Hey friends,

Today a warning about online influencers manipulating people and taking their money—and no, not me! I don’t have a big enough following to be considered an influencer 😉 

Then I evaluate the SPDM SP500 Momentum ETF which a new—and highly successful contact via this newsletter I might add—asked me about.

Toodaloo.

Personal Finance

Watch out for people on social media with 500,000 to 1,000,000 followers that are gonna take your money and run.

So I came across this lady, Dow Janes…good name by the way…

She has 500,000 followers on instagram and was advertising a Free Class:

So I did the one-and-a-half-hour free webinar.

And they didn’t tell us anything about how to manage money.

Just sharing stories about people that have done terrible with money and have somehow become multi millionaires.

And then, the last 30 minutes of that 1.5 hour webinar was pitching this:

A $4,000 course sign up, USD! That’s big time money folks.

And so I go onto Reddit to read reviews from people that have experienced Dow Janes.

And I quote:

“It felt like a sales pitch where they tell you success story after success story - Lots of buzz words and information that is available for free online.”

“Seems disingenuous to me that a company that preaches about helping women get out of debt is asking for so much upfront and locking them into a payment plan they can’t get out of.”

“You cannot cancel if you change your mind or can no longer pay. See some of the complaints that were filed on BBB (Better Business Bureau)” [EG note: read some of those BBB complaints, they are dark.

“I started crying feeling really emotionally baited and manipulated. I was so excited to do the MDY and now I am looking into cancelling. I’m realizing that this was a sales call and I feel really upset about the way Dow Janes structured this call, and this totally harmful experience. I’m blown away by the exploitation of vulnerability I felt today.”

Some of you will bark back: but Eddie, you sell an online course about investing!

Yes, I do! And you can check it out here.

It costs $200, one time, downloads the most important things I’ve learned in a 15 year career in finance (mortgages, equity research, portfolio management, financial planning, many family wealth discussions both internal and many more external), all aimed at making investing simple and accessible for as many people as possible.

And by the way, 100% lifetime money back guarantee. You just have to click a button, you don’t even have to ask me. And of the well over 100 course sign ups, only one person has ever gotten their money back—tear for me 😢 

If you think I’m a snake oil salesman or highly disingenuous, fine. Unsubscribe if you will. But I hope that’s not the case. I put a lot of time and effort into this. The main mission being to illuminate and simplify the investing world which sometimes includes a well deserved rant about this or that and calling out the bogus predatory sharks that deserve it IMHO.

And even though this journal is a major negative return on time from a pure numbers perspective, there are many other benefits. One, I actually have fun doing it. Plus all the networking, opening doors, a way to both teach and learn, and get inspired from your stories.

So, cards are on the table.

And beware of the those scammers online that use manipulation to lock you into payments that you will never, get, back.

Many gracias.

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Stock Markets

Question: Hi! What do you think of SPMO ETF? That’s the US one. There is a similiar canadian one XMTM. But it looks like a successful one?

Answer: Ok, did some analysis. Short answer is I like the idea, but we’re always trading risk for reward.

Long answer:

Invesco S&P500 Momentum ETF (Ticker SPMO) has done better than the basic iShares Core S&P500 ETF (Ticker IVV) for 10 years annualized, with a lower maximum drawdown. So too has it outperformed iShares Momentum Factor ETF (Ticker XMTM) which has underperfomed both. Reminder, past performance isn’t a guarantee for future results.

Regarding SPMO vs the Canadian equivalent XMTM, SPMO is a better option.

It’s been around longer, has far more liquidity, lower management expense ratio, and it’s performed much better because it exclusively tracks the top 100 momentum stocks in the S&P 500, and for anyone watching, large cap momentum has dominated.

XMTM has underperformed because it tracks an index that mixes large-cap and mid-cap momentum names, so it gets watered down with sectors like industrials and financials that have lagged relatively speaking. XMTM is also traded in Canada so it get’s the currency gain or loss depending on the move in CAD/USD. Even still, it has underperformed significantly as the annualized currency change has been about 1.8%/yr for five years. So I like SPMO over XMTM because it is a pure play on this theme.

But one problem with owning SPMO is that it’s a US asset and you are Canadian. If you choose to buy this, be sure to own it in a corporate non-registered account otherwise it would be subject to US estate tax given your large net worth.

Does it mean I favour the momentum ETF over the basic index? Not quite yet. Just because it has a higher 10-year annualized return than the regular S&P 500 as momentum has generally been the "dominant theme” vs old school “value”, it has underperformed the S&P 500 in four of the last ten years: 2023, 2021, 2019, and 2016.

So even though it’s been outpacing the basic index lately, it doesn’t mean the next one-year return will be higher or that Value won’t come back into vogue. Truly deep factor rotations (i.e. 2008/2009) where quality wins over momentum could change the setup here.

Predicting those types of events or changes is not my shtick. That’s something you’ll have to decide. Knowing your track record, you’ll probably make the right call.

Real Estate

It’s been a while since we’ve written an offer to purchase an asset.

Sending one in next week.

See how it goes.

1 Quote

“Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes”

—Jim Carrey

A Question

Have you ever been duped or scammed online? If so, share your story!