Mailbag: incl. An investing plan for my nephews. September 8, 2024

23:54So if it happens, I don't suspect it's an overnight disaster. We've probably got plenty of notice. And if there's a reason to do that at some point, then I would do it at that point. But I don't think there's any need to do anything in advance of that. It's not a binary result and it's not going to happen super suddenly and unexpectedly and without. It won't be noticed necessarily, but in deterioration, we've got plenty of time to respond to, I would suspect. See, I don't know. I think you're right because I don't think anything is imminent too because it's just amazing how long cans can be kicked down the road.

24:30But the history of economics tends to be, it's like war in the sense that it's like long periods of boredom dispersed with occasional periods of terror. And so when you do have currency devaluations, nothing happens, nothing happens, nothing happens. Oh my God, everything just happened. And so it's not, I don't, let me be clear. I'm with you. I'm not waiting like, oh, any day now. I don't think that's true at all. But if and when it does go wrong, it'll likely be when something just eventually snaps. Look at what happened was a couple of weeks ago after Yen and the carry trade there. But even then, mate, the change - Everyone's been talking about that forever.

25:11And then it happened all of a sudden. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even if it was a sudden event, the size of the change, it's not going to go from$0.60 to$1.50 tomorrow, the Australian dollar. It could go to$0.66 or$0.64 or, sorry,$0.72 or$0.78. But it might be a 12 or 24 month period, right? Yes, correct. Correct. And I know that feels long to us, but it's kind of a blink. It's not even half a blink. So I would say in the - If you're not going to come with that commentary, you're not going to not know it's happening, is all I'm saying. So at that point, if it's like, okay, this is now happening, happened today and tomorrow, the day after.

25:43By next week, I'm like, okay, maybe it's a thing. But at the end of the month, I've lost 10%. Okay, this feels like it might be permanent. I'll cash out now. I'm not saying you can avoid it altogether. I'm just saying it's not like it's going to be like today, it's 60 cents tomorrow it's$1.20. I mean it could but it's not likely to. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. I'm with you there. So I mentioned two YouTube videos. Look up those Dahlia ones. There's another one in YouTube search Broken Money Lynn Alden. That's another great one that'll explain a lot of this kind of content. You go back to like ancient times and just build up.

26:09It's actually a really cool video. 25 minutes long or something. That's cool. It'll make you think. Yeah, it's really good. But the other point I want to make and we will finally move on. You can't ask viewers or listeners. You can't ask massively fundamental deep questions and expect like a tweet answer, right? And even now we've scratched the surface and there's so much more to say. And yet we're not going to, we're going to move on. But I think one thing to really recognize here from the investment angle is that you've got to ask yourself, where is the value? Like value in the fundamental sense of the word.

26:40Money has no value, really. You know, any kind of Bitcoin, US dollar, Australian. It's a placeholder. It's a ledger and it's phenomenally important, but it's more about think about what rich people do. That's a good place to start. Jeff Bezos doesn't have a Scrooge McDuck vault full of coins and notes, right? He doesn't. He owns Amazon stock and he owns a bunch of property and farmland. What does Bill Gates own? Same kind of thing. So no matter what happens in the world, there are some things that will always have value. The way that we account for that value and measure that value might change relative to whatever currency that we prefer to use at that historical point in time may change.

27:22But I tell you what, you know, something like waterfront property in Sydney Harbour will always relatively have more value than something out at Cuperpede, right? There will always be value in being one of the few companies in the world that makes advanced chips. Now, you could say that the value has been inflated a little bit at this point in time, but there is a bedrock of value there that will prevent things going to zero and you being completely wiped out. If, on the other hand, you've put everything into an e-bike company that's been backed by VC and loses money hand over fist, and there is a shake in the economy, guess what?

28:00There's no value there. There's nothing there. The emperor has no clothes. The wizard behind the curtain is just some weird little old man, and you're going to wear it. So whenever you look at, again, the history is so informative. When you look at all of the, and this is what Dalio does so well, when you look at all of these great dislocations that have happened throughout history, who has suffered ultimately? Those that have had very poor quality assets because it just turns out there was no real underlying value there. Those who had real good quality assets still took nominal hits, and I'm not saying it was a great experience, but when the dust settled, they still owned something that had value and retained some value, right?

28:38Like that was super important. And the other person who gets wiped out, of course, is the person with heaps of debt. So again, the practical so what of all of that is make sure that what you own is of genuine value. Like there's some great options here on the ASX alone. It's just like things could get real, right? And they'll always be, you know, brickworks as brick pits are going to have value 50 years from now, right? They just will. and there's a million other examples for all of that kind of stuff. And true to property too. Even in my bearish views, I'm excessively overvalued, but there'll be plenty of property that doesn't go to zero, right?

29:18It's not going to go to zero. Who's going to go to zero? The people who've got too much debt against those properties. They personally are absolutely going to go to zero. So when you face these big, big dilemmas, just remember where is the real value? And we got a taste of this in COVID. but I would say more generally it was like, oh, they're the people who actually do stuff. When you peel back the curtains and stuff, you can sort of see through the nonsense. And I think that's what I would encourage you to do, Mark, is just try and just say, yes, valuations matter, but just make sure that whatever the valuation is, there is something there that is real.

29:58And if you can do that and not be over-leveraged, everyone will have a pretty crappy time as we go through whatever we might go through but you'll relatively come through it pretty strongly. In fact, you'll emerge out the other side far, far, far better off. Let's go to - Short answer. No, it's good though. 30 minutes, 30 minutes. Sorry, listeners. It's Andrew's fault. It's Mark's fault. Thanks, Mark. A very different question from Tony, mate. Hi, Scott and Ram. I'm a long-time full subscriber. But with the help of the Fool's podcast, sorry, with Fool's help and listening to this podcast, I've been able to generate market-beating annual returns.

30:37Well done. Over the past 10 years, I have three nephews aged 18 to 22, and I want to share this knowledge so they can start their investing journey early in life. My hope is they take an interest in business, investing, and become comfortable with markets and volatility. I thought you both might be interested in my plan. Here it goes. first present my nephews with a simple contract that if they do the following things i will give them cash to invest each year for the next five years emphasizing the money is for long-term investment and only to be used for either buying a home or early retirement to attend a couple of hours of classroom style share investing sessions each year which i'll design three they'll open an account with a linked cash account a brokerage account with link cash account and set up a direct transfer of minimum$10 a week from their bank accounts.

31:28Show the Vanguard chart and a compounding spreadsheet calculator created to show how investments are predicted to grow over time. Create a folder in their cloud storage to store their investment-related documents. Create a spreadsheet for tracking cost basis and transactions, including extra columns for what the company does, why they bought it, why they think they might sell. Show them other resources like Strawman, Motley Fool and ShareSight. And take a close look at their super so they understand what they already own and make sure they are allocating to a high growth strategy. In the first year, he says, I'll give them two grand to buy shares split between passive index ETFs, NASDAQ, S &P, ASX and Solpads.

32:05With any remaining cash, I'll give them a choice to buy one of my favourite companies that are trading at fair value. On the anniversary each year, if they've maintained their weekly direct debit transfers, kept their records up to date, etc., I'll give them a thousand bucks where they can decide themselves how they want to invest it. Do you have any thoughts or comments? Anything to add? Keep up the good work. Cheers, Tony. Tony, it's brilliant. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. I mean, again, you know, we could talk around the edges here, you know, but I think these are the kind of decisions that people make where I think the ripples go well beyond the impact of your three nephews.

32:46I mean, I can see you enacting this, and I can see when your nephews are old men or uncles themselves doing the same thing, you know, and they will talk fondly of their uncle Tony, who's like, well, you know what? When I was a kid, uncle Tony did this and it set me on a path. I didn't really get it at first and I did it and now I'm loaded and now I want to do the same for you. It can done well, it will ripple through the generations, right? Like I can't think of a more noble thing. Well, like, you know, it's up there, right? Like in terms of the things that you can do to affect a positive and lasting change for your heirs, I just think it's wonderful.

33:33I am going to risk Tony's ire and your ire, Andrew, and disagree with you a little bit. Fair enough. Which is only to say, I'm going to use my usual favorite word, behavioral, behavioral finance. Tony, I love this approach conceptually. I would only suggest, and I don't know your relationship with your nephews, this is a really, really, really directive, dictatorial style of approach to investing. Now, they're entitled to say yes or no, and you're entitled to give them their money or not give them any money. But this is a really, really specific thing to do. Now, if you've got a relationship with those kids where, I say kids, they're under 22, but the kid's enough, where you can say, hey, do this.

34:11And I say, yes, I've got Tony, great idea. Thank you. I hear what you're saying. I know where you're coming from. Let's do it. That's great. Or if your nephews are looking at this going, you give me a seven-point list where you're pretty much trying to rule my life and tell me what to do and what not to do. And I've got to do this or I don't get the money. Screw you, old man. Right. I'll go my own way. Right. You can't tell me what to do. So relationship-wise, up to you, Tony, as to how you do it. Again, I'm not saying don't do it. I'm not saying it won't work. It's a great concept. I love it.

34:37The absolute and sort of – I say dictator. I don't mean that in a harsh way. It's been like it's a very specific you must do it this way approach. approach and generally speaking i'm not sure if that's the best way to help um help kids learn this stuff as i said they're compliant they want to do it they love you and it's all great then knock yourself out um it just feels very much you must do this you must do that you must do this and if you don't do it i won't give you the money um if that's a family dynamic you've got and you're happy with go for it i would be mindful of money's a great way to destroy relationships in families for many many many many different reasons that's all i would say is just just be thoughtful i'm not going to tell you i'm not here for relationship advice but just be thoughtful about how the communication happens and how you do it is is my only suggestion i love the idea i love the intent i love the way you're doing it i love the concept you're setting up i think it's all brilliant um just up to you how you kind of make it make it work um yeah i i would i would use incentives rather than dictates personally but um you do you if that works for you and your family then knock yourself out yeah yeah i mean that's that's a fair that's a fair point the one of the things I would add to it would be a matching principle.

35:45I think that's always - I mean, it's giving them a thousand bucks if they contribute 10 bucks a week. That's a pretty strong matching principle, but it's an all or nothing kind of idea. They didn't do it. They missed it out. They sent the money. Once you make it really specific and kind of my way out of the highway, it's only going to work really, really well or you're going to get their nose out of joint. And again, completely up to you. If you want the outcome, which is I'm going to love investing, get into it. A bit more carrot, a bit less stick is probably what I'd do, but maybe I'm just getting soft in my old age.

36:11Yeah, I mean, at the same time, and maybe I'm not looking at it through the eyes of a 20-year-old, and maybe that's the fault because I know what I was like. Right, that's what it is. But it doesn't seem like, again, to my older eyes, I don't think Tony's being too – It's not unreasonable. It's just very, very kind of – Yeah, it's like if you can sit through me talking to you a little bit and you do these really basic things, I will give you lots of money. You're a thousand bucks, exactly. You know, it doesn't feel like it's a high – take your point. So it's all in the execution. Correct. That's a better way to put it.

36:48Thank you, yeah. Yeah. But I guess that's why I said we can fiddle around the edges. The broader point I think here is that there's – of all the things that we teach our kids, I don't think we – when it comes to sort of money and finance, we don't teach them enough. And probably because we weren't taught very well either. And it's sort of certainly the school system doesn't teach you very well. And I think that's why I'm positive in my, my reaction was positive because I think anything that goes to address that is a, is a good thing. And, and you need to find a dynamic that works well within your family.

37:26So it's just directionally, it's just, it's really hard to fault. Anyone who's a just thinking about that and just not, you know, the usual, what 99 % of other Australians are going to do, which is just load yourself up in debt and buy eight investment properties. Like it's just, you know, I'm teaching you lessons that are far more important and there's a real so what of that. It's kind of like when you're teaching a kid to ride a bike, it's always really wobbly. And at some point you let go and off they go. So I imagine if you can hold it together and hold their interest for five years, after that five-year period, you don't need to convince them anymore because they've actually started to see the very tangible results of everything you've been going on about.

38:06and then they'll just be off. Yep, that's true. So yeah, I don't mean to sound harsh. I love it. I think that's Andrew's point. All the execution is a much better way of putting it. Motley Fool Money. For more, subscribe to the free newsletter at fool.com.au forward slash listener.

38:23Here's a question from Terry. Now, there's a few numbers in this one. I'm going to try and get through them. Not bad, just kind of unmindful of the audio format. So let's hear we go. Terry says, Hi, Andrew, the god of straw people. He said, I hope you get a laugh out of this one as I don't think it's been used before. You're welcome. The god of straw people. Thank you. Terry, for a bloke with a god complex, let's not feed it, okay? That's all I'm saying. He says, and that other fellow from, what's that company name again? Starts with M. Gee, thanks very much, Terry. And you still need your question answered, Terry.

38:51We're moving on. No, I'm kidding. In your recent suggestion about putting 10 grand invested for a newborn child and letting it compound over time, it's a great idea. However, 10 grand back in 1966, this is where we get to this. Converting to pounds and children would hurt my brain too much. When the Aussie dollar was created, the RBA inflation calculator means it's actually$155 ,855 in today's dollar terms after 57 years. Yeah. I think we can all agree. 156 grand of every newborn child in Australia is a bit too much. So if we take your 10 grand in today's terms and reverse calculate what the equivalent was in 1966, that would have been$641.62.

39:35Now, he says, taking$641, invested back in 1966 at 8 % per annum for 70 years, would only result in$173 ,000 and not the seven-figure values quoted. Have I missed something? Or can you please, as you always say, square this circle? So I'm going to stop here, Terry, because I wouldn't go back and do what you did, which is adjust it for inflation. That's literally specifically my point. 10 grand today is 10 grand today. I wouldn't inflation adjust it. That's precisely the point. So when you go and convert it and say, well, it would have been too much to give my 155 grand back then, I would simply say, I don't think it is.

40:18I think that's kind of entirely my point. You don't increase it by inflation since then, by the way. You increase it by the compound returns, which you've done subsequently. but if you're turning 156 grand it's not it's just not that number i kind of understand the thinking you've gone to to to kind of get to that point um but if your starting point is we can't give every kid 10 grand because it's too much money which is kind of what you're referring by the adjustment to 1966 levels i would just simply say i disagree um give them 10 grand now is what i would do and so you don't need to square that circle you just give them 10 grand is it too much to give them?

40:51Well, again, my point of the 10 grand, by the way, if you missed the episode, I wrote an article called A Better Way to Fund Your Superannuation. I ran the SMH about five years ago. Basically, the idea is put some money in an investment account for kids. You put 10 grand in at birth rather than what's the best part of it. I think I remember being something like 300 grand worth of super contributions from your employer over your lifetime. So, The question really is just simply, where do you do the maths? And my preference is put 10 grand now away for a kid. Whether you do it or whether the government does it, I would do it as the government.

41:27I would replace super with this personally. He says arrogantly. You just put 10 grand away. It doesn't matter if it's 156 grand in today's dollars or anything else because I would have put 10 grand away in 1966. That's the point. It would have been less than that. So that's kind of – we're kind of dancing around the numbers a little bit, Terry. But just to be really, really clear, 10 grand today is absolutely what I put away. And yes, I'd index that with inflation over the next, well, for the rest of time, effectively, in Australia. But if inflation is 5%, then next year you put away 10 grand, 10 and a half grand.

41:59You just keep doing it that way. I think that's a very reasonable thing to do. And if it saves 300 odd grand of superannuation contributions over a 40 year working life to put 10 grand away now, that's a very, very good deal. I would take that deal every day. So that's my answer. I understand how you've converted it back and then tried to re-compound it. I simply wouldn't do that. I don't think you need to. So I wouldn't. I'd just start with today's dollar value. And if today's dollar value does compound at the rate I expect it to over the 70 years, then you end up with a seven-figure salary. Or seven-figure super.

42:28That's just literally how I'd do it. Anything to add to that, Ram? I just wouldn't even – I think the curveball here is in the specific amount. Yes. Yeah. And it actually doesn't matter. Is it a dollar? Is it a million dollars? Well, it doesn't matter. Like whatever your starting figure is, compounding it for a long time, 8 % is going to be more. That's far more the point. It doesn't matter. And there'll be some people listening to this where it's like, in fact, a lot of people in Australia are like, I've got to spend 10 grand for every kid? Like, no. I'm sorry. Just to be clear though, my point was that was how I'd fund superannuation from the government.

43:09I'm not saying everyone should do that. Oh, I'm sorry. This was the idea of replacing superannuation with a one-off contribution at birth that compounded to 70 years. Right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And look, yeah. So outside of that, just in terms of your own life or whatever, the answer is as much as you can afford to do. If you happen to be Richard Pratt, then maybe, you know, you can afford to do a little bit more. Actually, he's no longer around, so maybe not. But you know what I mean? Do as much as you can. The maths is always going to work out, really. Whatever figure you start with, it's going to grow.

43:40And the other thing that's valuable of playing around with these kinds of spreadsheets is that there's really only three variables that matter. And one of them matters more than anything else. One is obviously the starting value. That's important. So$10 ,000 is better than$5 ,000 if you want to start. The more you start with, the more you'll end up with. Thanks, Captain Obvious. next point from Captain Obvious is like well 12 % is better than 11 % it's better than 10 % so those numbers are both really good too and the third variable is the one that you contribute along the way and it turns out actually the foremost time by the way oh sorry yeah time absolutely which is super important but of all the thing time you can know you just got to take as it comes so you can't influence time so in terms of Other than starting early, true.

44:35Yeah, but it's the least controllable variable perhaps or at least the least variable variable. But what you will find is that depending, unless you're dealing with really outlier starting conditions, the amount that you contribute along the way is by far the biggest swing factor. So if you're someone who can save$1 ,000 a month and dollar cost average into the market, and let's say you would get 8 % and let's say you start with 10 grand. I'm doing this on the fly. Someone will fact check me on this. Go for it. Go with the flavor rather than the specifics. You're probably better off than someone who starts with 20 grand and gets 10 % but only contributes, you know, 20 bucks a month or whatever it is to it.

45:19So even though like they're demonstrably better in every other regard, the person – now, the person who contributes more will be left off with so much more at the end. And obviously part of that is, well, yes, Captain, obviously, thanks, Einstein, but they're putting more money in. Yes, that is true. But if the goal here is like I want to, at a point in the future, I want to ensure that I've got as much money as I can possibly engineer through my efforts and my sacrifices, that's the sacrifice that you want to make more than anything else is that regular contribution and the consistency of it.

45:55It'll do wonders for you. Yeah, I like that a lot. Second part of his question, just because we're about super again, he said, also, it starts to create inequality for those born here and those who migrated here. How could this ever be distributed to new immigrants to catch up? Or do we redistribute funds from deceased people to those migrated here recently since not everyone reaches retirement age? He says, brackets, go unintended consequences. It's a really good question, Terry. And look, this is probably a public policy, broad public policy question rather than a pure finance question, right?

46:28I'll have a go at it. But it's really a question of, you know, what do we want for and from migrants? And that's kind of a bigger question than just finance. A couple of things. You could provide effectively a fallback pension for immigrants. You could require most slash all of them to have an amount of money they bring to the country to effectively catch up to what that looks like. you could provide as you say for those who die that the the pool of of invested cash it well it depends if you do it in individual people's names you got to do something with the cash they don't need exactly if someone if someone dies early um or even reaches retirement age but but dies before that money is is is effectively used you could absolutely redistribute that money um honestly it's a really really difficult social question a difficult political question because you can imagine the headlines already that an immigrant who arrives here at 64 uh gets a million on the 65th birthday.

47:23So there are some very real - Oh, there will be some applications. Right? And some very real electoral responses. You imagine the kind of the shock jock feedback of, you know, Johnny Turk arrives here. I'm using that deliberately as someone who may not be white because that tends to be where shock jockery tends to find its place. Arrives at 64 and gets$1 million at 65. I've saved. I've paid my taxes. He just turns up and gets the money. That's not unreasonable. Right. Totally. I mean, I know that they would - But I think we really do get to decide who comes into our little club, right? And it's not to be elitist or anything like that.

48:01It's sort of saying, you know, we're building the country. You know what? Send us your smartest, hardest working people and we get to change it. The one exception to the rule is the humanitarian angle and the refugee angle, right? Because there is an argument. Gosh, we're going to get some letters. there is an argument to be made that that you know there as a global citizen we have a responsibility etc etc etc and and so that i definitely would carve that out and again you can debate all day long as to what level that needs to be at but outside of that humanitarian angle that refugee angle i would just basically say you know you you don't get it you're too bad if you decide to come here at 50 by all means sort of come if you but but but that's your choice right like and and and if you got to think through the counterfactual as well let's imagine what that would look like if every person who arrived got a million dollars and as many people as they wanted would come i mean we'd we'd bankrupt ourselves within three years but we would be it just correct we would we would we would ruin it for ourselves and it's not to be selfish but there is a degree of uh sense of self-preservation that needs you know a practical um hard-headedness hard-headedness to all of this kind of stuff that you can be so kind that actually you just end up in trying to reduce misery you increase misery which is what makes it so diabolically hard tell you one thing i would do and just we would probably find there are other things we could do more indirectly if we wanted if people who get particularly worried about refugees and and those kinds of things this is like well generally speaking most people don't want to leave their homeland and their family and friends and they're only doing it because things get really real over there in a way that an australian could only you know distantly envisage and imagine because it's so remote from our very privileged and lucky experience i would sort of say things that and and global um policies that that that help mitigate and minimize uh suffering in other parts of the world you'll find that there's a lot less there's a lot less refugees because you're only going when you've got very other few options to sort of go in.

50:12Anyway, I've said too much. No, I think, let me live it down for the fun of it anyway. Here's the other thing, mate. So let me be correct. I'm pro-immigration, right? Let's do all this and get it out of the way because, you know, people throw things as they choose to. I think we mentioned, oh, I won't name him actually because I don't think, I'm 100 % sure it was him, and I don't want to drag him into the conversation. Someone mentioned to me on Twitter a while ago that when someone else comes to the country, it's like it's effectively you're issuing more shares. And not only are you getting a share of the future proceeds, we talk about GDP on Friday, you're getting a share of all the national assets.

50:52Once you become an Australian citizen, you get effectively your proportional share of the beaches and the parks and the resources in the ground and all of those publicly held assets. And so there is, to your point about we get to decide who comes, it's a very real conversation about you know we we as a society of how many 27 million of us now own all these things every time you let someone in the in the door you're saying yeah i'm gonna slightly reduce my share of it and give some to you and that's not unreasonable if we choose to do it but to your point about being very very deliberate about how many who when how much these things i mean these things really matter and we should be very very very thoughtful about it and we may still decide that we actually want we absolutely want to for all the right reasons and And as you said, the quality of the people and all that sort of stuff they bring.

51:35I mean, absolutely. If you talk about takeovers and mergers, right? If we're going to merge with another company and use shares of the merger and I get more value that I'm giving up, you better want to do that. That's great. That's a fantastic result. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to bring in a brain surgeon. Right. Okay. We've got to share the parks and everything and the resources, et cetera. But they're contributing. It's non – you know, the investment banker would say it's an accretive acquisition. Right. Acquisition. Correct. But the flip side, and I want to leave the refugees aside because we have a moral responsibility, as you said, mate, which trumps that in my view, and I think probably yours too.

52:06But if we're to bring in someone who, and let's be really, for the fun of it, we're way down a rabbit hole now. You bring in a 66-year-old who goes straight onto, and they don't care, Australian welfare, because there's rules and blah, blah, blah. But just let me simplify it. Australian welfare doesn't add productively, just takes from welfare and Medicare, and has a proportional share of services and other things, then that's probably not something that's going to add necessarily. Now, we may want to, we may choose to, but there are very, very different outcomes based on who we let in. And I've got to say to your point, there is an ugly side to the point I'm going to make, and I want to be very clear that that's not the side I'm taking.

52:46But the reality is that Australia is our property, our asset. Unless you believe in entirely open borders, then by definition you say, okay, we think there is a reason and a rationale to say we want to think about who, how many come to the country because we're divvying up what we already have. And that's a very, very reasonable thing to do. I mean, otherwise you say, thread on the borders, anyone who rocks on a boat can come in. I mean, you can take that view. It's not my view, but you can. As soon as you don't though, you say, I'm explicitly saying there should be some calculus here. And it behoves us as a country to actually use that calculus sensibly.

53:20Well, use it as your house as an example. Yeah. There's plenty of people living rough on the streets now. Right. How many are on your couch? It should be. And either it's as many as you want to come in or you say, I want to choose. Once you do that, you know, it's uncomfortable for some people, right? Because it's – and honestly, mate, this is the one where I really – I think we should be reasonably equitable in most things. I feel very uncomfortable but also very certain in saying the national border is where that stops for me. Other people disagree and they're entitled to it. This is one of those ones where I'll put myself up and say, I think we have a sphere of influence, sphere of responsibility.

53:56To me, you've got to draw that line somewhere. Is it the family? Is it the street? Is it the suburb? Is it the district, state, country, world? I think we have some moral responsibility for the rest of the world. But I think it's also true that we can say our first interest is Australia and Australians. And I'm okay with that. It's uncomfortable because I am saying I want to keep some wealth here and not give it to the poor bastard who's starving in choose your country. But that's what we do every day. We don't always acknowledge it. We don't always admit it. We can't do it. Even if you said we're just going to give everything away, there's 8 billion people and at least two-thirds of them are not anywhere near our standard of living.

54:37It's a mathematical, it just doesn't work. So you're forced into that uncomfortable because you do, right? He's like, I don't want anyone to suffer. I'm like, come here. We have plenty of land and space. It's just like we can all be better. Actually, we can't because things get sliced up too much. But, you know, let's bring it back to the investment analogy here. You know, we have a really strong moat, and I'm not talking about the fact that we're surrounded by sea. It's a bloody big moat, exactly. Gert by sea. We invented the moat, baby. We've got – and look, as far as geographical moats go, it's hard to beat Australia.

55:17But we've got an incredible competitive advantage in a relatively stable legal and political system, great abundance of resources. Guess what? People want to come here. Why wouldn't you, right? It's in the Vana. There's so many other places in the world that just don't enjoy the luxuries that we do. And what that means is that whenever we sort of say, hey, we've got room, we can be picky. And think about this. And this is why I say it because it's not a racial thing or anything like that. It's like we can literally pick and choose the best and the brightest people from around the world. And we should.

56:00Why would you not? And why wouldn't you? Like bring it on. Let's grow, baby. and we become an intellectual, productive powerhouse. Why is the US the top of the pops on the global stage? It's because that's what they did. What does it say on the Statue of Liberty? Basically, they worded it much nicer. It changed very quickly thereafter, but yes, at one point. Yeah, but it's like - You're hungry, you're tired, you're poor, from something like that. People from Europe predominantly initially and then everywhere else afterwards was just sort of like, I will get a better life there. And if I've got the means and capacity to go over there and claim my stake, my part of the American dream.

56:44And you look at the most successful people in America, often immigrants, right? And they have created such incredible wealth for that country. It's kind of because they had brand America. They had the constitution. They had all these kinds of things. And without that, yeah, they're very much blessed in terms of their natural resources, et cetera. It's not just a consequence of that. But it just seems like you've got to flex that when you've got it. Because not many places around the world can boast those kinds of things. And when you can, use it to your great advantage. And let's make lots of accretive acquisitions.

57:22I would pay people to come. Yeah. If you came to it. It's like, well, you want to go to America? Well, actually, you're a leading neuroscientist slash electrical engineer slash whatever. I don't know. I'm making sure. I'm not the guy to answer these questions. But you want to go to the US or you want to come here? I'll tell you. I'll give you 10 grand and turn up here. Come up here and see if you like it. What an investment. Right? What an investment. Exactly. Think of the payback there. And I wouldn't even necessarily go to the high-end jobs. It's like you're someone who's caring and wants to be a nurse.

57:51You want to look after people in an old folks? Guess what? we're desperately in need of those people. We're desperately in need of trades people. And you want the best quality one too, right? Like we're basically in need of nurses. But if you could actually choose the best nurses, we'll take anyone right now because they're short of them. But if you could actually turn around and say, actually, we need 1 ,000 nurses, how do I get 10 ,000 people to apply? How do I make sure I get the cream of the crop? Not just the first 1 ,000 that come in the door, but I'm going to say, you know what? I need this many of this job.

58:18People would be up in arms because the incentive might be like, come to Australia. you have to commit to working 10 years in this industry, whatever. We'll give you a house or whatever it happens to be. That's outrageous. But again, it's too myopic. It's too short thinking. Just like an acquisition a company would make. Yes, money is going out the door. Yes, your shares might be being diluted. Yes, there might be an interest component to that. But if the investment results in an increase in value for everyone, that is an incredibly sensible thing to do. Anyway, we're not going to do it. So we're in la-la land again.

58:49But I'll tell you what, when you're running the place, There's going to be some changes around here. Absolutely, there would. It'd be a bit of pain. It'd be a bit of pain in the meantime, but it would come out the other side pretty well. Terry finishes off by saying, P.S., Bitcoin to the moon, but also go investment property, which probably does not use my opinion. He says, from a 38-year-old, not quite that young, but you still hate us nonetheless. Yes, Terry, I do. Terry. And he says, straw on. So there you go, mate. Good on you, Terry. Let's finish off with a question from Richard, mate, who says, dear Mr.

59:18Statler and Mr. Waldorf, did we work at which is which by the way i can't i don't think we did no no we should do that a few weeks back that was a few weeks ago now a listener asked you about arbitrage and it reminded me of the michael lewis book flash boys which explores the world of high frequency trading i think understanding high frequency trading is useful for us mia quotes retail and quote investors simply so we can understand the capability of other players in the market I'm going to say I don't think it's that useful, Richard, in the way you think, but that's okay. It's worth, it's interesting in an intellectual sense anyway.

59:51I, like your previous listener, he says, have often pondered trying to make money via arbitrage. But as I sat in front of my 10-year-old laptop with dodgy internet connection, I came to the realization that I may not have what it takes to beat the high-frequency traders who are paying millions of bucks to have their servers two inches to the right so the light in the fiber optic cable reaches their server a zillionth of a second before the competitors. You're bringing a knife to a gunfight at this point. The lesson for me, he says, was that we need to know the game we're all playing and the strengths and weaknesses of the other players.

1:00:23That is a great lesson. So well said. Isn't it? Knowing this, he says, just revert me back to appreciating what I have and they don't, being the ability to take a long-term investment view. And what they have and I don't, being someone nagging in my ear every two seconds, harassing me about meeting quarterly growth targets. Mate, you've absolutely nailed this one, Richard. Yep. I still find the technology behind high-frequency trading fascinating, but learning about it reiterated the importance to me of sticking to my long-term investment plan and not trying to be too clever for my own good. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on high-frequency trading, particularly on what value they bring to the market, if any.

1:01:02Full on. Richard from the New South Wales Central Coast. Beautiful part of the world, Richard. Glad you're listening from there. Thank you, mate. Yeah. Ram, what do you think of high-frequency trading? No, it doesn't bother me one way or the other.

1:01:17There is one thing that does actually really bother me on this, and maybe you can clarify the situation because I've not picked at it enough, but there's a really important, I think, fundamentally important principle that the ASX operates by, which is called price and time priority with orders. So what it means is that if you want to get ahead, If I'm, we're all wanting to buy a particular stock and I'm, we're all, we have to all line up in a queue and the queue is ordered in a way that the person who wants to pay the most goes to the top. I want to pay a dollar and you don't pay a dollar 10, you get to go, you've outbid me.

1:01:50It's like an auction, right? Now, if you want to bid a dollar 10 and I want to bid a dollar 10, well, whoever gets there first, that's the time part of it. That seems really fair as well. I'll pay a dollar 10. Yeah, me too. Well, I bid first, get, get, get in line. Right. And that's how things get ordered. But there are some circumstances, as I believe it, with some of the funny buggery stuff that goes on with HFT is where you can intercept certain signals and jump the queue effectively with some of the trades that you're doing. Is that true to your understanding, Scott? Because I'm not sure if it is.

1:02:25Oh, it's dodgy as hell. You can't do it in Australia, but in the US you can absolutely pay to see the order flow. So you can't do it in Australia though? No, you can't do it. I am 99.836 % sure you can't do it in Australia. I've not heard of it being done in Australia, so I'd be really surprised if you could. Yeah, so that for me is where, like, if they're adhering to that, so it's like, well, look, we might be super fast, but we're not going to be able to jump the queue in any way, unless by bidding higher, then fill your boots, knock yourself out, right? The reality is, like, you might actually add a bit more liquidity for me in the grand scheme of things.

1:03:03Yeah, you might move prices around. But as I've often said, if I buy at$1.03, at$0.98, at$1.10, five or 10 years later, it's either at$0.50 or it's at$5. I don't care. It's like my investment success does not rest on that degree of fidelity and accuracy in my initial starting price. So it's kind of abstract to me and I don't really care. And I've never really looked at it deeply, Richard, for the same reason that you did because you come to the realization it's like, I just can't compete. I can't compete. And here's the other thing. Those that do play that game are always in a perpetual arms race.

1:03:40So let's say you find an edge, right? And you start exploiting it. Well, someone will notice it and then they'll start exploiting it. You've got to find another edge or you've got to get a slightly faster system or just it kind of, it only worked. Anything that worked, again, I've not done it, but my understanding is anything that works in that game will only work for a limited time. Correct. And so after you've found it, after you've exploited it and maybe you made a million dollars, well done to you. Now you got to do it again. And again, and again. And it tends, I just think life's too short.

1:04:10It's easier. The thing that always appealed to me with share market investing is that I get to buy a stake and a whole bunch of other people do all the work. That's kind of the really cool thing of being a shareholder. I just get to like, you know, whinge to the CEO once a year at the AGM. In the meantime, there's a lot of people getting up, you know, nine to five, Monday to Friday to make me money. And it's like when I, now I have to like actively work very hard, long, stressful hours for that rather than sitting on my bum. It's not interesting to me. Yeah. Judge me how you like. Sorry, man? Judge me how you like.

1:04:49No, no, I'm with you. I'm absolutely with you. I'm lazy. You're right.

1:04:55some of these games are zero-sum games. If you trade options, you win, they lose. They win, you lose. That has effectively a zero expected outcome, right? Someone wins$100, someone loses$100, net-net, there's nothing to be made. The long-term investor has the benefit that companies create value over time. So it's what they call a positive expected value. Even if I sell, you buy, you sell, I buy, the market overall goes up. As long as we all stay invested, net-net total, we will all make money. Now, if I buy crappy companies, Andrew buys great ones, he's going to make money and lose money. But overall, the market itself, investing itself in shares in particular, has a positive expected outcome.

1:05:31So over the long term, by the way, if you're trying to outbid the other guy for a cent here or a tenth of a cent there, that's not a positive expected outcome necessarily. Or if it is, there's only so many of those to go around to Ram's point. You crowd out the trade really fast. So I'm just saying what you've already said, Ram, which is just that idea of know what you're playing. Frankly, for the average person, there is more positive expected outcome in investing than trying to be a high-frequency trader because the opportunity is only there until it's closed. Ben Graham, Warren Buffett's mentor, actually used to buy this company called NetNets.

1:06:06Back in the old days before computers, speaking of arbitrage, he used to buy stuff. There was actually the company had more assets than the share price. So literally, you break the thing apart. You buy$100 for 50 bucks. I've got a$100 note to sell. How much do you want for it? Only 50 bucks. Well, I'll keep doing that as long as you want to sell me$100 notes. That worked great until eventually the market caught up and went, hang on, this is stupid. And Ben Graham's whole opportunity disappeared because that just didn't happen anymore. Now he moved on to other things, famously taught Warren Buffett, the rest is history.

1:06:34But yeah, you're right, Ram, when those opportunities, you know, either are taken up, they don't disappear for themselves, they're taken up by others until there's none left for you. And then only the guy with the fastest computer wins. So that's true. I'm going to go to the market value for a second. I'm going to annoy some people, Richard, who love... Some people know the price of everything and the value of nothing is one of the great quotes in history. There's people who will say, you know the great thing about high-frequency traders? They aid in price discovery. And price discovery is this mythical thing that's supposed to mean that somehow pricing is more efficient because there's lots of people on one side, lots of people on the other side.

1:07:11The price in the middle should be the most efficient price, right? Because there's buyers, if the price is too cheap, their sellers up the price is too expensive um and eventually there'll be price discovery there'll be efficiency in the market and that's a wonderful thing because then everything's efficient to which i say i don't care and you don't care and no one else cares except those people who think that's important it's an entirely to my view of way of thinking entirely a nice idea that's satisfying for its own simplicity not for its practicality or or actual um use in the market oh in just terms to rationalize the industry, really.

1:07:44Right. It's just like, oh, no, no, no, we're not just degenerate traders. We're adding value to everyone. It's like short sellers, which is a whole different conversation for a whole different reason. I justify that as well. It's also, I think, complete nonsense. Self-serving. At least for the social value. Value if you can do it well, but no social value. So here's the thing. High-frequency traders might actually mean there are fewer opportunities for people taking advantage of market efficiencies. But that's kind of got, as you see yourself, Richard, that's not the game we're playing, right?

1:08:18I want to buy the$100,$50. That's all I'm looking for. I don't care whether the last trade was a tenth of a percent higher than it otherwise would have been and the market is a tenth of a percent more efficient than it otherwise might have been. Why do I care? I truly don't care because we're not in the market. Ram talks about the property market all the time in the same way. We're not in the property market. If you own a house, you're not in the property market. You own a house. You're only in the market for as long as you're trying to buy or sell. Now, if I buy Woolies shares for$30, let's say they're$30, I know what they are.

1:08:48It's called$30. If they're worth$30, I buy them for$30. If I think they're not worth$30, I sell them at$30. Now, whether the price could be$30 and one and a half cents if the market was more efficient, who cares? What does it do to my returns? Absolutely nothing. There's nothing gained for investors by having a, quote, more efficient market. It just doesn't exist. Theoretically, sure. Some academics written a wonderful paper about how efficiency is good and it narrows the spreads and all that kind of rubbish. I mean, it's true. It's just not very useful. Just something is true. The Higgs boson particle exists.

1:09:25And I'm sure for a lot of people, that's really useful. That's where you're working. For me, do I care that it's been identified? No, not really. I'm sure it's useful again in physics. That's wonderful. For me, in my investing, does it matter? No. Do I care that someone's making the market more efficient? No. Let's go back to 1980. I haven't done the numbers. I can't be bothered. I probably never will. The computerized trading since then has just blown up volumes in the market, probably more than a hundredfold, I would suspect. Ram, would you agree that's probably - Oh yeah, easily. Yeah, definitely.

1:09:55Yeah. So let's go back to 1980 when there were, by definition then, one one hundredth. So 1 % of the trades placed, right? Not only no high-frequency traders, no discount brokers, no online access, no clicking, probably not even, I mean, you call your broker, pay 150 bucks, he'd buy you 14 shares of BHP and you'd go home, right? That, the brokerage was terrible, but the market, was it less efficient? Probably. Has BHP over the last 44 years, is the returns from that company different because the market was less or more efficient? Of course not. Was Warren Buffett less successful in 1980 as an investor because the market was less efficient?

1:10:29Of course not. I just, I understand the thought. I have some, if you're kind of a bit theoretically bent, you kind of have, you like simplicity, right? We like, you know, mathematicians are about beautiful equations because they're beautiful for their own sake. And sure, yeah, that's absolutely true. I appreciate the beauty of it. Doesn't mean necessarily, just something is simpler or more efficient or there's price discovery or whatever they say, doesn't mean it creates any value for anybody else. And it just truly doesn't. You know, we're talking about fractions of a percent. That's where the money is from.

1:11:03That's why they do it. Is that going to change my investing results, your investing results, and your investing results? Absolutely not. Do I care that they're there? No. Do I think buying order flow is a distortion? Absolutely. We talk about markets all the time, right? Yes. Now, the absolute libertarian would say, hey, if someone wants to pay for that information, they should be able to have it. It's a free market. If they're paying for it, they should be able to pay for it. They should be able to buy the information because it's available. Why wouldn't you sell it to them? And the answer is because it distorts the market.

1:11:30And that's where regulators matter for competition, for example. That's, you know, should you be allowed to... By the way, buying order flow means I place an order. Between me placing the order and it being executed, someone else gets to find that I want to pay 30 bucks for Woolies. And they say, oh, got him, beauty. I was going to sell Woolies at 29. Sorry, back on the wrong example. I want to sell Woolies at 30. Someone says, oh, beauty, I know that now. Great. Well, it's good that Scott wants to sell Woolies at 30. I'm going to offer him 30 bucks. I would offer him 31, but I know He only wants$30 for it, so I'll offer him$30.

1:12:00That's where the insidiousness of the order flies, like being in an auction and getting advance notes of what I'm going to bid so you can bid, lower and buy it, then sell it to me for the higher price. It is a massive distortion. It is an absolute disgrace. That the US regulators don't care is just mind-blowing to me. If you believe in competition, if you believe in markets, the fundamental reality of markets is they should be occupied and orchestrated in a way that is fair to all participants. There is nothing fair about getting effectively a look inside the envelope before the Oscar winner is announced.

1:12:31It's just ridiculous. Yep, yep. And that's why I was careful to use the term liquidity before. Yes. In terms of it doesn't help the price in any way, but it'd be more efficient. But it is the one potential positive is liquidity. In other words, when I want to buy or sell, there's more units available for that, which is a good thing, I would argue. Because, you know, now they might be playing a different game. They might be doing something that's really dumb, but I don't care. There's more. I want to buy the company and there's more people selling. If you get the price you want for the company, you want to buy them.

1:13:05If you don't, you don't. Like there's no need for, even the liquidity thing, man. I'm still not even sure. I want to buy Woolies at 30. No one wants to sell for me at 30. Okay, I'll wait till tomorrow. I mean, I just, I find the implied, if you want to buy a house and the house isn't for sale, you just don't buy it. I mean, no one makes every house on the street available

1:13:25for it doesn't again if the stock market is literally a place where buyers and sellers there's no sellers no buyers you just come back tomorrow and say there's a seller i've just i know i hear what you're saying i just there there is i've i've come to recognize the value of liquidity the older i've got like the if you're trying to if you own a a corner shop and you're trying to sell that yep i mean it's hard and even if you do you're going to get a you might get like four times pre-tax profit the usual multiple for a private business and the exact same business of the exact same economics in the exact same outlook would typically go for like three or four times that on the public markets what's the difference liquidity is the difference it's like well why would that matter why would it matter that much And I think, well, whether you agree or not, the market clearly thinks it's worth more.

1:14:21And I think there is genuine utility in the liquidity because what it does is it means that I can – I want to get rid of some – I don't know. I want to renovate my bathroom. I don't have any money. I'll sell, you know, some of my Woolley shares. Click, click, click, click. Done. Is that valuable to me? Hell, yeah, that's valuable to me. I mean, I own the local mechanic in my suburb and I want to do that. Impossible. Impossible. So does it rationally make sense that the asset with more liquidity is seen as more valuable? Yeah. Oh, that's true. I completely agree with that. Yeah. The same as gold.

1:14:56Gold's a great example. You know, people who got their block of gold under the backyard or whatever. I thought this guy had a Bitcoin team. Just get rid of it. No, I'm not honestly not going there. Although. But it was like, sell it. Yeah. Go on. Sell it. But, oh, no, even a bigger challenge, sell 10 % of that. Like, well, I guess I could melt it down and separate it and then go to some dodgy operator in a Westfield and get ridiculous. Talk about arbitrage, right? Those guys are playing arbitrage, right? But even then they're providing a service because, like, well, I mean, they're connecting you to far deeper, more liquid markets.

1:15:33And, again, it's just, I think. And they're taking the risk on it being able to sell it to those larger markets in bigger quantities and that kind of stuff, yeah. You know, so it's something you can shake your fist at and then you think, well, actually, no. It just comes back to liquidity being valuable because liquidity is something, it's an indirect property of the asset which increases its utility, its convertibility. And for that reason, it's good. And for that reason, I'll give the tiniest, tiniest little bit of credit for HFTs, the high frequency traders or the short sellers. But yeah, that's kind of where they're – to me, and it's all about me, that's where their benefit begins.

1:16:13Do you reckon they give genuine increased liquidity? I mean, in terms of numbers of shares, sure, but they're not going to give you liquidity. There's a little microcap you want to sell. They're not there buying it off you. And Woolie's got enough shares to be bought. You can probably sell them anyway. I hear what you're saying. I think, again, theoretically, you're 100 % right. And I agree with you. Liquidity is good, right? That's why we own shares rather than pieces of actual business. Even part of the mechanic, if you owned one share in 100 of the mechanic locally, you still got to try and advertise the fact the mechanic's good, share them in the books, see if they want to name a price.

1:16:47Even if you have a share of that, which is not the mechanic itself, it's just part of it. It's still hard to sell. So I'm 100 % with you on liquidity broadly. The fact that HFT provides liquidity that wouldn't otherwise be there, I mean, they don't want to be in that trade, right? They don't want to be in the trade where there's no one on the other side of it because they've got to try and flick it. That's how they make their cash. I'm just not entirely sure they create enough additional liquidity. Again, I'm not kidding. I wouldn't take it rid of them. It's useless. I have no problem with it.

1:17:12I mean, Waterflow, again, I have a problem with. But if you want to HFT, the ASX, knock yourself out. I don't really care. But I'm not even sure they give the benefit that, you know, over and above what's already there. If there's no liquidity currently, they're not there because they don't want to be there. They want to buy and sell quickly. There's already enough liquidity that don't need to be there. I'm not sure how much advantage they give, but I could be just too jaundiced and wrong. Before we wrap it up, I just want to make, now that we're on the topic, I want to make another, so I think hopefully we've done a good job of explaining the value of liquidity.

1:17:43Yes. Be aware that liquidity is a double-edged sword because the more liquid something is, the easier it is to transact, the more volatile it is. That's a really good point. Thank you. Yeah, it's kind of like a rule of nature. That's true. Something is either very illiquid and it's not very volatile. And of course, right? Because the only time you really know the price of something is when you put it onto the market and test it. Up until that point, it's the opinion of whoever decides to appraise it. When I went through this property transaction, I'm so naive in so many ways. It's like a random dude comes out and sucks his thumb and sticks it in the air and goes, it is worth this much.

1:18:23I'm like, is it though? That's your opinion, dude. Let's put it to the market. and kind of, and like, I would argue you're wrong because I was in the market and I paid what the seller demanded. And I say, the value is the value is the value, right? If that's the last trade, the last trade was yesterday. There's a pretty good chance. Yeah, exactly. Frankly, your opinion is squat until you actually pony up the dough and participate in the market, right? And the reason I say this is that

1:18:59again volatility is not a risk but if you want the better returns if you want the ease of transaction if you want the ability at the click of a button to sell 0.1 percent of your holding because you want to do that and then buy it back the next day that's all great things but there is a quote-unquote cost to that which is volatility and and if whatever you do to dampen volatility will probably dampen the liquidity in some way. So it's kind of like it is an unalterable kind of thing. So lean into it. But liquidity is great, is what I'm saying. And I say that even knowing that it means excessive volatility for the things that I hold.

1:19:40But accept both sides of the deal. It is just shares in general, mate, right? Like people say, I was going to be able to buy one share of Woolies. That's awesome. Oh, the share price went down. The next day, share price is down. Oh, they're freaking out about the share price being down. You've got to take – it's almost – It's the price of everything and the value of nothing kind of situation. Well, I was going to say, I don't want to put blocks in people's way, and I'm the grand poobah of investing or shares. But if we're doing people who are new investors a favor, you'd almost have some sort of test or exam or questionnaire or something or just kind of like – again, I'm not saying they should have to, but if you think about on their behalf, someone really should be saying, dude, I get what you're about to do.

1:20:21Can I just make sure you really know so you don't screw this up? Because if you're going to freak out when the share price falls, maybe don't do it or maybe watch for a bit longer. Like it's almost – there's some part of me wants to save people for themselves a little bit. I want them all to invest. Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to dissuade anyone from investing. But there is just that element of, all right, so I've seen this movie before. Of the 10 of you who start today, one's going to give up tomorrow. Two are going to try and day trade. It's that kind of like we know how this works. You always want to get in front of people and say, look, I get what you're about to do.

1:20:50just before you do can i just make sure you really understand this thing it's um i don't know i'm probably a i'm a stump preacher from way back if i was born in the 1800s i'd be i'd be running around the country with a bible on my hand but it's kind of that just that that kind of preachy kind of you know are you really sure you know what you're getting into here i want you to do it but before you do please make your peace with these things i know i i hear what you're saying i think that the my my the cynic inside me goes yeah but everyone just signs it because oh totally i know what i have i just look i just want to buy this yeah okay but before you do just yeah yeah what you'd be read the terms just click i agree okay i agree yeah sign sign sign sign i just want to buy it oh it's really unfair oh yeah but you signed that yeah but i didn't you know it it's good in theory but like no one's no one's taken a sacred blood oath here like they just you're right you're right just let me buy and then all you then all you do is you put all the blooming rent-seeking middlemen in between who have to administer it and run it and skim the top off the top it's just anyway so all right fair enough fair enough i give up uh mate this has been a fun conversation as they always are for those three listeners who've kept stay with us till the end including our long-suffering audio engineer link who has to listen to all this rubbish and then edit it thank you uh for spending some time with us if you want to have your question answered or your comment read hit us up info at fool.com.au by the way ram quick aside i have people who hit me over twitter and say hey i don't know what the email address is to what email address do i write in for the mailbag, I'm like, you haven't listened to the end, have you?

1:22:15Because it is at the end of the time and I probably shouldn't. But I can always tell the ones who haven't made it to the end because they just want their question answered. And if they haven't listened this far, then I'm probably not going to hear it. Info at fool.com.au at TMF Scott P on Twitter and Insta and threads, by the way. Or at Scott Phillips Money on Facebook. You can get Rami exclusively on Twitter at Sage underscore Simeon at Strawman Invest. Until next Friday, have a wonderful week in Fool on. Cheers. The Motley Fool and people appearing in this program may have positions in the companies mentioned.

1:22:47General advice only. Please speak to your financial professional to understand how it may pertain to your situation. Subscribe to the free newsletter at fool.com.au forward slash listener. The Motley Fool operates under financial services license 400691.