know, it is, it is too bad because you are changing lives, especially with, within the finance, uh, within the finance space, you're, you know, telling people how to invest or how to, how to use their hard earned money.

And there's just so much bad advice out there. There's some bad advice out there. Oh my gosh. Well, with that, I'm curious, what is some really terrible advice you've seen before? And then you're like shaking your head. You're like, I can't believe someone's saying that. Well, you know, I mean, I guess just a lot of the stuff popping up on YouTube over the last couple of years of chasing those momentum stocks, basically, basically the the idea or the advice that you should invest in a specific company just because the stock is going up. Right. And it is so painful because because I see, you know, I talk about stocks on my channel and I get flooded with comments about, oh, look at the stock chart on that one. That's a horrible stock just because the stock prices come down a little bit. Right. Or the stock price hasn't

boomed higher like like like another stock. people, people are confusing, you know, the stock price and the, you know, the past with the quality of, of the investment decision in that. And I think, you know, a lot of, a lot of YouTubers and other influencers have kind of fed into that because, you know, there were so many stocks that were going up so fast. So, so quickly over the last couple of years that they seem like an expert. You could recommend AMC or GameStop or whatever and say, hey, look, this stock went up 300%. Wouldn't it be awesome if you tripled your money in a month? And people love those kind of fantasies. But that is just not investing. No. And what I think breaks my heart the most is it's like, Hey, I used to be

in my twenties. I was in a position like, Oh my gosh, if I could have, you know, 10 X or, you know, whatever my money, it would have been a game changer because I had no money. And so I know people are listening and they're taking this or like, maybe this could be the thing that changes everything and get me out of this debt cycle or not live paycheck to paycheck. And it's, you know, yeah, like we kind of said, it's affecting real people. And it just, yeah, it's the thing that drives me real, real crazy about that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, I mean, it's, it's okay to fantasize and I still do it. I, you know, whenever you see, okay. So, so the last couple of days, I guess there is a, uh, there's a Chinese, uh, company, AMTD or something and do not invest

in this company. Okay. just because you heard this. But over the last week, it's gone up something like 30,000%. Oh, gosh. Of course, everybody's talking about it. What is happening with this stock and everything? And of course, yeah, it is so much fun to just sit there and think, wow. Okay, if I just put $1,000 in this stock a week ago, it would be $30,000 or more right now. And yeah, it's fun to think about what you could do with that money, how that would change your life. But you really

have to come back to, okay, there's no way I would have known out of the 9,000 stocks available globally that this one was going to do that. There is no way that any kind of fundamentals or any kind of rational analysis of this stock would have justified that. It is just a freak occurrence that just happened. So you really got to come back to that really sound investment ideas and process and be able to say, hey, yeah, it's great to win the lottery, but I would rather get solid returns over a period of 10 or 20 years, meet my financial goals or exceed them and not go chasing waterfalls, right? Not go chasing those lottery tickets. Absolutely. Well, I know I could probably keep you here for another 45 minutes, but I won't do that. You have so much wisdom and experience. I really appreciate you taking the time to be on the show. I know, obviously, you've mentioned you're a plug to your YouTube channel a lot because I'm a big fan. But also, you also mentioned you have a Facebook or an online community. Is it through Facebook and also a weekly newsletter? Did you want to kind of share more about those in case people are interested in checking them out? Sure. Yeah. Well, first of all, you know, I'd love for everybody

just to come by the community on Let's Talk Money on YouTube. I love seeing everybody there and engaging. But yeah, we've got the weekly, the Bowtie Weekly that goes out Sunday nights before the market opens. Great little newsletter on, you know, absolutely free. Just something I like to do for the community about, you know, kind of what I'm watching in the week ahead, the stocks I'm watching, things like that. The, the private Facebook group is also open. It's just basically everybody from the community on YouTube comes over and, and a great way to kind of have back and forth conversations, right? Because, you know, on YouTube, it's, it's so hard to have that, that conversation with different people through the comments. So it's a, it's a great way to have conversations within

the community there on, on Facebook. Amazing. And what's your website again, if someone wants to find all of this information? Sure. That is mystockmarketbasics.com on the website. And that's really a little bit more of just kind of basic stock market investing, right? I try to keep it really simple and straightforward on the website. Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Joseph, for and straightforward on the website. Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Joseph, for joining me on the show. It was a pleasure having you, and I look forward to continuing to see all the things that you do and the new videos that you are going to make. I'm curious what themes you're going to produce in the next year.

It's going to be an interesting day. I feel like I'm excited to see what's going to happen with this recession. I'm ready. I'm a millennial. I've done this before. I got this. I'm excited, too, because, again, I think this is a great opportunity for investors, whether you've already started investing or you're just starting. It's times like this where you make your best money, right? Investing during a recession when prices are down. I always love to give the analogy of Amazon, right? Investing during a recession when prices are down. I always love to give the analogy of Amazon, right? When IPO in 1997 rose to $100 a share by 1999. And then of course just fell apart,

lost 95% down to less than $6 a share over the next two years. And you can imagine a lot what people were feeling with that. Same thing as a lot of people are feeling in some of these other growth stocks right now. Um, just, just despondent destitute, uh, over the losses on that and wondering if it's still a good investment. Um, but then look what it's, look what it's done over the last 20 years. Uh, I think before the split, Amazon was something like $3,500, which would have turned a thousand dollar pool for a,000 investment in one single stock into half a million dollars over 20 years. So, you know, just understand this is a great time to invest, getting those discounts on stocks. There are other Amazons out there that, you know, while they're not growth stocks anymore, are still growth companies. And so, yeah, it is a very exciting time to invest.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, once again, thanks so much for joining me. It's my pleasure. Thank you. All right. That was Episode 340 with my wonderful guest, Joseph Hogue. Make sure to check him out at mystockmarketbasics.com. You can also follow him on Twitter at StockMarketJ. And of course, follow him on YouTube. Subscribe, hit that subscribe button. His channel is called Let's Talk Money. Of course, I'm going to link to everything in the show notes. So just go to JessicaMorhouse.com slash 340. Or you can go to JessicaMorhouse.com slash podcast, and you'll be able to find all the podcast episodes right there. And yeah, keep on learning about investing because there's a lot to learn, isn't there? So much to learn.

It's kind of endless, but that should be exciting, not daunting, right? Right, right, right. Of course, I've got lots of things to share with you. So do not go away. I just want to share a few words about this podcast season's sponsor. This episode of the More Money Podcast is supported by Desjardins. Do you feel valued at your financial institution? Because Desjardins is on a mission to enrich the lives of Canadians, help build stronger communities, and educate its members so they can confidently reach their

financial goals. Not only do they offer one-of-a-kind customer care and offer a variety of financial services to fit your needs, as a cooperative, they put their members first. So if you're looking for an institution that's making an impact, look no further than Desjardins. To learn more about Desjardins and how they're making a difference, visit Desjardins.com. All right, first and foremost, reminder, because it's been a few weeks since I've added a new book to my big book giveaway.

I haven't had a guest on the show that's had a book for two weeks now, but hey, I'm still running the giveaway. So if you go to jessicamorez.com slash contest or contests, it'll take you to the same place. You'll find out all of the different books I'm currently giving away to amazing listeners like yourself of the podcast. These are all books that have been featured currently on the show. I will be adding more books. There's a lot more authors to come on the show. So I'm very looking forward to adding more books, but you can enter to win those books. And then basically at the end of the season, so this will be like end of December, early January, I will take a look at all of the entries and select my winners. And hopefully you will be one of those lucky winners. So make sure

to check that out. Also a few other things to share. So first and foremost, since we did talk to Joseph, who has an amazing YouTube channel, obviously I am not even close to his level of success on YouTube, something I'm going to be working on in the next few months as I finish up a few things, which I will share with you in a moment. But I do also have a YouTube channel is what I'm trying to say. Actually, I have one specifically for this podcast, because I know a lot of people like to listen on YouTube. And you can find that just at, you know, if you just go into YouTube and Google more money podcast, you can find it there easy. It's also

connected to my actual main YouTube channel, which now it has like a full, what's it called? Like a handle. YouTube just launched handles. So you can find me more easily at youtube.com slash at symbol Jessica Morehouse. If only I was smart enough to make sure all of my handles on social media were just Jessica Morehouse, but it wasn't. They're all very different. Like Instagram, you can find me at Jessica I. Morehouse because Jessica Morehouse was taken, though it's not really taken, like no one's doing anything with it, but someone has it locked away. On Twitter, I'm at J-E-S-S-I underscore Morehouse, so Jessie Morehouse. Why? I don't know what I was thinking. I don't know. I swear I have a memory that back like 10 years ago, whenever Twitter existed or started, I did have the handle Jessica Morehouse. And then I shut it down. And then someone else took it. And that's the story with that. So that's why everything's a bit different. But with that said,

I have been getting a ton of messages lately, annoyingly. Not that the messages were annoying, but it's annoying that it's happening. There are a bunch of spam accounts, again, faking me, posing as me, stealing all my photos and DMing my followers, talking to you well number one I don't just randomly dm people that's creepy and weird I don't just do that out of the blue I answer dms I don't just like you know go into people slide into people's dms that's not something I do but just go to my website jessicamorehouse.com and you'll find my social media icons in the footer and you can verify the usernames or the handles that is is the easiest way to do. You're like, is it Jessica? I'll look on her website. No, that is certainly not her. So I'm sorry that's happening. I'm trying my best. Instagram refuses to verify me because I guess I'm not popular enough. I mean, what do I got to do? I've got like thousands, possibly thousands, definitely hundreds of media mentions over the years. I'm on TV all the time.

You know, I have this podcast. It's seven years old. Like, what do you want from me? Sorry, do I have to be bigger on TikTok? Apparently. Apparently. It is what it is. What can you do? So I'm just trying my best. And maybe one day, if I'm lucky, I'll get verified. So people will be more easy to find the real account. Any mahoo. That's just some ranting for me because I'm just annoyed with the situation, especially since I'm verified on Twitter and Facebook. But whatever. OK. Anyways, enough of that.

Another thing I want to share with you in case you don't know is I do have an investing course myself and it is specifically for Canadians. So even though Joseph was awesome and he had some great things, he's American, right? And there's actually a lot of people who talk about investing, but they're American. And that's why I built a course called Wealth Building Blueprint for Canadians, because there is actually a lot to know when it comes to a bit about investing. But when it comes to like the practicalities, you know, things are different here in Canada. We've got different platforms, products, tax rules, different accounts. Things are different. Hence why I built this course. If you're interested in learning more, go to JessicaMorhouse.com slash course. And you can find all the details there and you can apply.

And if you are a good candidate, then you will literally have a call with me. You will get to chat with me, which is kind of cool if you've been a longtime listener and have always wanted to chat with me. So jessicamorez.com slash course is where you can find that. And what else? Okay, I'm going to tell you two things. Number one, I didn't want to like say this because I'm like, it may not be done by when this airs. I am so close to being done updating my budget spreadsheets. I know I've been talking like all year long, but I did in the spring hire a contractor, an expert with Excel and Google Sheets who lives in New Zealand actually, to help me really zhuzh up my budget spreadsheets. I'm super excited. They're a lot easier to use, have a lot more functionality.

They're not too complicated. I've been seeing so many, I've been trying to look at like other people's budget spreadsheets and sometimes they're just too, there's too much going on. People want to like, I want something simple that I'll actually go in and not be like, there's too many things happening. I tried to just keep kind of the core of my budget spreadsheets because they are effective. Just make them a bit easier with some like, here's a button to add a row instead of you having to do that manually and things like that. But yeah, lots of exciting things there. So I'm hopeful that it'll be they will be done soon. I'm currently working on doing the video tutorials so they can be up and running. So just letting you know, they will be done hopefully by the next episode.

That's the goal. Anyways, I've been talking to you for a little while and I am sure you have things to do places to be. So thank you so much for listening. A big shout out to my podcast editor, Matt Rideout. And I will see you back here next Wednesday for a fresh new episode of the More Money Podcast. See you then. This podcast is distributed by the women in media podcast network find out more at women in media.network