Mailbag, incl: Which NASDAQ ETF should I buy? September 21, 2025

24:10So, Jeff, I was living in the world of being approximately right rather than precisely wrong, to be clear. And so, and I don't say that as an excuse, by the way, it actually matters about the individual's personal tax rate and it does matter about how long you hold the shares for. So, yes, if you're on a 47.5 % tax rate and you held it for all the 12 months, then the hurdle rate would be 23.75%. So yes, absolutely. Does it compound? No, not really, because the cost also compounds. So the interest you pay every year, the return you get every year will compound. Now, the delta though does get away from you.

24:45So you're absolutely right about the size of the gap. So we're looking after tax on a yearly basis or a compound basis. My broadest point is, and why I'm saying about being roughly right, rather precisely wrong. No one knows what the hurdle rate is going to be. So even if I give you a very specific to three decimal places hurdle rate, you say, all right, that's what I've got to get. And I say, right, well, how are you going to get that with any degree of certainty? And you say, I don't know. I need to invest, I guess, and try and find good stocks. And maybe I can get 10%, maybe I get 11%, maybe I get 9.5%, maybe I get 7%, maybe I get 12%.

25:20And so my point was broadly that one of my favourite lines when it comes to integrity and transparency is, if you don't know where the line is, you're too close to it. Warren Buffett would say that they've never calculated intrinsic value. They just kind of, if you have to calculate it, again, it's not there. So my point, and you're right to call this out, Jeff, and I was probably too liberal with my language and not specific and clear enough. I should be more thoughtful. I was probably just riffing, I think. I would want, back to one of our favourite value investing sayings, a margin of safety.

25:51So, you know, if I thought the market was going to do 10 % a year on average, I'd get better than that. and if I'm paying taxes on the gain, if I'm borrowing to do it, then I'm paying an interest rate and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, look, you're right, mate. Yes, you're absolutely right. If there's a large enough gap and you're whole for more than 12 months and the gap compounds over time, then you're 100 % right. The question really is, and I was actually going to say Excel is your friend. I'm going to say that but also then pull straight back away from that because I know you end up in the same position I was going to say, which is that false specificity, right?

26:22If you put something in Excel, it attains sort of mythical truth truth and certainty, but Excel said it was right. I mean, it's every discounted cash flow ever is exactly what people do. And so I want to just, so you're right to call me out on it. I was flippant and not detailed enough. Here's what I would do. I would check the numbers in Excel. But, and here's the big but, if your tax rate was X at some future point in time, If interest rates were Y at some future point in time, if you held for enough years to generate that at that point in time, then you could calculate the gap. So if those things were true, what would my return be?

27:02I think it's a perfectly useful thing to do. And for those who are numerically minded, yeah, go and do it because it will tell you what kind of the opportunities are. What you've just got to be so careful of doing is not falling for the idea of, oh, that's all I've got to do. Oh, then it makes sense. I'll go and do it without saying, but can I do it? Can I achieve those gains? will those assumptions be true for an extended period of time will i hold for that long or will i go after six months nine months 12 months 15 months i made a mistake or the price already risen so it's too high or or or and again you roll out over as many or as little time as you want so yes jeff you're 100 right thank you for calling on it thank you for making me address it i appreciate it um my argument is just you want the number to be higher than uh than a coin toss You want a margin of safety in that process.

27:46Rare? Yeah, like when engineers are tasked with building a bridge, you know, the customer, the council, the government will sort of say, look, it needs to carry 400 tonnes, and the engineers design it to carry 800 tonnes. And they know they're probably going to drive 200 tonnes over anyway. Yeah, and it's just margin of safety. It's so, who was it, mate? You'll know that the three most important words in investing are margin of safety. I think it's Ben Graham. It would have been Graham, yeah. Yeah. It may have been Buffett quoting Graham, but Graham was the one who popularised margin of safety.

28:19Margin of safety. And it's just the idea that, I mean, we just can't know. So you just, it's a really neat way of accounting for the uncertainty and the unknowns and unknowns, right? I just sort of like, I think this is reasonable. I'm going to try and be conservative in my estimates. But there's probably a thousand things I haven't considered and of the things I have considered, I probably haven't considered them properly. And I'm just going to whack in a margin of safety. It just helps for that. I mean, you can go too far on it and say, well, I'm only going to pay$3 for my Woolies shares, and that's a big margin of safety, but I'll never buy it.

28:50So there is opportunity cost in all of it. But I think that's the point that you're just trying to make there is that it's funny. People have very strong views on borrowing to invest. And I get it. I get it. I get it in particular because it seems like it's one of those things that's advocated as not just okay but necessarily prudent when it comes to houses. Like, why wouldn't you do that? That's the way of creating wealth. And yet with shares, it's like, no, you shall, thou shall never do it. It's purely evil. I think those binary views are wrong and people are right to kind of go, well, hang on, if I can do this, this and this, is it that bad?

29:27I actually, and they're right. They're right. Like mathematically they're right. Your only point is just to really flog the horse is just to say that you're only right if your assumptions are right. The if-same must have to be true. And so, you know, you wouldn't do it if you thought, well, well, I think I'm going to get 10%. It costs me 9%, you know, and my account for tax and transaction costs and all the rest is just like, ooh, okay, but if you're wrong, you know, and there's not a lot of margin for error, room for error there. So, yeah. Apparently it was Buffett quoting Graham's concept of margin.

29:57Oh, there you go. So, well done. Motley Fool Money. For more, subscribe to the free newsletter at fool.com.au forward slash listener.

30:08Question from an anonymous questioner, mate. And I like this question a lot because it kind of opens up the potential and explains a few things. I have a question for the Mailbox, our anonymous questioner. I own shares slash units. Well done. In the beta shares NASDAQ tracking fund, NDQ is the code, the fee, as you know, is 0.4%. I looked it up. The fee is actually higher. The fee is 0.4, 8%. Invesco in the US, says our questioner, has a similar NASDAQ tracking index that trades under the code QQQ with fees of 0.2%. So am I better off to invest via Invesco? What are the downfalls or risks? Am I missing something?

30:49Yeah, well, I mean, the main thing is that you've got to have an international brokerage account. You'd be buying it on the NASDAQ. I mean, I'm not suggesting you shouldn't, but, you know, it's sort of the great thing about NDQ is that you can do it on the ASX, you know, and you don't have to worry about the WBEN8 form and all the blah-de-blah that all goes with all that. It makes the tax a lot, you know. So it's a question of I think people are very just reasonable and sensible and right to worry about fees and we've often railed against the egregious fees that are paid on many financial products.

31:25But, you know, you can get to hair-splitting territory on some, when we're already talking about less than half of 1%, you're, the difference between, I mean, they're not, I'm not, I'm trying to, it makes it sound like, oh, well, there's no real difference there. What are you worried about? There is a difference. It's a question of whether it's a subjective decision as to whether you think it's a material difference or not. But it's certainly not going to, either way, it's not going to be the difference between an incredible return and a terrible return. You know, the NASDAQ's going to do whatever the NASDAQ does and you will be slightly better off if you have the lower fee product.

32:01And you're happy to handle the extra, you know, paperwork and hassle. Don't forget, international brokerage accounts will charge you higher, as a general rule, not always, but charge you higher in commissions. So you've got to factor that in there as well. So, and this is just me. This is not to say you're wrong in any way, shape or form to consider it. But for me, it's kind of like there are bigger things to focus my energies on. And the main one being, do I want to invest in the Nasdaq in the first place? Like once you've made that decision, I was like, okay, maybe think about it a little bit.

32:33But it's like we often talk about people can do some really counterproductive things in the name of avoiding tax. You know, it's like would I advocate that no, you should go out of your way to pay as much tax as possible. No, of course not. But it's just like it's a very tertiary kind of consideration as opposed to what I'm actually buying here. Give me something. I mean, if I could go back in time and someone said, you know, you have to buy Amazon shares, but we're going to charge you a 1 % management expense ratio on that for the next 20 years. And every time you buy it, we're going to charge you$200 in brokerage.

33:08Like, yes, please. Like, I think about that for half a second. Like, yes. Right? As opposed to, well, this thing's got no fees and we're going to give you free brokerage, you know, and it's going to be called ANZ, you know, and you can invest in that. Like, no. Yeah, I agree. I've got an international brokerage account and I'm actually wondering whether I've made a mistake of investing in the NDQ ETF, the beta shares one, rather than the Invesco one because none of the downfalls are game stoppers for me. So you ask about the downfalls and risks.

33:47International brokerage account is its own hurdle. exchange rates and transferring money is its own hurdle. Having to trade in hours that are particularly unhelpful for Australian East Coast investors because, you know, the market opens at midnight and closes at six or something, pretty unhelpful. So that's why you wouldn't do it. As to why, but are they risks? Not really. Are they downfalls? A little bit. Yeah, I'm probably paying more than I have to for my NASDAQ ETF. It's my honest answer. I read the question like, I can't think of a good reason why I shouldn't just change that. That's a good idea.

34:21Well, what I would say, I wouldn't change it now. And the reason is because what I would save in fees from here, probably more than the capital gains tax I'd have to pay from here if I sold it and then re-bought it in the US. One of the real challenges with ETFs, and it's fine, it's not a big deal, but if you were to sell an ASX 300 ETF and buy another one, even though the component parts are essentially identical for all intents and purposes, the department will treat it as a – Now, I had an accountant contact me. So if you're listening to an accountant, tell me if I'm wrong. But as far as I'm aware, if I sell my Vanguard A300, A6200 ETF and buy the new ex-global A300 ETF, if I'm the same one and buy the other, I've got to pay capital gains tax on the sale and buy back the new one with after-tax money.

35:04So would I do that to save 0.28 % in fees? No, absolutely not. Not that I made a squinting dollars on it, but percentage-wise, it just doesn't work out. You're not going to save enough money over a long enough period of time to justify paying the capital gains tax for the sake of it. particularly, and less so with the Nasdaq, because it's paid a lot of dividends. But if you are going to hold for the super long term and you're going to take some dividend income, you're just going to get less for your money. So I would absolutely not, I would not pay the tax willingly now. I'd pay the slightly higher fee, given we're talking about fractions of a percent.

35:31For my new money, if we're going to invest some more money in the Nasdaq ETF, should I invest in the Invesco one instead? Possibly. I will add one more, mate. This is not particularly, well, maybe it is relevant. Maybe it shouldn't be. um donald trump hasn't been particularly kind to you international investors investing in the us now that could still hit an australian domiciled nasdaq etf by the way so i can't promise you any different but is it possible he instructs u.s brokerage accounts to deal with international investors differently by the way for individual shares as well yeah maybe so that's a risk um how likely is it how big is it i don't know the u.s also has a state tax non-existent risk until recently right it was like you would have been considered a crazy person yes exactly i mean if We were talking about some weird country, but like the United States, there's sovereign risk there.

36:17Right. Turns out, yeah, there is. And also, too, the US has estate taxes. And in theory, if you die with the assets invested in the US, they can look at the total value of your estate and take some of those proceeds as part of a sale if the estate is selling your shares or units. Is it likely? I don't know. I've not been through it. Thankfully, not been to that point yet. My family's going to have to deal with it at some point if I still have US-invested assets at that point. So that's another reason why you may want to keep your investing in the ASX. I wouldn't sell to invest in the Invesco one.

36:47Would I buy the Invesco one in future? Possibly, yeah. You made me think. So thank you for the question. Really good one. Just to point out, just apropos nothing, if you had bought the NDQ 10 years ago, you've more than 5X'd your money. There you go. Not bad. That's just the Vanguard chart. You know what I mean? That's just sort of like, you know, So example,$4 ,387 ,291 long-term investing in equities can be very lucrative. The basic thing is right, don't sweat the details. Yeah, no, and how many dudes, because they would have been all dudes, would have been trading in and out in front of their eight screens in their Bloomberg terminal that just did, you know, worked their fingers to the bone and probably walked away with a loss.

37:28It's just like just giving yourself exposure to something like that, getting on with your life. It's like, I'm not going to say it's going to 10x again over the next 10 years, but, I mean, it's just noteworthy. It's worth making. And especially when you consider what has happened in the last 10 years, right, and that still happened. Like, can you go back to 2015? Yes. And go, so I'm from the future. This is what's going to happen. Do you want to invest in, like, the risky asset class of shares? Like, no, you know. Hey, while we're here, so I've got a tangent and then a tangent on the tangent, so I'll just try to do it quickly.

38:04You mentioned the ETF. I'm not going to – I own shares in Solpats, as everybody knows. You mentioned the Nasdaq day trade or whatever. I'm a big fan of buying individual shares. But there was a time when we recommended Solpats to our members. And a couple of members said, why would I buy this big conglomerate and I could buy one of the companies? I like this bit of it better. Why would I just buy that instead? Why would I buy the whole lot? And it's a very fair question. My answer was, well, yes, you could do that and you can do that and if you want to, you should. But we like the way that assets are allocated, the management team, the culture, all the stuff it about.

38:34It turns out Solpats has done better than most of the individual component parts over that period of time, which sounds weird except when you think about they've got private credit and private equity and internal property trust and an equity portfolio and all sorts of other stuff. Don't overthink it. Same reason, don't overthink it. Great company doing all this stuff worth owning. So just another example to your point of the NASDAQ ETF of don't try and get too clever. Again, if you like it and if you're positioned, buy it by all means. But the idea was like, oh, Solpats is old and it's boring and why would I bother?

39:02and it stayed and it's not going to do very well. And this is obviously going to do much better, isn't it? So obviously, if it's the most important small world in the English language, probably it's got to be the largest one. The other thing I want to say quickly, mate, and this is a massive tangent for no good reason other than some of our listeners right now may own shares in SOPATS or Brickworks and they may wonder where the hell SOPATS has gone. So I just want to address just in case we have some listeners. I'm just trying to look it up then and then I realise, right, yeah. And that's why I'm doing it.

39:29Just in case I've got some listeners who are wondering, at the time of recording, I think until mid or late next week, Solpats' stock code is changing. It's S-O-L-D-A is the code. I don't like to talk about stock codes, as everybody knows, but it's important in this context. Why? There's a thing called deferred settlement. Solpats and Brickworks are merging. I used to own shares in Brickworks as well. I kind of – right now I think I still do. I'm not sure if the merger's gone through. Oh, no, it has. It has gone through. I don't own Brickworks shares anymore. It doesn't exist. but yes so for the next week or so most of the week it's on deferred settlement that means the ASX god love them means a different code so DA is the suffix they give for a deferred settlement equity and deferred settlement just means normally if you buy and sell the shares the trades settle two days later in this case deferred so I think it's the 24th of September the trades all settle from memory and why just because there's so much going on in the background for machinations and reasons I don't really care about or want to get into.

40:28If you buy or sell them today, you don't have to pay the money or you don't receive the money for about a week. I won't say today. Today is Sunday in podcast land, but it's Wednesday in the real world. Yeah, well, it's deferred settlement. Basically, the settlement is deferred until a given date. Thereafter, the code will revert back to SOL and things will go on as normal. If you're a long-term shareholder, and I hope you are, it means absolutely nothing to you. Ignore it. It'll go away. I had a funny experience I made yesterday. on my, it was deferred on Tuesday. And at that point, the God love ComSec, they decided this new entity had a zero cost base and the previous historical price was also zero.

41:04So my brokerage account looks spectacular because my entire Solpats value was shown as a gain. I was like, oh, I made a fortune. It was just the way they counted it. So yes, if you had that experience too at home, my commiserations are going to look for it. I was like, how much money did I make? That's amazing. No, I didn't. It's just the way they counted it. But yes, I just want to mention that, mate. It wasn't a question. I probably should have mentioned on a Friday. I just thought while we were talking about it, If some of our listeners are wondering, it may help to soothe their nerves and concerns because they can't find the shares they think they own.

41:30It'll revert automatically back to SOL and nothing will change. It's just an administrative process for about 10 days. Well, because I did look it up, thanks to that tip because I didn't think of it, I just wanted to make a point. So had you invested in the ASX 300 ETF by Vanguard, you would have done 45 % in total in aggregate over the last five years, you would have doubled that in Solpats. Oh, there you go. And, again, you can't think of a more quote-unquote buying company, can you? Are they dividend aristocrat? 27 straight is an increasing dividends. Are they doing AI, though, Scott? That's what I want to know because if they're not.

42:08If they're not, you know. Boring, boring. I'm going to lose all. This is the thing. They've outperformed the market over decades, right, literally decades, and think about all of the reasons why. And, look, they weren't the best performing stock over that decade. You could have bought other stocks that maybe were in AI, maybe were doing something else. But just that idea of, yeah, like Slovakia does win the race. It's just us, right? For all the grief. But I want it now. Right? And I want it to be exciting. I want people to talk about it. It's on the front page of the fin. It's never on the front page of the fin.

42:35Like, why would they be? You know what? They're just making money. Investing is the ultimate marshmallow test. Yeah, it really is. That's what it is. Yeah, it really is. You know, if you can delay consumption, you're going to get much more marshmallows in the future. Most people can't. So, you know, that's why it is why it is. Correct. Here's one from Dan, mate. Dan says, I dropped my knee to humbly bow before. About time. The omniscient pod gods. Thank you. As tribute, I offer up a quick thanks for making financial and economic information great and unbiased again. Can we get hats? Making financial education great again?

43:10I think so. I think, yes. I think you'll be joking, but it's a perfectly reasonable thing to put out there. You may start wearing that hat, Dan, is all I'm saying. If you really do, if it's a genuine tribute, you'll send us the phone. I just don't know why Dan wasn't bumped up to the first question in the club, frankly. You know why? Why is that? Because then he goes to say, and hopefully this brevity leaves time for Rampage to go on a Bitcoin tangent or some other tirade. Yeah, right. So here's his question. My partner and I have been investing for a while. Oh, Dan. See, he goes on to say don't say stocks, which is great.

43:43But what does he give me? Stock codes. I've been investing for a while in IVV and A200. Mate, seriously. This is the S &P 500 ETF and the Australian ASX 200 ETF. But we're getting more and more interested in buying individual businesses. In brackets, don't say stocks. Close bracket. Well done, Dan. One out of two. And we'd like to explore our options and create a pretty simple strategy to do so. We were looking at stock market research investing advice platforms like Motley Fool Share Advisor. Thank you. Straw Man. Andrew will say thank you. Seeking Alpha, Alpha Picks, et cetera. How should we compare stock market research investing advice platforms?

44:18I know you guys could be slightly biased. Yeah, we are. Given your prospective businesses, and I can hear Mr Page saying, well, you can buy a subscription, but you can't buy conviction. But assuming the$200 to$400 cost per annum is a small percentage of a portfolio and you actually stick to the strategy and understand that past performance is no indication of future performance, how would you compare them? Mr Page. I mean, we started this pod talking about the right tool for the right job, and I think that bears relevance here. I mean, it depends. What do you say, stick to the strategy? It's like everyone's got, well, not everyone, there's going to be plenty of organisations out there that advocate for a particular strategy and a particular style.

45:03And they're doing it because they know that, I mean, that's the market that they're sort of going for. So it's sort of like it might actually be a great product and a great service in concept and even in what it seeks to deliver, but it could be the worst thing ever for you if it's not the strategy that's appropriate to you or to your preferences, your style, all of these kinds of things. Temperament's the word I was grappling for, which I know is like a real non-answer, but it's hard to say. I think part of every investor's journey is figuring out how they invest. And, you know, Strawman's been really illuminating for me, and it's not a pitch at all, but we've got members in our group, like one of our longest standing higher-ranked members loves his gold stocks.

45:55Right. Shout out to Bear77. Great, great investor, right? Not for me, not interested in the slightest. We've got others out there that really just focus on small-cap growth with a very technology-heavy bias. We've got others out there who like dividends. And it's like, you know what? And if you look at the leaderboard, it's kind of like one of the things that I found quite, I don't know, it shouldn't have been surprising, but it was certainly at least noteworthy. It's like, you know what? When I look at all of these people's portfolios, they're very different. In other words, there's a lot of different ways to skin this particular cat.

46:35So which service you use then is going to depend on what kind of way you're going to go about it and whether they're going to deliver something that's appropriate to the strategy that you think is best. If you're very new to this, you're probably going right now, well, Einstein, the best strategy is the one that delivers the best returns. Yeah, that's right. And it's like, well, yes, thanks, Captain Obvious, except that you don't know that in advance, do you, right? And even if you could know it in advance, it's not going to do you much good if you don't have the ability and temperament to stick to it.

47:11So that all kind of matters. I'm a big believer in just having a shop around, see what's right for you. If you find, it's like, you know, decide to buy Bond's undies next time. It's like, yeah, I don't really like them that much. And then you go to step one and then you go to, I don't know, I'm running out of undie brands that I know of. But, you know, you'll find the right fit, you know, is I guess what I'm saying. So you don't, it's not like, it's a hard question to answer because I feel as though I would, you would like me to go, here's a checklist, just go, and that's the one for you. And I can personally give it an endorsement, which I can't.

47:53And so it's a very frustrating answer. And the only other thing I'll say before passing it off to you is that, and I know people in glass houses, et cetera, et cetera, but I don't think I'm going too far out in a ledge here to sort of say that there's a lot of dodginess in our industry. a lot. There's probably a 80-20 rule at play there, like there is in most things in life. It's not to disparage an entire industry. Some really great people who work in that industry, you and me, of course, being the best examples. Oh, clearly, yeah. You know, just putting it out there. Head and shoulders, not head and shoulders.

48:23Head and shoulders. But there are some scumbags, absolute scumbags, and they've got the proper licensing and they've got all the, right boxes, but they'd sell their own mother if it meant an extra half percent commission. And, you know, I'm not going to name names, but it is worth, it is, whenever you approach any product as a consumer, it's worth having a degree of healthy skepticism. When it's in a financial product, be very careful. And look, there's no way to identify it, but a good rule of thumb is that the more outlandish the promise, the more likely it is to be dodgy. I think that's right.

49:07I've heard this really hard, Dan, because we're not just a little bit biased, we're entirely biased. And I mean that not in a we're trying to talk about our own book for our own sake, but we do things that we think are, well, again, I say it as if everyone does it. I know Ram very, very well and he knows me well, and I think we'd both agree that each other is trying to do the right thing for our members in the context of a business model that has to make sense.

49:34could I do free personal investing advice for more people yes would that pay my bill no am I that altruistic to say well I'll live in a cardboard box and give out investment advice no so there is absolutely bias in terms of the people that I work for but also the business model of that of that company so that's a bias the other bias is I'm lucky and Andrew's even lucky he studies his own business he gets to see his own rules from scratch I am very very very fortunate that even though it's not my business. It's absolutely not my business. I get a massive, massive amount of free reign, in fact, entire free reign to provide advice.

50:11I've never once been sanctioned or censored about anything I've said anywhere. I was once told that maybe I commented negatively on a particular company, maybe we should stop doing that. And I said, I would like to not do that. I will keep doing what I'm doing. Thank you very much. With no implicit threats, but suffice it to say I've never once pulled a punch or said something I didn't believe or not said something I did believe. Haven't had a pay rise since then, but that's by the way. Well, there is that. Joking, joking. Yeah. No. And so, you know, the reality is that I'm very, very fortunate.

50:41And so what am I trying to say? I'm trying to say that Enri run businesses, I don't run the business, but I run the investing team and I set the kind of the tone, hopefully I think it's fair to say, based on what I think is best. And Enri is based on what he thinks is best. So that makes me biased by definition, because I would say to you, I think what the full share advisor, given the mandate and given the way the business runs and given the structure is the best thing I can come up with. And that's massively biased. That's not a plug. It's not an ad. But if it's different to other people's stuff, I would think by definition mine is better than theirs, not because I'm trying to talk about books.

51:12If I had to go and find a job and they did it a certain way and I'd say, well, that's the right way because that's one thing. When I get to literally do whatever I want within the mandates, share advisor, you mentioned, Dan, we do medium and large caps. and we... What's the sub fee? On special, it's about$149 for two years at the moment. Stupid cheap. There you go. Right? Anyway, we're done that. My point is I get to do what I want. I get to pick the stocks I want. We don't do small caps because that's not what the mandate of the service. Other than that, we just pick stocks. We hope we're going to beat the market.

51:43That's what we do. But I do it the best way I can, so I think it's great. So I'm massively biased. I say all of that in advance, not as an ad, not as a plug, not as an excuse, but to absolutely acknowledge what you said, Matt, which we're biased. How would I compare them? David Gardner is a Motley Fool co-founder, and he says track record is no guarantee. I'm paraphrasing here, but it's probably a pretty good guide. And I think, honestly, this is one of those really weird things where I need to be careful. The legal legal asset makers say passports is no guarantee. Why? Because it's true. The other why is because if Phillips' pumping fund, number one, was in business for the last three months and I got 100 % return, and I put ads in the paper saying, Phillips, pumping fund number one, deliver 100 % returns over the last three months, come and invest in my fund.

52:31Everyone goes, yeah, you must know what he's doing. I guess we're going to do that. And if it turns out that it's up 300 % because I put it on Reddit at the casino and did well and haven't started putting money in stocks yet, then past performance is probably no guarantee of future performance, right? It makes sense. And it's an appropriate and reasonable disclaimer. That said, is Buffett's past performance a guarantee of future performance? No. Is it a pretty bloody good indicator? Yeah. Even with Buffett though, he would say, Actually, it's not because I'm going to do worse because I've got more money to manage and weight of money means I can't invest in the little things I used to.

53:01So even then, it's not a particularly clear and easy guarantee or indicator. But directionally, yeah, you bet. I'm going to take buffets. I'll give you an example. You're going in for open heart surgery. Here's a surgeon and she has performed 400 open heart surgeries and never lost a patient. Yep. And there's me. And there's me. Now, past performance is no guarantee. Right, right. But, you know, yeah. So, yeah. So, look, how do you choose? Past performance. And, by the way, look for detailed, clear past performance, not just someone's top picks or three examples or something. And over a meaningful timeframe.

53:42Genuine past performance. Another quick plug, ShareAvise has a 30-day money-back guarantee, which is not a plug deliberately. My point is we don't share full performance in front of the paywall because we'd be selling all our buyers and that's what people are paying for. If you join ShareAdvisor, I like it. You can go after 30 days. Does the alternative option give you that choice? Maybe, maybe not. I would go for something that gave you a money back guarantee. We have to say membership feedback guarantee, I should say. That's how money back is people think. Well, that means you're giving my investing money back if I lose it.

54:09No, we're not at it. It's a membership feedback guarantee. I would look at the style to Ram's point. Does it resonate? I say to the team all the time, the only good advice is the advice that's taken. We can give the most technical, highfalutin, complex advice in the world. If everyone looks at it and goes, oh, I'm not doing that, then we've wasted our time, we've wasted our members' time and money. So does the advice resonate with you? Do you like the style? Can you follow the style? Ram, you mentioned Ram talking about conviction. He's right there, and here's why it matters, because if you aren't convicted, the multiple share advisor is right for you.

54:39If you look at it and go, oh, geez, I don't like that much, but I guess I'll follow it. First sign of trouble, you are out of there, mate, and I've wasted your time, you've wasted your money. So look for a style you think you can stick with. This is self-serving. Look for someone who you identify with and feel like has your best interest at heart. And you know what? Charlatans do too. Every comment ever has looked like they've got someone's best interest at heart. So I can't promise you anything. But again, put the track record alongside your perception of that person's credibility, ability, integrity, trust.

55:13Are they candid? Do they do what they say? Do they fess up to their mistakes? Or are they just trying to sell you? Last one for me is avoid hubris at all costs. Hubris is absolutely kryptonite for investing. If they're arrogant, if they think they've all got it right, if they can't say about their losers, if they only want to talk about the good stuff, if they just stick to the script on the sell, then I think you're wasting your time. And if that's not ShareAdvisor, that's completely fine, Dan. If you're like, you know what, Scott, I like you on the podcast. ShareAdvisor seems like a crap solution.

55:41That's cool. Great. Go and do something else. Please find something else. Don't join or if you do join, take your money back guarantee and go, I'll give it a shot. I don't like it. Perfectly fine. Love it. I'm not going to ask you or suggest you sign up to it. I'm going to say pick one that works. But ask yourself. You mentioned ShareAdvisor and Strawman. I'll leave those off. Seeking Alpha, Alpha picks. Why do you think it would work for you? Why would it make sense? Last point I'm going to make is your point, Ram, which is not how to choose one. I get regularly frustrated, probably unreasonably, but partly reasonably, about the fact that people won't pay$149 to try ShareAdvisor for a couple of years.

56:14A policy if that's not the current offer. It may be something like that. not because I have some sort of God-given right for people to do what I want them to do, but I'd pay more. I don't actually pay. People pay more for that for a pair of jeans, right? People pay more for that for all sorts of stuff. I like how you walked back in your... I don't, yeah. I was saying how much of a tightwad I was. I buy Levi's. I buy the brand jeans, but they're not that much. My point is buy the stuff that makes... Sorry. If you're going to... I think it's worth your while to try, is all I'm saying. If you've got a portfolio that's...

56:46even if it's not six figures yet, it's going to be at some point, maybe in time, and you can get on the ground floor. Not ground floor, it sounds ridiculous. If you can start early on the right strategy and it's worth it, it's worth your money to have a go. You'll spend more than that in brokerage. You'll spend more than that in beers. You'll spend more than that in whatever else. You need to do what you need to do and what's right for you. I think if, and not just us, straw man, or I don't know anything about alpha picks, by the way, if that's one thing you want to try and it's reasonable and they get a money back guarantee, you have reason to trust them.

57:13I shouldn't use that example. I don't know anything about them. But if there's another one you like a lot, give it a go because the worst you can do is dust some money. It's probably tax deductible too, by the way. It's even cheaper than that. Your jeans aren't. Give it a go. See how you go. If it works, it works. Yeah, one thing I'd add to it all is I – so there's different products that are out there. So I think – and I've said this plenty of times before, something just to pick on ShareAdvisor, not to pick on it, just use it as an example. But it's just like I think if you're going to pay a bit of money because you want an idea generator.

57:45I just think it's like, this is like, it's a no brainer, right? In fact, it's not like all are one. It's just like, go them, intelligent investor. I don't know, throw some others out there. There's a whole bunch of them out there. Try it, you know. They're great guys, intelligent investor guys. They're really good. They are good. Actually, there's a lot of time for them, right? And they've got a good record too. So there's a bunch of them out there, but you don't have to choose just one. What I would distinguish between that kind of service though, And what's increasingly common is things like trading packages, usually technical analysis kind of packages, which is, again, it always angers a certain subset of people.

58:21But, I mean, I think even these people would agree that it is more for a trading-oriented customer, someone who is there to buy and sell as opposed to someone who is there to invest and partner with a company. It's just no judgment on that, but it's just like if you say, hey, I'm a long-term investor, I've been doing ETFs, and now I'm going to decide to start day trading Forex markets and I'm going to use this package like, whoa, just, gosh, you just took a big jump in one direction there. You don't need that stuff. And not even just in terms of charting packages, you get other packages that there's a lot of software-oriented packages and a lot of them propose to give you an edge that isn't otherwise exploitable.

59:06It's just like you've always got to ask yourself if there's some whiz bang brain in a box that can do all of this, why are they selling it? Why isn't it just hooked up to a computer in someone's basement and they're just like making bank off all of the trade ideas that throw us off it? So I'm just more sceptical of those kinds of products, particularly when they've got a very big price tag with them. The other thing I would say is most of the, not most, all of the information you need is free. And that's because when you're a listed company, there are disclosure rules. Yeah. And you can go onto the ASX's terrible website.

59:47Hi, ASX, you know I love you. Making friends, making friends. No, I don't. But they are legally required to disclose information and you'll get it all there in PDF, right? And it's just like I've often once, and I subscribe, not me personally, but I subscribe to Standard & Pause for straw man. We need it as our data provider. This is probably one of the biggest institutions on the planet, but their data's wrong all the time for a whole bunch of different reasons, right? Go to the source material. It's free and you'll actually get a really, you really build up some skills in how you analyse and read, you know, the 4C disclosures and the annual reports, et cetera.

1:00:30Great point. Add those two together, you're in a pretty good place, I reckon. How that helps, Dan? And you've got a second question, mate. We'll answer your second question next week. There you go. How's that for a cliffhanger? It's about margin rates and borrowing. Ram, you'll like that one. Oh, nice. Okay. Mate, have a good week. Enjoy your big green egg. I look forward to hearing more about the new Beer Barbecue and Built On podcast we're going to launch soon. Check if that's trademarked. It may be. We'll find out. Until then, have a great week and full on. Cheers. The Motley Fool and people appearing in this program may have positions in the companies mentioned.

1:01:01General 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 Licence 400691.