The Canadian Investor - What Canadians hold in their TFSA and researching stocks
Episode Date: November 22, 2021In this release of the Canadian Investor Podcast, we discuss the following topics: Statistics on the type of investments Canadians have in their TFSA. How Philip Fisher’s philosophy... of buying great businesses still applied today. How to maximize time spent researching a company Simon talks about he approaches common expenses with his spouse Simon and Braden answer some non-investment related questions from Twitter https://thecanadianinvestorpodcast.com/ Canadian Investor Podcast Twitter: @cdn_investing Simon’s twitter: @Fiat_Iceberg Braden’s twitter: @BradoCapital See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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The Canadian Investor Podcast.
Today is November 17th.
Welcome back to another episode.
Today, we got lots of fun stuff to talk about.
This is the Monday release, so we're talking
investing concepts. We'll save the news for the Thursday release. Simon, we got on the show here,
we're going to talk TFSAs and cash. I got some pretty staggering statistics around that. You're
going to talk about researching businesses on your own and how to do it in an effective way,
but not spend your whole life doing it. I think that that's actually a pretty good thing to talk about your expenses. And then we're going to finish it
off with questions about us that are not investment related at the end of the episode.
Simon, we have now officially recorded an episode this winter with snow on the ground.
Is there snow in Ottawa right now? No, we had a tiny bit this morning, had some
overnight, but it's all gone today, but we're supposed to get some freezing rain. But there's
at least been a dusting or two. Yeah, there's been a dusting. I feel like Edmonton maybe has
more snow. They're usually more up. Yeah, well, congratulations also to the men's soccer team
who beat Mexico in Edmonton last night. That was hilarious. Talk about home court advantage playing in minus eight and snow banks around the field. Go team Canada. If they can really qualify for the World Cup, that'd be pretty awesome.
on the slate here, I'm going to talk about some pretty alarming statistics. I knew about them,
but every time I read them, it really shocks me and I kind of question why. I think I have some reasons of why this is the case, but we can talk about that after. According to the annual BMO
RRSP study, while 77% of Canadians have investments. Canadians are nearly split when it comes to investing their
savings or keeping them as cash. 53% of people are actually investing and 47% are keeping it as cash.
So we'll call it 50-50 in people who are actually investing their money. Okay, fair enough. Among Canadians who are investing, a healthy majority, 62%, in fact,
have cash in their TFSAs representing over 40% of their account holdings.
That is shocking, Simon. So let's double click on that in a second. Similarly, mutual funds and
cash are the most popular asset held in Canadian RRSPs with 42%
of assets in mutual funds and 22% of assets in cash. Okay, so let's double click on this.
62% have cash in their TFSAs that represent over 40% of their account holdings. If you combine all assets in a TFSA in this country, 41% of it is
sitting in cash. That is brutal. 41% of TFSAs are sitting in cash, not invested. What is going on
here? Only 18% of TFSAs in Canada are in stocks or ETFs. So you said 41%, but I would actually consider that higher.
I would say 50% because you have 12% that are in GICs.
And to me, GICs are basically cash in terms of not getting much returns.
And then it's even higher if you include bonds.
Just to add on what you were saying, it's very alarming to see that much being invested in instruments that will provide you no real return on your money.
You're going to be losing on your purchasing power with those two things.
Yeah, that's important to look at because we see 12% are in GICs and 5% in bonds, which is much lower than I was expecting. But if we look at this broadly,
Canadians are using TFSAs as cash, a cash savings account. 41% of assets in the TFSA are just cash.
Maybe it's because they're called tax-free savings accounts, Simon. What do most Canadians think savings accounts are for, including myself?
Cash, of course.
I mean, that's kind of what the name implies.
Fair enough.
I get that.
This is a prime example of how bureaucrats are setting us up to fail, in my opinion.
What's the takeaway here?
TFSAs are incredible instruments and investment vehicles for long-term
investing for individuals in this country. The account is so good that they have to limit the
amount you can put in it, which is $6,000 this year. You can catch up on that room, by the way,
for those who are new to investing, but this is concerning. Why do we think that this is only 41% of TFSAs
are being held in cash and not invested? Is it because it's called a savings account or
is the population just widely not, they just don't know you can buy stocks or they're new,
they don't really know how to start maybe? Yeah. Yeah. I think it could be that. I think
it's probably a mix of different things.
Like you said, the name is definitely a bit confusing.
So I was, when the new vehicle came out, I think I was maybe 20 when it actually came
out.
So the TFSA was created around that age.
And at the beginning, I mean, I thought it was just for a savings account.
So I can see why people would think that. And I think it's a
combination of the RRSP being ingrained in people. It's always plastered, right? All the different
platforms, the banks, so on. You get into the first 60 days of the new year, you can contribute,
apply it to previous year. It's plastered everywhere. People are kind of conditioned to,
it's plastered everywhere people are kind of conditioned to you know you got to contribute to an rsp but you don't see the same kind of publicity for a tfsa so i think it's a mixture
of things but the name is definitely one of them as well and people just don't understand
these vehicles the tfsa and what they can use it for yeah Yeah, well put. It's an interesting problem. I don't know if I
have the solution for that, but a lot of it stems from, yeah, perhaps the name. And if you walk into
a Canadian bank and say, hey, I want to invest my money, they're going to do one of two things.
They're going to say, hey, yeah, you can open a TFSA, and then you put in a bunch of cash, or they're going to say,
hey, yeah, you can do that. And by the way, we offer these investment products named mutual
funds that we collect two and a half percent management expense ratio fees on you. And that's
just a really, really bad way to go. So you can see how Canadians are getting funneled into that. And there's very little education on the subject for Canadians.
And I hope that does change.
But in the meantime, we have the podcast.
So share the podcast with a friend if they're new to this.
And you're seeing them have a TFSA entirely in cash.
That is not a good way to go.
trash that is not a good way to go speaking kind of on the same note how do you find researching businesses as someone that has a full-time job and manages their own portfolio i think that
most of our listeners can learn from what you have to say here yeah and works on a podcast
and having a wife and and a dog so it's definitely managing the time. It's really important.
And it's something I was reading about.
I thought it would be great to have on the podcast.
So I'm sure a lot of our listeners
like owning individual stocks.
One of the issues with owning individual businesses
is that you need to research them first.
You can obviously subscribe to a service like Stratosphere.
You do some great research with your team where you have the research pretty much already done for you.
But some people like to do it themselves, and I can totally understand that.
One of the issues I've come across is just really figure out a way to not spend too much time on a company that I will end up not investing in. So I don't want to spend 10-15 hours researching a company and then ultimately
deciding that it does not meet my investment requirements so I won't invest in it. So there's
four things I will look at to give me I would say just a good overview of a company and basically
tell me right there if I should continue my research, put more time and effort into it, or if this company
is just not worth it and I won't waste any more time doing so. First, I'll start by looking at the
investor relations page and getting an idea on a high level of what the company does. Then I will
also try to find some articles or even search to see if I can find a video explaining their
products on YouTube, especially for a company that sells goods and sometimes services. It's a really great way if
they have a tutorial how to use their product and so on. It's a great way to understand what
they're actually selling. Then I'll have a look at their annual report, their latest one, to better
understand how they make money. Here a great tool is just ctrl f so trying to find some keywords so you can
just go straight to the information pretty quickly. Obviously when they explain the business
the section they do you'll want to pay attention to that part but you don't need to go through the
whole annual report. After that I will have a look at their financial statements not a thorough look
but I'll look at their revenue their gross margins and free cash flow here I really want to see
revenues that are increasing good gross margins obviously sector dependent here
because high-flying tech stock will probably have different margins than a
utility and good free cash flow if a company is not profitable yet on a free
cash flow basis that's okay as long profitable yet on a free cash flow basis,
that's okay as long as they're trending in the right direction. So you can really see,
you know, say in the past three, four years, they're really trending to being free cash flow
positive. Obviously, these four steps won't take you too much time, probably an hour or so,
maybe a little more, especially if it's a smaller micro cap company because then
it's pretty common for those to have a bit less information out there so you might have to do a
bit more digging compared to a medium large cap or obviously a mega cap and after these four steps
I'll have a good understanding of what the business is well a general understanding not a good
understanding how they make money,
how quickly they are growing and how profitable they are or are not. And like I mentioned,
if I'm satisfied with what I found and I'm intrigued with this company, then I'll start digging deeper and putting more time and effort into it. But that way I really found it kind of
in a voice putting, you know, 10, 15 hours in researching and
then ultimately just deciding you don't want to invest in the company.
It might still happen, don't get me wrong, but it will definitely save you some time.
That's something that's worked really well for me.
And the last thing I would mention for companies that have analysts following them, just read
what the analysts have to say. That's a good
way to understand a company. I'm not a fan of analysts and their price targets, but oftentimes
the analysts that follow a company, they'll still have a pretty good understanding of what the
company does. If they didn't, I mean, they would be doing a pretty bad job. Yeah, there's a lot of
things to look for. And you just got to start really simple, really, really simple. I think that these are great points. The question you have to ask yourself from a quality perspective is probably developing a framework, a checklist, a framework. We can go through what those things are. But that makes it a lot easier to not make mistakes.
Checklist number one, do they have a great product?
Number two, do the customers like the product?
Very basic questions.
Do you see the company being bigger in 10 years than they are now?
I mean, this is not questions that require a CFA or CPA to look into financial statements.
This is something Joe from down
the street can do. So that's really useful. Now on Stratosphere, you can search up every
single company ticker and find those things that Simon's talking about, their revenues,
their gross margins, their free cashflow on a historical perspective. And it's graphed out for
you. Like this is why I built this. This is exactly why I built this,
and it is all completely free. So go ahead. That's at stratosphereinvesting.com.
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 so that you can choose the ETFs that you want. And they charge no annual RRSP or TFSA
account fees. They have an award-winning customer service team with real people that are ready to
help if you have questions along the way. As a customer myself, I've been impressed with Questrade's customer service.
Whenever I call or email, every support rep is very knowledgeable and they get exactly what I
need done quickly. Switch for free today and keep more 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
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Okay, let's talk about an investment philosophy. This kind of goes back to what Simon was talking
about. So this is a summary I found of the late great Philip Fisher's investment philosophy. He wrote Common Stocks and
Uncommon Profits, which was published in 1958. Phil Fisher was born in 1907 and died in 2004.
So he had a very long, great, successful, influential career in the financial space and particularly with investing
in growth stocks. He was one of the earliest adopters of growth investing or at least growth
at a reasonable price. When everyone in his era was trying to buy cheap stocks, Phil Fisher was
talking about buying great businesses that are growing. This is basically what Simon and I try
to do. This seems elementary,
but it shows you what was in favor back then. It was buying cheap stocks was in favor back then.
All right. So these are the 11 points that were summarized in his list. Number one,
read everything you can. I think that's pretty cool. Number two, have the moral courage to act
against the grain when your judgment tells you that you
are right number three buy stocks of companies that are likely to generate dramatic long-term
growth of growth revenues and profits number four buy with particular gusto when the stock market
conditions are not favorable or other investors do not properly
perceive these companies' true worth. So it's interesting. And back to back points here,
he talked about buying companies that have long-term growth in revenues and profits,
and then to basically double down when the stock market is trading at low multiples and the market is discounting a company's true worth.
This is talking about buying great long-term companies, but also trying to buy attractive
prices. So this is the perfect merge of growth investing and value investing do not have to be
detached from each other. They are fully attached at the hip. Number five,
retain the investment in such a company as long as its advantage over competitors remains intact
and never sell for short-term reasons. Oh God, I love that point. Number six,
if your primary investment goal is the substantial and long-term appreciation of your capital,
as it must be if you restrict your
portfolio to the most outstanding companies, then you should reduce the emphasis most investors
place on the importance of dividends. Very interesting, Simon. We talk about this so much.
If you have a long time horizon, don't restrict yourself to companies that only pay dividends.
Number seven, recognize that mistakes are inevitable. The most important thing is that the investor recognizes a mistake quickly,
accurately diagnoses its cause, and does not repeat it. Learn from your mistakes.
Investors are going to make mistakes, Simon. Everyone's going to make mistakes.
Number eight, a good Fisherite investor, I guess that's people who follow what he says,
is willing to incur a
short-term loss that results from a poor investment and lets the gains from a good investment grow
over the years and decades. If you were just fully wrong about your investment thesis,
just cut your losses and put it into something that's going to win. Recognize that the investment
universe contains very few truly outstanding companies,
and that opportunities to buy them occur very infrequently. Hence, concentrate your attention
and your funds in the most desirable opportunities. Well put. Number 10, for individual investors,
any holding of over 20 stocks is a sign of financial incompetence.
10 or 12 is usually a better number. Very interesting. We were talking about this last
time on the podcast. We sit somewhere in the middle. Yeah. For me, my sweet spot's like 15.
Yeah. But totally agree because more than that is just, I mean, it gets hard to follow. And
obviously, we've talked about it, right? It just mimics the
market at some point. So yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't see a problem with having 25 stocks. I read
this and I think, you know, that's fine. I read this and I think absolutely don't do more than 40.
You know, let me reread this in Braden's terms. For individual investors, any holdings of over 40 different
stocks is a sign of financial incompetence. 10 or 12 is usually a better number. Number 11,
and the last one on the list, never forget that one of the most basic rules of life also apply
to investing. Success is highly dependent upon a combination of hard work, intelligence, and honesty. That's great. I think that this is a
really solid framework and compass for investors who want to buy companies that increase their
value over time, have a good moat, and that you're tracking that the moat is solid, and you're buying
companies that are growing, not shrinking and try to buy
them when the market conditions are highly unfavorable. I deployed lots of funds during the
COVID March crash because I looked at great businesses that were largely unaffected,
perhaps even benefiting from the environment and buying them on 30% drawdowns. You're not going to find opportunities
that often to buy great companies on 30% drawdowns. So when they do happen, because they will,
Simon, there's going to be the next drawdown. There's going to be the next thing that shakes
the market. I don't know if it's a pandemic. I don't know what it is. It doesn't matter. It's
going to happen. It always does. So volatility is completely normal. It's the only normal thing. And when there's extreme
volatility, that's when there's opportunity to buy great businesses that can provide long-term
growth of both revenue and profits. So that was a summary on some takeaways from Phil Fisher.
And if you haven't read his book on common stocks, uncommon profits, it's a good guide for buying high quality growth companies.
On to the number of holdings too, we have to put it in context. This obviously,
because he passed away in 2004, this was written before discount brokerages where you can get
information super easily. Everything was done through looking at annual
reports with the actual annual report. So taking that into context, maybe if he were still alive
today, he'd probably adjust that number of holdings a little bit. Yeah, it's a good point.
The idea generation has never really been easier than it is today. And that's why so many good
ideas come across people's plate that end up with 40 stocks. It's that shiny object syndrome.
But that is a good thing, right? Having better discovery and better idea generation with the
tools that exist. I'm trying to build out better idea generation for people looking for new ideas on stratosphere. And so I think that
what is happening in the innovations in FinTech right now are providing the regular investor,
the ability to perform institutional level investing in terms of the data they're getting,
the research they're getting, but also with the idea generation perspective. I mean, think of like FinTwit is pretty awesome. Like,
think of these guys would love to have Twitter and have these ideas bouncing around all the time.
From my perspective, it's a good and bad thing. I think the bad, I'm coming from the point where
there's a lot more information to sort through. Some of it is not always good. Some businesses,
they're not the
most reputable sometimes. It's a lot of groupthink too.
Yeah, exactly. So it's more like, I definitely agree with you that it's way easier for someone
to invest on the one hand, but also there's more crap to sort through. So it's creating that
balance and just be able to, like he said, think for yourself and not be afraid to go against the grain either. Simon, you are now a married man. And for people who are on the, know that
on the podcast, congratulations. And you had a little segment here about, and from lots of
listener questions, you know, financial conversations with your significant other
are not always easy, but they are so important.
I mean, they can't be, there might be nothing more important in your financial life.
So take it away with this segment.
Yeah.
So I'll just explain the way my wife and I look at our shared expenses, the way we approach it.
And obviously, you know, this is what works for me.
approach it. And obviously, you know, this is what works for me. But I've had this conversation with tons of other people in my life, and some actually have the similar approach. And some thought it was
a great way to look at because finances, wherever you look at it, if you have a spouse, a partner,
whatever it is, it can be a point of contention if it's, you know, if you're not on the same page.
be a point of contention if it's, you know, if you're not on the same page. So before I get started, like I said, this is not financial advice. For some context, my wife and I both
have permanent jobs and make salaries that are fairly similar. Well, actually, she makes a little
more than me. So I'll call her my sugar mama. But having said, Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, she is.
And we also have a good emergency
fund that would allow us to meet our expenses without having to touch any investment for at
least six months, probably quite a bit more. We decided the best approach for us was to have a
set amount that we put in a joint account every single pay. After that, we set an amount that we each put in our TFSA because we're not
maxed out just yet on each pay again. And whatever is left after that, we keep in our own personal
accounts and she can spend on whatever she wants. She loves to buy Lululemon clothes. And I think
she, you know, sometimes I think she has way too many, but that's okay. It's not my money. It's hers.
And I've had some expensive repairs for my mountain bike, and that's okay.
It's my excess money.
Your house is good customers of Lululemon.
Between you and your wife, wow, you guys are prime Lulu customers.
Yeah, I'm more strategic in my purchases. So in order to calculate what goes into our joint account, what we put in our TFSA,
and then obviously whatever is remaining is whatever is remaining. I've averaged out over
a year our monthly shared expenses. So I included everything here. The reason I used this approach
was because some of it were expenses that people would consider unexpected expenses.
The problem with unexpected expenses is they tend to happen every year. They're just in a different
form. So maybe not to the same extent. Of course, you know, if you have something like you have to
replace the roof, obviously, like that's a pretty major expense and it won't happen every year but averaging out actually gives you a good baseline and provides you a bit of a buffer at
the same time i found so i'll average out those expenses and i'll redo that every six months on a
trailing 12 month basis and adjust the money that we put in our joint account as necessary and now
with the inflation going up as rapidly as we're seeing
in terms of official figures, I probably might actually speed that up and redo it every three
months just to have a better sense and making sure that it's still on point. The reason we like this
approach is that it really gives us flexibility on things that we want to spend on and it gives
us a good balance. And like I said,
my wife for Lululemon, for me for my mountain bike, but it doesn't matter. It's her money. She
can do what she wants with it. And the same for me, it's my money and I can do whatever I want
with it. Using this approach really also makes us sure that we're both putting money aside on top of
our pensions on a regular basis in our TFSA.
You know, it could be an RSP, it could be a non-taxable account as well. Could we save more?
That's a good question that people might ask me. Of course we could. But I also think that you have
to create a balance between saving and enjoying your money while you still can enjoy it because,
you know, let's be honest. Everyone has an expiry date.
We just don't know when.
So you definitely want to save for the future.
And that's super important.
We talk about that all the time.
But I think it's important to be able to enjoy your money a bit right now as well.
So, you know, in conclusion for this segment, I would say this is not the approach that will work for everyone. Obviously, everyone's situation is different. Some people might have only one earner in the house. Some people may have maybe business owners, so they don't have that stability of income. a lot of couples will tend to just put all their salary, all their income into one joint account,
and that can often create disagreement on purchases that are non-essential.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So, you have it in your own separate accounts from the joint
account that gets dished out. And that way, you know, you can do whatever you want with it. There's
no kind of oversight. If your wife gets a, you know, a duplicate of that Lululemon shirt because she
wants to, then that's what she wants to do. You know, if you want to get new rims for your bike,
even though she might think you already have five pairs of rims, well, you want them. So,
that's what you're going to do, right? So, that's a good idea.
Yeah, or if I want to gamble on Montreal winning the Stanley Cup this year, you know.
We'll get to that. That's in some of the questions for later. Let's get into that actually. So the
rest of the podcast here, we're going to take some time. I made a little post on Twitter and said,
shoot us with some questions for ourselves that are not investment related.
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 so that you can choose
the ETFs that you want. And they charge no annual RRSP or TFSA account fees. They have an award
winning customer service team with real people that are ready to help if you have questions
along the way. As a customer myself, I've been impressed with Questrade's customer service. Whenever I call or email, every support
rep is very knowledgeable and they get exactly what I need done quickly. Switch for free today
and keep more of your money. Visit questrade.com for details. That is questrade.com.
That is questtrade.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 at airbnb.ca forward slash host. That is airbnb.ca forward slash host.
Let's kick it off. I'll read them here, Simon, and then we can chime in.
At the feller over there one, do you guys have any advice about time management? To me,
it looks like you guys are involved in a lot of things and would love to get some advice on how
you do it. So I mean,
how do you think about time management? Yeah, so for me, yeah, definitely. Obviously,
like I mentioned, I have a full time job and then researching the podcast, recording the podcast,
there's other stuff related to the podcast as well that we do. It definitely takes a lot of time and
then add in some spending time with my wife, some quality time with her, and then things like mountain biking.
So you have to make sure
you have some good time management.
So for me, it's pretty simple.
We usually record on Monday and Wednesdays.
Obviously, I'll block off time for that.
And then I'll do some research on weeknights.
I'll usually block off an hour and a half every day
on the weeknight except Friday
to do some research and some
podcast work. So it's consistent. So I don't have to do eight hours in a single day. And then,
you know, Brayden, I'll usually do notes for the Monday recording on the weekend. So I'll usually
set aside two, three hours to do that. So for me, that's worked pretty well, just doing, you know,
not too big chunks at a time.
That way I stay fresh, I don't get too tired, and it's kind of a consistent schedule.
Like it just works for my personality.
Having a schedule like that, it just makes it consistent and allows me to juggle everything that's going on in my life.
Yeah, fair enough.
For me, time management, I'm pretty busy. But at the same time, I can't
lie. I just work a lot. So I don't know if that's a really good answer to the time management
question because I work scary hours. That being said, it's because I'm trying to build a business
and I'm trying to do things that I care about. When I was working for someone else before and
just coasting and investing my
own money on the side, I didn't really have to think about time management now. But now, I mean,
I still get to do the things I want. Like I played like a hundred rounds of golf this summer,
you know, like that's a lot of time, you know, that is a significant amount of time.
And I'm still able to do the things that I want to do, you know, go up to the cottage on the
weekend, be a degenerate sometimes if I feel like it. These are the things that, you know, you got
to be able to have some time to do, but when you're working, get to work so that when you don't have
to work, you don't have to work. You know, you want to be able to separate those things, but you
can't separate them unless you, when you work, you're actually grinding. All right, from at juniorlad73, how do you guys handle the cold temps and winters in Canada?
I live in Iowa and I want to move south. Okay, wait, hold on. Hold on, Simon.
Depending on where he lives in Iowa, he could be north of me, just from a latitude perspective.
50% of the population in Canada,
because they're at the southern tip of Ontario, live below Washington State on the other side
of the coast, as a frame of reference. But anyways. So yeah, I guess that's on to me.
For me, I'm just going to say Netflix and chill. Just watching movies, I watch way more in the winter. That's
an understatement. But I also, you know, the little buddy, furry buddy likes to walk in the
winter. He's 15 pounds. He's a bit hairy. My Dachshund, yeah, he likes the winter. So I'll
bring him in Gatineau Park outside of Ottawa. So they have some nice trails. So even if it's minus
15, minus 20, he he's tiny but as long
as Lee's moving he usually stays pretty warm he's your dog's only 15 pounds yeah yeah he's uh
sounds very ferocious he's got a winter coat too so yeah okay at lab tech man if you could
be extremely talented at one thing, what would it be?
Oh, God.
Obviously, I play a lot of golf.
It would be pretty cool if I was like as good as a pro golfer.
Do you have anything?
I should have looked at these first.
Yeah, yeah.
For me, I mean, probably poker because I enjoy poker.
I mean, I do pretty well, but the top pros out there are just on another level.
They just think in units and
they just block out any value of money. So, it's pretty impressive to watch them play when you can
see their cards. And maybe a pro mountain biker, I mean, I'm pretty good, but some of the pros out
there, some of the guys in BC especially, I mean, yeah, I would not be able to do this stuff.
I mean, yeah, I would not be able to do this stuff.
At Wilksy777, when everything opens up, what's one country you want to travel to?
I really wanted to go to Portugal before my plans got canceled.
And now my girlfriend is Portuguese.
So I feel like it's double whammy to go there.
So that is one country I do plan on going to when the time is right. That being said, you know,
my parents, they are snowbirds and live in Florida most of the time. So I'm probably going to head down there south and get some sun this winter as well. Yeah, for me, it would be Bali because,
you know, we got married recently, but our original plan was to elope and get married in
May of 2020 in Bali. So that would be the place I'd want to go.
And Portugal was actually the other one. So I definitely, definitely on board with that. And
I'll read the next one for you. The next question. So a question from at you go underscore
Rabi Braden, what's your golf handicap? Everyone wants to know. I knew this one was coming and I saw it had like 10
likes on the post on Twitter. It's like, oh, my handicap right now is I do have to put in some
scores that were pretty good ones. So hopefully I broke into single digits. I am right now a 10.2
handicap. For those who are not familiar with golf, that basically means you're not a superstar, but you're pretty good, I guess.
But now with the recent scores I've put in like 81, 80, stuff like that, I am in single digits
now, but I haven't done it on my app yet. So I don't want to reverse sandbag you all.
I am officially right now at 10.2. I started the season at like a 15. So I think I'll be consistently going down,
but I absolutely love the game. Yeah. I won't say what mine is. It's not good.
Sideways eight. I'm just going to say, yeah, probably a 30 to 40.
We call that sideways eight. At ETSN. I don't know how to say that if you had to choose one meal to eat three times a day
for the rest of your life what would it be simon puts in i good they're smoking like a good french
canadian yeah what about you man i love thai food i think I could just absolutely diesel pad Thai every single day of my life and feel fine.
Thai food's good, for sure.
Putsin's the first one.
The second one would be pizza for me.
You'd have clogged arteries.
Actually, probably both would, but you'd have super clogged arteries.
Speaking of clogging your arteries, at T-DAS 1992, does pineapple belong on pizza, yes or no?
Depends if you ask me after I've gone to the dispensary or not. My answer is yes.
So wait, if you've gone to the dispensary, is that a yes or no?
Probably a yes, but normal simo would be a no. How about you?
I like Hawaiian pizza, but it's not going to be the one that I choose right out of the gate.
So I'm going to go with yes. It does belong on pizza. It just doesn't belong on every pizza.
At JC68, a bunch of numbers. What Canadian team is going the furthest this postseason?
Assuming it's NHL, right?
I'm going to strongly assume he's talking about hockey.
I don't know if I had to pick. I'm going to strongly assume he's talking about hockey. I don't know.
If I had to pick, I'm going to say – you know what?
I'll say Toronto.
Yeah, I'm a homer.
So I'm going Toronto.
I'm an absolute homer.
They're due of getting –
Well, they've been due for how many years?
At Colin Labonte, for Simon, how is his mental health these days being a Canadiens fan?
It's – you know, it's been hard watching games.
Are they on a big skid, right?
Oh, yeah.
They're like, I think, 3-12 or 4-12, something like that.
Like, it's one of their worst starts ever.
Yeah, I mean, it's not great.
But at the same time, I'm really thankful for the run they had last year that was really unexpected.
And if you asked me last year, would you trade the run for,
you know, a bad season? I probably would have said yes at that point. So, you know, it's all good.
They have some good young players. They'll probably bounce back in a year or two. I'm going to say
they're probably going to tank for the rest of the year. So I'm looking forward to the draft.
Anyone but the Senators, I think, is a good team this year.
Is that a fair statement?
I don't think Vancouver is all that great.
Oh, yeah, the Canucks are 5-9.
Okay, that's fair.
They have some good young talent, too.
That's funny.
I love the Flames.
I was born in Calgary, so the Flames are good.
The Oilers have the best player in the world.
That helps.
And the Jets, the Jets are great.
The Jets are 9-3.
I didn't realize they were 7-1 and 2 in their last 10.
So that helps.
I didn't realize they were so hot right now.
Yeah.
And then Montreal and Ottawa.
And Montreal and Ottawa.
At Rupesiepian, whatever that means,
what kind of workout program do you find works best for you? Simon, you used to be
a big, big gym guy. For me, I like to recently do cardio first for like half an hour, 35, 40.
I ran like 750 kilometers this year. So that's pretty good.
And then get into a workout.
When I was a big gym guy before, I used to just go straight to the gym, like no cardio and just be an absolute protein pony.
Now I find, you know, getting a sweat and doing a lift after is the way to go for me.
Yeah, for me, I mean, I did a lot of weights when I was younger, did not stretch enough,
had multiple back injury, knee injury.
So I used to be a good runner as well.
I would do 22 minutes for 5K just a few years ago, but my knee won't allow me to do that.
So I've mentioned it again.
I love mountain biking this summer.
But aside from that, I do a lot of mobility work.
So there's these little massage balls you can use on your glutes, on your hip flexors,
back and all that.
So I do that every single day in stretches.
And then I also incorporate some strength training in there.
And then in the winter, I'll do some, I have a bike trainer.
So I'll set up my road bike on there.
At Peg City Investor, Coke or Pepsi?
I don't care for, I don't care which one.
I find it tastes the same for me but i'll say
i buy usually coke yeah yeah same i feel like pepsi does taste slightly better but i just feel
like i like coke more and i don't know why probably just a branding thing at zach martin tnf so brayden
do you see yourself ever moving away from the GTA? If so, where would you go?
If not, what do you love about the city area the most?
That's a good question and one that I ask myself frequently. So for context, I do live in the GTA,
but the Greater Toronto Area, but I spend a lot of time at my cottage up near Muskoka.
I would love to live there on the lake. It's absolutely beautiful, but the winters are pretty
rough. They're pretty tough. I could see myself living kind of up near the lake for half the year
and then somewhere hot during the winter. Although I do love to snowboard.
So it's kind of like this trade-off and like outdoor hockey.
I love the winter activities,
but walking around in the windy, freezing cold weather is not always fun.
So where would I go?
Dude, I love Vancouver.
Cost of living is really high though.
Oh, because Toronto is so cheap, Simon.
Wow, that's true. That's true. Yeah, yeah. Two biggest housing bubbles on the planet.
You know what? I went to the East Coast for the first time in October and I really liked Halifax,
man. I thought Halifax was like, for people who are listening to Halifax, how is the city so clean?
Do people come and like lick the floors every morning?
Like it is so clean and beautiful and nice.
I like it there.
Maybe that's a good candidate for where I'd go.
Yeah, I don't know.
Like I think that winters are pretty bad though.
Like I know they get like when they get hammered with a storm, you know, it's not 10, 15 centimeters. It's like 50 centimeters or something.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, if you're living in Canada, you're going to deal with some snow.
So I guess that kind of comes with the territory.
I don't have a good full answer there for you, Zach, Martin, TNF.
But those are the kinds of things I'm thinking about.
You know what?
I do like Toronto.
I do like Toronto.
It's a good city.
I don't like the
traffic. If you are in the GTA, which is about 50% of the country by population, you know a good old
highway called the 401, and it is a miserable place to be. I hope to never go there, but you
end up there no matter what. That does it for this week, guys. Thanks so much for listening.
We've talked about investing strategy, Simon and his egregious spending on his mountain bike, Canadians putting way too much
money into their TFSAs just via cash and not investing it properly. That's a real problem
that we probably got to address. Thank you so much for listening. If you have not checked out
Stratosphere, you can type in any company and get all their financial statements. Simon's talking about
where to start investing in a company. That's where I start because I built it for that reason,
to answer that question. And then if you want, we do have memberships for subscribing to our
paid research. This is myself and my analyst team. There's also a community section there
where you can ask Simon and I questions. That is stratosphereinvesting.com.
We'll see you in a few days to decompress the last of earnings season and news coming out of juicy news, Simon.
Like Rogers, inflation prints, these kinds of stuff.
Visa.
Visa.
Amazon.
Yeah, Visa and Amazon duking it out.
We got some juicy news in a few days for
you guys. Take care. Talk soon. 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.