Is it time to break up with international stocks? They’ve been underperforming U.S. markets for years, so should we finally call it quits, or is there still hope for a global comeback? On today’s episode, Joe, OG, Paula Pant, and Jesse Cramer dig into the great international investing debate.
- Are international funds a lost cause? The panel unpacks why they’ve lagged U.S. stocks and whether diversification still makes sense.
- Beyond stocks: Exploring other asset classes—private equity, real estate, commodities, and collectibles (because who doesn’t want to invest in Beanie Babies and vintage lunchboxes?).
- The $3 coin mystery: Yep, that was a thing. And yes, it’s as weird as it sounds.
- Election results and wooden nickels: The intersection of money, history, and questionable currency choices.
- Weekend plans and podcast highlights: Because investing is important, but so is having fun.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Stacking Benjamins episode without some friendly debate, expert insights, and the occasional off-the-wall tangent. Tune in for a laid-back but insightful conversation on making smart investment decisions!
Watch On Our YouTube Channel:
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.StackingBenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Our Topic
Do You Need to Own International Stocks? (Of Dollars and Data Blog)
During our conversation, you’ll hear us mention:
- Recency bias.
- Home country bias.
- Reversion to the mean.
- Benefits of international diversification.
- OG’s dislike of bonds.
- Fallacy of market timing.
- Currency fluctuations.
- Rebalancing benefits.
- Sticking to your plan.
- Other asset classes.
- What asset classes don’t justify investing?
- Collectibles.
- Fixed income.
- Real estate.
- Invest in what you know/understand.
- Bitcoin.
- Private equity.
- Risks of underdiversification.
- Precious metals.
- Commodities.
- Defining your investing funnel.
- Begin with the end in mind when choosing investments.
- Goals-based investing.
- Non-traded investments.
- Investing based on time frame.
Our Contributors
A big thanks to our contributors! You can check out more links for our guests below.
Jesse Cramer
Another thanks to Jesse Cramer for joining our contributors this week! Hear more from Jesse on his show, The Best Interest at The Best Interest – Complex Personal Finance Made Easy Podcast Series – Apple Podcasts.
Learn how you can work with Jesse by visiting The Best Interest – Invest in Knowledge.
Paula Pant
Check Out Paula’s site and amazing podcast: AffordAnything.com
Follow Paula on X: @AffordAnything
OG
For more on OG and his firm’s page, click here.
Doug’s Game Show Trivia
- In what year did the US first mint the $3 coin?
Join Us on Monday!
Tune in on Monday when we chat with two budget coaches who know how to help YOU focus on what matters, Shaun Morgan and Kristen Wade.
Miss our last show? Check it out here: When the Job Crumbles: Preparing for Life’s Surprises (SB1646).
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] Doug: My God, Dukes are going to corner the entire frozen orange juice market [00:00:09] live from the basement of the YouTube headquarters. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:00:25] I am Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Duggan. Let’s talk investing international. Funds have trailed us returns now for years. So can we finally toss that dumpster fire in the trash? We’ll ask our round table of top minds. Top minds. I say, and of course, what do we do when we get these three round a set of mics? We ask them trivia questions to see who’s gonna win our year long trivia competition. [00:00:52] And now here’s a guy who thinks the only thing more volatile than the stock market is our contributors trivia answers. It’s Joe who saw. See? Hi. [00:01:03] Joe: Hey there, stackers and happy Friday to you. They are Doug. They’re all over the place. I’m super excited that we’re here today. Speaking of all over the place, we’re gonna talk about investing today. [00:01:14] We even just hit the investing button straight on in a little while, so this is gonna be a lot of fun. And let’s say hello to the Funsters themself, starting with a guy across the car table from me. The Funer OG is here. How are you, man? [00:01:27] OG: Oh, I’m just living the dream. One cup of coffee at a time. [00:01:31] Joe: Cup of coffee at uh, eight o’clock at night is difficult. [00:01:34] Also a scotch. They’re all perfect [00:01:37] OG: there. They cancel each other out. [00:01:38] Joe: That’s perfect. [00:01:40] OG: And it’s like the yin guin yang. [00:01:42] Joe: It’s just math. It’s science. It’s totally science. Yes. And the woman who’s fighting it out every day in Manhattan from the Afford Anything podcast polyp, hint joins us. How are you? [00:01:54] Paula: Oh, I’m good. [00:01:55] So I am drinking a mug of bone broth. It’s, uh, Hey, o Yeah, it’s you. You take, um, cattle bones, roast them in the oven and then slow cook them for 24 hours and then boom. Bone broth. You sound like a murderer. [00:02:10] OG: So there I was assassinating cows. Wow. Carving up their bones. [00:02:15] Doug: I’m [00:02:15] OG: now [00:02:15] Doug: terrified of Paula Pan. [00:02:18] OG: She’s watching too many Dexter shows. [00:02:19] Joe: Yeah. Paula Hannibal Lecter Pant. We call her and the guy who’s uh, well, he’s got a snow scape outside his window because he’s in the frozen tundra of the great. New York North, Mr. Jesse Kramer’s here. How are you man? [00:02:37] Jesse: I’m, I’m doing okay. I’m coming over a little cold and since we’re all sharing what we’re drinking, I’ve got some Purell Bull products that I’ve been guzzling down 90 kills, 99.99% of germs. [00:02:48] It’s the third nine that gets you though. But other than that, things are good. Things are good. I got science. It is, it’s that one in 10,000 germ that I’ve been infected with. But, uh, we’re feeling better. We’re feeling a lot better. [00:02:59] Joe: Jesse, this show goes live on the 21st. Have you renamed your show yet? Yes. [00:03:03] Can you tell anybody what it is? [00:03:06] Jesse: Episode 100, post published today. The day that we’re talking here, the day we’re recording, and this is a, you know, I might have alluded to the fact that the title change was kind of for SEO purposes. Okay. Which some of you listening might understand, some might not. The podcast is now called, you’re calling it the Joe [00:03:22] Doug: Selfie Hi podcast, aren’t you? [00:03:23] It’s the Amazon Google Money podcast. [00:03:27] Jesse: Oh, I tell you, it’s, it’s J Kramer Investing. No, it’s uh, it’s called Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors, which I know sounds super plain, but that’s kind of the point. So that’s what the podcast is now called, personal Finance for Long-Term Investors. [00:03:44] Joe: Personal finance for long-term investors. [00:03:46] Is there like A-P-F-F-L-T-I? Could we just call it P-F-F-L-T-I? [00:03:52] Jesse: It rolls right off the tongue. The [00:03:53] Joe: P-F-F-L-T-I show? Yes. You need a mascot. Ulti Ulti pti. Yeah. The Man Behind the Ulti podcast. Jesse Kramer’s here. That’s so good. Doug, what’s your new podcast gonna be called? I would like a nap. Best, best name ever. [00:04:11] It’s not, which sounds [00:04:12] Doug: boring, but that’s kind of the point. [00:04:15] Joe: Nap with Doug. Nap with Doug. Perfect and creepy. All rolled into one. We got a great show today. You know, international investing for over the last decade has really never been on the top of the charts when it comes to different asset classes, and so the question. [00:04:31] On everybody’s mind, and what inspired this discussion was a piece from the amazing Nick Julie, who was just on our show about a month ago. But Nick asked the question, it’s time to finally dump international investing. We’re gonna ask our Esteem panel today, but before we do that, we have some sponsors that make sure that this show is free. [00:04:50] You don’t have to pay for any of this goodness while you’re taking out the International Fund trash. You can just focus on that. We’re gonna hear from them right now. Say hello to them, and then we’re gonna talk international investments and other asset classes. What asset classes do? Our pantel, our pan. [00:05:10] Jesse: That’s the name of my podcast. [00:05:14] Doug: What, what asset class. That’s when you get [00:05:16] Paula: all of my family on a panel. [00:05:21] Joe: The P pan do. Yeah. Yes. Does our panel not really pay much attention to, or do they stay away from We’re gonna talk about that. Uh, so let’s get this started. [00:05:40] As I mentioned, the inspiration for today’s piece comes to us from Nick Majuli. It’s the of Dollars and Data Blog, and if my computer was running quickly at all, I would read to you from the blog. But the big point here right now, Paula Pant mm-hmm. Is that over the last decade, international International really has been that thing in your portfolio that makes sure that you’re mediocre. [00:06:04] Paula: Exactly. Exactly. So Nick even talked about how he has, uh, held international funds for his entire journey as an investor, and that has meant that he’s had lower returns than he otherwise would’ve had. That being said, the premise of judging a fund based on its recent performance, even if that recent performance is a decade based on the principle of do you want these in your portfolio? [00:06:29] Uh, I think that is something to suss out because performance, even over the span of a decade can be based on some short-term factors, but the, the notion behind diversification. Having some, a mix of assets that have low correlation with one another. There’s some meat to that. [00:06:48] Joe: Og, it’s interesting because Paul is talking about using international for diversification, and yet there’s other asset classes that we don’t care about when it comes to diversification. [00:06:58] Is international any different than some of the other asset classes we might talk about that we decide not to What? What asset classes don’t you use? Well, let’s talk about which ones you don’t use. I don’t think you use commodities in [00:07:10] OG: your allocation. Um, no. But the companies that do the commodities are certainly there. [00:07:16] I. So we won’t invest in gold, for example, but the company that manufactures or mines, it would be a part of the portfolio. Um, we don’t invest in oil wells, but ExxonMobil or whatever, you know, would, would, would be a part of the portfolio. The benefit of diversification is, and especially when it comes to the idea of just asset class investing, is you get all of the return of all of the stocks. [00:07:41] You don’t have to guess what’s gonna do well, I don’t know why anybody would wanna play that game. Especially if you look at big, broad areas of the economy, like us versus international. I would just, anytime somebody says, well, I don’t wanna invest in international because it hasn’t done well, I just wanna put that on the next level extreme and go, well, why should we invest in anything other than the Mag seven? [00:08:02] Those are the only ones that have gone up. Why would we invest in anything other than the s and p 500? It’s like, well, because it’s not always gonna be this way and I can’t prove nor predict when that change might happen, but I guarantee when it does happen, it’s not gonna be foreshadowed. You know, it’ll be like, you know, in the rear view mirror, you’ll look and go, wow, I’m sure glad I own some of chili. [00:08:25] They did awesome. You know, I’m sure glad, I’m sure, glad I have some emerging market or international ’cause the US sucks all of a sudden, for whatever reason it’s in a recession and you know, Europe is banger. So glad I owned some of that. It’s no different than you would say with any other asset class. So I don’t, I don’t know why you would just arbitrarily throw out, you know, a third of the economy or 40% of the econ world economy and say, I don’t wanna invest in that anymore. [00:08:48] Joe: Jesse, as an asset class, do you look at convertible stocks? [00:08:52] Jesse: Convertible stocks like, uh, yeah. Chrysler Sebring with a roof down. [00:08:57] Doug: That’s exactly what I’m talking about. It’s a fine vehicle. Ford Mustangs. [00:09:00] Jesse: Uh, the short answer is no, Joe. Not really. [00:09:03] Joe: So then how come, I’m just gonna assume that you agree with Paula and og the International you shouldn’t throw away. [00:09:10] How come? Ostensibly, you’ve thrown away convertibles. [00:09:13] Jesse: Well, isn’t convertible like a share class? Like, uh, you can take something and it’s an asset class. It’s a hybrid between stocks and bonds, right. Stocks and bonds, right? Well, you’ve got a, you’ve got a fixed income with a, a lotto ticket attached to it. I think that’s how Buffett talks about it. [00:09:30] You get some sort of fixed income. Are we on the same timing here? Sorry, [00:09:36] OG: I, I think you answered your own question, Jesse. That’s why I don’t include it. It’s not a thing. Convertibles, I would argue, is not an asset class. It’s an amalgamation of a derivative of an asset class. It’s smoke and mirrors. It’s saying, well, I want this safety in exchange, and I’ll, and I’ll pay for this safety with the hope that this turns into something, you know, also, fixed income sucks, so I would say that, let’s go back to you [00:09:59] Joe: that, okay, there we go. [00:10:02] Oh, gee. How about, uh, fixed income, let’s say, let’s say bonds as an asset class. [00:10:08] OG: It’s not, I mean it’s, we’re talking about us versus international in terms of equities. You’re not talking about debt. And philosophically, if we owned fixed income, I would also say you should own international fixed income also. [00:10:20] Yes, I do think so, because you can’t predict the ebbs and flows of interest rates or US dollar versus Euros or Ys or whatever, any different than you can predict what’s gonna happen with the US stock versus an international stock. If you invested in fixed income as part of your portfolio, let’s say you were a 60 40 average investor, right? [00:10:44] That 40% of debt, yeah, it should be diversified as well in big companies and small companies and you know, highly leveraged ones and nice and secure ones, and. Just the same way that you would do it for your equity investing. [00:10:57] Joe: Paula, what I found interesting about this piece was that Nick kind of parses between international stocks, where the headquarters is international. [00:11:04] Paula: Mm-hmm. [00:11:05] Joe: That’s one thing, getting international exposure, you can get that by staying in the us. [00:11:10] Paula: Yeah, it’s true. Um, so the US is generally. Many large multinational US companies have footprints overseas. So if you think of Nike, Coca-Cola, Google, these are all, you know, major companies that have big footprints overseas. [00:11:25] The US is not a huge exporter, but we do have locations everywhere. On one hand, it does give us some international exposure. On the other hand, it isn’t exactly the same in that. More so poses a risk to the US companies in terms of how they’ll be taxed and treated by the foreign entity in which they are located. [00:11:48] Yes, they have exposure to that consumer market, but they’re also subject to the laws and the regulations of the country in which they reside. And there’s that whole set of circumstances is in many ways fundamentally different than a company. Launching elsewhere, and then deciding to put an ancillary footprint in the us. [00:12:09] Joe: Jesse, do you own any international positions in your portfolio? [00:12:13] Jesse: 100% I do. A hundred percent. He’s percent international. No, no, I, I own, uh, in my stock allocation, I mean, roughly speaking, you, you can think of it as being market cap weighted meaning. Like right now about 60% of the entire global stock market is US and, and somewhere between 60 and 70% of my stock portfolio is us and the other, call it 30 to 40% is uh, international. [00:12:40] Yeah. [00:12:41] Joe: Yeah. Paula, what percentage of your portfolio is international? [00:12:44] Paula: I don’t know the exact percent, but I would guess probably ballpark. 15 to 20 ish. [00:12:51] Joe: Oh, gee, how about you? I think globally we’re probably 20 or 25. [00:12:56] OG: Yeah. [00:12:56] Joe: Does it surprise you, Jesse, that uh, Jack Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, said that he doesn’t own any non-US stocks? [00:13:05] Jesse: Yes, it does. Only ’cause one thing I was gonna talk about today is his famous speech about, uh, the iron Rule of investing, which is reversion to the mean, and it’s in an amazing paper. If anyone listening hasn’t read it, it’s definitely worth reading. John Bogle’s paper on that, where he just talks about, it’s, it’s, it’s filled with all this amazing data that shows. [00:13:26] That outperformance never lasts forever, and that periods of outperformance are always followed by periods of underperformance, and that is the reversion to the mean and everything comes back to average. And it goes back to what OG was saying earlier, that you know, you can’t always tell when. Just because something is outperformed for a long time doesn’t mean it’s gonna start underperforming tomorrow. [00:13:46] Uh, you know, and referring there to, you know, the s and p 500 or large cap US stocks, whatever you want, whatever you wanna say. [00:13:52] Joe: Why do you think he goes against that then with his own, with his own money saying, yeah, I mean, I understand a version of the mean, but I’m not gonna own any. [00:14:01] Jesse: Sure. I mean, for Jack Bogle, does it make a difference? [00:14:05] I mean, it probably doesn’t make a difference at some point. You know what I mean? It’s. He is a multi, he, he was before he passed away, a multi-billionaire. It probably doesn’t matter whether he owned US stocks or not. He, he was gonna be okay. It’s the [00:14:16] OG: same thing that Markowitz said about asset allocation. [00:14:18] He knew that the right answer was a hundred percent equities until he invested 50 50. Because human nature is human nature. It’s like if you ask us investors how much money is in the us, the vast majority is if you ask Danish investors how much is in Denmark, they’ll say the vast majority is. If you ask UK investors how much is invested in the uk, the vast majority is there’s a significant home bias everywhere you go that’s uniform in ever, almost every market and economy. [00:14:46] Which is why most people are comfortable with investing in the us. When you talk to US investors, it’s like, we’re here. We know what we know. I have a, a certain feel about, you know, the companies that are here and, um, you know, for good or for bad. I think a lot of people have that bent, no matter where they are in the world, to what they know. [00:15:07] I mean, hell, there was a whole, who was the investor that said that? Invest in what? You know, like Peter Lynch. Peter Lynch. Yeah. It’s like. Okay. I don’t know anything about Nvidia, but I’m hella glad I got some. Yes. [00:15:20] Joe: And to clarify too, ’cause he, he al also said all the time that he gets misquoted on that, that people, you know, people think, okay, I use Heinz ketchup, so I’m gonna buy, you know, yeah. [00:15:30] Uh, I’m gonna buy that. He’s like, that should just, just be the top of your funnel. Like that is, that’s what you start with. And then whittle your way down to what an actual good investment would be, uh, if we get all of it. It is amazing. Paula, digging into Nick’s data here that the rise of the United States over the past many, many, many years. [00:15:49] Well, 1990 to present truly the two times where the US is kicked ass, and maybe we’ve been more prone to have this conversation. Is when US tech stocks are absolutely, absolutely rocking. Is the fact that we’re having this conversation now and the fact that it’s on everybody’s mind, does that immediately make you think, talking about reversion of the mean, this is the wrong time to be having this conversation. [00:16:14] Paula: You mean, does the conversation around should we be investing in international, uh, stocks reflect either exuberance or distrust depending on the position that you take about the tech sector specifically? [00:16:26] Joe: About tech specifically? Yeah. [00:16:28] Paula: Yeah. I mean I certainly right now, if you’re gonna use recency bias, yeah, absolutely. [00:16:33] You can in some ways conflate the overall US stock market with the tech sector because there is such heavy current overlap. That being said, some of the most innovative, uh, projects that we’ve seen come out of other countries, um, are also tech projects. I mean, look at Deep Seek that came out of China. [00:16:54] Joe: Never heard of it. No. [00:16:56] Paula: And so it, the, you know, what types of companies, we talked earlier about US companies that have footprints overseas. The tech sector specifically does not need to have a footprint anywhere. It is by definition digital. And so there’s. Likely going to be a lot of tech sector innovation coming from China. [00:17:17] Not just China, but from many countries around the globe. And so I don’t think international exposure gets you away from it. If anything, it, depending on specifically the region you invest in, it might get you deeper into it. [00:17:29] Joe: What do you think, Jesse, when you hear these people on TV talking about valuations and about valuations in the US and supporting, you know, you, you turn on CB, C or Fox businesses, blah, blah, blah. [00:17:40] Valuation support, where we’re at today. Yeah. Valuations don’t support where we’re at today and this argument, uh, maybe half, four, half against. [00:17:48] Jesse: Well, yeah. The argument for the listener who’s unaware is just that US stocks right now, the price to earnings ratio or whatever kind of metric you wanna look at. [00:17:56] US stocks seem overvalued, at least compared to historical standards or the Robert Schiller’s cyclically adjusted PE Cape ratio is high compared to historical standards. If you look at 10 or 20 or 30 year forward returns as a function of the cape ratio, you’d say, oh, when you have to pay more for a stock, then your future returns usually go down, and that just makes sense, right? [00:18:19] If, if I had to pay a hundred thousand dollars for a Honda Civic, it might not be a good investment. If I have to overpay for my stocks. [00:18:26] Joe: But then again, but then again, I know, [00:18:28] Jesse: but it might be cool you compare that to international stocks and you’d say, well, the PE ratio, or again, whatever kind of price, earnings type metric you wanna look at is a lot more attractive. [00:18:38] And again, not to beat a dead horse here, but that’s going back to that whole reversion to the mean idea where if you look at stock market history, you’d say, well, right. Uh, PE ratios certainly have been high before, and then eventually they come back down. If that’s what’s gonna happen in our near term future, then you might not wanna throw all your money at in the US stock market right now. [00:18:58] That’s, that’s the argument [00:19:00] Joe: and that’s arguing to play OG because you know, the second that we start talking about reversing the mean and the fact the last 10 years haven’t been that kind of international stocks. I’m sure there’s people out there thinking, well, I think what the panel’s saying is this is the time to back the truck up on international stocks. [00:19:17] OG: Well, I don’t know that you can say that about international stocks or US tech stocks, if it’s overweighted or whatever. I think you can say that about a bunch of different sectors. I mean, you could look at small company stocks and just say, well, heck, they’re supposed to, on average be better. And on average for the last eight, 10 years, they’ve sucked. [00:19:34] The thing about the whole concept of trying to market time is that it’s impossible to be right. You could guess honestly. Today could be the day that is the high watermark for the s and p for the next 24 months. And internationals go gangbusters. And you could guess, right? But the reality is, is that there’s no way to predict the future ebbs and flows of sectors, economies, countries, you know, subsets within sectors. [00:20:04] Like you just don’t know. And there’s plenty of people on one end of the extreme who have said like, you know what, it’s 2019. Freaking tech has done amazing. They’re overvalued. Let’s get out of that. Right? And then you miss the next five years of a hundred percent return and you know all the benefits of that. [00:20:23] There’s no different than people saying the s and p as a whole is overweighted right now. And maybe we should be an international. I, I don’t know. And I can’t honestly say that anybody knows with any degree of certainty. So the only. Logical outcome here, or the only logical way to handle this is to always be invested the same way all the time. [00:20:42] And then when you have a period of time, like if you look at your portfolio in the last 12 months, you’d go, Hey, my tech stocks or my s and p large cap growth has done well relative to its expected return. I expected 10. It did 20 like go me. That’s awesome. My small cap stock did eight. I expected 13. [00:21:02] Their only logical solution is to take a little bit of rebalancing, take a little bit of the profit from the, from the large cap growth and put it in small or from large cap and international and every so often do that. And there’s no evidence to suggest anything more frequently than once a year will be satisfactory there. [00:21:18] And if you just do that over time, over your lifetime of investing. Then you’ll work out to have a good outcome, have a good expected return when you start putting your own flavor in it and going, well, I don’t know. I think tech’s overweighted and dah, dah. There’s just as many studies that say it’s overweighted that say, well, this is a momentum play. [00:21:37] And momentum continues. Like it’s gonna keep going. Do you wanna get in the way of a moving truck? There’s as many voices on either side of that. You gotta tune that stuff out and just say. Nope. I do 50% of my money’s in US large cap, and I’m at 52, so I’m taking that too. And I’m putting it in the thing that went down. [00:21:54] Full stop. End of discussion. [00:21:55] Joe: And that is exactly what I want to talk about in the second half. Guys, when it comes to different asset classes, how do you decide to tune some of them out? If you’re making the argument that these asset classes work in different times, different economic conditions, why do we decide then to exclude some from our portfolio? [00:22:13] I wanna dive into that in the second half of this discussion, but at the halfway point of every Stacky Benjamins Friday episode, we have this amazing. Contest between our three frequent contributors and man, it went from what looked like it was gonna be a snoozer Doug to maybe a little bit of a burn burner. [00:22:30] Now all of a sudden after we’ve got wins from Paula and from Jesse, so I believe our score. Then on weeks [00:22:37] OG: I was gone. Magically somebody else won, but okay, there’s parity [00:22:41] Joe: in the league. Finally, I think that the uh, score then is OG two. Paula won. Jesse won. Wait a minute. Does Jesse actually have a point or did you award him for the. [00:22:54] Mythological, I think you get an effort point. I think Doug, you awarded him a point with, for last week when Catherine’s internet went out. Jesse, do you have a point? I don’t think you have a point. [00:23:05] Jesse: No. That trivia I won was the one where only two of us were guessing you. But I, I just think it’s funny that OG I did, I mean, half of his point total is from Doc G and he’s up here on his high horse like. [00:23:15] Barking insults around like he’s really got a like to stand on. [00:23:21] Doug: I forgot, Joe, that last week’s was an unsanctioned trivia event where no scores would count. So you are correct. Jesse has a goose egg. I think [00:23:30] Joe: Jesse, if that would’ve gotten through, you owed Doug 10 bucks. Are you guys putting at your trophies? [00:23:35] Jesse: I’m pointing [00:23:36] OG: at my [00:23:36] Jesse: bobblehead. [00:23:36] OG: Well, he just said, I don’t have a leg to stand on, and I was like, I don’t know. That’s a pretty big leg. [00:23:41] Jesse: Yeah. Yo, you can lean on last year’s laurels. That’s fine. That is fine. Last several years, bro. [00:23:46] OG: Last several [00:23:47] Jesse: years. I’ve only been around a few months. [00:23:49] Joe: Alright, well the flame throwing, as you guys can see, has begun. [00:23:53] We need a trivia question though, with the score. 2 1 0. Could Jesse get on the map? Is og uh, maybe gonna back it up with some chaing. Is Paula gonna be tied for first at the end of the week? How that, how would that happen? We need a question. Doug, what do we got on tap this week? [00:24:10] Doug: Well, hey there, stackers. [00:24:12] I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and please bow your head in silence. As we remember, a unit of currency gone the way of the greenback and the buffalo nickel. Yes. Let’s take a moment. Remember the American penny? Okay. That’s long enough. Wow. But in commemorate, it’s like the quickest moment of silence ever. [00:24:32] Is anybody heartbroken in commemoration of this moment? Let’s talk about some trivia that’s about as weird as a $3 bill. The $3 coin in what year on today’s date was the $3 coin? First minted in the USA. I’ll be back right after I go plant a tree in memory of the penny. What will I put in those gumball machines now? [00:24:59] Joe: Do you gumball machines still take a penny? [00:25:00] Doug: They all take like, uh, apple pay now probably [00:25:05] Joe: takes [00:25:05] Doug: bing [00:25:05] Joe: lost in the eighties. They take the bing. Yeah. This is the day by the way that Congress passed that they would mint a $3 coin. What? Year was it? We start with the man in first place, OG $3 coin. Whew. [00:25:26] OG: I feel like I know a lot about currency and, and I, I guess maybe coin your current on your currency. [00:25:31] I have never heard this before. Is there a chance that Doug’s wrong is the answer? Doug is wrong. The answer is year zero. ’cause there’s no such thing. There is no year. Um. Are we sure it’s the US and not Canada? Oh, good question. It’s the us So Doug’s pretty confident. Okay, us Alright. A $3 coin seems like something we would’ve done because, um, I don’t know why the hell we would’ve done that. [00:26:00] Probably pre vending machines. So I’m gonna say. Uh, so $1, George Washington, $2. Thomas Jefferson, $5 Lincoln. So somewhere between Jefferson and Lincoln. I’m gonna say. ’cause that’s the, is that not the order of how they go? 1, 2, 5? [00:26:18] Jesse: No, [00:26:20] OG: no. And oh, ’cause then we go backwards to Hamilton. Dang it. Mm-hmm. And then grant’s in a different order and, uh, Jackson. [00:26:27] Yeah, we’re screwed. Doesn’t Jefferson get two? ’cause he is on the two and the 20. He’s on everything that starts with two. Who’s on the 30? That would tell me. All right. I’m gonna say 18. 1841. 1841. [00:26:42] Paula: Paula? Mm. I’m not used to guessing. Second, this is weird. [00:26:49] OG: Welcome to the new territory. I know the new New Year. [00:26:53] Paula: Well, it would have to happen at a time when $3 was valuable enough, but not too valuable. ’cause you wouldn’t wanna walk around with a $3 coin being like a bunch of those jing in your pocket. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Make you a target for robbery. Like if, if every $3 coin was the modern day equivalent of a hundred dollars bill and you had a pocket full of $3 coins, I mean, [00:27:18] Doug: or you’re just really happy to see me. [00:27:24] Paula: Based on that, I’m gonna guess a little bit more modern. I’m gonna say 1910. [00:27:28] Joe: 1910. Jesse, you got 1840 what og? Uh, 41. 1841. 1841, and 1910. Jesse, [00:27:43] Jesse: I was thinking, you know, reconstruction post-war. Some strange things happened in like the 1870s, 1880s. [00:27:52] OG: That, that I think I’m, I’m gonna split. [00:27:54] Jesse: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I think I’m gonna split the uprights, what was it, 41 versus 1910. [00:28:03] Paula: Mm-hmm. [00:28:03] Jesse: So what’s splitting the uprights there? 1875, I’ll say 1876 for good measure. Lock it in. [00:28:10] Joe: 1876. Locked in, loaded. Well, we’re all over the middle and the end of the 18 hundreds and early 19 hundreds. So Doug, I think we might’ve stumped him. What year was it? We’re gonna find out. Just a minute. We’ll be right back. [00:28:28] OG: I wanna know when, um, they stopped doing wooden nickels. ’cause that’s what my grandpa always used to say, don’t take any wooden nickels. And I was like, well, why would I, that sounds really crazy. But apparently that was a thing when my grandpa was young. So maybe that’ll be your next trivia question. When did they stop making wooden nickels? [00:28:45] They stopped. Doug, you just confounded. Doug had no idea. Doug’s got a whole bunch of ’em. He’s like, that’s how I get paid. So we pay Doug in wooden nickel. [00:28:55] Joe: Isn’t your money supposed to float? We shouldn’t have brought that up, og. Oh my bad. Og, you had, uh, 1841. How you feeling now that all the, all the ballots have been cast? [00:29:05] OG: I don’t think it was the 19 hundreds, so [00:29:07] Joe: we’ll see. Oh, throwing some shade at Paula. Paula, you feeling good about 1910? [00:29:13] Paula: I’m, I, I have all of the upsides, so you know, I’ve got, yeah, I’ve got a wide section of those. If it was [00:29:17] Joe: 1992, you won. [00:29:20] Paula: Exactly. You’re [00:29:20] Joe: fine. And Jesse, you’ve got all that room in the middle. [00:29:23] How you feeling? [00:29:25] Jesse: Feeling okay? I do think, yeah, if, if anything, I, I think I might have overshot it a little bit, but, uh, we’ll see where it comes out. We’ll see where it shakes out. [00:29:37] Joe: Jesse at 1875. Paul at 1910, og. 76. 76, og 76, sorry. 76 OG at 40 18 41. Doug, who’s taking away the wind today? [00:29:54] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m the guy who thought this show should have been called Dollars and Cents. Cents. Get it. And your penny lover. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. Ah, the penny. It’s like we never really knew You sure You lined the bottom of pockets, purses, and wallets. But all this time, it’s because we thought you’d, you’d always be around. [00:30:18] And now what are we gonna do at seven 11 without that? Need a penny? Take a penny, filthy little bin. Next to the register, huh? It’s just not gonna be the same. But today we’re talking about the $3 bills. Weird cousin. The $3 coin. What year on today’s date did the USA first mint? This oddball gem of a coin, the $3 coin was first minted on today’s date. [00:30:45] Way back in, buckle up. Og. It’s your favorite part. Well, I’m not gonna tell you the year, but I will say that Paula was just a scant 57 years off. Jesse was 23 years off. Oh my goodness. No. And it was 12 years more recently. Oh no. Than what OG guess. ’cause the correct answer is 1853, making the Merchant of Darkness. [00:31:12] Our winner. [00:31:16] Gotta have a, [00:31:17] Joe: you have something under the applause. You got people like throwing stuff. Jesse. Your gut was right. You overshot it. [00:31:25] Jesse: Yeah. Wish I would’ve thought that when I actually had a chance to guess, but that’s okay. [00:31:31] OG: But you know, now it’s always next week, Jesse. That’s right. There’s always, always next [00:31:34] Jesse: week buddy. [00:31:36] Thank you, Josh. You’re [00:31:37] OG: welcome, bud. [00:31:39] Joe: Let’s see if we can, uh, do better though, Jesse, in the second half of today’s episode, we’re gonna dive into other asset classes. Let’s get into this. You know, you’ve all three kind of said that you think that people should use international stocks. What are some asset classes, Jesse, that you don’t use, and well pick one that you don’t use for your goals, and why don’t you use it? [00:32:01] Jesse: Sure, sure. Like at the end of the day. Just because an asset class exists or just because like someone somewhere writes about something as an asset class doesn’t necessarily mean that it has the economic, you know, underpinning to justify investment. The things I don’t own in my portfolio, Joe, are I. [00:32:18] Baseball cards. I don’t own baseball cards in my portfolio because I don’t understand the intrinsic cash flowing value that comes from owning a baseball card. [00:32:29] Joe: But the asset class that you’re talking about when you say baseball cards, it’s collectibles. [00:32:33] Jesse: Sure. I mean, yes, that’s fine. That is fine. Whether it’s wine, art. [00:32:38] Baseball cards. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Or gold. Whoa, whoa. I consider those all the same thing. [00:32:43] OG: Easy. [00:32:43] Jesse: Cowboy, [00:32:44] Joe: OG has to say into the mic that his wine is an asset class so he can write off all that drinking. [00:32:50] OG: Contractually obligated. My banker needs my balance sheet every year and I, uh, [00:32:56] Joe: I might [00:32:56] OG: have included that in [00:32:57] Joe: my net worth statement. [00:32:59] Gotta have it. He’s gotta test the product mix for his investment. Og, what don’t you invest in and how did you decide not to? I love the idea, Jesse, of collectibles and the fact that I don’t understand how or when they make money, which ones do you stay away from? [00:33:14] OG: Yeah, I think, you know, broad, broad brushstroke here with collectibles. [00:33:18] I think artwork probably goes under that too. You know, some people find that valuable, you know, to hold onto, I have a client who’s a curator at a, at a large museum, and, and I was talking to him about. Some artwork. One time that I, that I actually, I liked a lot and I was like, Hey, so some people are buying these and they’re reselling them and like this is an investment. [00:33:36] And the best news he gave me was like, listen, you own art ’cause you like to see it, you own it because you want it hanging on your wall. You like it in your office, you like it in your den, you like it in your living room. It looks nice to you. If someone else down the line goes, that would look nice to me and I would like to pay you for that. [00:33:53] That is an ancillary byproduct. Do not buy this stuff because you think it’s gonna turn, you’re gonna turn around and sell it someday. You know, obviously there’s some masters out there, van Gogh and stuff, but that’s not the money I have. So asset classes that I don’t presently invest in. Uh, Jesse already talked about Bitcoin. [00:34:08] I have some, I don’t consider it an asset class. You know, it’s a thing, but I don’t, I don’t necessarily consider it an asset class. I don’t do any outside private equity hedge funds. That sort of thing, largely because I believe, I, I, it’s not that I don’t believe that that could be a good investment. [00:34:24] There’s usually some limitations on investing in private equity, whether it’s a, a net worth limitation or a liquidity limitation. I say, Hey, you know, you need to be able to, you know, keep this money here for a long period of time. And that makes a lot of sense, right? If you’re buying into a small business or what private equity, equity would be a collection of small businesses. [00:34:45] There’s not that float. There’s not the buying, you know, you can’t just sell part of grandpa’s print shop because OG wants to get out and get his cash out. You know what I mean? There needs to be some sort of liquidity event. So part of it’s that reason. The liquidity part of it is the lockup in terms of how long you have to have it there for. [00:35:02] And then the other piece of it is, is that I’m already a major investor in two businesses. I already have a lot of that. My net worth is. Is largely invested in two small, very micro companies, and I don’t know that I need to add any more to that asset class. In fact, one might argue I need to add more to the big companies, you know, to offset the, the risk of the small one. [00:35:23] But, um, yeah, I’d say private equity and, and for most investors, that’s probably probably the main reason is the liquidity and and net worth requirements. [00:35:32] Joe: I wanna pause on that for a second. Paula, do you own any, any companies besides afford anything? Any private. Non-public companies? [00:35:40] Paula: No. No, I don’t. I was asked to be an investor in one particular private company that I very, very strongly considered and that I is that [00:35:48] OG: Facebook, [00:35:49] Paula: not that one. [00:35:50] And to this day, I, I think it would have been a good investment, but I passed on it because also for the same reason, I didn’t want the liquidity lockup, particularly as a small business owner. [00:36:01] Joe: Oh, sure. Right. Jesse, how about you? You own any private companies piece of a company? [00:36:06] Jesse: Nope. [00:36:07] Joe: Yeah, because I do find that interesting because it, it seemed to me when I was a financial planner, I would’ve people that would come to me and they’d be like, Hey, my cousin’s starting a restaurant, and you know what? [00:36:16] We could put that money in the s and p 500, or I could put up my cousin’s restaurant, which I’ll probably do a lot better. I’m like, or a lot worse. [00:36:23] OG: Yeah. Yeah. If you just go back to like. The how it makes sense around investing. You know, you put your money in the bank and you get nice, safe, secure, 3% interest. [00:36:32] You know it’s gonna be there tomorrow. You can take it all out in the afternoon, put it back in the next morning. It’s a hundred percent guaranteed to be there. And then you look at the leap from that to the s and p 500, right? The 500 biggest companies in the world. I. Y you accept some volatility for that up to and including like minus half, right? [00:36:50] We’ve seen that in our lifetimes of that’s an exposure that we’re okay with in exchange for 10% a year. Like that’s the average. We’ll take the 10% every so often we lose half, but you know, over time it works out. And so you go back to like the micro company, right? Your brother’s restaurant or something like that? [00:37:07] You say, well. What must be the volatility and what must be the return for me to make, for me to have this make sense? You know, if the volatility is I could lose all my money, which is in a small company, an outcome, a hi, a higher outcome than you know, the s and p, then what must be the expected return? I always caution people on this one when they talk about it. [00:37:29] I say, well, what do you think you’re gonna get out of the deal? Like, oh, I think we can, you know, I might get 12% of my money. It’s like, are you crazy? You need like 30%. I. Think about the banker who’s lending money to the crappy credit rating guy and the guy with 850 credit score. [00:37:43] Joe: Well, I even think on a restaurant it’s gotta be even higher than 30 because doesn’t, whatever. [00:37:47] OG: Well, whatever. Yeah, yeah. It’s some multiple of what you get in the s and p because, because you’re getting a. Zero as a, as a terminal value sometimes, you know, it’s like, I mean, [00:37:55] Joe: what’s the lifespan of a even a good restaurant, right? Sure. Yeah. I mean, not the one that lasts forever and has been in the family for 40 years, but maybe what, three years, four years? [00:38:03] It’s gonna be hot. Yeah. Five years, maybe 11. [00:38:05] OG: Madison Park has been around for how many years? 10, 15. Yeah. You know, 20. They’re not gonna be around another 20. Probably. They’re the best restaurant in the world. Gotta get a much, much higher [00:38:15] Joe: return to get your money back out of it. Paula, to you, what do, what don’t you invest in? [00:38:19] Paula: So I don’t have precious metals. I don’t have, um, silver or gold. I don’t, precious metals, [00:38:25] OG: not that precious to you. [00:38:26] Paula: Yeah, exactly. [00:38:27] OG: Other than the bling you wear. [00:38:30] Paula: Yeah, that’s how I prefer it’s, it’s on me. It’s on you. It’s your drip at all times. Drip. You gotta use the ling lingo, [00:38:34] OG: Paula, it’s your drip. [00:38:36] Paula: I don’t have commodities. [00:38:37] I don’t have cattle other than the bone broth than I drink. Other than the [00:38:40] OG: ones you murder and drink. ’cause you can’t keep any around ’cause you drink them all. [00:38:47] Paula: Don’t drink your supply, whether it’s wine or cattle. She had a [00:38:51] Jesse: herd. [00:38:52] Paula: Not [00:38:52] Jesse: anymore. Just another ruminants. Is this a ruminant joke? Yeah, [00:38:58] Paula: I know. I keep ruminating on this. [00:39:01] Yeah. I don’t have wheat, corn, any of, uh, any of the above. [00:39:04] Joe: Well, and how come, I mean, how did you decide not to do commodities? Precious metals, [00:39:08] Paula: you know, both commodities and precious metals I see as an inflation hedge. But I have a lot of real estate, which is also an inflation hedge. So I figure that’s just too much inflation hedge. [00:39:18] Joe: But what’s also interesting is, I mean truly, and somebody said this when I was in Seattle a couple weeks ago, said, said, you know, stocks are an inflation hedge. [00:39:26] Paula: Yeah, [00:39:27] Joe: absolutely. So it always kind of messes with me. People talk about inflation hedge. I’m like, aren’t stocks an inflation hedge? Yeah, that’s a big one. [00:39:33] Speaking of that, Paula, you own real estate, Jesse, do you invest at all in REITs or any real estate? [00:39:40] Jesse: Um, residential real estate. Strike my house. And in that way I’ve got this pretty large exposure on my balance sheet to a, a single housing project, a single asset class, or a single property, if you will. [00:39:52] Right. So anyway, so outside of that, no other real estate exposure currently [00:39:56] Joe: now real estate. Do you think at some point you will [00:39:58] Jesse: potentially? My brother’s a, a contractor here at Rochester and I understand the numbers, so I feel like the two of us could put our heads together and, and be a pretty low cost residential real estate investing team. [00:40:10] But, uh. It’s a little ways down the road if we’re gonna do that. [00:40:15] Joe: I think it’s funny when you take a look at an investment og, what’s kind of at the top of your funnel? Somebody brings you, let’s say, some investment they think is a good idea. You know, work us down the funnel from the top. How do you, how do you start by going, does this fit or not? [00:40:31] OG: We’ve been getting a couple of these as of late and, and, well, my funnel is usually no. It’s just like, yeah, no, I don’t need it. There is no funnel. It’s just No. Boy, [00:40:40] Doug: that sounds like grandpa. [00:40:42] OG: Yeah, it sure does. He [00:40:43] Doug: puts the narrow part of the funnel at the top. [00:40:44] OG: Yeah. [00:40:46] Doug: Is that how It’s not like a hat? See if you can make it in, shoot it from over there. [00:40:50] From across the room. See if you can get it in. I think. [00:40:52] OG: For me, everything has to start with what’s the outcome that you’re looking for from your portfolio? And, and this is I think, a little bit more broader based Joe than your exact question, but sometimes, and we talked about this with the election, there’s, there’s always the questions and anxiety that come with, now that blank happened, what do I do with my investing? [00:41:11] And right now the narrative is all around politics and policy changes and that sort of thing. And so we’re getting some of these questions and it’s like, well, did your goals change at all? If your goals haven’t changed, then why would you change your portfolio? What’s the point of reacting to a short term event in this big, broad, you know, lens of your entire life and your family’s life and your kids’ life and grandkid’s life? [00:41:34] This event, whatever you’re talking about, is just one little, one little drop in the bucket. So when I get pitched an investment, whether it’s something personally or for, you know, for our clients, I always just think like, what’s the purpose of this? What does this solve that we don’t already solve? You know, through other things. [00:41:51] And a real popular one is, and, and Joe, you remember this from your days, a lot of non-traded stuff, private real estate or whatever, and it’s like, well, what does this solve? Well, you get your real estate exposure. Like I already have that. I have equity, real estate exposure. Well, this one, you get a tax form in August that you get to deal with. [00:42:11] You know, it’s like, uh, got, oh, I don [00:42:14] Paula: bad. [00:42:16] OG: You know, that’s what I totally need. That’s what I miss is I missed the, the, I missed the K one that comes August 1st after I filed my taxes four months ago. So, you know, it’s just, I think the lens has to be, as you see these things like. How does this fit in my plan as it relates to what goal am I trying to accomplish? [00:42:34] And that’s really where I would start. And then, and then from there, you can work through like expected return, which is kind of the next piece of it. I’m going back to like the private business versus return. It’s like if I’m gonna invest in a my brother’s restaurant or ice cream place, dude, I need some cash on this thing. [00:42:49] ’cause this is super risky. I get 10% in the biggest companies in the world, most professionally managed the smartest people in the room. I get 10%, I get 13. If I go down a notch and go to small, the smallest companies in the world, still professionally managed, still the smartest guys in the room. And you want me to invest in your ice cream shop? [00:43:06] I’m gonna need some major cash for that to offset that volatility potential of losing all my money. Your board of directors names. Better be Ben and Jerry. Yeah. Right. Well, no, you’re not wrong. Right, exactly. Like what do you know about ice cream? Ben and Jerry said, Hey, we’re we’re having an opening for investors. [00:43:23] Right? That’s a different thing. You’re going, okay. Proven concept. They’re not a small company, right? They’re probably publicly traded at this point, but you get the idea. You have a different expected return because of the market. But of everything, you have to start with your. Your plan, where does this [00:43:36] Joe: fit, Jesse? [00:43:38] You were nodding. Anything else at the top of your funnel that you evaluate? [00:43:41] Jesse: I was really nodding because it really is that question of like, how does this investment fit the individual person’s overall goals? And that’s why like I know earlier I, there was a little touch on bonds and we were talking about bonds and whether bonds have a place in a portfolio and like, or I, I know what it was. [00:43:57] I think it was og. You were talking about how if you were to own bonds and. You would make sure that they were internationally diversified and you would own some bonds from really crappy companies, junk bonds and other bonds, really good companies or something like that. And now I thought that was interesting to me. [00:44:12] I own bonds if I need money in a certain, you know, short term time span. And so for me, when I own bonds in a portfolio, like I don’t necessarily want bad quality bonds in there, and I don’t necessarily care if there are any international bonds in there. For me, I’m not owning bonds to get any sort of excess return. [00:44:31] So that reason, all I really care is that the money, you know, the, the principle value of the bond is there when I need it in a, in a very specific timeframe. But that just goes back to this whole idea of what’s the purpose of this investment in my overall portfolio. [00:44:46] Joe: Jesse, I love that because I kinda like, you know, in my book I talk about the growing season analogy. [00:44:51] I truly like thinking about when am I gonna need the money, and then what investments historically have gotten me there. It is funny how you and I have a similar approach that way. More of a risk management approach to investing. Paula, anything to add about how you pick investments? [00:45:06] Paula: I have a barbell allocation. [00:45:08] I don’t hold bonds. I want my money to either be highly risky or totally safe, so I tend to go for the extremes and that’s not something I would recommend for everybody. It’s just a personal choice. [00:45:20] Joe: And that is because? Because why? I mean, what’s the upside to doing it that way? Uh. [00:45:26] Paula: As a small business owner and as somebody who directly holds rental real estate, I have a need for having a lot of short-term cash on hand. [00:45:35] And so, because naturally, because my bias is towards keeping a hefty cash allocation just as, as a result of all of these things in, in my business and in my. Real estate investing life that I’m exposed to because I have that hefty cash allocation. I wanna put equities, uh, I want all of my investible assets, market investments to go into equities because [00:45:57] Joe: then over a short timeframe, you don’t have to worry about a need for money. [00:46:01] Right. You, you, you can go ahead and give them, give ’em time. Got it. I think that’s a great place to leave it. I find this very interesting, this whole piece, the discussion, I, I see this discussion all the time. Should I get rid of small cap value? Should I get rid of international? Should I get rid of, and I love the three of you. [00:46:17] Really going back to, I think you gotta examine the why behind why you have that in your portfolio in the first place. Speaking of the first place, this is the second place for two of the three of you where you. Are located, we’re gonna find out where that primary place is and what’s going on. Well, we know where the primary place is. [00:46:34] Sometimes I just start talking and I wonder what the end of that sentence is gonna look like. And sometimes it goes my way, sometimes it doesn’t. So maybe we’ll do that again. Let’s just find out what the heck’s going on where OG lives. Og, what do you got going on this weekend, man? [00:46:47] OG: Well, presently I’m skiing with Doug. [00:46:50] He’s tired of me by now, so he’s skiing alone, and I’m skiing alone, and it’s working out really well. [00:46:56] Doug: You’re no longer holding hands, like at the beginning of that, what he doesn’t know is I’m already on a flight back. [00:47:01] OG: Doug took the rental car and said, I’ll see you in Reno. [00:47:06] Joe: Doug’s sitting at the bar at the Keno machine at Reno. [00:47:09] OG: Oh God, what a great, what a great thing to spend. That’s, that’s what we should do, honestly, Kino [00:47:13] Paula: and Reno. Kino [00:47:14] OG: and Reno baby. But then it’s baseball season, so we are, we are elbow deep in, uh, varsity baseball. So when Wow. Uh, not working. It’s varsity baseball. [00:47:24] Joe: And Jesse, for you, there’s only like eight more weeks of winter. [00:47:26] Left it on the 21st. So [00:47:28] Jesse: our baseball season here in upstate New York is, uh, it’s a spring sport. So we play from early April through about early May. That’s the school baseball season. You get five weeks to play. Uh, 27 games. [00:47:42] Doug: Jesse, did you play in high school? [00:47:44] Jesse: I did. Yeah. [00:47:45] Doug: Yeah, I did too. And when you were a freshman, did you get made? [00:47:48] There were, uh, a couple of weeks where to practice. They made us as freshmen go out and shovel the field off. Did you ever have to do that? [00:47:56] Jesse: No, we didn’t. But I mean, we had practiced on like the high school gym floor, but on the nice days when it was still snowy and wet. But it was nice outside. You’d play in the parking lot? [00:48:05] OG: Yeah. Yeah, this is scintillating. Sliding in concrete sucks. I guess. [00:48:10] Jesse: Yeah, we, we try not to do that. I, it doesn’t work out well, og, if you’ve never tried [00:48:15] Joe: that is painful. Just some painful baseball. Jesse, what’s happening at the brand new Under, well under Same management, but new name, personal Finance for Long-Term Investors podcast. [00:48:28] Jesse: We’re about to have an episode with Chad Carson and then another. A MA coming out soon. And I think I’m gonna do a deep dive on, uh, national debt. It sounds like a juicy, it’s a juicy topic that I wanna really sink my, my, uh, thinking into. [00:48:42] Doug: Wow. Let us know when you figure it out. [00:48:44] Joe: Yeah, that’s, yes. So, so if, are you gonna say, if the US had an emergency fund and they didn’t use the credit card so much, we’d be better off? [00:48:52] Jesse: That’s probably part of it. I just, it’s so an, it’s such an interesting thing. ’cause unlike us, the US government just gets to print more money. Except it seems like that probably has a logical end to it. So it’s a deep, it’s a deep dive. It’s a deep dive. [00:49:05] Joe: But the cool thing is, Jesse, I’m sure they get to keep all the reward points from their credit card. [00:49:09] I mean, think about all that. [00:49:10] Jesse: That’s what I’ve heard. Yeah. I’ve heard that the president just gets to basically fly for free. [00:49:14] Joe: It’s it that whole jet of his is totally free jet that he gets with all those reward points. [00:49:20] Jesse: Yeah. Air Force Chase One. Yeah. [00:49:23] Joe: Paula Pant. What’s happening at the Afford Anything Show? [00:49:27] Paula: So today is actually the final day of enrollment for our course on rental property investing. Oh, you gotta get in, right? Exactly. Today’s the deadline. So if you want to learn about how to invest in rental properties, today’s your last day to sign up, uh, afford anything.com/enroll. [00:49:44] Joe: And you’ve had a bunch of successful students go through that the last few years. [00:49:48] Paula: Yeah, we’ve surveyed our students and 48.1% of our students, our graduating alumni, um, have gone on to buy at least one rental property. That’s [00:49:57] Joe: fabulous. And you wanna be in that percentage? Don’t take any class and be in the other half. [00:50:02] Paula: Exactly. [00:50:03] Joe: Go do it. Well, and I’m sure among the other half though, people still, you know, building maybe the, the fund to do it. [00:50:10] Paula: Yeah, exactly. Building the muscle, building the funds. We also survey our students on, from the time that you enroll in the class, what is your timeframe towards when you want to invest in rental properties? And it’s pretty all over the map. It’s a little rare, but sometimes there are a few people who say, you know, I just got a big commissioner. [00:50:28] I got a bonus. Now I have too much cash sitting around and I wanna deploy it. So I’d like to put it towards a down payment. Like sometimes you’ve got that, but you’ve also got a pretty big subsection of students who say, Hey, I wanna buy a rental property. I’ll be ready in like two years, but I wanna get started now. [00:50:44] Or I’ll be ready in three years. I wanna get started learning now. [00:50:47] Joe: That is, uh, the link again is afford anything.com/. Enroll, enroll, enroll. We’ll have a link in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. All right, Doug. That’s gonna do it for today, man. What should we have learned on today’s show? [00:51:03] Doug: Well, Joe, here’s what’s stacked up on our to-do list for today. [00:51:06] First, take some advice from OG when he said You should never, ever, ever own an international stock. Or [00:51:15] OG: Or wait, was it private equity? [00:51:16] Doug: It was one of those, right? Og? [00:51:19] OG: I said, if you’re gonna own something, make sure it fits in your plan, [00:51:24] Doug: right? That’s pretty much what I said. Same thing. Second, your North Star when it comes to asset class distribution is Paul’s guidance about commodities. [00:51:35] Paula, what was that again? Don’t drink your cattle. Yeah. See, I’m nailing it today. But the big lesson, don’t ask Jesse if he knows any jokes about $3 coins. Who knew this guy could just keep him coming? Oh my goodness, Jesse. That the goat really, I mean, and then that one about the gynecologist. You crack me up. [00:52:00] Oh my God, you’re funny. Hey, thanks to Jesse Kramer for joining us today. He may tell you a joke or two about the $3 coin on his podcast called Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors. Wherever you are listening to us right now, and you know what’s as exotic as a $3 coin pull a pant. S Afford Anything podcast, but what, believe it or not, you can also find that goodness wherever you’re listening to us today. [00:52:30] We’ll also include links in our show notes to both of these gems at Stacking Benjamins dot com. This show is the Property of SB Podcasts, LLL C, copyright 2025, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy. Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You’ll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins dot com along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. [00:52:57] Come say hello. Oh yeah, and before I go. Not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s Mom’s Neighbor, Duggan. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.
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