Hey gents, send your wife on a solo vacation.

Seriously, Mj hadn’t had a single night to herself in +18 months since Julia was born.

Sure, we went away on a 2 night getaway without the kid a few weeks ago, but that was still with yours truly—boring!

So I sent her packin’ for three nights to the King Fisher Resort in Courtney—which she said was an absolute 10/10.

Anyway, onto business.

Eddie

Personal Finance

Last week’s experiment was fun—I gave away my signature course for FREE to subscribers.

Why? Because I’m more interested at this point in people navigating the trials and tribulations of emotional investing with calm and confidence sooner rather than later.

Because it’s not about what your entry point is, whether you are investing in a taxable vs. non-taxable account, what sector you think is going to pump, what the tariffs mean for various global equities (and bonds), if the bull run is secular through to 2030, or if this is a bull trap.

No, what matters most is HOW MUCH MONEY YOU PUT INTO YOUR ACCOUNT.

Don’t get me wrong, the details do matter, but they fall second to ensuring you are contributing as much as possible to your future.

Otherwise, you’ll get a big fat F on your future report card.

Wishing you started earlier.

Don’t be that guy or girl.

Wall Street wants you to think it’s complicated. Then they subconsciously make you think it’s gambling, with the red and green lights flashing in your face. Green gets people excited. Red makes people fearful. Makes for massive wealth transfer from the gambler to the investor, and Wall Street gets a nice commission on the buy and sell.

Great investors don’t follow that crowd. They are the complete opposite—being greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy.

Better yet, for the average investor to be a great investor—the recipe is even easier: always buy.

Take the emotion out of it. Don’t listen to the news anchors—they sell attention, not investing advice. Don’t time the market. Don’t listen to your friend who has a new AI stock pick. Don’t do any of that.

Start small, be consistent, generate an automatic routine of paying yourself first, and before you know it, it will be on autopilot and you’ll be rich and relaxed, sipping margaritas on the beach, while many more will be drowning in sorrow from excessive debt and a portfolio of losers.

Sorry, turned into a bit of a rant there ;). Anyway, hope this helps.

And to the 40 or so folks who signed up: congratulations, and I hope it is all useful for you. Anyone who missed it, please see The Goodwill Investing Journal - Issue #70.

Of the 40, 2 have finished: well done. 9 have started but aren’t halfway, and the rest haven’t begun.

To the latter: take the bull by the horns, get it done.

💝 Newsletter subscribers get 10% off the Simply Investing course with the code: SIMPLYINVEST

🎁 Get $25 when you open a Wealthsimple account. Use my referral code: PRGS3Q

Stock Markets

When you buy a stock of Apple, you become an owner of Apple.

You, as an owner, participate in the profits, dividends, and growth of the company.

Stocks have infinite upside, since Apple can keep growing and growing.

But stocks are risky — they go up and down in price all the time. Apple may lose value if they sell fewer iPhones, and it may not survive forever.

This is the risk and reward of investing in stocks.

Some stocks do better than others…

For all the success of Apple and the FAANG stocks, there are many situations that have lost investors a lot of money. Look at Peloton—everyone has heard of this one.

COVID work-from-home made the Peloton business absolutely take off as people scrambled to buy at-home spin bikes and treadmills. The stock quadrupled from the mid-$40s to $160 in 9 months.

Investors foolishly assumed this trend would continue forever—it was priced for perfection. The problem with perfection is if any crack in the glass appears, it can shatter instantly.

As soon as lockdowns started to ease, eventually going away completely, the Peloton stock swiftly cratered to under $10/share, down 95%—lower than it was pre-COVID—and it has never recovered.

So when it comes to individual stock picking, remember this:

• In the short term, the stock market is a voting machine (media / reddit)

• In the long term, it is a weighing machine (fundamentals)

If you’re going to be a stock picker, you better know your stuff inside and out—and more importantly, size your position appropriately. Don’t put more than 10-15% of your portfolio into any one stock, because tomorrow, it could be worthless.

For everything else, there are Exchange-Traded Funds.

The S&P 500 is a great place to start.

Real Estate

Going to the Edmonton Real Estate Conference next week.

It will be marked by a day’s worth of speeches and discussions with top industry leaders on widespread topics like the future of real estate in Edmonton, broad macroeconomics, as well as breakout rooms with more nuanced topics such as the impact of technology on industrial real estate or how the City plans to deal with the decaying downtown core.

These are usually a bit dry and you don’t learn much, per se—no one speaking on these panels ever says something actionable, nor will many put their reputation on the line and make a bold prediction that differs from the consensus and/or they don’t want to divulge competitive advantage to a room full of competitors.

Nevertheless, these are very useful events in terms of networking.

Show up year after year and you begin to develop relationships with people who can open doors to future business opportunities, or inform you of important market knowledge that is otherwise unavailable anywhere else.

Unlike the stock market where there is a daily price mechanism with bid/ask spreads, Real estate is all about relationships.

You never know when you might meet a new investor, shake hands with a competitor that turns into a Joint Venture, or meet a broker with a solid investment opportunity to discuss.

Will report back next week.

1 Quote

“I’d rather have the opportunity to be a millionaire and fail than never have the opportunity at all”

An 18 year old reader of the Journal. This kid is going places.

A Question

Do you invest in ETFs or individual stocks? If both, how much in each?

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Thank you

Eddie Gudewill, CFA

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