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...

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

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...

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 <a href=...

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...

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...

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...

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....

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...

  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

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”,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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....

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...

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...

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 <li...

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...

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...

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...

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 <a href=...

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  <a...

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...

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...

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  <a href=...

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. ...

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.”  -

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...

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...

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. <span...

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.<span...

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 <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 <span class= "NormalTextRun SCXW135735332...

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...

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).    <span data-contrast=...

  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: <a class="Hyperlink SCXW152686322 BCX0" href="http://www.investing.com/" target="_blank" rel= "noopener

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...

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...

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...

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.   ...

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. <span class="EOP SCXW252348921 BCX0" data-ccp-props=...

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 <a href=...

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:...

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...

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.”– <span...

Ralph Woodcock is a Partner with St. James’s Place and based in Shenzhen, China. Ralph is an ACIS member of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI) and has worked in the offshore financial services industry for over five years. He is very passionate about delivering tailored and holistic solutions to his clients and committed to building long-term relationships by providing a source of trusted advice dependent on their financial needs. Because of this, Ralph is also an active member of the expatriate community in China.  Ralph’s focus is on ensuring his clients receive the best help possible providing expertise with the design and implementation of customized investment solutions. These goals can vary from wealth management, retirement planning, education planning or specialized insurance needs. Ralph believes that investing doesn’t need to be complicated and it’s up to St. James’s Place to make it simple and transparent. Outside of work Ralph likes to spend time with his family and explore the historical landmarks throughout China and visit their many hidden treasures. Originally from England, Ralph also enjoys following the Premier League and Formula 1 Racing. In this episode, Ralph shares his bitcoin investment story, the due diligence challenges involved in his venture, his sentiments about his losses, the preventive measures he should have made and the lessons he learned from the experience. Catch this very relevant story and determine why you should not follow the crowd into the bitcoin disaster.   “Make sure we understand the assets we're investing in and how something that looks so good can fall over. And then, we regret that.” – Ralph Woodcock   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: 03:07 – Ralph recalls how his bitcoin investment in 2007  04:44 – Cryptocurrencies and ICOs: challenges in its the due diligence 05:51 – Ralph’s sentiments in his losses, the preventive measures he should have made 07:07 – The lessons our guest learned from this investment 08:03 – Andrew sums up his takeaways 10:45 – One great advice from Ralph: “Just sit down with a professional, whatever you want to say, whether you agree with them.” Main Takeaways: Lesson 1: “In the case of cryptocurrencies, it's tough to do their research because there's very little to grab onto and you could.”– Andrew Stotz Lesson 2: “The lesson I learned from it is not to pick my asset class.”–...