Earnings Season - A Chat on Investing, Forex, Mindset & Money w_@DmytroAson

Episode Date: July 9, 2020

This week @RTRowe & @HDanhai get joined by a guest from a lost episode, Dymtro Ason (@DmytroAson). They have a chill, free-ranging chat where they touch a lot of topics including; the often hot, Jamaican Salaries vs. Elsewhere, Investing types, Dymtro's view on the local market, Corona (of course) and many more. Even Socialism v. Capitalism got a mention and of course, a few stocks get thrown in the mix.Come for the gems💎, stay for the vex 🤣Keep up with Dmytro here -> https://gumroad.com/dmytroasonContact Us Here 💻 👇🏾📧 [e-mail]💻 podcast.everymickle.comFollow us on Twitterwww.twitter.com/Earnings_Seasonwww.twitter.com/RTRowewww.twitter.com/HDanhaiLinksKwame's New Role - https://bit.ly/3gyhHT4Renaissance Technologies - https://www.rentec.com/Book: The Man Who Beat The Market - https://amzn.to/2BR7eDuShout-Outs@mroshad1, @UncleBellie, @MsGillyJ, @philburginvests and a  special biggup to @starbucksJAM from our guest @DmytroAson and us the coffee lovers! ★ Support this podcast ★

welcome to earning season this is daniel hall at hdan on twitter and i'm randy roe randy in real life r2 on twitter yes and we are back we're back with another week of finance goodness wow i said that and it sounded corny to me it's only like you didn't believe what you were saying is that yeah you might have to do with that long long mic review we're doing right now yes it might it might have something to do with that um guys uh we're going to continue until we are continuing but not quite in in the way that um we have been doing it in the past and we're going to stop but i don't have a pretty way to put it it can get pretty boring um you look at a lot of stocks all the time just naturally when you do what daniel and i do in terms of being serious

about investing and i would talk about it normally and then of course that's pretty much all that most people i talk to me talk to me about yeah and that's what they say on twitter so for you guys maybe the very first time hearing us talk about um ptl or proven or gk or whatever but to us it's like maybe the 80th time for that day not that that matters to you guys not that that matters or it should be bad for you guys but it does mean that we don't want to be dreary with this so we are as we've done before breaking up those episodes with um other things and this episode i hope is one of those fun broken up episodes we'll have a guest who you'll hear a little bit later and we are just going to talk about stuff that's happening in the market because we also don't want to lose that current

feel and a lot of things have happened indeed it's the last time we spoke yes quite a bit yeah i'll start with one that i i think one of the hot ones for this week is last week's episode where um i made i made a little that that little wish wish to the universe about MailPack and their, at the time, impending dividend. Yep. Yeah. People, would you believe? When you know what happens behind the scenes here, it is a weird set of conversations.

Yeah. Yeah. We don't get excited about the things you think we would and we don't worry about the things you do things we worry about are things you wouldn't believe and the things you think we celebrate usually aren't uh so i'll be lazy and just say that i'll insert in the clip right here i'll be surprised more than one cent which would be one percent one percent as 1% as at IPO price. Yeah. Yeah. You know,

that standard 1% dividend. I really hope I'm wrong. I hope them blow us out of the water like a 4% dividend. So you guys who are listening just heard the clip where we said that, you know, they have a nice dividend coming.

They have a nice possibility. They have a nice possibility. Then I said, maybe not. Yada, yada. You just heard it. Point is, it ends with me going, I hope they give us a nice dividend. I hope they give us something like, you know, a nice 4%. And so said, so done. They gave exactly 4% mail pack.

And that was 4% at, I don't remember if the price was higher. Sorry, it was 4% based on... On IPO price. IPO price, correct. So it was 4 cents. 4 cents. And how long have they been listed? They've listed December last year, like mid-December last year, 2019.

So we are... It's actually a really good dividend, cap gains of I don't know it cap gains of of 100 something I'm assuming it's above $2 it closed today at the day we're recording this we're recording this on the 7th of july it closed today at 1.91 cents so so it's 91 percent yeah cap gains of 91 percent 91 percent profit in six months plus four percent dividend um on top of that if you have stayed in since ipo yeah, this market is not a normal market. And this is why the market is going through a dip. Yep.

Yeah. It's a really blessed time to be alive in this market. I don't know what else I can say other than I'm really happy it happened. What I mentioned earlier that the conversations and the things we're excited about or worry about is actually i am not the one who did who did the who put together the ads for that episode and some of you might have seen the ads on social media the video of it and so i saw the video at the same time everybody else saw the video and i was so surprised because i didn't even remember that i'd said that on the podcast i thought it was take note uh and not

because it's not great or not a good guess i think it's a great guess it's just is that in fact it's not it's not a big deal yeah well it's not really that big a deal but i based on the messages i've gotten and and the things i've heard on the conversations i've had it it is it immediately get me worrying because people are immediately going to start going oh I know something I worry about people thinking that's so much probably unnecessarily but no I know the same thing everybody else know I saw the financials we made I guess I we're not the only one I think we should big up eight seven six invest who I want

to get their their insta handle right i mean big them up i've had them on the podcast before we'll have them again but they on their instagram i saw i think a story where one of the members i think is sean i'm not sure if it's sean is sean and somebody else going from memory here but they're pretty much having a conversation where they worked out what they what they thought the dividend could be and whether or not it could be big and i like that they came at it also from a nice logical direction and hit it on the nose i don't know if they hit on the nose at four percent also but i think i know i remember seeing definitely above two percent which they're again right um yeah i mean big them up consistently They continue to impress What else happened, Danai? What else happened?

On the topic of dividends You have Indies Indies, the big Yo, people 4% might have been a good dividend, right? 4% on IPO price Yeah, on IPO price in this current prices yes yeah that huge huge huge huge huge thing there in this 14 cents yeah And it is...

It is... I don't want to get it wrong. When they declared it... So there was a little bit of a mix-up with the declaration of it, right? Yeah. That was the issue. They didn't mix up any declaration. So it was declared on Friday, the 3rd.

And the declaration... I was having a dividend of 0.14 cents. Well, they had all signed on it. Yes. The actual wording was... You know, it said thing there. The wording was... I have it in front of me.

Indies Pharma Jamaica Limited has advised that their board of directors on June 25th, 2020, passed a resolution for an interim dividend of 0.14 cents per stock unit to be paid on July 30th, 2020 to stockholders on record at the close of business on July 14th. Ex-dividend date is july 13th so this was the original wording of the notice on july 3rd right and on july 3rd their price i mean they closed the day at two dollars and 33 cents yeah which gives us a yield at that price it gives us a yield of even then that's still impressive no apologies I'm making the same mistake

which gives us a yield based on JSC's original notice of 0.06% just small to be honest yeah which is what we'd expect from a regular dividend, right?

In fact, I think in the past, their dividend has been around that level too. No, I know. The previous dividend was $0.08. Really? Yeah. But yes, they did have a strong dividend. After they had paid off the loan,

they had a strong dividend. This they had paid off the loan, they had a strong dividend. This is a jump. Exactly. JC had this and then I think what happened is that people knew about the 14. People were acquiring it. The first

notice had... I have something. You have a screenshot of it? Not good enough screenshots. I have things. I was speaking about it. Okay. Yeah, on Twitter. Nah, I was not speaking about something that has no voice on stocks though he has he has learned how terrible that fire can be but i do remember i think seeing um i know phil bergen vests

mentioned it i saw him tweeting about it and he had a screenshot actually of both of those um of both of those of the notice on both days the thing is the notice was changed twice so the very first notice looked very different and then the 0.14 came after so it's the issue there? It changed twice. So, it originally said 14 cents. No, so it said 0.14 cents and it had a dollar sign on it. So, you know, you don't usually have a dollar sign if you're saying cents. So, the original query people were having was, is it 14 cents or 0.14 cents? So, people were confused at that point. Then they changed it

to 0.14 cents. No dollar signs. That's when you have... So 0.14 cents is a clarification to me to say, oh, it's not 14 cents, right? When that changed, it was, oh, it's not 14 cents anymore. It's 0.0014 cents.

So 0.0014 dollars. So it was pretty different at that point. But then now we're getting tarification. It's actually 14 cents, which is huge. Huge. Changes the yield immediately to, at the same $2.33, it would change the yield

to 6%. In America, we're used to 1% and 2% dividends. 3% is good with a 6% yield. Wow. In fact, last year, 2019,

the largest dividend by overall, so main market and junior market, the largest dividend came from Scotia. If you work on average price, it came from Scotia in terms, I think it was 8%, 8 point something percent. in terms, I think it was 8%, 8 point something percent. Yeah. Yes. 2019 Scotia's average price was $54.15

and the yield was 8.7. Exactly for the entire year. Every dividend scraped together and added together until the yield was exactly and you would have had to you'd have had to get your average price below 54 which is important so not everybody would have gotten that right um and even then that's 8.7

percent they have to wait four quarters for an entire year in One quarter giving us this. Exactly. That is a huge thing. Huge, huge thing. And it's a huge thing to get wrong because a lot of people have made investment decisions. Decisions based on that, yeah. Yep. Including me. I know people, yeah. You know I did. I was looking

on the first site, I said to myself, yo, they're not paying no 14 cents dividend. That's not 6% yield. So I just said, okay, never mind. I even got confirmation from people getting secondary source. So some people were saying to me, oh, yo, I called Indies and they're saying it's 14 cents. I know a guy and they spoke with somebody from Indies and it're saying it's 14 cents I know a guy They spoke with somebody from Indies

And it says 14 cents And I just couldn't believe it because the person My official source JSC Is saying It's not 14 cents So how I must believe this guy that call a guy and this guy Tell him to say

Two people Three people got the confirmation a man's him call in and speak with somebody down there finance manager or something and he said 14 cents so you get me i get confirmation of that sort three different times of the day and i said nah jsc said this why would i fight jsc you know and then you know they change and the change isn't bad people are human anybody can do it my issue with the change they don't tell us they didn't and they if you look at it they didn't even change the notes that i put out a second notice they just went in and edited the original

notice there's no there's no there's nothing there even to say that this was edited the current one look on the time this is oh 3 27 pm on friday they backdated that change that's crazy to me yeah yeah what i did is i just went in and edited the code. I mean, it's a WordPress website. So, I mean, they can edit the actual words without changing. Yeah, it's just a posting date. So, edited, and it was edited more than once. So, now it says that an interim dividend of 14 cents to be paid out on July 30th. Still a huge dividend.

Still a big deal. Huge. At $3, that's a dividend yield of 4.6%. on july 30th um still a huge dividend still a big deal at three dollars that's a dividend of 4.6 percent that's still crazy that's still huge that's double more than double what we get in the market usually wow what dividend is yeah one person that's heavy yeah at six dollars that's heavy yeah at six dollars exactly that that's exactly what i did six dollars it it would take you to six dollars to give you a regular yield in the market a regular one year yield and it's not necessarily a regular yield either that kind of yield that kind of yield is um

well it wouldn't have made the top 10 last year but it would have fallen right below the lowest on my top 10 last year was epley the average price of 1347 and a 3.5 percent yield yeah but at two point odd percent at six dollars and the price is currently as that they were speaking about this it is currently um two dollars and 92 cents actually below three dollars wow wow two dollars 92 cents still a 4.8 yield yep wow that's a big deal. That's a big, big deal. Wow. guys are prohibited from having dividends uh anybody who is paying out a big dividend like this is definitely going to attract some attention i think you'll see the same we see that with huge volumes crossing the floor for indies over the past few days in fact from last week june 19 i should say from the last two weeks june 19 of two million but the thing there they look at from june 11th or there about june 11 2012 when the financials are released and then because that's a great profit remember we had we

spoke about us on our review there's some great profits and so there's a good amount of activity around that time it kind of died down since and then dividend does whoop spike it right back up yep you see a lot a lot of volumes going in and we've seen a lot of trades also i know yesterday there were almost 100 trades on it today 75 trades on it and yeah people are jump i think people are realizing it's happening and jumping and it's big volumes two and a half million units yesterday. Close, is that amount? 2.4 yesterday, 2.4 today. And I think this will continue.

I think as people realize and jump in, because this is really a big deal. I mean, literally, you can have $2 million, buy something, make 4% on it in, what, two weeks? even if you have the fees of let's say you have fees if you have a good broker you have one of those lower fees and your fees overall fee like maybe one one and a half maybe you lose three percent six percent of a dividend three percent of fees you still have three percent you made off a million dollars in two weeks after fees. And all that

ties in well with the recent news around Indy's disclosure of a private placement bond, where they're developing at least two new drug applications for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. They're seeking approval. Developers get approval for at least two abbreviated new drug applications

from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. taking approval, the developer can get approval for at least two abbreviated new drug applications from the US Food and Drug Administration. So yeah, and they had acquired a property. Yes. Something for, I think their expansion, three acres of land in Mabey. Yeah. Yeah, which they got a bond, a private a private placement of a bond 1.12 billion dollars they're doing they're doing they're doing quite a bit so it's funny because i just spoke about them and call them the potential company where you they have a lot going on they have no debt on the on the balance sheet and they have good cash good profits so they can move into they can take on more data and move into moving to business or those who do that they have no one expand and

here they are doing exactly exactly that so the potential is now being realized and they're moving into new heights so congrats in this heavy dividends and more profits in the future yeah congrats in Yeah, congrats. And congrats to all the people who have gotten in and all the people I'm sure are going to want to get in. Yeah, if you're serious about dividends. This is one of the few times where if you care about dividends,

this is something that you can actually get. And the fact that it has, it's still below $3. Yep. At this point. At this point. It's Tuesday. It announced on Friday and it's Tuesday and you can still get below two oh gosh yeah yeah i mean i know a lot of it might have been because of jesse's

we know a good amount of people that were just wondering what's going on here so too much ambiguity so i guess because with new clarity now people can make the decision knowing that hey this is what it is exactly exactly and i mean i'm i can be open and say that i have bought and i will continue to be buying oh yeah man i bought some yeah and i see some more opportunity for buying you look at the q and you see boy some more three dollars are there some less some below three dollars i can't see why not to be honest so below six dollars brother i am into and it's not like the company is not good the company is strong yeah yeah so congrats also to Future Danai. I can see myself buying it all the way up to maybe five. I don't know if I'd go in at six, but then I have, yeah.

I probably wouldn't go in at six. It also, of course, depends on your own timeline and your own goals. And most importantly, we are not invested. Sorry, Danai, I forgot. We're talking to deep level clients. uh guys just in case you don't know we are not investment advisors i'm not a licensed investment advisor neither is the night neither is any guests on the show unless they say they are and even then while they're on the show they are not giving people investment advice we're not an investment advisory business all right anything

you hear here go and speak to a licensed investment advisor about it and whether or not you should buy it. So, sorry, Dana, you're saying something just now. Thinking about buying at 6, if you look at with the new growth they've had, if you buy at 6 with this type of property, at 2.3

dividend yield right now, so at 6, you get a 2.3% dividend yield, right? And they're going into new business. So to me, I can see space for somebody buying at $6 because along the time horizon

and just the dividend, they're looking for your over a year time or more. So profits will come out. So they get more profits from the company companies that continues growing at six dollars at 2.3 during you the dividend cover your thing there it covers your fees of entry yeah more than more than i usually say like a two to two to two and a half percent it has covered your fees already if you have a low broker you see it already cover your fees at six percent at 14

cents is six percent it can cover your entrance your exit and still leave profit depending on the price you go in and at six percent if you are looking for longer term growth i mean they have the usual signs of any big blowing up junior market company the first quarter the first quarter blowing up junior market company the first quarter the first quarter profit is about half of the whole of last year's profit and last year was a record that sort of thing which it actually is i'm looking at them now and last year they made in the entire year 136 mil in comprehensive income um and for these three months so that's what February March and April February to April 2020 they made 69 million so that's Wow that is roughly half a little more than half actually you wanna get a lot of EPS a

five cents to ten cents that is not a joke. It's a growing company. Like I said, I bought more. I'm comfortable saying it now because I've already bought some and I'll continue to buy more. By the time you guys hear this, hopefully another person would have passed. I know they would have passed and I've owned even more. But yeah, especially because you look at the queue, there's some interesting volumes here that have been grabbed up so for the people who hungry talk to your licensed investment advisor about that yeah please ah what else interesting has happened on the market okay we should give a big up to our previous guest yeah go ahead big up to our previous guest on the show call me brooks so we had call me

speaking about forex once and very very knowledgeable person he recently got a promotion so big up call me in his new role at jmb he's now the country treasurer he's so he's moved from general manager treasury and trade trading and treasury and he's moved from general manager of trading and treasury and he's not assuming the role of country treasurer so big up Kwame reaching new heights yeah big up Kwame I mean it was obvious when he was on the episode I really like that episode

and a lot of people do like that episode the forex episode where somebody who actually knows about forex has spoken strongly somebody profitable investing across the board so so in case anybody didn't know when i mean he said his title on it but now and then i told his new title and yeah big up kwame for this um i might if he's open to you could have him back on if he's open to it because i'd love it because i still get you still get told about forex things especially in these three linear terms

bro it's more I need to have somebody's forex page today because I was I was incredulous yeah the things I'm seeing boy it's getting crazy it is getting crazy

out there that people trust me be very very very careful. Don't let anybody lead you astray. A friend messaged me and asked me if I do Forex. And I said, no. And he said, why? And I told him, yo, one more thing that's selling the class thing, it's Forex.

It's almost like a business model the way they do it now. It is a business model. It is a business model. A lot of Forex people have one way of way of yo this is how we come across they show you couple profits a couple times and then they sell the lifestyle heavily it's a heavy lifestyle so they say they're doing this they're doing that and doing that and it's not millions you'll make millions in months you you hardly find them talking about yo this they talk more about your body survive that and then they sell your class and realize that you're the class full

most people make a bag of money to the class he started wondering yo we try to make more money to trade in order so right yeah so i've said it we said it in that episode and we said again that people should be careful and yeah the people who do in the class I like saying this especially because I know I have a class the people who are doing a class to teach you something should be able to do that thing that they're teaching you and be able to live off it yeah yeah and they should be able to stand up to any scrutiny you should be able to question them you bring in an expert they shouldn't be afraid or psychosy I've seen some of those people some of the

things I've seen especially on Twitter responses I see people start drag other people in certain ways and you're never going to see me go down that road especially as I am because at the end of the day the thing that you're teaching should be accurate you should know it It shouldn't be a scam. It shouldn't require me signing up anybody else. And you should be able to stand up to scrutiny, all right, on its own. People who don't have that, I can't tell you not to. Talk to them and talk to your licensed investment advisor to see what it is for you. And I don't want people to say that again because you're not going going to hear the opposite i don't know why we're in jamaica we're so we're

so extreme driven um it's not that we're against forex either as you'd have heard i actually want to learn that but the thing is that i'm not sure i can trust the sources i know the people are selling forex to you well i don't know it's funny because the people I know in Forex are profitable. They're not talking about it like that. They talk about profits. They talk strategies. They're opening it. What's his name on Twitter? Jordan on Twitter.

That's the guy I wanted to mention. Again, I forgot his name. Jordan Fibonacci. Fibonacci. Is that Fibonacci? Fibonacci sequence. I thought it was the Fibonacci sequence Fibonacci. Is that Fibonacci? Yes. Fibonacci sequence. Yeah. I thought it was the Fibonacci sequence. Oh, sorry.

It's an A. It's an A. It's an A. Yeah. So Jordan Fibonacci. Big up Jordan. He taught Forex. Yeah, big him up completely. He's always laughing at the boy, the notion of, I do this, so I need to sell you this.

He says, imagine Goldman Sachs approach you and say, yo, I do this, I do this and this with Forex. I'm going to sell you a class. That's not happening, right? People that are successful in it. So he speaks about his profits. He goes deep into the motive behind it and whatever. And he's not selling me no class.

So you get me? It's funny because these are the persons that you want to teach a class. Exactly. The profitable guy does chili exactly i've seen more sensible forex on his page than i have from many a class page and i've looked on a lot of those class pages yeah obviously the people would sense all a show no matter what i think why they why they shy away but i think by as far as people specifically that are doing it right why they shy away but i think by as far as people specifically that are doing it right why they shy away from the class aspect is because they know what everybody else doing the class thing do i can't i can't be that scammy guy i understand i understand too well i i do i say

openly i grow i say yo i am in a space where i talk and a lot of the other people i see that try to do what i do they're just openly scamming and i that it puts even more pressure on me to ensure that what i am telling people is accurate and what i'm what i'm selling people is something that can stand up to scrutiny which it can i mean i don't worry about that but i understand why completely because every day i consider not doing it i can't say not saying that i don't have to sort of yeah i mean people would know you're pressuring me you're running on start back class and i was like yo what's up for the classes yeah and you know the funny thing is the second i start it back i hear so you see you need a class

to make money months without doing it oh boy yeah exactly one side on the next side yeah and if people won't find something to say they will always always find it definitely yeah so after all of that speeches um big up jordan fibonacci on twitter fibonacci i'm going to check to see how that word is pronounced you're probably right fibonacci it's a name yes and he he formulated the fibonacci sequence he formalized it as exactly i just saw he said fibonacci you're a com side guy though you you work withibonacci. You're a com-side guy though. You work with Fibonacci. Huh?

You're a com-side guy. You work with Fibonacci. No, yeah. No, I know what Fibonacci is. Again, I know it. In my mind, it's Fibonacci. You like the butcher names, yes. Big up Miss Judy J.

Big up Miss. Big up Jillian. Big up Jillian every time so so there's a big up to Jordan you know we got to miss miss be like of course is a big up to Kwame we're happy to have somebody with obvious class again on the show we've had a good long run of yeah and along that line is it a segue our current guests are some yeah let me give you some context you have I think two or three missing episodes that nobody has ever heard this guest was on one of them he had tweeted his, he was contributing to our Twitter conversation, actually. Actually, big up Miss Jilly J.

Oh, yes, big up Miss Jilly J, because the conversation was around something. She had said, yeah. She had picked some stocks, one through eight yes and pulse and somebody had tweeted to say that hey um the stocks miss jilly j picked at the time are no worth this decision of the percentage gain and said if you bought them when miss jilly j said it then you'd have had this percentage gain on it and our current guest he came in to say he came in to say, he came in to not disagree with the notion, but disagree with some aspects of it based on the volume and liquidity of the market and those stocks in particular. And we just, you know, we called him on to have a conversation with him. We had a really good conversation, actually.

I really missed that episode because I really liked doing that episode. One of those episodes that I was talking of. Yeah. I figured this is one of those episodes that I was talking about. Yeah. I figured this is one of them. Well, that's good. The people like those episodes, as do I. But yeah, we had a great conversation there, and that's when I learned about,

what's it called? Time Machine on Mac, because it's the first time I've lost a file on Mac, and I have searched people for that file. It's supposed to be backed up in the cloud. I have searched and searched and searched. We don't have it, and it's such first time I've lost a file on Mac, and I have searched people for that file. It's supposed to be backed up in the cloud. I have searched and searched and searched. We don't have it, and it's such a good conversation. So I was sorry for that,

because we came to a great end of the conversation and didn't have it, so nobody has heard it. I haven't even heard it again. And we always wanted to bring him back. So this week, we are bringing him back. He's the one and only Dimitro Ehsan. I'm saying your name wrong. I'm sure I'm saying your name wrong.

It was decent enough. That's fine. Oh, wow. You should clap yourself right now. Thank you. I will clap myself. But Dimitro, I struggled the last time to introduce you, and I'm going to struggle again, but I'm not going to struggle again this time because I'm actually just going to allow you

to introduce yourself. Indeed. So you can tell me who you are and what you want people to know about you, what you do, blah, blah, blah. Sure. Hi, everyone. My name is Dimitro. I've been in Jamaica for two years now working for Digicel here.

And all my career I've been doing strategy consultancy, transformation, large projects. Yeah, that's my background. I have interest for finance as well as a side thing. But yeah, recently I've just been posting a lot about communication and tech and why it's important and how people can improve there. And also, you know, add into the conversations on Twitter about, you know, hiring practices and salaries and interviews in Jamaica, because I feel like there are lots of myths and misconceptions about it, you know, when I talk to people or when I look at what people are tweeting about. So I feel like I can contribute a little bit there with some clarity, hopefully. A point. A point.

Go ahead, Dan. He says he has interest in finance as a side thing. Well, he didn't say that. He's quite qualified in the finance field. That is true. That is true, Dimitri. Tell the people in the finance, please, tell them you're finance chops so they don't think that you're just talking.

Look, yeah, I did economics as my BSc. I did a master's in finance in London. I worked in house M&A. And yeah, I tried to finish the CFA as well, but I only did two levels of that. So I'm qualified, but I only did two levels of that. So, you know, I'm qualified, but, you know, I'm not an expert. I learn a lot every day. I learned

a lot from you guys and your podcast. Wow. Thank you. Thank you, yes. Very often the mark of an expert is I'm not an expert. That is suspicious. To me me you're very sensible

in your thoughts about finance and you said a lot of things that are true over time so big up big up sir big up

yeah and just we can start so people know where to find you you are on twitter at

yeah just my first name and my last name since D yeah just D-M-Y-T-R-O-A-S-O-N. Even I spelled that wrong. Say it again.

D-M-Y-T-R-O-A-S-O-N. Yeah. Most people spell it wrong. That's fine. Yeah. We think Dimitro, we go D-Y. Yeah. Dimitro.

Okay. And you're originally from? I remember asking you that last time. Okay. I now remember very clearly that part of the conversation. Sorry. Of course, I don't want to have the people thinking that we're leaving them out. So you are from Ukraine, which is, it's like what, Northern Europe? It's Eastern Europe. Eastern Europe. Yeah. so you are from ukraine which is it looks like what northern europe it's eastern europe

eastern europe yeah so almost asia uh well i mean it depends on where you're looking from but you know between poland and russia is probably the easiest way for people to adapt to that. Wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow. Big World War II country. Sorry. My favorite podcast has been... He can't help himself. No, I've been listening. They put out another episode again.

I think that's what happened the last time too. And they're going through the whole World War II thing, hardcore history. And so, yeah, I remember Ukraine. Well, it wasn't Ukraine then, was it? It was part of the USSR, so yeah i remember ukraine it wasn't ukraine then was it it was part of the ussr so yeah then exactly yeah yeah ukraine anyway um and so you've been here a while and you care about finance and you are actually getting into um local local finance pretty heavily and

you do invest which is which is what in initially had uh had piqued my interest because i was like oh well your responses were sensible yeah to the to the point i was raised before which was your if i remember correctly i think you raised a point about the uh general liquidity so you're not necessarily able to get a lot of like people might hear about a stock flying through the roof but you might not get a lot of actual volumes from that stuff you know yeah maybe went up 60% but only on like you know 30 trades over a period of 90 days so you wanted to get in you wouldn't get that that of volume. Yeah, and look, overall, I'm not the biggest fan of those quotes

or Twitter stories where someone is like, oh, if you bought Amazon in 1995, you would have $100 million by now. Although that might be true, but it gives people the wrong idea, I think, know the ability of you know perfectly timing the market and knowing when to buy and when to sell and i think you know most people actually cannot do that like most great investors cannot do that regularly with

stock so you know i feel like you know it's giving people a wrong idea of let me go and try and find that company and time the market. But I think in reality, yes, that happens, of course. But there aren't that many people who've held Amazon or Apple or similar stocks through all the peaks and troughs. And there were decades when Apple stock underperformed. So, you know, it's a little bit misleading, I feel. But yeah, that's my view. It's a set that when you're looking backward. Exactly.

It's a survivorship bias, right? Exactly. For tech companies, it's particularly uh important because you know there were stocks uh before early 2000s that were flying thousands percent up within you know weeks or months and it made lots of people rich but it made even more people very poor in backup, right? Because, you know, we now know of Apple, Amazon, and a bunch of other companies who, you know, successfully survived the dot-com crush. But, you know, most companies actually didn't, right? So if you invested money in Apple in 1999, chances are you also invested in 100 other companies which were worthless six months

later. So that's what I want people to think about as well when they post those quotes. Yeah, I like that one, especially as somebody who has been guilty of posting things like that in the past. I don't think people get the tongue-in-cheek nature of it but i have actually tweeted about how misleading those things can be because you can say for anything you're right survivorship yeah but well let me not say what i was going to say until you answer this i should say what kind of investor would you describe yourself as i know there are people listening who would love to hear that. Look, I think I'm probably a combination of traditional conservative investment as in putting a regular sum of money into an index every month. And I do that abroad rather than here.

And also the other part of me is opportunistic and that's sort of what the companies do, getting to know people as well. I mean, I've been here for two years. It's a topic that's interesting. So for me, investing has offered me this avenue of speaking to you guys, following a bunch of smart people on Twitter, know speaking to you guys following a bunch of smart people on Twitter you know get it into okay that's what they do in their in their regular businesses I think it's it's overall not the worst topic on Twitter to be in life in general right rather than you know like and you know another another meme from social media rather learn something from it yeah i like that i think it is one of the better parts i'm biased obviously i think it's one of

the better subsections of um twitter really look at least j j to the jamaican twitter i can say agreed um yeah it's a place where and it's not all hunky-dory. Not everybody agrees. It's not all nice, but it also doesn't go as far. At the end of the day, I think everybody is interested in growing everybody else, I would like to think, or at least growing their money. So it's a core focus thing. I would hope. Maybe that's just how I see it.

That is my own bias. It's going to make sense without making money, right? Yeah, but again, that might just be our bias. That's true. Yeah, that might just be our bias. We view the market in a way that I have to admit that not a lot of people view the market. But, Dimitri, you do then have a lot of experience in investing, not just here. As you say, you say you do it overseas.

You do a lot of index investing overseas. Overseas meaning say you say you do it overseas you do a lot of index investing overseas um overseas meaning the u.s you don't you do in the uk the uk okay yeah because that's where i was based before yeah okay well that's okay so you you what is the what is the market called over the footsie 100 yeah yeah well that's an index right but that's an index the actual market what is the actual market called there just just the lse yeah it's just lse yeah yeah yeah lse was lse did lse get bought by that that um yeah they wanted i think they wanted nasdaq to go through that's funny i know I didn't have to check. NASDAQ would not go through.

China? I don't think NASDAQ went through. I think LSE went through, which is funny to me because Hong Kong's relationship with Britain. So that's the reverse takeover. Oh yeah,

that would have been nice. But then I think the powers that be might have had a good idea of what was happening because they would have known that the handover was imminent. I'm sure the Chinese authorities would have given them some amount of notice that we're not going to continue to keep up with this. So I think they dropped the dropped the bid looking at an article that says in october 2019 the hong kong exchange dropped its 39 billion dollar bid to buy the london stock exchange

there actually a bunch of stock exchanges over the world that started to consolidate yeah something i hoped to see within the region and maybe still will who knows it would be nice it would be nice it would be nice it would be nice if it raises the level of service uh so i asked that though dimitri because you then have seen so you've seen the london stock exchanges uh sort of market casing you'd have seen some of the nasdaq have you ever done anything on a nasdaq uh no i don't okay and so well you've seen london which i mean they're they're at that level they're all pretty much the same you know uh a bloomberg screen and a bunch of stocks uh but you have seen that and in jamaica you say you play around. When I said, well, when you say play around, you mean you do do some amount of short-term plays, I guess.

Yeah, I do. And, you know, some stocks I've kept for longer periods of time as well. But when I say I play around, I mean, I don't put money in that, you know, if I lose, I will go broke. Right. If I lose, I will go broke. So it's more of a sort of smaller sub-investment compared to sort of the main more, let's say, risk-averse investment on London Stock Exchange. But yeah, you know, the points that I made before hold. I mean, the market in is as interesting because it's uh it's volatile right so it's higher volatility lower liquidity which you know creates uh creates

interest and opportunities at times also as you say often on this podcast right information dissemination is not perfect as in it is delayed. So, you know, sometimes there is a delayed reaction to significant announcements, news, quarterly or annual financial releases, which creates an opportunity for people who can put several things together into into one and see where it's gone, which makes it interesting. Also, despite the COVID crisis and stocks on Jamaican Stock Exchange being down overall, there are a bunch of companies and stocks of those companies which are not doing bad right so uh again it's uh it's just interesting to try and uh learn from you know trying to identify

those opportunities and do something with them you need yeah that's great and great and so people you've seen a little bit of why it is why we're not going to go back into the old topic of what we spoke on at the time yeah you've seen a little bit of why it is, why we're not going to go back into the old topic of what we spoke on at the time. You've seen a little bit of why it is that I really wanted to have Dimitri back on because he's somebody who obviously knows enough of our market. So it's the ultimate objective view because, I mean, you don't even work for a listed company either. So it's not like you have a horse in the ring. You're just somebody who has seen a few markets and you're now seeing this one. And outside of that, you have been, as you said on Twitter,

you've been talking a lot about communication and effective communication, especially for tech communicators. It just all started during COVID, right? Me being stuck at home and working very long hours, but ultimately you need to change the conversation and change what you're doing so i just started to explore stuff that i was always interested in and stuff that i'm

exposed to in my career right because i work a lot on technology change and you know technology projects and with people who who do tech um and you know that one thing always bothered me in a way because um i think there are lots of people uh included in jamaica who are really great and tech is in their core tech job but they're not necessarily great and communicating with the rest of the business community right and i feel like that's the thing that holds them back. And that's the thing that if they improve on can significantly improve their career trajectory, their earnings, their opportunities in the market when it comes to other jobs and potentially their own businesses.

Right. So, yeah, that's that's why I started exploring the topic. And I think the related topic for me overall, and that's, again, another thing that I think is relevant here is it's not just about tech, right? It's not just about people who do coding or engineering or infrastructure. engineering or, you know, infrastructure. Overall, I feel like many people I'm interacting with and people I came across when interviewing or, you know, working together would benefit from upping their communication skills, right? And I think, you you know it's not rocket science everyone can learn it um it's just that you have to approach it in a in a practical way rather than you know through reading books and articles because that helps as well but only in a to a smaller extent in my view

yeah that's that's that that is true where you're preaching to the practical the practical choir here because we're we're nothing if not the disciples are practicality in investing um and you've you're also touching a hot topic nowadays because that topic of employers in j and employees and jobs and what can you do to increase your earnings it's something that I know a lot of people care about especially new graduates and you know big up all the new graduates people who made it especially you know the class of COVID the COVID class 2020 I mean you made it through probably one of the roughest semesters in a long long time uh but dimitri i knew well you also speak to a lot of execs as you say in your job so you saw it there so you're one of the people who use your covid time properly

you know i'm i'm trying to because you know and i'm not a big fan of those quotes on social media where you know unless you come out of coronavirus with a business, side hustle or whatever, you're stupid because I don't believe that. Right. You know, everyone lives in different circumstances and people have different level of obligations. Right. So it's perfectly fine to not come out of coronavirus with a side hustle or business. come out of coronavirus with a side hustle or business. Exactly. But I think for many of us, it does offer that opportunity to kind of reflect on what is it that we're doing with our life, with our career, you know, what can we learn? And, you know, when it relates to sort of salaries, hiring, employment in Jamaica, you know, getting through interviews, getting jobs.

Again, you know, I see a lot of stuff on my timeline and a lot of stuff that I see is not factually correct, right? It's people's emotions and perceptions rather than objective reality. emotions and perceptions rather than objective reality and i just feel like you know it's a you know i spoke with someone today about it actually to me it's it's in a way a mindset problem right you can have a mindset of you know the system is rigged there's nepot, you know, corporations are intentionally trying to underpay us as much as possible. And, you know, nobody gives jobs to people who are qualified. But you can also have the mindset of, well, you know, I can learn a little bit more about that. I can work on my communication skills.

I can work on my CV. I can network with the right people. And, you know, I can land the jobs that i want and you know my advice to everyone is you know adopt the mindset number two right don't adopt the mindset number one because mindset number one in a way is a self-fulfilling prophecy right like with many other things if you only see you know negativity if you only see you know injustice and you know wrongdoing and uh you see everything as as sort of a you know risk and uh challenge rather than opportunity then chances are you're not going to succeed, right? Especially if those views are not actually correct, right?

Because that's, again, my point. And obviously, look, you know, all these problems exist, right? I'm not denying that, you know, those problems are totally absent from Jamaica, but they're not absent from anywhere else either, right? It's just that it's your conscious choice of are you going to focus it on the opportunity area or are you just going to sit there and say, okay, my CV is perfect. I've sent it to 100 companies. Nobody hires me.

That's probably because, you know, there is an apathetic, right? So, you know, that's what i want to to share and uh you know i'm actually glad that most people you know reacting to my tweets about the topic are actually agreeing with me and the good thing is i see people who you know run successful businesses and agreeing with me i see people who see people who are in startups or are in corporations agreeing with me. And I think that's just a confirmation that you've got to look at that brighter side as well. And there are ways to do it. And to that mindset, again, it's not just sort of negative and positive mindset.

It's also, you know, fixed and growth mindset that, you know, we've all read about in books. You know, you can have a mindset of, you know, I'm already qualified because I graded from UV and after three years I know everything so they should just give me the job and pay me whatever and then I'll just get a brand new car and live in my own apartment you mean that's one mindset right the other mindset is accept that no you don't know everything yet and you will never know everything but you can try and learn some new stuff every day and you can take the opportunities that are in front of you and through working you know in those opportunities you get better opportunities next month year three years down the line right but that's a harder path right because you can't give yourself an excuse immediately right you actually need to put in the work. And I think, you know,

what I'm trying to encourage people to do is put in the work before putting excuses forward. That I feel works better in my personal experience than the experience of many other people. Well, I can't say you're wrong, but it's been so long for me that that it just seemed like an obvious thing and i've learned the mistake of when i think that something is obvious uh it might just be obvious for me but i'm with you there is if everybody is being pushed in a direction that is not being is not determined based on the facts of a situation

then you won't actually get the fixes that you want yeah i think that's what's happening i think that's literally what's happening where we're all responding emotionally about something and we're then deciding that well it obviously can't work and in our work always ends in well we have to go foreign yeah we have to fly out yeah you know them can't pay us here they're gonna pay us in foreign and I think what happens a lot of times is that people go to foreign usually America anywhere else and they realize that it doesn't quite work that way yep you know it's it's a really great point and again I've spoken to a number of people about this. And there are a couple of things that you got to realize, right?

First is when you go abroad, right? And by the way, I encourage everyone to go and work abroad. I've never worked in my home country. I hope I get an opportunity at some point. But I think it's, you know, it's a great learning experience for life in general but anyway you know what what people will realize when they go abroad is first um competition for whatever job that is it that they're trying to do is significantly higher than it is locally right and secondly there is a different expectation about the level of productivity.

And I feel like that's the argument that not so many people are willing to hear, because you hear a lot about, I want to be paid X or I want to be paid X plus 20 percent and you know salary in the u.s is higher um first of all you know for sort of knowledge workers salaries in the u.s or in the uk are higher but they're not as dramatically higher as people think right they're not double i mean i worked in london i know exactly what you know you earn as a developer project manager They're not double or triple Jamaican salaries. That's one. And two is the level of productivity and output that's expected from you elsewhere is just different, right?

And that's the part that people don't usually like to hear because, you know, usually like to hear because you know you actually got to deliver more and to a different standard to be compensated you know according to the u.s or uk pay scale right and and that's uh you know that's something that you know guys who are jamaicans are based in jamaica but work remotely confirm in conversations, right? That's what they say. You know, it's not like you can deliver the same output and miraculously get paid five times more, right? You can't get five times more money, but you have to think about as well, because, you know, that's how it how sort of this advice works for me personally. Right. I like to look inwards first as in, you know, what can I do differently?

How can I improve what I do? How can I learn? And then I look at, OK, so, you know, what what can i get for it right and and i think that uh that mindset is uh is useful right but again that's that's my view i i agree wholeheartedly with that people generally i think that's the easy route of oh yo i didn't get the job so it's not me it's the job I remember I think they recall it I remember when I applied to a position somewhere at a pension fund actually and I just started working I wanted to be in the investment field I was doing what I wanted to do and I wanted you know I thought yeah that would be where I wanted to be in the investment field. I was doing what I wanted to do. And I wanted to, you know, that's all good. That would be where I wanted to go, you know? That's a good point to move off of. I went there, answered the questions and whatever, whatever,

and didn't get the job. I was reflecting hard on myself saying, boy, maybe I didn't, you know, maybe they didn't have a person already, whatever they want. And when I didn't you know maybe they have a person already whatever they want and when i actually you know got rid of myself i look back at it i could see where yo i never answered this problem i don't answer this question properly and what they actually wanted in a candidate like qualifications wise i wasn't fully up to scratch so it's very often not you but yo there it's not often the company. There's more on your part to be done. If you feel you deserve it, then deserve it.

Put yourself in a place where you're the person for that job. Otherwise... Look, I'd say even if it is the company and even if it is totally independent of you, it is actually more useful for you to think that it's because of yourself. Because I'd rather be convinced that I didn't get a particular job or opportunity because I didn't do X, Y, and Z good enough.

Because then I can work on X, Y, and Z, right? Even if it wasn't true. Whereas, you know, if I'm convinced that it's because of, you know, company or, you know, world capitalist conspiracy or whatever else. Yeah. Then, you know, I can't learn anything from that because I'm not going to fight global capitalism. I'm not going to fight nepotism, right? So, you know, then I'm just stuck in where I am. Maybe if we tore it down. Sorry, don't listen to me. I say maybe if we tore it down. Say again? I'm miscarrying. I say maybe if we tore down global capitalism. Yeah, you know, I've seen those sort of videos on Twitter as well, And I'd rather not go into that topic. I have long hands in me for that type of talk,

but I don't think today's the day for it. Yeah, please. No, it's not. It's not the day for it. And I'm not sure that tearing down global capitalism would help anybody get better jobs. No, I don't think so. And, you know, I actually had a conversation

on Twitter with someone a while ago and it got heated. And that's where I decided I'm not going to engage in those conversations. But, you know, funnily enough, you know, the only people who, you know, praise communism on Twitter are people who've never lived in a communist country. And I'm coming from an ex-communist country myself right now that's why i was i was born into communism and you know i don't remember it myself but you know from the tales of my parents you know nobody nobody in their sane mind would actually want to go back to communism. It's funny how the people who preach communism are always US-based liberals.

What did I find funny? I see business in the world. I'd say if you're considering communism, just go travel to Eastern Europe and talk to people who've lived there. Or go to Cuba. Go to Cuba and try to buy a shampoo that is not one out of two different shampoo kinds that you got. And then maybe you'll get a slightly different idea.

The joke is, I see people like one day, they're saying, yo, support my business. And they talk about where they want to be, like how rich they want to get and how far they want the business to push them. And then the very next day, it's eat the rich. I'm saying, you don't understand that that comes to me.

You know, there's a very good British expression about it. It's like, you can't have your cake and eat it right so yeah that's that's that's the point you either embrace sort of the you know the positives and the challenges of a particular system or you don't get any including the positives and you know that's my parallel into sort of uh job market and hiring opportunities and so on. Because, again, you can't have both things.

Like you can't have U.S. salary and Jamaican productivity. And I'm generalizing now. But, you know, if you look at economical stats of Jamaican productivity, it's basically been stagnant since i don't know 1960s or something so you know uh it has not risen with our growth that is true yeah so so you know you can't have you can't have both of those things at the same time and of course that's sort of the macro view but the micro view view is, you know, there are people in Jamaica and the Caribbean who are doing really well in

their careers, uh, who are earning really good money and who are, you know, money is one thing. Another thing is like, they're doing some really exciting things. Um, so the opportunities are there. Uh, you know, another thing that I always tell people is, you know, actually good talent is in high demand, right? So, you know, it is true that firms are fighting for real good talent. You know, Jamaican and international corporates that are based here are actually running programs to bring Jamaicans who are in, you know, managerial positions in the US and Canada back. That just shows you that the risk talent scarcity, but,

you know, it's not the scarcity of the level of, you know, we don't get people who apply for a job. Yeah, there are hundreds of people who apply for a job, but it's just that, you know, not all of them who think they're qualified are actually qualified for it. But, you know, people would rather hear about it in a different way and think, oh, okay, you know, they will only hire someone who is US educated and who's been living there for the 10 years. But the truth is a little bit more complicated than that so i'm just encouraging people to you know try and view it from a slightly different angle because i think that that different angle just gives you that route to improving your skills rather than an excuse to not right and

that's better yeah yeah yeah i know that dimitriri has pissed off half our audience. You know, it's an interesting conversation because I think it relates to a lot of things you guys talk about when you talk about finance and you just talked about Forex a while ago. And, you know, again, me coming from a developing country myself, I feel like, you know, I can make that observation without sort of people hating on me, hopefully. But that mentality of, you know, get rich or die trying and get rich very quickly and get rich in this very materialistic way of, you know, rich through a watch, a car, a house. I know that same mentality from back home. That's a feature of a developing economy, right, where people didn't have anything and suddenly some people have something. But, you know, I think for, you know, for someone who's actually interested in a long-term growth,

be that in investment, be that in career, be that in their own business, you've got to look past those superficial things and think about proper measurement of success rather than measurement of success through the car that you're buying and and that's you know that kind of relates to the whole conversation and that's how this whole twitter discussion about salary started right because you know people go and say oh you know i i'm regretted and you know i'm getting salary of x and you know i agree that x might be low but you know how am i supposed to pay for my own rental, my car, my bills, whatever?

And I'm like, look, guys, I mean, who told you that age 22, you're entitled to your own car and renting your own apartment? You know, people in London who earn probably three times more than you even adjusted for, you know, inflation and sort of PPP, they still earn more than you. You know, they share apartments, you know, they don't have a car, you know, they don't buy luxury things, they don't go, you know, to expensive hotels and spend all their money there. So why do you think you can do it here? Right. And, and they actually can afford it. They're just not doing it. So, you know, it's, I think it's, it's a complicated topic because, you know, like I said, there's lots of misconceptions about it, but, you know, to me, it's like, again, it's, you know, priorities of your early career. And, you know,

I've, I've made that, those same mistakes when I just started working in London, right? I got my first salary. I thought I'm an oligarch already. And it wasn't, right? But I went on a shopping spree and, you know, expensive restaurants and going out every Friday and Saturday until I realized three months later that, you know, I had a lot of money on my credit card is negative. So, you know, I can totally relate to kind of where this is coming from, but I'm just trying to say, you know, off the back of my experience, you know, you got to look past that. You got to look past that superficial part, focus on developing your skills, developing your career, superficial part focus on developing your skills developing your career um and just taking it from there and then another thing you know i spoke with someone about it today as well we're living in 2020 now right i graded in 2008 before there was twitter and wikipedia and all those things

it's almost a sin today to graduate from university only knowing the stuff that you were taught in the classroom right i mean it's like it's just crazy you know how you know people say okay so i graduated you know today but they never taught us how to write a resume i mean i'm like are you serious like do you really think that someone needs to teach you how to write a resume? You can go on Internet and there's like millions of of sources for that. You know, nobody told us how to perform on an interview and do a star technique. I mean, come on, like just Google it. Right. One thing that I feel like people need to realize a little bit more is, first, we're living in an age where there's a huge democratization of everything. So where you live, how rich your parents are, whether you had opportunities in your childhood to learn more or not, it doesn't matter.

opportunities in your childhood to learn more or not, it doesn't matter, right? Because as long as you have a laptop and a broadband connection, which, you know, still a lot of people in Jamaica do, you're already on par with millions of people all around the world, right? You don't need to pay anyone to, you know, to read Wikipedia or to, you know, to watch TED Talks on YouTube. So to me, that removes a significant part of that argument where people are like, oh, but nobody taught us this and nobody taught us that. Well, yeah, just accept it and just go and learn it. And there are people in Jamaica who do that. I know for a fact I'm talking to those people. I'm hiring those people, right? I'm working with them on a daily basis. These people are here. So just realize they're no different from you

and they're doing those things. So instead of saying, oh, you know, there is no opportunity and, you know, I can't get, you know, a job I want or I'm not being paid what I deserve, just do what these people are doing, right? And trust me, you'll get there. Yeah, that personal responsibility. You're not going to win many friends with that.

I can tell you. I think I'm not interested in winning millions of friends. I'm interested in talking to people who kind of try and relate to what I'm saying. And I have my selfish interest on Twitter as well, when I'm posting stuff about, you know, hiring and so on, because I'm actually hiring, right? I actually interviewed someone who DM'd me on Twitter on Monday. And, you know, that interview went really well. Yeah. And, you know, and that's the thing that people got to realize as well. And, you know, maybe not every hiring manager is on Twitter, but, you know, loads of hiring managers are on LinkedIn and you can network with people there. You can do it on Twitter as well to some extent.

You know, business owners are on Twitter. So, you know, that's the most democratic way to network in that there ever was, right? You don't have to go and buy a suit to DM someone, right? You don't have to fly to a conference to, you know, reach out to someone on LinkedIn. And again, people are already doing it, right? So, you know, and these people are sitting right next to you in your classroom in your final year.

So just go and do that same stuff exactly i think it comes back down to just the sort of people who acknowledge that you're not good the world doesn't owe you anything it's a harsh thing to tell people all right especially in jamaica because we don't all have the same levels of opportunity as you have acknowledged um and there are lots of people who don't have the laptop or the broadband connection or whatever. But Digicel does, I'm not giving Digicel a free ad, but I must say that Wikipedia is free from, I think, both networks, phones.

Even if you don't have any data, you can access Wikipedia. I think so. Yeah, I remember when I was young. I remember before even BlackB Blackberries was a big deal. I remember the very first time I saw data on a phone and Google was around. And I realized that that was how the world was going to change because I now can wander something and find out immediately.

And I think I might have been fresh out of high school or still in high school i don't know where i was maybe early college it was it wasn't a very popular thing it was a big deal and um i thought it was such a big deal then and here we are in 2020 almost two decades later if not more and there's still people who just their first instinct is not to go and look something up. It's weird. People tweet questions. And the worst part for me here is like, you know, we're not talking about people who don't have broadband connection or a

laptop, right? I acknowledge that there is a large percentage of population in Jamaica and any other developing market for like that. We're talking about people who you know who would rather retweet some you know stupid stuff of you know oh you know which kitchen out of those four images do i pick yellow red or white or which you're not going to get my listeners angry with me or you know or which car am i driving to a date i mean look you have time for that right you clearly have internet access because you're doing that you know you're you're

you're you're being angry or happy about whether saint's bald daughter is named olympia or not i mean you just spent half an hour on that conversation instead of doing that just go and learn about how to update your resume right so you know i feel like sometimes we're we're we're again you know telling ourselves something or trying to convince ourselves you know and wasting that energy that we could have spent elsewhere more positively right Right. And, you know, again, you know, people who are tweeting on on Twitter about, you know, lack of opportunities or limited opportunities or low salaries are all people who could, you know, instead spend half an hour on updating their resume. Right.

So, you know, that's probably a little bit more productive. And, you know, also you learn, you know, when you try and improve things, you learn best, you know, that way rather than just sort of passively consuming the content. So, you know, again, I probably haven't made too many friends. And, you know, people who are IT project managers, I'm actually friendlier in real life. So if you're looking for a job, just DM me.

In any case, I promise I will let you browse Instagram if you want. So that's fine. As long as we're doing what we're supposed to do. Okay, that's perfect. You know what? Now you said that, let me pause and say, guys, if you listen to this, you're thinking, wow, I need to know if I can get a job with this guy because I'm into IT or whatever. Dimitri, tell him your contact again.

I do not want him to contact me to ask me how to get to you. I get a lot of those things. Yeah, look, just follow me on Twitter. It's Dimitri Asan. You know, I repost the jobs and the company i'm working for i tweet about how i interview people so again that's another thing right i mean if you if you're if you want to interview somewhere there are actually people who tell you exactly how they interview so or you know the people who tell you exactly what they're looking for on the CV. And, you know,

even if you're not interviewing for an IT project manager role, chances are, you know, my advice can actually be applicable to a slightly different job too. So, and, you know, just look that up. Okay.

That's strong. Okay. Well, Dimitri, in case anybody's still here and not pissed off, Dimitri also knows about stocks. Oh, Lord. I don't even know where to go with this. You say you've been having fun with some of the stocks in the market or having some of your fun ones? We mentioned MailPack earlier. Did you manage to? I actually applied for MailPack IPO

and I got some shares allocated for the IPO, but I was also buying MailPack at I can't remember exactly, $130, $140, $150. i think my average probably is 145 or something um oh nice so you don't know exactly no i don't know exactly i think it's around 145 um so i'd have to look it up uh so you knowboard. There's this wonderful Dashboard. I don't know if you've heard about it. Yes, I've heard about it.

I've heard about it. I tested it. It didn't actually work for me. Oh, what happened? Well, it just didn't update. So I ended up doing it myself and I'm just updating it whenever I feel like and I probably haven't done it for a month.

That's why I don't have it. Okay. So yeah, look, I've invested well, I mean, some of it I wouldn't even call investment, right? Because the holding period was just a couple of months. But yeah, I've invested in some stocks and I'm also, that's another thing that I think is important to discuss when we're talking about investment. I'm holding a bunch of stocks I'm down on. QWI is a really good example. And I've been holding it for a very long time.

Since IPO? Yeah. Yeah, and I've actually been buying it continuously at all sorts of prices between 50 cents and 90 cents. And I still believe conceptually it's going to be a good investment. Oh, really? Yeah. a good investment. So, you know, but really, yeah, hold on. You held it all the way through all the travels, the up, the down, because it did go back above a dollar. Yeah.

When last was it above a dollar? No. So early in this year, early January. Yes. So, so yeah, I've, I've, I've held it. I was just, you know, dollar cost average in it all the way. was just dollar cost average in it all the way. So again, my current average is at about 90 cents. So I'm down on QWI. So yeah, I think that's the part that people don't always openly talk about right because it's it's much easier for me to go and say oh you know i've made x on mail pack or i've made x on lab or i've made x on you know some

you know one week hold enough svl when i've noticed it going dramatically right i mean it's all fun and it's it's it's nice but you know i've i've also uh i also have you know a couple stocks in the portfolio that are down but you know i i believe in the longer term prospects of these stocks so you know i'm okay there it's you're not gonna you're not gonna make money on every single trade that's just a reality unless you're exceptionally good like you know like randy but i'm not as good as randy so thanks for putting me on the spot so you know you know i i've got uh i've got nuggets of holdens in my portfolio as well but you know that's fine oh no as do i yeah as do i as do i as do i that's part just that's just a part of the game. And I've realized

that over the years that people don't hear, I'll say it again, not even the preamble, I'll say it again. You only don't if people who grow would notice. If you set, my investment theory is you need your goal, you need your time. If your time passes and you haven't hit the goal or you're negative, you're below where you started then you've made a loss um now i set my goals out and so i have been fortunate enough to to not have to have like a portfolio that's bleeding but yeah and you know meaning actually negative but no it's it's it's still it's still their their losses i mentioned like the heavy loss that uh when corona hit the entire market went down first week of March to the end of March

was a hell of a drop across the board for a lot of people myself included yeah worse I think as being lazy I think we're just coasting then I feel the same way we're just coasting by then

so when that hit it was like it jerked me into what the hell is happening um i had to start hitting the market hard again which i did so it was good for that uh but you know i also think i also think that uh it's uh you know it's obviously not how you think about it when you know when you have holdings that are going down. But I feel like for a number of investors in the Jamaican market, that is a good experience, right? Because they've had experience over the past couple of years where most of the stocks were only going up, similar to what's happening in the U.S. right now. to what's happening in the U.S. right now. And, you know, although it's great personally, I think you don't learn as much from, you know,

from everything being in green as you do from certain things being in red. And, you know, it's kind of, again, it's a parallel to, you know, career and business. You know, people learn from sad facts, not when everything is going exactly the way they want it to go. So I'm not saying that you should be happy about losing money. Of course, nobody is. But you should look at it from a slightly different perspective. That's my point.

So, yeah. And look i think uh there are opportunities in the market and people who listen to you uh hopefully have uh have picked those up i mean you've been very vocal on quite a few of them right quite a few yeah pulse is probably i mean if someone is listening to your podcast and, you know, has not invested in Pulse throughout the last 18 months or whatever, then they're doing something wrong. But yeah, ultimately, you know, I think there will be trades or investments where you lose money. um trades or investments where where you lose money but that it's it's like you say you you either you know keep sitting it until forever or you rebalance and uh you make something else out of it and i think the latter approach probably works but then again you know i just want to point this out again we talked about it at the beginning, you know, for me, you know,

Jamaican market is not, you know, make or die sort of place, right? I'm not putting money in it, which, you know, which I need tomorrow or in a year's time or in two years time. So, you know, my perspective is biased in that sense. So, but I think, you know, for someone who's put all their money into the market, their view and, you know, if they happen to buy QWI at IPO only and they never, you know, they never bought it, you know, when it was down, then, you know, they're, you would be different because they're, you know, they're down from whatever 125 or 135 to 0.76, right? Um, so, uh, you know, that's, yeah, so that, so that's, uh, that's kind of another, uh, another way of, uh, way of looking at it.

But, you know, I think people who listen to you hopefully did better than just that. I don't know. That's a good question. You know what? I shouldn't say that. I get DMs. I get DMs of people who are like,

you've shifted. And I like that. That and people who have done grow. Those two things are like, you've shifted. Oh, I look at investing. and i've made xyz and somebody messaged me i won't load them up they messaged me last week actually just saying thank you and that they're actually the same exact thing i've shifted how you how i look at investing and i'm up 75 on one stock and it's i mean it's good to hear i like that and i don't like just to hear that people have made money i like that people learn exactly how to make money correct yeah look because because if you just if you just put money into something without properly understanding it and you know this is where we go back to forex because i'm very anti you know all this forex craze and yeah you can you can you can

probably make some money by accident without even you know realizing how that happened but it's it's not very good from two perspectives one is you know you don't learn anything from it and second you're probably inclined to put even more money and then eventually the point when you lose it all will come and in case of individual forex investment in a in a way that is being preached on twitter and instagram that point comes rather soon um so yeah yeah rather rather soon have you done that also you've touched forex uh no i haven't i haven't you because, you know, I've done MSC in finance and investment. I've ever encountered in a sense, you know, just very quick, very analytical, very mathematical, right? I think, you know, that helped me understand that, you know, the idea of making money out of your bedroom or bathroom by competing with

people like this who also have the whole machinery of, you know, super quick algorithms and supercomputers and, you know, years of training is just, you know, I sort of believe there are people who can do that consistently over time with, you know, with some serious volume. But, you know, I just I'd rather believe that I'm not good enough and not even try than try. It's like the same as casino to make money. I mean, it's fun if you just want to blow $50 or $100 on it,

but I don't believe I'm smart enough to beat someone in poker, so I'd rather not even try. And I think for that sort of, I'd say people who think that they can just go and learn or kind of understand it off, you know, math, stats, you know, and those types of things, you know, just, you know, stay humble, right? Probably try and do something else first and see how that works. And then you can try for it. But, yeah, that's my view. Yeah.

So people are always disappointed when they hear that we're not huge on it. But it's not one of the things that we push or talk about heavily. I mean, I still have the invitation open to anybody who is actually doing Forex sensibly and has been doing it for a while. So contact me, let me know. If have a con, if you can have,

I'm more than willing to have on the con on the podcast, a good conversation about the reality of Forex. And look, you know, I think you made a really good point at the beginning, Danai, you know, it's been pushed as this lifestyle of, you know, I take my laptop and sit next to my swimming pool, driving a supercar, and I'm in Monaco or somewhere. And overall, life tells me that there is no shortcut to success in any sphere of life, right? I mean, and again, it's like the way I like to think about it is maybe there are people who can, you know, within

three months become billionaires or whatever, but I just don't feel like I'm that person, right? So, you know, I don't really want to try. And, you know, I think this is where this lifestyle salad is. It's working here, right? Because people are attracted to it. And, you know, people are attracted to it in most places, but in developing economies first and foremost. But, you know, there is rarely a field somewhere in life where you can just suddenly become successful and i i

don't know why forex would be one of those fields because you know nothing tells me that it should um so yeah that's that's just by my way of looking at it and maybe if other people try and look at it similar way they wouldn't be losing so much money. Maybe. I don't know. Do you have any idea why, Dana? Do you have thoughts on why it grabs so many people? The lifestyle is easy.

I did a deep dive on somebody's page today. Looking at his page, he has over time on his Instagram page, he has a tab there. You know the tab where he saves stories and he saves when he talks about his profits. So over time, he's accumulated some profitable moments and he just put them up there. And I'm watching it and in my head, I'm like, I want this to be true. Like,

I want, I want, I want it to be true because that means it's possible and I can do it. And then, everybody, yo, if this is my, I'm not talking about you make 500,

you make 5,000 US a day. Right? And I make not even half of that for a month of course i want this to be true that means i can do that too this guy can teach me and then you just buy you fall right into the trap and then he's showing you things that you really want you always the porch to the bench this guy you wake up he wake up later than you and then he goes to his pool to do his work of course of course he

wants to be true so it's an easy sell it's a lifestyle and it's a and say the possibilities you can fall for that easily versus running under my table stock so we make example stock but yo it's not a you know the question we get very often oh they trading you they trading you they trading they trade every single person messages even i say they message me and i ask yeah even as i say they hear me like there's somebody listening to this no for some reason will still message me and ask me how do i day trade and um what your class is this class you teach the day trade even i say clearly that that is not what i do. You know, I mean, also, like, guys, if you get a guest who actually does, you know, very regular day trading on GSC on some reasonable volumes, I would like to hear about that. Because, I mean, you know, I just, you know, it's just not really technically possible, right? Oh, no, it's possible.

Well, you know what what's what do you call okay volume maybe that's what we should hear what do you call like what's that what's what's a dollar level that somebody would trade regularly and you'd like you'd like i don't know day trade you know let's say half a million jamaican on the day as a volume. Every day. I think that happens. Wait, hold on. What do you call day trade? Like proper day trading, NASDAQ day trading?

So a half mil goes in and hopefully a half mil plus comes out every day? Comes out every day. Or on average every day? Not every day as in multiple times a day as in you do multiple trades every day. Sorry, multiple trades within a day. That's what I call day trade. Off a half mil or more yeah i mean it's just is i just picked up a random number yeah yeah no but but i wanted to know their amount because yeah i yeah i mean yeah you could you could probably do that with

you know ten thousand jamaican dollars yes but but but you won't be able to do it on on larger volumes and also like the number of the number of stocks on any given day you can day trade on is is limited as well right because those are either either large cap stocks you know like you know your ncb qwa whatever stocks, like your NCB, QWA, whatever, or these are the stocks that are probably smaller cap, but there is a significant event, either financial or news event that occurred that day or the day before, like mailbag the other day, it wasn't Friday. You know, these are the these are the times when you have like millions of of of stocks being traded. But, you know, on an average day, if you look like there will be probably only several stocks where where you can trade any reasonable volume so that you get it and get out same day and you make a margin. But also remember, you know, the 0.5 or 0.75 commission in, commission out, GSC fees, right? So, you know, it's just...

GST on top of both of those, so it comes up to maybe one and a half percent. Yeah, it's just on top of both of those. So it comes up to maybe one and a half percent. Yeah, it's not so as easy. Yeah, yeah. It's not it's just not as easy technically. Right. You can do it on very large, very liquid stock exchanges like, you know, US, UK. But you can't do it as easily on on Jamaican stock exchange. So that's that's just my point.

And another thing is also, and I think that's the part that people who don't day trade miss, it has nothing to do with your relax and sit at the pool with your laptop type thing right you know i i don't know if you know like you know i've i've seen traders at work and i've seen traders sort of you know outside of work it's a very you know a very specific type of personality is required right yeah it's you know these are people who are like they can't wait to finish their point right they're just so quick and everything like they they their focus their attention span also is not necessarily very long like you know it's switching all the time it attracts adhd i listen to i listen to him drag us it's right. It does attract a certain personality and intellect type.

But for anyone who thinks that day trading or, you know, FARGs for that matter, because it's effectively a similar thing, is anything like, you know, air relaxed, you know, I sit, you know, at my table slowly drinking coffee and like, you know, playing with my dog or taking a nap you can't really do that right because in in that day trading environment you constantly glued to like two or three screens at the same time and actually it's nerve-wracking right and that's the part that that that you know this is why that's another factor for why you know i i would never

be convinced that you know someone can combine that amazing lifestyle of doing nothing when they trade and it's just it just doesn't work it's it's like you know it's like telling me that you know you can work in a corporation and not have your you know in a corporation instead of a managerial role and not have you know 80 of your diary filled with maintenance that you have complete choice over what you do at 12 o'clock or two o'clock it just doesn't work like that so you know i just i just feel like people who want to go and try Forex or whatever, by all means, but just, you know, just think about that. It's not the glamorous sit at the pool thing.

It's sit in front of three monitors and go crazy. And by the way, you know, people who day trade on, you know, with some exotic stuff like, you know, derivative or options trading or or spread batting you know we've we've all read this horrible story in the u.s about a 20 year old kid who traded on robin and committed suicide with you know minus seven hundred thousand dollars on his account you know that's that stuff is real there are a lot of stories, you know their their trades were when oil oil prices went below you know zero right so so again it's it's it's you know it's not your sort of you know pleasant hobby like thing and and I

think you know again I just i like making parallels between the topics right it it kind of brings me to the point of stuff that you also see a lot on twitter and so other social media about you know how do you you know do nothing and create some source of passive income and you know you know just go and spend two hours on this and learn how to do a course and you know then you'll just sit back relax and watch money coming in that thing just doesn't exist right there is no uh reasonable occupation i mean i don't know maybe selling drugs but let me not go there there is no no but there is no work there is no no sort of professional professional occupation that just allows you to create something on the side you know and this is why i also hate the whole side hustle terminology

i hate i hate the passive income terminology side hustle be your own boss all this stuff requires lots of work it requires interdisciplinary knowledge and learning all the stuff that that you know you never thought you need to learn so you know and that's the part that that people overlook and you know for me uh you know i was not naive about it but you know i i came to realize it when you know i went from you know in addition to doing my day job just you know trying to write a blog article or you know do a visual or two and this stuff takes a lot of time right and uh you know, do a visual or two. And this stuff takes a lot of time, right? And, you know, getting people to sort of see it and read it takes even more time and effort, right? Because, you know, suddenly, you know, nobody cares about your job title or the fact that,

you know, you're doing sort of, you know, that and stuff in your work, right? So all of that requires a lot of effort, be that investment, be that day trading or forex trading, or be that developing your side project. So the whole notion of I can just do something on the side and it will make money automatically in any field is just untrue right so if you know if someone's trying to sell you a course on you know forks or you know garden and or you know create an ebook or whatever grow in your twitter followers and any crap like that it's just it just doesn't work like that in real life.

So, you know, and whenever something seems better than it is, then probably it's not true. So I'm just trying to look at these things in that way. Yeah, it's true. Maybe to even add a different angle to it is that at least for investing, because I've had to look into myself right because what i do is easy for me um and and then the people who i know can do it like danai it's also easy for him but it's it's easy for me in the way that lifting my arm is easy

for me and i'm sure somebody either didn't have an arm or didn't know they had an arm they wouldn't realize that lifting it is easy right uh and and if you do have an arm however to you it is easy but if you think about it it's actually very complex a good example i can think of is when i don't know if it was a video i saw something i was reading it's explanation of how advanced human beings actually are. Like the most complex computer that we have, as much as you hear people talk about AI in terms of just raw general intelligence, I don't think we have a computer that can match a two or a three-year-old.

And that's because we don't think of what is involved in a lot of the things that we simply do. Like you throw a ball and you just see the ball and catch it, right? And one doesn't be like, oh, I can't catch, but you can learn very easily. A child can learn to catch and you can catch and it's cool. But then when you have to program a computer to catch, you didn't think about the fact that your brain sees that ball, calculates the general movement, the movement of your hand, how to catch it. It is a huge amount of complex stuff and i thought about that in terms of what i do in terms of investing and like for example i will

i will read an article i will read an article on a topic that was half of a mention of somebody's tweet and it doesn't occur to me that i've read an article just now right it was just oh let me get some context so i have something around what's being said here. A piece of what's being said here. And I thought it was normal because my entire life it's been normal. That's how you, that's just what you do, right? You want to know where something goes, you look it up. I blame my parents.

They're asking what this word means and I'd have to go and get a dictionary and look it up. They'd never tell me. You're asking what this word means, and I'd have to go and get a dictionary and look it up. They'd never tell me. And so that was just a natural part of learning that if you want to know how something works, if you want to know something, you have to look it up. And you get used to being in that sort of a situation. And then when you start investing also, especially if you do like what we do, I can see how people might think it looks easy, right? like what we do i can see how people might think it looks easy right i look when i am at my most tense i look very calm you don't have to be ripping my hair yeah you don't have to be ripping my hair out i'm going crazy when i have millions on the line i sit there and i'm very calm i sip

my coffee i'm watching the screen i'm reading. And if you talk to me, I sound the same way. And to you, you might say, oh, this is not easy. He's so calm. I am not. I am forcing myself to be calm because inside I am going, oh, my God, suppose this. I don't think people get that. Like every, every single, I am never sure. I have this thing I say that doubt is the hallmark of genius because when I am absolutely sure, that's when I am, you've gotten it wrong that's why i'm telling myself that and then you're looking for every single thing where you could have gotten it wrong you have your your points in mind where if this happens i jump out

immediately because it turns out i was wrong blah blah blah but it looks from the outside and it's a kind of person you know that meme of the dog sitting in the burning house and going this is fine yeah that is day trading that is that is trading in the short term that's trading with big money that's doing anything that is the life i can do that at the side of a pool with a laptop with a smile on my face and music playing in the background but best believe that in my head i am running a million and i am looking at everything i am tense i am not i'm tense but dimitri covered it and i say that my girl sessions that you can enjoy randy's life of posting 40 gains in three weeks when he does something like

that if i i'm not trying to talk about myself in the third person that's iffy that's icky but i can say you can get to be that person if you are willing to also be the person up at 3 a.m. reading an obscure article that you translated on Google Translate from Stockholm, where it's talking about one half of a point that you need to confirm and you cannot sleep until you understand it. It's not that I am doing it because I am very, very, you know, driven. Well, driven, yes, but I am very conscientious. No, I'm doing it because I literally cannot sleep until I do. You know, you try to sleep and you're in the bed.

You're like, ah, for the rest of the day. I love it. That's the way I do that thing, yeah. Exactly. You literally cannot sleep until you've done it. Why? Because, hey, I did this all before at 2 a.m. And I put in a big order that should go through tomorrow morning. And I went to my bed and I closed my eyes. But before I even go to my bed, I went to brush my teeth. You bathe, you brush your teeth, you get ready for bed. And it's on my mind the entire time. You're talking to it. You call, yeah, I'm great, baby. It's cool.

Yeah, good night. and you go to bed and it's on my mind and i close my eyes and i read a little before i go to sleep and it's on my mind and i go to sleep i might even lock my eyes and think i doze off it's like yo i have to know because everything is riding on this and unless you're willing to live that you cannot have the me tweeting about going to cuba and thanking jet con for it you know that's that sort of thing yeah um and one is indelibly tied to the other and I don't make any bones about it I'm very open with that I'm very open with it at my classes I'm very open with it that's what it takes and if you're not ready to do that you can't do it but you don't have to yeah yeah

that's the beauty I think I think you also made it a really good point um there where you said you know you're you're not sure or you feel like you you you can you know learn something more and and get better and always another piece of information and you know for me it sort of ties back into our earlier conversation about, you know, things like, you are the best candidate and whatever, then chances are that you're actually a lot further away from where you need to be, right? Because, you know, a lot of really smart and driven people who, you know, who are achieving career and business success, they're actually people who always think that, well, yeah, but I can do this one more thing and I can learn this one more thing. in business success they're actually people who always think that well yeah but I can do this one more thing and I can learn this one more thing and maybe

you know I've done I've done this I don't know CV or presentation or article or video or whatever it is that you do it and you know they go and you know change it for fifth 50th time right Because they just want to make it better. And, you know, and, you know, and invest in a lot of time and you look at the end results and it seems like, you know, it's not that complicated and you can do it. But before you actually try and do something similar and, you know, in any field of life, you know you you don't realize that it's actually not as trivial as it seems and you know for me the the biggest test of this and i think again it sort of relates to investment in a way is you know if uh if you had an idea about you know i don't

know business opportunity or you know what you do in a project or whatever, whatever it is that you're doing. Right. If you had that idea six months ago and then you have exactly that same idea three months ago, you have done nothing to work on that idea, to iterate it, to make it better. You know, if you, it's, you know, it's the same in business, right? If you started working on something six months ago, and, you know, you're still at that same point where you believe that everything you believed before is correct, then you're just horribly wrong, right? And this is where, for everyone who still listens without hating on me, if you've written your CV six months ago or six days ago, and you've applied to 50 jobs and you haven't heard back, but you still think that your CV is top and you're the best candidate. Just, you know, think about it in a different way. Right. Or if you went to five interviews and nobody called back, it's not because they hired, you know, five think that point of always trying to improve is actually, you know, something that separates, you know, people who, you know, achieve sort of continuous success with, you know, many failures as well on the way from people who just don't even go and try right and you know what what you what you do in investment and you know this is why

i think it's one of the reasons why i like the whole investment and finance topic it's it's a lot bigger than just investment or just finance it's interdisciplinary it's just life right and you know i think for for many other areas it's exactly the same. You don't learn how to write a CV to become a pilot. You learn how to convey your message in a simple form because that's what CV is. So, you know, if you're willing to look hard, then, you know, you will apply everything you've learned in one field into a hundred other fields if you want to. But, you know, you could also choose to look at it from a very narrow angle and just stop trying. But that's not the choice that I recommend. And I'm happy to hear you say it and you're not Jamaican because I often wonder,

no, I often wonder a lot, no, about what is it about us that causes us to do that? And the people who see it, like when I see it, I don't like to think I'm special. I like to think that anything I can do, anybody else can do, because that's a path that people can follow. But I don't hear this sort of thing from everybody else.

I know a lot of other people have it. Big up this guy, Uncle Billy, who I think I tweeted about. I did that thread about being a monetary thriller on air. And I had pointed, it's the same usual forex points and i don't you didn't get the responses mixed from some people a lot of people liked i like that people got the message but this guy was one of the people who pointed out he described his time with forex in a way that i also see with investment that it's not really about that thing you learn it like people wonder how can you learn to do what i do um i grew up and teach you how to start but what i do is not just based on

those day-to-day things you have a codified this is not yo i run through this simple task and then this happens exactly Exactly. Yeah. I think a lot of people are looking for like a simple one formula. And they're expecting that the one formula with, okay, I'll do this. And if the number is greater than four, I will know that I should buy. And if it's below four, then I don't buy or sell. It's good or bad, right? No, you have to have a holistic view

of everything i have to pay so much attention to what's happening in jamaica in the region in the world just to invest in the way i don't want to jc i find it hard thing there in him i find it i would find it hard we spoken about this about me going into the teaching thing i would thank god for shanice but i would strike out yeah iice. But I would find... Pop strike out. I would find it hard to bring that across because, yo, for you to put... For you to...

What you're putting out to people, as much as it's a lot of it, it's not all of it. And I find it hard to go... I know what people expect from a class. People expect to be Randy after they don't grow up. Yeah, that's crazy. Well, you know what?

Anybody, I mean, they know within 10 minutes. The first 10 minutes of growth, that's not what it's about. But also they engross with the understanding of what it is about and how you can. Because I want more means. I don't have nobody to talk to. I can't always be chewing this guy's ear off. I want more people out there that I can talk to

and they're not just talking to me to hear what I think they should buy. But that point I'm raising from Uncle Billy, and I'll put a link to it. I mean, big him up. Big up, man. Big up. What's his name? What's his name name oh wow that's a rare name uh it's a bible name actually yeah me too but i don't know a lot of them um indeed yeah but here is here is somebody who is saying something and I'll put a tweet in the show notes he said that

I'll put also my thread in the thing but I was talking about pretty much the stuff you've just heard us say and his response was 100% facts, I've always said that if I was to ever consider developing, and he has redacted but I know his forex is there, because if you know about forex you know not to tweet the word he does he does forex and from what i've heard he's

don't know for himself and he speaks like somebody who gets it he said if i was able to consider developing a forex course would probably look a lot like a four-year degree in economics geopolitics and monetary systems with minors in developmental and market psychology. And the beloved charts would be an elective. When you hear somebody who does forex saying that you know, one, they understand what they're talking about. Two,

them charts, I'm not a fan of the shit magic. I'm not a fan of those charts at all. One of the first things you hear when you go into investments is future performance is not past performance is not indicative of future performance.

In real life, you know that because this thing performs this way it's not indicative of the chart. The chart does not affect the future movement of the chart. The chart going up, not going to continue going up. You know you work like that.

Life don't work like that. Yeah, exactly. And let me just add one point here. It's possible to make money purely based on quantitative strategies. money purely based on quantitative strategies right you know there are there are funds uh in the u.s and everyone has heard about renaissance capital who's been doing that consistently um and you know that book is actually really good but one thing that people forget is well actually no hold on two things because i know people are going it's hard to cut you there but i know people are going to ask what we're talking about and the Renaissance capital story.

Yeah, so I'm just looking at my Goodreads. The book is called The Man Who Sold the Market by Gregory Zuckerman. created and ran and still runs an investment fund called Renaissance Capital, which is like the fund that has highest average annual returns in history, but it's not as publicly known as Warren Buffett's or Soros' fund. And they do quantitative trading only, right? So people- You have to introduce it to the people properly dimitri it's so the p i know a lot of people listen to this watch billions um quants what the what was what's their name don't i what's taylor so what taylor what taylor and

taylor mason does is based off what this guy pretty much did. Yeah. Jim Simons. Yeah. People in his team, most people in his team have nothing to do with any knowledge about finance, business, whatever. They're mathematicians, statisticians, PhDs in computer science so yes you can you can definitely make money like this but it's definitely not as easy as just looking at the chart and saying okay you know there's a break over x day average and this is where i get in or this is where i get out right because it took these guys i think several decades to actually correct the model, right? Yep. It took them a long time as well to continuously refine it,

invest in it. They've got algorithms crunching all sorts of data, which goes far beyond the average movement of 60, 90, 180 days. So it's kind of similar to me to that point about Forex. Can you make money trading currency? Yes. Can you really compete with 200 PhDs who've been at it for 30 years

and you just sit in your room and you bought a course on Instagram for $99? Well, I mean, if you choose to believe that, then probably try. But again, my view is I'd rather think that I'm more stupid and not try it than think I'm smart, lose a lot of money, and then realize I'm stupid. I don't think a lot of people realize that a lot of the noise that I started making about the industry came from the fact that I didn't know that I was pretty much beating the industry's returns again and again. And the reason I'm making the noise is not because, hey guys, look at me, I'm so much better in the industry. It's I should not be beating the experts this easily you get me it's not it's not saying i am so great i'd love to be able to say that if i thought that experts were at that level you get

but they're not and i'm saying hey this guy who doesn't know what he's doing and is randomly doing it here is not supposed to beat the mbas or the the people who have been doing it for decades at what they're doing. And it's not even because I don't, I personally don't think it's because I am exceedingly better than they are. I think it's because local equity has pretty much been ignored for years. So nobody even paid attention to it as an actual space and place in which money should be made. I didn't know that they weren't doing that because I just literally didn't know.

And I started doing it, but I don't have anybody in the industry. As a kid, I was just doing it on my own. When I found out that, no, I'm beating them handsomely, I'm like, wait, hold on. I shouldn't be. So I started to complain. Well, I found out why first.

You don't just start complaining. You find out why. And I realized it's not because, I don't know. That. You find out why. And I realized it's not because, I don't know. That was the core of it. I don't know if I am a star or like I don't know what a Jamaican star in the equity field should look like.

I don't know if I'm one because I don't have a standard measure to go against because I've seen what the standard measure is, which the industry and they're woefully inadequate and they they have not looked on the the equity market seriously with the exception of one or two people and one or two people have done it are pretty much vilified also but they also have strong results you mentioned qwi with one is my personal view that like John Jackson is heavily vilified in the industry and John Jackson is also obviously ahead

of a lot of the industry, right? And there are other cases that have said, there was, that's another cool thread, that idea. I need to pick up the person who said it, but that question about, you know, the forces that move the Jamaican market. And I think maybe we should do an entire episode on that separately.

So I won't go too deep into that, but I will say that it was a great that, and one of the things I had in there was Chris Berry is one of the strongest forces in my view on the market because of, because of the influence that his movement, the things that he has done. And what I assume a lot of times is his moves in the market i i see a lot more from him than i see from the industry i put the actual

analysts and the houses what they're doing way down on the chart off the chart really because not because they're not good but they just haven't looked at it as an area and i understand why why would i risk two billion to make 200 million in the market as a big house when I can just put I put it in the bond, I offer you 1.3%, and I put it in a bond at 8.7%. We lose maybe 3% of fees, and we eat the difference, and we pay you your 1.2% after we take out our taxes and fees. And if you do that, there's no need for me to run fast

if I can go slowly and comfortably and get there. But who was the person talking? Say that again, Dana? I chalk that up to the level of education of investing public. Or people that come into the market don't know what's out there.

So it's easy to tell them that if I cannot demand a different option, I can't let them say, hey, I want more than that. Because in reality, what are the offerings beyond that? Yes, exactly. Which is why I started this heavy push for financial literacy. Because it's not about knowing which stocks to buy or whatever. It's across the board.

There's a load of things. I'll never forget, I think, for my second girl. I think my second girl, there was somebody there who I'll never forget. It was a young lady. I don't remember her name, but she was there with a guy. Both of them had come to that girl. And I had explained dividends. I had explained cap gains and i'd i'd shown what the general dividend return level is in jamaica

over the last year and she she paused and she asked a question and i said you know what was the question i was like i don't understand why would anybody buy anything for dividends then and she was genuinely confused and this is somebody who had a little bit of money and i assume had enough money to invest in whatever she wanted. And she'd always heard that, that you invest for dividends because nobody had ever pointed out

just a simple point of yield to her, right? And why would I point out yield to you and a real return if what I'm offering is like four different flavors of the same low yield, low return thing. Right. So when along comes this noisy guy on Twitter, Randy, telling people about how they can actually,

there should be more out there for them and they should be, there should be, there should be a lot more emphasis placed on picks from the industry and getting picks right and tracking pics and publicly sticking to the pics that you've tracked and saying whether you got it right or wrong and why nobody wants that because then i might get it wrong and i might look bad right it has never it's like that might be a jamaican thing where nobody wants to get anything wrong and we're actually we tie a lot of getting things wrong publicly to shame so nobody wants to be

and it's funny what you get then is a lot of people saying you know i don't have an issue with being wrong you know and it i laugh inside every time somebody tells me that because in my mind it would never occur to me to say that in the same way it would never occur to me to say i don't have a problem with um with reaching for a cup and missing it because it's just not it's just part of life it never occurred to me to talk about it because i am going to get things wrong it's part of how i get things right i get it wrong right so it wouldn't occur to me to be shameful it's a very tricky thing I've realized. But because we are so ashamed of getting things wrong and it's such a big fear, we actually act,

we talk about not having an issue with getting anything wrong, but the reality is we don't actually do anything that could ever have us publicly have anything wrong, right? So when somebody comes along and goes, hey, how are you recommending xyz when xyz is very obviously going to lose people a lot of money in the next six months you first you go what are you talking about who are you that don't make any sense no

why and they talk about xyz great and i go yeah that's great xyz is great but xyz is also going to the great company is going to go through a rough time for the next six to eight months why would you send people into it what are you talking about blah blah blah and then usually what happens is that month three or four comes along it starts to dip they start to feel it and then do they then say well it you're right this has happened or do they then say well we revise our thing no they go ignore that guy ignore that guy who is he he isn't qualified he doesn't know what he's talking about and also look at the long term of this and more people are waking up to the fact that their money

deserves a lot more than that and i am happy to have somebody who is not involved in the long history of that seeing it and speaking on it speaking to it which is what you're doing Dimitri because you are used to a market in which the analysts are the lifeblood of it you know it is normal for analyst picks to be questioned and followed up on and we see what I know we got it right and there's nothing that comes out of it finance is not a nice smooth XYyz one plus one is two field it is a fractious field there are people who are i mean it's money it's a

passionate thing the same passionate people that dimitri just mentioned where they can't finish to get a sentence so you mean you guys have heard us on this podcast you've heard me on this podcast we heard that on this podcast it's uh and other people too you've heard so much of it those people don't suddenly get in front of a trading screen and oh they're nice and we're in church no they're just as passionate and if i'm passionate about something being right and you tell me i'm wrong i am passionate as hell about it and then worse i'm going to say all right we'll see in three months i think three months going to come and we can now tell if we're right or wrong and I mustn't say anything? No, I'm going to come back and say, yeah, why? That's it.

It's very funny. It's always, yo, when I'm telling you you're wrong, I'm very passionate about it. But then when time comes, I was actually wrong. Why are you behaving like that? You know, it's an interesting point, right? And again, I think it's it's it's it's an interesting it's an interesting point right and again i think it's it's multidisciplinary you know my view on this is yes again it's a mindset thing right and unfortunately you know the way you know we were and you know myself

included we were brought up by you know the generation of our parents and also educated at schools and universities is you know good result is you know do something right straight away right which discourages people from doing things wrongly right because you know you know your your parents tell you okay don't do this don't do this don't that. Then you go to school where the school is like, you know, it's not about going from, you know, 30% on the test to 80% on the test over time and show with relative improvement, right? It's about, you know, you either get an A and you're smart or you're getting C and you're stupid, right? So, you know, I think a lot of that, a lot of that mentality of, you know, fear of failure, fear of publicly talking about your mistakes comes from that sort of, you know, upbringing and educational background. And it's more prevalent,

again, unfortunately, unfortunately in you know developing countries because that's just how the whole educational system is is geared and by the way i mean in developed markets it's it's still not perfect right but i think it's it's shifting there a little bit quicker than it is here or you know in other developing economies where, you know, people are sort of being brought up in an environment where, you know, you try something, you fail, you change what you've done, you try again, you fail, but, you know, it's slightly better and then, you know, gradually it becomes better. And I think, you know, again, it's sort of, you know, sort of back to this whole,

you know, growth versus fixed mindset. Yes, that might be true for, you know, me, you, some other people. But it's what you do with it, you are you, you can either choose to say, okay, you know, that's, you know, I'll blame my school and, you know, my grandma. Or you can say, okay, that's how, you know, I look at certain things in this and this situation, but maybe I should try and do it differently. And, you know, again, this is why finance is fascinating, because it's just like life. You know, I'll give you an example from my personal experience. You know, I was brought up, you know, by sort of school and, you know, university education in exactly that way. When I started working, you know, I had a huge issue with with procrastination because I was just horrified to show someone my work until I thought it's perfect. So I would be working on a presentation proposal and I'll just sit there in front of an

empty slide and spend hours until something comes out. And then, you know, I'll work, you know, day and night until I finish it off. And then someone just says, okay, you know, just go and redo the whole thing. So, you know, I think we're, you know, where this is coming from is in our educational background. And, you know, hopefully this thing is changing now where we're taught that, you know, a hundred percent result is, is perfect, you know, outcome with zero iteration. So you should strive to a hundred percent with zero iteration. Whereas, you know, in real life, what you need to strive towards is, you know, do something to, you know, 40, 50, 70, 80% and just keep iterating it multiple times and get to 150% better and quicker, right? And it's, you know, it's sort of

relates to what you said about, you know, being able to accept mistakes and, you know, accept them publicly and learn from them and do something better. You know, it's one and the same thing. It is painful, especially if you're sort of ego driven. It is painful if you have to admit mistakes in public. It is painful if you're being held accountable, you know, in front of your shareholders, investors and whatever. you know, in front of your shareholders, investors and whatever. But that's the only way there is to actually get significantly better. Right. And the fact that you're saying that, you know, people in the market are not necessarily kind of willing to go through that experience just confirms to me that, you know, it means that they're not going to get significantly better.

And that's that's not good news for someone who, you know, invests their money with, you know, professional investors, brokerage firms, whatever, you know, in the funds. Because, you know, you know that they will, A, go for like super safe bets that, you know, you could have probably done yourself. And B, if they get something wrong you know you'd never get a correction of course because because you know you know they're just not willing to accept their mistake and and uh and and change the approach so you know it's uh it's it's a very interesting a very interesting concept for anyone who you know either invests or you know does something in career or business i

would say like the best way to learn you know is just try you know change try again change again try again change again and it's a never-ending circle there never should be a point where you arrive right because when you think you arrive then that's that means you're far off right because when you think you arrive then that's that means you're far off well yeah I I can't disagree with you yeah no host has ever gotten anything wrong I can assure you that especially when they've gotten things wrong is you're not going to hear them admit it and they get anger the people who point it out and look it's it's you know it's it's it's sort of the the issue of every developing uh you know financial market and lack of very well-developed competition right because you know star investors

in the uk get crushed all the time right there are star investors who've ran you know successful funds and then they go out on their own and then suddenly people are pulling out hundreds of millions of pounds out of their funds because, you know, you know, the industry is run transparently. There is loads of competition. You can just get your money out and invest somewhere else. Um, so there is no choice other than, you other than accepting accountability and responsibility and owning up to stuff you've done well and not so well, right? Because you will get punished whether you want to admit it or not, right? Clients will vote by pulling their money out. Whereas if you're in a market that is last developed and there is last competition, then, you know, as a brokerage house or an investment house, you're in a slightly more privileged position because you know that, you know, there aren't that many other firms.

You all are recommending exactly the same thing, right? So pulling from one and putting money into the other is not going to help. from one and putting money into the other is not going to help, then the process itself is prohibitive, right? Because it probably takes several weeks to go from pulling money out to putting money somewhere else. You probably get slapped by some fees that you never knew about before. So, you know, but it's, I mean, it's one thing that, you know, everyone working in the industry, I'm sure, realizes that's not going to last forever, right? It ultimately gets...

I don't know if they recognize that. The responses have been going down a very, for the last maybe year, have been going on a very predictable path, at least as far as i expected which is let's group up let's batten down the hatches right let's ignore the world um and i don't think that they realize that the real push at least what i know i wanted was not because if you fix that i the gang of 12 i i don't have more money than them um i don't have more access i can't do that stuff there what i can do which i have i think i'd like to think I've done, is I've worked on financial literacy, which is, you see the point you made

of how in the London market, traders either, hotshot traders will leave and go out on their own. And if they're good, people will flock to them. And if they're bad, people know because people pull their money. It's open, right? The reason why people are able to do

that not just the transparency but also because the public themselves that they are they have some amount of financial literacy yeah for the most part the majority of jamaicans who would have put their money in anything a lot of them have no idea what the hell is happening they just take it for granted that there's money there which is why for years we've managed to get away with things like they will tell you how much money you have made in interest over the last 10 years they won't tell you the percentage right because 2.2 percent sounds very great it doesn't sound very good but um 2.2 million yeah again sounds great right and they're like yo two yeah i put my money in there i put 10 million in and it's 2.2 million and it sounds so good when like you pause you stop a person i've done it over 100 200 times now to see it when you bring a person you say stop let me get this

straight you put mommy's money in there in 2001 it's 2020 now and you now have 2.2 million, but you put 10 million in there almost 10 years ago. So in 10 years, you've made 10%. And then they go, you see them start realizing, yeah, is that bad? And you go, well, it depends. You have to compare it to something else. And then what has happened now, though, with a lot of the JSC ads going out is that people have heard the JSC say how much they've grown and the market has grown. So if within that 10-year period, a lot of growth happened, why didn't I experience a lot of that growth? Why am I down now? And people are waking up to that fact no you're right in that if a lot of people

wake up it can't continue but i don't know that we can't that we can't stop people from waking up in jamaica because you also have to understand it's linked i like how you keep linking both the personal responsibility point and investing point it is linked to that waking up to your investments doing well is a matter of personal responsibility it doesn't mean you're going to be in front of the computer being a pretend warren buffett or a day trader but it might be as simple as the money that you know you have in the bank or you have in a thing for the last five years go and check how much it's actually made you and compared to how much you put in yeah if it's if it's more than two years and you have made less than,

depending on what the instrument is, if it's more than two years and you've made less than, I would say maybe less than, if you've made less than 10%, you might want to look at your options. Because it might just mean that maybe you're in a low and slow product, right? It you're in a low and slow product right it could be in a small safe bond and maybe you are open to a higher risk profile that sort of thing

but just don't don't just assume that because the person had on a suit and they shook your hand and you know they said they know finance stuff mean that they actually know finance stuff right it is across the board there are lots of people who don't do it and then nobody wants to think about that nobody wants to think about the personal responsibility of, okay, then I'm going to have to go and look it up. I don't know anything about numbers. I don't know anything about finance. And you're scared. Just feel the fear.

Don't let it kill you, but don't let it stop you either. But I don't know that in Jamaica that can't be stopped. Because I hope it can't be stopped. I think maybe now is the first time ever that it's hard to stop because of social media, right? Like I don't have any big sponsors, actually.

I don't have any hosts working with me. I'm all on my own. I'm just a regular guy talking. But what I put out there is out there, right? And maybe that I know for a fact that has inspired hundreds of people and they have started to look at things and the industry has changed as that has happened but i don't know if you know what powerful this industry is you know because for example you can't even say that there's no competition in the industry there's loads of competition there's more

than 10 direct competitors just in the equity space and somehow they all managed to settle at a two percent fee for years all of them just happened to settle there and then knowing competition started and people like that yapper on twitter of me that started to push things and highlight when somebody drops their fees we We're caught, a couple of people have dropped their fees. It's just changing slowly, but I don't know that it can't be stopped because Jamaica is a very, it's a funny place. I think in Canada, actually, that fees point is a very good example, right? Because two years ago, when I came here, the fees were at 2%, right?

Whereas now they're at 0.5. And two years is a short horizon. I know they've been at 2% for a lot longer, right? But still, I think things can change. But yeah, I totally agree with the points you made on financial literacy, because there clearly is a link between, you know, growing financial literacy, growing competition, you know, growing products offering. And, you know, it's linked to other things as well, right? You know, higher GDP per capita is linked to you know higher education levels higher financial literacy like these things don't exist in vacuum right you cannot just go and make everyone

financial illiterate without making them you know let's say more educated or more productive at the same time and vice versa, right? So, and, you know, that's actually a good thing, I think, and it's a good opportunity because by, you know, by doing certain things and, you know, education, you're automatically sort of improving people's understanding and, you know, opportunities and chances they get in a number of other areas, right? So I think for, you know, for someone who is, you know, either interested in investing or, you know, career development or whatever, a good news is that by developing in one field, you will be able to connect the dots better and quicker in other places as well, right?

So, you know, again, I think that's something, you know, I would take away from this conversation is, you know, to me, it's never about, you know, okay, how do I write a better resume, right? Or how do I find a stock that will outperform tomorrow? It's more about, you know, you start learning in one place and the deeper you go, the more connections with other related and non-related areas, you will see. And, you know, it just makes you an overall better-rounded person. So that's how I choose to look at it. I think so. And you touched on a point there, you know, it's not ever about just knowing what the thing is for tomorrow or, you know, not what the hot stock is or or the hot pick which i'm sure we get asked all the time but i'm going to share some with you because uh when we did have you here the last time we did have you run the earning season gauntlet um you did you did do a

lot of picks and he's so he's far so one silver lining to the episode being lost is that uh dimitri you avoid the the covid dip oh no but I I remember what I said and you know look in in in the interest of transparency and I talked about owning up to mistakes you know I'm pretty sure I remember I said I I talked about I think I talked about um lab and mailpack but I also talked about qwi in a big way right so i was i was big on saying that you know qwi is is the best thing um and you know i didn't uh i didn't get it right and you know i'm happy to i'm not happy to admit it but i'm admitted it right so um you know you know it doesn't perform anywhere near to what i said it would right uh and and you know that's just the fact i didn't i didn't get it

right you know i i thought it was um it was under undervalued at that point when we spoke it was right before covet and you know another thing because I remember we touched on COVID as well. And, you know, back then, which was end of February, you know, I think what I said is like, oh, this thing is just somewhere in China, who cares? Or something along those lines, right? And look, and, you know, and I'm okay to repeat it now, right? I was wrong. I was horribly wrong, right? You know, and I'm okay to repeat it now, right? I was wrong.

I was horribly wrong, right? You know, many other people. Yeah, but let's not. Yeah. I don't want you to kill yourself and say, oh, you know, you're wrong. I mean, we were also pretty strong on QWI on this podcast. I don't know that we aren't still because COVID was a factor that hit them. In fact, I didn't want to say COVID hit them.

I think for QWI, they made that decision that I can't really understand to buy that heavy amount of access. It was, in my view, bad. It was obviously bad then, and it continues to be bad. It was like an albatross around their neck for the last few quarters. And that wasn't a factor at the time.

You wouldn't have known. I don't even think that had come out as it. No, I don't think so, no. So it's not about not getting it wrong you know which was always said before because I've been also would have gotten it wrong then but my timeline generally would have been pretty far and things change but it's about why the why is important right yeah I mean the why is important but also you know what's important as well. And that was, you know, the learning with COVID for me is that, you know, we've all read Black Swans by Nassim Taleb.

But, you know, the fact that I read the book didn't make me think that there will be something like that happening in 2020. So, you know, that's another thing that, you know, I think is important to consider. You know, there will be things that, you know, you will not get right and things that have nothing to do with your, you know, specific stock pick or, you know, whether your logic is just a, you know, an external event that affects so many other things. And these things will just happen. So rather than try and use the benefit of the hindsight and justify it in one or another way, I think it's a reminder for me personally and for all of us that there are things that are just outside of our control and we cannot necessarily predict for them. We just have to accept it.

And react to them. And react to them, yeah, exactly. And react to them because these things, and I'm sure you've done your portfolio rebalance and I've done mine. I got most of the things okay. I think some I didn't. But, you know.

I mean, you had a strong set you just mentioned. I wasn't even going to hold you to it. I was going to allow you to just pick a new set and it'd be post-COVID. But you're right. You got Lab. You got Mailpack. I mean, Lab is up cap gains. What is Lab at today?

Lab at this point would be, is at $2.60 so we're almost coming on to the one year mark between when lab listed and now up 160 pure profit great plus you'd already gotten a dividend pretty great um and and they just continue to perform that's a strong stock right for for that time period that you picked so i mean we didn't go into what levels of money you would put in each we just look on it dispassionately that was a great pick second behind that is mail pack you up 91 in six months with another even stronger dividend well i, I'm not because, you know, my average, you know, price of mailbag at which I bought is not the IPO price. It's, you know, more like 145 because I've been buying since.

But yeah, it's, you know, it's okay. And, you know, on QWI, obviously I'm in red by 20% or something like something like that um but qwi you'd be down yeah quite a bit because that's 73 cents no but that but yeah but but but my my uh oh yeah my average is 92 or something cents right about 90 cents so you know mean, it's still not like put 90 there. I don't remember. Yeah. Well, I mean, whatever.

I mean, it's 15%. Yeah. I think, yeah, like 15, 16%. But, you know, I'm not claiming that I will be able to get it right all the time. And by the way, you know, talking about volume, I've got more money in QWI than I have both in LAP and mailbag combined. So, you know, to sort of, you know, stroke my ego, I can say, oh, you know, okay, I've made X percent on LAP, X percent on mailbag, but I've lost in absolute terms or, you know, in unrealized losses more on, you know, more in QWI. And, you know, it's just, again, for me, And, you know, it's just, again, for me, it's a good learning and, you know, the whole crisis is as well that, you know, first of all, you're not going to get everything right in the normal circumstances. Second, you know, in extraordinary circumstances, you will, you know, get more things wrong.

But, you know, there are things you can do to rectify it at least to an extent um but and and also i think another another one for me is like um even in the presence of external events um you know if some of your beliefs may still be correct you know even if you know at this certain point in time you're down. And I think I still believe that's the case for QWI. You mentioned X is there, but they hold a much wider portfolio of stocks, including in the U.S. I mean, the U.S. part is helping them right now, of course.

in the US. I mean, the US part is helping them right now, of course. So, you know, I still believe that, you know, it's a good investment opportunity as a stock. And, you know, let's

see what happens next time we talk here. Yeah, well, let's see. Well, I mean, you can pick. Nobody knew that, but I like that you came openly with it. But what I wanted you to do with in light of the, to say now is in light of the, everything that's happened. I mean, what do you like in the picks on the main index, I would still go for them, but I'd say, you know, your, your GM and B, you know, your proven, you know, these types of stocks, I would still put money into them today. And then when it comes to when it comes to junior market, I'd say, you know, I'd still have the levels that are currently there, I'd still invest in lab, I'd still invest in Mailback. I'd look at companies that are undervalued on comparables basis relative to the overall market, but, you know, have it above average, you know, growth opportunities

and, you know, above average sort of, how would I call it properly? Like, you know, market or, you know, overall sort of economy benefits from COVID, right? And like MailPack is a good example. I know you guys talk about MailPack a lot, so I'm not just going to repeat it. But, you know, it's a good example. If you think about it, you have a company that's traded significantly

below the average price to earnings of the junior market, yet that's the company that actually grows their earnings to a higher extent than the rest of the junior market. And at the same time, that is the company that actually is one of the few who benefit. You know, I'm not talking stock now. I'm talking about business itself, right? Who will benefit or who already benefit from, you know, the fact that, you know, people

order more delivery, stay more at home and so on. So, you know, if you put those several things together, then, you know, you need that uh again i'm talking business level rather than stock right does stuff that you know actually you know gets more demanded and uh in a situation like we're in versus uh versus other businesses it's the company that you know has a strong balance sheet and you know enough cash it's a company that also a strong balance sheet and enough cash. It's a company that also, and again, I haven't looked in detail at the financials, but just looking at it from the business perspective. It's the company that I assume without looking has, in terms of their cost structure, has higher percentage of variable cost versus fixed cost. Because most of their cost is people. variable cost versus fixed cost, right? Because most of their cost is people.

You know, if you're a business like that, then you can, you know, adjust your cost base according to demand and market situation. You know, you can choose to, you know, employ, you know, 50% less people starting tomorrow if you so wish right um so you you're you're you're a much better position to kind of adjust to you know pick some troughs of demand so when you put that together with you know strong balance sheet cash position uh being in the industry yeah yeah being in the industry that that benefits from the crisis.

And also, I don't remember exactly, but I think they're, if not below average sort of PE ratio to junior market, they are probably the average, even though, you know, in terms of earnest growth. I think they're way below yeah the lab has a pe today at two dollars and 60 cents the lab has a pe ratio of 16 points yeah which is which which is the average market is what 24 25 right um yeah overall market today i think is above 30 times junior believe it or not or no not junior i'm thinking junior junior i've seen somewhere like 24 25 i'm not sure it's the latest but but i mean any case in any case i mean the point stands right they're significantly below below that so if you put all those things together you know you probably not not run at least in you know half of them right so yeah that's that's 24 times

yeah the junior market as of today is at 24.1 times and and the lab at 16 times is obviously well below and the lab continues to outperform so i mean you took two i think great picks easy picks but you know i'll i'll and i'll say this again and you know maybe next time we talk i'm still wrong i still believe qwi is uh is a good pick at at its current uh at its current price i don't remember i haven't checked lately what uh what the net asset value is off as of now but i believe it's probably you know still at least 20 or probably even more under value the last i've seen was about one dollar so it's more than uh than 20 yeah so no this is all great so this oh no it's third of july yes it's pretty good so the third of up to the third of

july yeah net asset value was a dollar and three so So, you know, I still believe that fundamentally it's a good pick. And, you know, maybe I'll be wrong again, but it's fine. I'm still thinking that.

I don't personally think you're wrong. I mean, I would say I always pressure the night but we haven't done this in a long time I'll just pressure myself QWI is also one of the stocks that I expect to do well maybe over the next but again, it's a long timeline, right?

because of the nature of the asset maybe the next year I don't want to give anybody my thoughts on anything much lower than that I will say that I do expect them to have good results. I haven't had a run of good results recently, but I do expect them to have good results soon. And with a net asset value of $1.03 and an actual share price of 70-something cents,

I mean, the story pretty much writes itself. Not that the story does not write itself because net asset value will not mean that share price has to go there. However, I will say that I do expect them to possibly do pretty well. What else would I like? These days, I mean, we mentioned at the top,

the Indies, that Indies as a company is strong and Indies as a company is not only strong but the share price is for some reason cheap right now before a great dividend and a dividend is guaranteed money so i mean we said openly and i stand by that i'm going to be buying more i bought and i'll be buying a lot more um and i like indies in the near term i do also like uh i mean not what i like but what i'm excited about you know i've given two i'm going to shut up i don't want to go in there yeah i don't want to give any go any further okay i'll keep i'll keep quiet on that one then i you won't drop in here

or you're good with it like that uh probably good but i'm looking through maybe something i want to speak on yeah that's that's that's the the the issue these days it has gotten a lot the responsibility of our voices and started to weigh heavily because we do get these things pretty right and i think enough people are starting to realize that that's money that we're giving away for free uh so something i won't necessarily give a peak peak per se but there's something i found very interesting cpfv um you've heard speak on it before uh cfp ppfv yeah we have we've spoken on it before we've spoken about the thing there were other day in oil group they were asked you know give me some pics that some off the road, off the side of the road pics I'm not really hearing about.

And I think it's Marvin Gordon, big up Mr. Oshad or something. His name is on Twitter. Mr. Oshad, I think. I think that's his Twitter. That is his Twitter handle. I'll find it and put it in the show notes for you. I don't know who you're talking yeah man he he put for the cpfv and it's in line with our reasoning for why we like it you know the profits come in and despite everybody was saying go ahead and do the buybacks and if you look at it the

buybacks have been beneficial to shareholders it is you saw where the stock price itself falls into a rut so it falls into around 30 also and then they come in with a buyback and then you see that spur the stock on forward and if you really look at it you can see where you there's an opportunity there if you if you know if you're at a comfortable low where it's below the thing there it's below the the number of company then and they've been buying properties there if they invest in new properties they are getting income from their properties and so you can see where no income is coming in they if there's a Bible program in place called

you know usual are so in already possibly people can speak on it um david and stewart they clarified what is actually happening with the thing there with the shares so that it's easily checkable in the um audited they do speak on the fact that they cancel the shares so that means that it's not that the shares are being held for resale so the outstanding shares of the company are actually decreasing when they do buybacks. Which means that when no buybacks happen, if I'm a holder of a company, then I owe a larger percentage of the company today than I did before the buyback. Which means you have higher profit allocation and dividend allocation. Yes, it does take some of the company's money to buy back the shares.

But if you really look at it, how much of the company is actually being bought up? And if you're looking for a future value. And if they buy it below it's not exactly exactly anything also so you're actually getting a deal on the price of the shares so maybe you can participate in the buyback when when they are buying back or even just hold the stock so you can look at the boy maybe the dividends are better my how much a profits worth to me and you know the thing go more profit allocate more profit more better EPS is very like very like the result in a bomb capital gains growth it's not something I still people are time yeah it's a lot of it's not a company I see other people talk about but it's a company I like just looking at it you know it's a it's a good company

so there those are the words on that one um a big up i wanted to give because recently remember our episode where we spoke about pe and mathematically i look at the pe function and i said it's really how long i invest in how long till the company pays back in profit my initial investment. So I buy the company at 40 and it's a PE of 20 then it would take 2 years or something like that.

Oh yeah. It would take 20 years. I buy the company, it doesn't matter the price I buy the company. So the PE of the company, so the PE is 20, it would take 20 years for the company to pay back in profit so you take 20 years of that same profit what about omega 20 to give me back my initial investment right return on capital invest yeah so technically your capital investment by the company at x and the company is worth a pe of 20, then it will take 20 years of

that same profit level to finally give him back, to pay him back my initial investment, right? Resworth merchants, I heard he, so I just reached that conclusion by looking at it. I think every

application of PE would stem from that. It just makes sense to me, right? I mean, I think we could do an entire PE episode because how you described it is not how I would look at it. Not that you're wrong, it's just it's not how I approach it. That's such a good point. I can see

where every single application of PE using it comparatively, using it as a standalone, just to look at a company and say, will I buy this? Just look at any company, get a company, look at them and say, but would I buy that? It would take me 20 years to get more money if I make the same profit every year.

Then it does make sense. If I'm looking for a 20-year-old, then yes, buy the company, right? Stuff like that. But yeah, I reached that independently by looking at it. But I heard, apparently, I've never heard somebody else speak on it in that way always oh how much how much I would pay for the profits of our company something it's always on so obscure and then the application is always

one-dimensional boy compared to um compared to its comparables in market I don't fully subscribe to all that but if you think they're um resworth merchants the CEO of VMware thank you there is a for is that what he is no or is he like the VM group yeah well he at a forum they had the other day, he explained PE in that way. So, you know, I've never heard it explained that way. So I figured, you know, Maria is always talking about him. He's a person that is practical about investing and he speaks practically about all the things.

And you can see the results just open VMs numbers in the time that he's been there's at least one of them there's at least one of them in almost every house I've realized one or two really really sharp people who he invests he invests successfully he can check whatever he wants he actually invests yes that actually invests. Yes, that is true. He's an avid investor. So, Big Oprez, he reached something that I reached independently. So, that's just right. That's just a chip on my shoulder,

in a way. I mean, congrats. I know the feeling, but I feel compelled to remind you that that's confirmation bias. Yeah, man. Thank you for causing us to hit each other with that

all the time. To be honest, it's right. It's fully correct. So it's not a matter of opinion. It's literal fact. If you look at the formula for PE, that's exactly what it's saying.

So somebody to rate that level, I can explain it in that way sensibly, then big up is somebody so somebody that I read that level that can explain it in that way sensibly then big up every time but yeah yeah and at the level

he is and the post he's in he's going to get less obviously probably no pushback oh yeah man

that sort of yeah yeah no you're making me think about your explanation of it that's definitely for another episode I'm thinking no it's how do i just i like and naturally describe it as

the return on each dollar that you pay based on the last 12 months income profit net income which is how i think but then i actually think about what that means in terms of net income because the reality is although it's profit i'm not actually getting it. They're not paying it out to me. They pay out a piece of one quarter maybe. It's a great way to think of it though. If you're at the scale that Resworth and company would

be working at where they can make multi-million dollar decisions and grab huge chunks of companies, then I'm sure it's even realer for him yeah uh yeah that's that's a good big up that's a good point and a good a good pick for yourself uh post corona pick oh gosh well we've been talking for a long time i don't want to keep you any longer and we have had people here a good while it looked like almost three hours so i'm going to call time on this one and we said thank you to you

thank you for another good one no thank thank you guys for having me it's always dmitro am i not am i not pronouncing it correctly? That's fine. That's okay. You're pronouncing it fine. Oh God, you know he's been in Jamaica long enough for everybody to butcher it. No, no, no. You know, you do the big ups. I'll do the big up for Starbucks Ligoni

because all the guys there learned how to spell it. Ah, alright. That's a big one. So big up Starbucks Ligoni. I haven't been in a while. how to spell it so you know all right that's a big one it's a big of starbucks ligany i've never been actually are you yeah that's a good big up anything else you want to throw out the people dimitri no that's it look uh i mean it's it's uh it's great to talk to you guys as always and uh you know always interested to hear your thoughts so thank you for that all right sir thank you thanks for coming thank you thank you very much sir it's always

good to have especially an external view people you will likely hear more from the metro from us as long as he'll take he'll take my calls uh we'll he'll probably be back on another episode because I like having an external view to the market and he has it. Myself, you guys have heard enough from me. So I'm Randy. I'm at RT. We're on Twitter. And I'm Benaya. He's Benaya on Twitter. And this has been Earnings Season. Hope you guys enjoyed it.

Bye guys