Motley Fool Money - Meet the Fool: Jason Moser

Episode Date: June 16, 2024

Peter Lynch says that some of the best investments can be found by looking at what you use every day. The same thinking might apply to careers, too.  Jason Moser is a Senior Analyst at The Motley Fool who heads up our Virtual Revolution portfolio. In today’s episode, Jason talks with Mary Long about early investing successes, what’s shaped his investing philosophy, and how golf changed his life.  Have an analyst you want us to feature on an upcoming “Meet the Fool” episode? Want to share your own investing journey with us? Send us a note (or a voice recording!) to [e-mail] Tickers mentioned: F, BAC, BRK.A, BRK.B, MKL, GVA  Host: Mary Long Guest: Jason Moser Engineer: Tim Sparks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I really consider myself what I call a foolish investor. And that is, I don't really limit myself to any areas of interest. I don't limit myself to the types of ideas, whether it's some type of growth idea or whether I feel like it's a value idea or there's a dividend idea. I mean, I like to keep my universe as broad as possible as an investor. I'm Mary Long and that's Jason Moser, one of our senior analysts here at The Fool, who leads up our virtual revolution service and a number of other foolish portfolios. I caught up with Jason earlier this week to learn a bit more about how he found his way here and what's shaped his investing philosophy. We also discuss why he owes so much

of his happiness to golf, how being a young dad set the stage for an early investing success, and why it pays dividends to stay curious. Jason, I've got the privilege of being tasked with rounding up a number of different fools and analysts from around the company and kind of chatting with them about how they wound up where they are, how they got into investing, how they formed their investment thesis. And so of course, wanted to chat with you. How, when did you start investing? I guess is maybe where I'd like to begin. Was it a hobby? Was it a professional career right off, right off the bat for you? I mean, it was definitely a hobby. I sort of, I've had a few jobs along my way to ultimately getting here to the Motley Fool. But yeah, I started investing.

I learned about it from my father when I was younger. I specifically remember converses. we would have when he drove me to school in the mornings when I was in eighth grade. So, you know, in that general sort of 14-year age range, he would just talk about stocks that he knew of. He's a physician by trade, but I always enjoyed investing. And he had, you know, some interesting perspective because he's a doctor. He had some interesting perspective on health care. And I remember telling me about some of his winners. And it just was always fascinating to me that you could take your money and grow it. And so he, you know, he got me set up when I was around 18, a little bit younger maybe with some, with a brokerage account.

And then I actually discovered the Motley Fool in Kazakhstan, believe it or not, in 2006. And my wife, we were traveling with her work with State Department. And so we lived in Kazakhstan for a couple of years. And that's where I discovered the Fool, which ultimately really prompted my interest in learning more. Okay. So I want to get to your discovery of the Motley Fool. but maybe first let's go back to eighth grade. What kind of advice was your dad giving you in the car to middle school?

I mean, if I think about you, my dad probably, he was really always kind of a fool, like before I ever even knew what a fool was, before I knew what the Mollyville was. He was very much a sort of Peter Lynchian, very interested in the things that he knew, right? Very interested in the healthcare space because he knew so much about it. But he was also very interested in just the products that he used every day, the car that he drove. I mean, it was an explorer. Or no, I'm sorry, back then it was a Bronco. So he's always compelled by Ford.

And so, yeah, I think that's really the perspective that that captured my attention was sort of, you know, it helped shape kind of your worldview even. But just taking a look at all of the things around us. And so then you said you discovered the fool in 2006 when you were in Kazakhstan. on what how did you find it were you just kind of messing around online looking for looking for stock advice and you stumbled upon the fool that was it really um I mean we we had just gotten set up in our house and the weather there as you can imagine it's very cold for for a lot of the year of the year and so I was just fiddling around online and I found a an article um just a general market

article and I noticed the link and I was like fool what is this and so I clicked and it took me to an article on the Motley Fool home site. And I mean, from that point on, I was hooked. I immediately started, I was like, man, these are my people. I kind of like this idea. And so I'm fascinated. I was an economics major in college. So I was fascinated by this stuff anyway. And yeah, from there, I just started looking at all the services and just, yeah, I became a full-fledged fool that day for sure. And you mentioned at the top that you had a couple different jobs before you started working here full-time. So maybe take us through that career path. You major in economics in college. And then you graduate and you head out into the world and what's life look like for a young

Jason Moser. Yeah, I graduated back in 1995. So the internet really wasn't even a thing yet. But yeah, like I said, majored in economics, graduated Wofford, 95. And kind of didn't really know what I wanted to do at that point, but I've always played golf. And so at that point, I decided to go into the golf business. And I ended up being a PGA club professional for about seven years, worked in Greenville, South Carolina, and then moved up to Suburta Park, Maryland. And that was why I met my wife along the way. We got married. And I started kind of getting to the point where I thought, you know what, maybe this wasn't really conducive to the family life that I ultimately wanted, you know, weekends and holidays free and stuff like that. The golf business should work a lot.

hours. So I just decided to put my economics degree to good use and I stepped out and went, I got a job at Bank of America as a loan officer. So I did that for a couple of years during the refinancing boom, learned a lot about underwriting. And at that point, my wife got the opportunity to go overseas with her work. And so we actually spent five years overseas, three years in Egypt, two years in Kazakhstan. And during that time, I left my job with the bank and I got a job with the State Department kind of working at the embassies there. So that was a lot of little bit of a detour, but then when I got back from overseas, got a job with Travelers Insurance, learned the adjusting side, was just diving into the underwriting side when I got the call from

the Motley Fool saying that I had a job waiting for me. And that was 2010. And I really never looked back. This has been of all the jobs I had, the one I've enjoyed the most. So that job with the fool, Did you just, did you apply for this investment analyst role and then that kind of came to fruition? Did you go straight into that? Or was there a path, how do I phrase this, a path before that that got you into the role in the space that you're in now? Well, what we have, what we had at the time and we've had in certain inceptions all along the way, we have an analyst development program here at the Molly Fool. And so I was encouraged at the time I had just actually made contact and developed a friendship with Maddie Arger-Singer.

And we had gotten a chance to play golf together, and he was telling me about the fool in the ADP, and I should consider applying. And I was like, all right, well, so I kind of dug in and learn more about it, and I applied. And I went through all the process there. And so thankfully, you know, I came in pretty green as an investor, but coming into that analyst development program, I think it was a good year and a half of study in all different modules and everything from valuation to competitive analysis and everything in between. And Buck Hartzell taught that for a year and a half. And that really, I think, helped develop, develop my chops there because I definitely came in. You know, I had the members' perspective. I knew what members knew, which we do a great job of educating.

But this really helped me take it to the next level. I love in just like looking back on your career path and hearing like your early introduction to investing through your dad. You mentioned like how he kind of embodied this Peter Lynchian approach. And then I love that we fast forward to you kind of stepping out into the adult world and almost applying that approach to your job search. too, like, hmm, your dad's like, oh, I'm a doctor. What can I invest in that I use every day? You, as a recent college grad, are like, hmm, I like golf. Maybe you all go into golf. Like, and that worked out for a while. And ultimately, I mean, listen, I met my wife along the way there. So really, I owe all of my happiness today to my time in the golf business because it, you know,

it connected me with who's one of the most important people in my life. Yeah. So we talk about Peter Lynch and kind of these different investing philosophies, I assume that that kind of forms the basis of how you think about investing today. But if you had to describe your investing philosophy, how would you today? How would you do that? Yeah, I think that was one of the things when I first came to the fool as an employee. I really had trouble defining what I, what kind of investor I was. Who am I as an investor? I did kind of learn along the way, I really, I really consider myself what I call a foolish investor. is I don't really limit myself to any areas of interest. I don't limit myself to the types of ideas, whether it's some type of growth idea or whether I feel like it's a value idea or there's a

dividend idea. I mean, I like to keep my universe as broad as possible as an investor. But there are areas, I mean, there are areas well outside my circle of competence that I just don't know very much about. I mean, I'm still not really terribly familiar with cryptocurrency, for example. Will I learn more about that one day? Maybe. I don't. know. It's really kind of outside, you know, what I tend to focus on in regard to businesses. So maybe not. But yeah, that's how I think about that. Before you went through that investor development program at the Fool, were you still investing on the side as a hobby without doing it professionally?

I was. I was sending a check in to at the time I had a brokerage account with Edward Jones and basically just a dollar cost average sort of thing where I would just make a deposit every month and they would just invest that and whatever their representative felt like was a good opportunity at the time. So I was investing. And I think, you know, for me, most of that was in the form of mutual funds, which were more in vogue at the time. But, yeah, it was, you could call it investing. It was very passive investing. I kind of basically just let them steer the ship, so to speak.

So then once you started steering your own ship, whether it's in a personal capacity or a more professional one, what were some early mistakes that you made at the beginning of that journey? Yeah, well, I mean, I think one one mistake I made that sort of when I made the move over towards sort of my more do it yourself kind of, you know, mentality. I learned that I didn't really know what I was invested in. So only like Edward Jones, they were doing a good job. I'm not complaining about them. This was all my, I chose to do this, right? I mean, I chose to send them my money and then trust that they were investing my money appropriately.

And for the most part, they did. I mean, it worked out well from a net perspective. But I did realize that there were a lot of things. I just didn't know what I was invested in. Right? If you asked me what I owned, I just remembered realizing, oh, my God, I don't even know. And then furthermore, I would learn what the business was. And then I would start wondering, okay, well, do I even understand what they really do?

Right. And so I think early on, you know, it really, it really just. just help shape me in that regard, just learning what you own and then really understanding the business fully. And then I would say, the other thing I noticed, it was just very easy to want to dive into everything. And then you realize your way outside, your circle of competence, and you haven't even really nailed down your circle yet. And so it's easy to be enthusiastic and want to try to take in as much as possible. But remember, it really is a lifelong journey if you let it be and you get to take it just one day at a time. Don't rush. Just learn as much as you can

before you get in over your passenger skis, so to speak. It's so, I guess I'll say comforting to hear you say that because frankly, like I look at you now and think, oh, Jason can talk about anything and everything. So when you were getting started and you realized like, wait, I have to narrow my focus. What was the initial thing that you narrowed that focus onto? Yeah, you know, I think part of this was just coming from the insurance business, but coming from Travelers Insurance, I felt like, hey, I have an idea of how insurance works. And I was really compelled by things like Berkshire Hathaway. And at the time, I was learning a lot more about Markell Insurance, which was a company that we as members followed and owned. And as an analyst, I've enjoyed following and owning it as well. So I think that was sort of my first natural instinct was to jump into the financial side between my time and banking and my time and insurance. But then, you know, you know, what I realized very quickly was that it all boils down to tech, right? And that's what really kind of opened up in my eyes to this fascinating world of tech and all of the different little markets within that bigger market, so to speak.

And so I was very quick to jump into that side of things as well because it was so fascinating. You know, you've talked about this journey from, okay, putting money into your brokerage account each month to becoming, I don't really want to use the word a more active investor, but that's also accurate, like a more active investor playing a larger role in knowing what you're owning. But then when you're an analyst for The Fool, you're not just making picks for yourself, but you're making suggestions for other people. I don't want to put you on the spot, but do you remember like the first stock pitch, even if it wasn't ultimately picked by the analyst team? Do you remember the first stock pitch that you made once you were in your role at The Fool? The first stock pitch that I made,

let me think about that because I feel like going through the MDP going through the ADP the the analyst development program there were we were required to do pitches and I remember it now yes I believe the very first one I pitched as a part of the the analyst development program was a little company called Granite Construction and it was it is just a little small cap that like it says construction company And it was one that I remember initially had learned about in Hidden Gems at the time. Back then, Hidden Gems was our small cap service. And so Granite Construction, our first task was to pick a recommendation in the Foolish Universe and pitch that.

And I remember very well because I pitched it. And I pitched what I thought was a very good recap of what the actual business did. But where I really fell short, and I learned this very quickly, talk about mistakes. It's looking beyond just why this is a great business and understanding what the actual opportunity is, right? Hammering out that thesis and understanding this is a good business. But furthermore, there's an opportunity here. Is it a long-term trend? Is it a short-term event?

Is it something else? But I remember vividly because that pitch really taught me that lesson early on. And I'm grateful for that. Yeah. We've talked a lot about lessons, but do you remember like your first success story as an investor? where you mentioned when you were a kid realizing, oh, wait, this idea that I can buy ownership in a company and watch my money grow was really compelling. When you actually started picking companies and then seeing that pick, that thesis pay off, do you remember the first stock that kind of lit that up for you? I remember, well, so beyond just stocks that I own, but this is one that I own, and I actually pitched it during my time in the development program.

and it was a little bit of a lynchian angle to a company called Jimberie, and it's no longer publicly traded. But at the time, it was publicly traded. And for those who don't know, Jimberie essentially is closed for babies, toddlers. And at the time, I had just had, we had our daughters in 2005 and 2006. And, you know, I was a proactive father. I was doing all the stuff. And part of that was taking them out shopping for clothes. And I just became astounded very quickly how a concept like Jim Bury could help a dummy like me clothed two little baby girls.

And they looked great. And it was affordable. And it was reasonable. They had a great loyalty program that stoked more return visits. So I became a just big believer in Jim Boree. And, you know, simple concept in retail. But that worked out very well. And then ultimately it was acquired by private equity at a pretty good premium.

of when I first started following and owning and recommending it. So that one always stands out for a number of reasons. You've touched a lot of different sectors within your career. You've lived in a number of different places around the world. Are there any skills or experiences or attributes that you think really set you up for success in your role as an analyst today? Yeah, I definitely. I mean, it was serendipitous, I suppose, but my work history has really given me a pretty broad perspective. and it wasn't ever intended, right?

I just kind of found my way as I graduated college, but I was very fortunate, I think, just in my work history, it gave me a pretty broad perspective in regard to a lot of things, and having lived in a number of places, it didn't hurt either. I've always enjoyed reading and writing. I dig a lot of philosophy courses in college as well, which just entailed a lot of reading and writing. And that research mentality, the curiosity,

that's one of the great things about our job, is just every day it's something new. And, you know, like I was hired as a member, so I was already a fool. But one of the things I think is I've always enjoyed being able to do and I enjoy trying to teach people to think more this way. It's just extending my time horizon for as long as humanly possible. And I think that's a skill that can really open up a lot of opportunities as an investor for sure. I just want to close with kind of bringing us back, bringing us to today.

You know, you've mentioned early on that's one of the best lessons that you got was like, hey, learn what your focus is and don't feel like you've got to spread yourself super thin and become an expert in everything. Kind of take one thing at a time. But then you also talked about expanding your time horizon and kind of like following where your curiosity leads you. What is something today that maybe you're not an expert in, but that you're really interested in and excited about and want to, want to follow your curiosity deeper into that topic? Does it necessarily have to relate to investing? No. I mean, I'm a big, so I enjoy painting watercolors and I am far from the expert. The interest, again, piqued by my father, thanks dad.

He's been painting forever. And so when we were traveling, I initially that kind of lit the fire in learning more. And for anyone who's ever painted watercolors, you know very quickly, it's a hard medium to work with. And it's one that you'd never really feel like you could ever master. And it can be extremely frustrating at times. And it can also be the most rewarding thing at times when you like pull a painting off and it's exactly how you wanted it to look. That's something I continue just to dig in and try to learn more about becoming an expert at because I have a feeling I'll never get there. But I'm going to have fun trying.

This weekend, we've talked to a couple different foolish analysts and learned more about their investing journeys. But we want to hear your investing journey too. So if you've got an investing journey or a story that you want to share with us, send us a note. or even better record a voice recording and then send it to us at Podcasts at Fool.com. That's Podcasts with an S at Fool.com. Hope to hear from you soon. As always, people on the program may have interests in the stocks they talk about. And The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against,

so don't buy ourselves stocks based solely on what you hear. I'm Mary Long. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.