The Top ETFs for Achieving Financial Independence and Retiring Early

Bryce: [00:01:10] Welcome to get started investing in this podcast, we cover all the basics that you need to start your investing journey. Are you joining us for the very first time? Is this the very start of your investing journey? Well, before you dive into this episode with us, our feed is designed to go from the very beginning. So we strongly recommend that you scroll up and start at episode one. However, if you are feeling brave and just want to dive in, then of course, don't let us stop you here at Jaci, we unpack all the jargon and the confusing bits. We hear your investing stories with the goal of making investing less intimidating, and we want to have a good time along the way. My name is Bryce and as always, I'm joined by my equity buddy Ren. How are you going?

Alec: [00:01:49] I'm very good. Bryce. That intro always feels long, but it is worth it. Glad to be here for another week and glad to be doing an episode that we haven't done in a while, which is we've gone out to Instagram. We've gone out to our Facebook group and we've got some emails come in. There's a bunch of questions that we have to answer. And we're going to try and do them quickly because otherwise this episode could be an hour and a half long. 

Bryce: [00:02:15] Yeah. Well, we don't. We don't want that. That'll almost be as long as my intro. What's a year without me having another crack at an intro in one of our shows? So I might take that as a note? 

Alec: [00:02:25] To have another crack, to add a revamped to add a postscript, 

Bryce: [00:02:29] to add another paragraph. Yeah, that's 

Alec: [00:02:31] right. Well, look before we do two really exciting pieces of housekeeping and we will keep these brief. First of all, you've probably heard us say it before, but Fin first is coming Equity Mates IPO. Our initial party offering is here. You don't want to miss it. We're calling or bulls, bears and party animals. The market's closed. The bar is open. We thought of a lot of taglines. That's how excited we are. Bryce What should people do?

Bryce: [00:02:58] All you need to do is register your interest because we are going to be releasing early bird tickets within a matter of weeks, so we don't want you to miss that opportunity. It's on the 15th of October here in Sydney. Have no fear. If you're not in Sydney, we will make it as easy as possible for some of our interstate listeners to get here as well. So make sure you sign up so you don't miss all of that information. 

Alec: [00:03:21] Okay, that's a 

Bryce: [00:03:22] must not miss. 

Alec: [00:03:23] Yeah, you wouldn't want to miss that second piece of housekeeping. We've got a new podcast. If you're feeling overwhelmed by finance news and you want someone a.k.a us to simply break it down, we've got a business news show. It's called The Dive. The feed is up. The first episode drops in a couple of weeks, so go over. Listen to the trailer, subscribe, and we'll tell you more about it in the coming weeks. 

Bryce: [00:03:46] That's it. Ren business news doesn't have to be boring. Is that? Is that a tagline for that? 

Alec: [00:03:51] Who says business news needs to be all business? 

Bryce: [00:03:54] There you go. Nice. So yeah, we're really excited. It's a podcast that we felt Australia has needed and the world needed for a while. There is no one breaking down business news in a way that we're going to. 

Alec: [00:04:08] Yeah, it's a big call. So it's the dive. Head over. Subscribe now. Wherever you're listening to this, it will be available. But Bryce, let's get into the Q&A. Yeah, we went out to our Instagram, our Facebook group, and we asked what investing questions the Equity Mates community have. I also asked them if they have any questions for you, and there were two why there were two that came in. Well, there's a lot going on in your life at the moment. You know you're about to get married. Sorry, maybe a baby on the way? 

Bryce: [00:04:37] Absolutely, absolutely not. 

Alec: [00:04:40] But the two big questions that came back for you the first answering these now. Yeah, yeah. Okay. The for people watching on YouTube, they can say this visually because they were both about your appearance. Oh dear. The first one was what's happened to the backwards heart, and the second one is what Hale axes Bryce, you see. So obviously a lot of interest in your above. The eyebrows are about goings on above 

Bryce: [00:05:05] the above the fold. The backwards hat is still in play. You can say it's just over there. It's not on my head right now. 

Alec: [00:05:12] People watching can't say it because it's true, 

Bryce: [00:05:15] but it is still in play, becoming less and less. I have noticed that 

Alec: [00:05:20] it was a summer thing. 

Bryce: [00:05:21] Yeah, I think so potentially, which is weird because you'd probably want it in winter. Keep your head a bit warm. You know what it was? I found a couple of hats that really actually fit my head, and

Alec: [00:05:29] I didn't expect a genuine response to this, but I'm glad I

Bryce: [00:05:32] got it. So yeah, anyway, we'll leave it there. We don't want to be too long. 

Alec: [00:05:35] And people watching looking at Bryce hair saying how beautifully waxed it is on YouTube, he keeps that. He keeps that wax formulation deep, dark secret.

Bryce: [00:05:45] This is the this is the surprising thing. I actually don't use any, and it's because of the heart that just takes it down in the mornings. And then natural waxing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't shampoo.

Alec: [00:05:56] All right. Anyway, that's enough about your above the fold attire. Let's get into investing. And obviously there's a lot of focus on what's going on at the moment in markets. So a couple of questions or. Iterations of this, which is basically what's your plan of attack for current times? 

Bryce: [00:06:13] Plan of attack for current times? Yeah, it's it's incredibly interesting times at the moment, isn't it? It hasn't really drastically changed. I've just eased off the frequency of which I'm putting money into the market that 

Alec: [00:06:24] feels like every personal finance expert and financial advisers. Worst night? Well, maybe not. Worst nightmare. But yeah, you tend to like to be consistent when markets are volatile. 

Bryce: [00:06:35] Yeah, there's a b part to this. I actually just went in on a more on an equity builder, which is kind of why I've eased off.

Alec: [00:06:42] So you haven't hit it off at all? I guess. 

Bryce: [00:06:45] I guess not. I took out a leveraged position.

Alec: [00:06:47] I think, you know, obviously we're not going to say what you should and shouldn't buy, but I think the main thing is, well, for me, at least, my strategy hasn't changed. And just as I was investing in the middle of 2021, when we were in the middle of a bull market and everything seemed to be going well, I stuck to that plan and I'm consistently putting money into the market into a variety of assets that are just some dollar cost averaging into 

Bryce: [00:07:13] I want to point out. And I wish we might talk about this on Equity Mates. But have you noticed that the tech some of these tech stocks are roaring back? 

Alec: [00:07:22] Yeah. Well, roaring is a relative term if you zoom out, of course. Yeah, of 

Bryce: [00:07:27] course. But there could be a bit of a dead cat bounce happening. But some of the slack Spotify up 30 percent two weeks ago. Anyway, I'm not going to go through all the stocks, but a lot of these tech stocks. 

Alec: [00:07:36] You do an investing podcast. Tell me all the stocks. 

Bryce: [00:07:39] Yeah, it's an interesting one that how quickly some of this is turning at the moment. Yeah, it is. And making the most of the opportunities. 

Alec: [00:07:47] Yeah. Honestly, at times like this, I'm very happy that my personality type is quite lazy because I just don't check it a lot. I've had this have a consistent plan, and the more you can distract yourself with life outside of investing and just consistently plug away whatever your investing strategy is, probably the the happier and less stressed you will be. That's it. All right. Next question Bryce. 

Bryce: [00:08:13] Best interval to dollar cost average. Is it weekly? Is it fortnightly? Is it monthly?

Alec: [00:08:17] I don't think there's a perfect answer for this. I think it's very dependent on your money habits. For me, it relates to the frequency of my paycheque, so I used to get paid monthly and getting paid monthly sucks. That's a side note, but you really have to be good at budgeting. And so I would. Dollar cost average monthly. Now we run our own business and we pay ourselves fortnightly, although I think we should pay each other daily.

Bryce: [00:08:46] All right, I'll take it up with that job. 

Alec: [00:08:49] So I try and put money away when I get paid. So now I'm fortnightly. But for me, that's just the easiest way because it sort of fits in with my money habits. But, you know, some people might want to save a certain amount and then do it. It's really whatever works for you. 

Bryce: [00:09:02] There's no no right or wrong. Yeah, I would. Also, just if you don't happen to be using one of the brokers that has other really cheap brokerage or free brokerage on ETFs, if you are dollar cost averaging into stocks and paying 950 1950, whatever it is, just be very careful of your frequency of dollar cost averaging, because that can add up quite significantly. 

Alec: [00:09:24] All right, Bryce next question from Instagram. Why is it as a man who briefly tried to date tried this question? It's perfect for you. Why is it bad to try and time the market? 

Bryce: [00:09:36] Well, because you're just taking a punt on something that you absolutely have no control over and making investment decisions based on a forecast that no one can predict is is the wrong move. No one can time the market. Buffett can't time the market. They don't try and time the market. And it's not about trying to pick the bottom and run it on the way up. You want to be confident in the company that you're investing in, that it's going to be a good investment over a long period of time. It shouldn't matter that you buy it today when the market's down five percent or tomorrow when the market's up 10 percent.

Alec: [00:10:10] Yeah, I would just add to that. It's not that it's good or bad. It's not like we're making a value judgement about the strategy. It's just really, really hard. Mm-Hmm. And most people can't 

Bryce: [00:10:22] actually do almost impossible. Yeah. 

Alec: [00:10:24] And those that can do it generally quantify that into trading algorithms with supercomputers at large hedge funds and can do it quicker than the rest of us. It's not. We're saying like this strategy is bad or good, it's just that it's really difficult to execute. So if you have one of the few that can great. But most of us and me speaking personally, I definitely can't. 

Bryce: [00:10:46] Yeah, and I think one of the biggest risks in trying to time the market is that you're not going to be investing in the market as often as you probably should be if you're waiting for the market to drop. So to speak, to take advantage of a of a lower market, you could be missing out on gains like if you tried to say, in 20. Hen, you're going to wait to the market for the market to drop again, you've missed one of history's biggest 

Alec: [00:11:13] bull run, Alfond D'Arcy, who run out Get Started Investing feed Instagram page, posted something and I'm not going to try and explain the chart, but head over there and have a look because it basically looked at what your returns were if you invested in, like the American market, the S&P 500, and then if you invested in the S&P 500 without the 10 best days of the last decade, the 20 best days of the last decade, the 30 best days of the last decade. And it makes a real difference. So if you missed those 10 great days, it takes a big chunk out of your overall return. And so have you trying to time the market. You have two really good and not miss those 10 days, and I am not really good. 

Bryce: [00:11:55] If you could do it, you'd be a billionaire. Next question Best ETFs for a core portfolio Ren Yeah. 

Alec: [00:12:01] So obviously there is so much ETF choice. I think what two hundred and fifty odd exchange traded products in this morning in Australia, six to seventy six and then probably thousands over in the US. How, however many in Europe. So there's so much choice and there's no perfect product mix. It depends on, you know, how far away from retirement you are and what your investing goals are and what your risk appetite is. But I think if you're thinking about what ETFs make up your core portfolio, I think there's some things to think about. The number one for me is diversification Bryce. And when we talk about diversification, we mean, what are the risks that could lead to you losing money and how do you spread your money across those risks? And so it's things like geographic diversification. You don't just want to be in Australia or just in the US, you want to spread your money around the world. And with that also comes ETF overlap. So if you buy an S&P 500 American ETF and Nasdaq 100 American ETF and a MSCI All World ETF, the biggest holdings in those three ETFs are all going to be the same. They're all going to be the big tech companies. So you want to have a look at what is actually in the ETFs you're buying. But I think spreading your money across different countries, in different stock markets, if you're going like thematic ETFs, you want to spread it across different industries. Anything else that you would say you should think about? 

Bryce: [00:13:31] No, I think that's a really good a really good spread. The only other thing to consider Ren would be the fees that are charged on your ETFs. So some fees, some of the thematic fees, they have management fees that a little bit higher than your more traditional index funds to hundreds. The funds that just follow the large markets so fees do make a difference over a long period of time. So just check your fees. 

Alec: [00:13:57] Check your face, your face. Alright, Bryce. Next one comes in via email a question about retirement and I guess you have over the hour journey here at Equity Mates and get started investing. You have had a lot to say about the financial independence retire early movement. But I feel like you're coming around to it,

Bryce: [00:14:21] potentially

Alec: [00:14:22] so in in that. Alright, so Bryce. The question here is around the fire movement and how do you actually build up that amount of money, that nest egg, I guess we call it and then actually take money out of that to live and fund your retirement, especially if you're doing it when you're I think people try and aim for like 40. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a lot of life left. When you're 40, it is a lot 

Bryce: [00:14:46] of life left. So first part of the question how you build money up and how, you know, I think there's plenty of online calculators for fire to figure out what nest egg you need. 

Alec: [00:14:58] Yeah, shout out to Aussie Firebug. He's been doing this longer than maybe longer than us. 

Bryce: [00:15:05] Yeah, definitely similar time. Similar time. And so in theory, what you're trying to say is by the time I'm 40, I need X amount to live per year. And these calculators will then tell you what is the lump sum of money that you need to be able to generate that income for the next 40 years or 60 years, or however long you're going to live? The challenge here is where some people get confused is that you're not building up a million dollar nest egg and then that's it, and you're selling down year after year after year. You actually want to be building a portfolio that generates income. And this is the difference. You know, you you actually don't want to have to sell down your positions back to zero because then you then you're back to square one. There is elements of selling it down, but the the goal is to actually be generating an income from your investment portfolio. Very similar to superannuation. Yes, there is capital. You are selling your capital during super during retirement, but the majority of it is. Coming through income from your portfolio investment, 

Alec: [00:16:12] yeah, I think that's that's the sensible way to do it. Like to not to not plan to sell your capital if you look in the fire community or if you're looking just like normal retirement content. There's a lot of talk about this four percent rule, which is basically when you're building a retirement plan, you should plan to self-select four percent of your capital each year to fund your living expenses. And in that scenario, by the time your retirement ends, which is a euphemism for dying, you're sort of back to zero. So look, when not retirement experts, I think for me, the main thing is figuring out how much you need to live and then to your point. Figure out what assets pay an income to get you there. But I think if I was getting to that point, if I was 40 and I had a million bucks invested and I was like, I think I can retire, I would definitely be pulling the trigger on a financial adviser like you would. You are making huge life financial life decisions that will affect you for decades to come. Yeah, if that's not the point, you pay for advice. I don't know what it is. 

Bryce: [00:17:19] Yeah, yeah. Ren. Let's take a quick break before we come back with plenty more questions on the other side of it, so let's quickly hear from our sponsors. All right, Ren question from you. So this one's coming from Instagram. What is your opinion on margin lending? 

Alec: [00:17:37] This is a can of worms and we only want to open it so far, but I think the really important thing to keep in so margin lending to people that aren't familiar is basically borrowing money from a bank to buy more stocks. People will sometimes equate it to getting a mortgage to buy property, but the structure of those two loans is not the same. No, because if your property falls 50 percent, when does it property for 50 percent? No, no, no, no. We would actually have to afford it. But if your property falls 50 percent, your mortgage might be too high. You might be under. You might be in negative equity. You might be underwater. But it's not like a bank comes and takes your house. Yeah, but with a margin loan, if your stocks fall 50 percent and you can't put more cash in, the banks will come and take your stocks. Yeah. So there is a different risk profile with margin loans and getting a mortgage for a house. Now there are some other lending products that for stocks that are a little bit different. But I think the long and the short of it is margin loans are risky. You can lose more than you put in. You can owe the bank money at the end of it. The bank can come and take your assets. And so like, if you're not confident on it. Don't do it. You can live a long and happy life. You can build a lot of wealth without having to take out margin loans. 

Bryce: [00:19:02] Yeah, I agree Ren there is a place for it in some investors portfolios, but if you're at the beginning, it's not something to worry about. Yeah. 

Alec: [00:19:09] And I think we've spoken about how we personally have used leverage in our portfolios. We've spoken about leveraged products and I think we've probably done content on margin lines over the last five years as well. So there's like Go, go, have a look. Have a listen if you want to learn more. But again, similar to when you get close to retirement, that's a good time to get advice. If you feel like you're financially secure enough to start borrowing money to invest more, that might be a good time as well to speak to her. Speak to an expert to get some like to get them to have a good look at your personal financial situation and figure out what next steps are, how much you can borrow, how you manage risk, all that stuff. Yeah, I Bryce this one came in from the Facebook group. Are you going to say it all the time? But I still don't really understand what thematics mean. If you could break it down, that would be great. 

Bryce: [00:20:04] Yeah, cool semantics there. I'm just going to give examples. The electric vehicle or sustainability thematic, the marijuana thematic, they 

Alec: [00:20:18] maybe we take a step back before we just released a whole bunch of examples. Thematics are big trends happening in society? You go. And when we talk about semantics in an investing context, it's how do you invest in these big trends? So to Bryce point, electric vehicles is a trend that we're all watching play out in front of us. It started with Tesla ten years ago, and now every major car company has a plan to get rid of all the internal combustion vehicles and become fully electric. Well, maybe not every car company, but it feels like almost every car company and most of them are trying to do it within the next decade like that is a giant theme that has played out, and we are literally watching play out before our eyes. 

Bryce: [00:21:03] Yeah. The reason they've come to prominence, I guess more so in the last. The reason we speak about them more is because it's great that there are now ETFs that allow you to invest in thematics and there's more and more ETFs coming to the market. For example, the semiconductor thematic, we've seen the hydrogen thematic. These are all ETFs that are now coming to market and allowing us to invest. So.

Alec: [00:21:28] So explain those to you. Just said hydrogen and semiconductors. How are they thematics? Aren't they just things? 

Bryce: [00:21:34] They are just things. But we know that with the Internet of Things, everything becoming more digitised, more computers in the world. Semiconductors are playing a central role in the development of these technologies. And so investing in the companies that are at the heart of producing semiconductors is is an investing thematic. [00:21:56][22.2]

Alec: [00:21:57] Yeah, I think they're both things hydrogen and semiconductors. They are things that will be used a lot more in the future. Yeah. And so we don't know who will make those things. So we might not want to invest in an individual company, but we just know that more semiconductors will be needed in the future. And so investing in the thematic isn't trying to say this company is going to be the best investment in the semiconductor industry. But I'm just going to buy a little bit of everything in the semiconductor industry because I know that there'll be more semiconductors used in the future. 

Bryce: [00:22:30] I believe in the thematic,

Alec: [00:22:32] the thematic and yeah, like, you know, marijuana was a theme that was really hot a few years ago because there was a wave of legalisation around the world and a whole bunch of new companies being started to take advantage of that legalisation. And a lot of investors said, I have no idea which companies are going to win and which, you know what the next Coca-Cola or Anheuser-Busch for the weed industry is going to be. But I know that people will as it becomes more and more legal around the world. I know that more weed will be smoked in the future than in the past. And so people invested in that somebody 

Bryce: [00:23:06] I ran a question around dividends. Some of our community are seeing dividend yields or percentages next to the dividend of between four percent, 10 percent, 15 percent in some cases, and I'd love to see it up to 300 percent. 

Alec: [00:23:22] So you only see that in crypto staking. 

Bryce: [00:23:25] So the question is firstly, a dividend in the high teens, the 20s. Is it real and what is the difference between all of these percentages? Yeah. 

Alec: [00:23:34] Well, let's take a step back. And before we try to answer, is it real? Is money real? Is it or just a construct by central banks? 

Bryce: [00:23:43] Okay, so let's 

Alec: [00:23:45] let's talk about how it's calculated. So the Yahoo Finance's, the data providers, whoever the Google finances of the world. The way that they calculate the percentage is they look at what the last year's dividend was paid and then they compare it to today's share price and then they say that's the dividend yield. So very simply, if in 2021, Equity Mates media paid dividend of 10 cents a share and our share price was $1, then our dividend yield was 10 percent. If then, podcasting becomes out of favour and the Equity Mates media share price falls by half. So now the share price is 50 percent. The last dividend we paid was still 10 cents. And so then Yahoo Finance, Google Finance, all those Dollars providers would be telling us that the Equity Mates media dividend yield is now 20 percent. The dividend hasn't changed. It's just the share price has fallen. And similarly, if that $1 share price we had, if we had a great year and we doubled our share price to $2. The last dividend we paid was still 10 cents, and so we would be seeing our dividend yields as five percent. Mm-Hmm. So the dividend yield number is always backwards looking. So I think that's where you got to start. That's how it's calculated. So yes, most of the time it is real. But sometimes you'll say or this company is has a 16 percent dividend yield, that's epic. I think Magellan was looking at a couple of days ago, and their dividend yield is yet their dividend yield is 15 percent at the moment. But that's because their share price has fallen a lot recently. And so maybe they'll pay a 15 percent dividend, but maybe they'll also reduce their dividend and we'll see a smaller dividend next time. That's the key thing. When you're looking at the dividend yield, no companies have a real incentive to not change their dividend too much because investors, especially older investors and retirees, want certainty when it comes to dividends. So you don't see them move too much, but the yield percentage that you're saying is backwards looking. 

Bryce: [00:25:54] I think that flows into the next question, which is around falling into dividend traps and the risk of focussing on the share price and the dividend yield, rather than the underlying fundamentals of the company like profitability and growth. So you're right, Ren buying into a stock that has a 15 percent dividend yield next to it is absolutely no guarantee that that's what is going to be the yield when they pay you a dividend as a shareholder the next time around. So don't be fooled by the yields. Do a bit of research and understand how consistently company that company has been paying dividends where the company is out in its cycle. Has it just announced that it's actually in a world of trouble? There must be reasons that the share that the share price has fallen and subsequently, are they likely to pay out the same dividends going forward? 

Alec: [00:26:42] And if you want to do some research on dividends and if you're really interested in dividends, Google the term Dividend Aristocrats, that's a group of companies that have paid and increased their dividend every year for at least 25 consecutive years. And I think in the US is like 65 companies that are known as aristocrats. And, you know, past performance is no guarantee of future performance, all of that stuff. But it's an interesting rabbit hole to look to go down and to think about how these companies for 25 years. That's almost as long as we've been alive for almost as long as I've been alive a little bit older. Yeah. So there are some companies that like that is their core focus. Everything they do is like capital management to just incrementally increase their dividend year after year. 

Bryce: [00:27:28] All right. Well, only a couple to go. Ren What are your opinions on buying individual stocks that are already allocated in your ETF holdings? 

Alec: [00:27:36] Yeah, I mean, there's there's no right or wrong answer with this. And with so many things in investing, the number one thing is to be aware of it. You don't want to do it mindlessly. I guess if you believe in a company and you want more exposure to it and there is nothing wrong with it, especially if you're buying, let's say, ASX 200 ETF 200 biggest Australian companies. What's a company near the bottom of the ASX 200 these days, like Southern Southern Cross Media, Zip Media? Or they might anyway like one of those companies, like if you were super bullish on outdoor advertising and you were like outdoor advertising is going to be how everyone advertises in the future. Because after two years in the pandemic, no one wants to stay inside and every we're going to put a billboard on every car and driver. And, you know, just like if that was your thesis and you had an ASX 200 ETF, you media would be a tiny percentage of that ETF. It wouldn't really move the needle. So in that case, you might be you might say, Well, gee, I'm happy to have this overlap because I really believe in this one company. I want more exposure to it. So that's a perfectly fine way of investing. But I think the important thing to be aware of is if you have like an American ETF, like an S&P 500 and you're sort of lukewarm on Apple, but you buy some more anyway, you just have to know that the S&P 500 ETF is going to really be affected by Apple. And then you own some more Apple as well. For sure, as with everything in investing and probably in life, it's just being really intentional with your decisions and knowing what you own and being willing to own more of it. 

Bryce: [00:29:16] Yeah, I mean, there's no point owning the FAANG Plus ETF with 10 of the largest tech stocks and then owning five of those tech stocks on the side. Kind of thing like that to me is a bit pointless. 

Alec: [00:29:30] Well, unless you were like those five are the only five companies I believe in and 

Bryce: [00:29:36] show, then yeah, why buy the ETF?

Alec: [00:29:38] Yeah, that is a fair question. But. You know, people might have their reasons. All right, 

Bryce: [00:29:42] Ren to close out, and it's been a great episode. If you do have more questions, hit us up at Contact@equitymates.com as well. A lot of the other shows in our network also run a Q&A so that you're in good company girls, the savvy boys Canadian economist. Make sure you're checking them out and listening to their shows. And if you have questions for them as well. Feel free to hit them up. But closing out, what resources do we use for research and ideas? This is a never ending question. One that I think he's asked every single time. So there's plenty of options. 

Alec: [00:30:16] I would separate the two research and ideas, and I think ideas comes before research and ideas is the hard thing. Like, there's a lot of platforms and we can talk about some of them where once you have an idea, you can research it. But ideas are the literally the million dollar question at some point. And best book I have read to think about where you get ideas is one up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch, and he talks about a number of different ways that you can find investing ideas. That is difficult. I think the you know, there's there's stock screeners and stuff that you can use. You can look at the numbers. Warren Buffett reads five hundred pages a day, and that's how he comes across ideas by just sitting in a room and doing the work. But I think the best way to come across come up with ideas is just be really observant of everything that's going on around you. What you want to buy more of, what companies you noticing advertising more, what your friends and family are talking about, recent purchases they've made that they tell you about at a party or a, you know, a family barbecue, just being really aware of what's going on. Julia Lee, who we've had on the show a couple of times, speaks about how she looks at shopping catalogues and looks at what companies are discounting and then walks through retail stores and look at what companies are getting more shelf space. So just being really aware of what's going on around you. So I think ideas are difficult because they're by definition new, so 

Bryce: [00:31:46] they have to be new. I would say there's plenty of content where experts are spitting out ideas left, right and centre.

Alec: [00:31:54] OK, that's that is a completely fair point. Like you? 

Bryce: [00:31:56] Well, science 

Alec: [00:31:57] fine. But they're new to you. Yeah, yeah. 

Bryce: [00:32:00] But like, you don't have to be looking in catalogues to come up with a fresh idea like. 

Alec: [00:32:07] That is. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. You listen to heaps of content. You do the podcast, you change. 

Bryce: [00:32:14] There's plenty of,

Alec: [00:32:15] yeah, better. Monday, Warren Buffett, he reads five hundred pages a day, you listen to five plus hours of investing content a day. Investors love 

Bryce: [00:32:23] talking about 

Alec: [00:32:24] what I do, and you're bound to come up with ideas. So that's the ideas side of it. I think if that's where we start, then the research so Bryce you've you've got an idea, the light bulb above your head. How do you then research that idea? 

Bryce: [00:32:37] Firstly, start with the qualitative side of things and have a look at Google news articles. Jump on the website, have a look at their company reports. There's so much information on investor relations sites for website. Let's take Woollies and as an example, you can go in there. There's an investor centre. They have all their market updates, they have their presentations that they give to investors to tell you how they've performed, what their strategy is over the coming years. If you google the name, there's likely to be some written research by other investors as well on a company. So just start to wade through that. And then if you want to have a look at some of the fundamentals and and whatnot, we use a platform called ticker TKR. I think it's a freemium model now, which is a bit unfortunate because it was a it was a really good platform. 

Alec: [00:33:26] It's still good, but it was a really good, free platform free. 

Bryce: [00:33:29] So then you could also use Google Finance, Yahoo Finance and just start having a look at some of the quantitative aspects balance sheet, cash flow, valuation metrics, those 

Alec: [00:33:41] sorts of things. A lot of that stuff is the company also publishes themselves. Yeah, yeah, I like the company, has a vested interest in making so much information public and so looking on their website is really important. But then you have to take it with a grain of salt because the company is obviously always going to put their spin on things. But honestly, there is so much information out there now. There's too much information. The the skill isn't in finding the information anymore. The skill is in distilling all of that information into what matters and that that is just a muscle like we're not great at it. A lot of professional investors aren't great at it. It is just something that you only get good at by continuing to try and continuing to learn and continuing to practise. 

Bryce: [00:34:26] Nice one. That brings us to the end. Thank you for everyone who has submitted questions via Facebook Instagram at our contact@equitymates.com email. Keep them coming will endeavour to do another episode of these further down the track, but just to remind us of. Described to the dive to get your shot of business news in a way that actually is enjoyable and makes sense. And don't forget to sign up to find first. Head to Equity Mates dot com slash of invest to register your details. We're going to be announcing some pretty exciting advances on that front pretty soon, so it's been a great episode. Ren, as always. Great to chat and we'll pick it up next week. 

Alec: [00:35:04] Sounds good.