The Canadian Investor - The 7 Best Investment Decisions We’ve Ever Made

Episode Date: November 3, 2025

In this episode of The Canadian Investor Podcast, Simon and Dan follow up on their “biggest mistakes” episode by sharing their best investment decisions. From Simon’s early conviction in Bitcoin and timely gold buys to Dan’s disciplined approach with tech giants and his winning bet on Aritzia, they break down what worked, why, and what they’ve learned along the way. They also discuss how psychology plays into both investing and poker,why losses stick in our minds longer than wins, and the importance of ignoring headlines to focus on fundamentals and asymmetric opportunities. Tickers of stocks discussed:FNV.TO, AEM, XAW.TO, AMZN, GOOGL, BRK.B, V, MA, BLK, ATZ.TO, MSFT, HD Check out our portfolio by going to Jointci.com Our Website Our New Youtube Channel! Canadian Investor Podcast Network Twitter: @cdn_investing Simon’s twitter: @Fiat_Iceberg Braden’s twitter: @BradoCapital Dan’s Twitter: @stocktrades_ca Want to learn more about Real Estate Investing? Check out the Canadian Real Estate Investor Podcast! PWL Capital Apple Podcast - The Canadian Real Estate Investor  Spotify - The Canadian Real Estate Investor  Web player - The Canadian Real Estate Investor Asset Allocation ETFs | BMO Global Asset Management Sign up for Fiscal.ai for free to get easy access to global stock coverage and powerful AI investing tools. Register for EQ Bank, the seamless digital banking experience with better rates and no nonsense.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Just my reminder to people who own cyclicals. Don't be surprised when there's a cycle. If there's uncertainty in the markets, there's going to be some great opportunities for investors. This has to be one of the biggest quarters I've seen from this company in quite some time. Welcome to the Canadian investor podcast. is simon belangem back with dan kent we are back for another episode of the podcast and today we are recording this one a little bit in advance so it's on october 6 so if we're saying some numbers here which

i think we might a little bit but uh i don't think too much but just keep that in mind you may hear it in a couple weeks from now dan's going to be a dad soon so we're trying to record some episodes in advance i think we have like four or five now in the bank which is pretty good so these kind of episodes that are evergreen. So even if you hear them a couple of weeks from now, you'll still it won't matter whether it was recorded a couple weeks before or not. But this one will be going over our best investment decisions. So I think we'll probably release the biggest mistakes first and then this one second. So you can laugh at us first. Yeah, you can laugh at us first and see that we don't always make stupid moves. We do make some that are good sometimes. So yeah, so we

went and did our best investment decision. I think we have like three or four each. It should be fun. I'll get started. The first one for those who have been listening to the podcast for a while, you'll probably figure out which one it is. So the first one for me was investing in Bitcoin in 2018 and then again in April of 2020. So if you've been following the markets since then or you're aware of what Bitcoin has done since then, you'll probably know why it's been a pretty good move for me. Now, to be fair, it still has been quite the roller coaster. And I did not sell, but I had to strap on the seatbelt to say the least because it has been a wild ride ever since. For example, in 2022, like I mentioned on the biggest mistake episode,

2022 was a really bad year for me. So I had drawdowns at 40%. I know it's supposed to be a best investments. I will get to that. So, but it was still a 40% drawdown. for that year and a big part of that was because i was very concentrated in bitcoin and bitcoin went from i think it was around 69 000 down to 15k at the bottom in late 2022 so that's obviously it hit the peak in 2021 and by the end of 2022 you had the you had a bunch of centralized finance or i guess yeah it was like centralized companies that were providing yield on like stable coin bitcoin and stuff like that. So Celsius is one that come to mind.

There was also a couple others that I don't, I'm trying to think and I'm getting blank, but there was quite a few that went bankrupt either. They didn't have sufficient funds, weren't segregating things enough. And then it all culminated with the bankruptcy of FTX that was seen back then as like with Sam Bankman-Fried, of course, as the top crypto exchange. And unfortunately, they were actually using customer funds to fund their Alameda research, which was their hedge fund that invested in crypto and other ventures. And that was all tangled up.

And then that really cemented that bottom around 15,000. So you can imagine that, like I said, it drove my portfolio quite down. But again, over time, ever since I started in 2018, I've built more and more convention in Bitcoin. I did have some conviction at the beginning. But definitely on the macro front because I do like now more and more to invest with a bit of a macro theme in mind. Like I try to figure out like, okay, here's where I think things will be going a long term or there's a different probabilities. And then I try to find investment that'll fit that. And of course, for me, it's Bitcoin because I think fiat money, so the U.S. dollar, Canadian dollar, money that's not backed by anything.

I think will continue to be the base and something like Bitcoin that is a finite. supply in gold as well, should continue doing well. So it's been my, my best investment move, I'll be very honest. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I, I guess kind of worked this into my best move as well, which would have been on the crypto side. I mean, I was a little bit later. I think I ended up buying Bitcoin in 2021. But there was like same situation kind of when you bought it back in 2018. When I used to work up in Fort McMurray, there was a couple of people on my crew that are that are huge bitcointers. I don't think either of them are working anymore. I don't know if they're listeners to the podcast, but yeah, they made a lot of money on it. So I knew about it pretty early,

but I mean, back then I would have firmly been in the camp that pretty much just thought it was a scam. They had kind of pushed it on me quite a bit back then. And I mean, I had a decent size portfolio back then. And if I would have taken a, I mean, even a 5% position when they were talking about it. Because what did Bitcoin fall down to in, it would have been 2018 when it went from like 20,000 to like two like three three yeah three around there like yeah the low low single digit thousands and yeah that's when I started kind of accumulating and it was yeah it was a good time to accumulate for sure in hindsight yeah yeah so I I had the chance there I mean didn't take it eventually in 2021 I ended up buying and and as you had mentioned like right after

I bought it I think it went up for a bit and then it just plummeted but I mean at that point I just kind of kept picking away at it and um it wasn't really like my my thought process there was you know if if people who are much smarter than me about this subject were right i would i would make quite a bit of money in it and you know if they were wrong i i think i started out with like a four percent position in my portfolio if that went to zero i mean it's not life changing or anything so but i thought on the reverse side if it truly was you know had this much potential a four percent position can end up being quite monumental in terms of returns. So I did end up buying it then. I mean, obviously I do beat myself up about a bit that I didn't buy it in 2018, but I've trimmed

it back quite a bit. I believe I bought it at 4% first. It went up to like 10 and then I scaled it back and then it's going up again. I mean, it's getting to that point again with how how well it's doing recently. But I mean, I guess a lot of people might look at this investment as as kind of nothing more than luck because you're never really supposed to borrow conviction, but I 100% am borrowing conviction in terms of Bitcoin. Like I do not understand it much at all, but this is like kind of the opposite of what I do when buying equities. Like if I'm buying a stock, I kind of make sure I understand the business inside and out. But in terms of Bitcoin, I have a very basic understanding, But it's done quite well over the years.

And, I mean, again, I kind of regret trimming it back when I did because I'd be in a better position today. But I mean, it's also kind of just funneled into equities that have done quite well as well. Like we talked about the worst mistakes we did. You got to be comfortable with regret when you're in best. So I think it's going to happen one way or the other. It's just one of those things. And one of the companies that I was thinking about that I could. remember on the crypto lending centralized platform that went bankrupt in 2022 was BlockFi, which,

by the way, I had put a little bit of money on, but I just felt uneasy that it was a centralized platform. So about six, seven months before it went bankrupt, actually, like, withdrew my funds back to self-custody. Oh, yeah. And then they, so I was pretty happy and proud of myself. So it could have been worse than just a drawdown. So it was kind of funny because I, Was it like I kept hearing about news about like the whole bankruptcy proceeding because I was, I guess, one accreditor because I withdrew everything, but I had like maybe $15 word because I wasn't able to withdraw the exact amount. And they just kept like sending me like update information and like for 15 bucks I just like didn't really care. But I was still like reading, just having a look to see what was going on. So kind of interesting from that perspective.

Yeah. What are they is it with FDX? aren't some people getting back their assets now? Yeah, I think people ended up getting, and we had talked about that. I'm trying, I don't fully remember, but I think it was close to getting all of the money back on a dollar basis. Yeah. So a lot of people weren't happy because it was like kind of shown as the money being

pretty much fully recouped, but Bitcoin had significantly increase in that time span, but they were doing the bankruptcy on a U.S. dollar basis. So I guess there could have been worse thing. I think they also had an investment in Anthropic, one, the AI startup that ended up doing pretty well for them, which is good, obviously, for people. And I guess I'll finish on this, and then I can go to my second one, because that was also your first one, right, Bitcoin. Yeah.

So it's still, I still get a lot of pushback from this and still baffles me where people will say like, oh, why? like I would never invest in Bitcoin. They have reason, XYZ, that they don't want to invest in Bitcoin. And oftentimes I'll say, well, why don't you invest like 0.5 or 1% or 2%? Like what's the worst thing that can happen?

It goes to zero. I don't think it will go to zero. But let's say you're very much, you're not sure about Bitcoin's thesis. You don't fully, let's say you understand it, but you're like, no, like, actually I think there's still a pretty good chance it goes to zero. Well, I always come back and say, okay, even if worst case is zero, what's the best case scenario? Yeah.

Like, that's where the asymmetric returns can really come in. And so I've found so many people reluctant to invest in Bitcoin, they cannot grasp that concept. It's, it kind of baffles me. Like, it's just simple math. like the more the most downside you can have is 100% downside you go to zero but your upside could be so much greater and that's how that's why it's called an asymmetric bet but i stopped usually i'll mention that and if they look i mean i'm not there to argue with people on that if they don't want to do the work and learn the cons the math the math concept behind it that's

their own problem yeah that's that was the exact mentality of why i bought it and i mean even in the event it were to go to zero now, I would have recouped my entire investment and then some. So, I mean, in my eyes, I'm kind of on house money right now, even though I don't really understand crypto at all. But I mean, I'll just listen to you. That'll be my, yeah, yeah. Want to buy a stock, but don't want to shell out hundreds or even thousands for a single share. With Questrade's new fractional shares, you can invest any dollar amount. and build a diversified portfolio instantly. No delays, no trade fees, no excuses.

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Every time I go on there, I am shocked. The engagement is amazing. This is a really vibrant community that they're building. And people share their portfolios, their trades, their investment ideas in real time. And it's all built on the concept of transparency because brokerage accounts are linked. And then once you link your brokerage account, you can get in-depth portfolio insights, track your dividends. And there's other stuff like, learning duolingo style education lessons that are completely free. You can search up Blossom Social in the app store and join the community today. I'm on there. I encourage you go on there and follow me, search me up, some of the YouTubers and influencers and podcasters that you might

know, I bet you they're already on there. People are just on there talking, sharing their investment ideas and using the analytics tools. So go ahead, blossom social in the app store and I'll see you there. No, that's good. So let's move on to my second one here. Another relative, even more recent here, we talked about in recent episodes. So I mean, if you look at mainstream media, you wouldn't know that it's hitting all time highs after all time highs every day now, it seems. And again, we're recording this on October 6th, but starting to buy gold in 2024. So I started to buy gold in 2024. I was pretty open about it on the podcast, too. I bought Franco, Nevada in the summer of last year, so about like 18 months roughly ago that I started buying

Franco Nevada, been adding quite a bit since. I added gold earlier this year and even less than a couple months ago, too, same for Franco Nevada. And it's just been a phenomenal investment for me. I mean, I started buying it was in the low 2100 when at the price of gold in USD and now it's approaching 4,000. I can't, I mean, I did these notes like four days ago, five days ago and I was like, oh, it's sitting close to 39. It's now like getting closer to 4,000, which is kind of crazy. It's not quite a double from when I bought it, but it's inching closer and it's just crushing the SMP 500 during that period of time. And to me, I hold it for very similar reasons as Bitcoin, kind of the debasement, but also the fact that the US did, and I've

said it multiple times on the podcast, so I will just say it quickly, but the just freezing Russian assets, the U.S. treasuries and anything that they could freeze that was U.S. dollar denominated, I think really opened the eyes of countries around the world that they needed to diversify away from the U.S. dollar. And even at the time, if they were in good terms with the U.S., we quickly see what a change in administration can do in terms of diplomatic relationships. And a country is probably feeling less at ease than they were before countries that were more traditional allies. So the reason for it is central banks will actually diversify for reserve asset with gold. And that's an extra plus for gold versus Bitcoin because I don't think central banks are

there quite yet. They're using gold. And I think to the value, there's more gold now on central bank's balance sheets in terms of reserve assets compared to U.S. treasuries. Of course, big part of that is due to the rapid rise and price, but also just a sheer quantity that they've been adding to their balance sheets. So for me, gold is also a neutral asset just like Bitcoin is. So that's another reason why I have that. So it's kind of that anti-debasement portfolio. They're two pretty big, pretty big anchor in my portfolio right now, but two of my best moves looking back at it too. Yeah, and I've, I kind of always held gold exposure, not like through direct gold,

but miners like I owned Kirkland Lake back in the day. And then obviously they merged with Agneco and then I ended up selling that one a bit too early. But I mean, I think there's there's reasons to kind of keep a chunk of it in the portfolio kind of at all times. I mean, it doesn't need to be a ton. It doesn't necessarily need to be a minor. It could be a streamer like Franco.

That's kind of how I play it. now and or could be physical gold could be a minor but i mean i think a lot of people cast it aside i guess you could say because it didn't do very well for a very long time and now we're seeing it kind of catch up in in quite a big way i mean it's just 50% this year is just crazy and i mean i don't know like do you expect to hold it long term are you going to sell it frank or gold gold like i mean it's like uh it is probably something yeah so i have a mix Yeah, so I have the mix. The way I see it is I have a mix of physical gold that I actually own in a save deposit box. So that one I am not touching. That is off limit. I am keeping that gold for my doomsday scenario. I'll just say no. But no, I do have some gold ETFs as well. And with Franco Nevada that you mentioned. So I'll definitely think about trimming. Not quite yet, but I think I've posted. And I don't know if I mentioned it on the podcast. but something I'm looking to do to is trimming a little bit of my portfolio as it hits

certain milestones now because it's just been, the returns has just been insane for the last three years. So I'm looking to just trim a little bit of my portfolio and put what I'm trimming on my mortgage. Not crazy amounts, but enough to, you know, probably shed a few years to my mortgage just by making those lump sum and saving a whole lot of money. Clearly my mortgage is not a crazy big percentage in terms of the interest rates we're paying on it. But nonetheless, it's a guaranteed 4.3% returns. And it just kind of reduces a bit of the risk that I have in gold and Bitcoin. So that's something I will be doing.

But I don't know. It's kind of, I have a lot of conviction. But I am fully aware that short term, there could be some pretty big pullbacks in Bitcoin, but gold as well. So I may trim a little bit some ETS. if things just keep going up in the right. Yeah, which they have been. Yeah, I mean, like financial crisis gold went on a pretty big run and then kind of had like a decade long kind of slump.

So yeah, I don't know. It's it's kind of something that you would struggle to own like a huge chunk of it long term. But I mean, if you time the cycles, it's, I mean, especially now, it's done great. Yeah, it's insane. but what's your what's your second one i would say back in 2020 2021 when there was all you know a lot of the rumblings that that fang stocks were overvalued i don't know if you remember that it was just constant yeah oh yeah i mean back then uh fang would have been facebook apple amazon netflix and google they've kind of rebranded that now to mag seven i think they throw tesla and invidia in there

and i don't even think netflix is in the mag seven anymore i don't think at least but no i don't think so Yeah, anyway, they, like, there was constant headlines of how overvalue they were. And actually back then in 2021, the Canadian dollar was, was very high in relation to the U.S. dollar. And I usually owned XAW, which is a Canadian fund that tracks global stocks, but it's X Canada. So I would own Canadian equities and then I would have XAW to kind of get my exposure elsewhere. And I kind of looked at that dollar and I just thought, I'm going to buy. why I'm going to sell that. It was a huge chunk of my portfolio, like 40 plus percent of the portfolio.

So I sold that off. And I bought the U.S. dollars. And then, I mean, just kind of ignoring these headlines and buying these tech companies, like, it's, they're pretty much the main drivers of my portfolio. I mean, you look to companies like Amazon, Alphabet, Berkshire, Visa, BlackRock. I mean, I just kind of stuck to fundamentals and long-term outlook of these companies when I just could have easily been steered away from them because of headlines.

And I mean, it wasn't it, it wasn't small time investors either. I mean, Charlie Munger back in 2021 said that that tech stocks are in an era even crazier than the dot com bubble. And he had mentioned that even good companies at these multiples have much less margin for error. So. And I mean, obviously, like I was almost immediately wrong in this situation because in 2020, we had that massive pullback. But I mean, it was relatively short lived. And I mean, through that time, I just continued. accumulate all these companies and I mean they're they're pretty much the core driver of my portfolio over the last well I mean since 2021 I think it's just kind of a good lesson to ignore

headlines in a way and I mean just kind of stick to accumulating high quality businesses regardless of you know what a lot of the headlines say because during you know big bull markets they love to talk about overvaluation and in bear markets they love to kind of give those I You sew type stuff, but if you just stick to a strategy, which I did here, I kind of ignored the noise. It ended up providing some very strong returns for me. Yeah. No, it's not easy to be a contrarian, but oftentimes it tends to work out pretty well. So even look, talking about gold for me, it's not like it was when I started buying it's not like a lot of people were talking about it. Now there's a bit more people talking about it, but even now, it's not that much in the

headlines. But for my third one here, I had Franco Nevada, but I guess I'll just kind of put that in the gold bucket. I guess maybe the last thing I'll add is a whole, we've talked about that before, but you and I also privately, the Cobre Panama mine, I think a lot of investors were just baking in that this would never reopen. And now we've seen some recent development where there's no guarantee that it will reopen and if it does it may not look exactly the same there might be some you know they'll have to provide more money to the local government who knows but it seems more and more likely now that there's a chance that it will reopen and I think that's the other part that the market now may be starting to price in on top of the gold price rising very quickly so I'm just going to go on top of my head memory here I didn't do my notes for for this but hopefully my memory serves me a while so it's a company called terraform power you ever heard of that yeah didn't brookfield buy them yeah brookfield renewable so yeah i think it was back in 2018 2019 and don't uh don't take my word for it's possible i'm getting the years mixed up a

little bit because i'd put franco's i'm i was kind of thinking at some of my good moves and that one was a really good move so it was a company that was not doing really good good. They had a lot of wind power and they were in kind of restructuring process and then Brookfield Renewable bought a controlling part if I remember correctly. And when I saw that, I knew Brookfield pretty well at the time. So I was like, wow, I feel like the market is just not pricing that, like not giving Brookfield enough credit to optimize these assets and do something really good with them. So I ended up putting a good chunk of money at the time my portfolio was much smaller. And then I think it was maybe a year down the line. Brookfield ended up buying the rest of

Terraform power. And the shares, Terraform was doing better and better anyways under the tutelage of Brookfield or the supervision, whatever you want to call it here. And my investment was doing really well. And essentially, when they got purchased, I just got Brookfield Renewable Power corporations shares. So that's actually when they came out with the C, the C corp. So for those familiar with Brookfield, they have like these units, limited partnership units, but they also have the C corp. So they actually came out the C corp to do that acquisition. So I know it's not super detailed and it's possible I missed a few of the exact details. So don't correct me. I'm just going on memory here. But I remember doing very well, like I think 150% plus in a short amount of time. And I still

own those Brookfield Renewable Power Corporation shares that I got back then. So that would be definitely I think my third move. I have had bigger percentage in terms of return. Like Axon was like a multi-bagger for me. And I think I talked about it quickly and the biggest mistakes because I didn't have a big enough position. But I think that's been one of my bigger mistakes. like I said is I've had some really good moves, but oftentimes the investment wasn't large enough to really move the needle all that much. So that's why I'm trying to think about the ones that were large enough and had a big enough move to move the needle for me. Yeah, and that's kind of the same with me. Like I kind of made these based on like good decisions, I guess you could say,

because like I left out canopy growth, which I made, I can't even remember. I think I bought that thing at like $8 and sold it at 60 plus in a matter of. of like eight months. But like I didn't really think of that as an investing, like a strong investing move. I mean, I was just purely pure speculation in that regard. So it's more like gambling. Yeah, pretty much. So like I did not include that one. I left a few others out where I, where I kind of tinkered with no intentions of investing long term, but could see that there was potentially some short term money there. But the one that I did see a lot of fundamental value in and and is what I kind of stuck with was Eritzia.

So Eritzia would have been a company I've covered since 2018 over at stock trade. So I've always kind of been bullish on this company for many, many years. I have traded kind of in and out of it quite often since 2018. But for the most part, probably since 2022, I decided to just kind of buy the company and hold it, maybe late 2021. And I think one of the best returns I've had over the last few years here would have been buying this one up on the 2023 drawdown due to their inventory fears. I think a lot of my buys on that one back in 2023 are up. I mean, it's crazy.

It's like 300% just under two years. I mean, obviously these are unrealized gains with a fashion company. I mean, you can give it all back quite easily. Probably by the time this is published or Ritsia would have posted it's, I think they, post-quarterly earnings at like in early October so this price point could look a whole lot better or a whole lot worse. But it's, I'm the one thing, I'm super bullish primarily because the vast majority of my buys over the last five, seven years here have been in either the high teens or low 20s. And I did think that the company was was kind of just getting started. And unlike a lot of

established retailers, let's say like Nike and Lulu Lemon that are kind of struggling in the US, Saritza's story down there is, you know, seemingly just getting started. And, you know, a lot of people might attribute this to a bit of luck in the fact that company, what ended up happening was 2021, they had a lot of supply chain issues. So they decided to order a ton of inventory. So what ended up happening was they ordered a ton of inventory. It came in in 2022. We obviously had that high inflation. Inventory started stacking up. Erding started taking a hit and they ended up having to mark down a bunch of it, which ultimately a lot of people thought that the brand was kind of falling out. And obviously, like, when you see skyrocketing

inventory and things like that, it does become an issue. But I kind of, I kind of looked at this one and kind of boiled it down to, like, it was just a mistake by management. I mean, they were doing the right thing just at the wrong time. I mean, obviously, they were so popular during COVID. They had, they had to order a ton of inventory to try to keep up with demand. And it just so happened. We hit 9% inflation and, you know, interest rates went through the roof, which, which kind of killed that. But, I mean, it was a mistake that I kind of thought was easily forgivable. And the market just absolutely crushed it. I think it was down 65% over, you know, a six to seven month timeframe. So, I mean, I think this is probably another lesson for many to

kind of ignore the headlines, do your own digging. It might help you make better decisions. I mean, yes, there was a potential chance that the brand would never recover, but there was more signs here to me that just kind of pointed. It was pointed to it being a timing issue over anything else. So I kind of continued to buy it aggressively when it got that cheap. And we'll see where it goes today. Again, I've trimmed a bit once it got up to that high $80 range, but I still own a pretty decent position in it. Yeah, I mean, it's one I was definitely wrong about because I kept looking at the margins and I just thought the brand was, Way stronger for Lulu Lemon. I'm definitely curious to see how they do this quarter,

especially with the tariff headwinds that we saw from Lulu Lemon, Nike and other companies. But yeah, I mean, it's been got to hand it to you. It's been a really good call. Want to buy a stock, but don't want to shell out hundreds or even thousands for a single share? With Quest Trade's new fractional shares, you can invest any dollar amount and build a diversified portfolio instantly. No delays, no trade fees, no excuses. Want to put $10 into a stock trading at $100? No problem. Quest Trade has you covered.

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Blossom is an essential app for you. It has been blowing us. up with now more than 50,000 Canadians plus and growing who are using the app. Every time I go on there, I am shocked. The engagement is amazing. This is a really vibrant community that they're building. And people share their portfolios, their trades, their investment ideas in real time. And it's all built on the concept of transparency because brokerage accounts are linked. And then once you link your brokerage account, you can get in-depth portfolio insights, track your dividends. And there's other stuff like learning.

duolingo style education lessons that are completely free. You can search up Blossom social in the app store and join the community today. I'm on there. I encourage you go on there and follow me, search me up, some of the YouTubers and influencers and podcasters that you might know, I bet you they're already on there. People are just on there talking, sharing their investment ideas and using the analytics tools. So go ahead, blossom social in the app store, and I'll see you there. For me, the last one, it's more a basket of things that I did. So obviously I said I bought Bitcoin in April of 2020, like after COVID. That was a really good buy for me. I also bought MasterCard Visa, Microsoft Home Depot during the COVID market crash of March 2020. I still have

MasterCard and Visa. I've sold Microsoft and Home Depot after more than doubling my investment. So it was really good. Visa and MasterCard, I think, are close to doubles as well. so they've done very well. Again, it's number four because they've done really well in percentage terms, but I could have put a bigger percentage there. So that's kind of, it just comes back to that. So it makes me think maybe my biggest mistake should have been just not doing a big enough position of sizing.

But it's something like I said that I am doing, I think better now that I have like this rule where it has to be at least 1% investment. So hopefully it's not something that I'll be. repeating down the line if I stay true to that rule. But that would be a really good one. I wasn't afraid to put some money during the dip. But of course, I think I was limited. I had limited amount of money, of course. So I did use a bunch of those funds on Bitcoin and also Ethereum. I did buy Ethereum and it's done. It did really well back then. So yeah, so that wraps it up for me for the the best moves or best investment decisions that I did. Yeah. I mean, I guess I had one more kind of off

notes. I wasn't even going to include this one, but I guess it would more so be my real estate purchases. I guess. I mean, I owned, I had the benefit of working in Fort McMurray as a young kid, like during the heyday, like 2010 to 2013, 2014, probably, which allowed me to save up quite a bit of money. And I bought some, well, I bought a condo that I lived in for a few years, but then I bought another one and rented that condo out for, I probably rented that condo for like eight or nine years. And then I ended up selling our home and that condo at like the peak. I can't remember when that would have been probably 2022 when you could list a house and it would have like six offers within like 24 hours. It was crazy. So I kind of parlayed a lot of

real estate bets into pretty sizable returns, especially like when you're thinking Alberta, like the real estate market is, you know, most people just think of Toronto, Vancouver. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, it's it's really boom or bust and I will admit like especially when we bought our one house like we bought it in probably the worst real estate market you can imagine so we end up getting a bit lucky in that regard but yeah I'm fortunate enough that I live in a pretty nice place now with a very like a small mortgage just because of that but yeah I mean that wasn't I exited the the rental market real quick when I had I mean I rented that place out for like eight or nine

years and zero issues until the final tenant and they ended up absolutely trash in the place and then I fixed it up and just got out of it. I'm like, I'm done. But yeah, that was made a decent amount of money from that. I'm completely out of the space now with no intentions to ever reenter it, but it's just not for me. But I know I do know a lot of people make quite a bit of money off real estate, especially like residential rentals, but just not for me, but I did do decently well. Yeah. No, I mean, I've done decent and bad at the same time real estate. It's kind of a wash for me. So probably the worst financial mistake I've ever did. But I've also had decent moves with real estate as just has been a bit uneven. So yeah, I'll just leave it there.

Like I said in a previous episode for mistakes, if you wanted to hear the episode on that, the biggest financial mistake wasn't just real estate related, but a big part of it was. So I'll say that it's kind of neutral for me in the long run. But I think it was a fun couple part made us kind of think back and reflect on our investments, on portfolio, or mistakes and good moves. It's funny. I remember more the bad moves than the good moves. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think, well, what is the mistake? Yeah, the mistake episode is way longer than this one. But yeah, it hurts more. I guess that's why, right? Like a loss hurts way more than the equivalent. I think there was studies that were done on that like twice as more or something like that than an

equivalent gains. So yeah, it's definitely fresher in our memory. And maybe to close it up and, you know, feel free if you're not into poker to stop right now. I'll just, I know you'll agree with me, but the amount of time you're at a table and people just tell you about like how unlucky they've been in a hand. Oh, yeah. People seem to remember the hands that they were really unlucky but they don't remember the hands where they got super lucky and had you know five percent chance to win and one with that like one or two possible outs on one on the river with one card remaining it's funny but it is very similar in poker like when people start telling me about like their their bad beat and how unlucky i just kind of i zone out i just don't listen

I'm like I I don't tell those stories like I don't really feel like listening it I don't want to be a dick or anything so I don't say anything but I just kind of tune out and start focusing or just kind of look away and they'll really listen to them yeah you have like everybody who talks about how they're no good with pocket aces or they always lose with aces that's just because you you only remember the times you lost you never remember when you want it's a mental thing it's like it's kind of how we're hardwired we're you know hardwired to remember those things so we're We don't do them again. But yeah, there's the losses sting, but there's generally more wins than losses. Is it just a lot easier to remember the losses? Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's very similar in investing, but I thought I'd finish with that. So it was a fun episode to do.

We do appreciate all the support for those interested in subscribing to our Patreon page. You can go to join tCI.com. It's $15 a month. We update our portfolio monthly, provide a kind of an overview of what we did in terms of moves as well. get the ad free podcast version, RS Feed, that you can add to your favorite podcast player, the full videos. And I also do my parents' investment portfolio update in the middle of each

month. If not, we do appreciate the support, just a regular audio version that is awesome as well. If you can give us a five-star review, it's always appreciated. Thank you for listening, and we'll be back with another episode either Thursday or Monday. I haven't figured out when this will go out yet. But hopefully people enjoy that. and just goes to show that, yes, we make mistakes like everyone else. And it seems like we make more mistakes than good moves, but our portfolios stay different. So our good moves must be pretty decent.

So now it was fun to do, and we'll be back soon with another episode. The Canadian Investor Podcast should not be construed as investment or financial advice. The host and guest featured may own securities or assets discussed on this podcast. Always do your own due diligence or consult with a financial professional before making any financial or investment decisions.