MI096: TRADITIONAL STOCK MARKET INVESTING ISN’T DEAD

W/ BRADEN DENNIS

09 June 2021

This week, Robert Leonard chats with Braden Dennis about the differences between the Canadian stock market and the US stock market, how to invest internationally, what the CAPE ratio is and why it’s important, and much, much more. Braden is the founder of Stratosphere and the co-host of The Canadian Investor Podcast.

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IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN:

  • What the differences between the Canadian stock market and the US stock market are and if one is positioned to perform better over the next decade.
  • How investors can access international markets outside of their home stock market.
  • What CAPE ratio is and why it is important when looking at financial markets.
  • How to analyze companies and classify them as “good” or “bad” potential investments.
  • What the most important qualitative factors are to look for when analyzing companies to invest in.
  • What factors instantly disqualify a company from further consideration?
  • How to find companies to invest in.
  • What a stock screener is and its drawbacks.
  • How to think about portfolio allocation when you already have two companies identified as “top picks”.
  • How to apply a blended approach with individual stock picking and ETFs.
  • And much, much more!

TRANSCRIPT

Disclaimer: The transcript that follows has been generated using artificial intelligence. We strive to be as accurate as possible, but minor errors and slightly off timestamps may be present due to platform differences.

Robert Leonard (00:02):
On today’s show, I chat with Braden Dennis about the differences between the Canadian stock market and the U.S. stock market, how to invest internationally, what the CAPE ratio is and why it’s important, and much, much more. Braden is the founder of Stratosphere and the co-host of The Canadian Investor Podcast. I actually joined Braden on his podcast on the episode that was released May 10th, 2021. I’ve put a link to that episode in the show notes below for anyone that is interested in checking that out as well. Now, without further delay, let’s get right into this week’s episode of the Millennial Investing Podcast with Braden Dennis.

Intro (00:41):
You’re listening to Millennial Investing by The Investor’s Podcast Network, where your host, Robert Leonard, interviews successful entrepreneurs, business leaders, and investors to help educate and inspire the millennial generation.

Robert Leonard (01:03):
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Millennial Investing Podcast. As always, I’m your host, Robert Leonard, and with me today I have Braden Dennis. Welcome to the show, Braden.

Braden Dennis (01:11):
Thanks, Robert. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Robert Leonard (01:14):
Give us an overview of your background and how you got to where you are today.

Braden Dennis (01:18):
I’m an engineer by training. I actually graduated with an engineering degree and primarily with focus on chemical engineering and environmental sustainability. I was looking at climate change, clean technology, and this is still a huge part of my life today and I’m hoping to eventually bridge that gap with finance and my professional career and bring some real insights to ESG one day, which I believe to be completely broken. But that might be for another podcast. This led me to working in the automotive industry, renewable energy sectors here in Canada, looking at hydroelectric and nuclear power.

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Braden Dennis (01:52):
As a teenager, I was studying Warren Buffett, personal finance, business, obsessively. And, when you start making real money, you’ve got to figure out how you want to actually deploy it. So, as a complete math nerd and engineer, I couldn’t believe the difference between a few percentage points in compounding over time. So, paying a management fee was just off the table for me. Not that there’s anything wrong with active management. It just wasn’t going to be for me. On that same note, looking for an edge, I would think that a few percentage points over the index would be worth my time, compounded over a few decades.

Braden Dennis (02:26):
So, I’ve been able to do that, write about the businesses I think are going to be great long-term compounders on my blog. That blog’s now turned into a full platform for stock investors. Our research, our stock ideas, but also a full software platform for researching fundamentals on every North American listing, which has now become stratosphereinvesting.com.

Robert Leonard (02:46):
I’m often asked about various stock markets across the world, but since I’m U.S.-based and haven’t really invested a lot in international countries before, I don’t usually have a great answer for the followers. Since you’re based in Canada, what are some of the differences between the Canadian stock market, generally, international stock markets, and the U.S. market?

Braden Dennis (03:06):
That’s a fantastic question. Well, right away, when you invest in international markets, you’re going to be dealing in another currency than your own, which typically introduces fees, currency risks. And, there are tons of great international businesses all across the globe. That being said, many great international businesses do also list on U.S. exchanges. They have ADRs or simply, which is a very common approach for U.S. investors, is that American companies that are listed in the U.S., based in the U.S., do tons of global business. So, the enterprises of today that I believe to have unbelievable global scale and can do so in a capital-light manner have been very successful.

Braden Dennis (03:51):
So, Canadian markets versus U.S. markets, for your specific question… As of today, April 27th, 2021, over the last 10 years, the S and P has produced an annualized return of 14.25%. Now, on the contrary, the Canadian index, most commonly referred to index, which is called the TSX Composite, has returned just only 6.43% in that 10-year timeframe. Now, not to knock too much on the Canadian index too much. Let’s actually think about why that is. Let’s look at some of the top constituents inside of these indices. So, just pulling some names from the top 25. For the S and P, you have businesses like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Visa, MasterCard, Disney, PayPal, Home Depot. Now, for the TSX Composite, you’re looking at Royal Bank of Canada, TD Bank, CN Rail, TC Energy, Enbridge, other banks, and Shopify.

Braden Dennis (04:54):
Now, the first one, the S and P, has enterprises that scale at high returns on capital and the TSX is basically banks, energy and Shopify. So, thank goodness that Shopify is carrying the index on its back. But you can see the differences in those two lists of the types of businesses and some qualities that they have that the other ones don’t.

Braden Dennis (05:17):
Now, don’t get me wrong. There are some great businesses here in Canada. To mention one, Constellation Software, which is ticker CSU, is only listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, led by Mark Leonard, who I believe to be one of the greatest capital allocators on the planet.

Robert Leonard (05:33):
Whether it’s U.S. investors to Canada or even from any country to any other different country, how can investors actually access international markets outside of their home stock market?

Braden Dennis (05:46):
You basically have three options. You can buy the stock on an international exchange in their currency, which can trigger some exchange fees from your brokerage or however you decide to do that currency conversion. And then, ultimately, you might be subject to additional taxes, depending on the country you live in and the country you’re investing in. So, that’s option one. Option two is you can buy an ADR or an over-the-counter listing. For example, Tencent, China’s largest public company, which is, by the way, a phenomenal business… You can buy it as under TCEHY in U.S. dollars on the U.S. exchange, but this is a Hong Kong-listed business.

Braden Dennis (06:28):
Now, number three is you [inaudible 00:06:30] get exposure to global businesses that are in your home country. So, when you buy Visa, Google, Apple, you don’t buy them because they’re dominant just in North America. Now, don’t get me wrong. They are. But they’re also dominant on most corners of the globe and that’s why you’ve seen them become so successful and you’re getting some of that global exposure, but still investing in your home country.

Robert Leonard (06:53):
The Canadian stock market currently has a CAPE ratio of 22.8 compared to 35 for the S and P 500. What does this mean for these two markets? Do you see one position to perform better over the next decade than the other?

Braden Dennis (07:09):
It’s an interesting question. As we had talked about before, the S and P doing 14.25% in the same time period that the TSX Composite only did 6.43%, it’s an interesting question of what happens in the future and it’s a question that investors wrestle with all the time. So, the Shiller P/E on the S and P, or the CAPE ratio, let’s not kid ourselves. It’s pretty high. Now, you could justify that with rates low, zero appetite for fixed income pretty much across the board, you could argue that these are justified and there are some shortcomings with how the Shiller P/E or the CAPE ratio are actually calculated like any ratio does, that you could also make some justifications for why it’s so high right now.

Braden Dennis (07:57):
But I believe that it has mostly to do with those constituents that make up such a large percentage of each index. Now, those large constituents of the S and P 500 have had very impressive growth rates, spend [inaudible 00:08:11] obscene amounts of cash. They have high margins for large caps. And, just yesterday, Google reported 34% revenue growth at the close. Now, that company was already worth more than one and a half-trillion dollars, so that is quite mental for a business that big to be reporting those kinds of large numbers.

Braden Dennis (08:32):
Now, you compare that to, you said the lower CAPE ratio on the TSX of 22. Now, the constituents in that index are banks and energy. Banks and energy, you know, trade at 10 X earnings, and I’m painting a brush across all of them. They might vary across different businesses, of course. But you can see a huge disconnect between the large holdings in each index and that’s why you’re seeing such different multiples applied to each index.

Robert Leonard (09:04):
For those who may not know, please explain to us what the CAPE ratio is and why it is important when looking at financial markets.

Braden Dennis (09:11):
Yeah. The CAPE ratio or the Shiller P/E, I believe to be a bit of a litmus test for valuations across the market. It has its imperfections, as any ratio does. It uses the average of earnings for the last 10 years and there might be some shortcomings based on just that because earnings have been so amazing in recent years and growing so fast. Now, I tend to look at macro very little and there are some folks that have done tremendously well with macro. The Bitcoin bulls have absolutely crushed the trade and congrats to your colleague Preston Pysh. He put his neck on the line for that and just dominated that trade.

Braden Dennis (09:51):
But for me, I think [inaudible 00:09:53] just looking at great companies, trying to pay a decent price, and then having the temperament to hold them for a very long time. That’s where I like to spend my time and efforts, despite wherever the Shiller P/E might sit today. Now, sure, some stuff definitely does look expensive, but if you had some insight on some of the growth rates that we’ve seen that would actually be sustained… We look back, you know, five, 10 years ago. Microsoft and Google are deep value if anything, right? Pretty sure big tech trades at only around 20 times enterprise valued at 2022 earnings. So, when you think about it in a different light, you could definitely justify some of the valuations we’re seeing today and there are lots of reasons to be very optimistic in the future.

Robert Leonard (10:40):
On your website, you offer top stock picks for the U.S. stock market and Canadian stock market. How are you analyzing these companies? What are you looking for that classifies them as quote, unquote, good or bad potential investments?

Braden Dennis (10:56):
I’ve tried to create a framework around how I think about these things because it is so qualitative in nature of what makes good and great businesses. And, a lot of it comes out in the numbers, too. So, when you combine some of that art of investing and looking at some qualities, but also having some numbers to back it up, you can find some awesome opportunities. So, in my framework, I try to check off a few boxes and then additionally look for some other qualitative factors later. But things that I’m looking for in what makes a great business in my framework is they’re a leader or disrupter in a global secular trend. These are the types of businesses that I want my money attached to. They have superior reinvestment opportunities, depending on the business. You know, that sustained return on invested capital or return on equity. They have a proven top line and proven free cash flow growth rates.

Braden Dennis (11:57):
Now, when you look at the top line and the free cash flow, this is very correlating to long term stock returns and if you find businesses that can sustain high revenue growth and ultimately spin that off into free cash flow with some decent margins, you’ve probably got yourself a pretty good business. Now, you also want to have strong, durable pricing power. I am not looking for commoditized businesses. I basically do not own any and have no intention on owning any. Like I said, there are very smart people, much smarter than I, that have done an incredible job of making macro trades, seeing commodity prices. It’s just not where I believe I have an edge and can repeatedly make great investments.

Braden Dennis (12:43):
They have to have a conservative capital structure, and this depends very much so on how stable cash flows are, but I’m leaning more conservative on their balance sheet than anything. And then, at the end of the day, if you’ve been able to do that, you try to pay a relatively fair price relative to business quality and some of the growth rates that you’ve found. Now, this is the trickiest part of all, right? Is how do you properly identify what the intrinsic value is? And, it’s difficult to do. That being said, if you have a truly great business over a long, long period of time, that’s going to matter less and less if they can sustain some of those other qualities that I’ve talked about.

Robert Leonard (13:27):
I have talked and written at length that one of the biggest and most common mistakes I made as a new investor was that I didn’t consider qualitative factors. I really only looked at quantitative factors when I was analyzing businesses. What are some of the most important qualitative factors you look for when you’re analyzing companies to potentially invest in?

Braden Dennis (13:48):
Some of the qualities that I’m definitely looking in for great businesses are some of the following. These are things that are, if all else being equal, these would be great things to be able to have for the business. The business being capital-light is definitely very attractive for me. We’ve seen some of those graphs over historical returns of capital-light businesses versus capital heavy businesses and capital-light have absolutely dominated in performance. I’m looking for high gross margins. Now, high gross margins have led me to a lot of software names over the years, for obvious reasons. But the ability to have high gross margins on your product and then ultimately, as it flows down through your income statement and to your cash flow statement.

Braden Dennis (14:35):
If you can have high margins and then ultimately have high free cash margins… Like MasterCard, for instance. We’ve seen over 40% median free cash flow margins. That is an exceptional business and that is an example where the qualitative and quantitative things align and you can see why one is the other because the numbers and the qualitative factors that make MasterCard such a great business is a pretty good example.

Braden Dennis (15:05):
Now, if the business has network effects is very attractive. The idea that the more people that use a good or service actually add to the value of said good or service. The business has the opportunity for both organic and acquisition-driven growth is a really nice lever to be able to pull. I like what’s called a bottleneck business model. And, I did not come up with this. This is Chuck Akre’s writing. And, a bottleneck business model is the idea that it is very difficult to replace the value in the value chain that that business represents if they were gone.

Braden Dennis (15:50):
If you think about the payments businesses, like I had been talking about with MasterCard, if those payment businesses were to go away, it would be very difficult to get the same value by using another service because of the infrastructure and the rails that these businesses have created. Everyone begins to then innovate on top of that bottleneck business and then, all of a sudden, you’re getting returns without even actually having to invest in the business. Now you can use your cash in other ways and that makes for really, really attractive business.

Braden Dennis (16:27):
And then, the last thing is if possible, founder-led businesses are favorable. Founder-led businesses have incentives aligned. They have the vision and we have seen founder-led public companies rise to dominance over their time.

Robert Leonard (16:46):
When you’re analyzing companies to potentially invest in, what are factors that you consider to instantly disqualify the company from further potential consideration? Is it too much debt, bad management team? What makes you just instantly turned off from a company?

Braden Dennis (17:04):
Well, I simply do not invest in commodity businesses. Like I said, some people may have an edge on commodity businesses and the macro environment. It’s not where I want to spend my time. On that same note, the business has to have some pricing power, so that rules out many commodity businesses because they have to be able to flex their pricing power over time. I really also want to see that the business is cash flow positive or very close to breaking through. The businesses that I believe to be commoditized in the food delivery industry, for instance, have this age… This adage in Silicon Valley called the path to profitability. Now, I’m not interested in seeing a slide deck on how one day this stuff is profitable. Perhaps I’m just dead wrong, but it’s not where I want to spend my time.

Braden Dennis (17:55):
And then, lastly, if the business is against a secular trend, I’m concerned. Unless the market, in my opinion, has something blatantly wrong, the narrative around the business and the market is just blatantly wrong and I have some insight into that, I believe it’s too cheap. This could be a good opportunity, but if you’re wrong, you’re fishing in a ground for value traps. So, going against secular trends is not something I typically want to position myself in unless I have some deep insight into why the narrative is incorrect.

Robert Leonard (18:30):
You mentioned value traps there. I think that’s very common for people who are interested in becoming value investors, especially if they’re newer value investors or even just looking to pick individual stocks. What do you do to make sure you avoid falling knives or a value trap situation?

Braden Dennis (18:47):
It’s difficult to really understand what’s a value trap and which company is cheap and deserves higher multiples or has much higher intrinsic value than you believe. It’s difficult to separate those two things and it goes back to what I said before. You have to have some deep insight into why you believe the narrative is incorrect. And, if you do, and if you are a deep value investor, that can be great. We’ve seen, over history, proven to be a very effective way to invest in public companies. However, you do have to have that insight into why the narrative is wrong and you have to have the stomach that buying it and it can still keep going down.

Braden Dennis (19:35):
Now, momentum is playing a factor here in the short term that this thing could just keep falling, and you have to have the conviction to either hold it or buy more if you think the narrative is wrong. That can be difficult to do, but if you have the stomach for it, it can be a pretty good strategy.

Robert Leonard (19:54):
How do you even find companies to potentially invest in? Are you using a stock screener solely on its own or are you using it in combination with other methods? What do you do to find stock picks to potentially invest in?

Braden Dennis (20:07):
I have a different… Few different resources for how I come up with some of my ideas. I do like stock screeners, but you do need to do lots of work after them. Twitter is absolutely amazing, by the way, for idea generation. You can collaborate with like-minded individuals, some really smart people. I can’t believe that website is free. 13F’s is a useful way to see what some of your investing greats are doing on a quarterly basis. And, I pretty much only follow a few names on 13F’s. I follow no matter what Chuck Akre, see what he’s doing. And then, your life, your own industry. You might have some insights into good businesses from that. You knew Apple was going to be special and great the first time you used an iPhone, and it was a public company long before that. So, there could be opportunities there.

Braden Dennis (20:59):
As a numbers guy, I do like using screeners and looking at financial statements first. Now, once you have identified some businesses with sustained growth rates, with some qualities that you’re looking for that we had been talking about earlier, then you might want to dig some more into the business, and then that goes into what I call investible ideas. And, I track what I believe are investible ideas in my investible universe on my website. And then, from there, you have to do some more due diligence, understand the business and really dive into what makes it great.

Braden Dennis (21:40):
Now, I am a huge believer that you need to know the business very well. You’re never going to know the business as well as an insider or the person who started it, but you have to have some idea of what they do because when the stock moves and has volatility, you need to have the conviction behind your position to be able to hold on to it.

Robert Leonard (22:04):
You mentioned investing in things that you see in your everyday life, and I talk about that. I’ve written about it a lot, from the Peter Lynch book One Up On Wall Street, from the Magellan Fund, how… I mean, that’s his strategy, right? Is looking in your daily life, seeing what you use that you might be able to get a stock insight from. And, I’ve written a lot about that. I really like that strategy and I use it myself. And, just because you like a product or service does not mean that you should invest in the company. You have to remember that there is a business behind that. But at least using these products and services can at least give you an idea, maybe give you something to further research and look into, and at least pique your interest as to something that you might be able to invest in.

Braden Dennis (22:46):
It’s an incredible idea and the way Peter Lynch describes it in some of his writings is brilliantly done. And, just to use an example, a business that I interact with for more than eight hours per day is Spotify. Because I’m spending eight hours a day on Spotify, I’m going to have some deep insight into how I enjoy the user experience, not to mention they’re introducing so many network effects, making it more social. You can see what your friends are listening to. You can collaborate on playlists. It will be very obvious in my day-to-day life if they’re losing market share or losing their competitive advantage if their AI insights are not giving me what I want to listen to anymore. That’s going to be very useful to me as a shareholder. Now, you don’t have to be deeply intertwined with every business you own like that, but it could definitely be a great place to start in terms of idea generation.

Robert Leonard (23:49):
We talk about stock screeners, and I want to make sure we go back to that really quick because not everybody who’s listening maybe has heard of stock screeners or knows how to use them or even what they are. So, for those who may not know, what exactly is a stock screener?

Braden Dennis (24:03):
A stock screener is a software that you can select certain inputs and variables into. For instance, companies that are growing revenue at least 10% per year, companies that have a market cap of at least $5 billion, or companies that are traded exclusively in Canada. Now, these are examples of things you can plug into a stock screener and it’ll spit out some results for you. It is awesome software for idea generation. You can see which companies and then you can sort them, you can see which companies are growing very quickly. And, I have one on my website.

Braden Dennis (24:44):
Now, what are the drawbacks of doing that? Well, you’re bucketing yourself to one strategy, for instance. Additionally, say a great company that meets every single thing you’re looking for, has great qualities outside of the numbers you’re seeing on their financial statements, is only doing nine and a half percent per year. You missed an opportunity because you were delineating that line.

Braden Dennis (25:09):
They are very useful. You might want to run many different types of screens. But it is [a] very introductory idea generation. I do find it very useful, but it is the basis of idea generation. You must do further work beyond that than looking at the numbers. Some people have certain opinions about stock screeners. I think if you know how to use them, they can be good idea generation tools.

Robert Leonard (25:36):
I very often say that it is not enough to simply analyze a company in a vacuum and make an investment decision. Investors must compare their expected return of one investment to that of another option available. Your dollar can only be invested in one place at a time. Choosing the optimal place for that dollar to be invested is equally as important, if not more important. And, that’s a little excerpt from a newsletter that I wrote, and I often talk about that idea. I often write about it.

Robert Leonard (26:04):
If you have two companies that you’ve identified as “top picks,” how do you think about portfolio allocation between the two? How do you decide which company to put more money into or how much money to put into each position?

Braden Dennis (26:17):
When I say top picks, I mean investible ideas, great businesses that have met all the qualities we’ve talked about. Now, when you’re talking about portfolio allocation, concentration, what do you put money into, how do you add to positions, it really comes down to person by person, what makes sense for you, what makes sense for your financial situation. But also, what you have the most conviction in. And, I think this is an incredibly important topic. So, a lot of investors use what’s called Kelly Criterion, which basically sizes their positions based on conviction or probability that they think that they’re right. I use that same concept but in a much less scientific Kelly Criterion way. Like, some funds run on a half Kelly, which is very formulaic and scientific.

Braden Dennis (27:13):
I do a completely non-scientific version of the Kelly Criterion, which basically aligns with my conviction level. I rank ideas by conviction and I really do not care if I get too concentrated because I let winners run and I let most people that I talk to let winners run. I think it’s an important concept to only trim winners if you’re losing sleep over the business or it’s gone to a valuation you just simply can’t justify. But at the end of the day, for life-changing types of returns on winning businesses, you got to let them run. The old Peter Lynch buying losers and selling winners is like watering the weeds and cutting the flowers is a perfect analogy for how I think about adding to winning positions.

Braden Dennis (28:02):
As long as you can justify that the valuation is still fair and that the fundamentals are improving, I think it’s a good way to go. I often hear on financial Twitter or on financial news that investors should inherently, for some reason, be scared of all-time highs. All-time highs, those three words you hear all the time. And, for some reason, it has some negative connotation that, of course, stocks now will only go down, in a downward movement, because they’ve reached all-time highs. Now, if stocks that you owned or the market never reached all-time highs, you wouldn’t be making a penny. So, think about that from a long-term perspective. The all-time highs you see today that you saw last month and you saw last year… The stock market will be higher in 20 years. I can guarantee that. And, it’s a good way to think about long-term compounders and long-term positioning in the market is own the ones that you have a high conviction on and let them run.

Robert Leonard (29:13):
Not only do you have to compare individual stocks against one another like we just talked about before you make a decision, but you also have to consider ETFs and even alternative assets like crypto and real estate. You often talk about a blended approach with individual stock picking and ETFs. How do you think about allocation between those two assets?

Braden Dennis (29:36):
ETFs are great. Perhaps the best return on an investment, on a person’s time in the history of ever is switching to an index ETF strategy from a two and a half percent mutual fund. And, those two and a half percent mutual funds are basically closet indexing, to begin with. And, believe me, you still get these two and a half percent fee mutual funds here in Canada, especially. I think for most investors, ETFs are amazing. You can do a bit of stock picking and use ETFs as well, or you go all into one strategy. It depends [on] what works for you.

Braden Dennis (30:11):
That being said, being able to buy the S and P for three basis points or 0.03% is absolutely phenomenal and if you are doing nothing, a.k.a. not investing, or still paying some of those high fees, I think it’s an absolute no brainer to go to an index ETF strategy. You’ll learn about the market by doing so. You’ll learn about your ability to buy and hold and invest for the long term with strategies like dollar-cost averaging. So, I believe if you are a know-nothing investor, ETFs are a phenomenal way to go.

Robert Leonard (30:50):
How does someone’s allocation between individual stocks and ETFs change depending on their risk tolerance and the level of their investing knowledge?

Braden Dennis (30:59):
I believe that ETFs are an amazing way to get instant diversification and if you are risk-averse, I believe owning just one S and P 500 is sufficient diversification. You are investing across 500 businesses. Now, as you gain more knowledge about investing, about businesses, and your conviction in certain companies you’ve been studying goes up, perhaps you want to open a position in there as well. Now, that doesn’t mean you have to not own any ETFs anymore. It just means that you’re more concentrated into one of the holdings.

Braden Dennis (31:38):
So, when it comes to index investing through ETFs, I find it very common that folks will open up a brokerage account and own 10 different ETFs, and those 10 different ETFs might be just looking at various indexes, but they’re all broad-based. Now, this is a quite silly way to go, in my opinion, because there’s going to be so much overlap between the S and P 500, the NASDAQ QQQ. and the Russell 2000. Because these ETFs are market cap-weighted, you’re going to have those big tech… Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, make up such a big portion of each of those indexes that you can basically just own the S and P and sleep just fine at night.

Braden Dennis (32:29):
Warren Buffett has said many times over and over again that owning the S and P 500 and basically doing nothing after that is a great way to go for a very large portion of the population. I believe that being a business person makes you a better investor and being an investor makes you a better business person. And, when it comes to those two things being attached at the hip, there’s a couple of common themes that I think that most people should pay attention to, not only running their business or working for a company, but also investing as well, is incentives. Now, incentives drive pretty much everything in the business world. The old Charlie Munger quote of, you know, show me the incentives and I’ll show you the outcome. I’m probably butchering that quote.

Braden Dennis (33:20):
And, it’s really important to understand what motivates people in an organization and what motivates people to make certain decisions and how do you properly incentivize the results that you’re looking for in business but also in investing, looking at incentive structures like insider ownership, like if the business is founder-led. I had talked about how founder-led businesses have an incredible success rate as public companies. And, I really think that incentives may be the most powerful thing to understand both in investing and in business.

Braden Dennis (33:57):
The other thing that I think, the way they are attached at the hip in business, investing, life in general, is the concept of patience. In investing, you have to have patience. This stuff happens over a long period of time. I know over the last 12 months that stocks have done nothing but do exceptionally well in a time where the economy seemed to be falling apart. Stocks just went up and up and up. And, investing is difficult. It requires a long amount of time. But the only reason that I say it’s difficult is because it requires a lot of patience. In a world today where everyone is looking for get rich quick or instant satisfaction that they’re able to get dopamine hit levels across just looking at their phone every five seconds, we’ve lost a lot of that patience and with life, investing, business, I believe that a lot of this stuff takes time.

Braden Dennis (34:53):
Perhaps one of my favorite quotes is from Bill Gates, talking about business, is that people underestimate what they can do in 10 years but overestimate what they can do in one year. And, I think that’s incredibly important to think about. When you think about one year and what you can accomplish, you can do a lot, but in 10 years, you can massively, grossly underestimate how much you can actually accomplish.

Robert Leonard (35:21):
What is something that you’ve purchased recently or that you use frequently that has had a big impact on you or is just super helpful? Doesn’t have to be expensive or any type of product, specifically. It could be a software tool that helps your investing. It could be a mobile app on your phone, a fitness device, like a Peloton. What is something you use consistently or bought recently that has had a positive impact on your life?

Braden Dennis (35:47):
So, on the investing front, I really don’t mean to say this to hype up my own product, but on Stratosphere, you can see 10-year financial statements, and I built Stratosphere because I wanted to see 10-year financial statements. That is the sole reason that I actually, you know, started putting some code together and building Stratosphere. Those 10-year financial statements are such a useful tool compared to the typical three, four years that you’ll see on other services, and I find it incredibly useful to be able to see that long-term trend.

Braden Dennis (36:21):
And then, in life as well, I’m getting really into cycling now that the weather is getting warmer. I use an app called Strava to compete with my friends running and biking. It is great from a social perspective as well as a personal fitness perspective. That’s called Strava. It’s gotten quite popular around the world and it is awesome for motivation and tracking your progress.

Robert Leonard (36:47):
I am actually a big user of Strava myself. I’ve been using it for years and years and years now. So, I certainly recommend Strava highly as well if you’re any sort of fitness, hike or walk or run or bike or whatever the situation is. If you do any activity outside, it’s a pretty cool app and if you’re listening to this show, you probably like data and analyzing results and tracking things, so you probably love to see all the different data that Strava gives you. So, I’m a huge fan as well.

Robert Leonard (37:14):
Braden, thanks so much for joining me today. For those listening that want to learn more about you, where is the best place for them to go?

Braden Dennis (37:22):
Yeah. Thanks so much for having me and I’ll have to go ahead and add you on Strava after we finish this podcast recording. I am on a weekly podcast called The Canadian Investor. I’m the co-host there with my co-host Simon. He is great, much smarter than I, and I think that Canadians can get a lot of value from that podcast. I also run Stratosphere, which is a platform for long term self-directed investors. I believe that the independent research, the stock ideas, but also the software tools, are really helpful for long term investors like we talked [inaudible 00:37:56], those 10-year financial statements. Incredibly helpful for long term investors.

Braden Dennis (38:01):
And, we’re launching a brand new web application this summer. We can also store all your research right in the app directly on there, so I’m really excited for that. People can get redirected to Stratosphere with this easy to remember URL, which is getstockmarket.com. G-E-T stock market dot com. Thanks so much for having me, Robert. I appreciate it.

Robert Leonard (38:21):
All right, guys. That’s all I had for this week’s episode of Millennial Investing. I’ll see you again next week.

Outro (38:27):
Thank you for listening to TIP. Make sure to subscribe to Millennial Investing by The Investor’s Podcast Network and learn how to achieve financial independence. To access our show notes, transcripts, or courses, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decision, consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by The Investor’s Podcast Network. Written permission must be granted before syndication or re-broadcasting.

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