EM Portfolio: Our Hypothetical Portfolio Is Revived & Reviewed

Bryce: [00:00:57] Welcome to another episode of Equity Mates, a podcast where we help you learn to invest in 45 minutes or less. We break down the world of investing from beginning to dividend so that you can hopefully make some returns. My name is Bryce and as always, I'm joined by my equity buddy Ren. How's it going? [00:01:11][14.0]

Alec: [00:01:11] I'm very good, Bryce. We're back in the studio, back in the groove of our Monday episode. And we are introducing a new segment. Well, not new for the listeners, the ones that have been with us since twenty seventeen, but new for most. Let's just get into it. [00:01:28][16.8]

Bryce: [00:01:30] We came to this one so Ren where reviving the Equity Mates hypothetical portfolio. To your point, we started way back when twenty seventeen when we first kicked off it was it even twenty sixteen thousand seventeen when we first kicked off Equity Mates. To your point for the listeners, they would remember that we would choose one stock a week or stock a month. We'd do it right up on it. [00:01:52][21.5]

Alec: [00:01:52] We'd yeah. Yeah. [00:01:53][0.6]

Bryce: [00:01:53] Put it into the hypothetical portfolio. We'd see how it goes. It was great fun. [00:01:56][3.5]

Alec: [00:01:57] I was reviewing it. We actually did a write up, like if you go on our website, our website, it's not great to navigate at the moment. But if you find the Stock of the Week section, the write ups are still there. [00:02:04][7.9]

Bryce: [00:02:05] Yeah, you'll be able to see our faces on Afterpay [00:02:07][1.6]

Alec: [00:02:08] Will all on the let's let's get into that. Yeah. Yeah. [00:02:11][2.6]

Bryce: [00:02:11] So as we have said, we're going to be introducing some new segments for our Monday episodes over the next few months. And our hypothetical portfolio is one of them. And what we will be essentially doing is pretending that we run our own sort of fund and building out this portfolio to test strategies, to test our ideas, to put in play what we've learnt. So, yeah, it's just going to be a great way of us bringing to life, I guess, more conversation about specific stocks and strategy. [00:02:39][28.5]

Alec: [00:02:40] Yeah, yeah. To put into practise a lot of the theoretical stuff we've learnt from experts and we've learnt ourselves and we're continuing to learn. Yeah, this is the most important thing we can stress. This is not us telling you what to buy, hold or sell. Not at all. This is a purely hypothetical. It's in the name hypothetical portfolio and it is literally just for us to help ourselves learn and to help ourselves grow as investors and to really, I guess, to put into practise what we've learnt. So purely a learning tool, not advice. [00:03:13][33.1]

Bryce: [00:03:14] Yes, that is right. We are going to be building this portfolio from the ground up. We're going to be tracking it. It will eventually be on our website for you to track along with us. We're going to record the process and hopefully it's going to be a lot of fun along the way. As Ren said, it's not to prove anything other than just to test a learning and put everything into practise. So we're pretty keen to see how this progresses. [00:03:37][23.0]

Alec: [00:03:37] Ren. And look, we want to we want to make this as social and as interactive as possible. This isn't going to be Bryce and eye preaching from on high. This is going to be a community effort. This is going to be collaborative. We want your ideas. We want your suggestions. We want you to critique the shit out of what we're saying. Yeah, I probably shouldn't say that. Again, we want you to critique what we're saying. We want you to be ruthless in your feedback to us, because for everyone in the Equity Mates community, hopefully this is a learning tool. Hopefully there will be some successes. That will definitely be some failures. That's a guarantee. But yeah, hopefully we will become better investors as a result. [00:04:14][37.1]

Bryce: [00:04:15] That's right, Ren. So we're going to be looking for your input into this fund as much as anything, and we'll get to how you can do that a bit later on in the show. And we're pretty keen for you to help us grow this, too. Well, we'll see what happens. [00:04:26][11.5]

Alec: [00:04:27] We will see what happens. [00:04:28][1.0]

Bryce: [00:04:29] And I think the first step is to have a general conversation around what some of the basic rules of this portfolio are going to be. Now, what are some strategies that we might be putting in place? What are your thoughts around how we're going to be buying, how we going to be selling? How are we going to stick to a certain amount each month? [00:04:48][19.8]

Alec: [00:04:49] Dollar cost averaging into Afterpay. [00:04:50][1.1]

Bryce: [00:04:53] That's got legs. You know, what's going to be the decision making process, all these things that we sort of need to to think about. So how about we start with how much we're going to be spending? Hypothetically, have you had thoughts around this? [00:05:05][12.3]

Alec: [00:05:05] Yeah. So I think there's probably two approaches that we've discussed and I think there's one that makes more sense. So one is we could say we have one hundred thousand dollars. That's the fixed amount of capital we've got. And then we'll invest that like, you know, like a legitimate hedge fund does. That's definitely not our experience with investing. And that's definitely not the average retail investors experience with investing. The experience that most people have is you save a bit of money from every paycheque. You get, you know, a set amount that you are then ready to invest and then you invest it, you know, every month, every quarter, every week. If you're getting paid, like Bryce is getting paid, whatever it is. True. So we're going to follow the latter, not the former. We're going to say every month we have a thousand dollars that we've saved. That money will sit in cash and. Till we make a decision to invest it, [00:05:58][52.5]

Bryce: [00:05:58] maybe we have to play The Sims to earn the money in the game, and then is that what happens in the [00:06:03][4.6]

Alec: [00:06:03] sense you got [00:06:05][2.4]

Bryce: [00:06:06] that? Yeah, look, I like that approach Ren. We need to make this, I guess, somewhat realistic. So it's not just us throwing huge sums of money around and pretending we're Warren Buffett. So I guess let's make the first principle that, yes, we will be mirroring the account as if we're the everyday investor which we are, and having the ability to invest a thousand dollars a month, which I guess brings me to the next question. Do we have to buy once a month? No, no. Awesome. Yes. So let's note that down a thousand bucks. So when it comes to the buying and selling side of things, that's very open slather. [00:06:41][35.1]

Alec: [00:06:41] Yeah, yeah. Just like how we actually invest in our day to day lives. We're not forced to invest every month. No, but we can. We can. Yeah. [00:06:49][8.2]

Bryce: [00:06:50] OK, in terms of our investing strategy, have you thought about this? You mentioned dollar cost averaging there. And it's something that a lot of the listeners you guys think about and think of as a strategy, great strategy. But is this something that we'd be employing in this portfolio? [00:07:07][17.6]

Alec: [00:07:08] I think not. I think we want to try our hand at stockpicking rather than dollar cost averaging into indexes or ETFs or anything like that. Yeah, I mean, look, if we find a stock that we really love and we decide for six months straight, we want to just dollar cost averaging into that stock, I guess that's fine. Like Jay-Z make boring and again, Wolmar. But no, I think we should focus on wearing it up a little bit and, you know, testing ourselves with new ideas and new concepts. [00:07:39][30.4]

Bryce: [00:07:39] Yeah, I agree. So to put a bit of colour to that in in the next hypothetical portfolio episode, what we're planning to do is to build out a portfolio that sits next to this one that will be our benchmark that we track against. And that's probably going to be the portfolio that has your your large indexes that just sit there and take away. And we might Dollars cost into that as we go. Yeah, but for the purpose of this similar to Edkins fund, I think we should take an unconstrained approach. Sure, sure. And what I mean by that or in your terminology, fast and loose, I think we don't necessarily go in with any fixed philosophy around. We're going to be value. We're going to be growth. [00:08:19][39.8]

Alec: [00:08:20] That was going to be my next question. Yes. Yes. [00:08:21][1.4]

Bryce: [00:08:22] I think we go into it. And as we've learnt over the last number of years, it's just as much about taking as many of these different philosophies as you can and seeing what works best for you. [00:08:32][10.5]

Alec: [00:08:33] Yeah, I mean, this leads onto my next question, which is time horizon. There's a few competing factors at play here because we are very much a long term focus. That's sort of what makes sense to us. And I also think if you think about the experience of an everyday retail investor, they don't have a lot of edge in the market. They don't have an informational edge. They don't have a technological edge. They don't have I want to say intelligence edge. But I mean by that, I mean, you know, like hedge funds have thousands of extremely smart people and we're just everyday people. Yeah. The one edge we do have is our time horizon because managed funds, hedge funds have to report their results quarterly. You'll have to report their results yearly. And so they are stuck in a bit of a performance cycle, whereas we don't have that at the same time. This is going to be very public. So if we're underperforming for long periods of time, it's going to [00:09:25][52.2]

Bryce: [00:09:27] take their episodes offline. [00:09:28][0.8]

Alec: [00:09:30] So I think I think we say we're investing with, uh, you know, decades long time horizon. That's my thought, because I think for retail and everyday investors, that is the right time horizon to be investing. [00:09:42][12.0]

Bryce: [00:09:42] Yeah, of course. And that is our message. That is what you and I fundamentally believe in. But then I guess the flip side would be, let's say that we have come across the next Afterpay and we take it up to a 50 or 60 percent gain in four months. That's going to present an interesting conversation around what do we do that we take money. Do we want. Yeah, but I think I think you're right. Principally, let's say that we are investing with a decades long time horizon and hope that you guys, the listeners stick around for the next 30 [00:10:11][28.9]

Alec: [00:10:12] years and see how this plays out. Yeah, yeah. To recap, a thousand dollars a month available. Available. Yes. We'll be picking stocks rather than indexes or ETFs. Yes. We're going to be investing with no fixed investing philosophy. Yes. Well, I guess generally the investing philosophy will be great companies at good value. Of course not. But not going to go hard into date value are not going to go hard into small caps or hard into, you know, growth. We want to keep it pretty general. [00:10:40][28.8]

Bryce: [00:10:41] What I can say is that there is probably going to be zero day trading, let's put it zero zero become our time horizon is the next decade or so. [00:10:50][9.3]

Alec: [00:10:50] Yes. Yeah. And that's the last thing that a long time horizon. [00:10:53][2.2]

Bryce: [00:10:53] So I also have a couple of other things. Ren are we limited? On markets, Ayyad, do we have to be able to buy them through a broker at this stage or can we go Azerbaijan? I can wait farming or something. [00:11:04][10.7]

Alec: [00:11:05] I think you answered your own question there, that we have to be able to buy it personally as Bryce and Alec, the people. If we can't buy it, the fund can't buy it. Yes. [00:11:15][9.6]

Bryce: [00:11:15] Now, one other thing that I want to bring in here is that every stock that we put into the portfolio must have a written thesis. I like it. And it must be it doesn't matter if it's 50 words or 5000 words, you'll likely go to the 5000. I'll likely go the toilet to 40 characters. I think it must have a written thesis that will make public and that will give us the opportunity to when we review the portfolio down the track, that will be our impetus to know when we can buy it, if we want to sell or buy more or whatever it may be. I like to think it's pretty important that we have that. [00:11:48][33.0]

Alec: [00:11:49] Yeah. [00:11:49][0.0]

Bryce: [00:11:50] Anything else that we're missing here? [00:11:51][1.3]

Alec: [00:11:51] How do we actually make a decision? What if I'm banging the table saying we need to buy this stock? And you're saying not for me. Yeah, well [00:11:58][6.8]

Bryce: [00:11:59] as chief investment officer, I think I get the final [00:12:01][2.6]

Alec: [00:12:02] as a CEO. [00:12:03][0.6]

Bryce: [00:12:05] Now, this is a very good point and I would assume that we'd probably need to come to a mutual agreement. However, I can see that this might be a great opportunity for us to reach out to the Equity Mates community to help us make that decision it through our social. What about [00:12:20][14.7]

Alec: [00:12:20] whatever? What about this mutual agreement? Or if we are at 100 percent an impasse, we go and put a poll on the Equity Mates discussion group. Sure. Buy or don't buy it. And whatever the discussion group decides is what we do. [00:12:34][14.5]

Bryce: [00:12:35] That sounds fair to me as long as. Yeah, as long as it hits all of the others principles. I'm very I'm happy with that right now. So let's start with that. I'm sure our principles will change over time as we go. But I think there some pretty good fundamentals to get started with this. [00:12:50][14.8]

Alec: [00:12:51] OK, Bryce, so at this point, we've introduced the hypothetical portfolio, we've made it very clear that this is an educational tool, not investing advice, it's hypothetical. It's just to apply the learnings that we've had over the past three years. And that will continue to have from the experts that we spoke to. And we've established the rules of the game. Yes, loosely so. Now we want to go back in time. Yes. Don't call it a comeback. It's been here for years to come. But as I said at the top of the show, we actually do have a hypothetical portfolio that has existed since twenty seventeen. And so now we want to review some of those holdings. And I guess are we going to say that the portfolio started then and we're going to give ourselves the stocks that we're holding here? I think [00:13:39][48.0]

Bryce: [00:13:40] I mean, I'm very tempted to [00:13:41][1.5]

Alec: [00:13:42] think we should write be here for one [00:13:44][2.7]

Bryce: [00:13:45] reason that would become very evident. But I think there's two ways to do this. We take it as it is and and go forward with the principles that we've established or we start from scratch. [00:13:53][8.2]

Alec: [00:13:53] I think we take it as it is. Okay. [00:13:55][1.4]

Bryce: [00:13:55] Let's take it as it is then. [00:13:56][1.0]

Alec: [00:13:56] Aside from the very obvious reason why we're doing this, which will become abundantly clear very quickly, I also think it allows us to have a discussion about some of the other stocks that we chose in twenty seventeen. Yes, we can review whether they were good calls or bad calls and we can decide whether we want to sell them or we want to keep them in the portfolio. Let's talk about the overall performance and then get about into individual stocks. Okay, so overall, we invested six grand. Yes. We turned that six grand into about twenty eight thousand dollars. We're up about four hundred and seventy two percent. [00:14:31][34.8]

Bryce: [00:14:32] That is huge. So current market value sits at thirty three thousand nine hundred and twenty dollars to your point. [00:14:39][7.1]

Alec: [00:14:39] Sorry, sorry. Gain was twenty eight thousand current market value [00:14:42][2.6]

Bryce: [00:14:43] of twenty eight thousand dollars. So I mean I'd take that any day of the way. So over the last four years, let's go through where some of those gains have come from, because it's a pretty interesting dynamic. If you look at the stocks, the first company we bought was Gateway Lifestyle Group. The the ticker was Jati y. Yeah. And we bought that at two dollars and one cent we made an eleven percent gain on that. So about 120 blocks from memory though, that has now merged. [00:15:14][30.6]

Alec: [00:15:14] Yeah. It got acquired by [00:15:16][1.1]

Bryce: [00:15:16] another one of those large. [00:15:17][0.9]

Alec: [00:15:18] Yeah. Retirement time like the Canadian pension fund or something from memory. But Yeah it got it got acquired. Yeah. [00:15:24][5.8]

Bryce: [00:15:24] Yeah. So that ticker is now longer, no longer trading but so there was a 117 dollar return on that. The next one we brought into the equation was Payam Capital Global Opportunities Fund. Now we took this idea from Andrew Brown way back when he was recommending this one. We bought that at ninety eight cents. However, we have lost five percent on that. Slow down 50 bucks. You know, nothing huge, but that's still ticking away. Then we went to IAC, which was the Australian Agricultural Company. That was the long term ag play that we went for. Bought that at a dollar sixty eight. Now we've lost about thirty seven percent on that. So down 365, 370 bucks. So so far, two out of the three stocks we put in there, we've made a loss on. Yes, not great. Then we took Afterpay. [00:16:13][49.3]

Alec: [00:16:15] Yeah. I think at that point it wasn't even Afterpay Toshka, it was just Afterpay. It was a pretty [00:16:21][5.6]

Bryce: [00:16:21] much the ticker was IPY from memory and then it went through the merger aped. We bought that at two point fifty five, so we put in a thousand bucks. That is now worth twenty eight thousand five hundred dollars. So we made a gain of twenty seven thousand dollars or thousand seven hundred percent. So that's obviously put the returns of this portfolio into the, you know, hundreds of percent, which has been fantastic. We then decided to play around with the [00:16:51][30.3]

Alec: [00:16:52] this is my biggest regret. This one. Yeah. [00:16:54][1.6]

Bryce: [00:16:55] We then decided to play with the inverted ETF, the Australian Equities Bear Hedge Fund Bay'ah. We put this in as a bit of a defensive play at fifteen dollars. And obviously we then went into one of the midway point of a huge bull run. We've lost about 200 bucks on that side, down twenty percent. The other side, though, we did the end Q Nasdaq 100 ETF and that was bought at twelve point eighty. It's now trading at about twenty five bucks. So we've made a pretty solid return on that, about a thousand dollar return. So obviously all the returns pretty much are driven by Afterpay. [00:17:30][35.0]

Alec: [00:17:30] Yeah. And a bit from [00:17:31][1.0]

Bryce: [00:17:32] India and a bit from India. [00:17:32][0.8]

Alec: [00:17:33] Q So I've got a few summary notes, just if people got lost in those numbers and stuff. So we invested in six stocks, a thousand dollars in each stock, we were up on three Afterpay Gateway lifestyle and the Nasdaq 100 ETF, we were down on three. We. Are down on three PM capital, Australian Agricultural Company, and they're the inverse ETF Afterpay was our biggest wind, up two thousand seven hundred ninety two percent. Without Afterpay, the portfolio was still up forty seven percent. So that's OK. Yeah, our next biggest winner was and AQ the Nasdaq one hundred eighteen. Yeah. Without Afterpay and AQ we lost about 50 percent. So I kept of like yeah. I mean you know, you never, you never going to win them all. So I think that is sort of the summary. We won't get into what we're going to do with these existing stocks. We're going to say this is a portfolio as it stands today, next episode or one episode down the line, we'll have a discussion about do we catch some of these stocks in? There's one that I particularly want to cash in. Yeah, I've [00:18:43][69.8]

Bryce: [00:18:43] got a few thoughts around this as well, particularly given the principles that we just set. So to your point, Ren, we will be talking about that in the next episode when we also build out our benchmark portfolio as well. [00:18:54][11.6]

Alec: [00:18:55] If we just take those numbers, those stocks, those returns, what are the biggest lessons that you've learnt looking back at those stocks that we picked in twenty seventeen, aside from the fact that you nailed it with the Afterpay pick? [00:19:07][12.0]

Bryce: [00:19:08] I think it's this is just a classic example of, you know, and we've heard expert after experts say it, you don't have to always be right. We've chosen six stocks here, three that we've been right. Three, that we've been wrong. And it just happens that one of them has done extraordinarily well. And you and I, in our personal experience, investing Ren have also had this happen. So I think one of the big lessons is obviously don't feel like you always have to be getting it right, because sometimes when you do, that is obviously one of the biggest returns in your portfolio. The second lesson for me, Ren, is that we bought these and we haven't touched them. And if you look, for example, at what has happened with Afterpay, it would have been so tempting, I'm sure, from two point fifty five riding up to now seventy three point fifty to want to sell those profits many times along that journey by just leaving it in there and letting the winners run. Look, it's been fantastic. And if you look at what's happened to the overall market, you know, the most we've lost on a stock is thirty six percent, which in percentage terms is quite significant. In dollar terms, it's three hundred and sixty bucks. So, look, I think, again, it just goes to show it's sort of along the lines of buy and hold. Obviously we haven't been active with this, but let your winners run. [00:20:25][77.0]

Alec: [00:20:25] I think I got my numbers wrong. I don't think we're down 50 percent without a pay day in and day. Q Because we're not down 50 percent on any individual stock. Yeah, yeah. That's not. All right. [00:20:35][9.9]

Bryce: [00:20:36] Well, luckily, Ren is not the CEO. So what are your lessons from this? [00:20:42][6.1]

Alec: [00:20:42] The biggest lesson for me is the lesson I'm reminded of the lesson I learnt with the very first three stocks that I picked, Slater and Gordon and Milk. And it is just the different, I guess, risk and reward you could say. But you can only lose one hundred percent on a stock and you can gain a lot more than that. And there's always going to be a distribution of returns. You're never going to have multiple Afterpay in a portfolio, but just having a one Afterpay or one item milk or, you know, back in the early days of our investing journey, one Blackmore's or, you know, Pelamis at its peak before it didn't go so well, like there are just those stocks that just give you unbelievable returns and can prop up your whole portfolio. You don't have to bat one hundred as an investor. You don't have to hit every investment out of the park. We got one out of six that we really nailed. And our our returns are really strong. And I think we're definitely not going to nail it every time. We're not going to nail up most of the time. But if we nail some of the time, you can get pretty good returns. [00:21:45][63.3]

Bryce: [00:21:46] Yeah, a great Ren. So again, and I just want to reinforce you might not get that huge stock early in your investing journey, but don't let it dissuade you from continuing to try. So to close this out Ren this two points listener submissions and then the experts portfolio. So we're going to be looking to to you guys to really help us build out this portfolio. We want this to be a community effort as much as it is a Ren and I having a think about it. So we're really going to be opening this portfolio up to you guys. There's so much chatter in the community about specific stocks and people doing their own amounts of research, which is phenomenal and sending through investor decks and all this sort of stuff to us. And we really want to be able to harness that and bring this into the portfolio. So to begin with, while we build it out on our website, if you do have a submission that you would like us to consider on the show, you know where our search was hit us up on Instagram, hit us up on Facebook in the Equity Mates investing group, hit us up on email. There's there's many ways that you can do it. Submit your stock, give us your thesis and. You know, we may even give you a buzz and get you on the show to help talk through it, and we're really looking forward to hearing some of the great ideas that you guys have. And then Ren, I think with our experts, they obviously make some really good recommendations as well. So we might try and utilise their expertise as well and talk about some of the stocks that they've been pitching and bring that into the portfolio, [00:23:13][87.3]

Alec: [00:23:14] steal their ideas. [00:23:14][0.5]

Bryce: [00:23:15] Yeah, there's no points for originality. [00:23:16][1.2]

Alec: [00:23:17] Yes. Yes. You stole my line. I did. I did. Yeah. Not 100 percent. I think we'll be using any and all resource that we can get our hands on as any investor should. Yeah. [00:23:28][10.7]

Bryce: [00:23:28] Yeah. So this is going to be a bit of fun over the next six months or so as we really build this out. And again, really excited for you guys to help us do it. As we said, the next episode for a hypothetical portfolio will be around discussion on the stocks that are already in there and what we want to do with them. Perhaps we've already got a submission from some of you guys. And also we'll be talking about building out a bit of a sort of permanent ATF index portfolio that we can use to track the performance of the Equity Mates hypothetical portfolio. So stick around for that. We're very excited for it. [00:23:59][30.4]

Alec: [00:23:59] Yeah, nice. Now, there's one thing that we didn't speak about at all in this episode, but I think it's worth saying is part of this whole learning journey will also be on portfolio construction. So obviously, a lot of people in the community are asking about, you know, what portfolio construction means and how you actually implement some of those ideas in practise. And that's a journey that we're going to go on through this hypothetical portfolio. We're going to get smarter about it. And hopefully you guys can all learn from our mistakes and from the things we did well. But it means in a nutshell, the portfolio isn't just going to be Afterpay zip. And any of those are the final Piloto stocks that seem to be floating around the ASX. We're going to try and build a proper, properly constructed portfolio through all of this. [00:24:42][42.8]

Bryce: [00:24:42] Absolutely Ren. And one more thing that we were meant to mention at the top of the show, we are going to be starting an ETF evening series with Batur shares, and it's going to be a fascinating and fun live conversation that we broadcast through a webinar scenario that we're going to be asking you guys to submit all of your questions that you have around ETFs. And then we're going to sit down with the co-founder and head of strategy and marketing of Beta shares, a plan to have a very fun and engaging conversation around all there is to know about ETFs. Live with you guys. So stay tuned for the sign up for that and where you can hit us up with your questions and then we'll let you know the next step from there. So stay tuned. [00:25:30][48.1]

Alec: [00:25:31] And while we're spruiking things, there's something else that you're doing that probably deserves to spruik. You're going to be eating fried chicken and trying on shoes. [00:25:39][7.8]

Bryce: [00:25:39] I am eating fried chicken and frying on freireich shoes. Trying on shoes. Yes. We're going to be doing panel event with butter and steak and we will release more information on that soon as well. So stay tuned for all these fun events coming up next on Ren or leave it there and talk next week. Nice on. [00:25:58][18.7]

Speaker 3: [00:25:58] Thanks for listening to Equity Mates investing podcast production of Equity Mates Media. Please remember that everything you hear in Equity Mates investment podcast with general advice on the content has been prepared without knowing your personal objectives, specific financial circumstances or goals. The host of Equity Mates Investment Podcast, May 19 positions in the companies discussed before considering any investment. Please read the product disclosure statement and consider speaking to a licenced financial professional. [00:25:58][0.0]

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