NUGWA: Hello and welcome everyone to the kick-off of Investor Education Month.
My name is Nugwa Haruna. I will be your host today.
So looking forward to a conversation with our guests and so what I want to do is just go over a few housekeeping items before we jump to our conversation and before we introduce our guests.
So we do have a list of events lined up for Investor Education Month. As you know, October is Investor Education Month and we have something for everyone.
From investors who are first starting off who want to get their feet wet to investors who are more experienced and who consider themselves more traders than investors.
So we highly encourage you to take a look at some of our upcoming events as well.
You are able to see a list of different webinars that we have scheduled for the rest of the month. So for instance, next week we have a webinar on "Five ways I find value in a down market." And then we have a second webinar on October 13th at 6 PM for those of us who can't make a 1 PM webinar, which is on "Why we use high-yield income strategies in early retirement."
Now definitely take a look at that and if you want to see some of the other webinars that we have coming up as well as those that we have in our library, you're able to see that information by a little widget that will be on the right side of your screen, just underneath the question and answer box.
I also will mention you have an opportunity to participate in the conversation today. So if you're looking to ask questions to our guests, feel free to utilize that box that is sort of right side of the screen there - the question and answer box and we will be referring to your questions as we have the conversation with our guests.
So as I mentioned, welcome to today's program! I'm Nugwa Haruna and I'll be your host today.
We're kicking off Investor Education Month, which is October. And the idea behind Investor Education Month is to help investors figure out their unique situation and know exactly who they are as investors.
Also, to help you level up on your investing skills no matter what your current skills are because there's always room to learn.
So we have a lot of great free educational events, not just webinars but also master classes. So we would encourage you to check out the our landing page, the web page for Investor Education Month which you can find at www.td.com/IEM.
Right now we have a fantastic program about discovering and developing your investing style. So I'd like to say that no two investors are alike and that's almost when you think about Snowflake's, right? So there are different investing strategies and different products for us to choose from. And so it can be tough for investors who are first starting out and even for those who are experienced, as you look to develop or change your investing style.
Thankfully, we have three investors or traders today who are going to help share different perspectives and help us as investors figure out a style that might work for us.
We're going to look at their different stories and experiences to help give us a little perspective and inspiration.
So joining us today, we have Shay who is the founder of Humbled Trader. Thank you so much for joining us Shay.
SHAY: Hello, everyone. Thanks for having me right!
NUGWA: Yes. Looking forward to, to, to a great conversation. We also have Henry Mah, who is the author of Your Ever Growing Income: The Rising Yield on Investments.
HENRY: Hi Nugwa.
NUGWA: Thanks so much for joining us Henry.
HENRY: Thank you for having me on the show.
NUGWA: All right, and finally we have Tracy Ma who is the founder of Financial Nirvana Mama. Welcome Tracy, thank you for joining us.
TRACY: Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. So excited!
NUGWA: Yes, so looking forward to this conversation and so just before we dive in and chat a little, as I mentioned for those of us in the audience you are able to submit your questions! Looking forward to your questions as you send them in as we have a great conversation right now with Tracy, with Shay and with Henry.
So before we actually dove into the questions, let's find out a little bit more information about each of you. So Tracy will start off with you. Tell us about the content that you make on Financial Nirvana Mama.
TRACY: For sure, yeah. My channel is for Canadian DIY investors who want to build cash flow wealth using stocks and real estate to ultimately live their best life! And the big thing is I share my investing journey the good, the bad and ugly. So that's what my content is all about, transparency and my experience with investing.
NUGWA: So, all about that balanced approach, right? Both the benefits and the risks of investing. So that's really great. All right! So Shay, tell us about your experience building the Humbled Trader.
SHAY: Yeah, hello, everyone. So I started out part-time trading almost 8 years ago and then I had a job at the time and then I switch on part-time to full-time. And eventually a couple of years later, you know, trading is a very lonely game because you're literally just at home all the time and looking at computers and looking at like 4 of my monitors right now. So that's why I started the Humbled Trader YouTube channel to share my perspective, to share my story, and just to as a way to reach out and connect with more traders from around the world. So that's you know, it started out as a passion project and now it became one of the biggest day trading education channels online.
NUGWA: All right, thanks for sharing that and then we'll move on to Henry. So, Henry, you prefer the written word, so tell us about your book and what inspired you to write it?
HENRY: Well, I think I wrote it just for myself because I never really expected anybody else to read it. The book itself really defines income growth investing and it follows a strategy that I have used for the past I guess 25 years and I was able to obtain living off my dividends while remaining in retirement and never having to sell capital. So I wrote the book with the intention of explaining the process and I wanted to make sure that anybody who read it, if anybody ever did that they wouldn't come back and say "Well, how do you do that?"
NUGWA: All right, that's excellent. So I love the conversation we're going to have because it seems like each of you would have a different perspective.
I will mention that for those of us in the audience if we want to follow our guest along today on their journey, you will be able to find links on the left lower side of your screen there. You'll be able to find links to the Humbled Trader YouTube channel, you'll be able to find links to Tracy's Financial Nirvana Mama, and then there's also a link to Henry's book so that you're able to find out a little more about the journey of each of our guests.
So we're going to jump right into our conversation. So let's start off with you, Tracy! Why did you get into do it yourself investing?
TRACY: Well, really is because I made a ton of mega mistakes in life and I was lucky to survive and have a few epiphanies along the way. My first mega mistake was that like, like many students coming out of university I had student loan debt and of course I hate debt so I was aggressively paying it off after graduating and I was working as a consulting engineer. At the same time, I was moonlighting as a tutor and as a model working like 70 hour plus workweeks on average for years. And that was a grind. And knowing I just hated it. I had lots of overnight shifts as well as an engineer working on construction sites. So, I decide after paying off my student debt that I needed to work smarter rather than work harder and otherwise I would just be in the eventual burnout mode.
Another epiphany was when I was actively investing in stocks and this is like during the tech bubble, which really ages me now after the market crash. And I would buy in like high quality companies but the issues is like I didn't do much research, I didn't I was just looking at technical indicators, and then support resistance, and then I was just a bargain hunter.
But then once I invested in some really quality companies I didn't have the conviction to keep them, so I sold them and I realized that that's another mistakes. Like, wow, I got to start learning about investing and otherwise I'm just gambling. And so the Warren Buffett quote really resonates with me, it's like "if you don't find a way to make money while you sleep, you'll work until you die." So, I then read every book I can about real estate investing because that's a tangible asset to me and everyone needs a place to live. And so I started investing in rental properties across Canada and eventually led me to accumulate enough and I cashed out some of them where I decide to leave my government career as an engineer which is meaning I'm leaving the golden pension and all that at 35 years old to to pursue my own path because I reached a level of a lean financial independence which is basically really frugal living. But it gave me confidence to pursue a journey that resonates with me. So I've been just reading a ton of books, taking courses, getting coaches to help me during my investing journey, and now because I've been taking investing much more seriously and consistently investing all these years, letting compounding do its magic I know I feel so lucky that I'm living the life that I'm living right now.
NUGWA: Now, thanks for sharing your journey with us. So I actually want to transition over to Henry where you actually start investing or do it yourself investing later in life as compared to Tracy. So how did that happen for you?
HENRY: Well, I wasn't raised with families that invested in the stock market or even concentrated too much on saving. What they did do, of course was just try to keep our debt down. So, it wasn't till we were about 45 or early 50s that I realized that we only had CPP and OAS to live on should we decide to retire. And we had a friend that recommended investing in stocks. So we took his advice. We bought some stocks that he recommended and from there we listened to radio programs, TV programs, and we bought and sold stocks with the idea that most people have to make more money on every investment you make. Unfortunately, that didn't work out too well. It took us about 2 years to realize that buying and selling stocks just wasn't working for us. After that, we got talked into hiring a financial manager and he convinced us that mutual funds was the way to go. And so, again, for another 2 years, maybe 3 years, we stayed with that strategy we probably had 60% in mutual funds and the rest in fixed assets. But we began to realize that we weren't any further ahead with the financial manager than when we were working on our own. So it was at about that time that I discovered the Connally Report by Tom Conway and Tom was promoting dividend growth investing. So I began to research it and I realized that it's a much simpler strategy than what we were trying to do. So over the next couple of years we slowly converted to dividend investing. Keep it in some system, some REITS all of which were recommended by other financial advisors. And it took another 2 or 3 years to realize that those products, even though they provided a bit more income, really weren't as secure as the quality dividend growth stocks that we own. So, eventually I started to really seriously look at dividend growth and I realized that it's not even dividend growth, it's really the income. So that was the beginning of our, I guess the development of the book because I realized that if I didn't earn an income from every investment and if I couldn't get my income to grow not just from dividend increases but the portfolio itself then I was missing something. So I began to refine the strategy and I eventually came up with what I thought worked for me. And over the next 15 years, we're not only retired with more income than we needed, the income continued to grow. So even though we stopped investing money we continue to see our income or investment income grow and now we're at the point where we never have to sell capital unless we want to to meet our retirement needs.
NUGWA: Alright, thanks so much for sharing that with us. So I want to move on, I want to bring Shay into the conversation because Shay you are actually a day trader rather than an investor. So can you explain what day trading is and why you decided to pursue it?
SHAY: Yeah. So day trading means you're buying a stock and calling it within a single day, so you're closing the position within the entire day. So at the end of the day you're all cash. So that's what day trading is. So you are taking advantage of the intraday volatility. So a stock could be at, hypothetically speaking at $50 and went to a high of $54 and came back to $53, you're trying to capture that for $3 or $4 move within that one day. So that's what day trading is. And I was really drawn towards day trading when I was 21 at the time because I was fresh out of college, you know I had a job at the time. I was working in VFX in film industry but it's not a very stable career.
Like I would have worked for a couple of weeks and have to take another 2 weeks off, so you know.
I was living in Los Angeles at the time and rent is really, really expensive 3 even 8 years ago. So.
For me, I wanted to make some side income on the side on my days off so I can, you know, pay rent, you know, make some supplemental income to live in a very, very expensive city. So that's.
How I got into day trading. I wanted to make money on the side and a lot of people and I'm sure you.
Know, people are still seeing the ads nowadays. They think that, you know, they trade things, get.
Rich quick, they see the Lamborghinis, they see the private jets, they see like the luxury travel, and I was definitely drawn to that too when I.
First started by really quickly learned that that's just not the reality at all. Day trading is trial by fire, you have to learn and make a lot.
Of painful mistakes to learn from your mistakes, from your experience, and kind of like built upon that so I lost a lot of money in my first year and especially you know, like during that time when I didn't have a lot every single dollar that was lost, it was very, very painful. But I just.
Love the game. To me, it's a challenge. I love the challenge. I really, really want to make it work.
I used to sneak in a lot trees at work to like trade on my phone while working on my computer.
So you definitely have to be very passionate about the market and trying to learn all aspects of the game. Small caps, large cap, all the momentum stocks, even swing trading sometimes.
So I think to succeed in trading you need to be really persistent and to be able to put in the work and realize sooner rather than later that it's not about the "fast money." Because if you if all you care about is you know, making Lamborghini money, making it quick, it's it's very it's it's it's a downward spiral and a lot of people lose their life life savings that way. So you definitely need to go in with the right mindset and the right expectations in order to make day trading work.
I would say it took me about 2 years to become actually profitable and for for most people you know, if you put in the work after 6 month a year, you should see some traction. I was a slow learner on that record, but no, no regrets. I quit my job eventually to day trade full-time and and I've been doing those for over 8 years now.
NUGWA: Right. So thank you so much for sharing that and I think the summary of what I've gotten from just that one question that I addressed to all three of you is that there's no one size fits all when it comes to investing or trading. And that's why it's important as you all referred to, to do your research, to know what your risk level is before you step into an investment style. There's also a potential that you could try it and if it doesn't work for you, you go back to, you know, to back to the a blank slate and you know re-readdress maybe certain issues to see is my risk level where it needs to be for this kind of training? So thank you all so much for sharing that. I actually want to move on to Tracy because we just talked to Shay, who is who's a day trader. On the other hand, you would describe yourself as an investor. So how would you describe that and what approach do you take as an investor?
TRACY: I think just just knowing my nature, my personality, I said I'm like a value investor, I'm like a bargain hunter. I'm like, I've always been one of those people, like, oh, so excited when you see something on sale, the supermarket, like especially when its cherries because cherries is like one of my favorite fruits to eat. So I'm a primarily buy and hold investor. I invest in assets like rental properties, I like having tangible assets, also like investing in blue chip, dividend growth companies like Henry.
I also like vesting established growth stocks, companies and I love also collecting income just like Henry about dividends. I'm a big dividend investor as well. I, I just stay invested in stocks that are good quality, high quality, and I believe in their investment thesis and if it stays compelling, then I'll slowly add to my position over time. And the more I study, the more I see opportunities in the market in investing undervalued companies, especially now given the market that we're facing.
And for me, I, I'm a curious person, I actually really like learning about different companies so this just made a natural connection. And so by doing this, I've taken all my courses, read a lot of books on successful investors like Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, Peter Lynch, and it's all about practice. I just echo what Shay was saying, that it's persistence.
It definitely is persistence, it's not a get rich quick overnight. It's like with anything you put the time into it and you do it consistently it pays off. And I've developed my way of investing is that for me I don't like relying on analyst projections. They're, I know how they calculate the numbers and given my background in engineering, it's like I like to reverse engineer a lot of things.
And so for me, I like to develop my own estimates for the growth type of companies that probably will be quite different from what the analysts are projecting and I'm comfortable with my analysis. So, so that's kind of like what I like to do and it's, it's, it's what I'm most comfortable with. It's, I think it comes back to just part of my profession as an engineer was always building estimates and coming up with worst case and base case and conservative, like coming up with different scenarios so it's, it's much more comfortable for me doing this.
NUGWA: And you do this by utilizing the financial statements, right? For the companies?
TRACY: Yes. Using that, going investor relations is all there! And the financial statements are on there. That's right and reading the investor presentations.
NUGWA: All right, okay. And you can also find for investors who do use a TD trading platform WebBroker, there's also there's a link within that WebBroker where you can click on fundamentals actually pull up a concise version of the financial statements as well if you're, if you practice a similar investing strategy to Tracy. So let's, let's bring Henry into the conversation!
So for Henry, you are very income focused and that's your approach to investing. So can you explain how it works and some of the guiding principles that you use to pick your dividend stocks?
**HENRY:** Well, I guess the main difference between the strategy I recommend and probably every other investor is that we ignore capital growth, we ignore the stock market, we ignore the price of our holdings, and our main concern is income. So, the way we achieve that or at least the way I recommend people that have it, is that take the time to learn the process, learn how to evaluate stocks, and it's a very simple process, and then develop what I call a list of stocks to consider.
I guess like Tracy, I like companies that have been around for years and years and have a growing or a proven history. So if you develop the list of stocks to consider and I'm talking about probably maximum 10-20, beyond that I think you're spreading yourself a little too thin and you're getting into the speculation area. So that I think that maybe I'll just explain the process.
There's only 4 guiding rules that I use, and the 1st one is, "if a company cuts the dividend within a 10 year period, you ignore that stock completely." So that eliminates probably 30% of the companies on the TSX. The 2nd rule that I use is that, "a company must have paid a dividend for at least 10 years, 25 years is much better." The 3rd one is, "has the company consistently grown the dividend or increased their dividend over the past 10 years?" And they don't have to raise that every year but they must have to raise it consistently, say at least 8 out of 10 years. And it's the 4th one that is probably the I guess not the most important but it's certainly the key is that, "the company must have grown their dividend by at least 75% over the past 10 years." And you'll find that those 4 rules will eliminate probably 60%, maybe 70% of the stocks listed on the TSX or the TSX60. So you're left with probably 20-25 companies, large companies on the TSX that would meet my four basic criteria. After that, you can apply other tests but those 4 will probably at least narrow the list. So you have a good starting point of companies to look at.
**NUGWA:** So I actually have a follow-up question to that because you know right now we're in a unique economic environment where in the last 2 years we've experienced a lockdown. So a lot of companies may have experienced things within their financials that they didn't plan for. So is there any time where you make an exception to your guiding rules?
**HENRY:** The exceptions are based on individual cases and it's you know I don't like to recommend stocks to individuals, I prefer that they learn how to evaluate stocks and pick their own selection. But you have companies like utilities that they pay a consistent dividend and they have for years, they've raised the dividend almost every year, but they may not meet the 75% growth over the 10 year period. So there a number of utilities that I would allow exception for. We've had the Canadian banks which of course were restricted from raising their dividends for I guess almost 2 years during the financial crisis and another year and a half during the COVID-19. So, you know, you want to look at those kinds of situations but as far as other companies or other situations it really depends on the company and the situation. You have to look at it on an individual basis.
**NUGWA:** All right. So and once again, I will reiterate that any information that we provide today is not meant to provide any financial legal tax or investment advice and any securities that might be mentioned is not an endorsem*nt of TD Direct Investing. So yeah, so we're having conversations with investors and the different styles that have worked for them. So I want to bring Shay to the conversation. So Shay, how would you describe your style of day trading and how has it evolved over the last 8 years?
**SHAY:** Yeah, so my style is mostly momentum trading.
So, meaning that I trade high volume stocks that give us a lot of range. So every single morning there's scalpers and gap downs, so stocks gapping up and stocks gapping down overnight. And generally, usually there's catalysts on the stock could be large cap earnings, could be you know potential rumors, buyouts like Twitter today, or it could be the small cap stocks where they have a lot of overnight catalysts like drug approvals or any large transactions going through that causing the stock to gap up and gap down from and also with a lot of volume.
So that's the kind of things I trade whenever there's above average volume and above average range that's where day trading really thrive because you can trade the both sides. When I first started trading I was mostly going long, meaning that I always buy and sell the stocks and you know, let's say from a dollar to $2, I make $1 per share. But now you know especially this year with a bear market we're in right now I've adapted to more of a short selling, so I short stocks. So when stocks go down from $2 down to a $1 I capture that $1 move for the gain.
So that's where, you know as a trader, you have to adapt to the market. This year, both small caps and large caps there's a lot of opportunities on the short side, whereas in 2020 and 2021 I would say most of the opportunities were on the long side. So that's where you have to adapt every single year due to the market condition. But momentum trading I think you know, it's as long as there's a volume in the market, there's a range in the market that's always going to be lot good trades to be had for the traders.
NUGWA: All right, okay, excellent, thanks for sharing! So let's hop into some viewer questions and I'll address this to Tracy. So Victor has a question and Victor is asking: "I'm an investor and I was wondering in current market conditions how would you be able to be profitable using your current style of investing or trading? What challenges are they?" So we'll start off with Tracy and then Henry or Shay if you want to contribute, feel free to contribute to the question. So Tracy, if you could address the question, please.
TRACY: For sure, I would say that one thing is you got to look at it from a long term view and invest with money that you don't need to pay the bills - this one big, big, big rule because when you're looking at year to year performance. Of course it's going to fluctuate, we got ups and downs, you just got to ride it through and have an investing horizon of least 5 years, makes it much more I would say easier to invest.
It's about choosing high-quality companies but at the same time understanding that every market will have a preference for an investing style.
So for example, the bull market was great when you had growth stocks, tech companies but then when you're facing a bear market like we are right now you're so happy to have your dividend players, the ones that are paying income, the boring companies because everyone needs everyone needs them.
Okay, we need to pay our power bills or Internet bills so those companies are essential needs. So I was just understanding that when you invest for the long term build a portfolio that can survive different turns of the market.
So that's the big thing and obviously "nots" also I echo what Henry is saying not not like, you know buy 100s of companies because that's kind of defeating the purpose but to have your short list of companies that meet your rules and meets your time horizon and you understand that in a bear market that you're so glad to have income companies. And when you have growth, you want to capitalize on the returns. When you're in the bull market, you're happy to have the growth companies, the tech companies, and also position size accordingly and not be, for example, not be 100% in a certain sector like the financials.
I'm just thinking of the financial crises, like if we all your entire portfolio was made up of 100% of financial companies that would also not be a very wise decision. So being able to position size according we having like no more than, you know, 10% as a rule of thumb in one sector, that sort of thing just be basic investing 101. A lot of this stuff you could read in books too.
NUGWA: Okay, so let me I'll just let all our audience know there's a poll right now and so take the time to vote for the questions that you want us to ask our guests next. So but let me address this same question, Victor's question.
I'm going to address that to Shay because I know Henry had mentioned that Henry you don't specifically look at you know the capital appreciation or depreciation of companies. So let's address this to Shay before we move on to the next question.
So Shay, Victor was saying, "I'm a new investor. I'm wondering about current market conditions. How do you stay profitable using your current style of trading and the challenges you may face?"
SHAY: As a new investor? I'm a trader. So for trading, so for trading I think in a down year this year, a lot of I know a lot investors are struggling, you're down like 20% with the entire market. Though trading wise because since you're closing everything at the end of the day you can take advantage of the short term moves. Like I said, intraday if you for example, APPL today if I bought, I didn't, if I buy a $145 and sell at $146, you made a dollar a share. If you bought 1000 shares, you make $1,000. So there's no overnight risk and you're not you're not at the whims of the market fluctuations for the long term downtrend that we're in. So that's why day trading actually sleeps a well at night while a lot of my investor friends are there are, you know like talking about, "oh markets down, market is down." And we as a day trader, you're closing in cash at the end of the day. So whether you are longing or shorting stocks which in this market there's a lot of great short opportunities. So that's how you profit in this market, you take more gains, you know in the in the grand scheme of things they look like you know minuscule but you know at the end of the your cash, you're not down, you know 20% on the year.
NUGWA: All right, okay, thanks for sharing that perspective. So before we move on to our poll results I'm going to ask one more question here and I'm going to address this to to Tracy. So Tracy, Roland Harvey's asking, "how do you keep the balance between diversification and having too many stocks to watch to be able to keep track of them?"
TRACY:
Well, so the part about diversification comes down to knowing your yourself really well. So for me, I like tangible assets which is why I invest in rental properties so I think of it as like 1/3, 1/3, 1/3. As a 1/3 in real estate, a 1/3 in growth companies that don't pay dividends, and a 1/3 in like income companies so that I could ride out pretty much any market. That's kind of the simplest way I think of it. And then obviously you can diversify within each of those buckets like, you know say you're you had a stock portfolio you can't, you only look at like trimmed down to 10-15 stocks that you are that you are confident about. Just like Henry was saying, like trimming it down to you have your process of elimination and then not concentrating too much in each of the sectors.
So having no more than 10% in a sector is a wise thing to do if you're building a stock portfolio. What was the last part of the question? Sorry.
NUGWA: No, no worries. So, "how do you keep track of having too many stocks to watch?"
TRACY: Right. Right. Yeah. So that that comes down to like when you start having a very short list of companies you look at, that's what makes it easier in life! I mean for me I, I have twins, I have you know I've got life, I've got my husband, so you know obviously life gets in, gets in the way and you're not going to have to track 100s of stocks. So you become really knowledgeable about the 10/15 companies you're looking at and for me the way I've actually even made that even easier was that a big proportion of my stock portfolio are in dividend companies which are pretty boring, their essential needs. So if you start eliminating that then you realize, oh, there's only like maybe 4 or 5 companies that I'm actually really, really interested in, that I actually have a position in, and so think even that way like is just going by the process of elimination is how I see it.
NUGWA: All right so let me let me address this to then to Henry. So Henry, for yourself you had mentioned earlier that you, you typically have around 20 securities that you hold. "So how do you find a balance between those 20 securities? And does that provide you sufficient diversification? And how are you able to keep track of them?"
HENRY: Well, the question of diversification really doesn't apply to income investing because diversification and if you talk about investing in many sectors or if you invest in ETFs, well you're going to lower your income. So we want to avoid vast diversification. We want to concentrate on a small number of companies that we know will provide us with a growing income regardless of the market.
NUGWA: All right. Okay. So I'm going to just move on to our poll results now. And so based on our results, we have a question that that I'm going to address to Henry because it's it's about investing. So it's saying, oh, sorry! This is about trading so I'm going to address this to Shay actually. So it says, "As a complete novice trader, what is a basic strategy that can be used?" So Shay, do you have response to that?
SHAY: Yeah. So the simplest strategy is one I used when I first started is buying at support after a stock is breaking out. So you find stocks of goods catalysts, you find stocks are really, really bullish daily chart not a downtrend in chart. So you find those stocks that have catalyst and you let them breakout, pull back to support, and you long the support - that's the simplest strategy there is. And if you actually selective about the stocks they meet the criteria I just mentioned, of course you need volume as well. High volume good positive catalysts, daily chart breakout, and you buy at support, don't chase and buy at breakout! You buy at support. That's the simplest strategy there is.
NUGWA: All right. So just a tip for those of us in the audience, just quickly explain what support is. So support specifically for investors who practice technical analysis will be that price, where investors tend to notice that the price of the security tends to drop, hit, and bounce right back up. All right! So now I'm going to ask a couple of more questions that are on the poll here. So we have another question here that says, and this time I'm going to ask, I'm going to direct this question to let's address this to Tracy. So Tracy, "do you change your strategy or tactics when it's a down time like right now?
If so, then what is that like."
TRACY: In terms of tactics? No, my system, my framework for investing, which is you know seeing that there's value in the company doesn't change. It's more like I am pickier, way pickier in a down trading market to focus on really, really high-quality companies. Meaning that they have a lot of cash flow, ideally minimal debt, because you know that that relates to the interest rates that we're facing right now, that grow their revenue over time, that are growing their earnings ideally faster than their revenue over time. So and also that has a strong management team, a CEO ideally also owns part of the company. So those are the things those are the fundamentals I look at and when you know, look that you're you have a really good company it's like then you just ride out the market and just become pickier. I think like a lot of people you know, could you relate to this. You probably do a lot of research, say if you're buying a stroller. You know you want to make sure it's safe, you want to check the reviews out, you know and you want to make sure that you get value for your money buying this stroller. I mean, that amount of research that I think a lot of people do for picking a stroller or picking a car, you know I think that would be a wise thing to do with your own money! It's just a matter and the information is out there.
NUGWA: Okay. So thanks so much for sharing. So I have I have a question then for Henry. So, "Henry was there ever a moment in your journey where you had to rethink your approach?"
HENRY: Not once I switched to income investing. You know, if every year you're getting a 10-15% raise, you know there's not much to be concerned about. So and that's basically what most income investors will receive. They should receive between 15 and, say, 20-25% income growth each year regardless whether the market is going up or down. In fact, you'll earn more money when the stock market is dropping then you will when it's going up. So that's why we don't worry about capital appreciation we concentrate on the income. And like I say, if your income is growing each and every year, year after year, no, there is no reason to worry about or consider changing the strategy.
NUGWA: All right, so then I'll move on to Shay then.
So Shay, "Have you had to adjust your day trading strategy in response to changing market conditions?"
I'm curious, "was there ever a time when you doubted your decision to go full-time into day trading and how did you work through those emotions?"
SHAY: Oh, yeah! I would say if you don't doubt it like every couple of months you then you're not actually a trader.
Yeah, all the time. I think I quit trading, I quit twice a year in my first 2 years. You know, usually it's after a big loss.
In my first 2 years, I quit, I said I never want to do this again. Then I'll take a you know 2 weeks off but somehow I'm still like drawn back to the market.
It's all about, you have to be in it, you have to in it and love the challenge. I think for the people who only do it for the money you losing after losing a couple of grand you'll give up and that's fine. Plenty of people give up.
And for me, after the losses I take a break, you know I think you know maybe I won't go back. But eventually, you know I'm still like checking Twitter, checking Stocktwits, checking Yahoo! Finance to see what's going on.
So, yeah I would say I gave up you know multiple times and then even now, even now as a full-time trader after 8 years there's still months when I hate it. When the market slows down, in the summer I would say in May and June of this year it was just there was just nothing moving but you show up. You show up to your desk because day trading is a job, right? It's a career. It's not, it's not a passive thing, it's an actual business and it's taxed as a business as well. So we have to take it seriously.
Yes, like any job there's going to be days where I hate it, there's going to be days where you don't want to wake up, but I would say that's totally normal. Especially if you are really active in the market. There are going to be days where some days are amazing where you are sitting in front of the computer from the market open all the way to close and some days where you know 10 minutes in you know nothing's going to happen.
NUGWA: All right. So I actually have a follow-up question to that and thanks for sharing that and mentioning something that's important, that day trading is considered a business, right? So Nelson has a question for the day trader, that's you Shay, "so how did you balance learning and trading when you were working?"
SHAY: Yeah, that's a very good question. So I was lucky to be working on the West Coast. So the market opens at 9:30 a.m. local time here and then and for me... Sorry, wait, excuse me. Sorry, market opens at 6:30 a.m. local time. So we're talking about hard work dedication here. Like I used to wake up at 5:00 a.m. every day, I mean I still do but at that time I had a job. So 5:00 a.m. I'll allocate 5:00 a.m. wake up and then I'll trade and research till about 6 a.m. So one-hour research before market opens 6:00 o'clock to 6:30 just get everything ready. 6:30 market actually opens and I'll trade for about 2 hours till about 8:30 and I'll get to work and commute an hour to work. I usually show up late unfortunately, not recommending people to show up late but that's what happened to me. I show up late, walk into the office, you know you sneak in from the back - don't do it, I'm not recommending it, I'm just saying that's what I did. Sneak in from the back 9:30 or 10:00 o'clock and you show up for work. So that's what I did and even like during what we call "power hour" in trading, is the last hour of the market of the open market. So it'll be 3:00 to 4:00 o'clock ET, so for me, they'll be 12:00 to 1:00 o'clock. So that coincidentally is my lunch break. So during lunch break while I work, I will do my research, I'll look at what's going on, use my phone, or use just on the work computer - don't tell anyone! And I look at what other movers and look at what I missed and that's when I catch up. So you kind of like try if you actually want to do this, you're going to just try to squeeze in like 30 minutes there, one hour there to do your research and collect the stock that you're going to trade the next day. So I'll do that and then after I get home from work in the evening I'll also put in at least an hour to 2 hours of work just researching what's going on and do my research and plan for tomorrow. So yeah, it's a lot of hard work and you know there's no guarantee that it's going to pay off. But if you and I will tell you that if you don't do the work, I can guarantee that you won't succeed. That's all I can guarantee you. So, you know it's not for everyone. I got to say, day trading is not for everyone. It's not a passive investing style by any means but, but you have to do it for the passion, for the love of it, and eventually, hopefully, to make money. So that's why it's not for everyone but that's that's my story of how I went part-time to full-time though. It's like giving it 100% of the time and effort you have during the earlier years when you're learning.
NUGWA: I have a follow-up question. I wanted to ask, so because you mentioned that the markets opened at 6:30 where you were, did you ever consider using when you woke up at 5:00 a.m. pre-market trading hours or aftermarket trading hours?
SHAY: Mm hmm. Yeah, that's a good question. So pre-market trading, you know it's great when there's a lot of volume.
NUGWA: Hmm.
I think we lost Shay there in terms of volume. So while she's fixing that, I do want to mention that we have another poll on screen there. So please take the time to fill out the poll there. So let us know what next what question you like our guests to answer. I'm going to do a quick check again, Shay are you back with us?
SHAY: Uh, hello?
NUGWA: Yes, now we can hear you. Sorry, you were talking about pre-market trading.
SHAY: Right! Yeah. So I think trading pre-market is only valid and only you know good for trading if there's a lot of volume. So I would say that 2022 there isn't a lot of volume pre-market. That's typical bear market. So I would say pre-market trading is only good for bull markets. So 202
0/2021, I basically don't sleep. I wake up at 3:00 and I trade from 3:00 to 5:00, take a break and then trade again from market open. So yeah, so you can still trade pre-market but this year is not great. You need a lot of volume to fill your shares.
NUGWA: All right so just to let the audience know that within TD Direct Investing on WebBroker you do have access to pre- and post-market trading for US trader securities. So investors who are looking to consider that they have access to that within WebBroker.
All right. So I'm going to bring Tracy into the conversation there. So Tracy, you also mentioned that you manage real estate property. So, "how would you say the time and effort that's required to do that differs from researching and investing in stocks?"
TRACY: Well, okay. So I think I'm going to just echo Shay's comment about persistency. So definitely one real estate requires you to be a people person is one thing but both require work and there's nothing passive about investing.
I know that people like to think investing is passive but in reality there's always research involved so with real estate investing in terms of work needed. Well, just think of it, you are, I'm a residential real estate investor so that means I buy like townhomes, condos, single detached homes, duplexes that sort of thing. Which means then the you need to actively market these properties on like Facebook, that sort of thing and then you collect rental income from your tenants. So along that journey you got to learn to recognize what is "undervalued property" that's key and that is cash flow. So again, it comes down to a numbers game as well as the cliché of location, location, location.
And then just think of that once you own these rental properties while you have tenants and if you don't, even if you have a property manager who's managing these properties, well things break like just like your own home. All of the sudden a stove stops working well that stove needs to get replaced, the property manager will still book you. For me, I have some really easy A+ properties and I'm comfortable with my husband and I managing them. They don't require a lot of work but the initial ramp up to finding this property was definitely a lot of work. And once, but once it's established, once you have a system in place of buying, investing up, long term buy and hold rental properties it isn't a lot of work. But some days can be painful because you do get that occasional call of an unexpected event, like a tree needs to be cut down on the property because it's dying and that's a $2,000 expense versus with stocks, you know it is is very simple that you could just push a button on the computer and you could buy them.
But like with anything I would think a lot of people would want to know what what their money is being used for. So are you getting value for your money? So there's still a significant amount of research that needs to be done to position size of your portfolio, to choose the stocks but once that's established, you've trimmed down to your shortlist and you know when they go on sale and you buy them then it's a matter of just monitoring your portfolio. So with both both sides of it takes a significant ramp up, learning the process, figuring out your system, but then after that I would say if you are just like me, like owning a certain select number companies, you know 10-15 type companies then it's a matter of monitoring and just making sure that they are still following your growth thesis.
So I would say with real estate short, I would say like with real estate you got to be a people person, you got to like talking to people. Well, at least with investing stocks you're not talking to anyone.
NUGWA: So you just go and make your purchase step away, right?
TRACY: Yeah.
NUGWA: Thanks so much. Thanks so much for sharing that. So we still have a poll up, I do want to let our audience know that we're getting so many great questions that we will stick around. We'll stick around for an additional 15 minutes, so instead of ending at 2:00 p.m., we will end the session around 2:15. Our guests have been gracious enough to stick around to answer all your great questions. So let's move on to another question, and this one is for Henry. So, "can you share your biggest errors and a success when it comes to investing?"
HENRY: It's been great in the last 15 years! Other than to sell stocks to gift to my relatives and grandkids. But, you know if I go back to when I was 50-55 I made a number of them, I actually bought Nortel. And of course, that one I think I bought it at $18 and of course, it went down to a couple of pennies. And so, of course, we dumped it and took a loss on it. So that's definitely my biggest mistake. As far as my... I have to say that my wife has made better choices than I have and I think women in general are probably better stock pickers. But, you know, I think since I switched to income investing and since I started to concentrate the number of stocks that I hold or the number of stocks that I'm interested in, I can't say that I made any particular. Again, it's income, you know my wife has 1 stock, we both have it, as an example, I'm going to draw back to my TFSA account. We have both invested the maximum amount in our TFSAs every year and every January. We don't worry about timing the market. We just, January we look at dumping money in or shifting stocks in. Well, after what is the 13 years? My TFA-TFSA generates $7,500 of income every year and it's growing! But my wife is generating about $8,200. So, you know she's doing much better than I am and we basically invest in a she owns 6 stocks and I own 5 and we own 3 of the same in our TFSA. So you can see that she's picked 1 or 2 that are better than mine.
NUGWA: All right. So thanks so much for sharing, you know, sharing the potential errors and bumps along the way for investors who are trying out different investing styles, as well as the successes that you've investors may encounter along the way as well. So our poll results are up. So I'm going to go to the highest poll question here and I'll address this to Tracy. So it says, "I've been investing for many years. The unfortunate ongoing pattern is that 5 years of gains get wiped out in 3 month bear market. What can be done to mitigate this?"
TRACY: Yes, I'm on mute, sorry.
NUGWA: Okay. No worries, no worries.
TRACY: Yeah, unfortunately I hear you. I think that I suspect that the unfortunate pattern of having 5 years of gains wiped out could be related to concentration risk and also over positioning on a few companies. If the portfolio was built considering that there would be a bear market, like considering income companies like Henry was saying, I think that would be a great way to mitigate surviving the bear market. It's not having 100% of your, for example, your stock portfolio in companies that are tech companies is one thing. So I think I suspect it could be your position size and the concentration in a few sectors, is a way, so you, I would stress to relook at.
NUGWA: Okay, so that's where the idea of the power of diversification comes into play, where you're not putting all your eggs in one basket, right? Because we know that certain sectors tend to respond to different market cycles in different ways. You have those that would, could go down when the general markets are down but there are ones who react in an opposite way or who are more defensive. So the idea of diversification comes into play. All right. So now I'm going to ask another question and this one is addressed to Henry. So, Henry, you were talking about dividend investing. So, "can you recommend some books on either dividend growth investing or different dividend income investing things?"
HENRY: Other than my own? Yeah, I think one of the best books is Lowell Miller's: The Single Best Investment, and the other one that I would recommend would probably be Josh Peters. He wrote, I forget the title, I'm really over that age limit where things start to disappear in my mind. But certainly Josh Peter's book and Lowell Miller's book are 2 of the best.
NUGWA: All right, and I will mention that as we had indicated on the left lower corner of your screen there, you would be able to see our resources and links. So there's links to pages for Tracy as well as Shay, and then you'll be able to see the link to Henry's book which is: Your Ever Growing Income. So you can check those out as well as I. We will be going over time to 2:15 to allow us to address the great questions we're getting for our audience but for those of us who do have to drop off, I do want to thank you so much for joining us. I also want to highlight that there is a survey that you can fill out at the end of this, so please take the time to give us your feedback about how you think the session went, what more you would like to see. We also have some great upcoming webinars. We have 2 webinars next week that you are able to register for, which is at the center, lower center of your screen there. So we have a webinar coming up next week, October 11th at 1:00 p.m., "Five ways I find value in a down market." We also have a second webinar on October 13th at 6:00 p.m. for those of us who can't make a 1:00 p.m. webinar on "Why we use high yield income strategies in early retirement." So be sure to check those out and if you want to see the rest of the great content we have for Investor Education Month, you are able to click on either our box for master classes or webinars that are appearing at just underneath your question and answer box there. We also have a page dedicated to Investor Education Month www.td.com/IEM. All right, so we're going to continue with our really great conversation here, and now I want to move on to a question that will address to Shay. So Shay, "how do you research the stocks to trade?" Because you mentioned that you would typically wake up around 5:00 a.m., 5:00-6:00 you do your research so tell us a little bit of what that research looks like.
SHAY: Yeah. So I use 2 kind of tools. On the first kind is the technical research in which you scan for stocks that's gapping up. So you're not looking at the fundamentals yet, I'm just looking at the volume on the stock
, price of the stock, market cap, and how much percentage is up. So that's how that's my first round of selection. Let's say I pick out 10 stocks from there and then second and move on to doing more fundamental research. Essentially finding out why the stock is up. Is it earnings? And if it's earnings then how was the earnings? I'll read the earnings report, I'll read what the analysts are saying, but I think like what Tracy said, what analysts say it's usually not exactly reliable but I also read it. So earnings report, if it's a biotech I'll look at, oh, is it like phase one? Phase two? Like what can the trial did we just pass? Is a phase three? Was there FDA approval? So all of these things matter a lot on the second phase. And then small cap, sometimes we have stocks that's running up on no news. So I'll take a note of that because stocks running up on no news usually they are a good short. So those are the first 2 rounds of research I do. So after that after that I narrowed down to about 5 stocks, sometimes 7 if there's a lot and then that's where I start planning out on my charting platform. So charting I use ThinkorSwim and then I will chart it out on both my execution and my charting platform. Basically, you're drawing all the support, resistance, and planning out your potential entries, your price target, and your risk area. No risk area is basically where you stop out for loss but calculate that loss if your thesis is not correct. So that usually takes me about you know 30 minutes if I'm fast and thinking fast on the day and the hour if I'm having a slower day.
NUGWA: Okay. So you also mentioned, you mentioned ThinkorSwim and so I just wanted to mention that ThinkorSwim is a trading platform that investors have access to.
You're able to get access to that which is for a more sophisticated or active traders, and you can get access to that through TD Direct Investing. All right. So I actually do have a follow question for you, Shay. So the question goes, and this question is from Paul. Paul's asking, "what criteria, goals, consistency do you reach that helped you feel comfortable using larger sizes when day trading?" So in other words, investing more into day trading or, you know, putting more funds towards day trading.
SHAY: Yeah. So this is a great question because if you cannot make money with $1,000, sorry if you cannot make money with a $5,000 account then you cannot make money trading in a $50,000 account. So start small. You know, I know some people say, oh, they have $30,000, they want to trade with that. I would say it doesn't matter how much money you have. Start trading as if you only have $5,000. Use very, very small share size, and we're talking about just 50 shares, 100 shares, and use that to find the strategy that you can focus on.
So whether it's the buying the pullback after the breakout strategy I mentioned or whether it's shorting. So find one or two and trade small size until you can actually see that you know you have really, really good green days and your red days are a lot smaller. That's how you know you have consistency. It's okay to have losses, but your losses should be three times smaller than your wins. So until you see that, no journal, don't size up. So you want to size up once you have one or two strategies and once you have proper risk management. So once you find those two very important things, then it's time to slowly size up, go from 50 shares to 100 shares, 100 shares to 150, or to 200, like slow incremental increases in share sizes.
NUGWA: All right. So okay, so that's a great response to the question there. So now I have a question, and this will address Tracy. And Loz is asking for Tracy, "what about REITs? So real estate investment trusts instead of managing properties?"
TRACY: Thanks for that. So yeah, this question is very good. Actually, I would say that's a great way to get into real estate without having the hassles of managing tenants and if you're not into that. I would say just to set expectations though, you know, nothing, there's no free lunch.
So because it's fixed income, don't expect you know home runs here. They're very boring, but is a great way to get into the market of saying owning commercial property because it takes a lot of capital to own commercial or you know an apartment building. So it's is a great way to get into it but I would say the returns are substantially less. And that's that's the trade-off, is that because there's no work involved that means also there's also less returns versus if you're looking for rental properties. You, you do put in a lot more work and you are choosing you know high, a high quality property but not at an expensive price ideally at a cheaper price, undervalued is like, undervalued property. So by doing that, doing that research and finding it and attracting the right tenants and getting the right rent in the right market, then you're expecting a lot larger returns than you would say about REITs. But it's a lifestyle issue. It's like, if you don't really if you're like, hey, my life is too busy, I always want to get into apartment buildings it's a great way to do it and that's actually part of my reason for even investing in REITs in my portfolio is because I don't have the capital and I don't want to own a huge apartment building at all. It would be adding complexity to my life.
NUGWA: All right, okay. So thanks for sharing that. So now I have a question for Henry. So Henry were talking about dividend income investing so, "do you reinvest your dividends automatically?" Basil would like to know.
HENRY: Yes. In fact, I recommend reinvesting dividends wherever possible because it does provide dollar cost averaging. And even when the dividends are large amounts, you know I have these shares where I get $2,000/$3,000 every quarter in dividends, so those are reinvested automatically and what's left over because you can only buy full shares with the broker that I deal with then the balance you know I'll add on to some other purchase if I have money to reinvest.
NUGWA: All right and when it comes to reinvesting of dividends, investors are able to do that using DRIP which is the dividend reinvesting investment purchase plan. And you are able to do that if you have an account with TD Direct Investing by reaching out to our trading desk and we can set that up for for you as an investor either blanket DRIP on every security that pays distributions or dividends within your portfolio or specific DRIP, DRIP on specific securities.
All right. So we have a question for Shay and so for Shay the question goes, "you teach investors how to start day trading, what are some common reasons why some of them fail early on?"
SHAY: Yeah, this is also the reason I failed early on too. If you don't have the right expectations you would think that, oh, if I just get started, I need to start making money right away. But in reality is it's very much normal and in fact it sounds really counterintuitive, in fact it's better to learn why you're failing as an early on especially in your first 6 months. If you start making money right away that's often like beginner's luck and a lot of people make some quick money but they lose really quickly. So it's very much normal to start out losing money and just practicing how trading works. Which is why I said to make sure you trade very, very small positions because you are almost guaranteed to lose money in the first 6 months, I just want to say that. But a lot of people would have the expectation that, oh, I want to see what other people online are doing, I want to know maybe $1,000 a day, $2,000 a day. And they start like, you know swinging for fences very, very early on and a lot of real times that's where usually people blow up and lose the entire account.
So I would say have the right expectations, be realistic about you know the fact about your your time horizon, you need to give a minimum of 6 months but ideally 1 year to really, really learn to and to practice risk management, practices the strategies, and to make it work. Because you need to really need to focus on I call this "paying the market tuition," right? A lot of people go to school, they pay tuition to get eventually get a degree, get a job that's high paying. In trading it's the same way, you have to pay a certain market tuition first to learn. So don't skip that part. Really treat your first 6 months as just a learning period. Have the right expectations, then you won't be always be winging it, this swinging for the big wins and lose money that way. So that's most common way people fail because they want to make that $1,000 a day QUICK.
NUGWA: You had mentioned something that day trading is a business, right? And you have to think about when you start a new business, what are the chances that your business is going to be profitable day 1? That you're going to be making thousands of dollars, right? Because you're going to learn along the way. So the same idea here. So thank you for that. So a couple of more questions will address the Tracy and Henry. And so okay, so this question next is addressed to Tracy. So, "now with each investor's priorities and personalities that are unique to them. So what kind of personality traits do you think would be helpful for a stock picker like yourself?"
TRACY: Hmm, good question. I was going to say for me, it's I would say having a risk appetite, being able to take calculated risks and being comfortable with it. That other part is actually being curious, always wanting to be a lifelong learner, being interested sincerely in the companies because I think just echoing what Shay was saying, being passionate about what you're doing plays a big part when it comes to stock investing.
For me, I am truly interested in the companies I invest in and I do love learning about them. Now some of them are much simpler than others because a lot of them are like, you see them every day, you probably use them every single day, so there isn't much to learn about it. But if you are not into research, it's really, really hard to make yourself do it if you're not naturally just interested in that kind of stuff.
Another one is knowing what you own is a big personality trait. Like if you like knowing what you own and knowing that you have value in what you own, so for example if you're always into numbers and you do a lot of research on things, any time you buy something, that's something that just translates really, really well to the stock market because you're likely to do the same thing with the companies. And for me, that's one thing that I learned early on, that when I was investing in the stock market really early right after university that I couldn't stay convinced in a company if I didn't do research because I didn't know how to do the research I ended up selling the companies way too early and they were high-quality companies. So I would have done better; my portfolio would be a lot bigger than it is today. So I say a few things are about calculated risks, having that risk appetite, being curious, and really interested in the companies that you are investing in, and being comfortable with numbers and knowing that you're buying value for money.
NUGWA: Right. Awesome. Thank you for that. So we'll move on to our last question now. And this is addressed to Henry. So Henry, "what would you say to a novice looking to get started with income investing?"
HENRY: Did you say novice investor?
NUGWA: Yes, a novice investor. Yes.
HENRY: Well, of course the first thing I would say to anybody of course, is manage your debt or get out of debt. And then of course, you know try to live within your means or make sure that you're not spending more than you. What's the I think it's the average household is spending or owes debt of 180% more than they earn every month. So I would suggest they concentrate on their debt first and then make sure that they, if they manage the debt then concentrate on saving a % of their earnings either every month or every quarter, biweekly. And for a young investor, I would say start with saving 25% and next step of course is to open a Tax Free Savings Account. I think every investor, regardless of how much they can afford, whether it's $10 a month or $1,000 a month, invest maximum you can in a tax free savings account before you invest in any other investment account maybe with the exception of a RESP. And finally of course, I would recommend investing for income because with income investing every purchase you make you know exactly how much income you're going to earn. And the longer you hold those investments, the more that income will grow and it will grow regardless if the market is going up or the market is going down. And over time, it'll compound into providing you with salary for life and I believe that's what I would recommend for a novice investor.
NUGWA: All right. So I just want to thank you all so much for sharing your investing journeys with us. We're going to have to wrap up our conversation here.
So hopefully your your perspectives and experiences will give our audience some food for thought as they start to explore their own unique investing styles. So once again, Tracy Mah of Financial Nirvana Mama, Henry Mah who's the author of Your Ever Growing Income, as well as Shay the founder of Humbled Trader.
Thank you all so much for joining us today!
For the rest of our audience, if you want to have a better understanding of who you are as an investor and to deepen your knowledge, we do have events the whole month of October. You are able to check out our calendar of events at www.td.com/IEM
We've curated 5 different knowledge streams which is free educational content and some of these streams are for long-term investors, short-term opportunists, income earners, savers, as well as basics for everyone. I will mention again you have an opportunity to fill out a survey and let us know how you think the session went. Give us your feedback about what more you would like to see. So you're able to fill out that survey right after the session is over.
Thank you all so much for joining us and I want to thank you Shay for coming over. I want to thank you, Tracy and Henry and yeah, we look forward to seeing you all in our upcoming webinars.
Have a great day, everyone.
HENRY: Thank you.
SHAY: Thank you.
TRACY: Thank you. Bye.
SHAY: Bye.
