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My First Million
Stanley Druckenmiller on What Makes a Great Investor, Bitcoin & His Biggest Trades
Stanley Druckenmiller on What Makes a Great Investor, Bitcoin & His Biggest Trades

Stanley Druckenmiller on What Makes a Great Investor, Bitcoin & His Biggest Trades

My First MillionGo to Podcast Page

Stanley Druckenmiller, Shaan Puri, Sam Parr, Trung Phan
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24 Clips
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May 27, 2021
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Episode Summary
Episode Transcript
0:01
This episode is brought to you by the HubSpot podcast Network. That's what is the HubSpot podcast Network? That's right. It's a new thing by HubSpot. They started with our
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podcast and now they're branching into more and more
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experts and different business areas. So you might have a podcast by marketing or sales or operations, or customer service. And we're going to go over through the different
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podcast on this network, some are more entertaining, some are more informational, some are good, mix of both. That's what we try to
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do here and pubs.
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Pots Cole here is to have OnDemand mentors. So if you're an entrepreneur, you're startup. You're scaling up, you're gonna be able to hear practical tips and inspirational stories by listen to the different podcast, on their
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with HubSpot.
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Network Hub, spot.com podcast Network.
1:08
I feel like I can rule the world. I know, I could be what I want to put my all into it. Like, all Days on the
1:16
Road, Less Traveled. Never looking
1:18
back on today. Truong, who
1:20
writes, our daily email and is going viral on Twitter right now, is here with the special episode from what our people about to listen to, All right? So I had to catch.
1:29
Has to interview a Stanley druckenmiller, he's widely considered one of the greatest investors ever just top-level notes. One of the richest people in America were thought .6 Bill. He famously broke the bank of England with while working at George sources fund a Quantum fund, they made a billion dollars on a trade shorting, the British pound, and he has an incredible investing track record over 40 years. He's never had a down year, 2008, he was up 11%, which a lot of people actually point to as the impressive.
2:00
So even when the entire Market is tanking, he's be able to be up. And the other thing that is really known for, in terms of this track record is 30 years of 30 percent returns are more so 3430. I don't know who else has that record. I know, if you look at Buffett annualize over his entire careers like 20% a year but 30% for 30 years, straight is outrageous, so that's
2:23
amazing. I would like that
2:25
but our audience is typically guys and folks,
2:29
Being building companies, not just really investing but we wanted to air this anyway because a you're blowing up and people want to hear from you. And if it works maybe you're going to want to do your own podcast. But also how does this apply to our listeners? And which they look out for? Absolutely, I'd so the first thing I want to mention Ashley that it's got to say was this entire meeting was set up by toggle AI. You can find them at toggle, dog. Global T OG GLE dog, global
3:00
The reason why they set it up is because stands actually an investor in their company. So he's invest in startups and their fin tech company so they're able to set up the meeting but if you were to answer your questions around the lessons of what people can apply. I say they're kind of three, takeaways from just his mindset as an investor that. I think matter in business building world, is he said what makes a great investor is having small bets in concentrated positions but with super high conviction,
3:29
And and the example he brings up in the interview that you will hear coming up, is he mentions, Buffett and Carl Icahn. And he says, if you actually look at them, they're not doing the whole MBA Playbook of diversifying, their identifying crazy, good opportunities and going all in on them and he brings up a his personal examples. When he broke the pound or broke, the bank of England is he went into George sources office and said, hey, we put 100 percent of the fund into this short trade and then the
4:00
The he drew from it is Source goes to him and says if you're so confident in this trade, why aren't we doing even more? Why isn't there a hundred fifty percent of the funding it or two hundred percent when using leverage, right? Which is exactly what they ended up doing. So the number one thing would be, you know, find something that you really, really have a high confidence in and kind of go all in on it. That's one thing I think. Be a, but you, you, I thought you said he takes a lot of small bets. No, no. He he makes he said to take High conviction bats when I said,
4:29
Ed small bets is, I think it's more just his track record over 30 years is what you're alluding to is a he has a long career where he's been across many assets and a lot of different Investments. But having said that as an investor where his biggest wins are is when he's gone all-in and he's found these once-in-a-generation opportunities. The other thing that he does is, you know, the famous saying, from Marc, Andreessen is a is, you know, strong ideas but loosely held but being able to draw on beliefs
5:00
Exactly being able to take in information and and having the conviction at a talk about like he did with this pound trade. But then if information changes being able to Pivot and he actually famously during the.com, bubble was one of these people. He was shorting it from 98 99, and he's like, this is insane. It's never going to play out and it's going to be really bad for a lot of people, but then he was losing hundreds of millions of dollars shorting the.com bubble, and to the quote there he literally
5:29
I turned around, he didn't take his money off the shorts, he went long, so it's insane. He did a full 180 after fully convincing himself that that it was a bubble and he still believed it was a bubble but he was looking at the information and he didn't believe that that he could win or in trading terms, he didn't want to fight the tape anymore, so that was pretty amazing. But then that leads into my third lesson, which is it's all about emotion at the end of the day and he was explaining that in
5:59
99 after he went from a fully short position in the.com bubble he went long and he made billions of dollars in 99 and in 2000. He's like okay I'm taking all my chips off the table I think the bubbles finally gonna burst, but this is where the emotion component comes in. He wants to younger portfolio, managers aren't steam. Keep running, the.com bubble, and he couldn't take it anymore. And this guy's like a 25-year veteran, right? And with an impeccable track record, but he could not take the fact that they were two people Underneath Him. Hope.
6:29
Performing him. So he recalled his broker put a 6 billion dollar bet back on the market. And he says in the interview that he basically called the top of the.com, by 10 minutes, he ended up losing three billion dollars and insane, right? And he goes and he goes, people always ask me, what did you learn from losing three billion dollars, effectively in a couple months? He's like, I learned nothing. Like, I already knew that lesson and you never to invest on my emotion, but I still couldn't help myself and it's just I think that's just a forever battle, right? Doesn't matter how
7:00
Seasoned or good are amazing. You are are amazing. Your past track record is you always have to battle that demon of the emotions. I mean you tweeted this morning, right? You tweeted something about something about psychology and emotion. You reading a new book and I think you said that what was the code you put is if you're comparing yourself to others, to be Miserables to compare yourself to up, all right? So like it's like there's these little things about emotions as psychology that will always be with you, no matter how successful you are. So I think those would be the three
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Aways is high concentrated country bets in high conviction, plays the ability to change course if it's clear that it's not working and then the third thing is just like you wrestling with emotion no matter who you are. You can be a nobody or one of the greatest investors ever and those those human elements never go away and I just love what he said is like, I didn't learn anything. I already knew this lesson. All right lost. Well, start the interview now. If you guys listening like this comment in the
8:00
So go to iTunes and leave a review, or you can go to Twitter. What's your handle trunk? Is it trunk P? What is it? Trung, T-Pain, Chief an and then I'm at the sampar. So, tweet at us, I prefer you leave something in the comments because it's easier for us to see. But let us know what you think and we'll see trying again soon. Thank you awesome. Thanks guys, thanks for putting this on. We're live. So Ian RJ myself had kind of put these
8:29
all of these questions together with anything would be great for a bit of a younger audience. So the first question we want to dig into was you're obviously, their mm.com, are you seeing any similarities with what's going on with a special last couple days, this week's been kind of ugly for tech and, and know there's been a lot of talk about has growth run. Its path was covid. Are you seeing any similarities to the.com are 2000? And if so, what are they
8:59
Not what are the differences.
9:02
Okay,
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I'm seeing some similarities. I'm seeing some differences,
9:08
okay? Number one, valuations in both periods. Got to what I would call Mania speculative levels, okay?
9:22
Monetary policy
9:25
was part of the issue in 99, when Greenspan
9:29
Society. What I want, run an experiment where he led unemployment, go below levels where it is stork leben. It's nothing like the crazy stuff for doing that, but that helped set it out. But what was really going on back then? I mean, think about the fact that Netscape didn't really exist until 95. So other than some nerdy professors back in the early 80s, no one even had email.
10:00
It's all the stuff we are now. So literally the internet was just sort of being built and the big winners in 99 we're companies like sun micro and Cisco that were building the guts of the internet constructing it. So what happened was the growth was so rapid as this went on and valuations combined, with some easy money, got baked in baked in those growth rates.
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As far as the ark could see. But think of the internet infrastructure like the railroads a hundred fifty years ago and think of the tech stocks as a company, selling railroad ties, building the guts of the internet. So once the railroad is built, while you're building the railroad, your sales are going up 50, 60, 70 percent a year. But once the railroad is built your growth, not only doesn't go up 70 percent.
11:00
It goes down because on a rate of change basis, you don't need any more railroad times. So when none of us, me included in early 2000, were a lot of these companies with estimates of 50, 60, 70 percent for the next two or three years. Their business was literally about to collapse. So, the NASDAQ went down 95 percent. I'm not 3095.
11:30
Um, because you had this combination of inflated values way over estimated earnings out there and then earnings collapse.
11:42
So today you have something similar and something different. So monetary policy is absolutely insane. We had no QE back then our rates who aren't 0 they were four or five when they probably should have been six or seven, no comparison. So we have an asset bubble. Now that's not just in tech stocks it's in everything fax those going on.
12:12
We may be some of the young viewers disagree, you name it. If you're an asset, you've been moving, but we also have
12:23
Back. Then you had this incredible wave from 95 to 2000. While the internet was being built, why you have now is this incredible way of a bit of digital transformation, particularly moving on to the cloud and I used to say two or three years ago and some interviews while we're in like the bottom of the first of the second inning and this is a 10-year Runway
12:49
Well, covid, sort of jumped you from the bottom half of the first to the sixth inning. Well, the ninth, but to the sixth, right? I think the guy from Shopify said, we went from 2019 to 2030 in one year because the covid. I think it was him. I think the difference now is
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If you don't, if you're a customer and you haven't moved to the cloud, you're dead because who you're competing against, they can just beat you because the technology is so important. So, now full disclosure I didn't see what was coming in. 2000 coming but I am really hard up to come up with a scenario while this that this digital transformation thing is going to collapse and these SAS companies are going to go.
13:44
Right. And the biggest problem you have now is the overall bubble and asset prices and where price got to these names in particular. The good news is if we had had this conversation, two months ago, this the good ones were like 45 or 50 times. Sales not earning sales are down to there's a range. I'd say now, 10 to 25 times sales for the good ones. So, if the
14:14
Problem is price, and in my opinion, that is the problem. A lot of that has been wrung out and I think if you hold these names for three or four years, they can easily grow into their valuations. Where if you held the names in 2000, a lot of these companies, you still had losses of 1985, 90% of your value, right? So those are the similarities and those are the differences,
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right? So at summarize, the
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Like God kind of key difference. It would be the monetary policy completely different and the the names themselves are just as a company and looking into further out in the economy is just likelihood of those still existing is much higher.
14:59
Yeah, the other similarity is back, then I remember a lot of value
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managers
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virtually going out of business, right? Emma 2001 on the greatest investor of all time.
15:14
I'm Julian Robertson. Who was long value? And short, these crazy Tech names, you basically throw in the towel and so he couldn't take it anymore and stop managing money in early 2000. But what happened in the next three to five years was incredible companies like Phelps, Dodge copper companies, when I'm six to eight fold, six to eight times for, for the old industrial stuff. So everything Julian was long
15:44
We're not many fold in the tech stocks went down a lot. We do have some similarities there today because these covid companies beneficiaries. So much demand was pulled forward that they got too high and too much ownership and as we're reopening, there's also an ownership problem where there's probably more money that needs to rotate out of the secular Growers into these. I'll call them.
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The names. But I do want to say very differently. I think these things are secular Growers, and they'll probably be fine long-term Amazon at 3200 is not a bubble stock. Not not whatsoever. It's basically decent value.
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And I don't just mean Amazon but a lot of the the Big Technical thing is named.
16:37
Yeah, absolutely. Just that as a curiosity to see, I actually asked yesterday a bunch of my Twitter Falls with. You want to ask is, do you have an opinion of anything kind of names including myself? Who will get the five trillion first?
16:54
What a great question.
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I've always answered that with Amazon and Microsoft, I've never really believed. Apple had the Innovation, to take you to the next level. And it was mainly a hardware company. They obviously have morphed into the services app company, but as you know, I, it's funny. That's the one that I haven't talked about being a monopoly, but when you look at Monopoly Behavior, charging, a
17:27
%. Rent to all these you know little companies seems a little extreme whereas Amazon and Microsoft they basically don't raise price. So my guess my first of all, I have no idea. But my number one, if you put a gun to my head or we're going to Vegas would be Amazon and number two would be Microsoft again. Google could have a big pop, ironically, if the government breaks them up,
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Because their core search business is literally the best business I've ever seen. But they keep trying all this experimental stuff that challenges shareholder value. But those guys are so rich, they're more interested in changing the world right now and good for
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them. Yeah, they get to do, mushrooms, go to the desert and just think about wild things they can do in their space with emotions. Very
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well said, well
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said, I think the question here that
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RJ blood that out. We thought would be a great, follow-up us out. So what is the biggest risk to the equity market right now? I think you touched on some of them has to do with, I guess, the valuations and just be
18:40
without without without a doubt, it's
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inflation. Strong enough
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that this fed response to
18:48
it, right?
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No doubt about it. That this bubble has gone long. Long enough and has extended enough
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That the minute, they start tightening the equity Market go down a lot. Particularly with so much of the cap weighted and growth stocks would, which would be hit the worst. And our Central case is that inflation occurs, but we're open-minded.
19:19
To something like oh 708 where you never really got to the inflation because the bubble popped. So the inflation never got to the manifestations stage. That would be the second one in terms of geopolitical stuff. It's become a popular view, but
19:37
I'm worried about Taiwan and I think it's probably not a worry until after the Beijing Olympics, right? I don't think she's Jinping wants to deal with sanctions and wait, gods and all that but I can't imagine he's not going to try something, right? Host the Beijing Olympics. And I don't think
20:05
That's big stuff. That's not some little thing where young man is fighting Saudi Arabia. If you if you were to get worried about United States and China, that could be an exogenous event, right? Get quite nasty.
20:19
Absolutely. So again to summarize in the inflation concern and the FED tiny kind of a big risk long-term Allah is just Taiwan is actually a massive hot spot and post-2020 to the winter.
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Big, there's opportunity for something to
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happen.
20:38
That's it. That's our Central case. As you know, I tend to change my mind.
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But absolutely.
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If you're asked me what the biggest risks are, it would be them.
20:48
Absolutely. Alright, so the next one, we had here is what more more retail oriented question, or actually, not necessary to oriented, but it does concern retail is, do you see anything from as a as a long-term after effect of what happened? Earlier? This year with Wall, Street Bets, with retail being able to congregate in one place and kind of direct money?
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Those and on the past, you plot what the importance of liquidity and do you see any long-term effects of having the ability of millions of millions of retail investors to put their targets on a single name?
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Now,
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Let me restart the answer is, yes, I don't know why. I just said no I guess I'm too old when I started in the business retail dominated institutions. Okay? And you got most your information from your broker. The amazing thing about the current, the current retail investor is they have access to things like toggle so they're actually much better. Informed.
21:54
The retail investors were in the late 80s and early 90s, and with the internet, they have tools. And the way you already mentioned they congregate
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The big risk is, they're all loaded up in this stuff, you know, don't confuse genius with a bull market and something exotic. Janice talks like we're talking about and they all lose enough money that they're scarred. Yeah, I've always thought the Japanese investor would come back to the market in five or ten years after the bubble burst.
22:32
That was 1990 and they still haven't come back right on the market, so I worry about scoring but no, I think.
22:41
My guess is the after effect of Wall Street bets is here to stay and they'll probably migrate away from some of the more radioactive names like GameStop but and I think it will actually end up being some correct, healthy information, sharing network sharing Network, right? All right. Let's talk about one of the most important parts of any business. Your CRM, right? This is where you see who are my
23:08
prospects. Who are my customers, who are my hard core,
23:11
And you want to have conversations, you want to have information about them
23:14
that goes throughout all stages of the customer Journey.
23:17
So, HubSpot CRM platform,
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it's easy to align your team, using the features that they have, like, their messaging tools. Live chat, email templates and having a unified system of record. So how does it work? You can install live chat on our website. This will let sales or customer support talk to your prospects. You can send marketing emails on behalf of your sales reps to to your customers. You can have prospects
23:40
book meetings with your
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Oops, without wasting time. And all of this is stored in one unified system of
23:44
record, so that teams can get access to all of your contacts history. Why is it
23:49
so important to have live chat and a unified system of record. You ask a quick question, it's because when you're all your systems are separate, your just
23:56
cobbling together data from one place and data from another, it's all disjointed, there's no single source of truth. But I
24:01
like, what I'm the CEO of a company to be able to click one button and see
24:04
who our customers where they had in the journey? How do we quickly message them? How do we get them moving forward
24:09
to success. So that's what it does. That's
24:11
Spot CRM. And you want to learn about how you can scale your company without scaling complexity go to HubSpot.com.
24:18
So you didn't mention Paul go as kind of a tool that can be used in. These environments are just in general as an Investor's toolkit. So how different would that have been you know, back in the 80s that to have a
24:31
toolbox? Oh my God, if you have toggle
24:35
and nobody else did
24:38
absolutely murdered their
24:40
results.
24:41
Right?
24:42
When I started in the business had watching was considered unique and I use Ned Davis and other Technical Services. And I just felt, I had a huge Advantage right over the general public. So, any tool you have like toggle, which is clearly predictive of price moves. But even more interesting, in this case, because of the mathematical capability of it,
25:11
Can analyze thousands of thousands of Securities. I only have 16 hours a day and I'm not that fast of a reader. So if you had a tool like that back then it would be like my advantages plus 5x. And the way I think about toggle is I don't know how much you know about me, but I've always said
25:38
I like multi-disciplined to managing money. So my first boss taught me technical analysis. So I use fundamental analysis and technical analysis and if there's thousands Securities out there and my portfolios only going to insist of 15 or 20, I'm never going to buy something that doesn't have a great chart Aang. Great fundamentals, right? Do that if you brought something like toggle into that, it's just one.
26:07
Or fantastic screening mechanism. That gives me the discipline. So now I've got a triple screen to hold or buy or sell Securities that would be invaluable and again to the public who doesn't have access to information I have as an Institutional Investor and paying tons and tons of money to Consultants.
26:36
Something like this the value added to them could be even more valuable as to me and I find it value added.
26:42
Right. Absolutely. And so you did mention a lot about it, you're trading back in the 80s. I don't want to say back in the day, feels kind of wrong to say that you are you've been described as someone that has a stomach of a Riverboat Gambler. I literally don't even know what that means. But what I will say is, what do you think are kind of the keys to a good investor, right? So, just from your own
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experience,
27:08
So when I've looked at all the investors of very large reputations, Warren Buffett. Carl Icahn, George Soros. They all only have one thing in common, and it's exact opposite of what they teach in a business school. It's a make large concentrated bets where they have a lot of conviction. They're not buying 35 or 40 names.
27:38
Diversifying. I don't know whether you remember icon a few years ago, put five billion dollars into apple and I don't think he was worth more than 10 billion when he did that, right? When I went in to tell Soros that I was going to short, a hundred percent of the fund in the British pound against the door, which mark
28:01
He looked at me with great disdain because he thought the story was good enough that I should be doing two hundred percent because it was sort of a once in a once-in-a-generation opportunity, right? So a, they concentrate their Holdings be concentration. This is very counterintuitive, it really gets your intention. So it actually in my in my thinking decreases your overall risk.
28:31
Because where you tend to be in trouble is if you have 35 or 40 names and you stop paying attention to one. If you have big massive positions it has your attention, right? So, the way, my favorite quote of all time, maybe is Mark Twain, put all your eggs in one basket and watch the basket
28:52
carefully, right? I
28:54
tend to think that's what great investor do. The other thing to me is you got to have to know,
29:01
How and when to take a loss, right? I've been in business since 1976 is a money manager. I've never used the stop-loss. Not once dumbest concept, I've ever heard it goes down, 15%, I'm automatically out but I've also never hang onto a security. If the reason I bought it has changed.
29:23
And that's when you need to sell. If I buy X security for ABC and D reasons, and those long longer are valid. Whether I have a loss or a game, that's not doesn't know whether you have a loss per game. You know? It's, it is not important. Your ego is not what this is about. What this is about, is you're making money. So, if I have a thesis and it doesn't bear out, which happens often with me, I'm often
29:52
Often wrong just get out and move on because I said earlier, if you're using the most disciplined approach, you can find something else. There's no reason to hang on to any security where you don't have great conviction in
30:06
it, right? No. Absolutely. So along that kind of metric where when you see what makes a great investor, it's kind of the mindset and the approach, what about from kind of the emotional side, like managing the emotions and the
30:19
psychology, you just have to be disciplined and you
30:22
You're constantly fighting on emotions. Look, I'm not gonna lie to you. My first boss said the same thing, the higher, they go, the cheaper. They look, there's something weird and I know everybody watching this has experiences, and it doesn't make any sense. But when a security goes up, every bone in your body, wants to buy more of it, and when it goes down, you're fighting making yourself, not sell it, right? It's just the nature of the Beast, and you have to constantly,
30:52
Remind yourself. Why you own that security? And just because it's going down, doesn't necessarily mean, you should sell it if it's going down. It definitely means you should re-evaluate your thesis but it doesn't mean you should sell it and you cannot get crazy when it's going up. One of the probably the biggest mistake I ever made in the business and I knew better. Somebody asked me what I learned from those. So I said nothing I already knew it.
31:23
In January of 2000, after writing that Tech, boom to a tee and making billions of dollars in 99. I sold everything out in January and I had a couple of internal portfolio managers at Soros who didn't sell out and had these small portfolio, but they made 30% after I sold. And I just couldn't stand it anymore. And I'm like watching them make all this money every day.
31:52
Unlike for two days I'm like ready to pick up the phone and buy the stuff back and you know there's a little devil there and then the angel and she's saying don't do it and he's saying by it and I pick up the phone and I buy them I might have missed the top of the.com bubble by an hour. I ended up losing three billion dollars when that trade alone I made more the year before but you know three billion dollars a lot of money and it was all because I got emotional and dropped every tool of discipline I've ever had.
32:22
Dad, and some reason for what did you learn from it? I just said I learned nothing I learned that 25 years ago so you can talk about not being emotional but it takes incredible discipline to act on that
32:37
know how. That's I mean that's an incredible. You said you started 76, right? And that's 24 years later. You've been going through it for to almost a quarter of a century and it still
32:46
happened. Yeah, yeah yeah.
32:49
So it's something I want to just add on.
32:52
Kind of what you just mentioned. Was the actual approach of investing for yourself. You famously talked about looking at what makes the stock up and down at a, you know, what does that mean specifically for yourself when you say what makes stock up now? What does that mean in terms of fundamentals,
33:12
it varies from stock to stock, right? And should say anything about cock toggle, they'll find things that I didn't even know move the stock, right? But if it happens over and over again,
33:22
Again you figure. It's not random. So I'll never forget. I keep going back to my boss and Pittsburgh but I was an analyst and I analyzed retail and I'd come in with my earnings estimate on Kmart and my earnings estimate on this company analysis. Yeah. But what's going to make the stock go up and I said, what do you mean? And he says everybody knows what you just told me. Keep looking keep looking. Finally, I came back I found out at the time by the way this has changed since then.
33:53
if you graphed the change in food and energy prices,
33:57
Over top the retail index, it was like clockwork retail and food prices, I'm sorry, food and energy, prices go up, retail relative stocks go down. It's not rocket science here. If you if you take discretionary spending and you increase the cost of it, she's got less money to buy a dress and I watched that and it worked for 10 or 12 years. And then for some reason, start.
34:28
But there's an analysis of fundamentals which I completely endorse where look at the balance sheet, trying to figure out a couple of years from now, what people are going to think about this company or the orange, going to be different than they think, now, that kind of stuff. But then there's all the weird stuff, like, I just mentioned the beauty of toggle is it comes up with stuff that sometimes I don't even quite understand. But frankly, I don't care if the
34:57
Tough works, right? I'm gonna go with it. I'm very open-minded. I don't need
35:05
I don't need to totally understand something if I've seen it work over and over
35:08
again, right? Absolutely,
35:11
almost these things, I
35:12
understand. Yeah. So the beauty equivalent of toggle, finding that relationship we just mentioned right, the, the food energy and discretionary
35:20
spending. Yeah, and the beauty of toggle is, I might get a notice one day that XYZ looks good, then I can do my fundamentals, then I can look at the chart so it's not only a discipline.
35:34
In terms of buying and selling, it can also be an idea
35:38
generator. Hopefully now that makes a lot of sense. Now, I thought this is a good opportunity to hop into something. I kind of want to ask it first but I figured it'd be better. That kind of move it there.
35:49
I know what's coming.
35:52
You're
35:53
young. I can tell by the look on your face is crypto
35:57
anchor. Actually I can predict the future, the toggle probably give you the alert. Right? This guy's about to ask him now.
36:06
Yeah, I'm not gonna ask you to put a price Target or anything, but the question just to just ask her out there to get the conversation. Going is does Bitcoin have the opportunity to the thesis in replacement and killing them go by? There are long those lines or ill match you do you? I mean what are these your opinion about that
36:24
piece. So I've evolved on this. Okay, if you've done your homework,
36:30
About five or six years ago. I said more than once crypto and Bitcoin are a solution in search of a problem, right? What the hell are these people all looking for? We already have that. It's called the dollar, right? Okay. So for the first move in Bitcoin,
36:53
I think it went from like 50 bucks to 17,000. I just sat there aghast, and, by the way, consistent with our earlier conversation, I wanted to buy it every day, it was going up. Even though I didn't, I didn't think much of it, I just couldn't stand the fact that it was going up and I didn't own it so fast forward. I never owned it from like $50 to 17,000 felt like a moron. Then it goes back down.
37:22
To 3,000 again and then a couple things happened and this this is consistent with the fundamental and then let's make something go up or down so solution in search of a problem, I found the problem.
37:40
When we did the cares act and chairman Pao started, Crossing all sorts of red lines in terms of what the FED would do in window. The problem was j-pal and the world's Central Bankers going nuts and making Fiat money, even more questionable in it already. Been when I used to own gold.
38:01
Then the second thing that happened is I got a call from Paul Jones and he says to me, do you know that when Bitcoin went from 17 thousand and three thousand eighty six percent of the people that owned it at 17,000, never sold it.
38:26
Well, this was huge in my mind, right? Here's something with a finite Supply 86% of the owners are religious zealots. I mean, who the hell? Hold something through seventeen thousand to three thousand and it turns out none of them know, 86 percent of people never sold it. And I had this new Central Bank craziness phenomena, the other thing that happened
38:52
It had been you know it had a few more years under its belt so it goes up to 6,000 in the middle of the last spring. And I go well I got to buy some of this just because these kids on the west coast that are already worth more than I am. And they're going to be making a lot more money than me in the future. For some reason, they're looking at this thing, the way I've always looked at gold which core value. If I don't trust Fiat currencies,
39:22
And then the thing that Paul told me, and then the fact that it's been around 13 years, it had become a brand,
39:30
right? So, it's
39:32
funny, I try to buy a hundred million at 6200. It took me 2, weeks, divide, 20 million, I bought it all around. 6500 I think and I said this is ridiculous. You know, it takes me two weeks. I can buy that much gold in two seconds.
39:51
So like an idiot, I stopped buying it. Next thing, I knew the things trading at 36,000, I took my costs and then some out of it and I still own some of it. My heart's never been in it. I'm a 68 year old dinosaur, but once it started moving and these institutions start adopting it, I could see the old elephant trying to get through the keyhole and they can't fit through in time.
40:21
I own this company called palantir and I see the announced with their earnings today. They're going to start accepting Bitcoin and they invested that's happening all over the place. And you know, this thing is never going to have more than 21 million. It's a, it's a fixed Supply. So I think, because it's a brand that's been around for 14 years because of the finite Supply, it has sort of one, the store of value game. Is it going to be gold? I
40:51
Don't know it, sure as hell doing a good imitation of it. The last year or two. But is it going to beat the other cryptos in terms of digital Gold Store value? I would say it's going to be very very tough to unsee. Then you go to what I call the Commerce facilitators, which obviously the lead in smart contracts, that kind of stuff would be ethereum.
41:18
There, I'm a little more skeptical of whether they can hold their position. It reminds me a little of my space before Facebook, Facebook came along or maybe a better analogy Yahoo before Google came along, Google wasn't that much faster than Yahoo, but it didn't need to be on. Need to be was a little bit faster and the rest is history. And I'm so impressed. One of the ways we've always
41:48
The private sector is to try and figure out where the engineering kids from Stanford and brown and MIT where those kids are going. And so many of them are in love with crypto and that's where they're going. I'm worried about the talent that's like 23 to 28 years old, somebody. We don't even know who they are yet. Come up with a payment system or whatever and unseating. So,
42:17
Again, I don't know but my guess is the winner in the Commerce facilitating. I'll call whether you want to call it payments or smart contract. Whatever on there's a good chance that company hasn't even been in or that currency hasn't even been invented yet.
42:36
Absolutely. So Bitcoin as a store of value, probably safer in the crypto space but as you mentioned the Computing aspect, there's a lot of potential here to be unseated.
42:46
and I think,
42:48
You know as long as j-pal keeps acting like he's been acting, I think gold and Bitcoin. And Bitcoin seems to be a high beta. Gold are going to have the wind behind
43:00
them. I'd be to go. That's a never heard them through. That is a fantastic terminology. Well,
43:05
it's so fantastic. I'm wondering why the hell? I didn't just don't Bitcoin two years ago, instead of just go, that's a little bit coin.
43:15
So I just just put the cherry on top of the crypto combo. You mentioned it. Once earlier Dogecoin is it just to you ridiculous and elon's involvement in it. Like, what how does, what is your reaction to all that?
43:30
It's just a, you know, it's like senft. He's is just a manifestation of the craziest monetary policy in history, right? And I think since there's no limit on Supply, I don't really see the utility of this thing. Right now, it's just this wave of money and the greater fool Theory. No,
43:53
no just enough.
43:55
Now, having said that, I want to short it because I do
44:00
Putting campfires out with my face. So I just try and pretend Dogecoin doesn't exist, right? Think so little of it, it doesn't even bother me when it goes up. Right? Red, coin, used to go up. I go crazy that I didn't own it. When Dogecoin goes up, I just, I just started laughing. It's me, it's all about Jerome
44:20
Powell. Right? At the end of the day, goes back, just to the money printer. Yeah, II like that. How you said about do? Do it? It's a joke.
44:30
It was literally created as a joke. So for you just to look as though that's probably the best way for everyone to look at her it, hey, this is a joke. Don't even consider it. So I threw a lit.
44:38
Don't go along and don't go short of it, you know, unless you like going to Vegas then I guess it's okay cuz a lot of action.
44:44
Yeah, absolutely. So I think one of the, one of the last pictures we had here. Obviously, thank you so much for your time. The question we had here was if you are 20 years old today, what would you be doing as you start your career?
45:00
The number one necessary, can condition would be something I was passionate about. Okay, particularly in this business, the people that love it, like me are so addicted to it and so intellectually stimulated by it. If you're not and you're in for the money you have no chance competing with these people. They're going to outwork. You are going to out execute you. So I think it's probably true of a lot of
45:30
Rosa, but let's not forget if you're American, you probably going to spend 60 70 hours a week, minimum working. If you're in your job for the money, not because you love it. You just blew 70 hours a week on the have on the happiness quotient. That's pretty rough right now. I would tell a twenty-year-old. Follow your passion. I was just lucky. I followed my passion, my mother and settled law says, I'm an idiot savant and I wouldn't be good at anything else.
46:01
But I would do this for 15,000 a year. I really would, I just I just love it and I hate to see young people get trapped in something and I would also say keep an open mind, I started at Bowdoin as an English major, I took economics just so I could read the paper intelligently. I went to get a PhD in economics and I went there. I said these people are crazy they're trying to shove the economy into a math.
46:31
It doesn't make any sense. Then I went to, I work construction for six months. I got kind of a weak upper body so that didn't work for me. Then I went to the bank and I found out what I was just in love with and so try stuff out and if you're not really, really engaged during the day and you're not happy move on to something else because there's there's something out there for everybody but I would not let
47:00
Let money be The Driver of the equation that can lead to a lot of not maximizing what I call the happiness quotient, right? Is the most important quotient in your life.
47:11
Well, you mentioned that you would be doing this job if you're making 50 Grand a year. So the question will you will you hand over the family office? When do you expect that to happen if ever until God? What will the Handover of the family office to another manager? And you just go hands-off happen in the near future. This is something you just want to be doing just
47:30
Your own happiness quotient.
47:32
So as you probably know, a lot of people when they retire, they start messing around in stock market for fun. So if they're all retiring doing this to other 90, why am I supposed to stop doing it? What I will say, is my skill set?
47:50
You know, I think a lot of my performance has been because I'm flexible in terms of instruments, I use in terms of assets. So I'm not afraid to just playing bonds or currencies or this or that. But my real passion is in macro. And I think history would say in macron, probably an A+ and inequities, I'm probably be - equities are much more labor intensive as you know.
48:21
There's only one yen, there's only one Euro, treasuries, I guess my dream to your excellent question would be to find a successor to run the entire Equity part of my family office, right? Have me feeling around in the macro and acting like the old talking head Sage you know coach to him that that we were I'd be but I think I would
48:50
Die. If I couldn't, if I couldn't, do have some connection with the investment market and the markets during the day. I just first of all, I'm not very good at golf. I like doing stuff on good at, and I think that's part of what we're talking about with passion. No, one likes being a loser. So, yeah, I think I'll probably go to my grave doing this stuff but maybe not with the control. I have right
49:14
now. Well, just last comment on that point is for the equity side. We have Paul go red.
49:21
Absolutely, absolutely takes a lot of Labor out. I'll tell you that.
49:28
You can cover a lot more ground in an hour than you can try to do normal
49:32
reading. No that's perfect. I've wrapped up on my end. Those are all the questions we had and it was amazing stand. That was a incredibly insightful and really appreciate your time. Thank you to Ian and watch you for setting that up. Yeah. Okay. Hopefully this those some good for everybody.
49:56
I feel like I can rude.
49:58
We're out of nowhere. I could be what I
50:00
want to put my all in it. Like a Days on
50:04
the Road Less Traveled never looking back.
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