Investing Mastermind Podcast

Should you keep your money in a high yield interest bank account or invest in the stock market? Signe and Michelle provide their takes on this situation with the stock market still at all time highs along with high interest rates for now.

What happens at the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting? As the next Berkshire meeting is happening on May 4, 2024, Signe and Michelle share their experiences and what attendees can expect. There are several free events that are open to people. You can meet so many amazing investors, so happy networking!

If you've ever heard stock tips at the water cooler at work or from a Reddit forum or from your friends, what should you do? Signe and I give our own "tips" to avoid making the wrong investment decisions when it comes to stock tips.

Signe and Michelle discuss some of their observations among streaming companies, including Netflix, Disney, Paramount, and Warner Bros Discovery. Signe expressed how she understands the content business. Michelle remarked about how many streamers are struggling to be profitable, and the stock market is punishing several such as Comcast and Roku. Which streamer will rule them all remains to be seen!

What is Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA) and how can it help you to invest? Signe and Michelle talk about the pros and cons of DCA where you contribute a fixed amount of money to your investing account and invest in stocks or mutual funds on a consistent basis. Whether you DCA or go another investing route like lump sum contributions and tranching into a particular stock, you should stick to a strategy for a long time without jumping in and out of the market. Most of all, try not to regret your decisions for the best outcomes.

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You're probably told you should save and invest your money, but where should you start? The first thing you should do is set a financial goal as the north star you will save and invest toward. Do you want to be financially free or achieve financial independence? Signe and Michelle share some of their financial goals and habits that we hope inspires you to come up with your own.

Signe and Michelle often get asked: "Which Stocks Should I Buy?" and in this episode we will reveal our reply to this question.

Book recommended in this episode: "Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism" written by Bhu Srinivasan.

Remember to subscribe to @investingmastermind to get the most recent episode directly in your feed. You can also follow us on Instagram @InvestingMastermindPodcast.

To take an investing workshop, visit Signe's website: Investionista.com

Learn more about Buffett-style investing by subscribing to Michelle's YouTube channel, @MichelleMarki

Michelle's investing blog: www.michellemarki.com.

Signe and Michelle reflect on the last section of Warren Buffett's annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letter for the year 2023 that was released on February 24, 2024. Remember to follow Investing Mastermind Podcast to get the most recent episode directly in your feed.

To take an investing workshop, visit Signe's website: Investionista.com Learn more about Buffett-style investing by subscribing to Michelle's YouTube channel, @MichelleMarki Michelle's investing blog: www.michellemarki.com.

Signe and Michelle reflect on the middle section of Warren Buffett's annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letter for the year 2023 that was released on February 24, 2024. Buffett sets the tone by writing, "Our goal at Berkshire is simple: We want to own either all or a portion of businesses that enjoy good economics that are fundamental and enduring." While Buffett warns about potential economic storms like those from 2008, he reassures shareholders that Berkshire will remain a financial fortress in that "Berkshire is built to last."

Warren Buffett released his annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letter for the year 2023 on February 24, 2024. Signe and Michelle reflect on Warren Buffett's beautiful first page tribute to Charlie Munger, the Architect of Berkshire Hathaway, and the beginning section of the 2023 shareholder letter. Warren Buffett writes his letter to shareholders like his sister Bertie and all shareholders out there who would like to understand how Berkshire is performing in its CEO's eyes. Buffett encouraged investors to make good investing decisions by writing, "America has been a terrific country for investors. All they have needed to do is sit quietly, listening to no one."

Signe and Michelle go back to Buffett basics as we explain what circle of competence means and how this investing principle can help you identify when you know enough, or not enough, about stocks you are interested in investing in.

The S&P 500 stock market index just hit an all-time high of 5,000 in early February 2024 as a new milestone. Should investors be excited and rush into the market, or should they exercise some caution? Signe and Michelle share their reactions and opinions, all of which is not advice as no one knows what will happen but it's fun to imagine the possibilities! We reflect on some of the Magnificent 7 stocks that may be driving a lot of the current stock market rally in early 2024.

How much should a CEO get paid for being the leader of the business? How Executives and Board of Directors are paid could influence whether you invest in a stock or not. Legendary investor Warren Buffett who has had the same salary of $100,000 for decades has been critical of CEOs who convince their Board Member buddies to rubber stamp huge pay packages while average employee wages stagnate.

People often wonder how much money do they need to be able to start investing? You might be surprised at how little you need to get started! Signe and Michelle answer this question with suggested ideas in today's episode. As mentioned, feel free to check out one of Michelle's YouTube videos explaining various S&P 500 index fund options: https://youtu.be/v0t6q3LuGIQ

Signe and Michelle discuss whether making automatic investments into the stock market (ETFs, mutual funds, stocks) is a good idea. There are pros and cons to what is often referred to as Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA), so we keep these considerations in mind.

Signe and Michelle discuss how investors can figure out potential valuations of stocks instead of guessing at how "expensive" or "cheap" a stock is. We discussed Gamestop as a meme stock example of what could have been true intrinsic value compared with speculative mania on the stock price. Books we mentioned to help with valuation techniques include "Invested" by Danielle Town and Phil Town, and "One Up On Wall Street" by Peter Lynch.

During New Years, a lot of people make resolutions. We reflect on our investing values and outlook for 2024 with 2023 highlights. We hope this you a few questions to ponder along your investing and personal finance journey!

Signe and Michelle are wishing you a happy new year! Michelle shared a few thoughts about what 2024 could entail in the markets, with inflation, and interest rates.

Signe and Michelle are wishing you a happy holiday season and all the best in the new year! See you in 2024!

Signe and Michelle reflect on whether the "American Dream" is still attainable to most millennials and future generations. While millennials earn more income compared to prior generations, we are still behind in terms of overall wealth accumulation compared with baby boomers at our age (source: Generations book by Jean Twenge).

Legendary investor Charlie Munger sadly passed away on Tuesday, November 28, 2023. On the Sunday before, Signe and Michelle recorded their reactions to Charlie Munger's investing advice that he shared with the Wall Street Journal in early November 2023. This is part 2 of our reactions to Charlie's WSJ interview. While we mourn the loss of Charlie, we also want to celebrate Charlie's incredible life and the wisdom he shared with the world. We discussed Charlie's impact on our investing philosophies and strategies. We hope this episode serves as a fitting tribute to Charlie's legacy that inspired countless investors around the globe.

Legendary investor Charlie Munger sadly passed away on Tuesday, November 28, 2023. On the Sunday before, Signe and Michelle recorded their reactions to Charlie Munger's investing advice that he shared with the Wall Street Journal in early November 2023. While we mourn the loss of Charlie, we also want to celebrate Charlie's incredible life and the wisdom he shared with the world. We discussed Charlie's impact on our investing philosophies and strategies. We hope this episode serves as a fitting tribute to Charlie's legacy that inspired countless investors around the globe.

We are thankful to our listeners in celebrating a whole year of the Investing Mastermind Podcast. We hope you've enjoyed the journey with us! We shared this Maya Angelou quote: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” We also made reference to the following episodes: Berkshire Annual meeting experience (23) When to sell stocks (17 and 45 exit strategies) Mathew Peterson (28) Retirement / tax optimization (43)

Signe and I are working hard on preparing an amazing set of future episodes for you so we just wanted to give you this quick update. Please feel free to share your questions and feedback via our social media channels such as at https://www.instagram.com/investingmastermindpodcast. Thanks and see you next Tuesday!

Ever wondered if you are saving enough for your financial nest egg? Michelle and Signe share tips in how you can save up for retirement and optimize your tax savings. While these tips are for education purposes and are not financial advice, we believe in getting the most of retirement planning as early in life as possible. Michelle really likes Roth IRAs, HSAs, and Roth 401ks. Be sure to take advantage of any tax-advantaged investing accounts in your country!

Would you believe that investing success has more to do with one's mindset rather than IQ or mathematical aptitude? One's investing temperament is key to how investing decisions get made. In this episode, Signe and Michelle discuss limiting beliefs, gratitude, and vision board. By practicing certain techniques, we can improve our investing approach and generate better results overall.

Is the American stock market overvalued or fairly priced? Signe and Michelle discuss two indicators to give investors a high level idea of where the market stands right now. One is the Buffett Indicator which is the Wilshire 5000 (total United States stock market) over US GDP ratio. Another is the Shiller PE which is the Price to Earnings ratio based on the average inflation-adjusted earnings of the previous 10 years, AKA Cyclically Adjusted PE Ratio (CAPE). Please note at the time we recorded this podcast episode, the stock of Zoom was trading at a 3000+ PE ratio and most recently posted a PE of around 156.

Signe and Michelle discussed the rise of ghost kitchens, their benefits and drawbacks, and whether investors should consider studying this evolving restaurant innovation as a prospective investment opportunity.

Diversification may be thought of as "Di-worse-fication" according to legendary investors like Charlie Munger or Peter Lynch. We explain misconceptions with the popular financial advice to "diversify" your assets, but what does this really mean? People are not necessarily diversified enough within a country or asset types, so there are many factors to consider. The best investors like Warren Buffett prefer to have high concentration in a few assets, which could still have some amount of diversification but not an overwhelming amount. Different strategies work for different mindsets as the "know-nothing" investor may be better off with a Buffett recommendation in a low-cost S&P 500 index fund.

In the prior episode we discussed our biggest beginner investing mistakes, and now we describe how to recover from these mistakes. Just because you may have "lost" money by investing in a certain security does not mean you have to make it back the same way. It's OK to make a mistake as long as we learn from them and try our best to not make them again! The important thing is to forgive yourself and move forward!

Both Michelle and Signe have made plenty of beginner investing mistakes, so we're sharing those lessons learned along with ones we've observed others also make. While it's less emotionally and financially painful to learn vicariously from others' investing mistakes, sometimes we also need to experience our own mistakes in order to truly grow.

We're sharing our life-changing epiphanies about investing, reflecting on our financial journeys so far where we had some "ah ha" moments and extraordinary experiences. This is how we ended up where we are today as Warren Buffett-style investors. Signe and Michelle share their stories, so we hope you enjoy this episode!

Michelle and Signe discuss the types of stocks and assets we avoid investing in. Warren Buffett-style investors usually avoid Initial Public Offering (IPO) stocks because they just don't have much of a public company track record yet, in spite of Berkshire Hathaway investing in Snowflake recently. Another area we steer clear of are industries that are going through disruption, such as the payments/financial industry. And more!

Threads made its worldwide debut and is taking on Twitter. Signe and Michelle discuss how its name sounds like "threats," which we're guessing Meta Instagram did on purpose. We discuss Threads' impact on the stock market so far and factors investors should consider. Will Zuckerberg defeat Musk in this quest for "town square" app greatness?

In today's episode we discuss the very first steps we take before we invest in a company or its stock. Signe and Michelle have slightly different first steps we take. For example, Michelle will check out the stock price in a quick Google search while Signe will check financial numbers first like Return on Invested Capital (ROIC), Return on Equity (ROE), and debt. In addition, Signe has a tool where she quickly calculates these figures. Michelle also likes to use a spreadsheet to conduct a preliminary or initial company valuation before doing even deeper research. As a little bonus, we talked about gaming stocks!

Signe and Michelle discuss how to find stocks to put on our wish list, whether it is intended for buying or simply watching. There can be both a wish or a watch list depending on how much research we have conducted and whether we have made a final valuation decision on a given stock. We explain how you might come across companies of interest. During this episode we referred to a few prior episodes that you can feel free to check out:

-Checklist starting at episode 8: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/finding-companies-in-your-circle-of-competence-part-1-008/id1654230975?i=1000596249934

-13F Filings episode 27: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-find-out-what-stocks-superinvestors-are-buying/id1654230975?i=1000615842563

-Matthew Peterson episode 28: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/matthew-peterson-of-peterson-capital-management/id1654230975?i=1000616807735

Michelle and Signe discuss our favorite investing books for beginners that we highly recommend:

-Invested, Danielle Town with Phil Town

-The Dhandho Investor, Mohnish Pabrai

-The Education of a Value Investor, Guy Spier

-Payback Time, Phil Town

In the show, we refer to the "Margin of Safety" Episode #11 you can check out: ⁠https://open.spotify.com/episode/2o3NR2CP233zIk8ahHo5X6?si=4qBb8PqlTYiOkV4pdmX5Jw⁠

Matthew Peterson is a value-based, long-term compounding investor and he was so kind to share his insights in this current investing environment with Signe and Michelle. He provided helpful suggestions for beginner investors, including if you would like to outperform as an investor. While the future is unknowable, we can still employ successful investing strategies as Matthew described. Matthew Peterson's fund is called Peterson Capital Management and you can learn more and contact him by visiting: https://www.petersonfunds.com. Check out Matthew on his YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@PetersonCapitalManagement. Reach out to him via Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattpetersoncfa.

We discuss the potential impact of the debt ceiling issue that will not only affect the US economy, but also worldwide economies and financial markets. At the time we were recording, the debt ceiling had not yet been raised.

Part 3 of our 2023 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting Experiences where we discuss more of our takeaways from Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, including the power of consumer behavior in consideration of potential investments. One sad day when Buffett and Munger are no longer on this earth, we discuss why Berkshire (BRK-B) will still be a good stock, and it might even go on sale during an uncertain CEO transition period. We reflected on Berkshire Hathaway's affinity toward bank stocks and concerns with the banking system.