Mailbag: incl. The stories we tell ourselves. June 18, 2023

0:00A listener production. Cheers. Marker. The S &P. The ISX. Stops. This is the Motley Fool Money Mailbag. Welcome to Motley Fool Money, our very special Sunday mailbag edition. Would it even be a Sunday if there wasn't a Motley Fool Mailbag? I don't know. Andrew Page from strawman.com. Would it or would not be Sunday if there wasn't a Motley Fool Money special mailbag edition? Well, clearly it wouldn't be the same. Wouldn't be the same, would it? Wouldn't. Peaches without cream. A guy without a girl. what do you got you got a perfect match enough of that uh for those who don't remember greg evans just let it go over your head don't try it if you do remember greg evans then um yeah our compatibility score is 100 that's all i'm saying that's all i'm saying that was that was dexter not greg evans who gave the compatibility score correct with a printout all that kind of stuff uh do you reckon they's made that up yes okay yes you don't even try to make a number up and sort of go there's like this stuff matches i i whatever formula was employed do you remember in school where you'd like the name of the girl that you'd like you'd get oh yeah and you describe numbers to it and you'd work out a percentage match that's probably about number of l's number of o's number of v's is that the one you did there's a there's a actually they're all forms of hashing which is a whole other conversation we won't get into but yes i do remember all of that and i do know that it wasn't look in in that regard and in dexter's regard i'm pretty sure it wasn't that scientific but you know what us humans love the the the uh the the luster of of of scientific uh even if it's pseudoscience we know we love something that feels like it's framed up with something it's you know at least based on some logical reasoning and the rest even when a lot of the times it's not i think if we're going to all religion mate we'd still invent something because we just we just like to be able to have causes and rationales and yep i mean the whole of karma right it's just this made up thing of like surely somehow there must be some sort of universal force that you know there's got to be some meaning to this stuff it's incredible the way humans i think i think we need it i don't i mean maybe it's cultural maybe it's bred into us but every culture that as far as i know invented some version of some sort of deity for that those purposes there's got to be something innately human about wanting to ascribe motive or justificational reason to it so i forget i forget the source of this but humanity was once described as or humans described as storytelling status seeking tool makers and i kind of think that really gets to the heart of what we are and just just why i say that is because the story part of it is we are that's what we do right we we we we all everything is really based on these narratives that we tell ourselves in these human institutions it's all kind of made up it's kind of really fundamentally important and real but it's sometimes worth remembering that we are we are just slightly cleverer apes that have figured out how to tell other people's stories and it's just it's at the crux of what we do and and a good a good scientific story i think is even more appealing these days i think the trouble with it is often that we start with false premises so you can have brilliant science or reasoning but if the axioms themselves are wrong and then you're just going to get you garbage in garbage out and we're kind of we're very self um not self-defeating self-delusional in that way too we don't even we're not even built to really question the premise of the basis of those stories the false promises we start from as you say you know it's why marketing is so incredibly seductive because we kind of just you know i don't know i don't know why i know i have no evolutionary biology background clearly as this as well truly know by now but uh that idea of just someone says well yeah the way we frame a question or a conversation the way you frame a debate um i don't want to get into it right now but think about the voice debate right now right there's kind of this framing from both sides of if you believe this then that yeah it's completely separate from the question being asked really neither side is genuinely saying this is the question we need to answer one side is saying it's divisive the other side is saying if you care about the issue you should vote for it neither is really saying this is the right solution for the right identified problem it's it's you know the messaging the language the marketing is all about that idea if you can own the question if you can if you can own the framing yes you can kind of you know control not control the outcome but deeply deeply influence it yeah i you it's it's we should more often reject the premise of the question exactly as julia gillard said yeah or scott morrison don't say it's julia i said it was that once and a whole lot of people attacking me so if it was scott morrison blame whoever said it it was someone said you know you cynically of course but yeah yeah no that's i mean that's marketing 101 right it just it just is um take those things i'm i'm reading it listening to actually on audiobook a great book at the moment called willpower i don't know if you've had a chance to no i haven't heard of it or read uh darius one of the guys that works with us uh suggested this one was talking to the team about it a couple of weeks ago and i downloaded it and have uh have made my way through a couple of chapters of it and just the you know we all know for example if you're getting surgery statistically you want a surgery in the morning rather than the evening because the doctor makes mistakes right um there's also just simple things like the amount of time since you ate and your ability to exercise willpower or judgment like just like for all for all of the things that we think we're clever enough to do we put man on the moon nuclear weapons the whole box and dice if we haven't eaten we're just irrational monkeys as you say like it literally is that very simple and it is both illuminating and stunning a quick shout out by the way uh i say uh somewhat sarcastically to those who still believe that humans are entirely rational control everything that we do every time every now and then i talk about addiction on on twitter for example and i get a small cohort of people and g'day if you're listening who then tell me it's not a real thing or they should just control themselves and and you know there's an element of self-control in all this stuff including willpower but the the the the fiction that we are just uber rational beings that have absolute conscious control of our lives is just the most amazing speaking of self-delusion it's just the most amazing self-delusion i think is probably out there the idea that i can somehow by sheer force of will and intellect be better than my evolutionary and biological reality it's just i it blows my mind that that you know it's about science people won't listen to the real science of that stuff it's it's it's scary i think it's like someone made the point recently that marketers are far better economists than economists are 100 percent 100 percent and because and if you're in marketing you've got to ship a good right you've got to try and spur demand like you are very much tested in the real world real market and if you're not good at it it doesn't work and things that are good continue to be used and refined because it's tested right objectively yes yes whereas within the you know the lecture halls of of the universities or whatever, there's all kinds of really great sort of theories and narratives that might be very complex in their construction and everything, but they're not often.

6:59Well, you can't really do very clean experiments in this. So it's sort of, yeah, it's telling. And I think the economics profession is sort of slowly coming over. They say that science progresses one funeral at a time and you kind of need the old generation to die out, right? Yes, yes. But I am glad to see sort of economics and our sort of area sort of being more awake to the reality of the irrationalities of human beings and how important it is. Richard Thaler, the Nobel Prize winning economist or the Nobel, what is it, these days, there's something award in memory of Alfred Nobel. Not an official Nobel Prize, before someone can wreak me on it.

7:41Won the award and was asked something similar about science progressing on funeral at a time. saying you know how do you how do you deal with you know the classical economic he's a behavioral economist so you know how do you deal with the classical economist he said don't bother i just teach the kids yeah that's the same thing i'm not i'm not changing anybody's mind i'm just getting to the kids who haven't been poisoned by you know the older beliefs and just saying he's the reality kids you need to know this stuff and it's it's exactly that same thing and it's so incredibly important um i you're right it's changing so you gotta be careful um generalizing too much but economics is largely applied maths marketing is applied psychology and i i would i would back applied psychology every single day and twice on Sundays because that's the reality of how humans actually behave rather than how we wish they would behave if we could control for everything else because you can't yes or by definition you know but speaking of which some of us just back to willpower the book some of the some of the experiments are just fascinating they did on on people just to understand their ways of making decisions and simple things like you know the more willpower you'd had to exert earlier the less ability you had to exert willpower later which again kind of this is scientifically proven and we kind of some people will sit here thinking well of course that's true other people won't believe it at all but you know if you said to people look it can't someone use willpower do this thing and then after that you say now do this thing your ability to do the second thing is just stupidly diminished by the exercise of initial willpower early on yeah it fast just fascinating fascinating book well to bring this to bring this to back to investing i'll go on to bring it to investing um i think what you podcast yeah a long way um the the what you do is you you you recognize that it's there and you also recognize that you're not going to act differently because yeah that's also true it is but you can set the condition so you mentioned before me and my wife have a rule we don't usually stick to it but it's like never go to the supermarket hungry yeah because you're going to come back with so much junk right because i'm just i'm hungry oh i'll pack it everything looks good right and you and And like once it's in your home, you're going to eat the damn thing.

9:43So I think for investing, it's the same kind of thing where you can just know that I'm just – I'm not going to be – certain situations are not going to be conducive to me making objective decisions. I mean, I'm never – objectivity is an ideal that we can strive towards and never get there. But I can choose to make an important investment decision during market hours and the market is plummeting and something really scary is sort of happening. or I can try and say to myself, listen, I at least have to do this outside of market hours, which I try and do, frankly. I don't always do it because of circumstances, but I like to sort of, if there's an investment I'm thinking of, I try and, and sometimes you really find something you get quite excited about early on.

10:27I really try and force myself that even if I'm really like, at least wait a week, think about it over the weekend. If you're still set on it, okay, maybe do something on Monday. Now that doesn't mean I make perfect decisions, far from it. But I know I'm at least, I'm less likely to fall into some of those behavioral traps if I'm just going to be shooting from the hip every time a bit of, you know, AFR writes a story or a company releases an announcement. Yep. Also, by the way, some of the early findings of the book, if we make any decision, have breakfast or have lunch, eat something and then consider it.

10:57Your brain literally, it's just physically doesn't operate the same way without enough glucose in the system. I remember that actually going all the way back to the HSC, which was many, many years ago. we're not even called the hsc anymore isn't it's like tr or whatever i don't know yeah um they they they were one of the big tips was you know have a banana before your exam yeah yeah and it kind of feel it feel i don't know about you but it felt to me like yeah yeah whatever whatever it's kind of like no it is actually a thing hey um let's get on some questions from probably a good idea something different uh hi scram says rob uh i love listening to your pod machine he says people like the pod machine andrew you give me a lot of i'm a man of the people uh My first question is, where does the nickname Ram come from?

11:44You coined it, so you should probably explain it. I did. I love a nickname. And of course, if your surname is Page, there's a lot of things you can be, but Rampage has to be one of them. And so Andrew Rampage is what came about. I should say, by the way, how long since you've been at The Motley Fool? Six, seven years, maybe? So there are at least two people that I work with who still refer to you as Ram. Either because I listen to the podcast or just remember you from working with you in the past. So they stuck, which is always fun. Mate, so his second question is, what exactly is it that the Motley Fool does?

12:22I see what you did there, Rob. Largely, the Motley Fool asks what strawman.com is, generally speaking. When I'm not doing that, though, the business gives financial advice in the form of a little bit of education, a little bit of commentary, but mostly ASX and US-based stock recommendations. Got a range of services. I'm sure you know, and I'm sure you do it just to ask me the question. But given you asked, again, as I've said before, I get in trouble with the boss if I didn't at least make the effort to mention that that's what we do. You can join us at fool.com.au. But I also do have to ask you what strawman.com is.

13:00I don't know. Because that would be unfair. Yeah, well, I'm a private online investment club is what we are. Yeah, strawman.com. Check it out. Fantastic. Love it. Hey, my third and final question, says Rob, is about holding cash slash waiting for opportunities. That is, I understand that, quote, time in the market is more important than timing the market, end quote. However, it's always however, I find myself currently holding about one quarter of my portfolio in cash up until recently i had been fully invested but i recently made the change as i'm thinking it may be possible that we have a correction sometime soon another reason i sold some shares and have cash is that i found myself continuously searching for new ideas rather than concentrating on my best ideas i'd love to hear your in-depth views on when to hold them versus when to fold them cheers rob rob extra points for the kenny rogers reference i have i have used that in my writing before as well as by the way you know do you know the steve miller band song the joker yes some people call me the space cowboy some people call me the classic some people call me maurice i actually did open an email once with those words which uh as as uh my former colleague chris hill in the u.s used to like to say you won't hear that on bloomberg and uh no you you You don't read that in most other investment advice publications.

14:24Mate, let's take the Kenny Rogers opportunity provided by Rob. I love the fact, frankly, that he sold some shares because he found himself consciously, continuing searching for new ideas rather than concentrating on my best ideas. I think what Rob's saying here is he felt he was over-diversified for the sake of it and kind of wanted to go back to the stuff he had highest conviction in, which I quite like. By the way, we have a podcast coming up in a few weeks' time on portfolio construction, Rob. So do check that one out when it publishes. We have pre-recorded it because we're out of order going on holidays soon.

14:58But we did do that. So have a level of that one. But mate, a quarter of the portfolio in cash, thinking it might be possible we have a correction sometime soon. Rob thinks that he knows that timing, time in the market is more important than timing the market. But here's where he finds himself. Is he on the right track? is he making a mistake does it matter what say you i mean i some of those bearish leanings resonate with me um podcast we recorded on friday probably illustrates that a little bit so i get it right i get it you made the point though on on friday's pod that it's kind of that's what everyone expects so it's not about what happens so if australia gets into a recession um it's kind of what i I think a reasonable percentage of the market expects.

15:50So it's more a question of, well, is it worse than we expect? Or does it last longer than we expect? So it's a slightly different question. You've got to remember markets are always sort of forward-looking. So it could be that we have the recession, but it actually is shorter than we expected or shallower than we expected. And the market rallies, right? And you were right. You said, I thought there was going to be a recession. I know I'm sort of embellishing on your sentiment here, But yes, there was a recession. Turns out that the market never really got much lower than it is today. Maybe it went sideways for eight months.

16:21Maybe it dipped down another 5 % or 10 % along the way. And then onwards and upwards from there. So you can be right and wrong at the same time. Right in your expectation. Wrong in terms of what was going to happen at the causal layer. But how the market reacted could be very wrong. And I have known many, many very smart investors who have had really, really cogent arguments as to why X, Y, and Z would happen and just never did. And they're not idiots, but it's just like, it's just, it's the nature of things. So I do think you have to have a reasonable degree of humility and just sort of saying, and really believing this in your core level that I can't do it.

17:00I can't do it, right? So if you have, and this is a very important point, if you have the capacity to remain invested over what might be considered a typical economic cycle. But we usually sort of say five years plus is a minimum. And that is part of your expectation. And the other part of the expectation is that, look, things go up and down, but they generally sort of go up over time. I think you can still have that worry, have that concern, have that expectation, and still completely rationally be fully invested, which is why the saying is time in the market, not timing the market. And you only have to miss – I forget the exact stat.

17:36There's various ways of cutting this, but lots of people have just said, take out the top three trading days of each year, and the annual return drops significantly. So you might have just been out of the mark for a little period of time and already behind everyone else. So it's tricky. If on the other hand, and this is true no matter your outlook, even if you're hyper bullish, if I reasonably expect that money because I want to put a deposit on a house or go on holidays or something in the next 6, 12, 24, even 36 months, you know, I'd be very hesitant as much as a lover of the investment of the share market that I am.

18:17I don't think I'd invest any, I keep a very high percentage in cash. So there's that contextual element to it. The second part of it, I have much more sympathy for and agree with, which is, so I think the ideal is, is wherever I can, I try and remain more or less fully invested. If however, you just don't have any good options, it's not about forecasting. It's just like saying, what's my current opportunity set? It's not very attractive. Well, cash isn't very attractive either, but there's not enough of conviction and upside as I see it. I might be wrong, but as I see it at this point in time, for me to take on that extra risk.

18:57And so I'll leave it in cash. I've got plenty of sympathy for that viewpoint. Because it's not trying to predict the future. It's just about saying, look, I'd like to stay fully invested. It just turns out that every company in the market is on a PE of 100 and a yield of 0.01 % on average. I just can't do it. I think that's perfectly rational. Yeah, I agree. Rob, we just finished tangenting. Is it possible to tangent when you start with that? Is that still a tangent or is that just a different introduction? I'm not entirely sure. But we just finished talking about behavioral psychology. I'm a simple man, mate.

19:37I reckon if I do things roughly right often enough, then I'll do pretty well. If I try and get too clever, A, I'll probably be wrong and B, if I'm right, whether it justifies the effort time it returns and everything else that goes into it, it's an open question. I would just look at the Vanguard index chart, mate, and say, at what point was it a bad idea to invest? Now, let's not say, you know, did shares drop the next day or the day after or three months later or a year later, or were there better times in hindsight to invest? The answers are always yes, because when you have the history in front of you, you know, we could have euthanized Hitler at birth and saved a lot of problems, but we didn't get there because you can't, so you don't.

20:10The reality is that, you know, you look at the index chart and go, do I want to bet against that or do I want to bet with that? You know, do I want to sail into the wind or do I want the wind behind me i have a very strong conviction there's no reason to believe that 120 plus years of history stops anytime soon maybe it does who knows but again if i'm if i'm setting the odds if i'm if i'm trying to find things to put in my favor the power of capitalism writ large for 120 years has been remarkable um is there a correction coming i don't know maybe tomorrow maybe next week maybe three months time there's definitely a correction coming right and just but when if the market's up 20 before it falls 10 then you know was it was it really worth waiting for you know jet now the longer you wait the closer the correction is but the longer you wait the more gains you've given up in the meantime so you kind of can try you can you can make yourself a whole lot of stuff so really really really simply i'm not smart enough i don't know who's smart enough to try and time markets so i don't i stay reasonably fully invested at ram's point unless i just don't get around to it or haven't got a better idea um i echo his point about you know by all means keep cash if you you know don't invest cash for the sake of it at rubbish um there is if you It's going to be a long time.

21:18You may find it worthwhile to look at an ETF that tracks the market, for example. If you can't find an individual idea, but you don't want to bet against the market by holding cash, there are many worse things to do than that. So be careful of short-term capital gains tax, of course. But other than that, at least you're making some money. If you pay short-term capital gains tax, it's because you made a short-term capital gain, which is better than cash in the bank. Don't ever not make an investment because you're worried about paying tax. That is the dumbest. I mean, it bears emphasizing because too often you hear people whinge about that.

21:47It's like, you know, well, there is one way to not pay any capital gains, right? And it's called losing money. So if that's what you want.

21:57Let's go to Robbo who says, hey, Scott and Ram, another fan of the pod machine. I'm telling you, Ram, it's two out of two. It's catching on. Love your work, guys. Thank you, Robbo. After listening to one of the latest episodes and hearing Scott talk about wanting to visit the Kimberley, I thought I'd touch base and just let you know to get in contact with me if you ever head up this way. Of course, the offer goes out to Ram as well. I've been a tour guide in the Kimberley. Oh, mate, are there better jobs than that? And I've travelled the area extensively in both the dry and the wet seasons. I now live in Kununurra permanently instead of on the road.

22:28If any of the full team or podcast team are looking to come in this way, I would love to give you some local insights, as I feel it'd be a great way to give back after listening to the wonderful advice and rants on some great topics. The Kimberley is definitely one of the best, most beautiful, and most amazing areas in Australia. and the world for that matter. And I'd love to share it and pass on my knowledge and stories that go with it. It really is one of the last true wilderness areas left in the world. That's kind regards from Robbo. Robbo, thank you, mate. That was a comment rather than a question, but I wanted to share it.

22:59It was very kind of you. And, mate, let us know what businesses you work for and we can give you a shout out on the pod. I don't know if I'll get to the Kimberley anytime soon, mate, but jeez, I'm keen. So if it's not soon, it's not going to be that far away. I'm desperate, desperate to get up there. So thank you, mate. I appreciate it. it feels like a um under exploited i'm gonna use that term carefully a resource from a tourism standpoint like we we get the amount of money that we make as a country through the great barrier reef which is just from an economic lens that's probably one reason to protect the damn thing but um yeah i i have not been there myself but i only hear amazing things and i think it's something that very few people travel to and it's just sort of like we often talk about comparative advantages for different countries well kimberley exists in one place you can only go to the amazon in one place okay i i might you know if i don't give me treasurer i want to be tourism minister for exactly that reason you think about the stuff that australia has i mean everyone's got the unique stuff right we're not we're not necessarily exceptional but everyone's got their own unique stuff but we've uniquely got our stuff right right and and the fact we're not using more of making more of that and trying more people to come i know we're you you know, in theory, trying our best.

24:13But like, we charge a departure tax to leave the country, right? Like, I know we need to raise some tax revenue, but geez, guys. Or, you know, customs. Hey, welcome to Australia. Stay in the customs line for three and a half hours while some silly security guards stare at you. Yes, we need border security, absolutely. But you know what? We could have four times as many customs style. People get through in 10 minutes and go, my first impression of Australia was a smiling customs agent, a short line, a very welcoming airport. How good is Australia? So I had a chance to make first impressions. what's the first impression when you arrive here standing in a line in the heat carrying your bags welcome to Australia anyway it drives me to none it's true of most international airports but yeah that's what I mean but imagine if Australia was different imagine if people were like you know what no other flight's long but when you get there you have such a great experience it's wonderful surprisingly great you try it you go and go oh man it was how good's that I don't know anyway the irony is of course if we got too good at it the Kimberley would just be full of rubbish and tourists and it was like all of a sudden I don't want to go there anymore Robbo's all of a sudden no no no Don't do it.

25:10Motley Fool Money. For more, subscribe to the free newsletter at fool.com.au forward slash listener. Mate, the next question is from Jack, but it's signed Cheers Jack's Friend. So let's unpack that a little bit. Hello, suave Scott and articulate Andrew. That's a pretty impressive buildup. Jack's obviously heard your desire to be flattered, It's always hard to detect sarcasm in the written way. Maybe that's it. Thank you so much, he says, for your no BS calculated and simply explained, or as simply as can be expected for such a complicated world, approach. It is quite the antidote to the finance industry in which I find myself.

25:57Oh, dear. I always look forward to the podcast machine. That's three out of three, Ram. Telling me there is 60, well, more like 90, minutes of investing wisdom for me to fill my brain with on the weekend. Anyway, here is the question. I'd love for you to explain to me the pros and cons of moving from a micro-investing platform, such as Raise or Perla or Vanguard personal investor, to, quotes, proper investing using a diversified broad-based ETF portfolio in one of the brokerage accounts. I have a, brackets, or quotes, friend who is trying to work this out at the moment. Obviously, you can't give personal advice, but I'm sure my friend would love to hear your perspective.

26:36I believe, says Jack, he is planning to do a lump sum transfer out of raise, of which he has invested in expensive and questionable, quote, ethical ETFs, close quotes, wake up to himself and invest in low cost, broad based ETFs in another broker. He's done a spreadsheet and shown over a 30-year timeframe how much fees really eat into returns, showing based on some assumptions, he'll end up significantly better off over 30 years after changing to a, quote, proper investing approach, assuming, for round numbers' sake, a 10 % average return with$1 ,000 being invested over this time. Accompanying this spreadsheet, he says, is thinking through a cost-benefit framework, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on if there's anything important he is missing.

27:22This is Jack's friend, of course. Pros of proper investing, he says. Brokerage fees are better, more flexibility, and chess sponsorship. In brackets, world's cheapest insurance. I'm sure I've heard that somewhere. Yeah, you may have. The cons of proper investing, he says. Brokerage fees, as above. Flexibility, the investment strategy not being followed, whereas micro-investing has an auto-investment feature. And the tax implications. He says, my friend would face CGT implications. I know he is finding it difficult to work out the value of the pros and cons, and would appreciate a nuanced view into how you would think about this.

27:56For example, he says, I know that having an auto-invest feature has meant he has probably invested more and been better at staying the course over the last four or so years, but this comes at a cost with the associated monthly fees. Even though the flexibility to be able to allocate to positions more tactically appeals to him because he feels he has developed a strong investing temperament, brackets started investing just before the COVID crash, this leaves potential for more emotional investing of which does not likely yield great results another complicating factor he says at some point my friend is going to probably start investing into individual shares at some point hopefully this is above and beyond this core etf approach but who knows where life will take him great work and i wish you all the best with your various enterprises go straw man and go the motley fool anyway enough from me signed by jack's friend i'm gonna assume jack your friend is uh she shares some very strong similarities with you jack is all i'm suggesting your friend's name is probably jack uh maybe even from the body of the same name as richie banneau might say and one of those great twelfth man uh again if you're too young you ignore the reference uh records mate some some really good questions from from jack's friend there i like the idea of the kind of you know simple set and forget auto brokerage things but the fees are pretty significant and the options are reasonably limited.

29:18Where do you come down on that kind of spectrum of do it for me and suck up the fees versus take my chances, maybe get it right, maybe get it wrong, save some cash? Look, if you can be reasonably confident in the fact that you can act disciplined in a disciplined manner, it's no contest. The second option is better, right? The only advantage of those platforms to my mind is, And these are very real advantages. I'm not trying to downplay them, but the only advantages are that I can transact with very small amounts and it automates it. And so if you're someone who feels as though, well, look, I'm just going to put money aside each paycheck and will commit to invest it each and every month, then it's just so easy.

30:03And it gives you all that other optionality you want. I understand the tax is always an issue, but you'll be rebasing it for your future self at least. So that's assuming you've got a huge capital gains tax problem in the first place, given the timeframes that you've talked about. Maybe it's not that big a whack, right? Maybe it's even a loss to carry forward. But even if it is a gain, okay, you'll pay that now. But then when you eventually sell whatever down the track, you're now calculating off a much higher base. So I wouldn't, for the timeframes that you're probably working about, I wouldn't let that, it'll suck that particular year.

30:38And maybe if you can, that's another good thing to think about it is that if you can, if you know that there's going to be a year where you're, I don't know, taking a sabbatical to go around Europe or whatever it is, I'm just going to have a lower income year. That's a good time to do it, right? Or the market happens to be down. That's a really good time to do it as well. but they're more tactical decisions as far as the the framing i think jack's friend should should go to a a lower cost service broker and just and just try and commit to you know little things can really help you just like setting a reminder on your phone right it's like oh bing bing bing okay yep today i said i would do it i'm gonna do it right and uh it is it it does i want to say yes it takes discipline but it's not like i'm gonna run a marathon every day and bench press you know 100 kilos it's it's an it's an e and it gets easier with time when you just sort of made it so yeah i think i think those advantages outweigh the other ones yeah i um i mean we're talking about behavioral psychology right the the platforms basically just wrap up a lot of those challenges for you and then charge you to help you help yourself yeah and that's why to ram's point they can be spectacularly good for exactly those reasons if if if they do things for you that you can't or frankly even might not so think about risk think sorry think about regret minimization i think it's bezos jeff bezos amazon ceo who talks about having a regret minimization framework what am i going to regret more am i going to regret the fact i paid a bit more in fees probably am i going to regret more trying to do it myself and screwing it up well in a relative sense uh it depends how badly you screw it up but if i want to minimize the chance of making a mistake, would I accept a lower, I was going to say guaranteed return, I need to be careful, but would I accept a higher fee, lower return outcome by trading off the fact that I knew that I knew that I knew what would happen anyway without taking the risk?

32:36I don't know. For some people, me personally, no. I'm actually really, if you've seen me on TV recently, you'll know I've been in a good paddock for a little bit too long. I probably need to cut down on the carbs, but I'm not very good at that. I am very good at being disciplined as an investor. It's just the way I'm wired, right? So I don't need to use personally those platforms, not because I'm better than anybody else, not because I'm superior or it's just the way I happen to be wired. If someone else is wired differently, they can be stick thin, but can't invest to save themselves. Well, make some different choices, right?

33:06I probably should padlock on the fridge. You probably should use Raise or one of those platforms because that just makes sense for you. And that's completely okay. So I think that's right. What I would say is you can probably do for yourself a little bit of what these platforms do. And you can find maybe some halfway house. For example, the pre-commitment of using a raise or whatever it is, is having your own independent separate account. I have a savings account with Comsec or Commonwealth Bank, but through Comsec, I put money in there every single payday. Money never, ever, ever, ever comes out of that account for any reason at all, no matter what.

33:41That's my auto invest. Now, I don't always invest the money directly independently and straight away but the money never comes back out it will be invested eventually over time and i can do that knowing i'm going to do it because i have for way too long now many years couple of decades and a half uh and i'll continue to do that because that's the way i'm wired so i don't need to use those particular tools but other people should and absolutely the fees are worth it it's the cost of you know the cost of getting it's like yeah could i could i fix the car myself i was if i was appropriately you know um capable and interested and whatever yeah probably should because i save the money am i better off because i'm not mechanically minded get someone else to do it yeah am i going to pay more in the long term for it yeah but i minimize the chance my brakes actually don't work at some really important point when they're needed so i'm not going to do my own break works i just i just not doesn't make any sense for me to do that so as a as a as a metaphor um i think that's probably something to have a think about so i would i would be happy to do that if someone said that's what they're doing like go keep going but one last thing actually one one quick bit in between i'm a massive Vanguard fan.

34:42Everyone knows that I have no particular interest. I have no financial interest in Vanguard at all. I invest in some of their ETFs, but trust me when I say that they don't pay me to do that. I just do it because I like it. You actually can... One of the halfway houses, Jack, for your friend, is you can literally just EFT, direct debit money to Vanguard every payday or every period, every week, fortnight, month, and they will invest in an off-market ETF. It's actually an ETF because it's off-market, but the same thing as the ETF itself. You just literally send them cash via direct deposit every pay period.

35:14That's probably a much lower cost version of a raise or whatever platform, Perla Micro or one of those, exactly the same kind of approach. So whichever one works for you, that's somewhere in between. I would choose the regret minimization framework. Just at retirement, what would I regret more and make decisions based on that. Nice. Speaking of, we're getting a lot of, I don't know, a lot of positive feedback, a lot of people listening to the podcast because the next one comes from Travis, who says, hi guys, one for the podcast. After Scott talking about the Outback and Ram talking about XRF, I thought I'd combine the two with a photo of the Outback with my portable XRF gun.

36:06and i can say ram i have a photo here of the xrf is it okay what the word is on there um bruka bruka oh yeah yeah uh it's got a bit a fair bit of uh masking tape on it travis i don't know if you've dropped it before mate or or something but i can i can say there's red dirt and blue sky in the background uh taken late in the afternoon based on the long shadow it's being cast but uh yep the bruka gun is there taped up nicely uh he says xrf is certainly exciting technology giving us the ability to zap something and see some of the elements that make it. It seems to be often used by councils or importers to check lead levels in paint and imports into the country.

36:44That's interesting. Considering it's a delicate and expensive tool, about$70 ,000. Wow. Oh, here we go. It was a notable day at a previous employer when a boofhead, not his real name, left the XRF gun on the back of a ute tray and drove off. To quote an old ad, cost of portable XRF gun,$70 ,000. seeing the look on the exploration managers facing the ute behind as he watched the XRF gun fall off the back of the ute and bounce across the track priceless keep up the good work Travis and he says PS sent via Starlink see picture Starlink is great for regional use but Elon is still a boofhead and he shows a download of 212.78 megabits a second upload of 21.06 that is some serious outback speeds yeah yeah how cool is technology dude that's fantastic i know you're a big fan oh you don't get me started yeah and and uh yeah i mean xrf doing some really interesting things i i uh you know it's it's a must-have for people in the field these kinds of things so yep yeah 70 grand i guess it's worth that's the thing right this is the thing i just like we we too often make a judgment based on on the price tag it's more about what it enables right it's a capital good essentially it's like well this is you know uh true um yeah it um i'll make a related sort of point here the the new apple headset we should probably talk about one of these podcasts right It's three and a half grand US.