Investing Expert: The Incoming Crash & Why The System is Designed to Keep You Poor - Ben Knight

29:39And I hadn't really appreciated it because I did it as a full-time career. Right. I was spending every day on it, hours a day practicing. So it's a lot harder than people think today, Craig. It's so hard. And everyone, not everyone, but a lot of people teach it and are a bit schemey or scammy because it's the easiest thing to sell, but it's the hardest thing to do. It's exactly like, like, make no mistake, most people should not be a trader. they should not go into trading. Said by someone who teaches essentially trading. So you're saying most people shouldn't? Most people should not trade, day trade.

30:09Right, as in today, out today. Yeah, exactly. Using loads of leverage. Leverage accelerates the downside as well as the upside. It does, but again, they don't put that on the ads. No, of course. But the reason people get into that, because like you said, it's quite exciting. You can make the big wins. And that's what people want. They want to get rich quick. what I do now as I call medium term investing I'm in stocks for like months at a time some of them even years yeah and I love doing that because God well one it takes only a few minutes a day because there's not a huge amount you need to do daily but equally the risk is so low that you can actually just enjoy being an investor yeah not like pulling your hair out every day right so is this not harder to sell to people though is it not easier to sell day trade and get rich quick have you chosen something harder to sell 100 % Rob Like, I know for a fact, if I wanted to be like, make as much money as you need possible, yeah, I would teach that stuff because it is really easy to sell it.

31:05Yeah. What I do now is so unsexy that some people is quite sexy. Right. Yeah, yeah. In the, there's quite a lot of realists now. I think in the world, people are coming a bit more tuned into what's going on. They're like, oh, I actually realize you can't get rich quick. So I know yours is a bit more steady, but that's actually suits me perfectly because I don't want to take big risks. Right. Okay, so can you beat the S &P 500? Definitely. Definitely. I could get you to beat it. In 30 minutes, I could teach you how to beat that. Well, start. Tell me the top three ways I can beat the S &P 500. Okay, cool.

31:42So the first thing you need to do is have a very, very specific criteria of what makes a company you would invest in and one you wouldn't invest in. Okay. For some reason, in loads of types, in property, you'd have this. You'd know an area you're going to invest. you know the type of house you're going to buy you'd know all of that so could i pick like i'm just going to pick the top 10 s &p the top 10 footsie could that be a strategy that could be a strategy is that too simple i would say probably long term if you really wanted to get a lot out of it then yeah that's maybe a bit too simple but equally like we saw it would still beat the s &p yeah right what i do i have a very very specific strategy and criteria because i say right if a company meets this this this and this i would invest if it doesn't need that i wouldn't yeah Now, the benefit of that is, one, it saves you time because it's yes or no, but also there's no emotions involved.

32:29Right. And is that the biggest problem? Emotions are the number one biggest reason people fail with investing. Well, Warren Buffett says, if you can't manage your emotions, don't expect to manage your money. Spot on. Spot on. So, yeah, you have... Okay, so I want to pick your criteria in a bit, if you don't mind. But I want three ways to beat the S &P 500. Your first way is to have a very specific selection criteria and remove emotions. What's the second way? I would only invest in large companies. Now, when I say large, I'm talking about the market cap, so value of the company essentially. What makes a large company market cap wise?

33:05For me, 2 billion or above. Right. That's what I look for. And is that because it's less likely to go bust or is it because it's more likely to grow or other? The first one I would say. If somebody didn't know anything about companies, anything, I gave you two companies to invest in, company A, company B, and I said to you, right, you have to put a thousand pounds in either of these. This one here is worth 200 billion and this one's a little one man band around the corner. Yeah. Which one do you feel comfortable with money? It's that one, right? Okay. And I know that's super simplistic, but if you need some sort of differentiated, that's a good way to do it.

33:37People just go for like the penny stocks because they're like, oh, this could 100X overnight. Yeah, but. It could zero overnight. Yeah, it could zero, exactly. Yeah. So I think that's, even though that's super simple what I've said there, even just doing that kind of thing would greatly improve people's success. Yeah. Okay. And then the third. You have to have, and I know it sounds similar to the first one, but you have to have a step-by-step strategy for buying and selling. Okay. It has to be from start to finish. Because a lot of people are quite good at buying things. A lot of people are bad at buying things, but a lot of people can be quite good at buying things, picking good stocks.

34:11But knowing when to sell is part of the game. Right, not too early, not too late. Exactly. Don't get greedy, don't get emotional and fearful. But you need to have a process in place to decide that for you, because if you start deciding it, game over, which kind of circles back to the emotion side of things. But to be a successful investor, you have to have a step-by-step approach that you do this, then this, then this, then this. There's no, oh, I'm feeling quite excited today. I'm going to go and put extra into this one or not having a good day. I'll probably just sell this because I don't want to mess up.

34:42You can't change what you do. You have to be consistent with it. Right now, your personal data is being sold and exploited and probably without you knowing. Every day, countless companies are invading your personal privacy by buying and selling your data for their profits. But the good news is there's a way to opt out of this and this is why I'm excited to partner with Incogni. Because what Incogni do is they work, hustle and force on your behalf in the background to remove all of your personal data from all of these intrusive databases, marketing lists and companies. So to stop the spam and protect your privacy, go right now to incogni.com forward slash disruptors to get an exclusive 60 % discount off an incogni plan.

35:29That's incogni.com forward slash disruptors or click the link in the description. So I've written here your criteria because it wasn't on here, but I want to get your criteria out of you. but first what's your story we got you from sort of 20 to 24 you started trading why did you get into trading in the first place um why did you get out of training trading at 24 take us from when you started to now where it actually started for me oh it was never the plan to be a trader by the way i just knew from a very young age that i never wanted to get a job how young i'm talking really young how young i would have been under 10 five let's say let's say five six seven that sort of age right the reason that happened to me was tough at the time but it's a good thing in the in the future my parents worked all hours of the day my mum worked in london my dad was an electrician and i didn't really see that much of them so i lived with my grandparents a lot because they were working so much and i thought i don't know why i had this realization at a young age i was an only child so maybe because i was surrounded by adults maybe i was thinking a bit more like an adult but i thought well they work every hour of possible but we don't have more than other families right and I couldn't quite figure out clearly working more is not money related so they inadvertently gave you a great life lesson they did yeah absolutely which really really stuck with me well it's literally shaped my life because I was always thinking this doesn't make sense and equally the people around me because I'm from a very average family like there's no sob story or anything like that at all but everyone around me had a job and hated it nobody enjoyed going to work And the only person I knew that was happy with what they did was my granddad, who, as I said, I spent a lot of time with him because he ran his own businesses always.

37:15So he had like a glass shop in Barnett at the time. And he was really happy. For me, he was like my idol. So I think when you're a young person, you see one person does this one thing different to everyone else and they're really happy. You attribute that thing to that. Yeah. So I was like, well, I'm never going to get a job then. So my goal throughout, even throughout education, I did international business at uni because I thought I want to run a business. and I chose my path very specifically to not go into, sort of get stuck in the nine to five, which I was almost scared of, which is quite an interesting thing.

37:44And back to the question of, if you're so good at trading, why do you teach? Just like if I'm so good at property, why do I teach? Why do you teach if you're so good at trading? I've got quite a few reasons for you. All right, I've not got anywhere booked. Let's go. Perfect. I'll be super blunt with the money side of things. Yeah. If you've got a skill that you could make multiple streams of income from, you'd be a bit of an idiot to not do that. And I feel like the people that ask the question, oh, if you're so good, why do you teach it? Are usually the people that want multiple streams of income, which is quite interesting.

38:16Yeah. They're usually broke people. Yeah. I think that's a massive part of it. But the reason I went from, if I really am honest with myself, why I went from trading to actually helping other people do it is because two of my biggest influences in my life were my dad and my granddad. As I said, I grew up with my granddad quite a lot. and I, 2016, this was, what's that, nine years ago, I was living in Canada, and I was being mentored by a Canadian entrepreneur at the time, which was amazing education, by the way, traveling around, watching how he runs businesses, and I got a call from home saying, look, I think you need to come back.

38:57It's not looking good for your granddad. So obviously got on the first flight back, was fortunate enough to be in the hotel, in the hospital with him, and like literally died in my arms. And I was like, without doubt, the worst day of my life. Horrendous. And that was a big shift to me there. Because I was like, fuck, I need to make this guy proud. A few years later, my dad, who was the next biggest influence in my life, we had a bit of a weird living situation growing up. I didn't live with my dad, but we were still really close. And for a few weeks, he went missing. And I couldn't get hold of him.

39:29Didn't know where he was. So I had to get some people to help me try and find him. Did some different things. And I suddenly got a call. one morning I was like really sorry to tell you your dad died a few weeks ago oh wow yeah and as you can imagine that was shock yeah shock for me and as much as it hurt how old were you then this was only well the granddaddy was 2016 this been 2019 so right 24 yeah and as much shock as I had there the first thing I thought of in that moment was the two people I cared the most about their opinion will never ever see me do anything of value in this world so you're still trying to prove to them even now yeah yeah and that was such a big turning point in my life like before that i was drinking i was wasting my time like i cut all of that out instantly like went full in with this a few months later the business was set up i was helping people and even every year now when it's their birthday i always have a little sit there and i think i wish i could show you this like i I really wish you could see I was actually making a difference.

40:33And that, if there's a lesson in there for anybody, whether it be investing, whether it be anything in life, it's like stop waiting around, stop wasting time. Because life is so short, yours and the people you care about. So stop delaying, go for what you actually want to do. Another big one for me, big driver for it, was I'm really almost angry with the financial education of the UK in that I think it's such a shame that people go through life hating it, disappointed, stressed, worried because they just don't know how to manage their money. That's not their fault. But it's a real shame. Life is the most valuable thing we have.

41:19And for most people to not enjoy it, I think is such a waste. Money is our probably most pervasive and important tool and no one's taught how to use it. Most misunderstood one, most powerful. Absolutely. And we could get into do we think that's on purpose or not? You know, I do believe there is an agenda behind that. Right. What's the agenda behind it then? Well, if everybody knew how to live their life without maybe getting into bad debt, if they knew how to not need to work and pay all their taxes as an employee would need to, then the system starts to crumble. Yeah. I would argue.

42:00Cue the old spice music. But yeah, I get it. I mean, not everyone's made to be an entrepreneur. Not everyone's made to pay the price that it costs to be rich. But yeah, I mean, banks make loads of money out of our bad debt. And yeah, I suppose they would make billions or trillions less if we were only borrowing for good debt. Absolutely. If there was no such thing as consumerism and there was no such thing as sort of brands and we just bought what we needed and we didn't, you know, pay$3 ,000 for a Dior bag that cost$57 to make, which is a real price. That got exposed. Yeah. And even on a more basic level, even if it's not about being rich and wealthy, because I think that's a separate skill.

42:50It really is. like learning how to really generate wealth is a separate skill from what you just mean managing money managing money yeah because i wholeheartedly believe most people could lead a happier and less stressful life if only they've been taught how to manage their money i.e if you make five grand you only spend four grand and then over 20 or 30 years invest that well and you can probably retire so that's sort of like managing it yeah exactly um yeah i think dave ramsey said if you put 11 % of what you earn into investments on the average US salary, then yeah, 20, 30 years time, you've got pretty much a retirement pot.

43:26So that's managing money. You don't have to make millions is what you're saying to live a good, comfortable life. Yeah, I really do. Because I think waste it. Yeah, exactly. I think reducing the downside like stress and I'm assuming money is the root of a lot of problems in most families. Well, I think, isn't it the top reason for divorce? Exactly. So if you minimise that by just having some sort of structure, some sort of knowledge on a basic level, that seems to have a lot of good side. Yeah. But even the basics like personal finance and personal budgeting, I don't remember getting it taught in school.

44:01And I did a money for kids series with someone who's been in the school system for nearly 30 years. Because, you know, there's a lot of people like us who are doing good things in the world entrepreneurs but they're blurting out about how the system is broken but they don't really understand the system or they haven't been in it for 35 years I didn't want to get tired with that same brush so I brought someone in who only just retired from it but he retired by being an entrepreneur and he's like yeah none of this stuff is taught like I wasn't taught about how to manage my money emotions you but I remember right my kid mates at school do you remember remote control cars at school were you too young yeah all right fine so there was like the clod hopper and there was all these remote controlled cars and they were like 300 and 400 and 500 quid and just because they had them i really wanted one and i would have done anything for it because you know i had this jealousy no one taught me how to like i didn't really want it because i wanted it i wanted it because they had it and yet as adults that's what we do we buy things we can't afford to impress people we don't even like and we do that now because we're not taught how to deal with these emotions and to me that's like 101 that should be taught to you age 10 and 12 yeah and i think it was really apparent to me it's funny you said about people say about the education system but they don't really understand yeah i when i was in it considering i went to university to do specifically international business so from gcse how old you are then i don't know 16 16 15 yeah yeah through through gcse through a levels through university went to university in well in england then in florida then in spain as well so not just england i'm not blaming yeah not once in all of those years did anybody teach us anything about managing cash flow or in international business you were talking about managing cash flow no and let me ask you this how many millions or billions was the business worth of your tutor yeah teaching international business honestly how much of an international business did your international business tutor have that means they worked in a business and went on holiday once yeah that's literally it so i think the average tutor salary in the uk something like 37 240 so assuming that the people teaching business and economics are earning the average like you've probably traded that more in a day trade i've made more than that in a day i've made more than that in an hour um and these people are teaching business and economics and not teaching personal finance like why are we teaching theoretical economics from people who you know taught it 80 years ago and not personal finances on managing your own money and i think this is actually really good for people like you and i because we can step in and be like, actually, you can just do this.

46:54I wouldn't have money.school if it wasn't for a good education system and people wouldn't come to you to learn how to trade. No, absolutely not. Sorry, invest. Nice catch. But I totally agree with you and I don't blame the teachers because they haven't been trained in that. And as I said, your point you made there about they only get paid certain amounts so they couldn't possibly teach you about wealth. Then cool, don't let them teach about wealth. you've got people like ourselves or others that will teach that but like you said the money management that's something you can learn in a few hours like you don't need to be a wealthy person to teach money management you can have any amount of money you manage it successfully so there's no reason that money management is not taught in school so you think it's because it doesn't benefit the system of course it doesn't benefit the system at all can you really trade on five minutes a day you can invest in five minutes a day okay that's the difference is it that's the difference okay but what about the research you've got to do what about picking the right investment is it the actual trade part that takes five minutes a day or the investment part no the whole thing with what i do specifically and it's purely just back to having a strategy and a system yeah in the if i said you i'll go and pick a stock where the hell would you start you read news articles you listen to bloomberg like what do you do with that yeah but if you're like oh i'm looking for this this this is this i need to go onto this website to look for that this is where you get the information you can systemize that pretty quickly right so it's just about having systems in place that can do these things for you okay and roughly how many trades or investments are you making you know on a week or a month what's your normal volume so i'm only ever in five stocks at a time wow reason i do that a lot of people think oh if you get into more and more and more you're spreading your risk well you're also diluting your upside that too but also you mathematically that's not true because if i said to you go and pick 30 stocks to invest in it means you've got to make 30 great decisions yeah but if i'm just picking the 30 top yeah okay companies yeah assuming you weren't doing that you're actually going out and researching these right i see so you'd have to make 30 great decisions whereas if you go for five you can be a hell of a lot more selective i think warren buffett said about the uh the 20 hole punch card he said if everyone is i think he said it's his team but he's like if you only had a punch card where you could only make 20 investments in your life you'd be rich right because of how miniscule detail you'd go into to make sure that that was the perfect investment right yeah yeah because um sitting on your hands they say is the best investment strategy or patience okay so you're only picking five trades at any one time correct okay so what's your volume how many a month how How many stocks are you buying?

49:37So not many, which is quite a key, I'd say, to why this works. I'm in each stock for like weeks to months kind of timeframe. Okay. So I think my average is like eight to 12 weeks. Yeah. So call that two to three months. Okay. So if you're in five and you're in each for two to three months, there's not a whole much you need to do every single day. Right. Which is why it generally takes less than five minutes a day. Yeah. Wow. That surprised me. But you're not rushing. So when people are trying to do volume, they're trying to get more and more and more. You're trying to force an outcome. Whereas for me, if I invest in NVIDIA, you mentioned earlier, and it takes two months to get to 20 % profit, I wait two months.

50:12It takes four months. I wait four months. I don't really – the time isn't that important to me. I'm looking at the outcome, the result. Right. And that's a much – it's served me a lot better to invest that way. Yeah. Okay. And then separately in your overall wealth building, do you have your ISAs, funds, et cetera? Yep. So I do most of my active investing through ISAs, if possible, obviously for tax-free benefit. Yeah. Things like putting money in the S &P or in Vanguard, things like that, I almost don't see it as investing. You see it as saving money. Yeah. Yeah, I do. I see it as storing money, yeah.

50:46Yes. Because people attribute the S &P and things like this as the same as like other investments like property or whatever. Yeah, but it's not. It's really not. Yeah. I mean, the stock market has gone up, what, 40 out of the last 50 years. Every single time there's ever been a dip in the history, 100 % of the times it's recovered and gone higher. you know, that's a pretty good success rate, I would say. Well, I did my research. And in the last 100 years, even if you invested at the absolute worst time of every crash, you'd have still done 6 % return a year as opposed to 10.2. We're like timing it the worst.

51:24And what savings accounts offer in that? Yeah. So I actually do see it as a savings account. This is important. I'm the same. I do not see a bank account as a savings account. I see that as a loan to the bank where they're making the money and I'm not. So for me, my savings account is Vanguard Life Strategy and, you know, my ISA and the other funds that I'm in. And so for me, investing is property where I'm more active, where I'm buying deals for two and a half million that were five, that I'm spending eight million on a development and hopefully, you know, pushing the value up to nearly 20 million and all of that kind of stuff.

52:01You see it similar, do you? Yeah, it's just mine happens to both be in the stock market. They're not the same. No. But I genuinely think if you put money into a savings account, how I see this in my head, I'm guaranteed to lose money. It's a guaranteed loss. Inflation will outperform the interest rate I'm going to get. But that is a fact. It's going to be higher than the interest I'm going to get back. Well, this is what people need to know. Because someone can do a bit of research, and sometimes I have a look, and it makes out that interest rates over the long term beat inflation. But number one, you wonder, OK, what's the source of the information?

52:36But you can't look at what inflation is and interest rates are. You have to look at what inflation really is, i.e. it's more than they tell you. You've got to look at lifestyle inflation, i.e. if your mortgage rate's gone up from 3 % to 6%, that's 100 % inflation on your mortgage when it goes up. So you've got to look at inflation to you. You've got to look at are they holding things back from inflation? So inflation is probably higher. And the banks never pass on all the interest to you. You know when interest rates go up, they are lightning quick to increase your mortgage. When interest rates go down, they're really slow to pass the savings on to you.

53:16And this is a reality. So in reality, inflation wipes out your interest and more. Would you agree with that? 100 % agree. And I actually put a double figure number on it personally. You might disagree with this, but I honestly think if you're not making at least 10 % a year on your money, you are losing value. Fundamental law of making money, rule number one, you have to beat inflation. And that's not taught in school. And you reckon 10 % a year is what you've got to do to, I guess, comfortably or guaranteed to beat inflation. And people are like, oh no, but inflation is only 2.9%. CPI, RPI, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

53:57I did a little test on my Instagram stories the other day. I said to people, if you find a shopping receipt from either a year ago, two years ago, three years ago, send it over to me and my team. My team went through them and used every single one and all of the items that I would consider everyday items, eggs, milk, bread, all of them had gone up 20%, 30 % like ridiculous amount in two years. Wow. Like eggs. Good example. They used to be like£1.80 for 12 eggs in Tesco. I go in there now, three, three 50. Well, that's not, if you want organic. Yeah. It's that for six. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And I eat four after my boxing.

54:36You must eat 20 eggs a day. I like some, I do love my eggs. But that's real inflation to me. Yeah. That's living inflation. If that's what I'm spending it on. What? Popular stocks are pure hype right now. What's everyone jumping into that you think is silly? A lot of people are jumping into things like Duolingo. This has been a real talk in my circle recently, and I'm thinking, I don't get that. Because logically speaking, this is quite how AI has sort of changed my investing world. So what is Duolingo? Duolingo is like the app that teaches you another language. Yeah. And it used to be pretty good.

55:13You've got a little bird on your phone, it just gives you a few phrases, whatever. By bird, you mean the animal? Okay, fine. Not a, no. Thanks for clarifying. Or a chick. Yeah? A chick. Okay, fine. All right.

55:31It's been a good company. They're huge. Billions and millions and billions. Great company. But I now see things through a bit of a scope of, how's AI going to disrupt this? And I never used to do that. I never read the news. I try and stay away from news articles, everything like that. I think it's noise. but now I can look through the AI thing and well you go and chat GPT or any of them you can have a conversation in another language and it'll teach you way better than those right so you think it's going to be disrupted out I can't imagine it's going to be obsolete right there's going to be a lot of companies that fall into the same trap yeah wow because how do you change that if this is more accessible free to use like there's not right so you you would say any kind of companies that are languages, maybe content could be wiped out.

56:18Any company like that, any company that's typically we've used for convenience. I'm worried about the travel apps. Let's say Uber, let's say these kind of ones, because you could create an AI, and they are creating, where they amalgamate all of the services in one place that you can just click a button and it will just decide what you need, when you need it, where it's going. It's going to make your life a hell of a lot easier. way would you go and use five different apps for ordering food getting a taxi getting an airplane you know i mean so i don't know how these are gonna survive yeah okay silver has crashed it's back to its price in 1974 and i'm gonna buy more and if you'd like to learn how to invest and build multiple streams of recurring income i recommend you join money.school money.school is my global financial education platform to help as many people on this planet get better financial knowledge for less than four Starbucks coffees a month.

57:11There are hundreds of hours of courses, resources and masterclasses going back a decade to teach how to make, manage and multiply money and gain financial freedom. So join thousands of other money and freedom seekers on the link money.school and start today your journey to financial freedom and more money. What is an undervalued stock or company right now that you think, you know what, you're not advising but could blow up? there's some small ones that i'd say go and have a look at maybe like exel is one that i quite like i'm invested in personally um there's some of the gold mining companies that are quite interesting too i don't know if you've ever looked into those but obviously you can invest in physical gold but you can invest in a gold mining company too which is quite a good way to leverage the asset of gold without having to store it and right doing that so something like um fnv which be franco nevada I call those kinds of quite interesting to look into.

58:05Why a gold mining company? It's just a good way to take advantage of gold prices rising. It can be very, very liquid, right? You can buy and sell it the same day, which maybe you wouldn't with a block of gold. Yeah. So that's quite interesting. And fundamentally, those companies, a few of them are very, very good, which is the main thing for me. Yeah. Because I want to make that clear. I couldn't care less to a certain extent what industry my investments are in. Are you happy with tobacco? Gambling firms? Happy with gambling firms? What you just said about the financial education system? Yeah, I hear you.

58:37I hear what I said there. It doesn't matter because they never fit my criteria. Right. So it's a bit of a non-eventory. That was a good way to wriggle out that question. That was nice, wasn't it? Yeah. Okay. Would you ethically invest in tobacco or gambling? Gambling, probably no. Tobacco, I would think about it, I think, because I see it as more of a legitimate business. And industry, I think, is going to do, is doing pretty well. And that's gambling. I can't think of any of the big companies that would even come into my vision, if you know what I mean. Yeah. But maybe that's less of a, hmm. That's quite an interesting question.

59:16Something to think about. Something to think about, for sure. I don't. Put myself there. Yeah. Because I don't do them myself. No. And also, I was just going to say, I don't have gambling firms or tobacco. I'm assuming I don't. But if I'm in a fund, maybe I do. Yeah, yeah. They might. Yeah, because tobacco's done really well over the last whatever decades, however long. I've not invested in them, but could I say I never would? Yeah. Maybe not. Okay. Do you need a stockbroker? No. Are you sure? You need a broker, which maybe is not what people think a stockbroker is anymore. Right. So a broker used to be an old man in a suit.

59:48Yeah. Yeah. Stockbroker. Who would advise you on stocks to pick? Yeah, you definitely don't need that anymore. Right. But you do need a broker to physically purchase the stocks, which a broker now is like an online platform where you buy and sell shares like a shop where you can buy and sell shares from yes that's not really a broker is it it's the name for them yeah they're known as brokers you mean like hargreaves lansdowne charles stanley all of that exactly that so yeah just to be clear for people you don't need a old man in a suit no to do it okay and um you know people always ask me you know which brokerages which apps should you use um i i actually use three vanguard hargreaves Lansdown, Charles Stanley.

1:00:27Charles Stanley I use for my company money, the other two personal. Are they good ones? Are there others? Because I know there are more. Which one should people use? They're great, very reputable, very expensive. Are they? Very expensive. Which doesn't matter if you do buy, hold, die. Right, yeah. Which I do. You're not getting charged on the selling. If you're doing something a bit more hands-on, like Hargree's Lansdown, for example,£12 to buy, £12 to sell. Well, you're already 24 pound down instantly you know if you're doing for people who are not using a lot of money that could be quite a chunk right yeah get a thousand pounds to invest suddenly you know yeah bad start okay the ones i really like because a lot of bad ones out there the one i personally stand by and do use uh trading 212 yeah really good platform i've been super impressed fca regulated simple to use no commissions on their trade so how do they make money then so they've got other types of accounts where you know they do have fees on but if you're using like the ISA account, if you're using the investor account, they don't have that.

1:01:28And, you know, you might, they make minds from spreads and things like this, but for the everyday investor, if you're a professional trader, that stuff's really important. If you're not, it really doesn't make a difference. You may as well go for the one that doesn't cost and is legit. What do you think of financial advisors, IFAs, independent financial advisors or the equivalent in other countries? They have a purpose, but I don't think it's what people think is. I do not believe you should go to a financial advisor to do everything for you. And I think that's what people see as a one-stop shop where I don't have to think about my money.

1:02:03Now, I'm a firm believer nobody will ever care about your money as much as you will. So it's best to have control yourself. At least know what's going on. The people I hear that have given their money to a financial advisor to do everything for them, they're like, oh, my pension went up 3 % last year. What the hell is that? That's less than inflation. Do you know what I mean? You could definitely do better than that. But we just proved it with ChatGVT. yeah so i don't think you should go to them for everything if you go to them because you want some specific information about what type of pension you should go for things like that great that that really does make sense to me to get a professional's opinion yeah but do not trust your entire wealth on somebody else yeah back to our thing their goals aren't the same as your goals no well they surely an independent financial advisor um wants to make money of course they want to get commissions for investment advice, I assume.

1:02:51Yeah. And fair play to them. Yeah. Yeah. But then there's going to be a conflict, isn't there? Where if what's best for you and best for them is not the same, then they have a moral dilemma. It's 100 % true. 100%. Which is why I think use them for what they're good for, for like advising. Do not use them for putting all your money, which is why, as I say, if you can learn any simple skill yourself of investing, you will do better in the long run. Yeah. Yeah. I get a lot of kickback on that from financial advisors online, as you might imagine. Of course, but that's fine. Everyone's entitled to your opinion.

1:03:24Yeah. Can you really make passive income? What do you think about passive income? Oh, I hate the phrase passive income. I truly hate the phrase. And I believe wholeheartedly this is the reason so many people get scammed nowadays. Do you hate the phrase because it's not possible or do you hate the phrase because a lot of people use it in a scammy way? Because people have misinterpreted what it actually means. Right. Okay. So explain. Because people use it in a scammy way, like you said, it has made people believe that you can sit on your arse all day, do nothing, get paid without any upfront bit.

1:03:57And that's the key. Okay. But isn't that just someone being dumb? Like the things you can sit on your arse and do nothing and just the money rolls in. Does anyone actually think that in 2025? You'd be amazed. There's a lot of people that think that. Really? And I mean, training is a great example, right? Because no one can get scammed if they know reality and know how to not get scammed. By the way, I'm just discussing this point because I think about this. Who's to blame? Like, Labour are ruining the country. Who's to blame? Labour or the people who voted for them? Because if we hadn't have voted for them, they wouldn't be in.

1:04:33And if we don't like what they're doing, why don't we all go down to Westminster? All fucking 10 million of us in London and go to Westminster. You see what I mean? Who's to blame? I hear you on that and I think the reason I say I hate the idea of passive income is because people do have that misconception now the idea that you can do something get paid for it for a longer period of time moving forward is definitely true that's what property is right yeah but if you said to any property investor oh did you do no work for this they'll all say no I did the work which is the reality right are you saying you have to set to forget are you saying you have to work hard enough not to have to work hard I'm saying you have to dedicate some sort of resource at the start, whether it's time, money, effort, energy, all four, to get a result.

1:05:20That's how the universe works. Yeah, sure. But surely there are some retired musicians that are still getting royalties for songs they wrote 30 years ago. What is it? Slade. You know that song? It's Christmas. Let's get on grok, right? Because let's have a bit of fun. They reckon 512 ,000 a year. Some sources say 800 ,000 a year. I've heard as high as 1.2. Let's go in the middle. Let's say 600 grand a year. That's passive income, mate. Absolutely. Do you know what I mean? That definitely is. But in 1972, whatever it was, that's when they did the work. Right. So I totally agree with that concept.

1:06:04Right. So what we're saying is passive income is possible, but you have to do the work and set up the asset first. Yeah, people have got the wrong definition of what passive income is. Right, because they think you don't have to set up the asset first. Yes, correct. And that's why they get scammed. Right. Under this pretense that you can do that. Yeah. Do you know what? I always used to think bands that write Christmas songs have sold out. Now, like Radiohead should write a Christmas song. I'd be okay fine crypto or stocks and why stocks for me no doubt why because I like how logical they are to me and you can say this is an education thing like if I knew loads and loads about crypto you know maybe it'd be different but I like to be able to invest in something I know what they do I know what this company sells where they're based who's involved but don't we know what bitcoin is no we don't know who's involved we don't know true we don't know who started it Yeah, it could be, who knows, a Russian government.

1:07:07Who knows? But in terms of something being a bit more tangible, if I invest in Google, I'm like, okay, so I'm putting my money into a company run by the smartest people in the world who run some of the most successful companies in the world. Do I trust them to do better with my money than me just guessing? Yeah, probably. I feel a sense of comfort in that. Now, that's not saying you shouldn't invest in crypto, I'm sure. Putting money in Bitcoin, I think it's probably quite a smart move. people to consider but like the little ones are you know that i see that more as gambling personally yeah what's your thoughts i understand stocks more but i actually don't understand stocks i understand i can put my money in a fund and it'll i can sort of choose if more of it goes into s &p or footsie i can choose if more of it goes into stocks and more of it goes into equities I think I'm aware enough of my own lack of information and knowledge to know that I don't know shit all to be English about stocks.

1:08:15So I think when you invest in something you don't know anything about, what you want to do is humblize yourself that you don't know anything about it and then de-risk. and, you know, so if I had to invest in stocks, I'd copy you or copy Warren Buffett, copy someone I trust who I know, who knows what they're doing. Because, you know, how do you get rich? You learn from other rich people. How do you scale your business? You learn from an entrepreneur. You get a mentor who's scaled your business. So I don't really know anything about stocks and I know even less about Bitcoin. All I know about Bitcoin is my wife manages, all of my crypto accounts.

1:08:58She's got the keys. She's got the cold storage. She puts the money in when we ask. You know, I sometimes occasionally get paid in it and it all goes in there and I don't even know how much I've got. And I hope she doesn't leave me and take my cold storage with me. She can have the kids, but not my cold storage wallet. So you asked me. Yeah. But, you know, I know way more about real estate. I know way more about social media content, podcasting, information, businesses. I know nothing about stocks and even less about crypto. Interesting. There you go. So what is your criteria for picking good companies?

1:09:38Take us through it step by step. And don't say we have to buy your course. At least give us like something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. So I actually did allude to the number one thing earlier, the market cap. Okay. So you're looking at 2 billion plus. 2 billion plus. Great. Without a doubt. Next thing? Next thing I would look at, and all of these, by the way, nothing's like super crazy or anything. It's all logical. Only logical factors I would do it. So you could look into how much debt a company's got. You could look at their profit margins. You can look at all of this kind of thing that I think is very overlooked a lot of the time.

1:10:09Another good one. And I wouldn't make a decision on one of these, by the way. It would have to be altogether I would make that decision. But for example, you can look at something called institutional ownership. and when you and i mentioned earlier about who runs the world blackrock all these kind of things on a very fundamental level if you wanted to invest in something and those guys also were investing in it you would see that as a good thing rather than a bad thing it's quite reassuring well you can go and look at the institutional ownership of a stock and it means what percentage of this company is owned by the big guys yeah well i see that as quite a useful thing to know because if they own 10 of it i'm like that's a red flag yeah what's going on there yeah if they own 70 % of it, two thirds, suddenly that's really reassuring.

1:10:49I see that as a good thing. So that would definitely be another one I would take into my consideration there. Okay. And you said debt and profit margin. So what's an acceptable level of debt for a company for you and what's too much? Good question. So I look at something called debt to equity ratio. I personally look for under 0.35. That's my thing. Okay. And then profit margin? Profit actually isn't one of the ones I personally look for, but it is one of the ones you could look for without having a strategy or following what I specifically do. Why do you not look for the profit margin when you're looking for a stock to make you money?

1:11:24I look at some other things that would give me more information on that kind of thing. Like what? So you can look at the earnings of companies, things like earnings per share. You can look at the returns they're getting in with their assets. You can look at things like that, which I find a bit more of a comprehensive view of a company rather than just, oh, they're making this much profit. That's not enough in, I don't think, to pick a good company. Probably if you're trying to buy a business, I've never bought a business myself. Yeah. It would be like trying to dive into the details more than just, oh, they're making that profit margin.

1:11:54That wouldn't be enough. Why should someone take guidance from you? Someone should only take guidance from me if they want to build wealth on the side with stocks and not make it their main thing. If somebody comes to me and says, I want to be a trader, I can't help you. I'm not interested in helping that. Whereas if you're actually not that bothered about doing that full time, you want to create freedom in your life, which is actually what I think is the reason you should invest. That's more what I do. It will take you five minutes a day. I keep things simple. I don't like fluff and complicated stuff.

1:12:28So if you can have that running on the side and build this pot of cash that you can use to build more freedom in your life, perfect. if you want to do something else there's probably some people out there that would be better suited to make you a trader okay a failed trader right and um where where can people go to work with you what should they do so they can check out my website thetradetribe.com thetradetribe.com correct uh come along to one of my free webinars on there like just just get a bit of an idea of what i actually do i always say to people watch the free stuff yeah get a feel for it so you've got content on there they can consume if they just go to that website yeah on there's yeah sign up for the webinar or you know my instagram ben knight investments okay right so with with an s or an x s and are you ben knight investments on all socials correct okay and your surname is k-n-i-g-h-t ben knight investments okay cool um this show is called disruptors as you can see and you might be about our 1400th episode or so and we're nearing our 10-year anniversary very soon what does this word disruptors mean to you for me it means doing more things in your life that are out of the ordinary and when you do what i've noticed in life the more things you do out of the ordinary the more out of the ordinary things happen to you out of the ordinary good or out of the ordinary bad?

1:13:53Good. Right. I feel like the more you step out of the norm, the more you put yourself out there, the universe has quite an interesting way of rewarding that. All right. Great way to live it, Ben. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me.

1:14:35This episode was brought to you by Disruptive Media, helping bold entrepreneurs stand out through podcasting, video and social content. Visit disruptivemedia.co.uk to learn more. I love you