88. Investing Strategies & Undervalued Asset Sectors for Stocks & Crypto with Analyst Josh Gilbert

Airpods. What they make in terms of revenue is more than what Shopify, Hilton, Snapchat, these massive companies just from AirPods alone. How much Apple making revenue is more than Hilton hotels yearly?

No way. Just on the AirPods alone.

On the AirPods alone. We believe that having exposure to crypto in a portfolio is massive for risk adjusted returns and being able to boost up that sort of portfolio even if you are only focused on stocks. To have a small allocation to crypto is I think imperative to an investment portfolio these days. What?

Welcome back to the Ben and Bergs Podcast. I'm Ben, your favorite high school dropout and CEO of Collective Shift and not alongside me today is Bergs. He's his daughter six. He won't be joining us today, but he's also the COO of Collective Shift and we're Australia's leading crypto portfolio insights company providing professional analysis and portfolio strategies for crypto investors like you. We don't just talk theory, we're giving you the insights you need to become better, invest better in investing, build successful businesses and level up your life. And today we've got another cracking guest on the pod coming all the way down for Sydney specifically for the podcast is Josh Gilbert, one of my good mates, market analyst at Etoro. Man, it's great to have you here.

Thank you for having me, Ben. Yeah, all the way down from Sydney, whenever I heard the idea of coming on bed and Burke's, I thought, you know, gotta fly down, I'm coming for it.

It can't, it can't have anything to do with the fact that we're doing an event tonight as well and nothing.

To do with that or the Wallabies playing on Saturday? No, no, specifically.

And the Wallabies, correct.

Yeah, yeah, nothing to do with that.

And all the other media commitments. Yeah, all that aside, yeah, you've come down for today, so thanks man.

No pleasure. I'm happy to be here, mate.

This is, this is new for me. My right hand man Bergs is, he's left me today. I gave him a call this morning and said mate, I'm out. And I was like okay, well we push on. Yeah, so couldn't have thought a bit of a guess man.

Well I can help alongside, you know, maybe I'll throw a bit at me.

Maybe you are the car. Yeah, maybe just throw a few back at me.

Do it together. I'll try and fill bugs place. I haven't got any green headphones but I'll try my best.

You need a hoodie and green headphones.

Yeah, I know. I'd fit right in, wouldn't I?

In the Ben and Josh show.

Yeah. Oh, sorry, Bug.

Sorry, mate. So Etoro, probably you must be one of the biggest, if not the biggest, like, what do you call yourself an exchange brokerage?

Yeah, Investment platform. Social investment platform.

That's right. 35 million users. I, I don't know anything anyone would. That would be higher than that.

Yeah, I mean we are by far one of the biggest globally now. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it all stems from, you know, sort of the way that we've sort of built ourselves. You know, we had bitcoin on the platform back in 2013. You know, that, that really helped accelerate growth, obviously, especially as being a platform that was regulated as well. So obviously when, you know, investors started looking at crypto, you know, really retail investors in those early days, they wanted a platform that they could, you know, trust. And especially with that regulation side, it's. We obviously don't have that in crypto, but in terms of, you know, having that protection was sort of really important. And then over the years we've, we've diversified, you know, heavily into, you know, stocks. So globally now we, we offer commission free stock investing across the globe. Uk, us obviously here in Australia. So it's that sort of all in one investment app, basically.

And Yoni is the founder?

He is, yeah, Yoni Asia founded it with his brother ronin back in 2007. So two, you know, really innovative leaders in the space. And Yoni particularly, especially in crypto.

He was friends with Vitalik or something.

Yeah, yeah. So if anyone's interested to have a look, there's a. They basically wrote a white paper called Colored Coins which was essentially NFTs before its time. So that was before Vitalik had started Ethereum as well. Yeah, so, yeah, just really ahead of the time. And something that, you know, obviously helped him to sort of build Etoro and has always been really, really passionate. I mean, we did a podcast episode with, through our sort of Etaro podcast. He was buying Bitcoin at $2.

That's unreal. Yeah.

So some, you know, some, some big numbers. Anybody? Anything, Anything more than $2? A rookie number.

Well, I mean you, you were saying you, you, you're pretty early in crypto, right? So you got in Bitcoin around 5K. ETH $50 cardano $0.10. You've. So you've got a pretty unique insight as a market analyst. Like you're covering crypto and stocks and a bit of macro, right?

Yeah.

Right now, Etoro. So you're Kind of seeing the lens 360 degrees.

Yeah, yeah.

Which part of it do you, you know, tend to, to focus on or does it switch or you look kind of looking at all three at once.

I guess it depends. In terms, a lot of what I do is quite media focused. So, you know, talking to, you know, podcasts like this or tv, newspapers, etc, obviously, and what our clients, you know, want to hear. So we obviously want to continue to offer sort of crypto insights. But really macro is what everyone wants to know right now because that is what's driving everything in markets. Inflation, interest rates, all of it, gdp. So talking a lot about that at the moment because also it's a place where we've not been in the investment world for decades. You know, never had interest rates this high for, you know, 10, 15 years, inflation this high for the same amount of time, especially in Australia. So these are some of the biggest, you know, tightening cycles from central banks in terms of lifting interest rates that we've seen ever. So it's a really different environment for, for, for investors that have maybe only recently entered into financial markets. So we're really trying to offer as much education and as much information to investors about what is happening in markets right now and what that does mean for your investments and how to sort of manage that and how to move forward.

One of the biggest things that we've noticed, you know, crypto over the last like, you know, long time has been super highly correlated with like the US stock market. We see the US stock market crash and the crypto tends to, we've been tracking recently like a kind of more weakening correlation between the two. I think more recently there was a pretty bad week in the US stocks and then BTC and ETH only retraced a little bit where in the past they've significantly dropped. Based on that correlation.

Do you foresee that as more just crypto maturing and it's just that listening correlation or are investors seeing the asset class now a little bit differently to the, to the stock market? How do you kind of see that?

Think a bit of both. I think with what we've seen in, especially in the last 12 months, that's when that correlation is sort of really changed. A lot of capital has been sucked out of crypto as we know. That hasn't been helped by the likes of AI coming in as well. That's even sucked even more oxygen out of sort of the crypto space because you know, this is one of the biggest sort of, you know, technology booms that we've seen probably since the 90s. So that's really drawing a lot of people in. When you've got Nvidia up 200% year to date, you've got matter 140% year to date. Tesla more than 100% year to date. You know, that's. That's crypto numbers, right?

That's really. I don't know. So full transparency. I don't own any stocks.

Okay.

I don't know anything. I don't own anything else outside of crypto. So I want to walk away today, like with it, with a portfolio.

Need a diversified portfolio.

We'll talk about that. Sorry, continue.

Anyway, so, you know, I think. And also what we've seen over this time as well, you know, NASDAQ, NASDAQ 100, the biggest technology index in the world, that's up 40% year to date. So that's again across 100 biggest stocks in the U.S. so again, still underperforming the likes of bitcoin year today, but still in terms of having a diversified approach for something like an index, you know, that is huge. But while we've had that, we've also seen volatility drop significantly in the US which is quite surprising. But something like the vix, which is a tracker of the volatility, volatility that happens in U. S Stock markets, that's down to some of the levels that we haven't seen since before COVID So I think that has probably one of the reasons why we've seen this bit of a breakup in the correlation between the two. And also just the fact that I think that we, we probably saw a lot of institutions out of. Of crypto so rotating into, you know, some of those other assets. Because for a long time what we saw was that crypto was just being treated like any other risk asset. So when, you know, stocks sold off, you know, tech stocks, we saw crypto sold off at the same time. That's not happening now. I think that does have a big part from institutions. You know, they do drive markets ultimately. So when we're seeing that liquidity drawn out of crypto markets and, you know, elsewhere, I think it comes down to that because we're not seeing the assets sold off at the first sign of a worry. If institutions are selling a tech stock or the tech indexes because of something, you know, a risk or something like that. On the macro environment, of course, macro is still having a big impact, but not in the same way. I think that we've seen over, over the last sort of couple of years. So we are starting to see that correlation change. And I think there's good and there's bad to it. I think it's good in the sense that it means that bitcoin is sort of its own asset again, or crypto it's its own asset again. Not that it wasn't before, but just more that it's it that then makes up a brilliant part of a diversified portfolio. It offers such great.

Sort of risk adjusted returns in that sense, if you, even if you are only focused on something like stocks, to have a small allocation to sort of crypto is I think imperative to an investment portfolio these days. As I say, when you look at those risk returns over the last eight years, even shorter term, four years, whatever that may be. And I think being out of markets is easy to do, but this year shows that being in markets is really important. There's always something to worry about in financial markets. Whether it's crypto or stocks is always something to worry about. You know, it doesn't matter what happens, whether it's, you know, geopolitical tensions, whether it's macro, whether it's Covid. You've always got an excuse not to be in markets. But as I say, this year proves why, you know, it's so important to stay invested, to be in markets, to ride those ups, ride those downs and just to not sort of sell at the first sight of, of worry ultimately.

And do you think the markets like, you know, coming out of the COVID period, Even the last 12 months was pretty uncertain. You know, rates were going up, inflation was out of control, you know, everyone was pretty, pretty worrying and a lot of people moved into more risk off strategies. We saw the first rate pause last, I can't remember when that was last couple of months. We've just recently had another rate increase. We're back to raising rates. How does that impact the market? Like at the time of recording, we had a bit of a small sell off.

Bitcoin wise.

How does that impact the market now moving forward? What are sort of your expectations for the back half of 2023?

I think markets are very forward looking. So a lot of what we'll see from here I think has been priced in for a while now. So we look forward. So months ago markets would have gone okay, we believe that rates are going to get to X in the US or X here in Australia. Obviously that changes. Absolutely. And that's where we see that short term volatility come from. But for example, the, the most recent Federal Reserve rate hike was basically 99 priced in by financial markets, which basically means it's, it's guaranteed. So you know, investors were expecting that. We knew it. There was no surprise. Here in Australia we, we don't see that same sort of.

Sort of guarantee if you like. Recently we've had a 20% chance of a rate hike and then we've seen it happen, which has moved markets quite significantly. So looking forward, I think where we are now, we believe that we're starting to see the end of these tightening cycles. So the end of central banks raising interest rates, inflation has fallen significantly and that's sort of a trend we're starting to see globally now. The UK is a good example. They had inflation above 9% pretty much the whole of this year, even above 10% at points. That has now come down pretty meaningfully. The US we've gone from 7, 8% all the way down to 3% on headline inflation just recently as well. So we are starting to see those trends. And the reason that central banks raise interest rates is to combat inflation, to slow down consumption. And what they have done is ultimately beginning to work. So they can now say, look, we, we can be less aggressive, we can start to slow down what we've done. And you know Jerome Powell, who is the central bank governor in the U.S. he's basically pointed towards rate cuts, which is what we want to see. If we're looking at crypto and tech stocks, rate cuts are important because it brings down obviously the yield that people get on bonds and other assets. And that means that then we'll start to see that little bit of a rotation back into sort of risk assets such as technology stocks and particularly crypto. Obviously technology has done pretty well, but that is on the basis of falling inflation and interest rates. As I say, markets are forward looking. They're not going to wait until that happens to start buying these assets. They're going to buy ahead of time on the anticipation that that happens. And that's what we've seen so far this year and that's why we've seen that moving crypto this year. That moving crypto came at the start of the year when we had those issues with the banks in the US and that basically accelerated this idea of inflation falling and interest rates going higher. That sort of brought down those expectations, which is why we, we saw that move higher. So a lot of what we've seen in crypto this year has been driven by those macro movements and is that.

Also made the same impact with tech stocks as you mentioned before, you know, Nvidia and a few other ones that are rallied 100, 200%. Like that's, that's sort of, that's huge numbers in the stock market. Is it the same things that are impact on the macro level that's impacted Bitcoin positively the same for risk on assets in the stock market?

Yeah, absolutely. That was the sort of the initial driver. And then we've had this tailwind of AI come in and sort of really boost up. So the stocks that are doing the best, are those correlated to AI? So Nvidia, you know, Nvidia's Q1 earnings.

Their guidance to the second quarter was 1 of the sort of the biggest forecasts that, that sort of we've ever seen in on Wall Street. They, they sort of upgrade their revenue targets by 50.

Wow.

Which is, which is huge in terms of when we're talking numbers here, we're talking billions and billions of dollars and you're upgrading that by 50. That's, that's massive. So that's why we, we've seen this big tailwind because essentially investors don't want to be left behind. They, you know, they want to be involved with AI. This isn't going to be something that, that happens overnight. It is going to be a technology that, that does transform businesses over the long term. You know, there's, there's lots of conversation in the US about IT or tech spending by corporates going from 1% to 7, 8, 9, 10% on AI over the next couple of years. That's a big, big change in, in spending. And, and there's going to be names that benefit of it. I guess you could think about it in terms of the gold analogy as well. When we think about the pick, the picks and the sh.

And you know, who is going to benefit outside of those big names as well. There's lots of that and I think that's where crypto can play a big part. There's, it's sort of been left behind in this sort of AI rally. And I guess it's about trying to find those, you know, those crypto assets that sort of can, can sort of benefit from it and accelerate what, you know, companies aren't already doing. I mean, Microsoft is, it's probably the, the clearest name that you can talk about. They own a, a huge percentage of OpenAI, which is founder of CH. That was sort of what really caught retail interest because AI has been here for a long time. We've been talking about it for a long time, but not in this capacity. It's, you Know, chatgpt sort of changed the game. But you've had, you know, Salesforce for example, they've been in AI since sort of 2016. There's, you know, lots of other companies that have been doing this for a long, long time. But now it's sort of retail based and consumer product. Correct. And now everyone wants a bit of it. But it is a fantastic product. Everyone uses it, everyone uses ChatGPT, everyone uses AI. It's brilliant. I did a podcast interview the other day and I wanted to take some, some like quotes. Yeah. So you, I just download the transcript, put it in, give me the best quotes. You know, that is something that takes you a fair bit of time to dive through and you get it in, in minutes or seconds and I think that helps. That then comes back into the global economy as well because productivity is a big part of, of the labor market here in Australia. So the jobs market, which comes back into inflation, which comes back into interest rates and productivity across.

Workers, consumers globally, but particularly in Australia, has fallen quite significantly. Gen Z's and we're taking a bit of a back seat. I don't want to do that. But it is, you know, young. The younger generation, you know, aren't going to just say they're going to do something unless they're being paid for it, which I completely agree with. And you know, we, we've got a lot of entrepreneurs like yourself who are working really hard, but in terms of actual businesses, people going in there, just near me, for example, where I live in Sydney, you know, we are seeing buses times, bus times being cut back because they don't have enough bus drivers. So you know, there's, there's lots of different positions and productivity that's dropping. I think I can, obviously AI is not going to drive a bus anytime soon, but it can help in terms of productivity and you know, picking up what people do, you know, speeding up processes and that then translates into better business performance, higher profits, higher revenues, which is obviously great for investors.

Well, who was that company that laid off, you know, a huge number of their content workforce and announced that they were going to move to AI? It was a, it was a content media company.

Anyway. I totally agree. I think, I think also like looking the way I look at investing is looking at like really like you know, a business that I would use or a product I use, whether it be Bitcoin, ethereum, you know, D5. Like I really try and understand what the problem is that it's solving and would I use it. And that's Kind of steers my investing strategy for you in the stock market world. Is that the way you look at stocks as well? You're looking at like, you know, Microsoft, for example, you're using ChatGPT, using AI. You want to get a part of that movement. Who owns that? Go and invest. Or is it based on more narratives? How do you tend to look at investing when you're setting up Your, your portfolio 100%?

Yeah. So there's a fantastic book by Peter lynch called One up on Wall Street. Anyone who wants to sort of get into stocks or hasn't got into stocks, have a read. And it basically just talks about simplifying investing. And it's brilliant because he had some of his best investment ideas from his wife. He was one of Wall Street's best ever fund managers, and some of his best ideas came from his wife going to the shops, looking outside the window, you know, whatever it may be. But that sort of sticks with me because it essentially just says, invest in what you know. So for me to try and put a simple analogy on it, every time I walk down the street, George street in Sydney, there's a queue outside Louis Vuitton. So lvmh, who is the owner of Louis Vuitton, got to be doing something right, take it, strip it back. Maybe not as luxury. Look at Apple, there's always a queue.

Outside Apple 1, 2, 3 devices here.

Got a pair of AirPods in my pocket, you know, and you see, you look on the train, everyone's got AirPods. So that is, you know, AirPods, their revenue is bigger. What they make in terms of revenue is more than what Shopify, Hilton.

Companies like that, Snapchat, these massive companies. Just from AirPods alone, how much Apple making revenue is more than Hilton hotels yearly?

No way. Just on the AirPods alone.

Just on the AirPods alone. So that product is absolutely massive. So I think you've always got to take it back to what you use. Will you still use it?

Disney, you know, probably kids, as kids, we watch Disney growing up. You know, they're now transforming into what is, you know, obviously a streaming service. But we're all going to probably watch Disney films as we grow up. We're gonna, our kids are gonna watch it, we're gonna go to Disney theme parks. It's that sort of cycle. McDonald's, we all eat it. Will we continue to eat it? Most likely. So it's those sort of ideas of trying to make investing simple. Obviously there's the complex side of it. There's the, the fundamental analysis there's technical analysis. If you want to dive in deep, you can. But I think sometimes we can overcomplicate investing and it definitely is. I completely agree with you. You know, what do you use? Will you use it in the future? Obviously we want to look at, you know, we want to be forward looking as well to try and find that sort of, that next tech advancement, you know, so whether it's Tesla with electric vehicles, you know, whether it's again what's feeding those electric vehicles, is it, what's feeding the energy transition, is it going to be who's going to help I, you know, succeed whatever it may be. But I think start with what you know. You know, start with the companies that you understand. Even if you work for Woolworths, right, you understand that business better than me or you would because you work in it. You understand how it ticks, you understand when your sales are higher, you understand when sales are going to be lower. That's a great reason to own a business. So those are I think the principles that you can take into investing and then, and then develop from there. Don't start, you know, by investing in a penny stock that you've never heard of before. That's and it's the same with Altcoins. You know, you don't want to invest into to something just because you think it's going to 100x invest into something because you know it. And you know, we, we spoke about names there. Meta Facebook up 140% year to date. You know, that is a business that has 3 billion active users, is still growing. Had a bit of a, you know, a tough period there when advertising slowed down through that sort of, what was that macro environment when inflation was really high and corporate budgets were, were sort of pulled back. But bott that it was still a solid business. They launched Threads about a month ago. Fastest ever app download in history. 100,000,000 users in 5 days. What a powerhouse. Do you know what I mean? So again that is something that our mums and dads use. I mean we use Instagram probably more than Facebook. But it just goes to show that don't overlook what is right in front of you.

How do you look at and evaluate the, I guess the value of investing those assets? So we go right, you know, we look at Apple for example. We both love Apple. I'm an Apple user, love the product, want to invest. Next step is then to understand, okay, what's the risk to reward ratio here? Like I don't know what the revenue multiples are right now. On some of these assets, like what's the market? You probably don't know off the top of your head, but the market cap of Apple.

Trillion.

Three trillion. There you go. So I'm looking at three trillion. I'm like, okay, so for this, for me to double my investment, this thing theoretically needs to get somewhere towards 6 trillion. So that's a lot of fucking money.

It is.

How do you look at, at, you know, evaluating those assets and understanding, you know, whether or not it is overvalued, undervalued. You know, I think crypto can be a little bit more simpler in a sense of like we look at the, you know, you can't look at ebitda, you know, or the revenue multiples of Bitcoin, but you sort of look at where that, we think the technology is going, what it's trying to do, what it's trying to disrupt. And if it can do that, market penetration rates will, you know, increase on market value.

For stocks. It's, it's literally, it's revenue growth, it's macro. It's what revenues we can, multiples we can get. How do you look into and then allocate your capital accordingly based on the stock market?

So yeah, I mean we obviously have the handy ability that we have balance sheets and if something, there is some tangible assets there. But it's, it's the same idea. We want to sort of look at where is the business going, where can it get to and how is it going to get there. So probably one of the, the, the most commonly used.

Sort of ratios or.

That is used in the stock market is called price to earnings. So the P E ratio, which essentially just looks at, okay, what is future earnings going to look like? So what is their future profitability going to look like compared to its current price? And then that gives you a good understanding if it's fairly valued or overvalued. So that is a good indicator. But it's not always a good, it's not always the best way to look at it because we had Tesla a couple of years ago trading at 2, 300 times its price to its earnings. But it continued to move higher, but its earnings grew. So when its earnings then grew, its price to earnings came down significantly. So even if you believe that a stock is maybe overvalued per se, doesn't mean that you should be put off by it. Because if you believe it can grow, because we do see hyper growth, hyper growth can happen. And that depends on how you're looking in a business. If it's maturing. So a good example is something like Alphabet or Google. At the minute it's search engine advertising. Revenue is starting to mature. We're not seeing hyper growth. So revenue growth is slowing to sort of single digits where we used to sort of see 20, 30% revenue growth quarter on quarter or year over year. And we're not seeing that now. But what's happening under the surface is that their cloud product and AI, you know, that is growing significantly. We're talking 30, 35% growth and profitability was more than double analyst estimates in the recent recent quarter. So there's, you can look at the main bulk of the business, you know, that does 50, 60% of, of revenue through advertising. And then you can look at, okay, what's going to be the driver? Same with Apple. IPhones is clear key driver there. And you look at something like the iPhone 15 that's going to come out and we can anticipate, okay, what is going to be the market reaction to that. We think about upgrade cycles every two years. We think, okay, we need a new phone, I've got a better camera, that one can go underwater, whatever it is. But then we think about iPhone again, main revenue stream. But then you've got services, then you've got app Store, Apple tv, Apple Pay, you know, Apple pay. Humongous. Yeah, so it's all of those different drivers. So we can look at those base numbers. Okay, great. You know Apple is 100 a share but you know it's overvalued at 45 times price to earnings. But you look at the business model and you say, okay, wow, Apple services grew by 15 last quarter, it's going to be 25 next quarter. And then you just sort of go from there. We can't really predict what is going to happen to consumers in the future. Look at Covid. We never knew that that was, was going to happen.

Some of the most popular investments in Australia in something like lithium miners because you know, it's the idea that, you know, the more lithium they can mine the better. And you know that is going to be part of this energy transition. And but we, we can't get an idea of what could happen. You know, we have train derailments when you're transporting lithium and all these types of things that you can't put into that analysis. But all you can look at is what, what is in front of you is, is trying to say, okay, I believe that business is going to go there. So you know, valuing a business is, is great. And I think a good Example of that was Meta. When Meta share price fell significantly, it was significantly undervalued. But everyone said, it's a dead business, it's not going to go, it's matured, it's not going anywhere bearish. But then when you look at, you know, what it had on its side, those billions of active users, it was just a case of actually, okay, this is a business that, yeah, has matured, but is just suffering under what is a slowdown in advertising spending. When that picks back up again, and it will, we will see those advertisers coming back to where they can guarantee that they are going to get results, which is in a place such as Facebook and obviously with Instagram and Reels, Reels is on track to sort of do more revenue now than TikTok for the full year. So that just shows.

How far they've come and how well Mr. Zuckerberg has done in terms of being efficient and getting the business back to sort of where it needed to be.

It's really good insight, man. I appreciate that. I want to now take it to a next level and go, okay, I've got 99.9% of my wealth exposed to crypto. I've got my crypto portfolio and I've got my company both exposed to crypto. I own very little cash, everything's in crypto. Don't own property, don't anything else, hyper conviction. Now, I do that because my risk appetite is quite high and I have, you know, I know this space so well that I know where it's going and I want to be fully exposed to that. Now, the other side of that, let's say I want to reduce my risk tolerance a little bit or risk strategy and I want to, you know, get diversified in, in stocks or shares. What would your.

You know, without going, you know, too micro. What are like sort of the sectors? What is like a, what is like a portfolio strategy look like from a macro perspective? If wanting to diversify in stocks or shares?

I guess it depends in terms of risk as well, in terms of how an investor wanted to set up their portfolio. Okay, do you still want to take on high risk or are you investing into stocks because you want to draw back a little bit of risk?

So I think if I was to buy stocks, it'd probably be in the next cycle. Instead of taking all of my capital in fiat the profits, I'd want to set up a portfolio to, I guess, diversify and store a bit of wealth. And I guess it comes back to the point of like, well, Would you go through an etf, would you go through a Vanguard or would you actually and you know, pit, you know, pick particular stocks. So I think in terms of the risk profile, far less, far lower than crypto, I'm probably looking at that, you know, hopefully somewhere between that sort of 5 to 15% range over the course of the year, something more stable, you know, don't barrel into sort of penny stocks.

Well, so then that's it. So if you, if you're a stock investor, you don't have crypto and you have exposure to penny stocks. That's your sort of crypto per se. And but as I say we, we believe that, that having exposure to crypto in a portfolio is massive for risk adjusted returns and being able to boost up that sort of portfolio. But in terms of going from crypto into stocks, again, start with what you know, if you want sort of instant diversification, you do go through ETFs. You know, look at an S&P 500 ETF, its performance over the years, its history, you know, long term guaranteed returns of, of, of, you know, 10, you know, per annum over the last sort of 40, 50 years.

Is that what it is? 10.

So I mean look, you know, that's happened. We don't, we can't, you know, past performance isn't a guy to sort of.

What'S going on in the past about 10 on average.

Yeah. So you know, that's a good idea and it just, and it just comes back to compounding and long term growth. And as I said a minute ago, it's time in the market and not trying to time the market.

Because you know, as I say there's always a reason to be out of markets. It's so important to stay invested as we've seen so far this year. But yeah, I mean it's great to have sort of an allocation, you know, in, especially in stocks depending on, on how you feel the world is going to go and what you believe in. So I like to have a mix, you know, of assets so a little bit defensive, you know, some sort of traditional like health care names that I know is, is going to be all weather stocks that we're always going to need. Whatever happens, we've always got to go to the doctor, consumer staples, we've always got to go to the shops. But then you also want to have a bit of exposure to consumer discretionary when retail spending picks up as well. You know, you want to be on.

That which we're like luxury goods like flights, airlines, hotels.

Yeah. Or you Know, Amazon, those types of names to sort of keep it relevant. But also now, you know, you mentioned airlines there, you know, airliners, travel businesses are absolutely booming because after the back of COVID they were obviously so beaten down, valuations were so low, you know, they were. People didn't want to own these companies because no one knew when it was the end. But now everybody wants to travel.

Yeah.

So everybody wants to own these.

It's been a great counter trade.

Yeah. But again, that's hindsight. It's to try and picture that. Again, there was a. There's a lot of risk in that trade. If you're going to go into it when you don't know what the end goal is and then obviously you want to have that exposure to growth stocks, to technology, you know, what's next. So maybe we look at something like materials, so the material sector. So we're talking like miners, you know. So right now, for example, you've got a Chinese economy that is really, really struggling. But from what we would call sort of like a contrarian point of view. So when we say contrarian, we're thinking about taking the opposite side to what everyone is doing, so trying to find the undervalued areas. So China's economy is really, really struggling at the moment. But at some point they are going to receive a stimulus package. They are going to receive, you know, support to the property sector and they are going to come back online. It is the second biggest economy in the world. It's struggling, but it's still going to see the biggest growth of any economy this year. And, you know, if, if we look to sort of China, we can say, okay, great, when that does start to come back online, they're going to need, you know, when they start building houses, houses again. They're going to need iron ore for steel, they're going to want copper, they're going to want all these sort of commodities they've had exposure to. They're going to want oil. So that is then giving investors an idea, okay, at some point that's going to happen, but it's about being patient. It's not going to necessarily happen overnight. But to come back just to, you know, looking at that diversified portfolio, how to sort of build it, you know, it's. I think it's about being diversified. It's not looking at just one stock, one sector, just as you would with crypto, you know, you wouldn't invest in the same coin that did the. Or the same asset that did the same thing. And I think that would then Say if you are completely in crypto, don't come into to crypto, then go and buy MicroStrategy because it doesn't make any sense because it's just the same exposure. So try and mix up that exposure. You know, invest in what you're passionate in. Build a portfolio on the back of that. If it's to de risk, you know, you would look at maybe some fixed income bonds or you know, an ETF that tracks an index. Maybe it's dividend yield. If you want to keep these stocks for 20 years, you know, own a stock that is maybe a bit more mature and that has a dividend that can continue to reward you over the years and 20 years later, that dividend is obviously much larger, much more attractive as well. So yeah, if you're de risking ETFs, global exposure, not just exposure to say the US because something like the Australian stock exchanges and just mostly global stocks, they tend to underperform against the U.S. but last year in 2022, when the U.S. stock markets fell quite significantly, the ASX or the Australian Stock Exchange outperformed most other stock markets because it has that sort of defensive style. It's built on dividends, like financial stocks miners.

Paying a dividend. The ASX 200 pays an annual dividend yield of about four and a half percent.

Fascinating. So what, you can buy the ASX index.

Yeah. So as an ETF. You can buy it as an ETF.

Yeah.

Right. And it pays a four and dividend yield each year just, just by itself. So without any, you know, gains or losses within the index, you're going to get four and a half percent yield on.

Fascinating.

Yeah.

And you can do that through eToro.

You can, yeah.

So and then you earn the dividend through the platform as well. Like it'll just give you.

Yeah, it just pays out. Yeah.

Just in that token, like in that share.

No, it just pays it as cash. Cash dividend. So you can then choose to reinvest it or you can then choose to invest it into another stock.

And is that, is that one of Those history is 4.5 or like. No, you get 4.5.

4.5. Look it, it fluctuates over the years. So it'll grow and it will and it will fall depending on obviously the. What companies within that index are doing.

Sure.

So if companies are doing really, really well.

Yeah.

And profits are high, that will go up. If profits are coming down and companies trim their dividends a little bit, that may fall this year. A little bit. Because some of the Energy stocks aren't having the same.

They aren't having the same years as they've had in previous years. It's not been as successful because oil, oil prices have come off a little bit. You could look at miners. Lithium prices have fallen significantly. Iron ore prices have fallen significantly, which means they're not making as much money. So it means that as an investor they're not going to pay you as much money either. So it does just, it does just depend on what those companies in the index are doing.

I mean it's. The ASX is set up so much differently with the companies on that. Where Australia is more known for, you know, banks, commodities, insurance and all this bo like this is like I don't know one tech company. Like is there much tech?

There is a few tech names.

Yeah.

Yeah. So you, you. It's actually. So there's a company called Zero which does accounting. That's actually a New Zealand farm. There's a few, there's a few names like Life360. That's actually a great stock that is basically like a tracker, like an app tracker. Okay so for like kids and things like that, you can see where you are, what you're doing. A little bit like an Apple Air tags. Yeah, lots of, of you know there is lots of tech stocks. Maybe not as exciting as what you get in, in the U.S. but there is still growth there. If you know, you've gotta, you know, you've got to find the diamonds in the rough.

Of course I guess you probably see the most global tech companies, you know, Atlassian, Canva, etc go to the US and where they say private or go or go public, they move across there. But that's kind of fascinating, mate. That's been a really good insight I must say. Maybe I'm gonna set up a portfolio in the next, next cycle.

Yeah.

Certainly not pulling anyone Bitcoin out right now to buy, to buy Apple just yet.

Yeah. But I think you know, having you know that, that, that exposure is, is good because obviously you know, right now especially as a, you know, we're both young, we both want to have. You can, you can afford to be higher risk. Sure. People that have, are obviously, you know, a little bit later in life or are wanting to have, you know, just a constant steady income or a bit more of a, a like you know, they understand the risk a little bit more. You know, you don't want to be going in all into Bitcoin and then you know your capital's down.

Yeah.

You know, whatever it was last year but then you obviously, like I say, it's risk rewarded. So you know, even if you, you feel you don't want it now, it's, it's about sort of looking ahead to the future. You know, where is, you know, AI going to take these stocks? I think, you know, if you'd have invested a thousand dollars into to Apple, you know, in its IPO, you'd have 1.5 million now. So little things like that I think are just important to remember. Buy these stocks, own them for as long as you want. Understand your timeline as well. Same with crypto, you talk about strategy and goals so much so important. If you, if you're going to buy a stock and then pull it out in a week or six months, what's the point? You know, you've got to be far more strategical and why you're buying that stock. It's a trade, it's not an investment. So you've got to understand why you want to buy it, how long you want to own it. If you're going to buy a house in a year, you know, putting it into the stock market is probably not a good idea because we want time to be able to ride the ups, ride the towns. As I've said, if you would have just got into the stock market last year, you would have thought it was the worst thing ever. If you'd have pulled your money out, you'd have been absolutely, you know, very upset because this year, you know, we're up, you know, 40%. As I say with the NASDAQ, the S&P 500 is up around 20%. So you know, long term gains, it's zooming out as we always say, similar.

Crypto, isn't it just human psychology, you know, and I think it's around that conviction if you don't know what you're buying. If I come bounding the stock market and buy this, these random, you know, stocks and it's down 25%, I'm probably going to think I've just made a mistake, I need to get out. This is going to, this is going down. Same with Bitcoin. People come in and buy alts and they don't know what they're doing and the market retraces and they panic and they sell. On the flip side, if you have conviction, you know what you're doing, you have a strategy, you're buying for the long term, you're going to ride those waves out. Yeah, very similar.

So like I mentioned Apple there and you know that long term growth over its you know, its history, I think it's fallen 80% twice 54 times and, and like 30, 15 times. Something along those lines. And you know, you'd have to, you'd have to go through that, you know, if you, if you see a stock down 80, you think, ah, but it's about having again that long term conviction looking ahead. Why do you own it? Well, you own it because at some point they're going to bring out a product like AirPods and it's gonna do more revenue than it does for Hilton hotels over a period of time. So, you know, maybe that's the VR headset. Yeah, maybe not, but, but you know, they are, they have, it's a 3 trillion dollar company and it has hundreds of billions of dollars worth of cash. It can basically do what it wants.

Yeah.

So it's, it's up there. But yeah, all of those stocks is, you know, long term conviction and it is just a, you know, having a mix of a portfolio is, is really important I think in terms of long term growth. Having, you know, some exposure to sort of crypto, you know, especially with this sort of the, the, you know, the blackrock coming into it that I think this, that's going to be a real key catalyst for, for sort of crypto. Retail investors are quite heavy into crypto. It's institutions that are missing. That's going to be the, the key here to, to push us back to where we have been and even further from there. Once you start getting asset managers like BlackRock into the game with their trillions of dollars, you know, that's a game changer for sure.

Get that boomer money in.

Yeah, bring it all in. Yeah, bring the pensions in, mate.

That's, that's been a really good insight. Thanks for that. I want to switch gears a little bit to the first time we met. Yeah, 18 months ago.

Yeah.

We did a video.

We did.

And the video is called Top Trends and projects in 2022. We actually met. I don't know how. Maybe it was. I went through one of the Etoro guys. Maybe, maybe Luciano. Probably Luciano handballed off to you. We, we met on the first time, did a video. We just looked back was 18 months ago and we both look like we're about 15.

Yeah. I mean we still look young now.

We still look maybe look 16 now.

Yeah.

But mate, I'd love to get, you know, and we've got an amazing event tonight. We've got plans. So we've got some cool things planned between Collective 50 Taro, but for you as an as an analyst in the space, mate, like, you know, there's a lot of listeners on the Benneberg show and then also like collective shift and just people I speak to wanting to get more in the industry. You've probably come through a more traditional route in terms of, you know, being an analyst and you know, content creator and those sorts of things. How did you get into the space? What sort of drew to it? I believe you started more in the macro stock space and then in the crypto sort of was added on. But yeah, I'd love to hear your journey on how you got into.

Yeah, so I mean When I was 17, I had no idea what I wanted to do, you know, as sort of most people I lived for a long time. I wanted to be a professional footballer. And then you quickly realized. Well, when I quickly realized I wasn't going to be taller than 6 foot, I saw I threw that on the, onto the, into the water. But yeah, I, I came to Australia when I was 18, free for a gap year. Luckily enough I have a family that live in the Gold coast so had a base, could set myself up and then it went back to England, sort of not really knowing again, sort of what I wanted to do. And I had a friend that worked in sort of a boutique investment management firm sort of pulled me in and I just loved it from the, from the get go, you know, just that we had a really, really tough managing director, big six foot five guy, bold, scary as anything. And I remember walking in on the first day and my friend who was in there, he says, I'm going to tell you two things. He says, always look smart and never be late. And I said why? He said, you'll see. So you know, I've been there a couple of weeks and I sit down at my desk and, and someone, someone comes in late and you know, he'd usually shout them why are you late? Why are you late for? Oh, sorry boss, traffic was bad. We'll get up earlier and then couple weeks down again. I'm you know, 18, 19 and I'm sat in my seat and I used to sit right next to his desk. So I had my sort of boss and then we had managing director used to sit right next to his desk and I was stood up in front of his desk one day doing what we would call like a morning talk. So I'm wrapping what happened in the markets overnight in front of, you know, know 50 to 60 grown men that have been doing this for a long time. Traders, you know, it was daunting enough to even be in that room, you know, real just really thrown into the deep end. I was by far the youngest person in there by at least 10 years. But I was given an opportunity. You know, when I went in for the interview and I spoke to them, he basically said, why should I give you a job? You know, why am I going to give you. Why am I giving you the opportunity for. Yeah, So I say, basically said, you know, just let me prove it to you. Give me three months if you don't, you know, sack me. I had nothing to lose. I had, I was living at home with my parents. I had nothing to lose. Give me three months. If it doesn't work, you know, chop me. No problem at all. He said, all right, I like that, I like it. And he, he just said, you know, I'll give it to you. So, yeah, going back forward, I'm stood in front of his desk and, and someone walked in and he was on my team as well. And he walked in late and I could just hear him behind me. He goes, ask him, ask him why he's late. And I went, I went, what? Ask him why he's late. I went, what? And I went, ollie, why are you late? The whole office went quiet and he went, our traffic was bad. And then he says to me, he goes, he goes, well, tell him to get up earlier. And I was like, oh my God. And I went, wally, get up earlier. And he's like. And he's like. And then lunchtime comes, he goes, mate, you didn't have to do that. And out me like that in front of everyone. The boss is behind me. What do you expect me to do? And yeah, so that was, it was a tough learning curve, really tough learning curve. You know, know, I was in a, in a very, you know, male orientated environment, very boisterous environment for a long time. So you've got to come around to that very sort of quickly. But, you know, I managed to find, you know, common ground with people, which helped. We were taken over by, by a larger American firm. They saw something in me being younger than everyone else in there to sort of give me an opportunity to go through. Started working very closely with sort of trading desks.

And then, and then, yeah, then I basically sort of was working very closely in that environment. Came to Australia for a bit of a three month sabbatical, ran into Etoro. We'd sort of just started our journey here about sort of four years ago and you know, a smaller office at the time they wanted, you know, basically Someone with my experience, you know, they liked the idea that I was sort of young, could offer something quite fresh and, and yeah, they gave me the opportunity and, and came to do that and I've sort of grown since then. I, I owe them a lot for, for sort of obviously, you know, giving me the opportunity to, to work in Australia, of course. So, you know, being a Pommy needed that sort of sponsorship, so sort of taking a bit of a, you know, a gamble on me. I'd never worked for them before, but I must interview well, clearly, but, but, you know, look, it was, it's, it's been a, it's been a journey and I've, I've absolutely loved it. You know, I hated anything to do with numbers at school, you know, never wanted anything to do with it, you know, and if you'd have asked me at school, wouldn't have thought I'd ever be doing anything like this. But, you know, it is a bit of a rush. It's, it's so interesting. No day is the same. Something different happens on, on the markets every single day, whether that's crypto, macro, stocks, whatever it is, you know, having conversations with, with different people and also just being able to learn. There's so many great people in this space. I'm very lucky to work under a strategist, Ben Laidler, editoro, who's been in markets for 35 to 40 years and, and again, I owe a lot to somebody like him because being someone that's, that's younger in this industry, it is an ageist industry, you would have probably found it yourself, especially in sort of traditional finance. People sort of look down on you and, you know, fair enough, you've been doing that for sort of 30, 40 years. You're absolutely going to have more knowledge in, in this game than me, but it doesn't mean that that sort of. We don't know what we're sort of doing. And he is someone, Whenever I've had conversation with him, working under him for sort of a year and a half, two years, never once spoke down to me. Always, you know, spoke to me as if I was, you know, sat next to him at JP Morgan and I've been doing this for 25 years and, and I have a lot of respect and a lot of time for people that, that can sort of do that. And he's really helped me on my journey and there's probably times he thought, oh, my God, what, what a stupid question, this guy. But he's never once made me feel like that at all. And I think that's, that's, that's so important to have as a someone you look up to and a leader and, you know, and that's been really key. And I go back to sort of when I was, you know, first in that environment. When I was 18, I had some really great people that I worked with and people that I could sort of look up to and, and sort of push me to, to go to the sort of next levels as well. So I've been very lucky on the way, say to, to, to have people that have supported me and to, to help me. But I also say in life, you've got to make your own luck as well.

100, man. I, I resonate a lot with that and I love that story. You know, you're 17. I had a similar experience where, you know, opportunity came up and you just gotta take it by the, by the balls. Yeah. Whether or not you really know what you're doing and backing yourself, I love that. Like, just give me three months. Similar to, you know, where I started. I was like, just, I'll just work for you for. This is in crypto. Back in 2017, I'll just. As an old friend of mine, I was like, I'll just work for you for, for four weeks and just see what happens. And within, you know, that period of time, they see the value, they see what you can do. You learn, you grow. Do you know what you're doing? Probably not. I don't even know what Bitcoin was back then when I was working for him. You just figure it out.

Yeah.

A little bit easier, I think, in crypto with the age of stuff. Because crypto, I think, just generally skews more younger. Traditional finance. I could have. Could only imagine that's a lot different to crypto.

Yeah, it is. I mean, look, it's a tough industry, without a doubt, especially being, being. Being younger. As I say, you do. You do have people that sort of do look down on you in that sense. I've been in environments before where you do just feel, feel, you know, completely boxed out.

Yeah.

No one wants to, you know, even entertain. Who are you? Yeah.

Go get us a coffee.

Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, there's been, as I say, some really great people that I've worked with. And as I also guess that comes down to, you know, people not knowing who you are. You know, when I've maybe felt that at the beginning and you get to know people, I think it just is on a personal level, I think, you know, when people get to know you and, and who you are and what you can offer and just honesty as well. I don't claim to know everything. If you claim to know everything in financial markets, anything in life. Anything in life, you know, and I think I'm just quite upfront about that. And what I offer, I think in terms of two financial markets to etoro clients, to just, you know, general, general people, is that I try to talk about finance. If I'm talking to my mum. My parents have got absolutely zero understanding of, you know, their finances. My mum just. Basically all she has in her mind is that she never wants a mortgage, she never wants debt. Simple as that. Never want debt. But, you know, I say, well, mum, Apple, they got $100 billion, you know, on their balance sheet, they still got debt. Yeah. So it's just about trying to understand that and break it down. And I talk in a way, you know, whether it's on podcasts, whether it's on, you know, tv, that the everyday person sitting on their couch at home is going to understand, because the people who know already do know. So I want to help people that don't understand what investing is, to help them get into it, you know, explain to you why you should go just completely from crypto into stocks. And, and I love that. And that's a big passion of mine and to know that you've, you know, maybe helped one person get in or been able to, you know, potentially, you know, I'm not saying I've changed lives, but, you know, being able to help people on their journey. Yeah, to get to goals and whatever that is, is, is, is great. And, you know, I've, I've loved doing it and hopefully, you know, inspire as well. People see, you know, where I'm from back in the uk, it's, it's a small, small town, small area.

You know, on TV in Sydney, not sure I would have ever sort of thought I'd sort of be there. But, yeah, it's, it's a real big passion of mine to try and help people sort of get started on that journey and just, just understand what it is and break it down. And, you know, I've, you know, even had, I've worked from, you know, gone from people who are just starting their investment journey, you know, got a little bit of cash, spare that they want to invest, to working with the wallabies. Yeah, right. You know, you've got. I've got wallabies players who are talking to me about investing and they're calling me on my mobile, you know, Asking me, you know, what to buy or how to buy, you know, I can't tell you what to buy. But it's more the case of they haven't, they still haven't got any understanding, but it's that openness, that honesty, you know, okay, great. I wouldn't have a clue, you know, how to, you know, play in your line when, you know, when you're playing rugby, could have a good go. But it's about just trying to help people move forward. Even, you know. You know, people that are super successful like that, that, that aren't necessarily completely tuned into the, you know, everything. They're just happy doing what they do. Okay, that's where I can come in. Okay, this is, this is, this is. It's very simple. You know, it's not very simple, but it's, you know, once you get down to it, you know, it's not as hard as it looks on the surface. So, yeah, it's. It's great to be able to do that.

No, I love it, man. And I think for those listening at home that are wanting to get a job in crypto specifically, and this might be resonate in other industries, but I think one, having a passion for something and, and following your nose a little bit, you know, if you don't really know where you can add value or what you like, is just, it's just trying stuff. And then two is just. Just making making opportunities or taking opportunities, you know, like, make the. Make it happen. Like, I think there's, there's definitely luck involved, but you make your own luck as well. So, like, you know, offering your time, getting there for free, volunteering, doing some work, just. You just gotta make it happen because you're competing with every other snoozer that wants to try. And you did in the space as well. Yeah.

And I think you've got to, you've got to ask questions, you've got to speak to people. You've got to be confident in sort of doing that and back yourself. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, if you, if you feel like you've got something to offer. Yeah, it might not work straight away, but don't sort of take that first knock back. You know, as I say, you know, when I started, when I was 18, I. Plenty of knockbacks, you know, you're speaking to clients or you're in the office and you don't think you can do it. I think, you know, on that, of that three months. Months, I think I was basically a day away from not getting the job.

Yeah.

You know, So I was literally hanging on by, by my fingertips. And then you just, I remember just grinding out. I was in, I was the first in and I was the last to leave on that last month just because I knew when I was in it that it was what I wanted. It was that, that period. Okay. You go over that first month and you're like, oh, I can't do this. Yeah, yeah, I can't do second month. Okay, okay. And then the third month, like, I'm absolutely gonna do this now.

And I think it's about trying to see, you know, see that future goal, trying to get there. We all, we're always going to have those down days where we don't sort of really want to do it. But, you know, I think you talk a lot about drive and, you know, just, you know, how passionate you are about wanting to sort of make something. I think that is so important. I think we talk about passions as well. More than anything, I'd love to be a sports coach. I'd love to just coach a football team or, or something like that. But my world's combined like, you know, have the ability to, to, to work with, with sports, sometimes with, with Etoro, we sponsor a lot of teams in, in the uk, in the Premier League, as I said, we sponsor wallabies here. So crossing those both over, sitting down with, you know, a room full of international rugby players and talking to them about finance and them coming up to you at the end and asking questions, that's amazing. I love that. But just in, in general, I think, yeah, you're absolutely right. Got to ask questions. You got to be willing to go out your comfort zone a little bit, you know, do something that doesn't maybe feel like you should do it. You know, message someone, have that conversation, butt into a conversation and just, you know, apologize, say, look, how can I do, how can I be like you? How can I get to that point? That's, that's massive.

I think that feeling of uncomfortability is when you know you're in the right spot.

Yeah.

And I've been there for, you know, you know, I've been there a lot. Yeah, but you're just reframing. And rather than, and I talk to myself around this, rather than feeling uncomfortable, I need to leave this situation and turn into a positive. I'm uncomfortable. I'm learning, I'm progressing. Let's, let's like, let's actually sit in that and yeah, move forward, mate. That's a sensational story. I appreciate that. I think the listeners Take a lot away from that. I just want to wrap with one other thing. Collective shift. I have to ask you use the platform a little bit. I'd love to hear how you use it, what you find value in it. I know we've had a few conversations about some stuff over the past or some content, but. Yeah, man, and I think you, you've listened to Ben and Bergs a couple of times.

I do, yeah. I do like Bennett Bergs. I was laughing the other day because as you said Ben at the start we're, we're pals outside of, outside of this. And I remember when you found your, when you found your eth and, and bugs goes. Oh, you just found, you just found 20 grams worth of Eve in your sock drawer. That's exactly mine. I think we're on the phone and I was like oh brilliant. 20 grands worth of Ethan you suck.

Down in the couch. Right?

But, but no, I mean collection. It's brilliant in terms of. I sometimes call you to be like look, I need this in terms of research on crypto. Can you get it for me? Yeah. Because it is so difficult I think to get, you know, in depth research on crypto at your fingertips outside especially something like a news outlet. I mean coindesk and all those ones are great but to actually get more in depth, you know, information. And your team is great. I mean Matty's an absolute weapon and Nick and the rest of the guys are superb in the content that you know, you put out. Even just, you know, having a quick read weekly going through the platform, trying to find something that works for you. There's a number of times I've sort of used the platform to, to find an angle or you know, when there's been times I used to talk a lot about Crypto in, in 2022 when it was a really tough year to talk about crypto. Just, just trying to find, you know, not trying to find something positive but also it was. There's not always something happening in crypto in stocks is. There's always something I think happening. There's always a stock moving for a reason. With crypto, you know, I don't think that's always the case. But to maybe try and find something slightly different. Different, you know, some non chain analysis that you guys put out to, to offer a different angle and different perspective I think is brilliant. And that's where I found it really useful. And I think that, you know, those insights are sort of great because it helps me to then pass that on to, to sort of Etoro clients at the same time and to put out on, onto sort of socials and again follow. Following you on socials as well is, is sort of a great help in, in doing that. But I think listening to podcasts is brilliant as well. Even just like the Ben and Burke is just brilliant, isn't it?

It's like she's not here, mate. There would have been a good bit of banter today, I reckon.

I, I like the, I like the back and forth and the, the light heartedness. Not taking yourself too seriously.

Yeah, I mean I, I run a podcast at Etoro with, with a chap called Sam north and, and we like to do that as well. You know, Trance, take it too, too serious. We, we usually start for five minutes talking about football.

Yeah.

The Premier League for five minutes and have a bit of a joke and, and, and for a while there we were like, oh, maybe we should, maybe we should stop, you know, because not everyone likes football. And one of our popular investors, so basically somebody who you could copy on, on Etoro basically sent us a message and was like, I absolutely love. And, and she was a female actually and she was like, I love it. It just, it just takes a bit of an edge off. It sort of puts you, you relax mode if you like and just, you know, it's called Digest and Invest and we're trying to help you digest it and then move on to sort of invest and to understand that news. So podcasts are a huge way I think to get their content. You see everyone with headphones on a train these days. Yeah. So it's, it's, yeah, it's huge. But, but yeah, I am very sad that Bugs isn't here.

Yeah, man, it was going to be fun. I mean, it still was fun. Yeah. We might spin up our own pod at some point if Bugs doesn't come back. Yeah.

I'll replace your bags.

Josh, thank you so much, man. Thanks for coming on. Where can people follow you, you personally as, as well as Etoro?

So you can follow me on Twitter, Josh Gilbert, underscore LinkedIn. Feel free to connect with me. Follow me post quite a bit on LinkedIn content about stocks, crypto, whatever it may be. And you can also follow me on, on Etoro. So the, the beautiful thing about Etoro is we're a social network so you have that ability to engage a little bit like you would on Twitter. Basically a forum online where you can invest but also have conversations so you can post your opinion about Bitcoin and you can get someone else replying to it. You could have somebody like you saying, okay, great, I agree on point one, but I don't agree on point two because of xyz. So we're sort of the only sort of.

Investment platform that offers something like that in terms of size and scale. It's a community of investors. Got over 30 million users at your fingertips, which is humongous. We recently certainly partnered with. With Twitter as well, which was a bit of a. Bit of a landmark partnership to offer sort of charts on cash tags. If you search for BTC or if you search for Tesla, you could view the chart on Etoro and I'll click View on Etoro and it'll take you straight through to Etoro. And it just sort of. That collaboration made a lot of sense because two social networks sort of coming together and we're. You know, people turn to social media these days for. For their. For their. Their investment ideas, for. For their news, you know, Reddit, whatever it may be. Twitter, you know, it's. They're great resources. So, yeah, you can have a look on. On Etoro. I'm Josh Gilbert on there as well. I post a fair bit on there. But. But yeah, like we said earlier, if you have a question or you want to know something, you know, you can. You can reach out and we're always here to help, aren't we?

Brilliant, man. It's exciting. We've got a nice little event tonight too, which we're looking forward to.

Yeah, I'm gonna put a jacket on for that one. A little suit.

Yeah, a little jacket, I think. I think. And then we've got the wallabies tomorrow night, which would be fun.

That would be very fun.

I've actually never been to a rugby game in general. I mean, my first, like, ever rugby ever.

It's an AFL guy.

Afl, cricket, basketball, basically everything but rugby.

Yeah. Okay. Wow. I've never been to an AFL game, so maybe I have to.

You've never been an AFL game? No, I know. That's. You live in Sydney.

Yeah, I know. Well, I mean, if I lived in Melbourne, I probably would have had to have gone to one.

Oh, there's nothing else that you do that's in. What?

Yeah.

Are you kidding?

No, I know. Yeah. Right. So we do need to get that in the pipeline. But to be honest, I mean, I might offend a lot of people.

It.

I just can't come to. I don't want to say I don't like it because I don't think I've ever given it enough time. I Just can't get to grips with it. I mean, I. I love sport.

Yeah.

So I'm willing to give it an opportunity and I think that the athletes are some of the best athletes in the world. The fitness, the way those boys run in and hit each other.

But you just haven't got a. I.

Just haven't got into.

Obviously you're in Sydney, mate. If you're in Melbourne, you'd be shot.

So. I know. I think. I think what people have said is that you sort of need to get to a game and.

Yeah, I'll tell you a game, mate. Yeah. I'll tell you the game.

Maybe he needs to get to the MCG when it's packed out.

So tonight I'm recording Collingwood Carlton playing tonight. Sold out. 95,000.

Well, at the MCG. Yeah. Oh, huge.

Yeah. Be big night tonight. So, like, we should go to one of those games, really get a taste of it. Even if you don't like the sport, just being there is unbelievable.

Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, like I say I'm absolutely open to coming around to it, but I'm just. I love football, I love cricket, I love rugby and I just. I've just not got around well.

Our bant on the Ashes, mate. So for those, listen, home, obviously Josh is from, from England and we're playing both, you know, tragic cricket fans. Yeah. Depending on who wins and who losses, there's. There's about a two to three day reply period. Afterwards, I went dark there. After the third. Was it third Test, I was like.

Yeah, we pulled it back two, one. But you were absolutely gloating. The quickest replies we've ever had.

First two games I was up and about, and then the third game I.

Just smashed it about here. Yes, I know. I'm watching it.

I had about 15 messages from you. I was like, I'm not replying. I'm out. I'm out for a few days.

It was. Yeah, that was a, that was a. That was a tough watch. And I mean, I was up watching it last night as well, trying to see if we can, we can draw the ashes because I don't want us.

To lose it because it hurts in the balance here. So if you got. And by the time this comes out, I reckon the game will be done. But like, you know, right now, if you guys win this test, then the narrative is going to be that you should have won the whole thing. Right. So I think for you boys, it's like getting the win and then, and then, and then, you know, and to be fair, you know, 95% chance you would have won the last, the fourth Test instead of the rain. But if we win, then it's like we can actually probably walk away and go, okay, we, you know, we deserve.

I mean, you're absolutely the best team by far. In the first two tests, I mean, that was glaringly obvious. And I think in the second two tests, you would say, you know, England were probably the better. So I think one thing takeaway, whatever happens, it's brought a lot of eyes to the game.

The basball, mate.

Yeah. Basketball, the bestow stomping, you know, all of that, it had a lot of people talking. Whether people think it's good or bad, I think, you know, put a lot of eyes on. On the game, which is. And it has taken this, this idea away that, you know, Test cricket is boring. I mean, it can be boring just sitting there and just watching defend, defend, defend. And what England have done is, is made it a little bit more exciting. People want to stay up and watch and it doesn't put you to sleep. And, you know, I think that's brilliant. And, yeah, it has been a good bit of banner, hasn't it? Yeah. So.

Yeah, let's. Let's see who. Who wins. Maybe we'll put a little wager on it.

Yeah, I like that. All chat later. We'll chat. Okay, everyone, thank you so much for listening. Another cracking episode here with Josh Gilbert, market analyst at eToro. We'd love for you, if you like this episode or have any friends or family that are, you know, wanting to get in the stock shares. Maybe they're crypto investors as well, that you think they'd find value. We'd love for you to share this podcast. It's how we grow it. We just ticked over 10,000 downloads, which we're super excited about. So thanks everyone for tuning in and being supporters of the show. We love coming to you every single week. And we'll wrap there. Thanks very much. See you next time.

Thanks, Ben.