My Worst Investment Ever Podcast

Paulo Lydijusse Caputo is pursuing an MBA at McGill University (Canada) with a concentration in global leadership and strategy. After graduating with a bachelor of economics from Faculdades de Campinas in Brazil, Paulo worked for five years at Cyrela Brazil Realty, the largest real estate company in South America, acting as a regional controller in his last role. Paulo then spent a summer launching Uber’s operations in Belo Horizonte (sixth largest city in Brazil) before co-founding Baanko, a social enterprise with the objective of supporting and scaling social-impact businesses in Brazil. At Baanko, Paulo developed an in-house business methodology framed around and aligned with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Paulo is interested in pursuing careers in scalable technologies and impactful industries, with particular focus on AI and entertainment. His personal interests include tennis, outdoor activities, coffee-brewing methods and barbecuing. He is the executive president of McGill’s Desautels Faculty of Management One World One Culture Club and was recently awarded with the Mandri-Muggenburg Family MBA Leadership Award. “I really believe in giving back and this is something that I learned since the beginning of my career. For me, this is part of it so call on me for whatever you need and whenever you need it.” Paulo Caputo Worst investment ever Property insider buys discounted home from his employer real estate firm Around seven years ago Paulo experienced what he called a “real fail”, meaning in terms of investing, it was not a case in which he could find a way through to recover or minimize his losses. This one was “critical”. While he was working for Cyrela, the largest real estate operator in South America offered staff the opportunity to invest in one of its apartments, under apparently favorable conditions. Cyrela offered to waive all commercial, marketing and transactional fees, which meant a discount on the apartment’s face value of around 17-20% off the face value of each apartment. In Brazil, to buy a residential property, during the construction period, you only need to pay 30% of the price, then you hand over the remaining 70% after the vendor hands over the key. So lenders give you credit and you pay off the mortgage to them. His focus on all the shiny parts of the deal blinded him to the bigger picture Paulo liked the idea because he felt he was an industry insider who knew exactly what to do. Also, the apartment was conveniently located, so he felt confident about finding potential buyers. His idea was to sell the unit during its construction period, thereby being both an early investor and an early seller. He also felt confident he was investing in something that was valuable at the time and that it would generate a great return. Somewhat focusing on all the good points and so touched by a fair measure confirmation bias, he was expecting to easily find someone to buy , that he would know exactly the right time to exit the unit, and that he would the right price he wanted for it. But things did not pan out that way. Adding to his early excitement was that he was investing in a product that was part of his life, because he was working for the company that was building and selling it. He admitted that social validation was also component of the decision. He really believed in an operation that he was working for and that nothing could go wrong. Reality bites as government crisis darkens market But the political economy of South America, particularly Brazil’s, is always a roller coaster of volatility and Paulo got hit in one of its swings downward, the first episode of declining fortune for the previous government. He explained that investments in real estate involve a very high-end product. So it is high on the chain of products people can buy in their lives. A home is not something you buy every day and it is an item highly vulnerable to outside events, political, economic, and social. Apartments are the last thing Brazilians want to buy at this time So, Paulo tried to sell his apartment several times, involving the entire Cyrela sales force, all of whom he knew and were friends with. But, liquidity in the housing market was frozen. It was not a problem of the product or a problem of the price. It was just that people were averse to taking on a new home. He said when there is such a blip in the political and economic cycle, most people are not going to take on such risk. So buyers wait for the recovery, and in real estate, at least in Brazil, property is a product that is first to be hit, and the last one to recover. So before any buyers are ready again, everything needs to be back on track before you can start to resell apartments or other high-end products. So either you are ready to be comfortable for the long period that you are exposed or you have to cash out completely. Investor forced to sell property back to his employer at a loss Paulo eventually sold the apa

Ramesh Raghavan is currently the vice chairman of Business Angel Network of Southeast Asia (bansea), one of the leading and oldest organizations of its kind in Asia, as well as an early-stage venture investor and advisor in several start-ups. He is an advisor on risk management in traditional public market investments and alternative investments to family offices and emerging hedge funds. Ramesh previously held global leadership roles in derivatives, capital markets, and sales and trading with Morgan Stanley and the Royal Bank of Scotland and has worked in New York, London, Hong Kong and Singapore. Prior to his career in investment banking, he had a fast-moving consumer goods and commodity trading career with multinational corporations. Ramesh holds an MBA from the London Business School, a Masters in International Business from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade and a Mechanical Engineering degree from India’s oldest technical institution, the College of Engineering, Guindy, Chennai, India. Worst investment ever Investor takes first flight as an angel Ramesh’s first taste of angel investing happened about 12 years ago when a former college friend approached him to invest in an “execution-type business” that seemed interesting even though it was not a fundamentally new idea. Ramesh listened because the guy had been the smartest person in the room at university and had a good work history with large multinational companies. So Ramesh decided to invest his own funds and gather an investing syndicate together because he believed in the person more than the actual idea. ‘Too many generals and not enough soldiers’ raises first red flag After a few months, red flags began to appear. Ramesh couldn’t see any traction. Communications were worse than the usual poor information flow from start-ups. He couldn’t get clear answers when he wanted to know what was happening with the business, and something he has learned with angel investing since is that people tend to take the money for their business and disappear, only reporting good news and failing to provide updates on the bad. Being responsible to his investor syndicate, Ramesh urged his friend to tell him what was happening and if there were any problems. Finally, he then insisted to see the business plan in which he noticed there were eight co-founders, when three or maybe four should be the maximum. That said, he stressed that there should be one “chief”. He also noticed that all these co-founders had significant multinational experience but that nobody was doing the job. Everyone wanted to get paid but nobody wanted to actually do anything. They lacked the inability to actually get down, roll up their sleeves and actually do stuff. Time to trim inactive ‘leaders’ Ramesh’s first advice was to fire the loafers and change the whole business model. As the company was not making money, the significant salaries had to be cut to zero. If nobody liked it, Ramesh told his friend they should leave. His friend was unhappy, but after months of pushing, the friend managed to get rid of two co-founders. But issues remained. The company’s leaders still had no key action areas for which each person was responsible. So Ramesh worked with him, nearly four or five hours a session, over about six weeks to figure out how to help him create a viable potential business plan that including setting out key responsibilities for each of the co-founders, who were visibly unhappy at the prospect of doing some actual work. Remaining team fails to listen to chief advisor After a lot of prodding and mental anguish, Ramesh’s friend introduced him to the remaining co-founders and they found someone able to be best pitch person from the team to raise more capital, which, after a few months, they were fortunate enough to do. This gave them some breathing room. A lot of the time though, Ramesh began to realize that the team would say yes, but they would never take his advice. So the traction was very poor and he learned that it didn’t matter what he said, the red flags were clear. Ramesh also advised his friend that if the current business was not working (which it wasn’t) in the current state of the market, they should pivot the business. The friend was so stuck on his idea that he thought pivoting meant accepting failure, despite Ramesh telling him that every start-up pivots every other day. Great idea do not just take people to success in a straight line. Investor becomes CEO and tells everyone to adapt or die It was at this point, Ramesh took over as CEO. He had to put his foot down with the board and the team and say if they were not on board with pivoting, they should leave. After that, two other co-founders did just that which left the company with a team of the ideal size, three or four co-founders. Salaries were slashed and Ramesh had to point out that “entrepreneurship is not a salary-collection business model”. Ramesh said that despite being friends he had to be frank ab out how they

David Wolf is the founder and executive producer of Podcast and Radio Networks. For more than 32 years, he has been the creative director, music composer, or producer of content for radio, TV, film, podcasts, audiobooks and multimedia. He has been hosting the Smallbiz America Podcast since 2005, which is now syndicated coast to coast in the US on BizTalk Radio Network and on Smallbiz America Radio. Today, David applies his experience along with the skills of his virtual creative team to help companies, organizations, entrepreneurs and thought leaders grow their brands and businesses through podcasting, audiobook production and internet radio. “But as you know from hearing these stories, we get emotionally connected to the idea that we can save the idea we thought was the right one” David Wolf Worst investment ever David, his wife and their two boys were living in Dallas, having moved there from Chicago in 1985 after their marriage. They had successfully built together a successful business producing music for big name brands such as McDonald’s, Southwest Airlines, Chuck E. Cheese restaurants, Exxon Mobil through advertising agencies as primary clients. They also produced work for children’s programming such as the Barney the Dinosaur shows. Music production operation builds to more than half million in annual revenue Upon arriving in Dallas, the keen 25-year-old David worked hard at building his music business, spending 85% of his time driving sales, meeting new people and getting them his music reel. The rest of the time was spent in the studio. With his wife Phyllis, a virtual team, and a collection of musicians and singers, David built up to a peak top-line revenue of around US$650,000 a year. Move to New Mexico proves financially imprudent Around the time he turned 36, he and his family decided to move to Santa Fe, New Mexico, physically moving from the market that was supplying revenue for his business. He admitted failing to fully appreciate the amount of money the business was generating through the creative work and overlooked considerations of capital preservation. Riding the wave of past success, they moved but eventually the reality of being removed from their market dawned on them, so they decided to move back to Dallas to try to regenerate what they had started around a decade earlier. Return to Dallas fails to recreate past wins Back in Dallas, they could not generate the kind of success they had seen before. There was new competition in the market, David and his wife were older, nearly 40, which in that business is considered a little bit old because the decision makers in ad agencies are in their 20s or 30s. So the move back failed to take. So they found themselves asking the question: “What are we going to do?” Brother calls with idea to take over cousin’s bankrupt bagel business Then, possible light shines from the dark. David’s brother in Albuquerque, New Mexico invites him to get involved in a popular retail and wholesale bagel bakery brand in Albuquerque and Santa Fe that had been run by their cousin but had gone bankrupt after attempting to grow too fast. David’s brother understood the physical side of the business whereas David knew nothing about it. He did however know how to market products and was drawn to the idea of something completely new in distributing an edible commodity. Buying an operation for $75,000 that had made $3.2m at its peak seemed smart So he and his family moved back to New Mexico and negotiated to buy with his considerable savings the assets of out of bankruptcy for around $75,000. He also was attracted to the business as it had been generating $3.2 million at its peak, so it felt like a good idea. But it was a very complex business that required knowing a lot more than he realized, with 30 employees, wholesale purchasing, and retail came far more complex accounting, than his experience of getting a creative fee and then paying musicians. But, David learned a lot and was excited to do so. The media picked it up as it had been a very popular brand, had seven retail stores, and they were selling to businesses such as Cisco, Shamrock, Whole Foods, and Wild. Walks in blind to complexity and risk of business type So he walked into an infrastructure set up to make the product and he was blind to the complexity and the risk that he was undertaking. That said, the recipe was great and there were a lot of underserved people in the Jewish community. Even so, the massive chain, Einstein Bros. Bagels had entered the market and had tried to buy out the cousin. It is a large publicly traded company began to do better than his cousins company, mostly because they really know how to run a chain of stores. Operators inherit unnecessarily massive warehouse After the bankruptcy proceedings, they found ourselves with 12,500 square foot warehouse, far bigger than the company would ever need. They tried to get around their competitor Einstein through wholesaling while learning how to

After graduating from college at potentially the worst time in recent history, Christopher Uhl began his decade-long career in the world of corporate finance. Having become a Certified Management Accountant (CMA) and yet feeling unfulfilled with corporate life, he decided to follow his passion for trading stocks and options and created 10minutestocktrader.com in 2017. There he teaches aspiring traders how to manage a stock and option portfolios in only a few minutes a day through his free courses and access to his completely open and transparent portfolio. In 2018, Christopher created the How To Trade Stocks and Options podcast, a top-25 investing podcast that is broadcast daily and dedicated to teaching the tools, tips and tricks to help his growing audience trade faster and trade smarter. Finally, Christopher was honored in Redwood Media Group’s The Top 100 People in Finance magazine. Christopher is following his passions and using the power of the internet to generate multiple streams of income while continuing to expand his influence and network. He holds a BBA and an MBA from Henderson State University in Arkansas, United States. “There’s no reason to think that you’re smart enough to pick the bottom.You’ve got to be able to see what’s going on … and reverse the course if you have made the wrong choice. Be true to yourself, figure out that you are wrong, make adjustments and move on.” Christopher Uhl Worst investment ever Confessions of a reformed contrarian investor Christopher’s story is quite recent, starting in the northern hemisphere’s summer of 2018. He had his website 10minutestocktrader.com operating, and life was going well as he looked for trades. Historically, when he had worked with other traders, he had developed a contrarian trading style. So if someone said they liked the commodity “corn”, for example, and they were going to bet on the price of corn to go up (to go long), Chris would say: “You don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m going to go short on corn.” Meaning he would invest on the idea that corn’s price was going to fall. So last summer, gold was in a clear downtrend. Chris called its fall so “glorious” that if anyone had traded on that trend, they would have made a lot of money. But Chris thought he knew better and this was where all his problems began. So as he was looking at gold he noticed it had a high implied volatility rank. He explained that when selling options, one of the things that to look for is a high implied volatility rank. “You want to sell something where it’s priced like a Mercedes, and then buy it back when it’s priced like a Hyundai, right? But it’s the same security.” Christopher Uhl Of entire account, investor puts 60% of his account into a long bet on gold Based on its high implied volatility rank, he believed gold had found its bottom and he decided to go long. His contrarian attitude looked at the trend and he decided to go the opposite way, for no reason than it was his trading style (which he now says he has completely scrapped). He then went on seeking confirmation on Twitter, “a terrible idea” that he has also learned from, trying to find as much reinforcement as he could and trying to find other people who were also going long on gold. Percentage wise of his entire investment account, he had committed more than 60% into a long bet on gold and he admitted being excited about it. Used Twitter to seek support for his very style-based trading thesis Another error was that he accidentally pressed four as in four contracts on gold instead of two, but left it as is thinking it would be fine. He then scanned Twitter every day to make sure everyone in that sphere agreed with his gold position. All this comes in spite of undeniable evidence that gold is going down every day. Chris admits to overconfidence and thinking he knew better than the market when the market was saying loud and clear that its direction was down, down, down. Chris has told this story many times on his podcast How To Trade Stocks and Options but he’s never gone into much detail about it. Gold drops 2% in a day while investor is on vacation With all his contracts investing in the idea that he had picked the commodity’s bottom and that gold would go up from there, he went on vacation. While away, he received queries about how the trade was going, to which he replied: “Things are going great. Hitting all-time highs in the account and everything’s wonderful.” One day, he pulled up the trade on his phone and saw that gold had dropped a massive US$22 that day, a 2% move. Amid a sinking feeling, he asked himself the question sitting in the hotel in Orlando about to visit Disney World: “Oh, geez, did I just do something wrong?” He finally cuts his losses after doubt murmurs for too long Almost in denial, he admitted that the worst part of that was his inaction. He didn’t want to deal with his mistake because he was on vacation. But in the back of his mind, he was thinking: “What have I done?”

Pashin Katpitia is the chief technical officer and a director at Inspiron investment consultants, based in Mumbai, India. A third-generation entrepreneur, stock trader, and technocrat, Pashin is a highly disciplined trader who focusses on market realities at all times. He is committed to the growth of the investor and trading community and has trained thousands of novices and experts. Pashin has developed real-time trading systems and is a point of reference for many traders seeking support. He and the co-founders of Inspiron have recently developed a fully algorithm-driven rating and curation app for stocks and commodities that provide innovative features, such as a triple-layer market outlook for the short, medium and long term, as well as a star rating for each stock listed on the exchange. The app is called Shazpha (means success) and is available on App Store and Google Play, and currently offers coverage on all exchanges in India as well as the NYSE and NASDAQ in the United States. “There are times when the market is not in your favor and there are times when the market is but … you need to be consistent in your approach to the market.” Pashin Katpitia Worst investment ever Fund manager inherits poorly performing fund from predecessor Pashin’s story starts when he first got involved in fund management in 2010. He had inherited a fund from a previous fund manager who hadn’t performed well and it was down 40%, so he was left with 60% of the initial capital. It was difficult, but because he had a system, he just followed that and was not affected by personal feelings. Following a system, he regained losses and made a profit It was a decent sized fund, small by global standards, but still had US$1 million and he invested in a total of four stocks. Those stocks helped him recover the losses and generate some profit in the first year so he and his investors were back to square one. The clients though had regained confidence and for Pashin it was a great feeling to have not only recovered clients’ losses made also them some money. Fund in 2011 makes 40% profit that investors choose to re-invest Now in 2011, the year starts off well, and Pashin moved in and out of a few investments. On the whole however he was riding on just three stocks for about eight months. By December, he and his team decided that since they had generated a good profit (about 40%), they would take those funds and spread them among the investors. The investors were on a high because just the previous year they had recorded losses and now in this year, they were looking at a 40% profit. So most of the investors said: “Let’s reinvest the money and just keep trading.” So they were all confident and started off 2012 with a program of re-investment of profit. Now with a larger fund the investments fall foul as markets play up So they all started off in January 2012 with the clients having re-invested their profits, and with a larger fund amounting to capital of around US$1.4 million. With that, they started larger positions in the same stocks because they had found that those stocks were still the best. Then the markets started to shift unpredictably, and by the end of March 2012, they had lost all the profits that were made in the previous year. That moment was a real wake-up call for Pashin that the markets can go wrong. It was only thanks to the system he was followed which included stop-loss points that he was left with the capital intact, and he had only lost the profits that were generated in the earlier years. Realization that as markets can rise, they can also fall, without warning He realized that markets can move in the absolute opposite direction to what you are expecting. And because he had increased his positions, his losses were magnified. While reinvesting returns is a good thing, he said, it can also be counterproductive, especially if you haven’t managed your risk well. So he had his team continue to trade in 2012, which was a really volatile year, and ended up losing another 18% on the capital. By the end of 2012, they were left with a little less than what the capital was they held at the beginning of the year. That said, the clients had not lost all confidence and they permitted Pashin and his team to go on trading. Later on, that paid off, as all losses were covered in 2014, followed by some impressive returns from then on. Despite regaining losses, fund manager starts to question himself and his system He said the point of the story was that the losses here was that, you know, it brought him to a place where he wondered if his system was effective, questioning himself. And that, he said, is the question most people face when they encounter this kind of scenario. Some lessons Stay in the market. Pashin says the number one behavior that pulled him through was that he kept invested, calculated his risk, and managed that risk well. Be consistent in your approach to the market. There are times when the market is not in your fa

Christopher Salem is an accomplished business and emotional intelligence strategist, world-class speaker, award-winning author, certified mindset expert, radio show host and media personality, and wellness advocate partnering with entrepreneurs, corporations, and small businesses with overcoming their limiting beliefs so his clients can then adopt the process to operate within the solution – and not manage the problem – for sustainable success. Chris has worked with organizations such as JP Morgan Chase, Ralph Lauren, Microchip Technology, Anthem, the United States Census Bureau, Hubbell, and the NYPD forensics department. He has also worked with tertiary institutions, such as the University of Hartford, Bay Path University, Worcester State University, and spoken on overcoming limiting beliefs for peak performance at the Harvard Faculty Club. Chris is the originator of the term, Prosperneur, which refers to an individual whose health and wealth are aligned in a way that leads to true prosperity. His book Master Your Inner Critic addresses this and in doing so hit the international best-seller list in 2016. He was also a co-author of a recent edition of Mastering the Art of Success with Jack Canfield. His weekly radio show Sustainable Success is broadcast on the VoiceAmerica Influencers Channel. “I could have acted out, I could have started drinking … (and gone) back to the things I used to do when I was really young that would have taken me out. But … I made a conscious choice to be mature about this … there was nothing I could do except go forward, be present and … not allow this to sideline me for any other future decisions or risks that I would take, whether for starting a business or making an investment.” Christopher Salem Worst investment ever Venture begins in bullish mood of mid-2000s Chris’ story is set in the boom time before the global financial crisis of 2008. House prices were skyrocketing alongside stock markets and people were doing very well. He had invested in start-up companies before, his first being back in 1993. So in around 2006 he met a couple of very smart founders of a media company who were going to revolutionize the video space on airplane seatbacks to engage business and first-class passengers with special offers. After some due diligence, he wanted to invest in what they were doing to take the company from the ground up to make it successful. With his background in media, it was also in an area he had interest in. All pieces and people in place for air-travel-tech winner And so he put a lot of time into preparation for this particular investment and when he went forward everything looked as if it were going to plan. It was a truly disruptive business idea that filled a niche and a need. That positivity was boosted by the presence of American Airlines former CEO Robert Crandall on the board of the company. Chris invested a considerable sum, not being exactly averse to some risk. Early days show promise with ‘Six-Sigma-type guys’ at the helm At first the company was showing a lot of promise with its special offers based on personalized information obtained through credit cards. If a VIP passenger’s lease on their Audi was finishing in a month, and they were going to be in Las Vegas, the company would put an offer up on the seatback monitor for the passengers to test drive a BMW when they arrive via sophisticated algorithms and processes. All of this was being run by people with excellent credentials in technology and business in general, “Six Sigma type guys”. Global crisis plunges knife in investors’ backs But then the financial crash hit. As a result, Chris and the team’s venture began to unravel. The progress of everything slowed down, and certain airlines planning to go forward, did not. Also slowly Chris began to the money invested by himself, other investors and the company’s founders being burned through quickly. All measures to save it were fruitless despite that extensive planning had gone into it, despite how great it looked on paper, and in spite of the support provide by a lot of skilled, experienced people. Despite all that, the company never made a sale to a single airline. Hard times for new parents For Chris and everyone, it was a very difficult time. His marriage was young and they had just had a son. Though it didn’t bankrupt him, it put him in a very tough situation as he had lost a significant amount of money and time doing research and managing the investment. Start-up investor reaches emotional crossroad At that time Chris had to decide whether to sit in the problem, act out and be angry about what happened, or just accept what happened, live with it and advance to what was necessary to get his money back. Eventually, he weathered the storm. Chris said he could have started drinking or doing other things that would have taken him out, but he made a conscious choice to be mature and go forward, be present not allow this to sideline him for other future decisio

David Siegel is the world’s first web designer and is the author of five books on the web and business. He has started 23 companies, including Studio Verso, one of the world's first digital agencies, which was sold to KPMG. His most recent book, which is highly rated on Amazon, is called Pull, which describes the shift from powerful companies to powerful consumers. In 2016, David was a candidate for the post of dean at Stanford Graduate School of Business. In July 2017, he led a team of volunteers to the successful ICO of The Pillar Project (tagged “the easiest cryptocurrency mobile wallet to use”), which raised more than US$20 million. He’s also the CEO of 20|30, a venture studio based in London. “From a forensic point of view, the reason most start-ups fail is failure to make the sale. So people don’t understand this; they think it’s some kind of product-market fit or engineering or the product wasn’t good enough, or it was management, or there wasn’t enough money. In fact, all those things are second or later causes; the number one cause of failure is failure to make the sale.” – David Siegel, who has done around 23 start-ups in his career Worst investment ever Number 1 The first one was a US$100 million mistake. He had an ICO, and ether (cryptocurrency) was valued at around $170, or his ICO had a $21 million valuation at the time (that’s how much money he had raised). By the end of that year, he had $150 million worth of ether. In the time after the ICO, he became more conscious of money management. He knew he was at the right time to cash out, but it turned out that turning ether into cash would be difficult. He was trying to sell ether and get to dollars in any way he could, but the banks were refusing to take his ether because it was difficult to do the anti-money-laundering (AML) and KYC due-diligence compliance. After trouble also with currency exchanges, which were saying he had to exchange back into ether again, and months of trying to find banks to accept his money (he wanted to put around $50 million into a bank account right away), he could not, because AML laws were standing in his way. While this was going on, ether was going down in value as was bitcoin. At the end of it all, ether had dropped back down to $350. David hoped it would climb again but it went down to $73. So the value of his company fell from $150 million down to $5 million. The company is still alive and “still has the lights on”, but it has slimmed considerably. As David said: “It’s austerity time here”, but he believes his team is going to make it work in the long run. Numbers 2 and 3 David discussed two other business investments he was involved in – a brick factory in Cambodia, and a new kind of wholesale mortgage company, the latter which failed due to the lack of “regulatory capital”. Some lessons Astute money management is essential: You lose money pretty much the same way you make it, through money management. Your money management scheme determines if you are going to be a winner in the long run. Be wary about asset allocation and remember diversification. Failure in these areas can often result from overconfidence, which is based on being too optimistic and seeing all the potential upside and not looking broadly and deeply enough at the downside. Andrew’s takeaways The potential impact of macro-economic and external factors are supremely difficult to predict and factor in. The effects of such factors, whether they are major economic upheavals in a country or region, government regulations, political power shifts, can be very hard to estimate and allow for. Beware the error of inaction. When you find an idea you like or something you’re interested in, don’t make the mistake of not doing anything. If unsure about the potential of an idea, remember the smaller position option. Try to figure out how you can take a small position in an investment, rather than blowing all your money just because you like the idea. Actionable advice Learn to sell and learn all about money management. #1 goal for next 12 months Pillar Project is Daniel’s pride and joy and he expressed hope that listeners would visit PillarProject.io and learn about its mission to change the world. His team for the next 12 months wants to build on a strong platform product, which was launched a month ago (at time of recording) and is seeking a following of at least a million people by the end of the year. He points out that the Pillar Project is part of the Personal Data Movement, which is the idea of taking back control of personal data, that people should own their personal data and decide what to do with it. He added that people should run their own algorithms to help them, and not Amazon’s or Facebook’s or Google’s. Parting words David is a self-confessed student of failure, and one of his favorite authors is child-development expert Alfie Kohn. David asserts that Kohn is also a business guru, because, he says, if you know a lot about children, you can u

Mohsen Arjang completed a bachelor of science degree in industrial economics at Allameh Tabataba’i University in Iran and then started his work as an economic journalist at a local newspaper. Following that he continued his career as a foreign commercial manager at prominent corporations. In 2013, he started his own business as a digital marketing and branding consultant, working with enterprises, municipalities and city councils (engaged in city-branding projects). He established in 2016 the Iran Market Monitor (IMM) group, a leading consultancy with the mission to analyze the Iranian market and provide business solutions for corporations. His international experience includes presenting the “Urmia City Branding Project” at the 12th Metropolis World Congress 2017 in Canada and speaking at the World Wealth Creation Conference 2017 in Singapore alongside respected speakers such as Brian Tracy and Ron Kaufman. “Do research and get help from specialists in the field in which you are planning to invest.” Mohsen Arjang Worst investment ever Two friends involved in the automotive industry approached Mohsen in 2014 to collaborate on and invest in a new production line imported from Europe to make accessories for a car that had achieved great popularity in the Iranian market. While it was a new area for him, his friends had already started to produce one line of the parts and wanted Mohsen to invest in the raw materials, because they had the equipment already. Since he had known them more than five years and had already witnessed their considerable, he trusted their presentation and the facts and figures they showed him. All evidence supported the hope that the business would grow quickly in the near future and the car model’s sales were increasing. He thought there would definitely be good new ahead. We started to buy more raw materials and they built a better mold for the accessory. Orders start to come in for the partner’s cheaper parts Not long after, the partners started to face huge demand evidenced in a large number of orders from customers. This was happening because of the popularity of the car model and our product cost. As the trio were buying large volumes of raw materials, they were able to negotiate better deals and improve their competitive advantage in the market. Further, their production costs were among the cheapest in the industry. Fortune turns as new model of car hits the market, draining their sales However, after three months a brand new model of the same car was launched and sales of the model for which they were supplying accessories started to fade. Although their sales were not dropping sharply, they could see a steady decrease. After six months, their sales had been halved. As a result, the team could not afford production costs because the price also continued to decrease. Mohsen and his partners were astonished about what was happening. Hard call made to stop production Finally, they decided to stop production. From the onset, as they had failed to anticipate this change in their future, they were ill-equipped to adapt their plant to the new accessories for the fresh car on the block. Mohsen lose the whole of his investment. Once bitten, twice shy, but the healing power of logic emerged The ensuing emotional damage was that the experience made him extremely conservative in the years to come, unwilling to take any risks. But as time passed, he realized he should be more logical and not limit myself. Instead, he realized he should do more research and use the expertise of specialists. He realized also that if investors isolate themselves and only take a well-worn comfortable path, they put themselves in a state that is opposed to progress. Some lessons Avoid entering a new market, one that you’re unfamiliar with. If you do, you should do so armed with extensive research and guidance. Mohsen believes he should not have made the decision to invest based solely on his friends’ proposal, but should have done a lot more research and gained advice from experts. Forecast possible futures and prepare yourself for the worst scenarios. Mohsen and his friends were “absolutely certain about the margin” but decided perhaps far too emotionally to move ahead with the plan. Andrew’s takeaways It’s very difficult to fully anticipate what is coming in a given industry. This is true enough for the businesses we’re involved in because we’re so close to them. Andrew has looked at many businesses in his time and most of them don’t look into their customers with perhaps sufficient depth, which means many could be exposed to a similar type of risk. Actionable advice Follow your heart but take your brain with you. “Do research and get help from specialists in the field in which you are planning to invest.” No. 1 goal for next the 12 months Mohsen is planning to expand his business in the Middle East, focusing on Oman. He believes his team are going to see opportunities opening up there because the region is ano

Danny Goh is a serial entrepreneur and an early-stage investor. He is the founder and CEO of Nexus FrontierTech, an AI research firm that easily integrates AI into organizations’ processes by using natural language processing to transform idle information into structured data, enabling the organization to run better, leaner, and faster. He also is a general partner at the G&H Ventures fund, which invests in early-stage start-ups primarily in Southeast Asia. The fund has invested in more than 20 portfolios in deep tech and is building its third fund to help start-ups into the growth stage. Danny currently serves as an entrepreneurship expert at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford and is also an appointed research fellow at the Center for Policy and Competitiveness at the École des Ponts Business School in France. He is an advisor and judge to several technology start-ups and accelerators, including Microsoft’s accelerator program, Startupbootcamp IoT, and LBS Launchpad. Danny serves as a visiting lecturer at various universities in Europe and is a speaker at various conferences, including TEDx and fintech events. “As early-stage investors, we are not investing just in the products or the growth, we are actually investing in people, the founders themselves” Danny Goh Worst investment ever Danny’s focus is as an early-stage investor. He made his first such investment around 10 years ago in an education tech start-up in Israel. After that early success, he was so confident after that he believed and acted on the belief that he could just as easily invest in start-ups in Europe to help them to grow. After he spent around six years trying to build ventures and help founders in Europe “it was a complete disaster”. He puts it down to his perspective that perhaps doesn’t suit everyone that “as early-stage investors, we are not investing just in the products or the growth, we are actually investing in people, the founders themselves”. He says that is the very reason why founders come to meet investors for just US$50,000 or $100,000 to start creating a business. So he arrived at his technique of looking into the founders, hearing what the founders say about their “beautiful” vision, and realized that it is more than just about the vision itself. He discovered that to be a successful founder requires three things for the investors to actually buy (see “Some lessons” below) Some lessons Danny has arrived at three key items investors should look for in a start-up founder: Their vision has got to be big. Strong execution skills.Flexibility. He defines this as the ability to keep going and the ability to pivot. He went on to explain that in his experience this applies particularly in Europe and perhaps other developed countries. In those areas, if things go wrong with the start-up, it appears easier for founders to give up and find another job or company to work for. The start-up life is tough. It is definitely not as glamorous as people read in the media, there are great pressures involved, as shown in start-up statistics. He pointed out that the typical lifespan for early-stage start-ups in Europe is around six months. “More than 75% of start-ups fail in the early stage before moving out of the first year.” Danny Goh Southeast Asian founders are different in their flexibility. They have a big vision, good execution skills, but the price they pay for a start-up to survive is much lower. Also, the reward for the price of success is comparatively far greater than for them to continue to work in a daily job. This means he has seen many more serial entrepreneurs in the region who have had five or six start-ups fail, but they keep ongoing. So investors still believe in them, talk to them, and like to discuss their problems and how to solve them. Founders should listen and learn from investors. This has been a principal idea that an investor should be very knowledgeable, should be very experienced, and should be very rich. The founder should listen to everything the investors say. BUT: Danny says his biggest lesson of investing in and working in start-ups was Investors should listen and learn from founders. Investors themselves must play a bigger role in understanding the start-ups and equipping themselves with better knowledge so that they are not really putting themselves in the wrong shoes of the founders and making the wrong decisions when they are advising them. Investors should know what they need to do, know what they are supposed to be telling founders, instead of simply blaming the founders when the investors have to take part of the blame when things go wrong. Investors must have the ability to identify with and what with founders of all kinds from all regions. “(Founders should look to) Get the type of money that fits your needs.” Andrew Stotz Actionable advice Avoid overconfidence. Many different factors result in success so don’t think you are successful just because of your skill and acumen. Danny says

Tariq Dennison is a Hong Kong-based manager of US and offshore retirement plans at his own firm, GFM Asset Management. Prior to GFM, he worked in the wealth management divisions of Société Générale in Hong Kong, CIBC in Toronto and London, Bear Stearns and JP Morgan in New York, after a few years in Silicon Valley. Tariq holds a master of financial engineering degree from the University of California at Berkeley and a bachelor of science degree in mathematics and the history of philosophy from Marquette University, and is a visiting professor of fixed income and alternative investments at ESSEC Business School Asia-Pacific in Singapore. Tariq is an IFPHK Certified Financial Planner and the author of Invest Outside the Box. He is a frequent speaker on RTHK Radio 3’s Money Talk program, HKIBN Cable News’ All About Money program. He has also presented on ETFs, investor education and retirement plans at multiple public conferences. “The number one difference between whether or not someone has a million-dollar retirement account is whether they put money in the account early on, not whether they invested in stocks, or bonds, or international, or value, or growth. It was whether they simply had the discipline to save regularly and not do stupid things. And the second thing is just making sure that we have the proper tax structuring and we take care of accounts in the right way. There are enormous differences between having something in a taxable account and a tax-free account, being able to touch it and not being able to touch it.” Tariq Dennison Worst investment ever Tariq offers listeners a tale in three parts, spanning the 20-odd years of his entire investment career. But like many investors Andrew speaks with in his podcast, Tariq says the challenging experiences made him the investor he is today. Part 1: Pre-bubble Silicon Valley beckons He started working, investing and made his first real money in Silicon Valley in the late 1990s. He was invested heavily in tech stocks of companies he truly thought he knew well as he either worked for them himself, or had friends working with them. He was buying the companies’ stock as he and his friends watched them prepare to go public, they were progressing, he thought he understood their business models and saw the path to success before them. And, like many others in the aftermath of the burst tech bubble, he lost money in those stocks. He points out here though that these would fail to make them his worst investments ever. It was early, the amounts were small and in total he lost less than US$10,000. Part II: Not about what he lost but the gains he walked away from His Silicon Valley forays happened before he learned proper financial analysis. “That was stage one.” At this point he was still in his early 20s. In the next stage of his journey, he went to the other end of the spectrum, becoming overly focused on target companies’ financials, and wanted them to have a lot of cash, big dividends and big earnings. He especially loaded up on two very familiar blue chip names: Apple Computer (Apple Inc., AAPL:US, APPL.OQ) and Philip Morris, a pair of the best performing stocks in the past 20 years. And thus, part two of Tariq’s story is that he sold them much too early compared to the potential they would realize even years later. He bought big parcels of each at $20 a share between 2000 and 2002, then sadly sold all his positions in them when they hit $50 a share. He had made in each stock 150% returns and was happy. But also sadly, he denied himself huge gains by selling those stocks early than he had ever lost in the tech group (Apple stock has made a simple percentage gain of 650% [or an averaged 32% per year, without compounding] since 2000). Part III: Decision to go pro leads budding investor to Berkeley At this point, Tariq attended Berkeley to study financial engineering to really understand investing in a world-class way. He wanted to learn how to analyze investments and put portfolios together. This too however came with another problem. By combining the lessons learned from parts one and two of his story, he was making his method very complicated. He came out of his master’s course with an intensely rigorous investing system with checklists, risk limits, and very careful portfolio construction involving the reading of beta analysis and multiple calculations. Learned master invests a lot of time in highly complex system, but it works In all fairness to himself, he says of the methods he has used that this one has worked the best as it is extremely systematic and disciplined. But its complicated nature makes it cumbersome and he says that perhaps part three of his worst investment might be the amount of time he has invested in it. To his relief, within the past few years, companies such as BlackRock have taken a lot of his disciplined checklists that he created to measure financial quality, valuation, and gauge for low risk, and have incorporated them directly in a

Lisa Ryan is the chief appreciation strategist at Grategy. She is an award-winning speaker, an author of 10 books, including Manufacturing Engagement, and a co-star in two inspirational films with other personal development experts that you may have heard of – and she’s happy to name-drop when asked. When she’s not on stage you’ll find Lisa traveling the world meeting relatives she discovered on Ancestry.com, reading murder mysteries, or catering to the demands of her two very spoiled cats – Simba and Tinkerbell. “My goal is to really to have that the happy,satisfied marriage that I have with my fabulous spouse, and being able to do what I love because right now I’m pretty darn happy.” Lisa Ryan Worst investment ever Lisa realizes her calling In 2009, discovered her calling was to spread a message of gratitude, Lisa started out doing some part-time speaking for free at various clubs and organizations. Then in 2010, she was compelled when she was retrenched from her medical sales position to focus wholly on being a speaker. At the time, the economy was doing badly, so despite it not being the best time to start a business, her husband was very supportive of the idea because it made her happy. Buying hope Once she had used up her bonuses and most of her 401k had run out, Lisa started “buying hope”, explaining the feeling that one thing might solve her problems; one program, if she just worked with this one coach, if she just invested in this one movie, all would be well. Through what she called pay-to-play arrangements she was in two movies, gaining a role by making a substantial investment, the benefit of which was to be seen alongside famous people, such as Jack Canfield (co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series). The second movie she was in was with John Gray, who wrote the Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus series, and Marci Shimoff, who both appeared in The Secret. That film required a smaller investment but the first required a big outlay and included a lot of people who also appeared in The Secret, such as behavioral specialist John Demartini, Bob Proctor, and Mary Morrissey. She thought after the success of The Secret and that if she could be associated with these people, she would be successful and have arrived. That would be everything she needed. But it wasn’t. She still has hundreds of DVD cases in the basement, because no one watches DVDs anymore. Book deal also drains finances She was doing a lot of that kind of investment and was published in an anthology, a series like Chicken Soup for the Soul, in which she had the chance to co-author with John Demartini, which was another pay-to-play investment, but she could then at least say she was a published author. So that was another huge investment but it was just another chapter, another thing, one after another in a search for the thing that would “fix” her. Investing in hope runs up huge credit card bill In the journey to fine the perfect “next thing” Lisa ran up US$100,000 credit card debt. Even so, Lisa didn’t consider any of those horrible investments, because even thinking about the money spent, she thought: “Hey, I was in two movies with John Gray and Jack Canfield”, so in her bio she could add that to her bio alongside all the coaching she had received. Time to put the hand up for help However, the hardest moment in all of this was the discussion she had to have with her husband. They had separate finances and until this time, he did not know how much trouble Lisa was in, because she was trying so hard to be successful, to put on this air of success and that she could afford all these investments. In reality, she was drowning in debt and spending $1,200 dollars a month just in credit card fees and interest. She was dying and scared. ‘Honey, we need to talk’ So her husband Scott came home from work one day and they sat down, turned off the TV, and Lisa showed him the Excel spreadsheet she had compiled with her 17 maxed-out credit cards and associated debts all mapped out. She had a banker who had reached out to her and offered to get a lower rate on her credit card via a loan, but when the bank looked at her status, they backed away. What he did organize though was a consolidation program to combine her credit card debt into a pile along with their housing payments. Saved by a man named Ghandi And so when she talked to her husband, she had already organized this, showed him the plan designed by a banker named Ghandi, and Scott was of course shocked. However, having a plan, they worked through it and the feeling of burden lifted. She felt relieved and released. Working a plan back to profit Based on that plan, and after being in business nine years, it took five years for Lisa to reach profitability. She was taking $30,000-$40,000 losses when she began because she was investing in so many projects, but nine years later, she’s on the other side of it and just had her best year ever. She had references. She talked to people, she tr

Raja Skogland is an entrepreneur who believes in limitless human potential and is dedicated to empowering her peers. Since 2015, she has been helping thousands of entrepreneurs to build their networks, gain knowledge and access capital, enabling them to start and successfully grow their businesses. From 2016 to 2018, she successfully launched and managed Hub.no, growing the online platform to more than 1,200 start-ups. She is also investing in and advising several Norwegian start-ups and entrepreneurs. In 2016, she received a Saphira Award, which honors a selection of inspiring Moroccan female entrepreneurs and leaders. In 2018, Raja she was nominated in the Nordic Start-up Awards’ “Ecosystem Hero of the Year” category. Her fields of expertise are: entrepreneurship, start-ups, business strategy, project management, marketing, sales, growth hacking, leadership, hiring, and networking. “My gut feeling was telling me:‘Don’t go there, you don’t know them, you don’t KNOW them!’” Raja Skogland Worst investment ever Nordic accelerator program looks at social impact companies Raja was attracted to investing in several start-ups that were part of one of the best accelerator programs in the Nordic countries that centered impact start-ups. She has a particular interest in supporting such start-ups to contribute to making the world a better place and putting her money into a good cause. Thirty investors divide three companies among them She had originally been presented with three companies to invest in that had been part of the program over a two-month period and 30 investors were eyeing the companies. So the group of investors were divided in three and Raja was involved with two of them, but she had not looked into the third start-up. Investors grill founders in intense meetings The investors had two months to get to know the founders, meeting them once a week and this would take the whole evening in a very intense atmosphere. During the sessions, around 7-10 investors face single founders or teams sitting in “the hot seat” and challenge them with many questions to understand their business idea, ask them about the market potential, watch how the team interacts and whether they work together, ask what they have achieved with their vision so far, ask about their leadership skills. The investors are trying to make sure they will make a good investment and the founders are earnestly trying to sell their idea, they need money, they need try to secure investment in their dreams. So it’s hard on both sides. Business practice and cultural differences pose barrier Raja had doubts about the two start-ups she was looking at. In fact, she had doubts about all three. Firstly, because they were not based in Nordic countries, but were in the US. Raja prefers closer contact with entrepreneurs so that she can support them and reach out to her own network while doing so. There are many differences in approach between Nordic and US companies, so it was hard to understand many of the metrics that have to be taken into account. There are cultural differences as well, in how to approach the business, the market, and the relationship with the investor. Participating investor friend approaches So Raja and colleagues had been doing the due diligence and getting to know the start-ups, but despite that, she remained unconvinced. Then a good friend of hers, who was also an investor, approached her and said he was really keen on investing in the third start-up. He had been working in the third group with them and had taken a lead-investor position. Not all money is the same As each investor group was separate, those in the other groups had to trust each other’s expertise, insight and understanding, in their reporting to the 30-strong investor group. And while they were all experienced, there were varying levels of experience. Raja says it is very important to find investors with the same fund-source profile; some money comes from family, some comes from business, and with each there’s a different approach, and money is dealt with in different ways. Those with family money may have personal interest in giving back more, as they are carrying the kind of weight of having this money, so they are more willing to invest. Some people have more money to invest than others. So they’re also more willing to take risk. For them, 10,000 euros is not such a big investment. Such metrics need to be taken into account. Trusted friend implores her to bet on third start-up Raja trusted her good friend who was an investor from the third group working with the third start-up. He was very interested in the third start-up and was going to invest no matter what. So he took the position of a lead investor. He was committed and passionate about the vision of the start-up and its team and wanted to involve other investors because he wanted to get more money and move things forward. This start-up required around 100,000 euro. He made a very emotional plea to Raja telling

In-bok Song joined Seafarer Capital Partners in 2016. She is a lead portfolio manager of the Seafarer Overseas Growth and Income Fund and is the firm’s director of research and chief data scientist, responsible for the firm’s research processes and systems, new research methodology initiatives, and oversight of training for analyst staff. Prior to joining Seafarer, she was an associate portfolio manager at Thornburg Investment Management, where she focused on emerging markets. Previously, In-bok was a co-manager of the Matthews Pacific Tiger Fund at Matthews International Capital Management. She began her career in emerging markets as an analyst with T.Stone Corp, a private equity firm in Seoul, South Korea. In-bok holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in material science and engineering from Seoul National University. She also holds a master’s in international management from the King’s College London, and a master’s in management science and engineering with a concentration in finance from Stanford University. “I had a point at which I think my learning curve was very steep, and then it plateaued … I don’t think it means that one knows everything, just that another learning curve is coming.” - In-bok Song Worst investment ever Have an anchor point. But collect data, collect information, and that will give you a good anchor point. But a good analyst does research and more research, and thinks hard about the validity of that anchor. A strong company can die slowly. Investors and analysts need to be really careful. Trying to understand what is going on is important. In a short time frame, a company can appear to be struggling, but you can be fooled by some sound fundamentals, such as a good manufacturing base or a very good brand and a good customer base. So it may not seem to be dying. What can be happening however is that the rate of their decline is so slow that you can’t see it. The value of the franchise is related to why a company may die slowly. That and its organizational structure. The good investor needs to understand the organizational structure. In most cases when a company’s share price falls, investors know the problem. The company comes out with a plan, and the investor believes it for perhaps a month. Some companies will turn around and some companies won’t. If a company doesn’t turn around, they tend to have an organizational problem. Ask questions and you can detect any chinks in the organizational structure. Ask how people are structured, how much each function is co-operating with the other. Sometimes we don’t ask these questions. In-bok says she didn’t at the beginning of her career. Also ask management: “What is your organizational structure? Are employees happy? What are your plans for hiring?” Management may not give you the financial numbers, but they might answer questions such as these. And these things are very important. Andrew’s takeaways Do your research. It is often easier said than done. Get to understand the management team. In most companies, the team is a mess, and they’re fighting with each other or not always working together, which is human nature. So the question really is: “How is it structured? How is the leader bringing all the best of these things together? Usually analysts don’t look at such things because we like to look at numbers. But, In-bok has shown very well that there are times an analyst think they’re using valid numbers when in fact, they can be almost fiction. So be careful of overconfidence. Success can bring confidence, and we can carry that confidence into other areas. In the world of finance, just when you get confident about something, things change. Even the big corporation can liquidate slowly and steadily – investors could not know what the actual problem is facing in the organization due to strong cash flow, high creditability because of strong relationships with bank and other creditors. If you find yourself changing the reason why you invested, it’s a good time to stop and rethink. It might even be a good idea to reduce the position or bring it to zero. At this time you can also ask yourself, am I really willing to keep this in the portfolio based on this new reason. Level of access to a company’s management and information varies greatly depending on your role. For a sell-side analyst or an individual investor, it’s hard to get the type of attention that a fund manager and an in-house (buy-side) analyst can get when the company knows that that the fund has invested already, meaning they are already stakeholders. And so that level of access is a whole different world from what most people are getting. Also on “a strong company may die slowly”. That is a really valid point. Just because a company has a lot of cash, a lot of credibility, or good relationships with the banks, does not mean it is not going to die. So everything in the world finance, every company, can die and things go up and down. “From an investment perspective, it can be just

Elliott Zaagman is the co-host of the China Tech Investor podcast and works as a PR and leadership consultant for Chinese tech founders and executives. He is a frequent commentator on issues facing China and its tech industry, and his work has been published by The Lowy Institute, Foreign Policy, SupChina, and TechNode, as well as in Chinese on Huxiu.com. “This entire thing (LeEco) that he (Jia Yueting) had built, he built it basically within a year to 14,000-people offices all over the world, all these different verticals of business and then it all collapsed.” – Elliott Zaagman Worst investment ever Elliot tells the story of what he sees as the worst investment for probably many people in the rapid rise and fall of what was at the time China’s Netflix, Le.com LeEco (Leshi Internet Information & Technology Corp, (300104:CH; 300104.SZ). He had been working in China for many years when he was approached to work one of the group’s companies, LeEco, around the beginning of 2016 to consult for LeEco. The company had been streaming video since around 2012 and in were moving into making smart TVs. Elliot believed this was a rather savvy business venture – to combine the streaming video with smart TVs and create a kind of hardware and content ecosystem. They had some success and founder Jia Yueting had aspirations to become the Steve Jobs or Elon Musk of China, as he had also made forays into electric vehicle production, establishing Faraday Future, a California-based start-up tech company set up to develop electric vehicles in April 2014. Jia Yueting is described by Elliot as a futurist, very interested in the potential of technology. And China had said it wanted to have some global tech champions, so this was a chance for Jia Yueting and people like him to build this empire and raise a lot of money. So he used a very capable kind of PR and media team and just expanded at an exponential rate. He went into smartphones, wanting to be the next Apple Inc, virtual reality, sports contracts, music, cloud services. The company opened a 500-employee office in Silicon Valley, a 100-employee office in India, a few thousand employees in 2014 to 7,000 in 2015. And by the end of 2016, it had 14,000 employees. So the company was expanding in every direction, to the point that there was no way to hit its deadlines. Part of the corporate culture was that Jia Yueting had filled his C-suite with “Yes People”, so when they went to present themselves to the US market, they sent someone (a person Elliot had worked with) who could barely speak a word English, to run their US office in Silicon Valley. The ambassador of the company had also rarely been to the US, didn’t understand the US market and he was running their go to market. The entire company, not just in the US, had chaotic atmosphere. The beginning of the end was an enormous product launch to introduce themselves to the US market at the Innovation Hangar (now also permanently closed) in San Francisco. It was excessive and people failed to understand why the company was holding such a large event. Three weeks later, founder Jia Yueting sent out a company-wide message that said something like: “We expanded too quickly and we’re out of money. And now we need to fix it.”LeEco has debts in China of around US$442.3 million (3 billion yuan), and Jia Yueting is under investigation by regulators and has remained outside China since 2017. Some lessons You cannot grow quickly, in many areas business. Jia Yueting had built the entire empire within a year to all over the world, with different verticals of business and then it all collapsed. Look deep before involvement in China’s tech ecosystem and economy. Chinese banks tend to lend loosely to companies that are aligned with government or Communist Party (Party) initiatives. Venture capital firms are willing to invest in areas that the Party wants to promote. Appearances can be deceiving, especially for tech-naïve lenders in China. A lot of the people in charge of the money did not really understand technology, so they were fed excuses by people who wanted the money, such as “This is just how tech businesses operate.” Jia Yueting got a lot of funding through smoke and mirrors, making good video presentations and display products without a solid core to his business. “Look under the hood a little bit when it comes to these companies, especially I think in China.” - Elliott Zaagman Andrew’s takeaways China doesn’t have to be our enemy. There are many things that Chinese people admire about America and a lot of the transformation that happened in China came because the People’s Republic implemented some free market principles. It is sad to see US politicians gaining points at home by pitting Americans against China. Be careful of over-diversifying because you’ll lose focus. Don’t be seduced by greatly diverse businesses such as Apple or Microsoft. They have been growing for a long time and may expand into different areas, but they have a ve

Pipat Luengnaruemitchai is an assistant managing director, the co-head and chief investment officer of the office of wealth management, and the chief economist at Phatra Securities. He leads a team of analysts responsible for giving clients investment advice on global asset allocation and product selection. Previously, he was a research analyst covering the Thai financial sector at the same company. Prior to joining Phatra Securities, he was an economist at the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC, where he worked on several policy and market issues, including monetary policy and financial markets. Subsequently, he was a senior research analyst at Mellon Capital Management (now Mellon Investments Corporation) in San Francisco, where he worked on a global macro fund strategy. Pipat received a PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley and a BA in economics from Thammasat University, Thailand. “We have to at least understand exactly what we are getting ourselves into when it comes to investments.” – Pipat Luengnaruemitchai Worst investment ever Pipat’s story starts during the rally before the global financial crisis in 2008. Around 2006-2007, “nothing” could stop the very bullish market. Pipat was already invested in equities but had little time to focus on individual stocks, and instead had holdings in passive, managed equity funds. Buoyed by optimism from successes with those funds, he felt adventurous enough to try investing in individual stocks, but he didn’t know which stock to buy. His very first stock was Apple, which actually became his best investment ever. Later on, however, he was consulting with some engineering friends working in the San Francisco Bay area at technology companies, so he asked for a tip. One suggested OmniVision Technologies (OVTI), which Pipat had never heard of. He was informed that the company produced and designed advanced digital imaging for mobile devices. As not many mobile phones had cameras back then and that he was told every mobile phone would need such tech from now on, and that this friend worked for one of the biggest chip producers in the area, it sounded like the stock had a great story. The next day Pipat came home and bought about US$3,000 of OVIT. It went up considerably at the outset, but when he looked at it a year and a half later, his holding had crashed down to total value of around $500. So he felt a loss of about 80% from his original investment within a year and a half. Part of the loss can be blamed on the global financial crisis, because the market was cut in half anyway, but his more diversified equity fund lost around 30-40% on the value of the funds invested. So this was one of his biggest losses in percentage terms.He went on to explain that close to the bottom of the market, he sold his holdings for around $600. But after, that it bounced back again. Some lessons A good company, a good story, doesn’t necessarily make a good investment. This is a classic lesson, but it is sadly one that many people have to figure out for themselves through pain. When you hear a good story about excellent past return that someone has made, it is human nature to think that this upward story will continue. But it doesn’t guarantee that it’s going to be good investment for the next investor. Many things must be considered, such as the valuation, the growth, the momentum and much more. Investigate any tips. Do not believe in or rely solely on a friend’ advice. You have to do your own study, your own work and be convinced by your own analysis. Then if you make a mistake, you can take responsibility for it rather than blame your friend. Diversify: Whatever you do, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Pipat’s loss could have been a lot greater but he already had savings invested in the equity fund. So the foray in investing with OVTI was more of the adventurous type of investment. Andrew’s takeaways Do the work. After interviewing and reading the stories of loss of many people, Andrew has arrived at six basic types of mistakes, general categories of mistakes that people make. Number One applies here, and that is: Failed to do their own research. Nothing in this life comes without some work, and this applies just as much to investing. Pipat didn’t lose all his money for good reasons. He had already diversified most of his savings. He didn’t commit all of his overall assets or all his funds to one idea. He also learned all the core lessons that make him a better financial advisor and analyst for his clients today. Actionable advice Diversification is very important. If you have a diversified portfolio, you can reduce the risk to your overall wealth and manage your portfolio according to your risk profile, which is very important. The risk level must be suited to your needs, whenever you make decision about investment. In the past year the whole equity market fell 15% globally. If you have a diversified portfolio and you don’t have 100% of your wea

Cyrille Langendorff is managing director of the international affairs and private equity department of French bank Credit Coopératif (CC), a member of the BPCE banking group, and has more than 20 years of experience in the banking sector. After achieving bachelor’s and master’s degrees in finance from Paris Dauphine University, Cyrille began his investment banking career at Banque Paribas (now BNP Paribas) and ABN AMRO Bank in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, London, and Paris for 15 years. Prior to his current role, Cyrille worked for four years analyzing and monitoring CC’s solidarity portfolio of investment funds managed by Ecofi Investissements (an asset management company in the CC Group) in France, and the European investments done with CC’s partners at the European Federation of Ethical and Alternative Banks (FEBEA) and the Global Alliance for Banking on Values (GABV). Cyrille represents CC on the boards of social finance and microfinance investment companies CoopEst, CoopMed, and Inpulse (CC’s subsidiary in impact investment funds), Microfinance Solidaire, a subsidiary of French NGO Entrepreneurs du Monde, and on the executive board of FEBEA. He’s also a board member of the French NGO, ACTED. He’s been rapporteur for the French National Advisory Board’s (NAB) report on social impact investment (2014) and is now chair of the group representing France on the executive committee of the Global Steering Group for Impact Investment (GSG) under the chairmanship of Sir Ronald Cohen. He’s also chairing the Impact Invest Lab, an operational arm of the NAB. “I think you learn from the mistakes, you learn from worst investments you made, so don’t be disappointed. It’s part of the investment life.” – Cyrille Langendorff Worst investment ever Cyrille was a young investment banker in 1995, so he was still quite a rookie in the market. He (his bank and clients) had the opportunity to invest in Nokia stock, the Finnish mobile phone maker that was far more popular in the 90s. It was June 1995 and the stock had already gone up to 2 euros per share from around 1.10-1.20 euros in January. There was a lot of interest and many clients were coming to a big roadshow in Paris and Nokia management were also attending. Amid this positive atmosphere, Cyrille was not suspicious about this kind of event. Everybody was saying Nokia was a great story and rushed to buy the stock at the end of the roadshow the next day at around 2 euros. Very soon afterwards, the stock crashed and everyone was complaining that they had been convinced at the show by all the marketing events and promotion of the stock to buy it. The stock slid to around 1.25 euros by the end of the year. So basically, Cyrille lost 75 euro cents per share. It was a terrible investment in a short period. It took nearly two years for the price to return to 2 euros. Some investors were not patient enough, so they sold for a loss. But those who were patient who kept thinking it was a good story had to wait two years. So the timing was wrong but the stock even today is at around 5 euros. So, Cyrille says, if you were willing to wait for 25 years to make some money, that’s great. He also noted that it went up to much more in 2000-2001 (50 euros per share). Some lessons Don’t be discouraged by market movements. Markets can fluctuated quickly so be very persistent and patient. However, that patience and belief in the idea that the story is good, look deeper at what went wrong before you sell (and of course before you buy). This should include sector research, competitor analyses, detailed examination of the target company’s business model, and face-to-face visits with company management. It can take patience, perseverance, and also a strong belief in the story to hold on for the long term.Be very cautious about worldwide company roadshows. They can sometimes be dangerous to preserving your wealth or that of your clients. Andrew’s takeaways Be aware of companies’ “dog and pony shows”. Their purpose is to raise capital, so they really push the positive side of the stock’s story. They put a lot of energy, practice and marketing psychology into making a good presentation. Particularly if you are young in the industry, it is difficult to see clearly what is behind that show. Actionable advice Do your homework and be patient. Do your research. Don’t be in a hurry. Take a modest position after a rally to test the story. If you think the story is still good, and there’s a strong rally of the stock, just buy a small package of shares. Don’t use the whole of your position and see what happens. No. 1 goal for next the 12 months The French High Commissioner for the Social and Solidarity Economy and Social Innovation, will convene in Paris a global meeting to support the development of impact investing, inclusive economics and social innovation known as the Pact for Impact Summit on 10 and 11 July. In his role as chair of the Impact Invest Lab, Cyrille is working to be a strong promoter of the event a

Bobby Casey is managing partner of Global Wealth Protection. His company helps clients from around the world to internationalize their assets and take advantage of unique investment opportunities globally. Bobby is a lifelong entrepreneur, investor, and student of life. He is a believer in privacy and freedom and fights this fight through words and actions globally. As a renowned speaker on anarcho-capitalism, free-market economics, and offshore business, Bobby travels the globe working with like-minded clients to help them properly structure their businesses and their lives to minimize risk and maximize reward. He holds two undergraduate degrees: a Bachelor of Science (BS) in finance with a minor in economics; and a BS in international business with a minor in Russian. He also holds a master’s in entrepreneurship from MIT. “In reality, the worst investment ever related to taxes is not taking the time to properly plan and minimize your tax obligation.” – Bobby Casey Worst investment ever Not putting effort into minimizing taxes is a mistake by inaction He says his No. 1 worst investment ever was probably the same as it is for every person listening to the podcast – taxes. In a way, he is joking. But what he really means is people don’t think about taxes as being a bad investment, because most people think they’re doing something they must do. However, the first time they write a six-figure check for taxes, it should make them think about what other better action could be done with that money than pay those taxes. He doesn’t mean breaking the law. But he says, while abiding by the law, there are a lot of things people can do to minimize taxes. Many people don’t think about it and write it off as the cost of success, but Bobby points out they could have reinvested that $40,000 or $80,000 into something significantly better if they had taken the available and necessary steps. Substantially worst investment For several years, Bobby used to host around two offshore investment conferences a year, primarily in the Caribbean. Around that time, he developed personal connections in the private investment space who had opportunities they were promoting, and the events gave people a chance to learn about alternative investment solutions other than just building a stock and bond portfolio. Bobby become close with one apparently hard-working guy, “Rick” (not his real name), who was offering such private investment options on the conference circuit, giving presentations, and raising money for his private company. At the time, he was selling preferred shares in his company, and Bobby bought about $100,000 worth of private preferred shares, for him a substantial sum at the time. Rick was doing press releases relating his success in bringing in lucrative investors, sometimes $5 million clients, sometimes $10 million, and saying what returns were going to be achieved. One release said, “We’re going to be up 300% this year.” Bobby was impressed. Adding credibility to the investment considerably was that Rick gained approval to take the company public on NASDAQ, and Bobby watched him on TV ringing the opening bell on the first IPO day of trading. Bobby thought he was going to make a killing on the stock. Rick even employed a friend Bobby had introduced. Enterprise exposed as a complex fraud The result was something far from a success. From top to bottom, the operation was a complete pump-and-dump scam. Rick was raising money selling preferred shares, speaking at conferences everywhere, in order to raise the stock price. With the millions of dollars he took for preferred shares, with all the press releases, Rick really did have a business, but it was not nearly as profitable or busy as he had claimed. Rick was arrested at an airport during an SEC investigation of his fraudulent pump and dump scheme. He had been taking money from the company promotions, funneling it through multiple offshore companies in Belize; those companies had brokerage accounts with tiny firms in the US, which were in turn buying up all the shares with it to inflate the share price of the listed company in a big money circle. By doing that, if the share price was $10, Rick would take all the money he had raised at a conference, $5 million for example, funnel it through the Belize companies, which would then buy $5 million worth of stock. This blew the price up. He was also paying “analysts” to write extremely glowing reports on the listed company. The stock would then rise from $10 a share to $15 to $20, and he would through his private holdings, sell them through the Belize company. Bobby’s friend indicted and jailedIt is difficult to believe that NASDAQ actually listed this company without enough due diligence to realize the scam for what it was. Sadly, Bobby’s who worked for Rick was named in the SEC charges and was jailed for six months, because he was a “public figure”, and even though he had no knowledge of the situation. Some lessons Don’t take anybo

Dr. Eelco Fiole is co-founder and sole managing partner of Alpha Governance Partners (AGP), a risk-governance-focused fiduciary services firm with alternative assets under the governance of US$15 billion across 12 jurisdictions globally. He is also CFO of the Tezos Foundation, a blockchain endeavor that has enjoyed one of the largest fundraising levels globally. Eelco is an adjunct professor in finance ethics at HEC Lausanne (the faculty of business and economics of the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, 2018 winner of the global CFA Research Challenge) and chairs the Annual Conference Advisory Group for the CFA Institute. He has gained almost a decade of fiduciary COO and CFO experience in alternative investments, emerging markets, wealth management and blockchain at Credit Suisse Asset Management, with operational responsibility for US$17 billion in alternative strategies, (in Zurich, London, and New York). He was a consultant for five years at PwC in Zurich, and his work there included a focus on frontier markets. He started his career as an institutional banker with ABN AMRO in Amsterdam, after spending early working years as an engineer in the oil-and-chemical industry. Currently a master of studies in social innovation candidate at the University of Cambridge, Eelco has completed advanced degrees in economics (PhD, Basel), ethics (MAS, Zurich), positive leadership (MPLS, Madrid) laws (LLM, London), and business (MS, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University). His holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences). A chartered financial analyst (CFA) and a chartered director (CDir), Eelco holds various other leading finance and management designations. His global travel for business and education has included private and professional exposure to China for 20 years. He is based in Zurich and Singapore and is fluent in English, German and his native Dutch, has conversational French, and basic Spanish and Mandarin. Worst investment ever Background After finishing a business degree and working with major organizations, Eelco felt he had a pretty good understanding of what was going on in the financial investment arena, but he was yet to receive his CFA designation. Reliance on flawed research A friend of Eelco’s sent him an equity research report by a CFA charterholder who was working at a well-established, reputable investment house. The report projected that a large telecom firm’s stock would go up from 17 to 20 euro. Eelco thought that based on: the credibility of the research house; the compelling nature of their argument; that it was not a speculative stock; it was a large telecom firm; and the level of his own expertise to read such a treatise, he decided to buy the stock. However, soon after, instead of going up from 17 to 20 euro, it went down to 6 euro, in tandem with the inherent deception surrounding the tech bubble. What he hadn’t realized what that part of the valuation performed on the stock (outside of the usual equity research carried out on any stock) was based on the psychology of the market at the time around the tech bubble, and Eelco paid the price. He has remained involved in the investing space ever since, going through the ranks of various organizations, but submits that this was one of the key experiences of his career, even though he became a CFA charterholder later. Suffice to say, the report he had relied on and the result of the reality going the other way, was a memorable shock. “The frameworks that we get offered through the CFA or some other academic material are not enough to reflect reality in the end … you need to be able to apply your own judgment.” - Dr. Eelco Fiole Some lessons Do your own analysis. Don’t rely solely on even the most professional research. An investor needs to also invest time to clearly understand a recommendation and the analysis behind an investment. Develop your own opinion on investment, even if you obtain information from t the most credible of sources. Think outside of the box about risk. Even though Eelco felt confident about his understanding of the risk in his investment, going through about the report itself and the firm’s reputation, there was obvious risk outside of those considerations, which hit him hard. You cannot assume that what you are reading about is enough to do guarantee results, you need to check your assumptions, and adjust your views on things as well. Educational and learning frameworks are necessary, but they are not enough. Yeah, The CFA or similar programs provide a great framework on how to think about investments but investors also need to stay open to the broader regional and global picture, particularly about risk, and arrive at their own conclusions, use their own judgement in the end. Such learning frameworks are enough to reflect the total reality to which a stock is subject. Be aware of your own assumptions, biases, and check them. Eelco realized that he

Edward Stephens is director of the global brokerage at the Angel Investment Network, where he’s worked since 2010. In that time, he’s helped raise money for more than 400+ start-ups, including What3Words and Simba Mattresses. He also hosts a podcast called The Startup Microdose, which he started with a colleague. Guests have included the founders of Huel, Depop and Killing Kittens. “Something that was meant to be liquid, easy, cash in, rolling the business through, turned to absolute hell.” – Edward Stephens Worst investment ever Young deal-maker wants a piece of the action In 2012, Ed was 25 years old and had had two years of deal-making already at Angel Investment Network, getting a feel for what a good deal looked like. It was very appealing to look at what investors are looking at and feed off their excitement. Until that point, he didn't have any money of his own to invest but he felt it was strange to be deal broking without having any real experience of the pain points for investors who were having their capital put at risk and not understanding it. He started thinking about joining in all the fun. Sets eyes on attractive lending business idea Ed was working on a deal on a lending business called “Cash until Friday”, that was looking great. The entrepreneur liked Ed, and the investors were really excited. It was to be readied for trading on AIM, a secondary market of the London Stock Exchange. One big investor was putting in 500,000 UK pounds, so Ed joined in with 2,500 and he persuaded his father to invest 10,000 pounds. Conflict arises almost as soon as money goes in Almost as soon as they did, the main investor and the entrepreneur had a falling out. They were accusing each other of dark practices and the investor was adding strange fees onto the listing statements of the shell company. The investor also started to add consulting fees for the entrepreneur to pay to regain his investment and then wanted to pay for his investment in instalments in some kind of “weird equity clawback”. Sky darkens further Meanwhile, the AIM market looked as though it was on the verge of collapsing. The type of business relies on operating – lending cash – and the investor was angry and wanted to start lobbying other investors to get a court order to stop the business trading. If the business did so, it would die and be scrapped for the remains and the spoils divided. Battle lines drawn The ex-army entrepreneur started to put up the barricades and wanted to play hardball and it appeared as though Ed and his father were not only not going to get their equity in the business but that they would lose their entire outlay. They had not been given share certificates, the entrepreneur had their cash, and they had no means of getting it back. Deal’s off but father offers a life lesson Ed didn’t sleep for a week because of feelings of failure, the loss of his own money and that of his father, but his father reminded him: “This is life. Shit happens.” His calm parent advised that they sit down with the entrepreneur and appeal to his goodwill. The entrepreneur agreed to service their capital back to them as a 7% loan. Chasing payments adds insult to injury While they had to chase the entrepreneur’s payments on a monthly basis, and sometimes the guy disappeared for months at a time, they got their equity back at 7% interest. In the end, it wasn’t that bad a result. The AIM market survived, there were no lawsuits, and the company was still trading as some kind of bridging-loan company. But Ed says the shocking thing was that it went bad so quickly. And it took such a long time to get the money back that even getting the repayments ended up being a nightmare. So it was a big relief when the last payment was made. However, the opportunity cost of capital, the stress to everybody for the 7% definitely wasn’t worth it. While it definitely built up some strength in Ed, it was “really unpleasant”. Some lessons Stick to what you know. This situation had Ed playing outside his field of expertise. He does add however: “But don’t limit yourself; you can always explore new things.” – Edward Stephens Don’t invest in what you don’t care about. If it does go wrong, then you find it hard to reconcile the loss of time and energy that has gone into such a shallow purpose. Ed admitted that he was just chasing money and had no real interest in the activity. Create a check-in plan, a period of time you allow yourself in which you can’t look at your investment so you don’t have it under a microscope. When you’re in a bad investment everything can look bad. Looking at an investment every day, good or bad, will drive you crazy. Andrew’s takeaways It’s fine to make a play in new areas. Try different things but do that with a very small amount of capital, particularly in the beginning. Be prepared for external events. Most people forget to think about this when they invest that there are all manner of unpredictable external events that can happen, such as

Christopher Wong is currently the chief investment officer of Banjaran Asset Management, an alternative fund management house based in Singapore. He joined the company in January 2019. He was previously with Aberdeen Standard Investments and his last position was as investment director for Asia-Pacific and Emerging Markets. During his 17 years with Aberdeen, he was a senior member of the team that managed both country and regional equity funds. He was also on the board of directors for Aberdeen Islamic Asset Management (now known as Aberdeen Standard Islamic Investments [Malaysia]) and was a commissioner at PT Aberdeen Standard Investments Indonesia. Prior to that, he was an associate director at Arthur Andersen Corporate Finance, acting as financial advisor for mergers and acquisitions, private equity, finance raising and valuation transactions. Christopher graduated with a BA in accounting and finance from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. He is also a CFA charterholder and a fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, UK. “Sometimes in a moment of madness … you try to push the boundaries, in terms of risk … so you tend to take a slightly different approach to test your investment ideas on your personal finances.” – Christopher Wong Worst investment ever Strangely, after a long time at Aberdeen, with its rigorous, careful, methodical, and consensual manner of building portfolios, Christopher decided in “a moment of madness” to take a different approach and test his own investment ideas with his personal finances. He puts this down to the same temptation many people succumb to when faced with multi-bagger stocks that peers sometimes talk about in the break room. This detour came during the heydays of oil prices that were at all-time highs above the US$100 mark, finally peaking at 130. Christopher’s friend and colleague had become a billionaire as an investor, had retired early after investing money, and had bagged many multibaggers. After they went through the rationale, his friend took a big placement in a technology based oil and gas company listed in Singapore. The venture had technology to find oil through its software that had been tried and tested in Europe. The family owners had skin in the game but needed working capital to explore their findings from that technology. So Christopher took a stake and his friend took a bigger stake and “the rest was history”. By history he meant the dark ages. The price collapsed after it was discovered that the technology didn’t work as well as the company had claimed. The investment dropped close to 90% of its value in the span of a year. So that was a massively painful lesson for Christopher. Some lessons A good track record in the past is no guarantee of future success. Christopher thought his friend had the Midas touch and that in terms of investing, could do no wrong. Never lose focus on the fundamentals of a target company. Christopher learned from this experience that he had lost sight of the things he was trained to do in finance, such as looking at the balance sheet looking, the cash flow and the company’s ability to survive. He assumed that the status quo would continue and that the company’s high share price would stay high. “I think a lot of mistakes are made by … professional managers … when they don’t follow the script and they’re not disciplined when it comes to following what they have mapped out initially, and that the ends up a recipe for disaster most of the time.” – Christopher Wong Andrew’s takeaways Investors must do their own research. Following great investors is never enough, so following such a friend and guru will rarely work out well. Always be on the lookout for impending “macro factors”. Internally with a target company, everything can appear attractive; good products, management, but external factors can arise that work against a company or industry. In Christopher’s case, the macro factor was that oil price was at its peak and then it collapsed. Be on the lookout for fraud and seek third-party verification of the quality of the goods or services of your investment target. People often misrepresent the abilities of their products so talking to an actual customer of your target company, helps check on whether the goods or services are effective. Size your position. You don’t have to eat all of the apple. Relative to your overall wealth, think about how big a bite of this company is really wise. In Christopher’s case, the 90% fall in the stock could be manageable if it were only 5% of his overall wealth. “If there’s a macro trend that’s massively moving against a company or an industry, it’s extremely hard to win in investing against that.” – Andrew Stotz Actionable advice Understand what you are buying by doing your homework. This is all about managing risk, and when you manage risk, the upside will take care of itself. #1 goal for next 12 months Because in this current situation we are seeing a lot more

Camilita Nuttall is the world’s No. 1 “Rock Star” international speaker, is the founder of Event of Champions®, a seven-time award-winning corporate sales and business growth expert, an executive business coach, an entrepreneur, an author and a property investor. She has been featured in Forbes magazine and quoted in Think & Grow Rich for Women. Camilita has appeared on SKY TV, BBC Business News and with Dr. J. B. Hill, Napoleon Hill’s grandson, in front of 20,000 people. Camilita is a top sales expert who works with companies to increase their profit and create workable systems through strategic planning. She has traveled to 50+ countries and lived in Spain, Germany, Trinidad, Netherlands, and the UK. “So we went to see the lawyer and he told us there had been a big upheaval because the guy who sold us the land, who my brother had put us on to, had sold the land three times over to another 10 or 15 people. We just froze because we knew then that there was no way we would ever get our money back.” – Camilita Nuttall Worst investment ever You trust your family, don’t you? Camilita grew up in the Caribbean, where family means trust and helping each other, especially growing up poor so you tend to believe your family. After moving to the UK and enjoying some success, her global businessman brother who had earlier moved to Britain thought with Camilita’s success she might be interested in some opportunities back in Trinidad. Amazing property deal Her brother introduced an “amazing” property deal to develop a piece of land because Camilita was already a property investor in the UK, and they could make share profits touted to her as in the millions, with her brother managing the project on the ground. So he introduced Camilita to the purported landowner, who was going to inherit the land from his father, or so she thought. The landowner was quite pushy about the benefits of the deal ‘Don’t worry, he’s legit’ Her bother said he knew the man, he trusted him, said he was legitimate, the brother had seen the land, said it was great and that it was not far from where he lives and that he would watch the deal carefully. Then he asked Camilita to send US$10,000 as a deposit to hold the land and “don’t worry”. ‘My brother won’t let me down’ She thought: “This is my brother, he would not betray me. I trust him. He wouldn’t let me down. Camilita’s husband was very skeptical but I sent the money and then they went to Trinidad to do the paperwork. Her brother then suggested using the same lawyer that the “seller” was using. Despite studying law, she agreed to share lawyer in land purchase Camilita studied law, but she still agreed to this unusual arrangement. She trusted her brother because he is her brother. The lawyer assured them he could handle the whole matter and that everything was in hand and they felt confident. Then the lawyer asked for more money for the process. And added, that there was more land available and suggested buying that as well and that with more land, Camilita could make more money. Her and her husband and brother thought they might as well buy all the available land because of the opportunity. Loaded up on more land On an outlay of $50,000, they could make $2-3 million in developing the land. They went ahead with it, but they were spending more and more money to pay for this supported land. The lawyer was supposedly doing all transactions, and they had paid him upfront. Return to Trinidad to find house built on ‘their’ land About a year and a half later, they returned to Trinidad to find there was a house on the land they had supposedly bought. They went to see the lawyer who said there was a big problem because the guy who sold the land, who her brother had connected her with, had sold the land three times over to another 10 or 15 people. They then realized there was no way they would ever see that money again. Revelation that seller and sold the same land to many Camilita and her husband stayed in Trinidad for another two months trying to get their money back. Meanwhile, she was neglecting their existing businesses back in the UK. They never got a cent. The lawyer however returned their money as he acknowledged he should have done better due diligence. Some lessons Do thorough due diligence. Use independent lawyers. Have a contract in hand before handing over any money. Have multiple streams of income so that loss in one deal doesn’t ruin your life. Andrew’s takeaways Most common mistake investors who have spoken to Andrew is: Failure to do their own research. Andrew said that wasn’t Camilita’s core mistake, but it was more about mistake Failed to properly assess and manage risk. That includes not just research what return an investor is going to make but all the risks as well. Separate the process of researching the return of a project from assessing the risk of a project. Actionable advice Camilita's Trust no one Have a contract with a legitimate attorney for everything that you do. Andrew’s Do

Josiah Smelser is the current podcast host of The Daily Real Estate Investor podcast, a show on achieving financial freedom through real estate investing. Josiah runs his own appraisal business, is a licensed real estate agent, and runs his own investment property business along with a partner. Josiah is currently a licensed certified general appraiser (can appraise commercial and residential properties) and spent time working for companies such as CB Richard Ellis CBRE as a commercial appraiser in his past. Josiah was formerly a finance professor at the university level for several years, where he taught a number of finance courses including real estate. Josiah has an MBA from the University of North Carolina and is writing a book titled The Daily Real Estate Investor, so stay on the lookout for that. Josiah is happily married, has three children, and lives in Huntsville, Alabama. “Since we have this property that’s just sucking money out of our business, we can’t go and do other deals and that was the greatest loss of this whole thing – the opportunity cost. This property was a nuisance. We’re having problems constantly that were eating up our time …. eating up our investment capital. We thought at one point we’re going to have this thing for a year to who knows how long … we can’t get rid of it and we have to keep making these payments.” - Josiah Smelser Worst investment ever Josiah tells an extraordinary, harrowing tale of flipping a house in which the extent of what went wrong went way beyond Murphy’s Law. The sheer amount, kind and combination of renovation obstacles Josiah and his partner had to overcome to get their property ready for sale were staggering. Their business model is to buy a property, do value-added renovations to it, get it rented out, and then refinance it. Their business model on flipping, is buy a property, renovate it, sell it as fast as they can and try to make a minimum of US$25,000-$30,000 per house profit, and invest the capital back in the investment side. But because of delays with this one early venture they were unable to do any more flips, and were unable to do any more buy and hold properties. The long list of obstacles included: Location was not in the center of the city, lacked proximity to many amenities, but had good schools Bank rejects their multiple price offers to buy the foreclosure property Second visit reveals water pouring through the ceiling of downstairs bathroomDiscovery of extensive termite damage Armadillo infestation and massive holes in the yard Rotten wood discovered around windows, half of which need to be replaced Margin quickly shrinks as repair costs and holding costs go up massively After listing, Josiah does some research and realizes properties in the area are quite slow to be sold – They “just don’t move as fast” as homes in other areas – because there were not enough buyers looking for houses in the area Finally he gets a buyer, Josiah visits the house to find “a sea of hornets swarming the front yard” that had been nesting in the ground revealed right before the visit of prospective buyer. The hornets had been kept in check by the armadillos A water pipe breaks off a wall behind their the new air conditioner they had installing, pouring water Mysterious event of a window being left open day after day, as though a thief has been breaking in. This issue remained unsolved Another buyer comes along who demands multiple inspections and long lists of almost never-ending post-inspection tasks and repairs added up to more than 50 items A foundation specialist inspector is brought in, and he finds water and water damage under the property Discovery of a previously unknown septic tank in the back yard, and prospective buyer wants inspection No. 5 to be carried out to make sure the tank works. The septic tank needs to be dug up, repaired and reburied One item is to fix the fireplace. Once complete, the repairman while cleaning blows instead of vacuums soot from fireplace all over the floor and walls of the house, just hours before handover, and the walls need to be painted Pressured desperate countdown and clean-up prior to handing the keys over, and Deal represents excellent case study in ‘opportunity cost’ While they lost only $20,000 on the deal, it took six months to complete it. They had stopped their investment business and for five months were far from achieving the goals they had set for that business because they could not sell the property. Therefore the main cost Josiah says was the opportunity cost of not being able to buy properties, refinance, get their money back, and continue to buy property with that capital. The actual loss he estimates was more like hundreds of thousands of dollars on top of the stress of the entire project. Josiah and his business partner still to send each other text messages of a meme of two old men laughing in remembrance of the sheer happy relief to lose money and walk away from the deal when they finally sold t

Daniel Schwartz is an author, senior executive and investor in sales, marketing, business development and management, with extensive contacts and relationships throughout Asia in many industries, through the intense networking and relationship-building he’s been doing over the past 20 years. As a co-founder of 3TNetworks, members and customers are empowered to build their wealth in both traditional and the emerging cryptocurrency arenas. His 3T networks is a phenomenal business opportunity for people want to learn and grow. 3T focuses on financial education in both cryptocurrency and forex product development, ICO consulting (an Initial Coin Offering [ICO] is the cryptocurrency equivalent to an initial public offering [IPO]), Bitcoin over-the-counter activities and personal development products and training to help customers and members grow. He personally has significant experience in training, selling and networking. Dan has developed seminars in all three of those areas as well as MC’d for international speakers and hosted a monthly news segment on Channel 3 TV Thailand. “I like to talk about winning and learning, not winning and losing and take the emotion out. And if you really want to do your own trading and your own investing, do the research, get the information from experts.” – Daniel Schwartz Worst investment ever Daniel had some friends who were making a lot of money working in the investment research advisory business for specialist companies who promoted penny stocks. They would receive commissions on when and how many stocks were bought. One of his friends would call him and say: “Hey, Dan, take a look at this company.” Daniel would read the very brief reports and buy around US$1,000 of stock at a time based on the little information provided and the recommendation of this friend.He doesn’t remember any of the company names because he feels that the brain likes to block out bad memories. Sometimes he would win, sometimes the prices would be stable, and sometimes he lost it all. It was an interesting experience, but he likens it more to gambling, because he didn’t really know what he was doing. On all those investments, he lost up to US$40,000 but he learned a lot. He says it was a very bad idea from the point of view of an investment decision to be playing around with penny stocks put forward by people who were earning commissions. Some lessons learned It is a very bad investment idea to trade in penny stocks. Especially when such stocks are promoted by people earning commissions. Trading is best left to the experts and other people. Know your own personality profile. Best Through that you can know also what kind of investing you should do, and in which types of business or professions suit you. Stay away from the hype. Greed is not good. Wise people talk about the idea that the time to be fearful is when others are greedy or the time to be greedy is when others are fearful. Suffice to say, greed comes with it an emotional response, and that is not something carried out by the logical part of the brain. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Go with experts with verifiable track records that you can look at yourself and read the material. If talking about trading, go with someone who has a verifiable positive track record. Remember to check experts’ record also in a down market. Always remember – past performance is never a guarantee of future results. No one can predict the future and unheard of events can be just around the corner. Listening to someone on commission, pitching you over the phone, is probably not the smartest idea when it comes to buying stocks or putting money into investments. Andrew’s takeaways Never invest when somebody calls you to introduce it. When somebody is calling you about an investment idea they are most definitely compensated in some way for doing that. People are not on the phone, randomly calling people for the benefit of the receiver. Be aware that our minds can be hijacked by the excitement of promised “amazing” returns, such as the “50x” example that Daniel gave. Penny stocks are a great example. Investing is truly a physical thing, causing a physical reaction and we do things based on emotions and mental triggers that are being pulled by phone salespeople. Make sure your interests are aligned with the people that are helping you with investing as best that you can. This can never be achieved perfectly but it’s something to always bear in mind. Actionable advice If someone calls you or approaches you with an investment idea, do not make that decision in the moment. If anyone pushes you to buy over the phone when you do not even know them, they are using all kinds of psychological tools to get you to act – such as playing on the human fear of missing out (FOMO), “the take away” – run away and run fast. #1 goal for next 12 months Daniel wants to recover from the past 12 months of craziness in the markets and be in a position, personally and pr

Catherine Flax has had a distinguished multi-decade career in financial services, fintech and commodities. She is currently an advisor and board member to numerous start-ups and mature businesses, bringing expertise in business and strategic growth, innovation, talent development, regulatory affairs, and more. Catherine was the CEO of Pefin, the world’s first AI financial advisor. Before Pefin, she was the managing director and head of commodity derivatives, foreign exchange and emerging markets sales and trading for the Americas at BNP Paribas, was chief marketing officer at J.P. Morgan, as well as the CEO of commodities for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. “What I didn’t factor in was what might be the damage beyond the dollars … I put myself in the position of mixing friendship and business, (and) that it would destroy a friendship.” – Catherine Flax Worst investment ever Catherine had been a professional in financial services for some time when she got into her worst investment about 15 years ago, so she was well versed at examining possible outcomes and potential loss cases. A good friend approached her with a business investment that was outside of her usual range of expertise. It was an established business, not a start-up and, from an analytical point of view, she was thorough in examining the probability of loss, the upside and all the typical calculations a financial professional goes through before getting involved. She did, however, neglect to factor in the “damage beyond the dollars” if the investment did not pan out. While the outcome was not beyond her expectations of the potential downside risk, the investment did not go well. So her math was fine. But, as this was the first time that she had mixed business and friendship, she didn’t realize the biggest loss would be the friend who had involved her. For Catherine’s part, she wasn’t angry about the financial loss, but her friend was so embarrassed that the friend felt too uncomfortable to maintain ties with Catherine from that time onwards. In retrospect, Catherine feels that the outcome should have been obvious to her, but that it was not a result she had thought about at the beginning. While she calls this damage, “irreparable”, she was happy to say that similar arrangements have worked out better since this time. Some lessons Be very cautious about going into business with friends. Communication, as with all relationships, is paramount. Vital are clear conversations about exit strategy, as in a normal business. Discuss how failure could affect your friendship and “really look somebody in the eye” to help them understand that a bad outcome is certainly possible. Then you can move forward as friends, if not as business colleagues, when a venture or investment doesn’t turn out as positively as was expected. Andrew’s takeaways Place principles before personalities in the business. This is a powerful concept that offers a simple guide on how to survive without letting our personalities destroy us. Our personalities are ultimately driven by fears, and not higher thought or principle. In his own businesses, Andrew has practiced this and even made an agreement with a friend and business partner that if they ever felt their business was going to destroy their friendship they would close the business. Actionable advice Sit down and think deeply about the worst-case scenario in an investment or business venture and what you would do if the friend or person you’re in business with is angry or humiliated. Plan and set the stage to be helpful, to let them know that you are still their friend, and to not let this bad decision or investment ruin your friendship. Then you can make the investment after having the planning conversation and most likely you will be able to mitigate a bad social outcome, even if the financial outcome falters. No.1 goal for the next 12 months Catherine aims to continue advising the numerous companies she is linked with and help them flourish to the best of her abilities this year, and to avoid all the kinds of mistakes discussed here and in other episodes of My Worst Investment Ever. Parting words “This is such a great format. I’ve enjoyed the previous podcasts and thank you so much for having me.” You can also check out Andrew’s books How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market My Worst Investment Ever 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 Points Connect with catherine Flax: LinkedIn Twitter Connect with Andrew Stotz astotz.com LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube My Worst Investment Ever Podcast

Ian Dunlap is an investor with one of the highest win percentages in the country and founder of Red Panda Academy. Through Red Panda, Ian teaches his blueprint for success to students, who often have little to no experience with trading. Using completely custom formulas, Ian is able to teach in 30 days what took him years to grasp. In December 2018, Ian celebrated his third highest day in trading, earning US$56,000 in about 2 hours. Ian’s passion for investing is rooted in his upbringing. Growing up in East Chicago, Indiana, he didn’t come from an affluent area or a rich family. Perhaps what had the greatest impact on him most was when a relative was taken advantage of by a dishonest investor. Through that experience, Ian witnessed the fear and distrust that can accompany investing. “One of the biggest ones (mistakes I made) was not investing early enough in the market. I got started late at 24. And the stock market is the easiest thing to invest in.” – Ian Dunlap Worst investment ever A college friend called Ian into his dorm room one day in 2005 and showed him a social media website, asking if he had seen it and if he was on it. Twenty minutes later, he had signed up for an account and was hooked, spending maybe two to three hours a day on the site. He mainly using it for his party promoting and other business, and started using it to run advertising. He called a relative and said: “Listen, I don’t call and ask you for anything. When I tell you, this is the greatest thing I have come across in life, I’m willing to take the last of my money, if you will take some of your money (he had a lot of money), and invest in this company with me.” His relative answered: “What the hell are you talking about? You’re in college … What do you know about investing in a technology company?” This clearly was a different time for venture capital. His relative refused. He tried to get other friends and other family members involved also, but got the same answer. And Ian was young black college kid. At the time, one of his friends worked at MySpace, which at the time was the hottest thing that was being tipped to destroy Instagram. Referring to the website Ian wanted to invest in, his friend said: “I think this company is going to kill us … I know we have all the artists, all the kids are on here, but this thing that you’re on, is nothing like we’ve ever seen.” It turned out that the US$125,000 investment, of which he would have put $10,000 of his own money would have turned into $26.4 million. That company was what was known as TheFacebook.com. Now every time he sees his relative on the holidays, the relative says: “I probably should have given you the money you wanted. Ian says we all have made such “boneheaded decisions”, in which if we would have just invested a little bit of capital, it would have changed our lives forever. Some lessons Be more convincing. Ian laments not being persuasive enough to get the family member to put in some money so they could invest in Facebook (FB:US, FB.OQ), which is currently trading at - US$190.56/share. Facebook turned into one of the biggest tech companies in history, and he regrets not following up more and failing to make a better case for the investment. Stay true to your convictions. Whenever you have a position that is true to your heart and you know it is going to work, you may be the only person on the face of the earth that believes it, but you have to let your conviction carry you. “Most top investors did not start out in the industry. They took back roads, got into the industry and formulated their own strategy. And that’s how they became so effective.” – Ian Dunlap Andrew’s takeaways Investigate. When you see a business that you think is interesting, investigate it, ask questions, and find out if you could invest in it. At some point, an investor has to take action. But do not act without doing research. Do not act without assessing the risk. Size your position. This is a critical risk management concept because sizing your position matters so much. Investigate, do your preliminary research, and try to invest US$10,000 (if you have US$100,000 liquid) to get the step of taking the action going, but then size that position carefully. Actionable advice Put some money into the market every month. Start with a small amount. Then you will have the financial freedom that you want. Even in a down market, especially when we hit a recession in a couple years. Buy more. “I always tell people just buy index funds, hold them … You don’t have to be the second coming of (Warren) Buffett to make money, just buy the S&P 500, the Dow or the equivalent in your country. I got started late. That’s why I’m so passionate about it.” – Ian Dunlap #1 goal for next 12 months To have a more balanced life. The money is fun but first and foremost, take care of your health. “I’ve had 14 family members died in 17 years. At no funeral have I ever thought about business. Not once. I didn’t care about a chart,

Ian Ng is currently the CFO at Nielsen China and he has spent six years providing accounting and auditing services at Big Four accounting firms, covering manufacturing, construction, and trading services. Prior to that, he spent 13 years in corporate finance, doing mergers and acquisitions and all kinds of business support and business strategies. His expertise incorporates business partnering, which includes contract review, price setting, and market outgrowth approaches. He’s also applied his talents to compliance and effective reporting to US and China accounting standards including GAAP, business performance forecasting and control and strategic planning for organizations to achieve the best use of their resources. “Makes more friends. Because once you have more friends in the markets, you tend to learn more about other industries.” - Ian Ng Lessons learned Past trends of performance are definitely not a good or mandatory reference. China had been on a growth trend if you look back 15 years, China growth, GDP, investment, and all the indexes seemed good. But everything changed. A lot of the time when we are uncertain about the future, we tend to look at the past trends to give us some comfort and confidence that things will repeat, but in today’s world, this is not the case. Don’t be stubborn. Be flexible and practice self-reflection. His lesson was he relied excessively on his our commercial team and had little close connection with the customers. Be ready for change because today’s world is ever-changing. Prove all assumptions that you make in business. Andrew’s takeaways Don’t fight the price. In some ways, in corporate finance and in business, this idea does not apply at all, but in many ways, it does. It is often said “the trend is your friend” or, “understand the direction that a price is going”. Pay a lot of attention to the price of your final product. Go out and meet the potential customers to confirm real demand. Sales people are naturally optimistic so be very careful about accepting their word for the level of demand for a product. When you are making an investment decision, it is critical to meet potential customers and verify that there truly is demand. “In other words, don’t totally trust what the sales team says.” Observe the market before making business or investment decisions: try to figure out is there any market or demand for particular products and make survey from the external environment not just only from internal staffs. “No matter how great a business person you are, it is extremely difficult to build a successful business in an industry where the price is falling, and falling significantly.” – Andrew Stotz You can also check out Andrew’s books How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market My Worst Investment Ever 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 Points Connect with Ian Ng LinkedIn Connect with Andrew Stotz astotz.com LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube My Worst Investment Ever Podcast

Eric Choe started his investment industry career as a sell-side equity analyst in Korea, where he worked with Samsung Securities, ABN AMRO, and Deutsche Bank. After earning his MBA at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, he worked at Fidelity Investments where he ran the Fidelity Thailand Fund. Currently, Eric manages multi-asset portfolios for high-net-worth individuals at a private bank based in Singapore. “We must have an investment checklist … every investor has different factors they look for when they make investments and watch their investments. And I think everyone has to have a different checklist for what they’re comfortable with … (which) can evolve over time.” - Eric Choe One lesson learned One item on Eric’s 10-point checklist: If a stock is trading at a price-to-earnings growth ratio (PEG ratio) of above one, don’t invest in it. (The PEG is a stock’s price-to-earnings [P/E] ratio divided by the earnings per share (EPS) growth for a specified time period). Now if he’s invested in a stock in which the PEG goes above 1.0, he sells it, and if it’s trading at about 1.0, he will not buy it. Andrew’s takeaways Avoid investing in a company that is competing against the government. However, one exception would be when the government is truly failing in its strategy. The entry of the government into an industry isn’t the end of the world. But it can really affect the multiple of your target company and can lower the price that people are willing to pay for stock as their assessment of future growth will have fallen. Companies can survive, adjust and thrive, but their valuation will slide a little. You can also check out Andrew’s books How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market My Worst Investment Ever 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 Points Connect with Eric Choe LinkedIn Connect with Andrew Stotz astotz.com LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube My Worst Investment Ever Podcast

Azran Osman Rani is currently the founding CEO of Naluri a digital health technology company that provides a cost-effective and accessible digital health psychology service to help users adopt healthier lifestyle behavior changes. He is active in the internet technology space is a co-founder investor and advisor to iFlix, MoneyMatch, Cognifyx, and YellowPorter. He was previously the CEO and group COO of iFlix – a disruptive Internet TV-and-video-on-demand service that was launched in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in May 2015. It now operates across more than 30 markets in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa and has 700 employees, all in less than three years from its launch. Previously, Azran pioneered the long-haul, low-cost-airline model as the founding CEO of Air Asia X. He led the airline’s growth from start-up to US$1 billion in revenue, 2,500 employees, and a public listing, all in just six years, breaking many low-cost airline industry conventions and introducing innovations along the way. “I ended up with a seven-digit net-cash loss … and eventually had to part company with the board on that journey. So it was a very, very tough and painful, financial ending … But you know, I learned an invaluable amount from that experience, and I wouldn’t have traded it for anything else.” – Azran Osman-Rani Lesson learned Be very wary of what banks or investment bankers tell you or advise you to do. They are getting paid their fees and commissions even if your business suffers. Have a back-up plan. Every organization or individual should have a back-up plan or alternative way to survive or cover from loss. Andrew’s takeaway The damage of leverage. There are really only two financial risks: debt and currency. If a business is run without debt, a huge amount of risk is reduced. In business and in life, the damage of leverage can never be understated. Obey the principle of trying to remain debt-free and the principle of diversification. Never listen to financial people. Investment bankers and analysts and other players in finance usually never run a company. They sit on the sidelines doing research and giving advice, without risking anything, without having any “skin in the game”. In fact, they are making money from getting a business owner to follow their advice, which is quite distracting. Finance adds no value. This is something Andrew tells his finance students. Value is created through products and services. Value is created on the asset side of the balance sheet, where the assets of the business and the brains and the commitment and determination of the people go into creating better products and services. This is what creates value. The job of a CFO of a company is to use finance as a tool to support management decisions. Remember this, a CEO or a young CEO, who is out there trying to build their business should not get lulled into thinking that financial maneuvers are going to create long-term value. You can also check out Andrew’s books How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market My Worst Investment Ever 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Transform Your Business with Dr. Deming’s 14 Points Connect with Azran Osman-Rani: LinkedIn Twitter Azran Osman Rani Instagram Connect with Andrew Stotz astotz.com LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube My Worst Investment Ever Podcast

Md. Nafeez Al Tarik is head of research and investment at City Brokerage Limited in Bangladesh. He has eight years of research and investment experience in the equity markets of Bangladesh and provides his research to foreign and local institutions. Prior to working at City Brokerage, he served as the chief investment officer at Asia Tiger Capital Partners Asset Management Limited, where he was responsible for several mutual funds valued at around US$12 million. In 2015 and 2016, his flagship fund generated cumulative performance, with respect to the benchmark, of about 8%. He also had experience and expertise in asset-liability management, having worked for the treasury department of Eastern Bank Limited and as an assistant vice president in Royal Bengal Investment Management Company Limited. Nafeez holds an MBA and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Dhaka, from the department of finance within the faculty of business studies. He’s also a CFA charter holder and a certified Financial Risk Manager (FRM). In his spare time, he’s an entrepreneur running the financial coaching institute, Professional Finance Studies, where he provides training in the fields of financial modeling, equity evaluation, risk management, advanced excel skills, and CFA and FRM preparation. He also has been a guest lecturer at the finance department of Jahangirnagar University, where he’s taught financial engineering and advanced financial engineering courses in the BBA and MBA programs. Finally, he’s also a CFA Society Bangladesh volunteer. “I should have trusted the market and should have done some more due diligence to understand why the stock was falling with such large volume … I probably would have found that the asset quality was very poor compared to what I had thought, and from there I could have cut my position and taken a stop loss.” Md. Nafeez Al Tarik Lessons learned There are many value traps in the market so don’t fall for them. Most of the time, the price is right. You have to look at the price action and you have to go deeper than the mere appearance of the market, as price could be pointing to an internal problem. Particular due diligence is required when you are investing in banks. Look carefully at the board, governance, management, accounting policies, risk management policies, loan rights policies, and provisional policies. Listen to your peer analysts and fund managers, especially those who are taking the same kind of contrarian angle as you and pay attention to their hypotheses. Understand that you are a human being and we have a lot of biases. Pay attention to your behavioral biases. In Nafeez’s case, he had confirmation, conservatism, overconfidence, and status quo biases. Talk to management to get a feel for where they are coming from. Find out about them, what their incentives are, if they have any conflicts of interest, and, especially when your position is big, do extra due diligence. Asset allocation involves some key decisions. Think and research thoroughly so you can make appropriate asset allocation decisions. To do that effectively, the macro environment must be understood. Andrew’s takeaways Properly analyze and manage risk. Some of the ways to do that are looking carefully at asset quality, putting in place some kind of stop-loss, and carefully sizing the position you take in an investment. So if you like a stock, the decision as to how big a stake you will take in it for your portfolio is one that needs careful research and consideration. On banking, if asset quality drops, you can be wiped out as banks operate on low multiples. If the assets, meaning the loans that a bank has awarded, deteriorate just a little, say 10% of total assets, all loans at the bank can go bad, which can literally wipe out all the equity of the bank. Even in a bubble time, the multiples of banks will be lower than the multiples of the overall market. A great investment can go very wrong because of the macro environment. An investor must never dismiss the macro environment. The Price is Right. When Andrew was growing up, he remembers watching a TV game show called The Price Is Right. In the stock market, there are many people looking at the market, which affects what the price is. But there’s a paradox, the price is right, but in order to be a successful active fund manager, at some point you have to bet that the price is wrong. When you make that bet, you really must have a great amount of high-level research in support of that decision. Connect with Md. Nafeez Al Tarik LinkedIn Bloomberg Twitter Andrew’s books How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market My Worst Investment Ever 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 Points Andrew’s online programs Valuation Master Class Women Building Wealth The Build Your Wealth Membership Group Become a Great Presenter and Increase Your Influence <li style="font-weight:...

Beth Azor is a 33-year veteran of the commercial real estate industry and owns Azor Advisory Services, which specializes in consulting services in training, sales, leadership, coaching, acquisition, due diligence, and market analysis. Beth owns and manages a US$79 million portfolio of commercial retail properties in southeast Florida and recently wrote and published a book called Don’t Say No For The Prospect, a collection of stories from her career, and her career as a retail leasing rock star. She is also a frequent guest on business and commercial real estate podcasts has her own Retail Leasing for Rockstars podcast and hosts the Rockstar Book Club Monthly Call, where she and guests review nonfiction, business-related books. A graduate of Florida State University (FSU), she is also chair emeritus and founder of the FSU Real Estate Foundation. “Timing is the key and I would rather go for it and make mistakes, and even lose money than to never go for it ever.” – Beth Azor Lessons learned Timing is everything, but arrogance can the cause of failing to act in a timely fashion. Beth waited too long and rejected another, a cheaper offer that could have saved her in the long run through the 2008 real estate crash in the US. Pay very close attention to due diligence. In this case, it was due diligence about the location of her property and its demographics. Beth failed to appreciate the negatives about the location, which was surrounded on three sides by unpopulated areas. Andrew’s takeaways 1. Never underestimate the quagmire that bankruptcy swamp you in. Whether it is you as a company or you as a person, bankruptcy courts can change things suddenly and for the worse. At the bang of a gavel, a judge can make a judgment on bankruptcy that you really can go against an investor. 2. Arrogance and overconfidence is among the most prevalent of the mistakes investors make. a. Macro factors are a major thing investors should always think about when investing. Sometimes it’s about preparing for events, such as the 1997 financial crisis in Asia, or the 2008 global financial crisis, which in a way started in Beth’s world with real estate. 3. Andrew recommends people follow his six-step investment process. a. Find an idea b. Research the return c. Assess the risks d. Create a plan e. Execute the plan f. Monitor the progress All those suggestions apply, whether it is a land investment or a stock investment. The key item for Andrew is that he separates the research on return from the research on risk. “Everybody who’s getting ready to make an investment needs a devil’s advocate … (who) must be focused on what can go wrong, and why it will go wrong, and what will be the impact when it does go wrong.” – Andrew Stotz You can also check out Andrew’s books How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market My Worst Investment Ever 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Transform Your Business with Dr. Deming’s 14 Points Connect with Beth Azor Beth Azor Twitter LinkedIn Connect with Andrew Stotz astotz.com LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube My Worst Investment Ever Podcast

Jeyabalan Parasingam is a Certified Public Accountant (MICPA) and a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). He has more than 25 years of corporate experience in areas such as finance, taxation, auditing, investment banking, private equity, real estate, and investment management. He’s been instrumental in the set-up of several successful start-ups over the past 15 years with a range of companies involving BPO (business process outsourcing), private equity, real estate, and technology. He has raised more than 600 million US dollars in equity commitments over the past 10 years. “One of the best lessons I’ve learned in stock investment is that there is no amount of under-investment that you can do in due diligence. You’ve got to start due diligence in advance by reaching to the internal stakeholders.” – Jeyabalan Parasingam Lessons learned 1.Detailed take on vital nature of due diligence behind any stock investment. Start vigorous due diligence a long time in advance. What he means is: a. Speak to the competition b. Speak to bankers c. Pick up the phone and call a supplier or get someone else who you trust the call a supplier pretend to be a purchaser. That can give you a good understanding of the company’s actual strength and weaknesses d. Don’t just use due diligence to confirm the investment. Instead, ask the question: “Should we walk away now and lose a little bit of money that we have spent on due diligence and bringing the deal to the market, or do we continue this transaction and spend a lot and have a lot of grief later?” – Jeyabalan Parasingam 2. Forget the fact Big Four accounting/audit firms or big banks are involved in doing the due diligence because they too can make mistakes or miss crucial items. 3. Take a central role in the due diligence. Personally oversee the proceedings and be the duty person, as you can hire an accounting firm to do the books, but the people are doing the due diligence might have little to no experience. 4. Make sure the people helping you with due diligence understand the sector well enough and have good enough relationships in that sector, so they can provide information that would not otherwise be available. Andrew’s categories of mistakes and their antidotes Andrew has gleaned from the Worst Investment Ever series of podcasts and blogs six main categories of mistakes made by respondents, starting from the most common: Failed to do their own research Failed to properly assess and manage risk Were driven by emotion or flawed thinking Misplaced trust Failed to monitor their investment Invested in a start-up company He also mentions his six-step investment process, which can help to avoid such mistakes Find an idea Research the return Assess the risks Create a plan Execute the plan Monitor the progress Andrew’s takeaways 1.Often (Error No. 2) investors fail to properly assess risk. And this research on risk should be clearly separated from research on return. 2.Due diligence 1: Set up a team within your organization or your group solely to assess risk and do due diligence. Its sole responsibility should be to prove why the investment shouldn’t go ahead, the reasons why and explain what the risks are. One of Andrew’s prior interviewees from London talked about having such a peer-review process within his investment team to produce counter debates, requiring it as part of their stock/company-analysis process. 3. Due diligence 2: Be an eyewitness and just go to see. a. a. If you’ve ranked a company they are among your top-10 customers, go and meet them. b. If a company is shipping goods to a warehouse, go to the warehouse and see. 4.Due diligence 3 and the idea of misplaced trust (Mistake No. 4). People that are cooking the books and playing games, are always going to use big brand names to hide what they are doing. But it doesn’t stop at products. Other brand names can also be used: a. Customers’ brand names and suppliers b. Brand names in the audit firms. c. Brand names of the banks, so: “To be a great analyst, you must start with the premise: trust nothing, trust no one. In other words, get evidence … even branded companies and big companies and successful companies can easily miss the things … particularly when someone’s really working hard to hide stuff.” – Andrew Stotz You can also check out Andrew’s books How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market My Worst Investment Ever 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Transform Your Business with Dr. Deming’s 14 Points Connect with Jeyabalan Parasingam LinkedIn Email Connect with Andrew Stotz astotz.com LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube My Worst Investment Ever Podcast

Manit Parikh has worked across sectors on transformational programs with organization-wide impact, leading two companies to reach US$300 million in revenue. He is currently working with number three. This has led him to earn the nickname “The Michael Bay of Business”. Manit is working with Yellow as a director of investment and head of the business. Prior to Yellow, Manit has worked with leading Fortune 500 companies in leadership positions. Along with his current position at Yellow, he is also an advisor to various start-ups’ early-stage investors and an international keynote speaker. “Suddenly, a boy who made a million dollars just saw a million dollars go away. And I think that is when I really truly learned the value of hard-earned money and not being greedy, and actually analyzing everything to the core.” - Manit Parikh Lessons learned Analyze and study the business you are planning to invest in. Don’t be “cocky”, arrogant. Ask the right questions, ask the wrong questions, but ask them. Why? Because every question brings an answer that raises another question that needs to be asked. Never be afraid to say “no” to investment, because there are many more out there. One occasion of success investing with one person or company is no guarantee that they can or will make you money again. Analyze every facet of a business model, tear it apart and ask every possible question from the founders, because they are the ones asking for money. Andrew’s takeaways Andrew has gleaned from the Worst Investment Ever series of podcasts and blogs six main categories of mistakes made by respondents, starting from the most common: Failed to do their own research Failed to properly assess and manage risk Were driven by emotion or flawed thinking Misplaced trust Failed to monitor their investment Invested in a start-up company Referring to Start-up businesses are usually very risky, so you have to be very careful about having anything to do with them. Never be the sole creditor for a start-up. When you are the sole provider of funds or the start-up has very limited sourcing for the fund, the company can run out of cash quickly, and the company becomes desperate. <span data-ccp-props=...

Verawat Kirinruttana&nbsp;holds an MBA from&nbsp;MIT’s&nbsp;Sloan School of Management. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from&nbsp;Chulalongkorn University&nbsp;with first-class honors and gold medal.&nbsp;Verawat&nbsp;is currently a vice president of investment advisory&nbsp;services&nbsp;at&nbsp;Siam Commercial Bank&nbsp;(SCB). In his role,&nbsp;he provides asset allocation strategies and investment recommendations for private banking and affluent customers. Prior to this,&nbsp;he was a vice president of corporate strategy at&nbsp;SCB&nbsp;where&nbsp;he shaped the direction for the bank by developing strategic and tactical business plans and drove many transformation initiatives,&nbsp;such as&nbsp;the&nbsp;national e-payment. Before joining SCB, he was a management consultant at&nbsp;the&nbsp;Korn&nbsp;Ferry Hay&nbsp;Group&nbsp;(now&nbsp;Korn&nbsp;Ferry)&nbsp;at&nbsp;its&nbsp;Southeast Asia office, where he spent more than four years in human capital management, organizational development, and performance management.&nbsp;&nbsp; “With&nbsp;a lot of analysis&nbsp;and&nbsp;valuation&nbsp;you would&nbsp;believe&nbsp;that found a&nbsp;diamond but&nbsp;management, the corporate governance of that company might not be good at that at the level on the status” – Verawat&nbsp;Kirinruttana Lessons learned&nbsp; When investing in foreign markets, expect the unexpected. Things can happen that are beyond the mind’s ability to comprehend, events way beyond your control.&nbsp;This&nbsp;can be the case of a&nbsp;management decision and can happen&nbsp;even&nbsp;after&nbsp;a lot of analysis&nbsp;and careful&nbsp;valuation,&nbsp;which you&nbsp;believe&nbsp;puts things within&nbsp;your power.&nbsp;Management or corporate governance of&nbsp;a target company may&nbsp;not be good&nbsp;and&nbsp;when you try to even try to figure out what happened, the&nbsp;unclear&nbsp;nature of&nbsp;the&nbsp;market&nbsp;and the&nbsp;how you access the information&nbsp;can be very&nbsp;really limited.&nbsp;&nbsp; Solution:&nbsp;Cut losses as soon as possible but in frontier markets,&nbsp;liquidity&nbsp;can be the problem and may not be able to sell your position.&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Andrew’s takeaways&nbsp; Be careful about frontier markets.&nbsp;They can be very&nbsp;attractive, but the actual performance&nbsp;of an investment target may&nbsp;not&nbsp;turn out&nbsp;as good as&nbsp;is shown by the&nbsp;underlying economy. If you can access that market,&nbsp;it does not mean that it will also give you&nbsp;access to&nbsp;the same returns as&nbsp;those that exist&nbsp;in the market.&nbsp;Also the flow of information can be non-existent or scarce so that you don’t really know what is going to happen, even of you know people on the ground.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Liquidity issues are key.&nbsp;A&nbsp;company&nbsp;that is the target of investment&nbsp;should have about&nbsp;US$ 1&nbsp;million dollars a day in average daily turnover, or else&nbsp;it&nbsp;is too dangerous to&nbsp;put money into.&nbsp;&nbsp; Using&nbsp;a stop loss methodology for quantitative strategy&nbsp;doesn’t always work.&nbsp;Even having a stop loss in place&nbsp;makes it hard to execute where there is&nbsp;thin volume.&nbsp;&nbsp; Looking carefully at&nbsp;corporate governance&nbsp;is crucial.&nbsp;Ask yourself, does the&nbsp;management&nbsp;show any real concern&nbsp;about minority shareholders&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;You can also check out Andrew’s&nbsp;books&nbsp;&nbsp; How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market&nbsp;&nbsp; My Worst Investment Ever&nbsp;&nbsp; 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Connect with&nbsp;Verawat&nbsp;Kirinruttana&nbsp; LinkedIn&nbsp; Verawat&nbsp;Kirinruttana Connect with Andrew Stotz&nbsp; astotz.com&nbsp; LinkedIn&nbsp; Facebook&nbsp; Instagram&nbsp; Twitter&nbsp; YouTube&nbsp; My&nbsp;Worst&nbsp;Investment&nbsp;Ever&nbsp;Podcast Further reading mentioned&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; Alice Schroeder&nbsp;(2008)&nbsp;The Snow Ball&nbsp; Michael E. Porter (1979)&nbsp;How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy&nbsp;&nbsp;

Phuong Nguyen is a CFA charterholder. He is a value-oriented and fundamentally driven investor. He has 8 years of experience in the investment industry with various buy-side firms and has lived through some, a few of the tough market times. In his view, the Asian investment landscape is uneven and investors should sharpen their investing acumen beyond the face value of data or information. He manages his family investment account, which has delivered an annualized return of more than 30%, which is more than 15% over the benchmark. Meanwhile, his portfolio since its inception 4 years ago has only sustained an average 14.1% downside volatility compared to 23.9 for the benchmark. He is currently exploring a global career opportunity to apply his rigorous research process and investment acumen. His core expertise is in Asia-Pacific markets and he is a member of the CFA Society Singapore. “I make it worse by using leverage, Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett talk about the 3 Ls to avoid, which are ladies, liquor and leverage: leverage I used it. It turned out to be bad for the investment.” – Phuong Nguyen Lessons learned Don’t forget the 3Ls. Phuong referred to Buffett talking about him and his partner Charlie Munger’s attitude to leverage when he said: “There are only three ways that a smart person can go broke: liquor, ladies, and leverage.” Leverage in Phuong’s case meant borrowing money from a broker in the hope of having the money multiply to the extent that the loan can be repaid with interest to leave enough of a gain to profit from. Look out for all potential headwinds. Avoid emotional bias after meeting a company’s smiling faces. No matter how charming a company’s management is, how convincing and humble they are, do not act to invest in a company right away after you meet the company because at that time you will be suffering from emotional bias. Stay away from them for about a week, do more research and only then can you look at the investment again. Despite a company meeting and your feelings about investment going well, emotions should be kept in check. “Our aversion to leverage has dampened our returns over the years. But Charlie and I sleep well. Both of us believe it is insane to risk what you have and need in order to obtain what you don’t need.” – Warren Buffet Andrew’s takeaways Be mindful of the effect of confirmation bias. It’s human behavior to look for information that confirms our original views or hypothesis on a matter, and everyone in all fields suffers from that bias. Therefore, investors especially have to work extra hard to find opposing views or arguments against our thesis on an investment idea. Be wary of cyclical. When investing in cyclical type of companies, it can be extremely dangerous. A lot of people like to invest in consumer-type products because generally demand is steady and supply is steady. But when you’re investing in cyclical, there is a much greater risk, which sometimes is what attracts investors because of the old magnet: “high risk, high return”. On company visits. As an analyst for more than 20 years, taking thousands of fund managers on visits to just as many companies, Andrew says that probably 95% of the meetings he attended added no value. In some cases, it made someone either overconfident in liking the company or overconfident in disliking it. Which either way biased their decisions. Andrew agreed with Phuong but said: “Go out and visit the company. Fine. You may like the company, you may they hate them, but don’t make your decision right way based on the visit alone.” – Andrew Stotz You can also check out Andrew’s Books How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market My Worst Investment Ever 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Connect with Phuong Nguyen LinkedIn Connect with Andrew Stotz astotz.com LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube My Worst Investment Ever Podcast Further reading mentioned: Retire Before Dad (2018) Liquor, Ladies, and Leverage: How Smart People Go Broke Warren E. Buffett (Feb 2018) Letter to Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., reporting on the company’s performance for 2017.

Ian Beattie is currently the co-chief investment officer of NS Partners London, an investment management boutique. He holds a B.Sc. degree in economics from City University of London and started in the investing business in the early days of January 1992 as an Asian equitist. Since then he has been involved in East Asian and Asian emerging markets. Ian joined NS Partners in 1996, and just a year later, he became head of Asia and has since been focusing on the products closest to his heart, emerging markets, and Asian equity investments in the region. “I think we’ve got to learn from our mistakes … and to learn from them, you need to know what you got wrong. And some of those are un-forecastable genuinely exogenous events. That’s why you have a diversified portfolio, right?” - Ian Beattie Investment journey Ian started investing CAR Inc., a car rental company based in Beijing, despite the fact that there existed a handful of popular and booming ride-sharing companies in the continent, such as Uber and local operators that posed a threat. The balance sheet looked great and it had a good foundation for its name, with training by Hertz managers who helped to set it up. “There’s nothing like a globally significant crisis to really test your knowledge of markets, whether it’s how our company works, how an economy works, and how those two are joined up. Pretty exciting learning experiences are not always a pleasant one.” – Ian Beattie But after a while, his investment started to fall. What caused it? Ian cites his initial positive assessment about the company’s management proved wrong, but on top of that, he underestimated the threat of the competition. Ian failed to see the bigger picture and the impact that the bigger companies would bring to his stock in the long run. Emotional attachment was misplaced As part of the peer review process, younger members of the team had been asking him early on what he was doing and why he wasn’t seeing the risk of car-rent apps such as Uber and their China equivalents and why the company was not getting more cash out of its operations (free cash flow (FCF), the cash a company produces through its operations, less the cost of expenditures on assets. FCF is the cash left over after a company pays for its operating expenses and capital expenditures, also known as CAPEX). “I’m getting hit with this (strong feedback). And I realized I cannot defend it … If you bought a stock – or a valid investment – for a valid reason, that should still be the reason why you hold onto it. And if that story is broken, then you should sell.” – Ian Beattie There have been many cases such as this, wherein an investor’s reason for buying a stock suddenly changes midway through ownership. This happens mostly when the stock starts to depreciate, and when it does, it should be a clear red flag that it is no longer profitable and actions should be taken to prevent further damage. Ian, however, failed to see this flag sufficiently early on in the game. Reassessing the situation Ian is reminded of the OODA Loop, a discipline he has used to reset his mindset and that of his team to what is really happening. Created by US fighter pilot John Boyd during the Korean War, the OODA loop is a strategic tool used for analyzing situations for re-orientating in the heat of the moment. Part of it came from a theory to achieve success in air-to-air combat developed out of Boyd’s observations of dog fights between MiG-15s and North American F-86 Sabres in Korea. It is a disciplinary method that helps people remain calm and properly gauge what is being faced and because it’s a loop, it allows for constant re-assessment amid changing conditions. <span data-ccp-props=...

This podcast is dedicated to John Bogle Michael and Andrew would like to dedicate this podcast episode to the icon who passed away just before this recording was made, John Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Group, and author of such classics on investing as The Little Book of Common Sense Investing was a real Vanguard and revolutionary. Bogle started the world’s first index fund so they tip their hats in tribute. Guest profile Michael Falk is a CFA charter holder and a certified retirement counselor. He is a partner at the Focus Consulting Group and specializes in helping investment teams improve their investment decision making, investment firms with their strategic planning, and mediating firms’ successions. Previously, he was a chief strategist at a global macro fund and a chief investment officer in charge of manager due diligence and asset allocation for a multibillion-dollar advisory practice. Michael is an author, co-author and frequent speaker. in 2016. He wrote the CFA Institute Research Foundation monograph Let’s All Learn How to Fish…to Sustain Long-Term Economic Growth. He is on the CFA Institute’s approved speaker list. In the past, he has taught on behalf of the CFA Society Chicago in their Investment Foundation Certificate program. He has been a contributing member of the Financial Management Association’s practitioners’ demand-driven academic research initiative group and taught at DePaul University in their Certified Financial Planner Certificate Program. He’s frequently quoted in the financial press and presents in industry events. Moneyball man Michael was an athlete who played competitive baseball until he was 31 years old. But in his early 20’s, he realized that he couldn’t make a career of this, so he decided to get an education, and graduated from the University of Illinois with a B.S. in Finance, adding to his interest in growing wealth. It caught his attention, but it wasn’t about getting large amounts. It was about how money drove behavior. But still, he played ball and was working on the side until his body’s aches and pains started to surface. Summary In this episode, Michael recounts his experiences as a private wealth manager advising a client on what to do about holdings in two big companies. The story revolves around what is seemingly his not-so-lucky share-price level, US<span data-contrast=...

Roxana Nasoi is an advocate for community and technology with 10 years’ experience in online business data analytics and marketing. She was an Elance (then Upwork) ambassador between 2012 and 2018. She joined Aimedis as their chief communications officer (CCO) in November 2017 and is co-host at the The CryptoLaw Podcast and the Nothing at Stake podcast. “Be true to yourself and do not be afraid to start over again.” – Roxana Nasoi One lesson learned Everything you do generates a reaction that has either direct or indirect impact. It’s difficult to predict what can happen in a business or with an investment. If one doesn’t assess every single potential risk thoroughly it will return to haunt them. “What you did today will come back to you in five years, or even sooner.” – Roxana Nasoi Andrew’s takeaways Breaking up is hard to do in business too, but make sure it’s a clean break. It’s important to do the work to truly separate yourself from a partnership or business partner, you want to make sure that it’s a true, clean separation. It’s even hard sometimes to identify where the connections are. But just as a lot of preparation is required to get into business or an investment, so too is it important to have an exit plan, that is well executed. “When you separate and decide to go different ways, make sure that you invest the time and effort that’s necessary to truly separate yourself from that other business or … business partner.” – Andrew Stotz You can also check out Andrew’s Books How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market My Worst Investment Ever 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Connect with Roxana Nasoi LinkedIn Medium Twitter<span data-ccp-props=...

Tron Jordheim is a business guy, podcast writer, and speaker who spends a lot of time operating RHW Capital. Tron is one of those entrepreneurs who is always making something out of nothing. He started his first business in the sixth grade with a roll of paper towels and a can of window cleaner. He has been at it ever since. He took his boyhood interest in protection-dog training and created a whole new business model that put him through college. Tron was one of the people who helped the New York City Police Department start its K-9 Unit. He ran man-dog contract security patrols for Pan Am airlines at JFK airport and was the captain of the United States team that competed at the European championship for German shepherd dog clubs in 1982 (now called the WUSV world championship). “What I didn’t do though is a cash flow analysis and a forward-looking pro forma … I didn’t do any of that.” - Tron Jordheim One lesson learned It’s very advisable to do some real risk analysis before you invest in a business so that you know that, when risk factors arise, you...

Dann Bibas is a co-founder at Fountain financial services in the United Kingdom, a digital wealth manager combining new technology was certified advisors to make personalized investing more accessible. He was formerly an equity derivatives associate at Citigroup, working closely with some of the world’s largest financial institutions on equity, cross-asset and volatility products. He is also a member of the Founders of the Future community in London, the Tech Nation Founders’ Network and is a regular speaker at start-up and fintech events. “Stock picking, for myself at least, is really difficult” - Dann Bibas Die-hard passive investing fan adds key points Dan truly believes that investment in the market for the long term is the maker of winners He has felt this way most of his adult life since the following story of loss Started to invest in stocks when he was a student majoring in finance at McGill University (Bachelor of Commerce) Watching a stock closely becomes a nightmare of ups and downs As he learned micro and macroeconomic and other financial concepts, he and his friends became interested in investing as they were learning a lot about markets and how to evaluate balance sheets. Early forays involved using small amounts of money earned during summer jobs through a friend in his group’s TD Ameritrade account. They bought a few hundred dollars of shares in Citigroup (a fact Dann used later on during his interview for Citigroup’s graduate program. This was the first ever investment he actually took seriously. Perhaps too seriously, because his strong memory was that it was very anxiety driven, because he was focused on this one company, watching everything that was happening to it. He had a clean thesis and thought he would become rich quickly. Then the stock was hit by an earnings report that was negligible below expectations. Then some macroeconomic event happened and it fell further. Then there was positive news and it bounced up. But the stock can also be affected by other banks’ earnings reports, impacting the sector. So he went from thinking he had an effective thesis but his stock was getting “hit on all sides” both up and down. How’s the sector doing? ...

Guest profile Hansi Mehrotra runs the financial literacy and investor education blog, The Money Hans. She was named in LinkedIn’s inaugural global 10 TopVoices for Money & Finance. More recently, she was included in the LinkedIn TopVoice and PowerProfile for India in 2018 and the year before, the same site’s PowerProfile for Finance in India. Her profile on that site has more than 289,000 followers. Hansi has over 20 years of financial services industry experience, mostly in online delivery of investment research and consulting for the wealth management industry across the Asia-Pacific region. She set up and led the same region’s wealth management business for Mercer’s investment consulting division in Australia and Singapore. And, Hansi has led a number of projects in India, including the design of investment options for the National Pension System. She holds a BA from the University of Delhi, a graduate diploma in applied finance and investments from the Securities Institute of Australia (now FINSIA), and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). “Just because we didn’t have data doesn’t mean it never happened.” - Hansi Mehrotra Prelude to tale of woe and Hansi’s motivations She finished her degree at the University of Delhi by correspondence because she come from a very small town. Her desire to learn finance was due to a “lack of money”. Also, her father had lost a lot of money and she wanted to know why. While earning her graduate diploma in Australia, she worked as a waitress part time. Hansi’s drive and skill for self-study came partly from her father, who urged her to help her less academically inclined brother with his work Asset allocation and sizing of position – went to Zero Hansi and her husband started a joint-venture company to research tax-effective agriculture schemes. They became well-known for writing the best research reports on how to receive tax benefits from planting trees, such as in orchards, vineyards, and for pulp and paper. She joined Mercer and convinced them to employ her husband as a consulting to research agribusiness as an asset class globally. With the knowledge they gained after reading Rich Dad Poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki and became interested in passive investments and income streams.<span data-ccp-props=...

Thao Quynh has 15 years of experience in the financial service and investment industry. She was the investment portfolio manager for two European funds with US$280 million of assets under management. Prior to that, she worked as a financial analyst and research manager for leading brokerage houses in Vietnam. She started out with a university tuition loan to create the asset of knowledge and it is this knowledge that has given her financial security. She believes in diversifying across various asset classes and allocates about half of her wealth to investing in the stock market investments. Thao holds a Master’s Degree in International Business from SKEMA Business School in France and an MBA from the European Management Education Center in Vietnam. Today she is serving her country as an investment manager and portfolio strategy manager at Vietnam Holding Asset Management. Vietnamese stock market booms in youthful exuberance The year 2007 was a boom time for the relatively young Vietnamese stock market and everyone was excited about the kind of profitability in which returns of double or triple were quite normal. The VN index chart had soared from around the 680 mark in late 2006 to its peak of around 1179 in March 2007. Several companies were trading at 70 times PE and 100 times PE and what is considered a bubble at that point of time. [caption id="attachment_2621" align="aligncenter" width="403"] The VN index chart had soared from around the 680 mark in late 2006 to its peak of around 1179 in March 2007. The latter year was when naïve investor Thao started to invest and got caught up in the excitement and greed.[/caption] Source: Investing.com In the same year, Thao invested in a Vietnamese start-up brokerage house. It looked a good prospect for the following reasons: The founders were successful entrepreneurs with rich experience in leading other big financial institutions in Vietnam, one was former director at Merrill Lynch. The information was transparent and its financial statement was audited by a Big Four accounting firm. So all up, it had good financing potential, network advantage, and management capability. This investment was at first a big success. Two months after investing, the stock price went up around 18%. But Thao didn’t sell because, by her own admission, she got greedy and expected it go higher. She even rejected an offer to buy her shares on the over-the-counter (OTC) market at 2.5 times her cost price. Stock market bubble bursts Thao doubted that the bubble would burst at that time because everyone was expecting robust growth in the economy since the country had just entered World Trade Organization and that this would be a good catalyst for corporate performance and stock prices. However, the unexpected happened when that same year the Vietnam stock market showed for the first time some correlation with the US market. The global financial crisis was showing early red flags with the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Her investment went from a profit of 2.5 times to a loss of 50% in just a year and liquidity was a big factor as nobody wanted to buy after the bubble had burst. Opportunity <span...

Jerremy Alexander Newsome is the CEO and co-founder of www.reallifetrading.com. The trader and newly published author has one of the fastest growing audiences and websites on the Internet and attacks the markets with energy, exuberance, and humor that is truly refreshing. He has been professionally trading the stock market since he was 21 years old. Jerremy specializes in candlesticks, gaps, day trading with shares and options, swing trading and credit spreads. He graduated from the University of Florida in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree in business management, with a minor in mass communication. In his spare time, he has dabbled in the comedy world, practices Brazilian jiu-jitsu and has an informed taste in music and good beverages. Forrest Gump drives desire to not ‘have to worry about money no more’ Many people were inspired by the 1994 Tom Hanks masterwork, Forrest Gump. The box office hit inspired viewers with its mash-up history and heart-wrenching life lessons. Notably, it included an undeniable and timeless investment lesson. Our guest Jerremy’s love affair with trading in the stock market started when he watched Forrest go to the mailbox while he’s telling his new park-bench friend how he’d had a call from “Lieutenant Dan”, who had invested their money in “some kind of fruit company” (Apple computers, Apple Inc. AAPL:US, APPL.OQ) and that they “didn’t have to worry about money no more”. For young Jerremy, the main motivation for getting into the world of investing was that his family always worried about money and he wanted to find out “How could we not do that anymore?” Jerremy begged his father to invest in Apple as well, and finally he agreed too, also saying he would match his son’s stake. He gave US$1,300 to his father, a sum raised from door-to-door sales of blackberries he had picked himself in the summer of 1994. The Apple shares they bought performed very well and around six years later, his father gave his then-12-year-old self a whopping $12,000 and he has been hooked on trading and investing ever since. Apple Inc.’s share price from beginning to present [caption id="attachment_2558" align="alignnone" width="1555"] Red line in the Apple Inc. chart above represents the approximate period Jerremy and his father traded in Apple shares, which succeeded in turning Jerremy’s initial investment of US$1,300 into $12,000. He has been hooked on investing and trading ever since.[/caption] Summary: Jerremy’s journey in investing In this episode, Jerremy shares what sparked his interest in investing and paved the way for his professional trading career. He will reminisce about the glorious yet ill-fated days of being dazzled by the hottest trend at the time – silver. Jerremy was confident after tasting success when he had a striking 36% return from his father’s retirement funds in three months. But things didn’t go as expected when after its peak at $48.35 per share, it dropped by $10 in a week, a 20% loss in value, and unbelievably plunged to zero in the following week. Jerremy will detail more of the ins and outs of the trade and how his personal investment and loss of his father’s entire of his taught him the more important lessons: opening up his fears, on following the trend, and risk mitigation. Learn more from Andrew as well as he will give you his six-step process, fundamentals take when investing, for beginners or experts. Every investor’s going to have losses. It doesn’t matter how much money they’ve made over time they’ve had certain situations that they’ve lost a lot of money on. So being honest, being humble, being open about it is key and integral. And it’s very important through the whole process of learning. You can learn more from your losers, than you will for your winners, without question. – Jerremy Newsome Investor, 21, bedazzled by hype and sheen of silver On Jerremy’s 21st birthday, he asked for the contents of his father’s retirement account with which to trade. Confident about a strategy he had been using, he went on to make a stunning 36% return on the entire $100,000 in just three months. His father was as excited as he was. Then, he learned about stock options, which move faster than stocks. Jerremy went into investing in silver, which was all the rage and he was as caught up in the media, social and investing hype as everyone else. He felt he could not lose. This was the “perfect investment” and that thought was very assuring. His first foray into silver had been shares in First Majestic Silver (Corp.) ticker symbol (AG:US, AG.A) and he did very well. He holds an unofficial Guinness World Book of Records for buying silver at its highest price and even bought a lot of call options. He bought 300 call options, valued at $16,000 that time. In layman’s terms, Andrew defined call options as – “… when you think something’s going up, it’s not enough just to own the underlying stock. What if you could take a leveraged bet that says I’m going to make more money when this thing goes

Philipp Kristian Diekhöner is a keynote TEDx speaker, global innovation strategist and author of The Trust Economy, published in English (2017), German (2018) and Simplified Chinese (2019). Philipp has spoken at eminent global organizations such as Facebook, P&G, Microsoft, Turner, Munich Re, Zillow, Globe Telecom, CPA Australia, Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economics and Energy, the Economist Intelligence Unit and many others. He’s written for Forbes, Esquire, e27, Marketing Mag and InVision blog plus several industry publications and featured across Springer Professional, Men’s Folio, Money FM 89.3 and Your Story. Philipp is also a founding partner of DDX, the award-winning German innovation foundry that helps companies innovate the most trusted products and services. In his free time, he’s an avid sailor and yogi. Trust is key to change and is highly relevant to investing After spending almost a decade working around the world in the sphere of innovation in numerous disciplines, Philipp makes two important observations: (1) that effecting change is particularly difficult, and that (2) trust is essential whenever we are trying to do something interesting or new. In fact, the world changes when trust patterns shift. This is, he says, why when old technology lingers, it is because it has managed to remain trusted. He added that by the same token, new tech that is actually not very good can still succeed also because we have somehow given it our trust. This change, whether good or bad, is very relevant to investing. “When it comes to financial markets, our trust in the way the world works determines which things change and which things stay the same.” – Philipp Kristian Diekhöner Summary: Technology influence the way we trust businesses This episode dives deep into a story about the placing (and misplacing) of trust in today’s technology. Our guest Philipp looks back at his investment in a robo-advisor fintech start-up in Singapore. He was attracted to its sophisticated digital interface and trusted them to actively manage his portfolio. At closer inspection, he discovered by himself his investment took a big hit due to a currency correction of which he had not been informed. Phillip <span...

Guest profile Corey Hoffstein is a co-founder of and chief investment officer at Newfound Research, a firm founded in August 2008, which is a quantitative asset management firm specializing in risk-managed, tactical asset allocation strategies. At Newfound, Corey is responsible for portfolio management, oversight of research and communication of the firm’s views to clients. He received his degree in BS in computer science from Cornell University and finished his MS in computational finance from Carnegie Mellon University. Early investing foray – road to the fall Corey’s tale takes place about a decade ago when he was starting out in investing. He thought he had erased the details of its telling as it was such a painful episode of this life. He believed he was playing his part with considerable research on the world of investing, starting with titles such as Benjamin Graham’s Security Analysis and The Intelligent Investor and anything available by Warren Buffett. From this he became engrossed in the analysis of individual securities and developed the idea that the “real” opportunity was in micro-cap stocks, finding that special stock no one had found and holding it until the market realizes that one is a genius. Green investor’s vision blurred in the Internet’s salad days As an impressionable young investor in the days when the Internet was also young, he was greatly taken by all these investment boards, some prominent and large, some with a dozen or so members, all completely anonymous people sharing ideas with one another. In the sort of blind date equivalent of seeking financial advice, he got to know the people, their investment styles, their stock picks and, eventually, that they could be totally making it all up. But, he built a measure of trust in this hidden little world and on one such board a hot tip was suggested, a pink-sheets, over-the-counter (OTC) stock in a company known as Deep Down Incorporated (DPDW.PK, DPDW.US). DPDW is (still) a deep-sea oil exploration and production-services-related company that builds underwater umbilical cords and submarine drones to explore wells. It either leases or sells such technology to big companies. ‘Underdog target for a buyout’ thesis means ‘gold’ in the offing His thesis was that there was a great R&D operation, a company that is always one big deal away from being “not just profitable, but ultra-profitable” and a sure-thing target for a buyout – The underdog team dealing with big-league industry players. For a time, his “inside scoop” delivered some joy as the stock’s price climbed in a short period, and he took the bait. “People on these web forums are claiming they’re talking to the CEO and they’re sharing the inside scoop and so you really feel like you have your pulse on it. In retrospect, I didn’t have my pulse on anything but I thought I did and so I watched the stock climb from say 40 cents to 80 cents and I think: ‘You wanna know what? This is happening!’ One of those situations where price confirmed my narrative that probably should’ve been a sign, I probably should have dug a little deeper, didn’t even really understand the fundamentals I was getting involved in. This was pure story-driven investing and I bought. I then watched the stock go from about 80 cents to about a US$1.20.” - Corey Hoffstein Early success on half-baked research spells peril Corey believes now that these types of early gains are among the worst things that can happen when an investor has made an ill-conceived investment because it ramps up their overconfidence gene and they become so attached to belief in their own abilities. Corey was no exception. Equating luck with genius, and ignoring his own profit target, he said to himself again: “You wanna know what? The story’s only getting better … now I think we’re going to get to $5”. - Corey Hoffstein His perceived future was getting rosier because the price was supporting all the myths he had built around the stock. So instead of taking some risk off the table, and banking his gains, he ploughed more funds back in. He then saw the stock price decline. Again he interpreted this as other people taking profit, some pain before the big, long-term gain. But it kept sliding. Did he stop? No. Rather, he thought: “You wanna know what, this is a buying opportunity. So not only did I buy at the top, I then doubled down on the way down, which you know, again, in retrospect, is not such a smart move because I really didn’t at all understand what I was buying. And then it just continued to dwindle and it probably got back to around 40 cents and stayed at 40 cents.” - Corey Hoffstein By this time, Corey was so appalled that he stopped checking the price. After three or four years, it was still at 40 cents and he finally let it go. He added that it was not actually his worst investment by dollar value but it was a case in which he made every mistake textbooks say he could have. What is a ‘penny stock trading on a pink sheet’? A pink sheet i

Danielle DiMartino Booth is CEO and director of Intelligence for Quill Intelligence LLC, a new research and analytics firm. She is known for her meticulous research in the financial markets and her unique perspective honed from years of experience in central banking and on Wall Street. Danielle is a global thought leader sought after for her insights on monetary policy in the United States and elsewhere. In a sign of her ideas’ value, European Parliamentarians invited her to Brussels in May 2018 to share her insights on global economic trends and fiscal policy. Track record at Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Earlier last decade, Danielle spent nine years from 2006 at the Dallas Fed, where she served as the advisor to that district’s president, Richard W. Fisher, until his retirement in March 2015. She provided market intelligence and policy briefings and advised Fisher on policy, a unique role, which had not existed outside of the New York Fed before her appointment. Get to know Danielle in today’s feature story, her remarkable career journey from working in equity markets and then being an advisor to Fisher, to her current role as a financial consultant, author, and commentator. More importantly, discover what she regards as her most significant investment loss and the valuable lessons she learned from it. “My biggest lesson that I’ve ever learned is that I will never again deny the simplicity and the utility of liquidity and it’s as simple as that.” - Danielle DiMartino Booth Financial analyst has dodged some serious bullets in her time While these podcasts are about missteps all our guests have made, Danielle has also had a considerable share of good fortune or made decisions that saved her from calamity; none perhaps more than her rejection of employment offers from four of the most infamous or ill-fated companies in US history: Arthur Andersen, Enron, Lehman Brothers, and Bear Stearns. So, as she told Andrew: “You never know in life that your choice might just end up being serendipitous but indeed providential at the same time.” This all happened was right before Danielle started working on Wall Street, which was before she returned to Dallas to serve at the Federal Reserve, which was also a move she had never planned to make. Danielle revisits New York every two or three weeks to contribute analysis to media outlets as one of the “Fed Whisperers,” offering explanations as she “understands how central bankers think,” which is a rare talent. ‘Chief architect’ of liquidity rebirth failed to take her own advice As a Fed insider, Danielle witnessed the meltdown following the financial crisis of 2007-2008. Her Dallas Fed boss at the time, Richard Fisher, was being criticized for comments against the Fed lowering interest rates to the “zero-bound.” He had pointed out that the ongoing problem was not a case of the price of credit being the impediment to the market working but rather liquidity being frozen, despite it being richly liquid in the years beforehand<span...

Vorapon Jim Ponvanit is the founder and CEO of a PeerPower, a Fintech start-up focusing on SME marketplace lending in Thailand. He is also a partner in boutique advisory firm, Khronos, and has 18 years’ experience in M&A, investments, and restructuring. He is an educated investor in stocks, bonds, and has a solid, diversified portfolio. He and his wife are also avid food connoisseurs and shacmd+shift+vre a love of dogs. Summary: Ups and downs on Jim’s investment path In this episode, Jim shares the gems he has learned on his investment journey, including how research alone is not enough to guarantee your success. There are “what-if” questions all investors need to ask to substantiate your assumptions. And the exciting part is to identify the common investment mistakes that can be avoided and to “wait for the right pitch”. Since investment is a lifetime exercise, you’ll also learn more about the six-step guidelines Andrew offers to help you to better understand the investment process. “The whole point of investing is you want to live to fight another day. And you want to make sure that you have fewer mistakes and more successes. That’s all you can hope for because nobody hits home runs every time, right?” – Vorapon Jim Ponvanit Skilled investor seeks to diversify gains after post-crisis boom time Around eight years after the 2008 financial crisis, Jim started to liquidate his US portfolio. He put some money into structured bonds and equities, which made considerable gains in the following run-up of US stocks. He then took that liquidity in mid-2015 and was looking to diversify and make use of his capital. At this time, his obsession with volatility began alongside a search for ways to trade on such conditions, and took a look at the VIX index. He found there was no direct way to expose investors to that index, other than buying derivatives or self-building a <span...

Channarong Kitinartintranee is the Senior Financial Advisor of KBank Private Banking Group. He joined Kasikornbank in 2018 with a key focus in Thai economics and equities. Before that, he worked as a mutual fund and institutional private fund portfolio manager at Krung Thai Asset Management with more than 10 billion baht focusing on mid-scale cap stocks. Channarong holds an MSc Finance from Thammasat University and has been a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) since 2012. Hear from Channarong as he shares his worst investment story. Know why it is essential always to remember the basics and fundamentals of investing. Learn why we should not let past success make us overconfident. “Don't forget the basic investment things, the valuation, the fundamental.” - Channarong Kitinartintranee Topics Covered: 01:07 – Andrew gives a summary of our guest’s working experience 03:04 – Channarong tells how the mid to small cap stocks he invested when he started in Krung Thai Asset Management performed very well at the start but turned out his worst investment 09:44 – Revealing the valuable lessons he got in his investment loss 11:40 – Andrew shares his takeaways in this story 15:17 – Additional important lesson from Channarong 16:48 – Actionable advice to avoid suffering the same fate: “Don't let past success makes you overconfident because you will end up failing. Challenge your past successes. Don't trust them.” 16:57 – Parting words from our guest: “Keep investing. If you don't invest, you'll never get the compounding effect of having your money in the market.” Main Takeaways: Lesson 1: “Gaining and losing in the investment in the market is a physical thing.”– Andrew Stotz Lesson 2: “It's important to discuss the concept of how a portfolio is exposed. The first exposure I'll call global drivers, and global drivers are things like oil price. The second thing is the concept of exposure to factors. The most common factors are value and momentum and also, size exposure. I wouldn't necessarily call it a factor, but I'd call it a size exposure because you can implement a factor strategy in a mid-cap space.”– Andrew Stotz Lesson 3: “If you're investing in a certain type of exposure, whether that's to size to global factors or other factors such as valuation and momentum, remember those factors. The reason why factor investing can be very difficult is it sometimes you could even create a fund or a strategy around a factor that had worked and then it may not work for the next five years. That doesn't mean that factor doesn't work or that exposure doesn't work such as a small cap or mid-cap stocks. It just means that it's out of favor. When you build only a narrow factor exposure, try to understand when that factor will be in and out of favor. And that is a very, very hard thing to do, but that's the message that you have to communicate when you're doing that type of fund.”– Andrew Stotz Lesson 4: “What I took away from what you've talked about is the concept of liquidity. And particularly because your story is about mid and smaller stocks, these stocks tend to have a higher risk of not being able to be liquid when you need to sell them at a reasonable price you can't. And that's the concept of illiquidity.”– Andrew Stotz Resources from Andrew Stotz: Andrew Stotz book 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them My Worst Investment Ever How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market Connect with Channarong Kitinartintranee: LinkedIn Connect with Andrew Stotz: astotz.com LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube My Worst Investment Ever Podcast

Tahnoon Pasha grew up in the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. He has a Bachelor of Business Administration and an M.B.A. from the University of Karachi, Pakistan. He is a chartered financial analyst and has been a member of the CFA Institute since 1995. He is based in Spencer Stuart’s Singapore office and is a member of the firm’s Financial Services Practice. Before Spencer Stuart, Tahnoon was the co-founder and the chief executive officer of Cynopsis Solutions. He also served at Aviva Investors as CEO of both the Asia Pacific regional hub in Singapore and the equity and fixed income businesses in the region. And for some years, Tahnoon worked as head of regional equity investments for MFC Global Investment Management (Asia). With nearly three decades of experience in the investment management industry, Tahnoon specializes in financial services searches, working with a range of clients in the asset management, insurance and sovereign wealth sectors in Southeast Asia. Get to know Tahnoon as he unveils what he considered his worst investment ever. Understand why it is very crucial to be cautious about your level of conviction to a particular sector or trade, and why it is very crucial to work with the right team that you can trust and will speak truth to you and that will help you become a better investor. “I think the mistake was the level of conviction I invested in that particular trade.” - Tahnoon Pasha What do you want to hear from the My Worst Investment Ever Podcast? Tell us here! Resources: My Worst Investment Ever Book myworstinvestmentever.com Topics Covered: 00:45 – Summary of our guest’s educational and professional backgrounds 03:19 – Tahnoon narrates why he considers structural underweight in his portfolio his worst investment and the two important circumstances leading to it 05:54 – Explaining why it is hard to model the levels of return and the modeling perspective missed 10:25 – Summing up the remarkable lessons learned from his experience 12:00 – Andrew shares his takeaways 16:44 – One actionable advice from Tahnoon: “Surround yourself with smart people. If you've got people around that you can trust and who will speak truth to you, you're going to be a much, much better investor. Don't try and do it alone.” 18:03 – Parting words from our guest Main Takeaways: Lesson 1: “First was that I misread the boom itself. The second was that I misread the effectiveness of the change in production models that had that boom based on outsourcing and contractual arrangements rather than on direct consolidated, centralized manufacturing.”– Tahnoon Pasha Lesson 2: “What's interesting about valuation is nobody knows what the value is until it arrives. So, we're left making assumptions in models.”– Andrew Stotz Lesson 3: “There are cases when the assumptions that seem to be traditional and realistic get blown out of the water, and it's not so much that the model is flawed. It's just that if you force yourself to operate only within that model, you may force yourself to make assumptions. That just may not be the case in a unique situation of an exploding industry.”– Andrew Stotz Lesson 4: “It turns out, the auto industry is not a good model for technology. It didn't have the same kind of cost downs regarding the iterations and obviously, the time between generations in the auto industry was much longer and slower than we saw in technology. What we really should have thought was about how the industry was playing out in and of itself and by trying to use proxies that were poor matches for the for the industry. We lead ourselves wrong.”– Tahnoon Pasha Lesson 5: “Without the right assumptions, it's hard to come out with the right result. And it's not always the structure that's to blame.”– Andrew Stotz You can also check out Andrew’s books How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market My Worst Investment Ever 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 Points Connect with Tahnoon Pasha: LinkedIn Connect with Andrew Stotz: astotz.com Linkedin Facebook Instagram Twitter Youtube My Worst Investment Ever Podcast

Nicolas Rabener is the founder of FactorResearch, which provides quantitative solutions for factor investing. Previously he created Jackdaw Capital; an award-winning quantitative investment manager focused on equity market neutral strategies. Before that, Nicolas worked at Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) in London focused on real estate investments across the capital structure. He started his career working in investment banking at Citigroup in London and New York. Nicolas holds a Master of Finance from HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management, is a CAIA charter holder and enjoys endurance sports like 100km Ultramarathon, Mont Blanc, and Mount Kilimanjaro. Listen as Nicolas will uncover the worst investment experience in his real estate venture. Learn why it is important to avoid complexity in your investments. “I would urge most people to dramatically reduce your portfolios from a complexity perspective, especially on the retail side.” - Nicolas Rabener What do you want to hear from the My Worst Investment Ever Podcast? Tell us here! Resources: My Worst Investment Ever Book myworstinvestmentever.com Topics Covered: 00:41 – Andrew introduces our guest with his educational and working experiences 02:27 – Nicolas reveals what made him become an investor 04:32 – Telling how he evolved in his job investing in real estate stocks 06:28 – How persistence in doing marathons relates to investing 08:32 – Sharing his first investment loss in his career when overseeing the real estate fund of Jackdaw Capital involving two companies managing prisons on behalf of US government 16:48 – Andrew mentions his takeaways from this story 18:32 – Nicolas gives a piece of actionable advice to our listeners 20:44 – Andrew wraps up the show and emphasizes three important things: create, grow and protect your wealth Main Takeaways: Lesson 1: “Sometimes logic isn't what happens in the stock market. Sometimes people overreact, or they may not think fully and completely that only 10% would potentially be at risk.”– Andrew Stotz Lesson 2: “Expect the unexpected, because, from a real estate perspective, this is an asset-backed business. So, I guess the learning curve is that no matter how defensive in what you can expect, sometimes you do get punched in the face.”– Nicolas Rabener Lesson 3: “Avoid the complexity because complexity on the investment side is often the enemy.”– Nicolas Rabener Lesson 4: “We generally create wealth from a business. If you go into the stock market thinking you’re going to create your wealth; you're probably going to lose. However, the stock market is good for growing your wealth. In protecting your wealth, for investors out there, some of the academic research I did showed that in Asia you need about ten stocks to diversify away.”– Andrew Stotz You can also check out Andrew’s books How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market My Worst Investment Ever 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 Points Connect with Nicolas Rabener: factorresearch.com LinkedIn Twitter Connect with Andrew Stotz: astotz.com Linkedin Facebook Instagram Twitter Youtube My Worst Investment Ever Podcast

Bill Winterberg is the founder of FPPad, a technology publication and business consulting firm to financial services organizations. Bill produced the FPPad Fintech Flash Briefing and was the host of FPPad Bits and Bytes, video broadcast and email newsletter covering technology news and information for financial professionals. He provided technology commentaries for the Journal of Financial Planning and was the monthly technology columnist for Morningstar Advisor. InvestmentNews recognized Bill as a 40 Under 40 Honoree for his influence in the industry, and he was named to the 2013 IA 25 list of the most influential people in the profession. Before entering financial services, Bill was a software engineer for Hewlett Packard and LeapFrog Toys. On a personal note, he lives in Atlanta, GA with his wife and nine-year-old son. Listen to Bill as he shares his worst investment ever story purchasing a manufactured home that he and his wife bought out of a loan, the events that made them decide to sell the property, the tedious selling process they've experienced, and the ballooning interest loans that they had to settle while trying to let go of the property. Don’t miss out this truly relevant story of decision making and learn from the consequences that Bill made. “It doesn't even necessarily need to be whether or not this investment has gone bad or is still good, but some or many times, circumstances happen in your life that you cannot predict.” – Bill Winterberg What do you want to hear from the My Worst Investment Ever Podcast? Tell us here! Resources: My Worst Investment Ever Book myworstinvestmentever.com Your Money or Your Life Topics Covered: 01:23 – Bill’s personal and professional experience 05:14 – Bill shares how he purchased a home in San Francisco and how it ended up as a bad investment after a life-changing situation 18:21 – Lessons learned by our guest 20:36 – Andrew shares his three takeaways from this story: knowledge in your investment, criticality in timing, and the concept of inches and seconds 23:24 – Highlighting the compounding effect of money 26:21 – Andrew wraps up the show with remarkable teachings from the book “Your Money or Your Life” 27:41 – Encouraging last words from Bill: “Take what you learned from our discussion today and apply it not just to an anecdotal story like what you just heard, but apply it to your opportunities today and your opportunities in the future.” Main Takeaways: Lesson 1: “Try your best not to underestimate the value of flexibility, and liquidity is important in there too.”– Bill Winterberg Lesson 2: “We were not wise to the fact that there was this language in the location of the house that restricted that flexibility. It took us two years to sell. It's that liquidity and not having any offers to buy for two years.”– Bill Winterberg Lesson 3: “The real benefits of compounding don't come to us until 20 or 30 years later.” – Andrew Stotz Lesson 3: “A common thing that people say (in investing in the stock market) is to make mistakes while you're young because you can recover from them. But what I say, in the world of finance don't make your mistakes when you're young because the compounding impact of those financial mistakes is enormous.” – Andrew Stotz Lesson 4: “That book (Your Money or Your Life) taught me that, ultimately, is when we're spending, we're spending our energy and what I learned from that book is to live deeply below your means. And I believe that that challenged me throughout my whole life to see if I could live deeply below my means.” – Andrew Stotz You can also check out Andrew’s books How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market My Worst Investment Ever 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 Points Connect with Bill Winterberg: fppad.com LinkedIn Twitter YouTube Connect with Andrew Stotz: astotz.com Linkedin Facebook Instagram Twitter Youtube My Worst Investment Ever Podcast