Podcast Episode 55: The Current | All The Things

This week’s episode was recorded a few weeks back, but it remains relevant. We’re talking about current events and how to view them from a pragmatic standpoint. A key quote this week: “There’s a certain amount of uncertainty in life you have to learn to live with. There’s no way for us to make this completely comfortable for you.”

Episode Transcript

BARENAKED MONEY PODCAST: EPISODE 55

The Current| All The Things

Speaker 1:

You’re about to get lucky with the Barenaked Money Podcast, the show that gives you the naked truth about personal finance. With your hosts, Josh Sheluk and Colin White, Portfolio Managers with WLWP Wealth Planners, iA Private Wealth.

Colin White:

Welcome to the next edition of Barenaked Money. Colin and Josh here with you and doing it in a little bit of an odd format. We’re actually in the same spot, which is really kind of odd. So we’ll see if the proximity improves the quality of the podcast. We’ll be looking for feedback.

So Josh, I’ve lost track. What is it you wanted to talk about this week?

Josh Sheluk:

Well, there’s so many topics out there. I think we’re just going to jump all over the place today.

Colin White:

Awesome. I love jumping all over the place. I can’t wait. But you’re in charge, you’re leading. So where do you want to take us?

Josh Sheluk:

Well, I think the topic de jour is recession.

Colin White:

I’ve heard that recently. Yes, people have been talking about recessions.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah. You haven’t seen much about it though, I’m sure.

Colin White:

No, no. It’s really hard to find information on recessions.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah.

Colin White:

So, yeah. And again, this is not the first recession we’ve gone through. I think the economists have successfully predicted 14 of the last four recessions. So we talk about them a lot more than they happen. And you would think that we know what they were.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah. Well, you’re implying there that we are going through a recession.

Colin White:

I’m accepting the premise of the question. Yes.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah.

Well, we’re not there yet necessarily. I think as we like to do, we like to take a step back here and maybe provide a little bit of context and a little bit of nuance. Right now, there’s a whole bunch of things that say, “Yeah, recession’s pretty likely.” But also a whole bunch of things that say, “We’re probably not going into a recession.” So where do you fall on it?

Colin White:

Well, it’s hard to say. I’m really unsure to be honest with you, but I don’t think that it has the magnitude of effect that people are talking about. Because I think for most people, when they’re talking about recessions, are saying, “Hey, what’s the stock market going to do?”

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah.

Colin White:

And I think it’s pretty conclusive right now, the market has built in a fairly high expectation of recession, whether or not it’s happened. So at this point, it’s not whether we go in a recession or not, it’s to what extent is the market priced in what’s about to happen? I think that’s the more valuable conversation to have with regards to what’s happening next. It’s not, we’re going into a recession, therefore the market’s going to get worse. It’s like, well, no, is this a recession worse than what the market was anticipating? And those are impossible to calculate, although you could talk about them for hours.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah. Well, it seems to me that the odds of recession… I think what we can probably agree on and probably agree with everybody out there that the odds of recession have increased quite a bit since the start of the year.

Colin White:

Absolutely. Yep.

Josh Sheluk:

So let’s say that. Yeah, we can agree on that. So the next thing is, okay, well, how high are those odds? What’s the market baking in? Like you said. And then if you do have a recession, how severe is it going to be? And I think this is what people are now starting to try to calculate is, how bad’s it going to be? And if it’s mild, have we factored in everything with the stock market? If it’s severe, have we factored in some or all of it?

Colin White:

Yeah. No. Also, it’s important to remind everybody at this moment, what a recession is. A recession is simply two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth, which is an odd statement. I know, but that’s how they frame it. Now, Josh, you found there’s a secret group of people that actually get to declare recessions that we hadn’t heard of before?

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah. I’m pretty sure these guys are underground somewhere in a bunker and looking at the economic data and they’re determining, “Hey yeah, this is a recession and this is not.” So I was blown away by this because I’ve always heard it defined exactly what you said there as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. But apparently, and I think this is a US thing, but there’s a committee, I forget what the group is called, I’ll have to look it up here. But a committee that determines whether or not it’s a recession by looking at a number of different data points, not just GDP. So it is technically possible, in the US at least, to based on this definition of a recession have two negative quarters of GDP growth without it technically being a recession.

And I think that one of the things that I’ve been reading about and listening to right now is jobs are still extremely strong and there doesn’t seem to be too much of an indication that’s going to go the negative way. So can you have a recession if you don’t have any significant uptick in unemployment?

Colin White:

Well, then you spin the wheel and you’ve had the central bank policy, which is inflation fighting. And we’ve had oil drop from 120 bucks a barrel, back below, a hundred bucks of barrel. Price of gasoline is actually dropping during the peak driving times in north America, which is odd. So there’s a lot of things in motion. But this actually reminds me of you buying a house, Josh. Remember the podcast that we did about you buying a house?

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah. It was like three weeks ago. I remember it.

Colin White:

But no, because you were transacting in April.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah.

Colin White:

And your experience seemed to be not in line with the numbers that were coming up from March.

Josh Sheluk:

Right.

Colin White:

And it was, all the numbers from March were off the charts, everything’s crazy, it’s going to stay crazy. Your experience wasn’t quite that. And at the time, it was like, gee, maybe today, it’s already over and we’re on the other side. Because again, declaring a recession is a backward looking thing. You can’t say you’re in a recession. You can say a recession happened, you can’t say you’re in one. And if we start behaving as if things are that way, when they’re on the fact on the other side of it, now that’s where you can go sideways. Right?

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah.

Colin White:

These are all trailing indicators we look at.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah. I think the big one there that’s a trailing indicator very clearly is inflation. And we’ve seen some of the numbers for June stay relatively strong. But could we be past that? And we’re talking about oil prices now down about 25% from their peaks, a lot of other commodity prices are way down from their peaks as well. Natural gas is one that’s sailed pretty high. And then some of the agricultural commodities are still pretty high, but just about everything else has come down pretty aggressively from their peaks. And I’ve seen this in raw data and anecdotally when talking to customers, clients that work in logistics related industries that, yeah, your shipping costs are coming down a little bit. Some of the raw material costs are coming down. So maybe we’re seeing some early indications that we’re past that worse inflationary part of things and over the hump. And does that maybe now mean that the whole probability of a recession needs to be rethought too? I don’t know.

Colin White:

Well, and I think the important lesson to take from this for those who are saying, “Well, obviously we’re in a recession. Obviously things are going to get worse.” There’s nothing obvious here. It doesn’t take a whole lot of reading or a whole lot of in depth research, if you air quotes research, to see that there’s a lot of forces at play. And to say that the next step or what’s going on now is any kind of obvious, I won’t call simplistic, but it certainly doesn’t capture what’s going on with it right now, for sure.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah. For sure. Now we’re talking about inflation. One of the other leading… one of the things that inflation leads into is interest rates. And we’re not going to sit here and talk about interest rates and why they’re where they are or where they’re going from here. That’s not what the purpose of this is. But I think what we were talking about the other day is practical implications now that interest rates are higher. And this has implications for both borrowers and lenders or savers.

Colin White:

Yeah.

Josh Sheluk:

So interest rates where they are today, let’s start with the borrowing side first, because I think this is a big issue for us here in Canada with the level of debt that we have. What are you looking at when you see interest rates up and you’re a borrower or you have a mortgage or line of credit or something like that, what do you do?

Colin White:

Well, it’s changed the equation a little bit. Sorry.

It’s changed the equation a little bit because it is always, you’re making choices with regards to what you do with the discretionary dollar. Are you paying down debt or are you investing it? And you’re always looking at the math. Now interest rates have gone up. Now they’re not high by any stretch. We’ve gotten back to what we would consider maybe more normal interest rates. It’s not apocalyptic unless you were right at the end of the envelope of what you could afford, that you may have some type of choices.

Josh Sheluk:

It might be the apocalypse for you.

Colin White:

The definition of a recession is my neighbor loses his job. A definition of a depression is I lose my job. So it really depends how close it gets, right?

Josh Sheluk:

That’s right.

Colin White:

But no. It’s changed the math in that equation a little bit, but honestly not a lot. And people are concerned about mortgage payments going up. All they’re doing is changing the interest rate and then you’ve got to higher mortgage payment. Well, you can play with your amortization to get the payment back. Yes, you end up paying more interest over time on that dollar for sure. But it doesn’t mean that your mortgage payment has to move as much as some of the more simplistic examples that they’re showing so there are ways to deal with it. And panicking and trying to lock your mortgage in now and paying a penalty to do so and things of that nature.

Whenever you start something with the word panic, what comes next might not be the smartest thing.

Josh Sheluk:

Right.

Colin White:

So just a matter of, balance of probabilities and how big of a deal is it to your financial situation. If you’re sitting on a, you bought a house four years ago and you took out and 80% mortgage against it, okay, that’s a little bit more difficult to deal with rather than you had a $200,000 mortgage against a million dollar property, you probably have some more slack in the system.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah.

Colin White:

Right?

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah. That’s one of the lessons as always is give yourself a little bit of slack, a little bit of flexibility. You don’t want to put yourself right up against it. Because then the slightest move one way or the other against you, now it’s dooms day for you.

Colin White:

Well, this is where certainty weighs into it, right? People are certain of a lot of different things. Like, well, real estate’s always going to go up. Real estate’s never going to go down. Interest rates are never going to change that much. Any of those certainties introduces a whole new level of risk that you really got to be careful of because things are going to change and you have to have the ability within your plans to absorb shocks like this for sure.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah. So you’re borrowing today, Colin, variable on the table, fixed on the table with your mortgage. What do you do?

Colin White:

Well, again, it depends on your situation as to whether or not you can accept some movement in that payment. I’ve always personally been a variable guy because providing variable’s cheaper because you can… If you save a percent for a year or two before the rates go up, then yeah the rates got to go up twice as much in order for you to be behind over that time period. But it really depends on how much you’re going to think about it.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah. Your appetite for risk.

Colin White:

Yeah.

Josh Sheluk:

Your comfort level with that for sure.

Colin White:

If you’re going to think about it every day, you need a fixed mortgage. If you have the capacity, not to think about it, have it not to matter, then maybe variable can work in your favor. But again, the future really is unknown. The banks and central banks now are really going to want to take credit for killing the inflation monsters.

Josh Sheluk:

If they get there.

Colin White:

They seem to be getting lots of pats on the back for being super aggressive. So that does give you a little bit of caution.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I think if we sat here three months ago and said, “Well, balance probabilities are probably not going to height that much. Variable now kind of looks attractive.” And we would’ve been wrong on that. So it’s accepting some uncertainty I guess. And also how much flexibility you have in your plan. If your fixed rate mortgage is going to bring you right up against your threshold, probably stick with a fixed because if you’re variable and you’re getting close to that threshold and it shoots right through, now you’re toast.

Colin White:

I think the honest answer is there’s a certain amount of uncertainty in life you have to learn to live with. I can’t make it comfortable. Like there’s no way for us to make this completely comfortable for you. This is just part of being… it’s part of adulting as I-

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah.

Colin White:

Steal the phrase I use when I’m talking to my kids.

Josh Sheluk:

And just to be the other side of the argument, I’ve always been a fixed guy just because I do value the certainty that brings.

Colin White:

There you go. So I guess what our listeners can take from that, you could do either one.

Josh Sheluk:

Whoever you thinks smarter, follow our advice.

Colin White:

And please leave a comment.

Well, the other side of, Josh, and I’ll turn it on to you is the investing side.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah.

Colin White:

Because for a long time, for the last, I don’t know, 10 plus years, we’ve dismissed fixed investing because interest rates are just so absolutely trash. They’re a little less trashy now.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah. A little less trashy and people are starting to get excited about your three or 4% GICs that you see out there now sometimes. Now I’m going to take a step back because I’ve been cautioning people, yeah, 4%, that seems really good relative to what we’re used to over the last 10 years. But keep in mind, inflation’s probably going to be higher than 4% over the next 12 months on average. So you’re still not gaining anything. Yeah, you’re not losing quite as much, but you’re also not gaining anything relative to inflation in real terms.

Colin White:

Well, yeah. But I think that for the first time in a long time, this is a real conversation.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah.

Colin White:

Because when the one year GICs were less than 1%, it’s like, why are we talking?

Josh Sheluk:

Why would you lock in? Why? Just to again, take a step back, GICs locking your money up. So why are you going to do that for basically no return?

Colin White:

Yeah, exactly. For me, I advise anybody, if you’re going to give up access to your money, which a GIC you give up access, you should be paid for that. And it’s just a matter of deciding, what you can be paid for, is it worth losing access to the money?

For me, GIC still works really, really well. If it’s like, Hey, we’ve got tuition that we’re going to pay in 12 months time or buy a car in 12 months time, or there’s this very set goal. Yeah. Then right now stick it in a GIC instead of getting one or 2% off a daily interest, start getting 4% of a GIC.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah.

Colin White:

You know what?

Josh Sheluk:

Makes sense.

Colin White:

There’s some efficacy to that. That’s not a terrible thing. But it’s interesting. It’s now in the conversation because it’s been a lot of years. We’re talking about laddering GICs and laddering bonds, there’s a whole bunch more on the table to look at that might make sense that we were dismissing last year.

Josh Sheluk:

Well, the other question that I’m getting from a lot of people right now that have that money, that know that they have that 12 month timeframe coming up where they’re going to need the money is, do I lock in now or do I wait till the next bank of Canada meeting because they’re definitely going to hike rates? And so yeah. It’s true, right? So we know that they’re probably going to hike rates, most likely. We’ll probably assign, whatever, 90% probability that they’ll be hiking rates at the next meeting in, I think is September. But those one year GICs, and basically every tenure of GIC beyond that one year, they already factor in what the expectations are for interest rate increases over that period of time. So if your one year GIC is at 4%, that doesn’t mean that the bank of Canada hikes interest rates 1%, that’s going to go to five. That’s already factoring in some portion of that interest rate increase.

And I’ll give people a tangible example. So this last week, the bank of Canada hiked interest rates by a hundred basis points, so 1%. And that was actually a surprise. People were expecting something more like 75 basis points, so 0.75%. GIC rates for one year moved after that, or the two days following that about 0.05%. So there is some relation to what bank of Canada does and how GIC rates move. But it’s mostly a function of expectations. Does the bank of Canada move more aggressively or less aggressively than the expectations that are currently baked into the markets?

Colin White:

Well, and this is why we always talk about make decisions on what you know. Don’t make decisions on what you expect is going to happen. Right? So as soon as bank of Canada is definitely going to raise interest rates, so easy there, big shooter, takes 50% off. Shit can happen between now and then. Likely, absolutely. But then even if it does happen, how much of effect might it have? That’s not-

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah.

Colin White:

So there’s too much uncertainty with that. Make your decision on what you know, and if it makes sense today, do it.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah.

Colin White:

Don’t hope it’s going to get better two months or now. Right? Because there’s a lot can go on in two months.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah. So I guess bottom line when you’re a saver, it makes more sense to start looking at some of these vehicles for what you need as the guaranteed portion of your portfolio. If it’s not a guaranteed portion of your portfolio that you need, something that’s extremely risk averse, I still go on the side of, yeah, I’d much rather have a portfolio of stocks and bonds for the next five years than I would a bunch of GICs.

Colin White:

Yep. No, absolutely. And that’s, I guess we didn’t build the bridge or didn’t go over from using the GICs as part of a portfolio. We probably still don’t. It’s closer to being a conversation, but it’s not one that I think we’re going to be positive on saying, yeah, we’re going to start doing that. Because again, it’s the absolute rate of return that you’re aiming for. And after the sell off that we’ve had, the expected rates of return and the fixed income market and different vehicles and with stocks is more favorable, I’ll add that at this point. But I just want to let everybody out there know it is now a conversation. We don’t dismiss it in five seconds anymore. It takes many more words to dismiss it.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah. So let’s take this one step further and talk about banks because banks interest rates higher, they’re charging you more on your mortgage. Must be great for banks, right Colin?

Colin White:

Oh, absolutely. Because with great certainty banks always do well.

Josh Sheluk:

Well, Canadian banks.

Colin White:

Yeah.

Josh Sheluk:

All the other banks in the world, they all suck.

Colin White:

Yes.

Josh Sheluk:

Canadian banks, here, we do things better than everybody.

Colin White:

I’m glad you’ve led into this so gently. Again, this is one of those things that it’s a widely and deeply held belief in Canada that Canadian banks can do no wrong. They’re always good. And largely, yeah. They’re well run companies. They have protection. It’s an oligopoly, they are more profitable here, which is why you don’t see Canadian banks successfully going outside of Canada too much. So yes, they’re well run businesses. They can be very profitable. But that doesn’t make them fool proof. We’ve often… Well, I’ve often made the comment that they’re priced for perfection and the least little bump can knock them off. So it was interesting last week that it was a US announcement that actually hit the Canadian banks.

Josh Sheluk:

Makes no sense.

Colin White:

None whatsoever. But it goes back to how fragile that pricing is on the Canadian banks. And as you sit here today on July the 17th, the Canadian banks are actually down more in aggregate than the Canadian market, which doesn’t happen all that often. It’s not as if gold has been going gangbusters and the precious metals is really driving the Canadian market out. So we saw many of the major Canadian banks drop five or 6% on the day that the news came out of the US.

So again, it doesn’t make them bad businesses. It doesn’t make them a bad investment. It just points out that they’re human and making sure that they have a reasonable percentage in your portfolio rather than 20 or 30%. Because again, if you’re confident that, oh, this will obviously pass and it’s obviously going to come back, well have that same confidence about the overall market because the overall market is more likely to behave that way. But we’re just going through a period now. And again, it was interesting. I can’t even remember exactly what the… I just heard there was bad news in the US banking sector.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah. Well, a couple of the US banks reported their earnings. JP Morgan, and I can’t remember the other one off the top of my head. But yeah, it was kind of bizarre because the Canadian banks sold off, like you said, about 5% on that news. And the US banks were down about 1% on that day. And then the US banks rebounded significantly the day after and the Canadian banks were flat. So I don’t know how you can make heads or tails of that, but I guess to your point, there’s certain amount of expectations of success baked into the prices of Canadian banks and maybe that’s where the risk comes in.

Colin White:

Yep.

Josh Sheluk:

That price to perfection basically means that Hey, people expect these companies always to make money, always to be solid, never to have a hiccup or a misstep. And if they do, then you’re going to see that reflected in the stock prices. So our view has been for a while now that you don’t want to have, as you said, too much of your portfolio concentrated in Canadian banks. It’s one tiny piece of a tiny market. And well, it’s a big piece of a tiny market. Let’s say Canadian banks are a big piece of the Canadian market, but the Canadian market is tiny when you look at the rest of the world. So having too much of your eggs in that basket, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Colin White:

Well, yeah and this is just trying to get through to some people who have that outsized belief and confidence that, again, they’re not going to zero, they’re not going out of business. But they are going to be volatile like the rest of the market.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah.

Colin White:

The crypto crash continues.

Josh Sheluk:

You say that with an air of question.

Colin White:

Well, I did look in the last five minutes. It tends to be pretty volatile. Last I looked was a couple hours ago, so it’s still continued?

Josh Sheluk:

Well, we’ve been, almost every day that you and I have been together now for the last couple weeks we’ve said to each other, “Hey, this company just went bankrupt.” And they’ve been crypto companies. So whether it’s been a hedge fund or an exchange of some sort, or a custodian of these crypto assets, if you even call them a custodian. Yeah, there’s been what I would call a bit of a crash in the space. And I think people are waking up to realize that maybe there’s a little bit more risk than a lot of people factored in right now.

Colin White:

Well, it’s difficult to find Matt Damon on the TV talking about how great it is. There certainly some shine has come off of it. Just to put it in context. So you’re looking at it in US dollar terms, they’re down about 56% year to date.

Josh Sheluk:

And that’s what?

Colin White:

Hmm?

Josh Sheluk:

What’s down 56% to date?

Colin White:

For Bitcoin.

Josh Sheluk:

Okay.

Colin White:

Bitcoin specifically.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah.

Colin White:

So yeah, Bitcoin’s down 56% year to date compared to the overall market, which, again, depending on where you’re looking is in 20% range and-

Josh Sheluk:

The stock market.

Colin White:

Yeah. So it didn’t protect you. It didn’t replace gold. Gold did better than this.

Josh Sheluk:

Much better.

Colin White:

Golds down even.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah.

Colin White:

I’m not sure where the next step is, Josh. I’m not sure where the next hype is going to come from. Does it bounce from this?

Josh Sheluk:

Well, look, I want to look at lessons from this and as we always try to do, glean some lessons from history or experience. And again, one of those things that we come back to all the time is, if the rate of return looks too good to be true, it probably is. Some of these things seem to be guaranteeing rates of returns in the high single digit percentages, like 6%, 7%, 8%, 9% rates of return from lending your asset, you crypto assets out. And I don’t pretend to understand every little thing that goes along with this exercise, this investment. But I can tell you that it’s not risk free if you’re getting an 8% rate of return. If you can buy a government of the US or government of Canada bond for three months, at half a percent, and these things are guaranteeing you 8% per year, that’s not a guarantee. I can guarantee you… I can guarantee you that’s something there. There’s a risk involved that people aren’t fully appreciated.

Colin White:

Well, and to our audience, if Josh doesn’t understand it, you don’t either. So it’s un-understandable. Let me take another run at telling the story a different way. If this truly was that 8% guaranteed or an 8% likely rate of return, Canada pension would walk in to take a big old swath of that.

Josh Sheluk:

Sure.

Colin White:

But they’re sophisticated, smart people. They didn’t think this was a good deal. And there are major institutional players that are looking for guaranteed returns of 8%.

Josh Sheluk:

Sure.

Colin White:

And if you find it, they’re going to buy it. It doesn’t make it to the retail space. And that’s the other thing to recognize. By the time something has been heavily promoted, being heavily promoted to the retail public, that means that the big shops, and by big shops, either sovereign wealth funds or big pension plans or Canada pension, people like that, they buy stuff just outright long before it hits the public. So if it gets down to being available at the retail space, 8% is going to come with a healthy dollop of risk or uncertainty for sure. It’s inescapable. And like I said, if Josh doesn’t understand it, give up, you have no hope.

Josh Sheluk:

I won’t take that much credit. But I guess what you’re trying to say, Colin, is the reason 8% guarantee rates of return don’t exist is because as soon as something like that pops up, it’s immediately competed away. Everybody piles into that investment, and the rate of return on that investment would immediately come down. So there’s a concept in economics called arbitrage, and that you can’t get a risk free rate of return greater than the market by going into a different investment because people will be all over that. There’re millions of investors, literally millions of investors out there in the world. And if there’s an advantage like that, they’re smart enough that they’re going to be on top of it in no time.

Colin White:

Yeah. I often find when I see those numbers, there’s not a whole lot underneath it. It’s like, Hey, it’s got an 8% yield. Great. Yeah. “When we build this wind farm…” It’s like, well, okay, you haven’t built it yet? But you led with an 8% return. But it’s built on a house of sand, there’s actually nothing behind it. And I think that’s largely what’s gone on in the Bitcoin and broader cryptocurrency space.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah. I’m going to put my usual disclaimer on this. I still think that there’s something here, but it’s not still not investible. Today, thing’s down, whatever 50, 80% still shouldn’t be jumping in, because I think there’re way too many question marks still.

Colin White:

Well, exactly. And it’s based on faith. It’s not like it’s creating value. It’s just sitting there waiting to get noticed. I think that for me, the technology, there’s something in that technology that’s going to get into, because that does seem to be unique. We’ll probably find or have found applications for it. But so far we’re right. So we’re going to keep talking about how right we are. And Josh, the next one was something that I was hoping that you were right on, but apparently you’re not right enough yet.

Josh Sheluk:

You keep trying to say that I’m right, and I keep having to tell you, nope, still wrong. So I don’t know where Tesla’s sitting today. But yeah, like I told you the other day, I’ve been kind of bearish on Tesla for, it’s probably been five plus years now. And as much as I can claim victory over the last six months, over the last five years, I’m definitely taking a loss there. That’s for sure.

Colin White:

Well, it’s down 40% year to date.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah. So if I bought it five years ago, when I was bashing it, then I’d only be up like 3000% right now.

Colin White:

Oh, okay. All right. I’m still on team Josh, I think.

Josh Sheluk:

Okay.

I appreciate the moral support, but I got to chalk this one up in the L column and move on.

Colin White:

Fair enough. There’s an important lesson too. Every once in a while things just don’t work out. And that’s right back to our straight conversation. Sometimes you can do absolutely everything right and still not get the best outcome. There is a certain amount of uncomfortable volatility in the world. Things are not guaranteed. You can’t make them guaranteed. You’re just going to accept there’s a range of outcomes.

Josh Sheluk:

Yeah. Anything else before we let our listeners go?

Colin White:

No, I think we’ve covered off as much as they want to listen to us for now. But Hey, give us some suggestions. We really would like to have some feedback and we do get feedback and try to react to it. So let us know if there’s something you’d like to hear about. We’re here to serve.

Josh Sheluk:

Yep. Thanks everyone for listening. We’ll be back to talk more interest rates, more recession, more funds, more Tesla, more crypto.

Speaker 1:

This information has been prepared by White LeBlanc Wealth Planners, who is a portfolio manager for iA Private Wealth. Opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the portfolio manager only and do not necessarily reflect those of iA Private Wealth Inc. iA Private Wealth Inc is a member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund and the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada. iA Private Wealth is a trademark and business name under which iA Private Wealth Inc operates.

Colin White:

We’ve noticed something. It seems there are a lot of people who would rather try to figure out their lives with an online calculator that air your finances to a human. Stop doing that. You need to talk to someone who can help direct you, tell you where to start with what you’ve got to make the biggest impact on your future. You can’t figure that out at, doihaveenoughcash.com, but you can figure it out by chatting with us. Call us. It’ll be okay, you’ll see.

Speaker 1:

The content of this presentation, including facts, views, opinions, recommendations, descriptions of, or references to products or securities is not to be used or construed as investment advice as an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy or an endorsement recommendation sponsorship of any entity of security cited. Although we endeavor to ensure accuracy and fleetness, we assume no responsibility for any reliance upon it. This should not be construed to be legal or tax advice as every client’s situation is different.

This podcast has been prepared for information purposes only. The tax information provided in this podcast is general in nature, and each client should consult with their own tax advisor, accountant and lawyer before pursuing any strategy described hearing as each client’s individual’s circumstances are unique. We’ve endeavored to ensure the accuracy of the information provided at the time that it was written. However, should the information in this podcast be incorrect or incomplete or should the law or its interpretation change after the date of this document, the advice provided may be incorrect or inappropriate. There should be no expectation that the information will be updated supplemented or revised, whether as a result of new information, changing circumstances, future events, or otherwise. We are not responsible for errors contained in this podcast or to anyone who relies on the information contained in this podcast. Please consult your own legal and tax advisor.