I used to know next to nothing about the stock market. The very idea of taking the time to study its unfathomable vagaries would set me on edge. I put my faith in a financial advisor to – well, to be honest – not necessarily make me money but simply ensure I didn’t lose the money I had. I had neither the time nor the patience for the stock market because I had so many other things on my plate: writing, reading, and, of course, fantasy football. With the kickoff of every NFL season, I would spend hours a day poring over statistics, reviewing expert opinions, seeking out the latest updates, and sussing out potential trends. And, every day, my wife Akemi would point out that if I devoted the same time and effort to stocks, I could finally take control of my investments. I resisted. Until 2020.
I’d like to say it was because I saw the truth in Akemi’s words or I was motivated by a desire to take hold of my own destiny but really, like most of my life decisions, I was motivated by anger. Anger at the fact that, after dedicating hundreds of hours to assembling my league’s top team, I ended up losing in the championship game after my hitherto brilliant team shit the bed. It was, simply put, bad luck. And when I came to accept the fact that all that time and effort spent could be undone by pure dumb luck, I lost interest in fantasy football and redirected my focus elsewhere – specifically, the stock market.
Now unlike many of the newbie investors who made the same move in 2020 owing to all that extra free time afforded by the pandemic, I wasn’t interested in day trading. I wanted to learn the fundamentals of investing. I studied financials and fundamentals, macro trends and technical analyses. I was eschewed meme stocks and momentum plays with the lofty evaluations in favor of commodities’ theses, value plays, and contrarian investing.
Over the course of these two years, I’ve educated myself – and built and grown a self-managed portfolio. And the following ten youtube channels were instrumental in helping me do this. In no particular order…
Steven Van Metre: Marco analysis and a compelling/contrarian view to the inflationist argument.
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Finding Value Finance: Andy uses ratios to identify value, then applies technical analysis to identify optimal entry point.
Everything Money: Paul, Seth and Mo show you how to evaluate companies, and trade them if you’re so inclined.
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Mark Moss: Macro view with a focus on asset protection.
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George Gammon: Macro analyses with informative overviews of the financial system.
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Value Investing with Sven Carlin: Focus on the investing mindset and stock analyses.
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ITM Trading: Lynette Zang breaks down the complexities of financial banking, currencies, and economic systems with an emphasis on asset protection.
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Cameron Stewar, CFAt: Using cashflow valuation to identify investment opportunities.
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Heresy Financial: Providing updates and overviews of an often opaque financial system.
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Kitco News: Comprehensive market coverage and informative interviews with industry leaders. Except when Jeffrey Christian guests.
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There are about ten others that round up my Top 20, but these are the never-miss favorites who have proven the most helpful and informative on my journey.
Other great follows include: Wealthion, The Daily Gold, Brandon Beavis, The Popular Investor, 40 Finance, Daniel Pronk, The Jay Martin Show, Real Vision Finance,Sasha Yanshin, and Allesio Rastani.
Who else you got?
Joe, you are a prolific list-maker. You will make a list of anything. Your favorite or worst TV shows, movies, socks, songs, books, foods, places to visit, desserts, etc, etc, and now stock tips. There must be a name for that.
Here is my Top 8 Names To Call A List-Maker. I couldn’t get to 10. I’m not as good as you are.
obsessive
compulsive
autistic
listophile
listomaniac
cataloger
listoholic
itemizer
You know what? I make lists too. We must be genius level.
I do love to make lists. Very Japanese of me.
I’ve always liked making lists, and I’m actually autistic.
I like making lists too but not to the level Joe takes it. He must be a savant. I think I am part autistic because I like organizing things, Like my M&M’s must be lined up with the same colors in each row. Large paperclips must be side by side in their section of the drawer. Can’t stand to pick up one and 2 or 3 more are hooked to it like a stupid circus trapeze act. Needless to say, they loved to make fun of me at work, I didn’t care.
I’m going through these links with my hubby. He is also trying his hand with our finances. We had an advisor and that guy lead us down a bad path. We couldn’t do any worse and we’ve improved things on our own. Thanks for posting these links!
This weekend is a bust for me. I had my shingles and COVID shot yesterday. 🤕🤢🥱 Thank God for Advil.
Not having much to invest, I don’t follow the short term ups and downs much, but I have been studying fundamental economics for years since becoming a Ron Paul acolyte. (He said a long time ago on his Liberty Report that real inflation would be 10 to 15% and he was dead on.) I don’t go all the way back to Hume for economics, because it would take a 108th grade reading level to enjoy that, but almost and I try to apply what I learn to my study of history. So my “investment” studies tend to be books and not so current as a youtube channel but I apply such understanding to current events.
I even had a beta Bitcoin wallet back in the day but I made a mistake syncing it and didn’t have the motivation to fix it over the .05 bitcoin someone offered me to get started. My husband claims we’d have sold stock if I told him, but I doubt he’d have gone along with that. I knew about Bitcoin after following Bernie Van Nathaus’s run-ins with trying to create a competing currency.
Knowing fundamentals means I knew right away when the stimulus bills came out that inflation was about to take off. I warned my family to buy whatever they’d buy in the next couple years anyway and to buy not liquidate gold from an estate. I didn’t have a way to know it would take 2 years for inflation to shake out into the economy so I’m trying to remember how I got that right.
As for these guys who talk about consumer confidence and costs and claimed for so long there wouldn’t be inflation, I wonder how many were positioning their own investments for inflation while saying that. When I got a corporate training assignment to predict inflation a couple decades ago, it took me FOREVER to find that money supply drives it, so I’m not surprised so many people didn’t know that, only because of that assignment where I found for myself how deeply that important predictor was buried.
Why was the cause of inflation buried? Important people like the Fed chair claimed it wasn’t happening until he couldn’t anymore, even though it was inevitable with the increase in government spending. It was a couple Thomas Jefferson quotes that came to mind when the first stimulus and hints of a second came out that predicted once the public learned the government could create money, it wouldn’t stop until the whole thing crashed and the average person’s “inheritance” (his word) would have been spent through money devaluation. It’s been happening at a controlled and CAUSED 2% inflation for a long time, but it’s out in the open now, for good and bad.
Big fan of Ron Paul’s work. And, yes, Powell and the Fed just kept lying until they couldn’t lie anymore. First they blamed supply chain issues. Now they’ll be blaming this war.