The Canadian Investor - Showing our exact stock portfolios

Episode Date: December 20, 2021

In this release of the Canadian Investor Podcast, we talk about each holding in our personal portfolio and the current weighting. Tickers: BEPC.TO, BIPC.TO, EQIX, TDOC, AAPL, SQ, AMZN, PYPL, BAM-A.TO, PSCT, DLR, ETSY, CNR.TO, MA, HD, KWEB, V, MSFT, TCEHY, AXON, PINS CSU.TO, GOOG, TOI.V, TFII.TO, BAM-A.TO, MA, WSP.TO, V, TCEHY, EQB.TO, GFL.TO, ADSK, OTEX.TO, U, ROP, MCO, SPOT, TTD Equinix report: https://www.stratosphereinvesting.com/company-reports/equinix-eqix-stock/ https://thecanadianinvestorpodcast.com/ Canadian Investor Podcast Twitter: @cdn_investing Simon’s twitter: @Fiat_Iceberg Braden’s twitter: @BradoCapital Stratosphere 🚀 https://www.stratosphereinvesting.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome back into the show. This is the Canadian Investor Podcast, made possible by our friends and show sponsor, EQ Bank, which helps Canadians make bank with high interest and no fees on everyday banking. We also love their savings and investment products like GICs, which offer some of the best rates on the market. I personally, and I know Simone as well, is using the GICs, which offer some of the best rates on the market. I personally, and I know Simone as well, is using the GICs on a regular basis to set money aside for personal income taxes in April of every year. Their GICs are perfect because the interest rate is guaranteed, and I know I won't be able to touch that money until I need it for tax time. Whether you're looking to set some money aside for a rainy day or a big purchase is

coming through the pipeline or simply want to lower the risk of your overall investment portfolio, EQ Bank's GICs are a great option. The best thing about EQ Bank is that it is so easy to use. You can open an account and buy a GIC online in minutes. Take advantage of some of the best rates on the market today at eqbank.ca forward slash GIC. Again, eqbank.ca forward slash GIC. Live from the great white north, this is the Canadian Investor, where you take control of your own portfolio and gain the confidence you need to succeed in the markets. Hosted by Brayden Dennis and Simon Belanger. The Canadian Investor Podcast. Today is December 15th, 2021.

My name is Brayden Dennis, as always joined by Simon Belanger. And this might be, like Simon, this episode is going to kill it on the numbers. So many people have been waiting for this. Yeah, it should do well. This will do well. And we have no notes prepared. We're both looking at spreadsheets of our own portfolios. We're going to have a fun, open, candid conversation about the stocks that we hold. I think it's important for people to understand the types of companies that we own and to say, when we talk about these companies, full disclosure, we own stocks.

So just don't copy us because one, that doesn't work. You can't borrow conviction. And number two, this is absolutely not investment advice. This is entertainment purposes only. Do your own due diligence. Do your own research. Simon, I'm pumped for this one. Yeah, yeah. It should be fun. Yeah, we're going to freestyle this one. We rarely do that, but I think it's going to be fun. And like you said, a lot of people have been asking us to know what we have in our portfolios. I get that people tweet at me all the time or send me DMs about it. So we'll get started. Brayden, we'll start off with your portfolio, see what you have going on.

But before I'll just read what you said. This is just for entertainment. You can get ideas from here, but also you do your own due diligence on this. Yeah. Let's double click on that for a second because the saying I like to go with all the time is you can't borrow conviction. Because if you listen to me and you go, oh, wow, he owns a lot of this stock. He must really be bullish on this stock. While that may be true, if that stock has a downturn and say the stock is down in one month, 15% for whatever reason, like maybe it's just a market sell-off like we're seeing right now, you're going to be like, oh, I wonder if Braden still, I wonder what he's doing with the stock because you don't know my conviction in the business, and you probably may not know the business, or maybe you

do, as well as Simone and I. So I think that that's important. You can't borrow conviction. All right. I did volunteer before we started to go first. All right. Let's start from the top. To no one's surprise, I own Constellation Software. So I'm doing this in order from highest position weighting. Are you doing the same on YouTube? Yeah, exactly. Okay, so we're going highest position weighting to lowest position weighting. My number one stock holding is Constellation Software, ticker CSU, trades on the TSX. software, ticker CSU, trades on the TSX. It is 38.2% of my personal portfolio. The shares are up close to 50% since I've owned it. I'm going to say what they're up since I've first bought

shares. People think that I've owned Constellation for so long because it's owned such a big part of my portfolio and I've owned it for a really long time or something. I actually consider myself super late to the game on CSU. Yeah, I was buying it like 1400 and stuff like that. But people have owned this thing since a lot, lot longer than me. I fell into the constellation rabbit hole quite later. So, Simon, we both own exactly 18 individual stocks, which I find quite random. Don't look into that. That's just completely random. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, there's nothing to it. That's what we're comfortable owning. It may vary from a couple of holdings, give or take, depending if we're starting a new position, at least for me. I'm pretty sure you're

kind of in the same boat here, but it doesn't mean that 18 is working for us. That it'll necessarily work for you. Maybe you're more comfortable with a bit less. Maybe you're comfortable with 25. I mean, we've talked about that before. I think it's just, to me, it's more of a time commitment thing. So I try to stay in that 15 to 20 sweet spot. That's where I feel comfortable.

Yeah, same. I'm completely aligned there. So, we'll go through these just really quick because CSU is such a big part of my portfolio. Just to understand why I might do that, it is close to 40% of my personal account. And the reason for that is Mark Leonard is one of the best capital allocators of all time. I'm very comfortable in managing my money. It's essentially a giant, massive conglomerate of small vertical market software companies. These are really sticky software companies. They're not big. They're doing really, really small acquisitions. No one has been able to do the scale and frequency of these acquisitions

that they're doing at such a small scale. Other companies aren't looking at these. They have mentioned increased competition in these smaller software deals, but you're not attracting competition from big tech in these really, really niche verticals of software. For instance, the payroll software, they have all the verticals of software. So for instance, you know, the payroll software, they have all the verticals, like they cover all verticals, whether it's healthcare, industrial, payroll, HR, golf course management, like the list is endless. And there's hundreds of companies in there. That's why I'm quite comfortable owning it. Should I just go through these one by one, Simon?

Yeah, go ahead. Feel free to jump in at any time. Yeah, I'll chime in if i have something to say but definitely i would say the three first names the first name what did not come as a surprise but the three firsts do not come as a surprise for you no not at all so next is google at seven percent so you can see a huge drop off in waiting google's probably the company i've been adding the most or sorry alphabet tick Alphabet, ticker Goog. You can do ticker Google with the L on the end. Don't sweat the small stuff. 7% waiting. And I was also

fairly late to Google. I didn't actually start investing in Alphabet stock until 2021. It's interesting. Another takeaway here is you can study a business for years and not own it. I think that that's completely normal. I obsess over Costco stock and the way they run their business and I don't own it. It's totally normal. It's totally okay. So don't, yeah. 2021, I started investing in Google. It's probably, I predict where most of my fresh capital and my TFSA will go in 2022. Two shares of Google and you use up your whole contribution room, right? Yeah, yeah. And between Google and Constellation, which one do you have the best conviction in? I know, huh? It's a good question. It's a good question. I love them both so dearly. And sometimes I wonder like,

why don't I just go 50-50 on my whole PA on this and like non-investment advice, of course. But they're both such incredible businesses. And which one I have higher conviction in moving forward. If I had to have my entire net worth in one, I'd rather have it up in like a conglomerate. Not that Alphabet's not a conglomerate these days. I mean, think of all the assets that they own after this, we're doing a double recording. I can talk about the growth of YouTube and how powerful, you know, the cloud business is going to reach operating leverage at some point. And they just have an absolute monopoly on the search engines, the number one most visited website of all time. And the second most visited website is all time. The second most visited

website is YouTube, another asset that they own. Mark Leonard's the GOAT and I'm happy that he's the number one allocator in my portfolio, but I do see given the size of CSU already, most of my fresh capital going into Alphabet next year. I would be shocked if it doesn't. Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah. So what's your third biggest holding? My third biggest holding is, you know, attached at the hip to Constellation. It's Topicus.com. So Topicus is basically mini Constellation. And the reason that it's 7% of my portfolio is about half of that was from the spinoff.

So this year they did a spinoff from Constellation. Topicus was an operatingff from Constellation. Topicus was an operating group of Constellation. They spun that operating group off. I have bought fresh shares since my shares are up 60%. It's in a drawdown right now and probably a pretty good entry point for Topicus right now from my perspective, but shares from here are still up 60%. Next one, another Canadian. So interesting, three out of the four here, actually five. If I look at four to the five holdings are all TSX listings, which is peculiar to me because, I don't know,

I just find that odd given the fact that I like US companies so much more, but these stand out as TSX darlings. And TFI is no exception to that at 6.5% of my portfolio. Look at you with your Canadian bias. You know, I'm looking at a serious Canadian home bias, but you know what? The reason for that is I've held some of these for just a lot longer. And TFI is up 235%. I've never sold a share. These are not accounting for also the

total return from the dividend. I have that on another spreadsheet, but just for simplicity, shares are up 235% since I bought TFI. And then fifth one here is Brookfield Asset Management. I've been vocal about this. Brookfield has lots of wonderful subsidiaries, but I prefer to own the mothership, the ticker BAM. It's BAM.A on the TSX. The weighting there is 6.2%. We have a few holdings that are the same. That's one of them.

So I do own BAM as well. It's not as big of a holding, but I'll probably be grouping up BIP and BEP as well, just because they're, again, a bit like Constellation and Topicus, right? They're attached at the hip. So that is one part where our holdings are similar. Yeah, fair enough. So interesting thing before we move on, I'm looking at my portfolio and the rest of the

names are a mix of Canadian and US, but it feels a lot like I have Canadian home bias. But when it comes to weighting, it's only really just because of constellation. When it comes to weighting, I don't think I'm overly Canadian home bias. What I say to myself is I would hopefully own constellation regardless if I was a US investor or not. And like, if you look at the institutional investors that own Constellation in terms of total percent, it's like mostly US. And that's not common for Canadian TSX listings. Like you'll find a lot of concentration from funds,

like Canadian equity funds owning Canadian equity stocks, especially ones that only trade on the TSX, like Constellation. And something you don't have, right? You don't have really a lot of people that have Canadian bias will have a lot of banks and insurers and energy. And that's not something that you have. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but Constellation, a lot of their software, they must have a lot of US and international clients, right? Oh, yeah. The percentage of revs in Canada is tiny.

Exactly. So again, this is a global business. Topicus is a Dutch business. It's a roll-up of European vertical market softwares out of the Netherlands. Yeah. But it's listed on the venture. Yeah, I pointed that out because it's very different from having a Dollarama, for example, that's only in Canada, right? Yeah. Dollarama or a bank or,

you know, yeah, yeah. Fair enough. Okay. That's a good point. So Brookfield, another global behemoth. I don't know off the back of my hand, but what would be the revs or funds from operation from Brookfield in Canada? Like tiny, If you look at their assets globally. All right, next up MasterCard at 4% of my portfolio. Shares are up 36% since I've owned it. This is one I was buying majorly in the COVID crash of 2020. Haven't really added to it since, but it's in a huge random drawdown. I think overblown bad sentiment in payments right now. These are unstoppable companies.

I'll just pair it again with exact equal weighting at 4% for Visa. I do want to keep these at both 5%. I want them to be a combined 10% position at the minimum for me and they were but i mean they've pulled back so much so now they've dipped into into a combined like eight and a half percent visa shares are up 30 so a little bit less than the mastercard stock yeah those are two names i also own so i think my yeah i think my weighting's a little less but i do own them and it's basically same thing as you i added those two names names during the whole COVID crash or whatever you want to call it in March of 2020. Haven't really touched it since then, but I do own both MasterCard and Visa. They're so good.

I mean, I personally, and I could be dead wrong. I'm wrong on a lot of stuff. And I could be dead wrong. I'm wrong on a lot of stuff. I don't see a lot of the disruption in payments happening as soon as a lot of the market seems to be pricing these things. And I do agree that there is existential threats to the payment rails. My counterpoint to that is good luck disrupting them. It's very difficult to do. As do-it-yourself investors, we want to keep our fees low. That's why Simone and I have been using Questrade as our online broker for so many years now. Questrade is Canada's number one rated online broker by MoneySense. And with them, you can buy all North American ETFs, not just a few select ones, all commission-free

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it could make some extra income. But there are still so many people who don't even think about hosting on Airbnb or think it's a lot of work to get started. But now it is easier than ever with Airbnb's new co-host network. You can hire a local quality co-host to take care of your home and guests. It's a win-win since you make some extra money hosting on Airbnb, but can still focus on enjoying your time away. Find a co-host at airbnb.ca forward slash host. That is airbnb.ca forward slash host. All right, up next is WSP Global. WSP Global is the engineering firm roll up based out of Canada. Again, this is like a TSX listing, but most of their business is outside of Canada. Shares are up over 200% for me at 205% since I started buying WSP stock. Now, what's interesting here, Simon, is over the last five years, most of my capital,

aside from Constellation, most of my capital has gone into fresh capital, has gone into US stocks. But when I started investing, and a lot of these companies had paid dividends like Brookfield, like TFI International, like WSP, which pays a small flat dividend, I put them in my TFSAs. And my goal was to max out my TFSA. As a young 20-year-old guy, I wanted to max out my TFSA. I wasn't making enough money in my RSP to go that route versus maxing out my TFSA. And I've just let them run. And that's why you're seeing my portfolio construction have so much of these Canadian listings at the top is because I've just let them run and I've owned them for so much longer. Like I've owned them for closer to 10 years and the US name's closer

to five years, right? So that's kind of how that happens. Yeah. No, that's a good point too. And I think it's important just showing how letting something run, how much of an impact it can have. And it's just one of the biggest advantages that we have as retail investors is we don't have these mandates that institution have. And you have to keep a certain level of your allocation not go over a certain level you see berkshire hathaway all the time where in buff and i'll mention that they can't reach 10 of the holdings so when he's selling apple it's usually because it's run up so much and he has to keep that 10 because they're regulatory

filings that are involved with that i just wanted to point that out because it's just one of the biggest hedges that we have in terms of being a retail investor. Yeah. When you're a self-directed investor and you're not answering to the arbitrary constraints laid on you as a professional fund manager, that's the dream. That is the absolute dream. That's where you can see some really sophisticated, skilled, self-directed investors smash the market. That's because they can let really high conviction companies keep winning. It's not like I have TFI International up close to 250% that the trucking consolidator that I bought at a super cheap price is trading at eight times earnings.

I'm like, this thing's worth a lot more than that. I had the benefit of the business getting a lot better and the multiple expanding a lot. If I was an institutional fund manager, I probably would have had to trim it a couple times instead of just letting it run. This tiny, tiny investment has become tens of thousands of dollars. So I think that that's an interesting thing to point out as well. All right, moving on, Tencent. Tencent is the only stock I own that the shares trade lower than when I bought them. You've owned it longer than me, actually, right? Yeah, yeah. I've had it, I think, for, if I remember, just going on memory here,

three or four years now. So I'm definitely still up on Tencent. I used to be up like 100%. Now, it's a little more reasonable. But yeah, I've owned it for quite some time. Yeah, you've owned Tencent for a really long time. And my shares are down 20%, 21% to be exact, which doesn't seem so bad given how much the drawdown seemed like it sucked. But again, this is a company with geopolitical risk, some real big questions. And then you dig into the business and like I have, and there's a full write-up on Stratosphere where you can loan the business in a five, 10-minute read, understand their financials in a really easy laid out way. And you realize, holy, this company is entrenched and entangled, kind of like a Google in the rest of the world. But Tencent is kind of like entrenched

and has a foothold in the way that the Chinese people use the internet. Tencent WeChat has 2.1, I know it's over 2 billion, call it 2.1 billion daily active users of WeChat. Can we just understand the scale of daily active users of over 2 billion people? And it's only available, it's only broadly used in China. Are you sure though, 2 billion? I feel like the population of China isn't even 2 billion. I know, that's the thing. I was looking at it and the population of China is like 2.2 billion. China population, let me look it up. I'll tell you right now. China population 2021. Why am I getting that number? I mean, it's possible. I mean, I'm not questioning it. It just makes sense. It seems a bit big. Yeah. Simon, you're right. The population of here is

1.4 billion. And the number I meant to say was 1.1 billion of daily activity. And I just looked on the stratosphere report. It's 1.1. Okay. Good thing. Cause I don't know. It's 1.1, not 2.1. My bad. We're talking about over a billion daily active users and a very large portion of the population. I was off by a very large factor there. But thanks for pointing that out. Give or take a billion. What's the difference?

Yeah, just give or take double, I was wrong by. But no, that's okay. Yeah, so the thesis on it remains for me long term is there's tons of negative sentiment. US investors are like to hell with owning Chinese stocks for good reason, for very fair reasons. I'm happy to stick it out though. Yeah. And that's fine too for people, right? If some people just think, you know what? I don't want the risk associated with owning Chinese companies. That's fine. That's okay. Like it's your portfolio. You manage it. That's totally fine. I know we've had people mention that at us. How can you own Chinese stocks because of what's going on in China, all the uncertainty?

It's part of the deal if you're owning Chinese companies is you have to be aware that there's a lot of unpredictability when it comes to the Chinese government or maybe some predictability that they're unpredictable. But yeah. Yeah, well put. All right, next on the thing here is Equitable Group, ticker EQB. It's about a 30% position. I've bought shares when it was trading way, way down on the home capital crash. I'm not much of a deep value guy, but I saw that trade. I was like, this is completely detached from EQB and their competitors getting torn apart right now. This is actually a good thing for EQB. I bought shares and never looked back, never added to it. Split adjusted shares are up over 200%. I didn't factor in the split here. The split here happened earlier this

year. This number here you're seeing on the dock here, Simon, multiply that by two. My shares are up 222%. All right, GFL. GFL, the garbage roll-up. They do infrastructure, waste collection. They have been a phenomenal story and winning contracts in places that they had no business winning. It's a very mature market, waste collection, and hard to really dig your heels into. And they have been consistently winning contracts and providing lots of value for shareholders. It's a very levered roll-up strategy and garbage. So the company's name is GFL Environmental. If you're familiar with their green lime trucks, are they not much in Ottawa, Simon? The green lime trucks? lime trucks. Are they much in Ottawa, Simon? The green lime trucks?

I haven't seen much. I know when I went down west a few years ago, I saw some more definitely over there, but I can't- The presence is real in BC for sure. Yeah, they might be, but I think Waste Connection and Wadsia, the big US one. Waste Management. Yeah, those are the two big ones in Ottawa. Yeah. Those are their competitors and they've been winning contracts against the incumbents. They do the entire City of Toronto collection. It's pretty impressive. Anyways, it started by a random segment here, but it was started by Patrick DeVigi, who

was actually drafted to the Edmonton Oilers first round, the end of the first round, or maybe it was 34th overall, which would have dipped into the beginning of the second. Yeah, early second, yeah. Early second, doesn't matter. He was drafted as a elite prospect for the NHL and that didn't pan out. So he started a multi-billion dollar company and he's just an incredible entrepreneur. All right, Autodesk. Autodesk shares are, and I've pulled back quite a bit, but this one was up big. Now I'm only up 13% on Autodesk shares. I've owned them for a couple of years. If you know Autodesk, you know their

main two flagship products, AutoCAD and Revit. Now they're expanding huge into new opportunities. They got the Fusion 360, a bajillion. I think I counted on their website. They have 74 products. I counted on their website for my report. And they have a foothold in the AEC market, architecture, engineering, and construction. It's a really impressive company, one I want to own for a long time. The reason why the weighting's actually down is I had to pick some companies that I needed to trim in my RRSP to pay myself while I eat dirt and ramen and keep all my money in my corporations. And Autodesk got some of that. So that's a reason why it's not as much as it used to be. That's fair. Yeah. OpenText. OpenText is a owner and buyer of mature-ish software

companies out of Waterloo, Canada. My shares are up 37%. And you know what? It's a fairly mixed bag of results. A lot of their products actually have declining revenue growth, negative overall revenue growth. And then they have this new cloud segment that's growing in the 20 plus percentage. And so really, really sticky. They have huge contracts. They're running with this thing called the ultimate cloud. It's not a huge position. It's one I've owned for, oh God, closer to 10 years now and done nothing really with it. It's a decent business. I'll give it that. Unity Software, ticker U, 2.5% of the portfolio. Unity is a decent business. I'll give it that. Unity Software, ticker U,

2.5% of the portfolio. Unity is an incredible company. I want this waiting to go up. They're the gaming engine platform. Really, really good company. I'll try to rifle through these so we don't take up two years to do this. Roper Technologies is another roll-up of software. So think of like Constellation Software, but much bigger deals. Instead of owning hundreds of software companies, they own 40, I think 42 is the number they own right now of individual companies in the mothership. Moody's Corporation, this is like the best business in the world. Moody's and S&P Global and Google are probably the best companies in the world. Moody's is the credit

rating agency. They also have the intelligence software as a service business that's growing as well. It's only 1.4% of my portfolio. I expect that to increase over time. Shares are up 38%. Spotify, probably listening at home know what Spotify is, the music playing app. I, as a podcaster, Simon, think that this is going to be a huge opportunity for them. And it's really, really sticky. They have some of the best retention of all direct-to-consumer subscriptions. And Spotify is a great founder-led business led by Daniel Ek. I love Spotify and I'm adding more to it these days. And then last is the trade desk. I had like a little tiny position in the trade desk because I believed the demand side platform they're building is spectacular for ads. Connected TV is going to be gigantic. This is one

of those software as a service companies that trade at crazy prices, but grows like 80% on the top line every year. And that's why it's a small portion of my portfolio is because if I'm wrong on the thesis, the valuation is going to eat me alive. And that's why it only sits at about 1% of my portfolio. That's it, Simon. All 18 of them. Yeah. I have a quick question for you. where would your bitcoin holdings fit in terms oh yeah yeah because i didn't add mine on mine but i'll kind of give people an idea where it sits but just out of curiosity is it kind of midway into that let me do some really back the envelope math here simon for you about five and a half percent okay. So kind of mid high waiting in terms of, well, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Only because when I met you, I bought some basically. Yeah. Just to shut me up. Yeah. And haven't done anything to it. I think I topped it up a little bit when it dipped earlier this year and then now the dips dipping, but you know what I mean? Like it's just

been one of those things that it was probably starting at a 1% position, maybe less when I bought it. And it just goes to show, right? Whatever the, whether it's Bitcoin or whether it's a high growth stock, I mean, you don't necessarily need a big allocation. If you have something that has a lot of runway, that 1% can grow to, you know, it becomes a 10 bagger, it'll grow to 10%, right? So, well, obviously granted that the rest of your portfolio stays still, but people can understand what I mean. You don't need a huge allocation if you have something that has a lot of runway. That's right. All right, Simon, let's get into yours.

We did 18 of mine. So you have, I guess. I have more than 18 because I included my, it's like 22, right? Yeah, exactly. So I included my DC pension with work because that's all invested in equities. I will talk about those because they do represent some big portion of my portfolio. There's no tickers because these are institutional investments, but you can find some very, if you just look up either Vanguard, BlackRock, you can find some equivalent ones very easily that you can buy in your self-directed portfolio. For extremely cheap fees. For extremely

cheap fees, exactly. So my first one, which has close to 20% in terms of weighting, is an S&P 500 index fund that I have with my DC pension. So that's why I say that I do have a mix of both index funds and individual stocks. So that represents the bulk of it. It is like I think 50% of my DC pension is that in that S&P 500 fund. The next one, Brookfield Renewable Partners. It is my biggest single holding for an individual stock. So that one is 14.5%. You've talked about BAM. We've talked about Brookfield Renewable Partners before. I do like BEP just because I like the fact that they're focusing on renewable power. You have steady increase in revenue over time, very strong management. You have Bruce Flatt at the head of the mothership that I have a whole lot of trust in. But like we've said before, I think it's more of a personal preference if you

want to hold the individual names or BAM. With BAM, you do get a bit more companies and you get the asset management side as well. And you get the hydro, man. They own a gigantic amount of total megawatt capacity of hydro. Hydro is some of the best renewable assets that there is. I mean, and it's fixed, right? You can only build so many hydro plants. There's a limit to the amount of hydro plants that you can build on this planet. There's still lots of room for offshore wind and solar. Yeah, exactly. And Brookfield just has a great track record at capital recycling. So if people are not familiar with that is they'll have asset, they'll have them for years.

And then when they've kind of maximized the value of that asset, what they'll look at doing, especially if the market has a high demand for this kind of asset, they will go and sell the asset, then turn around, wait a little bit, they'll wait for the right deal, and then reinvest that money in something that they think is undervalued. So that's what Brookfield did, for example, for Terraform Power. So they found that it was on, I believe, if I remember correctly, it was in bankruptcy hearings or they bought it for very cheaply. They basically made it more efficient. They really ramped it up. And then when the business was going really well, they actually said, you know what, we'll just scoop it all in. And for me, it's been a great investment. I don't

have the exact number, but it's, I think, probably tripled now for me with dividends at BEP. They do have a special sauce for finding value and then also not being married to an asset if they think they can get a really good deal for selling it and buy something else that they think they see more value. When it comes to, this is what I've always said, is value investing is very difficult to pull off in public markets. I mean, like true deep value, finding something in the market that people aren't seeing. When you have so many market participants, this is really, really hard. Now, if you're doing what Brookfield's doing in private equity and what people do in real estate is you have less eyeballs.

As soon as you have less eyeballs, you can find a better value. That's really hard to pull off in public markets and why I don't try to think I'm super smarter than the index or than all the market participants. But if you have less eyeballs and you're doing these deals all across the globe or you're doing real estate deals, you can probably find big arbitrage in the actual price values. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So now on the next name for me, so this one is still with my DC pension. This one represents about 10% of my holding. So it's a global infrastructure index fund. So here you'll have railways, you'll have pipelines, you'll have renewable energy. It's kind of a mix of just infrastructure in general. So that one, yeah, there's no ticker clearly,

but if you want to index CTF that does infrastructure, I'm sure you'll be able to find one very easily from either BlackRock or Vanguard or any of the other major fund providers. So these are the ones that are in your DC pension. Do you get to go online and select? Yeah. Do you get to select the allocation? Yeah. So we have two options. So there's an option where people don't have that much knowledge. It's basically the default option where it's a target date portfolio. So that just automatically for them as they get closer to retirement, the default option is just index funds. So I think it's a target date portfolio. So that just automatically for them as they get closer to

retirement, the default option is just index funds. So I think it's a great option for people who don't have knowledge and don't want to put the time in it. But for people who want to do it's kind of self-service one, you can choose from 19 or 20 different funds and then you decide what you want to allocate to each fund so for me i only have four because a lot of them actually overlap and those are the fours that i decided i thought they were the best for my investments yeah and compliment your actual self-directed account exactly that's it so i'm always trying to have a general view i tend to look i know some of the percentage towards the end might look a bit smaller but i try to differentiate a

little bit because you're so freaking rich simon that's why well i think it's mostly because i try to differentiate a little bit with what's locked in and what's not so i think it's just i try to allocate a little bit based on the flexibility that i have in the accounts yeah you're just being humble go go on so the next name on the list is BIP. We've talked about this before. So Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, very similar to BEP, but this one focuses more on infrastructure. They have data reads, they have all different kinds of types of infrastructures here. I think it's a very interesting play, especially with how governments will be spending to build infrastructure in the upcoming years. This one is 8% of my portfolio. It's my second largest individual company holding. Yeah, let's move on from Brookfield. I mean,

we're just talking about the subsidiaries now. We both have a fairly big allocation to what is Brookfield. That's it. The next one is Equinix. I don't know if you're surprised about this one. It's 7%. So it's my third biggest single. I love it. It's one that I needed in my portfolio. It's been a good performer for me. I need it. And Equinix is absolutely a fantastic business. I remember when you were telling me you were buying shares. I'm like, I love it. But I'm noticing a theme here, Simon, lots of infrastructure, you are prepared, it doesn't matter what happens in the market, you own this nice infrastructure. Yeah, yeah, I do have a lot of infrastructure, because traditionally, that's been also a bit more stable, but has provided some good return. Equinix, obviously, it's a data REIT, it's growing

very quickly, they have a small dividend, but they're growing it quickly. I do have another one, another data read a bit down the line here. But yeah, you can see that the top heavy of my portfolio is not what's probably considered high risk. So it's definitely more the kind of stable type of companies. Yeah. Maybe we should link Equinix. My analyst did a sick, long report on Equinix. I don't know if you've read it, but I can send it to you. Maybe we can put it in the show notes. But the report's not behind a paywall or anything. It's really, really well done. And it shows you their competitive advantage in data centers. And it's really cool. As do-it-yourself investors, we want to keep our fees low. That's why Simone and I have been using Questrade as our online broker for so many years now.

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of your money. Visit questrade.com for details. That is questrade.com. Here on the show, we talk about companies with strong two-sided networks make for the best products. I'm going to spend this coming February and March in an Airbnb in South Florida for a combination of work and vacation and realized, hey, my place could be a great Airbnb while I'm away. Since it's just going to be sitting empty, it could make some extra income. But there are still so many people who don't even think about hosting on Airbnb or think it's a lot of work to get started. But now it is easier than ever with

Airbnb's new co-host network. You can hire a local quality co-host to take care of your home and guests. It's a win-win since you make some extra money hosting on Airbnb, but can still focus on enjoying your time away. Find a co-host at airbnb.ca forward slash host. That is airbnb.ca forward slash host. So the next one, it's another one for my DC pension. This one is 5%. It's emerging markets. That's a BlackRock equity index fund. So this one's 5%. I wanted to get some exposure to emerging markets. So that was an easy way to do it. The next one is a global development real estate index fund. Again, low fees this one, because even if you have funds in your pension plan, there's still fees. So make sure you keep an eye on that. If you also have a DC pension plan, there's still fees. So make sure you keep an eye on that.

If you also have a DC pension plan, this one was just a way to get some exposure to global real estate at a low cost because the fees are low. This allocation represents 3.8% of my total portfolio. Any comments on that one or not specifically? No. No, you just have such a, like you have a big allocation to these things because you've been contributing for so long so exactly and the employer matching obviously as well so again just a side note if your employer is matching your contributions whether it's an rsp they're matching or it's a dc pension contribute as much as you can if they're matching the whole thing so it's free money That's the best advice I can give to people, although this show is not an investment advice.

But this is not. Be careful. I know. But this is a no-brainer, I think. This is just common. If you talk to anyone who has some remote knowledge into pension and retirement, if your employer is matching it, I mean, you want to maximize that matching. It's just basically free returns on your money

I wish I had that I'll have to ask my boss so the next one he's on this call too yeah he's on this call he just said no exactly he just said no okay so the next one it's a name I've talked a lot about Teladoc Health so that's 3.6 percent it used to be way higher because the valuation was way higher. As a side note, I did sell some of Teladoc in the $200 range when it was basically close to all time highs. The reason for that is I needed to have a bit more of a cash cushion. It was more for personal reasons. But again, clearly, it was probably a good idea to trim a little bit at that time. But I still own a decent amount, as you can see. So it is my highest growth stock,

if you'd like, what's considered typically as a growth stock here. And that's 3.6%. Yeah. Next one, name that everyone knows Apple. So that represents 3.3%. Apple has been just a great performer for me. I didn't start a big position for Apple. I think I'm up like 2.5x on it. And the reason is I don't have the exact amounts is usually I'll do a review at year end, which I haven't done just yet. And I tend to look at it more as a whole portfolio perspective and then compare that to the index. But I know that Apple has been a very good performer. I mean, the reason why I never wanted to add more to it is because I have such a big allocation to my S&P 500 index fund with my pension that I know Apple's a big part of that index fund. So I want to be careful

not to be too heavily weighted in it. Can you believe it feels like maybe i'm just in a time warp here it feels like yesterday we talked about apple hitting a trillion in market cap yeah now it's two no now it's three oh is it three oh my god see this is the time warp i'm talking about my god yeah there you go it's closing the day today at $2.95 trillion. And I'm looking here, it was like a couple bucks more expensive before this closed. So, it would have touched three, I think. And if it doesn't, like it's going to, it doesn't matter. It's $3 trillion in market cap, this thing.

Yeah. And I mean, like we don't need really like apple it's very easy right they have that ecosystem that people they get kind of sucked into and i am sucked into with my phone in it they have great products people are very loyal they have really good brand i mean the kind of pricing power they have on their products with similar products that are either android or like microsoft based for computers is just mind-boggling, right? They just have that. People are willing to pay the premium for it.

People are not just willing. They can't wait. Yeah, exactly. They can't wait to drop money that just seems like such a big hefty price tag for pretty much anything that Apple sells. I remember that like there's so many memes about the cloth like they came out with like a little towel cloth or whatever that was 1999 it sold out immediately and it was like they probably made that for 36 cents like the margins on some of this stuff is incredible yeah and and obviously what's to love about apple is

they're just they're we talk about it or i think i'm usually the one that will say i'm talking about apple during their earnings but their services are growing very quickly and that's what i really love about apple is that ecosystem is really that's what the market got wrong about it it wasn't freaking out right about the iphone sales yeah i remember i was oh i was probably 22 it was like three years ago i think think, three or four years ago. Yeah. I remember telling my mom, I'm like, I know you have USD cash because you sold the house in Florida.

Apple's trading at nine times earnings. I'm pretty sure the market has got something super wrong about it. That was a great call, but the market didn't recognize how much the services were going to matter for this company and how sticky it was going to make Apple. And now we're seeing it hit $3 trillion in market cap. It's crazy. Yeah.

Anyways, I'm a happy shareholder, but I still think it's crazy. It's wild. Yeah. Next one on the list, one that I've talked about. I have high conviction this one too. So Block Inc. I'm still getting used to the name. We talked about that during a recent episode. This one is 2.7% of my portfolio. It's been a great performer for me. I've had it for four or five years. My cost basis, I think, just going on top of my head here, I think it's like $40 a share. This is square for people who are listening at home. Exactly. The ticker is still SQ. Unless they changed it recently. I worked on this last

weekend. They're keeping it square. Yeah, square. SQ. Okay. So yeah, I mean, block, I mean, you're looking here at payment processor. They're also very bullish and they have a lot of initiatives in Bitcoin and the blockchain. But again, Visa and MasterCard are also investing a lot in that. So it's not just Block here.

So that's, I think, something to keep in mind. Next one is a company everyone knows, Amazon, one share. Yeah, just the one share. So one share for, what is it, 4,000 CAD? Yeah, I think it's more than that. I think it's 3.5 KUS, right? Yeah. Okay.

So yeah, we're talking about a couple of dollars for one share. Yeah. So can we touch on this really quick? Because you can buy this on the NEO exchange and we're going to talk about this. Yeah. We're going to talk about this in the upcoming mailbag episode. We're going to talk about this in the upcoming mailbag episode. But would you, you Simon, do the CDR or buy the single share for 4 point whatever?

Okay, so this is what I would do personally. So everyone should keep that in mind. So this is my situation. I can afford to buy single shares. So I would buy the single share. So that's where I go from, because there are some small fees that you're paying. There's also currency hedging that I'm not personally a big fan of just because there's, I think a lot of the fees probably come from there. So that's just my personal view. But again, I know not everyone is in the same financial situation as me and might want to have a piece of Amazon.

Well, if you don't have that much money to invest, or maybe that would be your whole portfolio in that one stock. Which is totally fair. How many people actually just have four and a half Gs that they can plow into one single stock? And we had Eric on the show. And what they're doing is an important thing in reducing friction for Canadian investors. And I would say, if you really want Amazon stock, you can't afford it. That is such a good way to go. You are paying that 0.6% hedging fee. And so for Simon's situation, buying the shares outright makes sense. And that's the right answer. That's what I would do as well.

right makes sense. And that's the right answer. That's what I would do as well. Yeah, exactly. Next one is PayPal. So that's 2.2% of my portfolio. Again, PayPal is very similar to Square. I'm just going to say Square here. But also I kind of have a basket approach here. So I have some PayPal, some Square, some MasterCard and some Visa. Visa and MasterCard are a bit further down, mostly because PayPal and Square have performed better. So that's a big reason. I won't go too much in detail about PayPal. I mean, it's a similar thesis to Square, in my opinion. Next one on the list is BAM at 2%. The reason I have this one, and this is relatively new, is I got spin off some BEP share, but the BPC shares, and I figured they were trading at a premium. And I wanted a little piece of that asset management business that I know you

love so much. So that's why I sold those BP shares and bought some BAM shares with it. I think it was a good play. Yeah. Next one. This one is a fun. So we've talked about this before. was a good play. Yeah. Next one. This one is a fun. So we've talked about this before. It's the Invesco S&P small cap information technologies, ticker PSCT. This is a 2% allocation. They're just, you know, it says that all these are all small cap company in tech and information technology. It's performed actually quite well. I did put quite a bit in it during the drawdown in March. I think it's close to 80% since I've owned it. So it's performed really well. Next one on my list, and I'll try to rifle through a little bit faster here just because it's already been a quite long episode. Don't worry about it. People are loving this. I know for a fact.

Perfect, perfect. So the next one is DLR, Digital Realty Trust trust this one is 1.8 percent so similar to Equinix very similar thesis this one is probably a better play for people who want a bit higher yield maybe closer to retirement you want that starting yield that's a bit higher it is I believe if I remember correctly just going on top of my mind I think it's a bit smaller than Equinix and not growing as quickly overall and also the dividends. So just keep that in mind. Any comments about DLR or that's good? I just didn't realize. I knew you owned it and Equinix. I didn't realize that Equinix was like seven times the position size. And I like that. I like EQIX as the best in class play.

Yeah. And honestly, I don't think you can really go wrong with either of them. So that's kind of my opinion on them. But I have a slight preference into Equinix as well. Next one on the list, Etsy. So Etsy has been an awesome performer for me. I think it's up 6x since I got it. I got this one actually right before the pandemic started. And it was trading.

My average cost is $40 a share. So this one, it was actually just a starter position and then it ran up so quickly that I never really added it. But this one is 1.7% of my holdings. So you can tell that it was a small position when I started it. Obviously Etsy, it's a craft good marketplace. when I started it. Obviously, Etsy, it's a craft good marketplace. Amazon had tried to go in this space before. They weren't able to really take market share away from Etsy. So that to me, when Amazon tries to compete against you and you come out the winner, that's a pretty freaking good business in my book. Yeah, it is. And Etsy is a cool platform. I enjoy it. I've used it several times. My only hesitancy with Etsy and the reason that I don't own shares, I know you've multiplied your money several times over on it, is I know people who have tried to really succeed on the platform. And it's really difficult for new people

to actually have organic discovery of their products on the platform. Some people crush it and they've established a rating system and done really well, but new people going onto the platform to try to sell are churning quickly because they can't make money or can't get enough organic discovery of their craft goods. That's a problem I think that the platform needs to address. It's a hard problem. It's hard to introduce good organic discovery and proper search on there. But just a quick comment and my hesitancy of owning a marketplace like Etsy. Yeah, no, that's a fair point.

My next one is Canadian National Railway. So Symbols CNR on the TSX. This one is 1.7%. This one has done pretty well for me. Again, the reason why the weighting may look a bit small and because it's a really stable business is just because, like I've said before, I tend to look at it on what's locked in and not locked in. So this one is a non-locked in account.

I do have more money in my locked in account because that includes my pension. So that's the main reason. It's returned about 50% for me. So it's performed pretty well. And I think going forward, I don't know if I'll be adding to it all that much. But definitely, I like the fact that I know that they'll be returning a lot of money to shareholders. So I think, you know, and clearly, it's a railway. So I think they're not going anywhere anytime soon. If they go anywhere anytime soon, we're gonna have some problems. Yeah, exactly. Next one on my list is MasterCard. This one is 1.6%. So the last four or five are all in that same range 1.5 to 1.8% that I mentioned. So

MasterCard, I mean, we've talked about them before in length on this episode. So I'm not gonna go into too much more detail here. Next one is Home Depot at 1.3% this is one that I added I bought some shares during the market correction with COVID in March of 2020 this one is 1.3% I have started adding shares then it went back up really quickly and I never got to it again so there's a a few like that, that I bought on the cheap and never ended up adding to it, but it's performed quite well. I think I'm up like two times on it already. I'm heading to Home Depot after our podcast recording. So you're welcome, by the way. Make sure you get a good smell too. Oh, I'm going to walk in and just,

I'm going to take my mask off so I can get a good smell and everyone's gonna look at me like i'm a psychopath and then i'll put it back on and keep going um so next one is another etf so i've talked about this one this 4k web so the crane shares csi china internet etf this is 1.3 percent of my portfolio i think this is a great play the management fees are slightly higher i think they're just going on memory here they're about like 0.6 i might be off a little bit but it's around there but i think it's actually a great play for someone who just wants one china holding and kind of wants a piece of all the major chinese players this is just cheap right now. It is very cheap right now. And you know, you would have Alibaba in there, you'd have Tencent, JD.com, like all the major internet plays in China,

you'll get them with this one ETF. So someone who doesn't want to own specific businesses just has a few ETFs, they want to get some exposure to Chinese internet companies. This is pretty much the only one that I could find. There's other ones that say that do, but then they're missing some of the major names. So this is the one that has all the major names that I could find. Yeah. See, that's a proper way to do ETF research. Instead of just looking at the title and going, yeah, that's the coverage I want. You got to look at the actual holdings. It takes literally five

seconds to find them. So yeah, exactly. It's very easy for ETS, right? The prospectus or the fun facts, you'll get all that information there. That's right. Next one, Visa, 1.3%. I won't go into detail. We've talked in length about Visa. Everyone knows about it. Same thing. It's kind of in that payments bucket that I have or basket. So that's why I have Visa. The next one is Microsoft ticker MSFT. And I know I may have missed a few tickers here, but not to worry. I always add them to the description in the show notes. So if you're wondering some names that we may not have mentioned the tickers, just look at the show notes will be there. So Microsoft, I mean, this is 1%. Again, it's kind of like Home Depot, where I started buying some shares during the market correction in 2020. And then it had a big run up and I never added any more shares. But that's probably one I

would actually seriously think about owning, just adding some more shares eventually, even if valuation is high. I mean, Microsoft, they're so entrenched in the corporate software business also, but they have other sections too, right, that we just use on a regular basis. And they're SaaS, right? Just if you think about Outlook, right? Or I mean, MS Office, if they transition from just buying the software specifically to a SaaS model, and it's done quite well. And it's incredible value. And it's like, why wouldn't I be a subscriber to this? There's so much to like with Microsoft.

And then it's with these big technology companies. You have these other segments that are growing revenues like 50% year over year, like the cloud computing, like Azure's just dominating. LinkedIn is a sneaky good business as well too. And Microsoft just has all, they also own all the developer ecosystem, like GitHub. GitHub is one of the best businesses of all time, at least equipped for the next couple of decades of being the best business of all time. And so Microsoft just has all these other segments that are dominating as well. Yeah. And they're a bit like Google in that point where they can try to take stab at these like other markets or other bets. Other bets. Exactly. Obviously, Alphabet has that. But Microsoft, they've swung and miss on certain investments

in the past, but their business is so solid in the other areas that they can't afford to miss on that. And Google as well, right? People think Alphabet is all flawless. And for some reason, the feds let them do acquisitions without any real pushback. I couldn't really figure that one out, but it keeps happening.

Yeah, and obviously one that we haven't, I don't know if you mentioned it just now, but Microsoft Azure, right? That's a big one too. I just mentioned that, the cloud platform. Oh, you did? Okay, sorry. We're talking so much, I just forgot.

The holdings are starting to blend together. Yeah, exactly. Next one, Tencent. This one is a percent, 1% of my holdings. We talked about it when you mentioned it, so I won't go into detail here. Last two, Axon Enterprise, ticker AXON. This one is 0.8%. This one has actually doubled. So when I talked about it on the podcast, I think it was spring of 2020, shortly after I actually started a position, it was just a starter position.

So that's why it's not super high but it has performed well and the business has been executing very well too since then so my thesis seems to be panning out more and more where they're really the dominant player in this space and as we've seen people are asking more accountability from different police forces across the world i think it's just a big tailwind for Axon here. For people who aren't familiar with them, Axon, their former name was Taser, but one of their big revenue growths right now is their body cam. So they'll sell the body cam to these police services. And then they have evidence.com where the information gets stored automatically. So that cloud storage just becomes very sticky

and they have extremely good retention rates and very sticky and just police services in general, law enforcement, they just, they seem to love that service. I would love to do a report. I'm gonna throw my co-op at this. I would love to have a report that focuses on specific companies like Axon.

I guess Apple's a clear example of this, of having this product hardware, like a hardware electronics product that people really like and is the clear market leader, and then introduce services and high, high margin recurring revenue software as a service packages on top of it, it makes the hardware stickier and it just has all these like compounding positive feedback loops on it. And this would be another good example of that. Yeah, and then my last one,

and I believe it's the only loser on that list for me is Pinterest. I actually know the crane share is definitely a loser as well. So Pinterest, the other one that definitely a loser as well. So Pinterest, the other one that's a loser on this list, ticker pins, it's a 0.6% allocation. Again, it's just more of a starter position. What's been weighing on Pinterest, we've talked about it before. It's just the user growth is kind of stagnating right now. But my thesis on them is

that we're going to see the user growth kind of stabilize during the winter months. And it's kind of normal that people do go more outside. There's less projects that you might use Pinterest for during the summer months. So I think it's going to stabilize. But the big thesis here is that they're really just starting to monetize their users compared to other social media companies. And the platform lends itself for users being receptive to those advertisements. So that's a big thesis here. You know what?

Maybe in five years, we'll say, look, their user base has trickled down so much and they haven't monetized it. And I was completely wrong. That's very possible. But for now, that's my thesis on Pinterest. Yeah, that's a tiny position for you. So it is what it is. Yeah.

And the last thing I forgot to mention, so people that follow me on Twitter would notice that I did not put my Bitcoin holdings and Ethereum holdings on there. But just to give people just an idea, it's at the top. So it's pretty high. Would it be number one it'd be

up there i won't say exactly what it was because i don't want to divulge too much information when it comes to that but it's high up there it's in the top five i'll just say that yeah both of them it's definitely it's definitely number one all right guys thanks so much for listening you know simon's the absolute crypto god and not talking about it here he's just being humble again i don't i mean yeah i don't like to brag really about that kind of stuff it's not my style but yeah it's i have strong conviction in bitcoin specifically yeah all right let's wrap this up because i'm noticing also that our Zoom call is really laggy at the moment. Thanks so much for listening, guys. This was a deep dive. Well, not a deep dive,

a very surface level dive of our individual companies that we own. And we each have 18 individual stocks. Don't look too much into that. There's no magic number. It's just complete fluke. That's what we both hold. And if you want to see exactly the tickers and the companies that I hold personally, I don't know if this is on your Twitter as well, Simon, but mine is pinned at the top of my Twitter. My Twitter is at Brado Capital. I always have it pinned as I talk about the companies that I own. And I like giving that disclosure as well. I might actually add it. I don't know if I would pin it, but maybe I can do like a kind of quarterly update on my old things and just have that for people. Because I know... Good for Twitter followers, Simon. I tell you.

Yeah, I know. Yeah, maybe I'll do that because people want to know. So that's something maybe during the holidays when we take a break on recording, I'll have a bit of time to do that. There you go. Thanks so much for listening. We're going to record another show back to back here so that you guys don't miss a single episode over the holidays because we appreciate y'all very much. Thanks for listening.

Take care. Bye-bye. The Canadian Investor Podcast should not be taken as investment or financial advice. Brayden and Simone may own securities or assets mentioned on this podcast. Always make sure to do your own research and due diligence before making investment or financial decisions.