S02E57 – Tim Martin – Transitioning from Mutual Funds to Individual Stocks

Key Timecodes

• (00:51) – Background history
• (05:54) – His media and video background
• (09:48) – Adobe and the evolution of that business model
• (11:59) – Understanding his investing background history
• (16:32) – The relationship with financial advisors and wealth managers
• (19:59) – When he started to manage his own investments
• (26:35) – How TYKR hepled him to have confidence in managing his investments on his own
• (29:42) – The importance of being transparent and objective to help people to manage their investments
• (32:06) – Education as the key factor to empower the TYKR users
• (34:06) – The crypto and tech bubbles as risks
• (36:08) – Where to find reliable information and good publications about finance and investments
• (45:14) – The worst business or investment advice he ever received
• (45:41) – The best business or investment advice he ever received
• (49:12) – Guest contacts

Transcription

[00:00:04.090] – Intro

Hey, this is Sean Tepper, the host of Payback Time, an approachable and transparent podcast on business investing in finance. I’d like to bring on guests to hear authentic stories while giving you actionable takeaways you can use today. Let’s go. Are you interested in managing your own investments but don’t know where to start? My next guest was in the same situation. He was told to trust the professionals for most of his life until he realized his returns were lower than the market average. He then tried to learn how to invest in the stock market on his own. But there really wasn’t anything out there that clearly organized investing step by step until he found ticker. In this episode, we talk about his career background and his journey to taking control of his own investments. Please welcome Tim Martin. Tim, welcome to the show.  

[00:00:53.090] – Tim

Hello, Sean. How are you doing?  

[00:00:55.990] – Sean

Very well. How about you?  

[00:00:57.000] – Tim

Excellent.  

[00:00:57.960] – Sean

Good to have you here. So you’re a retail investor, and we’re going to learn a little bit about your background. And speaking of, why don’t you tell us a little bit about your background, your career, and then we’ll lead into how you got into investing in stocks. First with an adviser, I believe, and then we’ll talk about how you started doing it on your own.  

[00:01:19.690] – Tim

Sounds good. Sounds good. Well, I was actually born and raised in Canada. I did the Canadian thing for about half my life, which was great. It taught me a lot about living within your means. At least that’s how they used to do it. I’m not so sure anymore, but that’s what they used to teach us. That was really helpful over the years, but I worked for a national news network in Canada, and they shipped me down to Washington, DC. When I was 25 and traveled around the world with a camera and covered wars and social events and just news events and just crazy stuff all over the place, which is just in your twenty s. Oh, my gosh. Could you think of a more fun career than that? Right, so it was great. It gave me an opportunity to save up money because we’d go on the road for a month and the company would foot the bill for all our expenses, and we worked 18 hours a day, so that was all over time. So it really helped out.  

[00:02:32.050] – Sean

Yeah.  

[00:02:33.490] – Tim

And then significant event happened one night when we were in Sarajevo during that conflict, and basically it was Serbian New Year, and the Serbs launched a rocket propelled grenade into the side of our hotel while we were up on the fifth floor. And it literally landed four floors below us and shook the building, and the windows broke and the side of the building was all smashed in. And I was like, I think this is over for me. I’m going to move on.  

[00:03:14.030] – Sean

Check, please.  

[00:03:15.630] – Tim

Check, please. And it wasn’t too long after that but I moved more into the corporate world, starting my own business, moved out here at Phoenix, which I didn’t really want to do, but it ended up being wonderful. And yeah, started my own business, which was great. Corporate video production and marketing. And during the 2000s, it was absolutely spectacular business to be in. So that’s kind of the background. Background.  

[00:03:52.530] – Sean

That’s great.  

[00:03:53.440] – Tim

You had asked about well, what else did you ask about, Sean? Yeah, background. Background.  

[00:04:01.950] – Sean

Yeah. That’s a good backstory in what you do for a living. I always like to know what kind of career or careers some people make multiple transitions, which is totally fine. And in your case, video production. I know a common ground we have is I had that first business in the late two thousand s that did video, but I jumped into business ownership right there. In the recession when nobody wanted to spend any money. It was brutal. And then you take projects for a fraction of the price, or in my case, I would, just to get some revenue and get some credibility and testimonials. It was a real grind.  

[00:04:44.290] – Tim

But you guys, by the way, killed it for us.  

[00:04:48.510] – Sean

Yeah. You were saying in another call that based on technology with cameras and then editing software, it seems like the learning curve to produce really good video, it’s been significantly shortened. Is that right?  

[00:05:03.000] – Tim

Oh my gosh, yes. And I love the new technology. It’s wonderful, but you just don’t have to know very much. You still got to be creative, but technically you don’t have to know much to get in these days. And it’s so cheap to get in. When I left DC, I was working in an edit suite that was $350,000. And it couldn’t even do a quarter of what a laptop with one of the big name software will do these days. The barrier to entry has dropped right through the floor. So that kind of killed the profitability, too.  

[00:05:53.760] – Sean

Yeah. Right. If you’re if you’re competing against so many people, I want to spend a little more time here on the video editing. I find it so interesting. And then we’re going to dive into investing. When you were working, I assumed this was through the really fancy suite, if you will, that’s 350K. Were you using Avid or was it like Final Cut?  

[00:06:17.610] – Tim

So the first Avid machines that came out machines, computers, software that was back in like 92, I think, 95, something like that. It was like right in that area. They were about $200,000. So they were the revolution at that time. But the $350,000 suite, that was all tape based with switchers and editors and character generators and everything’s plugged in all over the place, and it literally took up a full room.  

[00:06:54.530] – Sean

Yeah.  

[00:06:55.570] – Tim

You know, and then when Abbott came in, it was a it was somewhere around 95, maybe a little bit before that, there were about $200,000. And I was so excited when Abbott came along and I talked to guys, I said, oh, man, this nonlinear editing, this is the way to go. This is the greatest. Does this, does that. And I had guys look at me go, computers will never be fast enough to do video. I looked at it and I said, I don’t know, I think you’re wrong. But okay, whatever. You’re the expert. But no, it was great. But then Avids went down in Price, too. Absolutely. Everything went down in price, right?  

[00:07:39.910] – Sean

Yeah. My background, I think I was telling you in another call, I came out of school originally, went to school for architecture. I wasn’t going to cut it because he had to be really good at model building and drawing. And I was terrible at that. So I switched to fine arts with an emphasis on film. So we’re editing film on those Steinback machines. Very old school. Yeah. I think a 16 millimeter film splicing and taping was that a mess. And time consuming. And now with this, you know, nonlinear technology, you can you can have like a hundred different timelines of video and just reorder them and snip them together in seconds. It’s beautiful.  

[00:08:23.910] – Tim

Yeah. You still need some creativity.  

[00:08:27.000] – Sean

You do. Yeah. You can’t just go in blind in the next hour, you’re good to go. But it’s incredible. Adobe is what I started using back in school, Adobe Premiere, and then continue to use that for the years. But I know, you know, back in the 2000s, it seemed like it was a competition between Final Cut and Adobe.  

[00:08:48.640] – Tim

Yeah. Final cut. Well, you know, there’s been you know, over the years, there’s literally been, I have probably learned, 20 nonlinear edit systems since the beginning. But yeah, back in the 2000s, it was Abbott and Lightworks, and then Final Cut came in. And Adobe had been around since the late 90s, but they really sucked. It was awful. But once after Final Cut came around, they really got their game together. And plus they have Photoshop and After Effects and Illustrator and all these other great programs. So they put it all together. They’re doing really well. These days. I use Adobe Premiere exclusively because it’s just great. It’s just great. It’s super expensive, like, compared to everything else, but it’s good.  

[00:09:49.530] – Sean

It is. And we could talk about Adobe here and maybe a few stocks, including Adobe, a little later on in the podcast episode. That’s an incredible example of a company that switched from selling CDs as a one time purchase. What do they cost? Like, between $1,000 and $2,000. For the whole suite?  

[00:10:06.750] – Tim

Yeah, I used to spend $2,500 every two and a half to three years. I can’t remember what they called it, the suite back then. I could usually make it last for about two and a half, three years.  

[00:10:24.250] – Sean

Sure.  

[00:10:25.270] – Tim

Yeah. And it was painful, too. Oh, my gosh. Load everything and you got to update everything and then you got to get a CD in the mail so that you can update and it was ridiculous. Life is so much better now.  

[00:10:39.900] – Sean

Yeah. Then they switched to the SAS Model software as a service and subscription base. You can just download the products right from the web right to your device.  

[00:10:50.810] – Tim

It’s just beautiful. Now, I think they’re going to I mean, if we’re going to talk about the Adobe stock, I think they’re going to run into problems because they’re really expensive now. They’re super good right now. Right. But there’s an awful lot of software out there that is really coming up fast and it’s way cheaper. So I think they’re going to run into some pricing issues. But that’s just my opinion. Who knows? I would never buy the stock just because I think they charge too much for it for the software. I don’t know.  

[00:11:27.370] – Sean

I would disagree. I think the $50, I pay $50 a month and I’ve got all the tools I need. Photoshop premiere audition. I use Addition quite a bit for audio. It’s incredible. For $50, I’m like, yeah, I’ll do this. I’m good.  

[00:11:46.900] – Tim

Well, that’s good. Yeah. I just compared to the other stuff that’s coming up and I’m like, you guys are going to be in trouble. But totally personal opinion. We got the Sean Tepper video production show going on here.  

[00:12:01.830] – Sean

Yes, I’m sorry for diving into video so much, but this is a good transition point. Let’s dive into investing and let’s talk about how you got involved with a financial adviser or wealth manager a little bit. When did you start investing?  

[00:12:18.330] – Tim

Well, I guess my first real investment was when I was really young. Right out of college. I started putting away a few bucks in Canada. They called them RRSPs. So I’d buy $1,000 a year or something like that. And I tell you what, I’ve forgotten about those over the years. I think I have several of those sitting up in some account up in Canada somewhere. I had track them down but never amounted to a whole bunch. I got into real estate fairly quickly when I was about 25 just because I had all that, you know, overtime income which like, well, you know, I guess the thing to do is, you know, is buy condo. And then but shortly after that I started working with a financial adviser which, you know, at the time made a lot of sense. He made me feel really comfortable about what I was doing and we just did mutual funds and safe and I’ll tell you what, I watched it over the years and we just kind of poured money into it every month and did the dollar cost averaging like a good dubious supposed to do. And it worked out reasonably well.  

[00:13:43.960] – Tim

But years later I started looking at the returns and comparing it to the market and I’m going, we’re not really doing all that. I mean, it’s working, but it’s not really working super well for me, but I was so afraid at that time. It just seemed so daunting. I was good at real estate because I could go read a book, and I completely understood it, and I knew the people that I could ask advice of and talk to and and I was really comfortable with that, and I was very uncomfortable about the markets.  

[00:14:25.490] – Sean

Yeah. Can you share with us what kind of returns were you experiencing through the years?  

[00:14:31.110] – Tim

I think we beat the SFP 500, maybe three out of 18 years.  

[00:14:38.410] – Sean

Really? Oh, my gosh.  

[00:14:40.670] – Tim

It was just like, Why are we doing this? And I had heard years before that, well, Warren Buffett says you should just get an index fund and pour your money into that. And I have no idea why I didn’t take that advice. I was afraid. Right. How do I buy an index fund? I didn’t know, and I just didn’t ever take the time. I was busy. I was busy running up on the weekends, painting houses and fixing plumbing, and then, of course, all week I’d be working in the video world. And that was all going well. I just didn’t have time to research it.  

[00:15:20.060] – Sean

Yeah, right.  

[00:15:21.350] – Tim

And I tried a few times, but even trying to educate yourself is kind of tough. Right. Because well, where do you start? Well, you start here. Well, it’s like, I don’t get it. So then you kind of go over here, and it was just really scary for me for a long time. Eventually, I kind of got sick and tired of doing the mutual fund things thing, and I moved over to another advisor who was going to be in stocks, and I thought, well, that’s great, and this guy knows what he’s doing. And I thought, I did my research really well and wasn’t all that impressed. Took a much shorter amount of time this time.  

[00:16:04.470] – Sean

He wasn’t able to beat the market either.  

[00:16:08.310] – Tim

Yeah. I mean, I almost hate to go into it. It’s almost so painful. Okay, so let’s just say that yeah, definitely did not beat the market. Fairly abysmal, frankly. Wow. Okay. But that’s the way it goes.  

[00:16:32.990] – Sean

Right? Well, and this is not to knock any financial advisors or wealth managers, because their job is as a fiduciary to really protect your wealth. Not so much. Really? They’re not really able to build it. Yes, they’ll put it into mutual funds or index funds or ETFs. But it’s like you’re at best you’re going to just match the market, maybe beat it, but a lot of cases you won’t. And then answer questions such as I’ll bring up some weird examples that I probably won’t be able to answer, but these are the type of questions that will be delivered to them. And that’s what their certifications are for, is let’s say you have an aging parent and they have a broker and you want to go in. Now you want to manage that broker, but your name’s not on that brokerage account. What can you legally do and stuff like that? That’s where an advisor I think if it’s the series Seven or series 65 or whatever, they have that training, they can answer that same thing. It’s like, let’s say you’ve got a student in high school and everything’s going great, and then they make a choice in life that maybe is frowned upon with the parents, and there is a custodial account in place.  

[00:17:49.830] – Sean

Now the parent wants to say, hey, I want to take away the account from the child. Well, can you do that? Because you’re sharing it with the kid. Now they turn 18, isn’t it legally theirs? It’s stuff like that. And I’ve talked to advisors that they get questions like that and then it’s a lot of obscure things like estate planning can come up and it’s like, that’s good, that’s what they’re there for. But to really accelerate wealth building, it’s not their specialty.  

[00:18:17.190] – Tim

Yeah, and it’s good that you bring that up because it makes me feel a little bit better. They did protect, for sure, and I definitely got more than zero, so that’s okay, right. And I probably kept up with inflation maybe, plus a little bit. And so I didn’t lose the whole thing while I was busy off doing other things. So that makes me feel better. I appreciate it.  

[00:18:42.380] – Sean

Sure. Let’s take a quick commercial break. Do you feel like stock investing is too confusing, too time consuming, too risky? It doesn’t have to be. If you ever considered investing on your own but don’t know where to start, ticker is your solution. Ticker safely guides you through your investment journey by finding great stocks and showing you why those stocks are on sale, giving you the confidence that you’re making a wise investment. I created Ticker because, number one, I wanted to remove emotions from investing. In other words, I wanted a software to make buying and selling decisions for me so I don’t have to. Number two, I wanted to save time. Analyzing stocks can take hours, if not days. I didn’t want to spend all day looking at a computer. I have other hobbies in life I’d rather be enjoying. I’ve been using Ticker the last five years to generate average returns ranging between 15% and 50% per year. Seeing that I was generating consistent high returns multiple years in a row motivated me to turn this software into a tool to share with others. If you’re interested, you can get started with a free trial.  

[00:19:49.220] – Sean

Visit Ticker.com. That’s tykr.com again, Ticker.com. So let’s talk about how you transition to managing your own investments, I assume, was finding Ticker that moment, or did you start to kind of buy stocks before you found Ticker?  

[00:20:11.500] – Tim

No, I had never bought a stock in my life until after I bought Ticker. Okay, so kind of interesting. I mean, I bought a book here and there and how to invest in the stock market or how to do technical analysis like what do I do in reading that? Right? And I was just like, what the heck is a bollinger band? I just could not deal with it every time I went in. But I always wanted to and just kind of got to the point with the real estate. Right. That worked really well for me. And if you’re young and if you have a whole bunch of sweat equity that you want to put into it and don’t have a whole bunch of money, that could be a really good way to go. Right. But I’m sort of the age now where I don’t want to do that anymore. It’s been fun. I don’t regret it, but I just don’t want to do it anymore. And then I kind of slowed things down and instead of I still run my business full time, but I kind of got a little cheesier over the last few years and I have some wonderful clients and I still work on some wonderful projects.  

[00:21:29.960] – Tim

But the other stuff I’m not too excited to take anymore, I guess for lack of a better way of explaining it, which leaves me a little extra time. And I ran across Ticker and I started reading about it and it’s like, oh well. And you talked about the SAS itself and how it worked and the value investing. Of course Warren Buffett’s name came up, which immediately I was drawn to because who doesn’t have respect for him? And then you started talking about the educational part of the software on the site and I went, you know what? For not a huge investment I could go in and maybe learn all kinds of great things. This might be a great way to spend a little bit of time. And so I just thought, hey, you know what? For the small investment, for the investment in time and the fact that I’ve always been interested in it, always wanted to do it, let’s roll the dice and see what happens. Worst thing that can happen is I lose a year’s worth of membership fees. Right? Sure. But that’s not bad. So I went in and you know what?  

[00:22:47.510] – Tim

Honestly, within 2 hours I understood what value investing was. I understood just the real basics. Right, but you taught me those in financial statements and yeah, okay. After 2 hours I couldn’t read a financial statement, but I knew the importance of them.  

[00:23:10.060] – Sean

Sure.  

[00:23:10.410] – Tim

And I knew why we wanted to know all about them and I just thought, well, that’s spectacular. So I put a few stocks in the watch list, just put them in there. And then on your advice, I went out and read Phil Town’s Payback Time, which just made so much sense. And the only part about it that I was really struggling with was that was the calculations at the end of the book struggle with this, right? Because I’m a creative, I’m not a math guy at all. But that wasn’t a problem because that’s what Ticker is all about, is sort of helping you with those financial statements and showing you that you can look at a nice chart. I can see that it’s going up or it’s going down, and I can compare that with what happened in the last five years. I can do that. Right. I have a real tough time, sort of when the calculations get crazy. And then about halfway through Phil Town’s Book, I went, yeah, here’s two grand. And I went out and I bought Google, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon.  

[00:24:30.470] – Sean

Nice.  

[00:24:32.550] – Tim

Because at the time, I think, well, Google’s margin of safety at that time was 90 and their score was can’t remember what their score was way up there. Right? It’s like, wow, this is a no brainer. And in the long term it is. And I’ve just continued this whole all this started what, June? So I’ve been okay.  

[00:24:55.620] – Sean

Fairly recent.  

[00:24:56.550] – Tim

Yeah. So my timing really couldn’t have been better, right? Unless it was today. If my timing was today, that would have been better. Right. But that’s not realistic. And I just buy a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. And I don’t have everything under my own management right now, but I’m working towards that.  

[00:25:16.680] – Sean

That’s great.  

[00:25:17.320] – Tim

And I have a fairly significant chunk. Some people would think it’s some significant, some people would think it’s not. That’s the way the world works. And I have a couple of others as well. Kind of branched out, didn’t just do tech, a little bit of home building, because real estate is close to my heart, of course. So I had to do a little bit of that as well. So it’s going well. And I think that just so I’m not even stressed out about it. Well, I think I’m only down 3% or I think 5% fluctuates between three and five. Right. Because I bought all the way down. And so when the market takes back off, takes off again. So I noticed things, right? Over 30 years, you kind of notice when the market goes down, it always comes back up and it usually comes roaring back.  

[00:26:20.840] – Sean

It does.  

[00:26:21.690] – Tim

I didn’t even have to be told that one, surprisingly, but yeah, so it’s long term, it’s going to take a couple of years, but looking good so far. Having a lot of fun, too.  

[00:26:35.980] – Sean

That’s good. It sounds like using Ticker, it really helped give you the confidence that really told you you can do this on your own, right?  

[00:26:48.280] – Tim

Well, yeah, because you can see it. Right. You can literally see what it’s doing in the market. How much debt do they have? How much liability do they have? Is it a strong company? You know, if you’re buying a strong company that they can weather any storm. Right, right. And that’s what I know, in Ticker because it’s all laid out. The numbers are all right there, and I can see everything. And if there’s something else I do want to see, there’s links to go out and do additional research if I want to learn more about certain company or a certain stock or whatever. Right. It’s not just, oh, I’m going to make you 12%. It’s, like, right there in black and white in front of you. And I love that.  

[00:27:32.770] – Sean

That’s awesome. Great to hear. And here’s a question for you. I know there are some people that like the idea of somebody else managing their money and kind of clicking the buttons in whatever broker they use to buy shares of this, that or whatever. Do you like having the power like you’re in the driver’s seat, you know what you want to buy, and then you can go over to your broker and make that purchase or sell on your own?  

[00:28:02.620] – Tim

Well, I’ve been enjoying it. I think it’s great. Right now, I have a little bit of time that I can do the research, and I think that is at work. It’s not just like, snap your fingers and it’s over. You got to go in and you have to look, and you have to spend a little bit of time. You’re not going to do it on five minutes once every three months. Right. That’s not the way it works.  

[00:28:30.770] – Sean

Right.  

[00:28:31.220] – Tim

But with a small amount of time and research, if I feel empowered right. And I feel real solid about what I’m deciding, I do a lot of extra reading, too. Right. I’m always reading something. And my brokerage account, they have some great research also. Well, it doesn’t make sense to ignore that. May as well read that as well.  

[00:28:54.860] – Sean

Sure. So it sounds like Ticker is your main tool, and then you’ve got your broker. I’m curious, what broker do you use?  

[00:29:02.320] – Tim

I’ve been using Merrill edge.  

[00:29:04.520] – Sean

Okay.  

[00:29:06.590] – Tim

I really like them because I won’t say the name of the other brokerage account, which was a big name with the other situation. They literally cannot tell me how much money I put in in the beginning, how much did I actually invest? What’s my cost basis when I started? And it can’t tell me that.  

[00:29:30.840] – Sean

That’s ridiculous.  

[00:29:31.740] – Tim

Merrill Edge, it’s just right there, right in front of your face. This is how much you put in. Like, that’s great. Why can’t I figure that out? The other software.  

[00:29:42.430] – Sean

I tell you what, transparency and using technology to make things transparent is so important, especially today. I was actually reading an article last night on this where the retail investor, they crave good clean education. Like, get to the point. Don’t give me 15 paragraphs of fluff right there. There’s that. And then get to the point. Like, be transparent. Because there’s systems, and I know going back probably 20 years, this is before I was investing is if you had an advisor, it’s like, you would just have to trust and be like, yeah, you’re either up or you’re down. Take my word for it and go back to doing what you do. I’ll take care of your money. And it’s like, no, that won’t fly today. Yeah, right. You want to see the actual dollars and the cents and the percentages? Where am I at? At this very instance, we try to at ticker, we try to be as transparent. Like, we’ve got a portfolio tracker here coming really soon. As of the recording, this is November 22, so hopefully in the next few weeks. But people can actually track that track to the dollar. Where’s their portfolio and the percentage?  

[00:30:56.650] – Sean

And we really feel like, based on our requests, customers asking for this, we really feel like this is going to be a cool feature.  

[00:31:04.000] – Tim

Right? Yeah, I’m looking forward to it. Looking forward to it. I like the updates that have happened since I’ve been around, too. It’s nice to see things moving forward and whatnot, more tools, more toys? Well, something to play with, too. Right?  

[00:31:23.930] – Sean

Yeah, right. Like, the portfolio tracker is one alerts. You’re going to be able to add alerts to stocks, ETFs, and crypto because we’re adding ETFs and we’ll analyze ETFs, so people are interested in that.  

[00:31:37.790] – Tim

Okay, I got to call you out on the carpet here.  

[00:31:40.240] – Sean

Yeah.  

[00:31:40.960] – Tim

I hate to do this to you because you’re a nice guy and you’re treating me really well.  

[00:31:45.200] – Sean

Hit me, don’t hold back.  

[00:31:46.980] – Tim

But when I got on the ticker, you were like, when I was reading your stuff, you’re like, well, crypto is like, not what we do. And so we won’t be doing I don’t know if you said we won’t be doing crypto, but you’re just like, we’re not about that. And I can bring this feature out.  

[00:32:07.850] – Sean

This is based on demand. And the idea is it all comes back to education. Is there’s a ton of people like, if you were to look at Google search results out there, there are more people searching for crypto, especially right now with what happened to FTX. Yeah, right. There’s a mess. But people just over the last five years just are Googling and getting into crypto. And there’s wealth managers that are doing the same thing we’re doing is, yes, offer it as a product, but educate people. Like, for example, our UI UX designer Yakub was on the podcast, he talked about this, and we’re very much in line. If you’re going to invest in crypto, try to go 5% or less of your net worth. You want to be minimal investment. And I’ve talked to people that are like 50, 60, 70%. That’s way too risky. Right. Especially for an asset that, as we say with ticker, you’re not investing in the stock market, you’re not investing in stocks, you’re investing in businesses, because businesses have income statement, cash flow statement, and balance sheet. Whereas crypto, it’s not a business. That does not have that. There’s no fundamentals, there’s no income.  

[00:33:28.770] – Sean

Right?  

[00:33:29.620] – Tim

Yeah. It’s just a big speculation. Of course, ethereum now that actually has a purpose. Correct.  

[00:33:37.400] – Sean

And I know the smart contracts.  

[00:33:39.930] – Tim

Yeah, yeah. At least they got they have some sort of a product or something. Right. But some of these things, like, what are they for?  

[00:33:49.740] – Sean

Yeah.  

[00:33:50.580] – Tim

You know, it’s almost like the.com back in the late 90s, it’s like, oh yeah, we’re a crypto. Great, okay, well, here’s some money. I don’t know, didn’t make sense to me back then, doesn’t make sense to me now.  

[00:34:06.270] – Sean

Right. You’re 100% right. Because you go back 20 years, there were businesses I remember this is they would literally add a.com to their name and their share price would just skyrocket overnight. Yet at the same time, their financial statements were awful. And then, of course, when the bubble bursted, all of these tech stocks is what is the warm butt. He has the old saying that says, only when the tide goes out do you know who’s been swimming naked? Well, you found out there are a lot of businesses, a lot of people swimming naked. Really bad businesses. But the strong tech businesses we know today, they held on. They recovered really well. Like you think of the apples and the Microsoft of the world.  

[00:34:54.620] – Tim

I got a, I got a good one for you.  

[00:34:56.720] – Sean

Sure.  

[00:34:57.250] – Tim

So back in I can’t remember what it was, 99, 2000, whatever it was, right at the very height. So for about, what, two or three years or whatever it was before that, it was the guy that I was with. Right. And don’t get me wrong, both these guys were good guys. They’re good guys and they’re honest guys and whatnot, but anyway, the guy I was with at that time and we were doing mutual funds, and he’s just like, yeah, we are not going into this.com. It’s going to be a bubble. It’s not real. It’s not the real thing, tim, we’re staying away from that. And I said, okay, I’m with you. Whatever you think. Literally three weeks before the bus, he finally goes, you know what, I don’t think we can ignore this any longer. We got to get in.  

[00:35:53.890] – Sean

Really?  

[00:35:55.570] – Tim

Luckily, we didn’t go in huge. We just had a little bit.  

[00:35:59.830] – Sean

Okay.  

[00:36:00.850] – Tim

It’s just like, isn’t that my luck?  

[00:36:05.270] – Sean

That’s the thing, is there’s so much chatter that goes on with at the time. It’s more online news publications and probably physical newspapers and then the TV, right? What you hear on the news on TV that’s hitting you from all angles, they’re like, you got to buy now, you got to get this, you got to get and there are people I know that they told me names of tech businesses I have never heard of. They’re like, yeah, I put in $10,000 in this thing, and you don’t think it’s going to go to $100,000 in the next year?  

[00:36:33.700] – Tim

Year.  

[00:36:33.890] – Sean

And a half, and next thing it goes to zero. And I asked them, I’m like, did you get a chance to look at their financial statements? Well, as soon as I finish that.  

[00:36:44.050] – Tim

Sentence, they’re like, what’s a financial statement?  

[00:36:50.370] – Sean

Let’s just look at the top line of the income statement. Like, that revenue. Is that increasing year over year, the last five years? If so, move on to the net income. Right. And then there’s people that still come to us on Ticker that and this is good. They’re completely new. And they come at me with, like, they’ll find some new tech stock that will be in another country. That’s overpriced, severely overpriced. Like, this is all over the news. People are saying it’s going to the moon, but Ticker says it’s overpriced. And that’s when I’m like, let’s not even look at the summary or the score or the MLS. Let’s just look at the financial statements. And I’ll literally send screenshots showing five years. Like, here’s the revenue.  

[00:37:37.730] – Tim

Has there been any?  

[00:37:43.330] – Sean

Well, there’s that, but it’s severely nosediving like a sinking ship. We’re on the Titanic. It’s time to get in the lifeboats. And the same thing with that net income and the debt increasing, like, all the red flags. But when you really look at this is like, anybody out there? If they ever question Ticker ticker’s algorithm is not complex. I really give credit to Phil Town because he laid it out in his books. But it’s like you’re looking at the basic numbers, and if the right numbers are going up year over year, that’s a good sign. If they’re going down, it’s a bad sign. It’s really that simple. Yeah.  

[00:38:20.580] – Tim

And it makes sense, and you can understand it once you get in and you read through and you kind of watch your videos and whatnot. I get it. I really understand. But, yeah, you talk about, this is all over the news thing I’ve been reading in the last while, so much in terms of and I read the good ones, wall Street Journal, bearings, that kind of stuff. At least what I think are the good ones. Right?  

[00:38:56.410] – Sean

Yeah, those are good.  

[00:38:57.200] – Tim

Yeah. But even they like I mean, they’ll say one thing one day, and the next day they’ll say the exact opposite.  

[00:39:04.610] – Sean

Clicks. Yeah.  

[00:39:07.370] – Tim

It’s just ridiculous. It’s like, well, you can’t got to be real careful about what articles you read. And I have a real problem with emotions at the beginning. Oh, my gosh. Right? Roller coaster. Yeah, the roller coaster, you called it. And that’s exactly what it was in the beginning because I was reading all this stuff, and now everything I read, I read with a grain of salt. Yeah, that might be I’ll look into it a little further.  

[00:39:36.550] – Sean

But one thing I found is those are all great publications you listed. I like listening to motley fool. His podcast. Chris Hill, I think, is a real character, great personality, and the people who pretty much host on the show with him.  

[00:39:54.750] – Tim

Would you like to know what they would recommend instead of this stock that they’ve just told you about for the last 1520 minutes?  

[00:40:03.340] – Sean

Yeah, I’d like right there’s that I like it because if you listen to them objectively and just hear like, okay, so they’re mentioning this business. I always go back to the what I call the source, which is ticker to really understand. But sometimes you’ll hear somebody talking about a stock I wasn’t too familiar with and build list some things that do make sense, like maybe EPS has been increasing consistently. And I’m like, okay, all right, you have my curiosity. I’m going to go over the ticker and see how we’re really doing. But you’re right, you got to take it with a grain of salt. And another thing, too, is with the publications. Don’t just look at the publication in its name. Look at who wrote the article. Like, who is the analyst? What have they done career wise? Because if you can get to understand, because then you see common names on common articles. And I will see that within the Motley fool quite a bit. People who are not on the radio show, but they’re more just writers, and you kind of figure out what are their favorite stocks, and they’ll be more in favor consistently even when things aren’t looking so good.  

[00:41:13.940] – Sean

But yeah, it’s that if you can look at it objectively, look at the individual analysts writing the article, it makes it a little easier than just seeing, like, oh, it’s got barons on it. So this is going to be a good investment.  

[00:41:29.450] – Tim

Yeah, if you’re just starting to get into it, you’re reading, don’t make a move until you read those papers for good. Six months from Wednesday to Thursday.  

[00:41:49.830] – Sean

Well, this has been really good, and thanks for sharing your investment journey, going from more mutual funds and advisor. And I know you’re still working with an advisor, which is good. There’s a lot of people that they have part of their portfolio with an advisor, maybe in something a little more safe. But then if you’re using ticker to go after individual stocks, that’s where things can get really exciting. You can accelerate your wealth building process. But what I’d like to do next is dive into the rapid fire round. This is the part of the episode where we get to find out who Tim really is.  

[00:42:21.140] – Tim

Oh, my gosh. I get the rapid fire around Tim.  

[00:42:24.260] – Sean

Absolutely. We can’t hold back here.  

[00:42:27.010] – Tim

I should have gone back and listened to some episodes and practiced. I hope I can think of something.  

[00:42:34.510] – Sean

If you have to skip, that’s fine, but let’s see if we can get through these in 15 seconds or less. You ready? Let’s do this. All right, so the first question is, what is your favorite podcast?  

[00:42:45.090] – Tim

Oh, payback time.  

[00:42:48.070] – Sean

I know when people say that I.  

[00:42:49.450] – Tim

Always have to question up with another one. I do like podcast because you talk to a lot of different people about a lot of different things. Right. And so I like to find out. I remember a few weeks back, we heard about the guy who drills oil. I found out so much about the oil business, so it was great education. But I got another one, too. Let’s see. I like marketplace Tech is pretty good.  

[00:43:22.140] – Sean

Okay.  

[00:43:23.390] – Tim

I heard of it. Gosh, you know what? There’s a whole bunch of them. They’re on my phone. Yeah. But I listen to the NPR financial stuff.  

[00:43:32.070] – Sean

Sure.  

[00:43:32.950] – Tim

So there’s three or four of them I listen to. Yeah.  

[00:43:36.150] – Sean

Cool.  

[00:43:36.790] – Tim

Oh, freakonomics.  

[00:43:38.240] – Sean

That’s a good one. Yeah.  

[00:43:40.710] – Tim

Okay.  

[00:43:41.620] – Sean

Yeah, you got some good ones in there. All right, next question. What is a recent book you read and would recommend?  

[00:43:48.330] – Tim

Well, it’d be too obvious to say Phil Town’s, payback Time, but I would definitely recommend that to anybody who was kind of in the same boat as me. It just really spells it all out.  

[00:44:02.910] – Sean

For you right up. All right, the movie question. What is your favorite movie?  

[00:44:08.970] – Tim

Spinal Tap.  

[00:44:10.490] – Sean

Right.  

[00:44:11.410] – Tim

Love it.  

[00:44:12.300] – Sean

Take it to eleven when you need a little push over the edge.  

[00:44:16.370] – Tim

That is so classic. It is so well done. It is so clever. And people back in the day, I don’t know if it’s ever watched anymore, but, I mean, I can still go back. I’ve probably seen that movie 30 times, and every time I go back to see it, I always see something. There’s something else in there that I missed last time.  

[00:44:40.970] – Sean

It’s classic. Why don’t you just make ten louder?  

[00:44:44.330] – Tim

Exactly.  

[00:44:45.180] – Sean

But this one goes to eleven.  

[00:44:47.450] – Tim

Or they’re playing that one song, and it starts out with super heavy bass, and they pull back the camera. The second guy’s also got a bass. They pull back the camera further, and the third guy’s got a double necked base.  

[00:45:07.330] – Sean

Ridiculous.  

[00:45:08.710] – Tim

Oh, my gosh. So many. But yeah, spinal Tap for sure.  

[00:45:13.200] – Sean

Top of the list.  

[00:45:13.980] – Tim

Nice.  

[00:45:14.360] – Sean

All right, we got a few business or investing questions. First up, what is the worst business or investment advice you ever received?  

[00:45:24.000] – Tim

Give it to the professionals.  

[00:45:27.050] – Sean

Nice.  

[00:45:30.730] – Tim

I have friends who are financial advisors, and they’re good guys. I’m not slagging anybody. It’s just that I should have put the effort in earlier.  

[00:45:41.470] – Sean

Right on. And then flip the equation. What is the best business or investment advice you ever received?  

[00:45:49.790] – Tim

Start young, I guess. Start young. Start doing something young. Don’t wait until you’re 30. Like, the second you get an opportunity, start putting it away. Because over the years, compound interest. Compound interest. I mean, it does work. It is what is the 8th wonder of the world? That’s it. Whatever they call it, it just truly is great advice.  

[00:46:20.570] – Sean

And last question here is the time machine question. If you could go back in time to give your younger self advice. What age would you visit and what would you say?  

[00:46:30.330] – Tim

I was thinking about this one. One time when you asked somebody else the question, I said, what would I say? And I had just the greatest answer in the world. Yeah, exactly. So if I had to go back in time and give myself advice, gosh, you know what? Number one, listen to the older guys. Listen to the older guys. There’s times when I was in my 20s where I looked at the older guys, I didn’t give them enough due.  

[00:47:10.270] – Sean

Sure.  

[00:47:10.970] – Tim

And I could have done much better about getting myself really good mentors. I definitely had a couple, and they were spectacular. But there was other opportunities I missed because I wasn’t paying enough attention to the guys who’d all been through it before. And that’s easy for me to say now that I’m up there in age. Right.  

[00:47:42.130] – Sean

Well, you do have some good words of wisdom here. Hopefully, people do listen to but you’re right. I think at some point we’re young, we’re ambitious, we’re smart, we know better. There’s that type of attitude. And as you get older, you look back, you’re like, I was an idiot. At least I do with myself with some circumstances.  

[00:48:07.440] – Tim

Well, I’m really pleased with my oldest son. He’s 17 now, so he’s just kind of getting started and just about to branch out on his own. And he does listen to me sometimes, but he doesn’t necessarily come to me for advice. But I know that he’s got three guys that he goes and talks to and ask them their opinion on this, that and the other. And and, you know, guys that he respects, you know, in their twenty s and twenty s and thirty s. Right. So they’re they’re not old like dead, but they are older and they have a little bit more experience. And he’s talking to those guys, and I always ask, well, what do they say? And I would say, for the most part, they’re doing a pretty good job of giving them some good advice. So I’m happy about that.  

[00:49:01.700] – Sean

That’s great. Excellent.  

[00:49:03.890] – Tim

All right, Tim.  

[00:49:04.660] – Sean

Well, thank you so much for jumping on the show and sharing your background. Here.  

[00:49:10.910] – Tim

A whole bunch of fun.  

[00:49:13.310] – Sean

I always like to turn it over to the guest. Is there a website or maybe a LinkedIn people? If they have any questions, they could reach out to you?  

[00:49:22.390] – Tim

Sure. Did you say email?  

[00:49:25.590] – Sean

Email is great, too.  

[00:49:27.080] – Tim

How about Tim@globalparadox.com?  

[00:49:32.140] – Sean

Easy peasy. Well, very good. We’ll make sure we promote that email address when we promote the episode here. Should go out in the next maybe three to four weeks or so. But again, thank you so much for your time.  

[00:49:47.260] – Tim

Absolutely. Thanks, Sean.  

[00:49:48.900] – Sean

All right, we’ll see you. Hey, I’d like to say thank you for checking out this podcast. I know there’s a lot of other podcasts you could be listening to, so thanks for spending some time with me. Also, if you have a moment, could you please head over to Apple podcast and leave a review? The more reviews we get, the more Apple will share this podcast with the world. So thanks for doing that. And last thing, if you do hear any stocks mentioned on this podcast, please keep in mind this podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Please do not make a buy or sell decision based solely on what you hear. All right, thanks for your time. Talk to you later. See you.