Trading Masterclass: £25k Bank Loan to Trading Expert - Michael Taylor

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Speaker A: I've never put a penny piece into stocks and shares. I've always used my own money to grow my own businesses. However, I do know that some people have made some good money from it. I started following this guy called Michael on Instagram. His handle is shifting shares, and it seems this guy has made some serious money from it. He's quite cagey about it. He won't actually tell me how much he's made, but you know, you just know. And so I've got him on the pot today to discuss how Michael has made his millions. At least, I'm guessing he's made millions. Strap yourselves in. So, Michael, why on earth, uh, should I listen to you? And why should the people watching this video listen to you? Just how much flipping m money m have you made? Why have you got so much expertise? I've never invested a single penny piece into stocks and shares. And in this video, I really want you to try and change my mind. Talk to me, babies.

Speaker C: Well, I think the problem with online stuff, and especially in my niche, is, you know, you can go rent a Lamborghini for a few grand. A dodgy broker, uh, will pay you a few grand for referral, and I know that because they offer me it. So you can essentially create fake lifestyle quite easily. And you can just make things up and you can say whatever you want and people will generally believe you. So I think you have to not believe anything anyone says unless you can actually look and, uh, see what they talk about. So there's a guy on Instagram who says how much money he's made, but I've never once seen him talk about anything in the market. I've never heard him call a trade, say he likes a price level, and why? He just basically talks about how much money he makes. So. Yeah, I think you've just got to be careful.

Speaker A: But what are you. That's what I, uh. That's what I want people to. I know you're saying all that about the Lamborghinis and. Yeah. I think that you are the real deal because I've watched lots of your videos. I think you're a nice guy. But why are you qualified, in your opinion, m to tell people about stocks and shares and investing over, uh, say me.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: Or Chance, who makes my videos.

Speaker C: So. So I'm not FCA authorized.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: So I cannot legally advise anyone.

Speaker A: Right. Let me ask you another. Why should I listen to your opinion then?

Speaker C: If you like what I share, then see if it makes sense. I mean, I just try and say things how I see them and a lot of people might not agree, but if you think it's worthwhile, then I would say listen, um, but I can't sort of force anyone to do anything. And uh, you know, like, I listen to you because I think you talk sense and I think that. Because I've watched several of your videos and I think that's. That's actually quite credible. Yeah. So.

Speaker A: Well, I think the same about you, by the way. That's not, that's not. But, uh, but say someone's watching this and they've never seen you. Yeah. They've never heard of you. Why is your opinion more valid than mine on investing? Because I've not invested a penny piece. But you have, haven't you?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: You've put your own risk capital, your own money, you've borrowed money to invest.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: To grow a portfolio. And as far as I can see from the pre. Chat. Chat we've had before we've come on air that you have made money from it.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker A: And the. I'm sort of putting words into your mouth here just to sort of bed the content. But that's why I think that you've got a credible opinion on this because you have invested, haven't you?

Speaker C: Yeah. So, I mean, I've. I've got quite a lot of experience. I've been doing this for a living since December 2016.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Um, and until 2020 it was my wife and I sole income.

Speaker A: Um, just let's pause for thought now. Right, so from the year 2020 you haven't had a job and your only income that's run your lifestyle for your family, there's a bambino in the mix as well, has come off of your portfolio.

Speaker C: Sorry. So since December 2016. Yeah, I was working as a recruiter in Germany and in December 2016 I packed uh, that in, got a loan from Deutsche bank which I definitely would not recommend anyone to do.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Um, but how much was that loan is €25,000 from Deutsche Bank. And uh, yeah, the guy, when I went there I said I want to borrow some money to invest. So I thought that sounds like quite sensible. And he said we don't do that. And he like ripped up the, the application and then said but you know, maybe you want to go on holiday or buy a nice car. I was like, well actually we, we are getting married so I'll do that. And um, yeah, but I also don't mind saying that I was quite lucky because the market in 2016 was completely crazy. It wasn't, it wasn't the same as Covid, like 2020, 2021. But you could make money just by being long, as in just by holding shares.

Speaker A: So what's your definition of the market is crazy?

Speaker C: So, so the market is crazy where you can make money quite easily and you don't necessarily know anything about the market because everything just goes up.

Speaker A: But we're talking about this. I want you to know I am an absolute novice at this. Like I've not even got a Vanguard account. I've got private banking and I, when I log in there's an option for me to put some money in. And I've always thought should I do that? But my heart ah, is entrepreneur.

Speaker C: Uh, yeah.

Speaker A: I uh, love commercial property. So don't get me wrong, I have an investor sort of long term approach around entrepreneurship and business. I, I think I should be doing some of this. And I think you, when I've seen you on Instagram, you've always piqued my interest and going, come on. I talk to myself as Jim rather than James. Jim, have a look at this. You know, you should be diversifying a little bit. And then when I hear that you, I mean it's quite entrepreneur. Um, it's quite risky to borrow money to invest, isn't it?

Speaker C: It is. But at the same time, you know, I wasn't earning very much as a recruiter. I'd just started and I could have got another recruitment job quite easily. So if you think about the risk to reward, I'm at the start of my career. I don't have any kids, don't have a mortgage, there's no private school fees. Um, to borrow that money then and start out wasn't that risky because I had a hard stop on it. I thought well if it doesn't work out I'll just go get another job.

Speaker A: I'm still confused by it because if I just rocked up, borrowed £25,000. You was 20 what when you did that?

Speaker C: Uh, 26.

Speaker A: So you're a young man, you borrowed 25, 000 pounds and how do you know what to do next with it?

Speaker C: So I, I'd already started in the market while I was doing the recruitment, so I'd already been making money.

Speaker A: So you, so you had a bit

Speaker C: gradually started getting into it and um,

Speaker A: let's just rewind a bit before the 25 grand then. So you work in a job like how do you know going to go and invest some money with some of my salary? Because I think yeah, for a 20 something year old that is unusual.

Speaker C: Yeah, I don't, I don't really know where it came from. So I've always been interested in the stock market and I had a bit of money after I graduated and I put that into an etf, like exchange, uh, traded fund.

Speaker A: So assume no one knows, I mean what is an etf?

Speaker C: So, so an etf, an exchange traded fund, it will own a basket of securities, so it could be stocks or other assets inside one tradable fund that will trade on the stock market like a stock. So for example, if you were to buy an ETF of the S&P 500, you essentially will be buying all 500 of those companies within one product just for ETF.

Speaker A: People that don't understand the S&P 500 is America's top 500 companies.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Yep. So and uh, that basket was you investing that or a broker doing it for you.

Speaker C: So I invested into a FTSE 100 tracker which didn't really do very well. And then I thought I'm gonna see if I can do better. And this was a point.

Speaker A: And how old was he at that point?

Speaker C: Uh, so this would have been 2015. So 25.

Speaker A: So you're 25?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: He had a full time job. Yeah. Then you was putting some of your salary into this?

Speaker C: Well, it wasn't my salary, wasn't earning enough to sort of.

Speaker A: Where did it come from?

Speaker C: So a bit of savings and I also borrowed a bit from family and because the market was so good that small money turned into multiples of.

Speaker A: I really like digging in here because me, James Sinclair, I was making some money from my business and I straight away that boring buy to let because I'd seen my granddad, my aunt Sarah, my dad, they'd all Done, um, that stuff. And so it was like, you know, community around me was doing that. Was there anyone in your zeitgeist as Michael as a young man? Um, I find that fascinating that you just went, I'm doing this when I

Speaker C: was 18, when we had the great financial crash. And I remember seeing Northern Rock having crazy swings. Yeah like 20% swings now I was thinking if I could work out why that is moving, then you know, you, you could make decent.

Speaker A: Was you reading books? YouTube.

Speaker C: So yeah, in 2015 I went through the rabbit hole. I read loads of books, went through YouTube. And what was a book that really got you? Or probably Mark Minivini's book. And Peter Lynch's books as well.

Speaker A: What are they? I mean, I don't know.

Speaker C: Peter lynch ran the Magellan Fund at Fidelity. He's one of the greatest investors of all time, I would say. Um, he had a 13 year period and he grew that 29% CAGR, um, compound annual growth rate. So over 13 years he had an amazing run. And his books were very easy to read. So you didn't mean to be super knowledgeable about business to understand them. And what he said I think made a lot of sense.

Speaker A: And then can you give us a start for 10 on his philosophy that you use?

Speaker C: So he, he basically said that. So I'll, I'll tell a story that he said he would take his wife and his two daughters to the mall, give them a load of money and go see where they spent it to hand down what was fashionable if there was a stock there. And if there was a stock there, he would then use that sort of knowledge from the street, from real life to analyze the stock.

Speaker A: Uh, wow.

Speaker C: And I think he made like 30 times on Reebok or something. Uh, I think that was the one he passed on. M. Because his wife didn't like the trailers because of her uncomfortable.

Speaker A: Wow, that's a great story.

Speaker C: And uh, but I mean he had plenty of, of multi.

Speaker A: So do you do that, do you take your wife to.

Speaker C: So I, I will look at what's happening on the street. Yeah. So yeah, because I'm UK small caps focused, we've got a lot of businesses that.

Speaker A: Right, let's just pause here because you're losing a lot of proprietary language. Uk. What did you.

Speaker C: Small caps.

Speaker A: So what does that mean?

Speaker C: Small businesses. So a small cap you would typically consider that 250 million market cap, which is its value or less.

Speaker A: And that's what you like putting your money.

Speaker C: I specialize in the small cap.

Speaker A: And is that him as well. So that's something you've used from.

Speaker C: He was small, uh, caps as well. Yeah. But he would also buy anything if he thought he could make money on it. But essentially his thesis was that the ordinary person can get an edge in smaller companies if they do the work.

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Speaker A: That's very Warren Buffety in terms of research the management.

Speaker C: I mean, Warren Buffett did call Peter lynch to ask, uh, if he could use a quote from his in, in one of the annual reports. And it was um, about watering the weeds. So a lot of people will hold on to losers and it's the equivalent of pulling out your flowers and watering the weeds.

Speaker A: Right, yeah.

Speaker C: Ideally you want to run your winners and, and chop the losers.

Speaker A: Right. Just that proprietary language used there about small cap. Just one more time, what was it again?

Speaker C: So smaller companies.

Speaker A: Yeah, but what was the, the term he used?

Speaker C: Well, I would consider it £250 million or less.

Speaker A: Yeah, but what was that cap UK valuation. Yeah, there's something else that you said. UK small.

Speaker C: Uh, yeah, UK small caps.

Speaker A: Yeah. So can you give me an example of a company or two that viewers might understand that you.

Speaker C: Yeah. So for example, tortilla. That makes the nice burritos. I don't hold. I don't hold any position in it. Um, but that is worth about £30 million.

Speaker A: I never heard of them, but any others? No, no.

Speaker C: Okay. Uh, the works.

Speaker A: All right. Yeah, I know the shop.

Speaker C: Yeah. So they're about £50 million? I think so.

Speaker A: So they're worth £50 million, not the

Speaker C: revenue worth £50 million. Yeah. So if you were to buy it outright that's what it would cost. Obviously that's, uh, only equity valuation. You know, if it's got debt, you

Speaker A: could buy the words. 50 million quid.

Speaker C: Would you want to.

Speaker A: That seems, I think that's quite a, quite a big company in terms of.

Speaker C: So, so it does like, I think it does decent revenue. But yeah, it's, it's low margin stuff and they've been through a few rough periods and.

Speaker A: Have you got any?

Speaker C: I like, if I hold the share that I mentioned, I will say whether I'm long or short and tell me

Speaker A: what long and short means.

Speaker C: So essentially if you were long, you own the stock and if you were short, you were betting on the stock going down.

Speaker A: Right. And uh, do you put money both into long and short?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: What do you put more into lower?

Speaker C: Mainly long. Yeah. I mean, if you think about it, if you let, let's say I was to buy Tortilla now and it's 30 million market cap, let's say that their business is quite successful and they add more units and grow, grow the story nationwide. Bit like Greg's did.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And uh, that was a massive winner. The UK market and that grows to 300 million. And they don't dilute the shares as in they don't issue more shares. Then that's, you know, ten times your money.

Speaker A: Have you got money in Greggs?

Speaker C: I haven't got money in Greg's, no.

Speaker A: They are one of my favorite companies.

Speaker C: It's a really well run business. Yeah. And I also like the way that they reward the employees as well.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker C: Um, yeah.

Speaker A: So what have you gone in the past short on and done well on? And what have you gone bad on?

Speaker C: Um, um, so I think one of my best trades was in terms of percentage, not in terms of P and L. But there was a company called Heydale Graphene. Right. The relevant. Yeah, I mean it's, it's pretty rubbish. Um, but they essentially posted their loss before Albert Da. And they also put the cash position in the trading statement. So you don't need to be Warren Buffett to say, okay, this is the cash position at this time on the balance sheet. They are losing this month, um, this much over a period of six months. So, you know, I think it was 1.2 million. So if you divide that by six months, uh, which was the period they're losing, you know, 200, 250amonth, you don't need to be a genius to work out that that company is soon going to need to raise money because it doesn't have any. So essentially I just went short and then waited for my broker to call me and say that they're raising money and didn't want to take part in the placing. So I essentially covered my short in the placing by giving the company money.

Speaker A: There's a. You said something there called elbitdar.

Speaker C: Yeah. So loss before ebitda. Yeah, yeah, it's basically.

Speaker A: So I've never heard of that phrase before. Lost before ebitdar. Elbit.

Speaker C: D. Yeah, right.

Speaker A: Okay, fine. So you saw that, but you saw that there was. That they was going to go and raise money and you saw potential. Yeah. So you saw all that happening. So what did you. Like you put a thousand pound into it. What could that turn into once you see it?

Speaker C: So I made 60% on the trade.

Speaker A: And how long did that in? A few months. It wasn't overnight.

Speaker C: It wasn't overnight? No. Um, I mean, most of my trades are three to nine months. Day trading is incredibly hard.

Speaker A: Um, what's the most amount of money you ever put into a single trade?

Speaker C: I don't really talk about that. Uh, I just don't see any upside.

Speaker A: Uh, I'm gonna ask you. You don't have to answer this, but more than 10,000. Have you ever done it? Have you? That is.

Speaker C: I've never put more than a million into one position.

Speaker A: So we're. So you are prepared to back yourself with your research to a significant buy a house type of money? At times?

Speaker C: Yes. Yeah.

Speaker A: And you never. So when you say you place a trade, more than a hundred thousand, which I'm guessing you've done, do you ever get. Am I doing the right thing here? So you know that feeling?

Speaker C: Yeah. So if what. What my goal is, is essentially to be like a casino. So I'm not risking. So let's say I was to put 200k into a stock, I'm going to have a hard loss of maybe 20 to 40 grand. So I might lose 10 or 20% on the position. So the full 200 is at risk because that company could go zero tomorrow. So you've got to be prepared for that.

Speaker A: But you're essentially using your casino analogy. Because I want to get this. There's quite a lot of things we're talking about here. I'm just trying to simplify it for the. So say I put a thousand pound on red in the casino and it comes in and I make 2,000.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Are you saying that you are then only playing with your profit and you withdraw the thousand?

Speaker C: So, so is that. Is that the spinny Wheel, is it?

Speaker A: Yeah, Roulette. Yes.

Speaker C: So the spinny wheel has got a zero. Right. And in Europe they've got, I think two zeros. So I think it's a 2.76 and a 5.2. Something Chance got of winning.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: So they are, uh, not going to let you put a million on overnight, like. Well, if you're a high roller, they might, but their job really is to take your money repeatedly.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker C: Not by risking it on one crazy role.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: So essentially what I'm trying to do is to take lots of bets repeatedly over time that, you know, and I might only be right 60% of the time. So nearly half of my trades are losers. So.

Speaker B: Really?

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: I mean, just so for, uh, every pound you put out m, you are trying to make 60p on it.

Speaker C: So this, that's, that's the strike rate. So I might only win 60% of the time, but if I'm risking one to make two or, uh, one to make three, and sometimes you might have what is a multi R trade, which is where you were capturing a multiple of that risk. So let's say if you make a, if you risk 1 and make 10, that then pays for 10 losses, assuming the position.

Speaker A: Yes, yes, I get it. What? I'm trying to get back to my original point something. You said that. Are you now just playing with the gains that you've made on your initial startup capital?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Fine. So you've got all your original money back, that 25,000 from Deutsche.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: So everything that you're playing with now is not with.

Speaker C: I mean, I don't like to call it house money because people have this fallacy where they think it's not real, but it absolutely is real. Like someone says, you know, if someone would say I've, uh, lost 50 grand, but it's okay because it was house money. Well, you could have gone on a very nice holiday with 50 grand. So that money was real. It's just not real now. It's a bit like when people say goodwill. I mean, goodwill was once money, right. But it's been depreciated down because it's worth less. But it, but it was money. So, yeah, the goal really for me is to stay in business, not bet. I mean, I could have done so much better if I'd have concentrated my bets.

Speaker A: But what does that mean?

Speaker C: As in I really scaled up, um, and put more into my highest conviction bets.

Speaker A: Again, I don't know what you're talking about.

Speaker C: Let's imagine, let's say you've got a hundred thousand pounds in a trading account. Right. And you are risking £1,000 per trade. So that would be 1%.

Speaker A: So you're putting that in 100 different companies.

Speaker C: I don't have more than 20 positions at any one time. But if you were to place 10 trades and it all lost, you would lose £10,000 or 10% of your money. Now if that was to happen, you could then scale it down to 500 pounds risk per trade and then you essentially buy yourself even more Runway. So you, you can't really go bust by taking small losses. I've never ever known a trader to go bust using small losses. It's always been they oversized and took on too much risk. Um, they didn't really.

Speaker A: Let's talk about that. There's so many things here oversized and too much risk. They took on over their oversized. Too much risk. How do they do that?

Speaker C: They just put, they come back to that £100,000.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And you are betting, you know, one hour. So £1,000 on all of the trades. And you see a company and you see the management do a video and you think I really like that guy, talks a good game. I really like this business. I'm gonna put £20,000 right into this company.

Speaker A: And that's what oversized means, does it?

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I mean you can do that but it's, it's a bit risky because if that company then has a profit warning.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Which you know, it warns that its profit's going to be lower, the share price is probably going to fall. So if it falls by 25% you are now 5R. Uh down. So you're down £5,000. And that's typically when emotions will start kicking in because you know you're experiencing a bigger than usual loss. Yeah. So.

Speaker A: So you've never done that?

Speaker C: Oh no, I have done. I've made all the mistakes.

Speaker A: Um, yeah. And that's what you were. Yes.

Speaker C: I've made so many dumb mistakes. I mean when I first started out I was ah, an intern at Vodafone. An easyjet had just put out like record profits. And I was like, oh man, EasyJet's gonna go today. I'm gonna buy some straight away. And it like plopped share price.

Speaker A: Can I ask you, I don't know how you feel about this, Michael. If you gave a million quid to a private bank.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: We'll just say we'll look after this for you and give you 8% a year. And we've got 100 years. Uh, data showing that we always achieve this. I mean, I'm talking HSBC will do this, Natwest will do this. You know, some pretty big brands that you see on most high streets will do that for you. Do you think you started 10 years ago, you gave them a million quid or you gave Michael a million quid to go and do that work? Do you think you would beat them or do you think they would beat you?

Speaker C: Fine, yeah. I mean if I couldn't. I mean if you, if you were to just put it in a uh, global etf. So something like the Footsie All World.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Which basically invests in like 90 of the world's global investable market.

Speaker A: Fine. Uh, so you're very confident when you just said that you, that you would beat them. Well, and why?

Speaker C: Well, I've got the, the stats to prove it.

Speaker A: So what do you do differently to them? Because they can employ good people, can't they?

Speaker C: So, so, uh, a Footsie All World would be a passive fund. So it aims to passively track the market. So you got essentially two types of investing. You, uh, can passively invest. So you would track the market and typically that would give you 8 to 10% a year. Uh, based on historical data. Obviously it's not guaranteed. And if the market tanks like in 2020 it was uh, 30% drawdown within a few weeks. So there's volatility in that, um, but 8 to 10% Caga over the long term. Or you can actively invest, which means try and beat the market.

Speaker A: And that's what you do.

Speaker C: That's what I do, yeah.

Speaker A: So then, so a good. So, so you go to one of the hsbc, let's use that because everyone will know that brand. They will have people like you that, that are paid big money to invest clients cash. I know, uh, that they have, yeah. Some bright people doing that, that they'll pay a lot of money to. So they say they're doing really well. They get 10 or 11 or 12% because you've got so much with them and they go, um, and we found this really good product. What do you think in percentage terms you can get if they get 10 or 11%.

Speaker C: So I've averaged over 20% since I started.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker C: But that sounds quite impressive.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, it does.

Speaker C: But in that sin, like my edge is UK small caps. And also I had a, a tiny account and it grew. So it's easy to grow a smaller account. If you gave me 100 million tomorrow, I would probably put 90 million in the footsie All World and try and outperform on the 10. Because why?

Speaker A: Just because you're a weird ego driven

Speaker C: proof it because I. I'm not. I'm not good enough to handle 100 million. What the strategies.

Speaker A: Why you don't good enough.

Speaker C: It's a different game is.

Speaker A: Do you think you could get a. But say I. You had to do that UK small cap thing and you had to invest that 100 million. Is that too much?

Speaker C: I think it would be too much for me. Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah. So no, not for you. I mean. But could the market. Yeah.

Speaker C: If so there are. There are people. There aren't that many active funds in the UK in UK stocks, which is partly why there is an opportunity for people like me because I'm not that smart. But most of the people who are buying UK stocks are just punters. They don't really know what they're doing. Um, you know, they'll buy something because they may have heard it from a pub. They're not, they're not approaching it with a business mindset. They're not thinking about terms of risk, position sizing.

Speaker A: Uh, when, when you look at these UK small cap companies that you got. What. What is. Because you're placing individual investments. Yeah. Or buying individual shares in these companies. So you look at the works or you look at Tortilla, one of those that you said, what's making you go I, uh, want that company. What goes through your head?

Speaker C: Yeah. So I will typically look at the chart first. So that is the, the price chart of how the stock has performed. Because the way I see it, if a stock is going down, it could be the best company in the world.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: But why would I bet that I'm going to print the low? Like if I woke up tomorrow morning and I was Blackrock and I had 50 million, I'd probably need to be buying it on the way down because there's not enough liquidity in the actual stock.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Ah. But for me, I would rather wait for the stock to start turning up and the business case to. To improve as well.

Speaker A: Um, do you look at management teams?

Speaker C: I do look at management, especially a few management teams not to get anything inside because that would be illegal.

Speaker A: No, no, no, I don't mean that. I mean, but I mean quality of management teams that. Because they're the people that make the money, aren't they effective?

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean they don't really like it when you point out that their salary's gone up and the share price keeps going down. Um, but you know, if, if you. It's Quite easy for an AIM CEO to be getting paid a couple of hundred grand a year, which is decent money and they're just complete losers.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Um, and they've ended up in that role because they're lucky.

Speaker A: But Michael, do you. Yeah, I absolutely get that. I've employed lots of M high wage people that completely do not outperform someone on a lower salary. But anyway, the market always works out. But I'm trying to work out what level of research do you go into to decide whether to put money into one of these under 250 million cap revenue, um, cap value companies. Where are you going to find that stuff out? I know you've got your chart, you can see their numbers.

Speaker C: But so there's on the London Stock Exchange, you've got the regulatory news service. So that is where all of the price sensitive information will come. So trading updates, half year results, full year. Um, directorate changes. Have there been any director buys? Uh, the annual report. So most people don't read them, which is where management will often put the stuff that they don't want you to see because they know most people don't read them.

Speaker A: But you do.

Speaker C: I'll go through it. Yeah. So one of the things I like to look at is remuneration. Um, for example Revolution Bars Group, um, that clearly was going bust and, and it was worth 2 million and management were taking a million a year.

Speaker D: Ah.

Speaker C: Out of the business in remuneration and you could just see that it was clearly. I didn't short it because it was so small that it was actually quite risky to do that. Um, but it was just a terribly run business and yeah, of course it's a tough industry but some people are making it work. You know Wetherspoons doesn't have any issues.

Speaker A: No, no, he's fantastic. Just. But do you go any further than just reading? Do you ever go and meet people?

Speaker C: Yeah, I like to um, look at what they've done. So have they done anything at previous companies? Have they put any of their own money in? Because the thing is everyone has a reason to sell. Right. They might got divorced or need a new kitchen, but you don't need to put a gun to someone's head and force them to buy shares. Um, so I remember a few years ago, the on the beach founder, I think he put in 2 million quid. So that's interesting to me because he obviously thinks he can get a return on that money.

Speaker A: Um, that's something that makes you think, I'll back here.

Speaker C: Yeah. It's not the only thing but essentially I'm looking for clues that tip the risk to reward in my favor. So there's never like one thing that, that will make me buy a stock but it'll be like lots of little different things. Like are the earnings going to increase? Is it on an earnings upgrade cycle? So typically just to explain that if a stock beats its expectations in the market it will likely go on to move up and beat them again. And that's a proven phenomenon. It's called post uh, earnings announcement drift. It's been well documented in journals. I'm just taking advantage of it to.

Speaker A: Can you give an example of a company that everyone would know that's had that happen?

Speaker C: Um, as ah, the most recent one was, that was a big winner for me was Philtronic, which people might know now because it's got this agreement with SpaceX. How uh, far. Um, but yeah, I was buying that at 30 uh 5 pence and it's about 400 pence now. I was all out by 180. So yeah, could have, could have been even better but I was selling on.

Speaker A: What happened? You say so you sold it at uh180.

Speaker C: So I was buying, I was averaging up as the price went up and then after a point I was selling out as the price went up because the risk reward was no longer the same. So when you were buying at the start of a move. Yeah, move is yet to occur. You know when, when the story has got well documented, everyone knows about the stock. Um, that's generally when I'm looking to sell and take profits off the table games workshop. Everyone will know that one.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Oh yeah, a great one to trade. Um, I've only ever intraday traded that one. Funnily enough I've never actually held it.

Speaker A: So did you quick rewind back there. So you sold at 180 and it's now.

Speaker C: I was all out by 180.

Speaker A: Yeah and it went up to 400. Do you what was emotional Mike? Or like ah, should have stayed in for it. No. You don't care.

Speaker C: I, I don't actually have emotions now about wins or losses. Um.

Speaker A: Oh, that's a nice place to be.

Speaker C: Well it was hard earned but you, you've, you've got to. Otherwise you can't um, you can't survive in this business.

Speaker A: What about Mrs. Michael, your wife? Does she completely trust you? Implicitly. Just. Did you ever tell her if you.

Speaker C: I never tell her. I mean if she asked me what we've got then I'll tell her but she sort of lets me.

Speaker A: But you. I'm not about what you've got, but if you have a good day or a bad day, do you communicate that?

Speaker C: So. So I track my account every month, and essentially I'm looking to be positive every three months. Um, so every quarter doesn't always happen. Yeah. So, you know, it can be that I will work 50, 60 hours a week three months in a row and lose money three months in a row.

Speaker A: So where do you do that? Just at home?

Speaker C: Yeah, just at home.

Speaker A: Spare bedroom.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: In your pants.

Speaker C: And so I will usually wear chinos or shorts.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And it's a bit weird, but I think if you were wearing jogging pants, then it sort of puts you in a different mindset. So I will, I will wear chinos or shorts, you know, as if I'm sort of ready for work.

Speaker A: Do you, um. Just thinking about that. Because cash for you is your stock, isn't it? Like if I was a, ah, uh, you know, one of my businesses needs stock to run, but for you, cash is stock. And so do you ever get guilt to take money out for personal living? You think, oh, I could be using that?

Speaker C: Yeah. Uh, it is a bit annoying. Um, and at the start of my career, you know, if you had a big win, you're suddenly thinking, okay, well, that's a few months rent or, you know, it's a nice holiday or whatever. And, uh, you know, when I first started out and I was, I was quite small, I would struggle to hold on for longer periods of time. Even if I knew I was convinced that there was more to come from the stock, I would tend to bank it quite quickly because, you know, I was always aware that, uh, you know, I need to be withdrawing at some point to pay the bills.

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Speaker A: I know you don't like talking about money, but would you, just for confidence, uh, in your expertise, would you say you've made over a million.

Speaker C: I just don't talk about that. Uh, sorry.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker C: Yeah, I just don't really see the upside. I mean, if people think, yeah, great. If they don't. Yeah, they don't. Um, and everything can be faked anyway. I could say I'm worth 5 million.

Speaker A: And I'm not asking how much, uh, you're worth. It's just. I just want people to understand that. I mean, I've spoke to you off air, but I do think you have put considerable risk capital into this. And learn the trade. If you're.

Speaker C: It's been a. It's been a. I've been doing this 10 years full time this December. Um, and, uh, it's not always been easy. I wouldn't say it's easy at all. Trading. If you like it, I love it. I'm addicted. I don't.

Speaker A: Are you addicted?

Speaker C: I don't think I could ever stop.

Speaker A: Do you feel like you're a gambling addict?

Speaker C: No. No. I actually don't see the point in gambling because you just lose. And where's the fun in that?

Speaker A: When you say you're addicted, what do you mean by that?

Speaker C: I just love it. I love learning about new stocks. I enjoy the process and figuring things out. Oh, uh, why did this move? Why did this do that?

Speaker A: Have you got, like, some buddies or is it all you and.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. There's. There's a few of us. We'll. We'll meet for bees and we'll talk about stocks. So, uh, yeah, and you share each

Speaker A: other's results to see who's doing the best.

Speaker C: Like, we'll. We'll talk about stocks that we've met or if we've met, like management teams or we didn't really like them, or we think the stocks good or bad, we'll. We'll sort of share it. Um, but typically, no one ever. You know, I don't know what any of my friends are worth. Don't tell me.

Speaker A: That's interesting. You keep talking about what. But I don't care about.

Speaker C: It's. It's sort of interesting that the actual traders I know will never talk town. P and L. They might say they made 5, 20% on a trade. Um, but yeah, I know a guy who is worth 100 million, but you would never know it because he never talks about. He never tells anyone. Um, whereas you'll get all these young people on Instagram saying what they're worth.

Speaker A: No, I get. I don't tell people. Yeah, my. My mug shots all over the Internet. And I don't tell people that. Um, one of the things that I want to ask you. So you've got an inquisitive investing style mindset. Have you ever invested in an individual or an individual company where you sort of know the people?

Speaker C: Um, so I've got a few private investments.

Speaker A: What made you do that over? Yeah, I'm just trying. Intrigued.

Speaker C: So. So the problem for me with, with private investments is that money is locked away. Uh, so I am a limited partner in a US VC fund and I've written it all down to zero. So if I get anything, it's a bonus.

Speaker A: But why did you do that? I'm trying to work out why would you do that when you know so much about this?

Speaker C: Why does that. It's only a small, it's only a small amount of my capital. But, but still, why these that are invested in. Uh, so I've got a position in Boom Supersonic, uh, which has the potential to do 100 times, I think, uh, from, from the valuation that I'm in at now. I will never hold a listed company for, for a hundred times my money I would be fully out. I just, I wouldn't have the, the patience or the, I wouldn't be able to stomach the volatility because. So a lot of, you know, Games Workshop has, has done like, uh, like 3,000% over the last 10 years. The only way you were ever going to hold that is if you literally forgot you, you held the shares. It's just, you know, I mean, I

Speaker A: don't think you understand my question. Say I came to you and I said, I own ABC Limited and we are a wholesaler distributor. Uh, um, I own 100 of the company.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Return 10 million quid. We're making a million quid a year. I've got opportunities to scale and grow and don't want to borrow the money from the bank. Would you like 20 of my company for X amount of pounds? Would you ever consider something like that or.

Speaker C: I'd consider it, but it's not something I actively look for.

Speaker A: I just want to work out why. Because you're very happy to invest money over there. Why not do that?

Speaker C: Yeah, but I can get that money out.

Speaker A: So that's the reason. The fluidity of the liquidity.

Speaker C: So, so if I have a position that I suddenly don't like, um, which actually happened with, with Tortilla, um, last week, uh, sorry, it was a few weeks ago now. But, um, I was building a position in Tortilla and they put out a piece of News that their cash profits were. I think it was 1.5 million less than what they thought because they hadn't properly capitalized something. Or they capitalized something but not put it on the P L. And I just saw. I'm not. That's. That's not for me.

Speaker A: So I just explained that.

Speaker C: So they type position.

Speaker A: What? They put it as a capex item, um, rather than a PNL through the

Speaker C: P L. And it should have gone

Speaker A: through the P. They put it through the balance sheet type thing.

Speaker C: No, it. Not even that. It just didn't go through the piano.

Speaker A: How can they do that?

Speaker C: I can't. Yeah, I can't remember the exact situation, but what, what I saw that I didn't like is the profit that was expected, the cash profit was no longer there because of some accounting mishap.

Speaker A: What, What.

Speaker C: Um, so I binned my position.

Speaker A: When you're doing these short but like ins and outs pretty quick. Yeah. What sort of drives value up? Is it EBITDA or is it other things?

Speaker C: Um, so, so for me, my sweet spot is small company that everyone hates because I'm not paying for any hype in the market. The price is flatlined. So the selling pressure has dried up and the business is now starting to improve its profits.

Speaker A: Can you give us an example of a brand that people would understand that that's happening?

Speaker C: So in 2019, Greg's fine. Yeah, that's good. That is not a small cap. But essentially they put out a piece of news that profits were ahead of expectations, um, for these reasons. And I held it for a few months because essentially I thought, well, this is probably going to continue. Uh, I think it was the time they had the vegan steak bake or something, vegan sausage roll. And that powered, powered the revenue. Um, and there's lots of other factors as well. Um, but that, that was like a few months trade. But the, the better trades for me. You know, often companies people haven't really heard of, Um, I mean, a lot of people will know tarte here. And I'm going to the AGM in a few weeks and I'm going to talk to management about that essential mishap.

Speaker A: Um, you're going to the Tortilla, uh, annual general meeting. Just.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, because I think, well, how'd

Speaker A: you get to go there? Because you've got so many shares in it.

Speaker C: No, no, anyone can go. Um, you, you, if you've got one share, you can go. But I'm, um, not actually a shareholder, but I'm gonna go anywhere and I'll tell them and they'll probably allow me to come in because they know I probably will be shelter at some point in the future or maybe not, but there's not really any downside to not letting me in. Yeah, but that's, that's something that a lot of people don't realize in the UK is that you can get access to management. Now you got to be careful when you do speak to management because they will essentially tell you what you want to hear because they're, you know, their job is reliant on selling the business. Right. And if they were to say, oh, things haven't been going so well, then the share price might fall. Actually, um, actually give an example of that. So made.com the furniture retailer, uh, the chairwoman was at an industry conference and this is a classic case of loose lip sync ships. She said that consumer spending in the business had slowed down as a result of the Russo Ukrainian War. And I was looking at the forecasts and I was thinking this, this is price sensitive information that she has let slip. So I'm going to short the stock and there was a profit warning. Uh, so, you know, I essentially don't really care about the business. Like my job as a trader is to find pockets where I can place trades where I have higher risk than my profit. So in this situation, I thought, okay, she is saying this, it's probably not likely that it's going to beat its expectations. Therefore if I'm short, the price probably won't go up that much. But if I am right, this is not priced in and I can make considerably more against what I'm risking. Um, and yeah, I didn't do that in huge size. But there's an example of a, of a trade pro, Pro cook one that lots of people will know. Fancy kitchenware.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Um, that was a great shot. And that essentially they had these inflated numbers from COVID because everyone was buying fancy kitchenware. Then we've got inflation rates spike, cost living crisis. All of a sudden people probably aren't going to rush, rush out to buy fancy kitchenware. And they'd already warned that profits were broadly in line and the price hadn't really moved. Um, so I started shorting it and I couldn't really do too much of it because I was moving the price down, um, as I was shorten it.

Speaker A: Well, you was, so you must have had a big money.

Speaker C: Not, not really, no, because it's quite a liquid. Um, so you know, if you buy 20 grand in a stock, you can, you can Move the price. So you, yeah, you don't really need that much. Um, I mean, obviously if you buy 20 grand of Vodafone, you were doing nothing.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: To that stock. But smaller stuff.

Speaker A: So anything under a 250 million market

Speaker C: cap, you could potentially move the price. Yeah. With.

Speaker A: And do people make money doing that? Um, like forcing it.

Speaker C: Ah, people manipulating it. But it's a bit risky to do that and I don't really think it's a good strategy. Um, but essentially I was moving the price down because I actually wanted to increase the short and there was no buyers. So it's just supply and demand.

Speaker A: It just doesn't mean, say there's ABC Limited and it's worth 200 million quid and I've got 10 million in it and then I removed my 10 million straight away. Yeah, that would tank.

Speaker C: Well, that, that will be 5% of the shares. So you are probably going to move the price and then everyone would say,

Speaker A: then I can put my 10 million and own more of the company. Could I? Um, I mean, technically, I mean that

Speaker C: would be quite risky to do, but I'm pretty sure there are rules.

Speaker A: Bernard Arnoud, done with, uh, you know the, the French guy that owns lvmh. Should we done that with one of the, like Chanel or something?

Speaker C: I, I, I don't ever look at lv.

Speaker A: Um, he, he is, they call him, uh, the Wolf of whatever he is.

Speaker C: Is.

Speaker A: It was the rich people probably five years ago. He was the richest man in the world, you know. Yeah, more than Elon Musk. Um, let's just talk about economic downturns because there's a big talk about over the next 24, 36 months that we're due something like that. Are you thinking about that or do you not care about.

Speaker C: Yeah. So this weekend's job is SpaceX. We've got the biggest IPO coming ever. And my theory, when you say this

Speaker A: weekend's job, what does that mean?

Speaker C: Oh, I'm just going to sit there and sit behind my four screens and do research and find out basically if, if, if SpaceX goes up, what do I need to trade to take advantage of that?

Speaker A: So you're going to buy some stuff in.

Speaker C: So not, not directly SpaceX. No, because I think that is just completely crazy and I have no idea what will happen. I don't think anyone has any idea, um, what will happen. But if SpaceX goes up, that is going to affect other stocks and those stocks might not be as liquid or move as quickly. So to explain what I mean um, you know, a few years ago ASOS and boohoo would move in sympathy together. So if ASOS had a profit warning, I would then short boohoo to capture some of that move because, you know, it's a related sector. Same with Nike. If Nike had a good results, JD would often have a sympathy move. So essentially you were looking to trade a correlated stock that might not move as fast as the first stock.

Speaker A: Do you know what? I've just realized something about you, right, that's very similar to very successful um, entrepreneurs. So we've, we, we have something called the eight traits of the greats would be assess entrepreneurs. One of them is be passionate about your cause. Like you are obsessive passionate about this, aren't you? Yeah, like I think, ah, this weekend's job, what you said there is just to track that Space X thing. But how does that. My original question was about economic downturns.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Have you tied that into that?

Speaker C: Right. So, so, so I think it's potentially going to be a cash grab. Now 30% of that uh, IPO, right, is going to be allocated to retail investors. So that's people like, you know, you and me, the person on the street. Why, why, why is 30% going to be allocated? Because generally what I have found in the city is that the best deals, like I won't get access to them. The, you know, the big funds will get access to them. It's quite rare. Uh, usually the ones that you want to do you will get scaled back quite significantly if you even get shown them at all. And if this IPO is so good, why, uh, you know, all the funds not taking it for themselves. And my, my belief is that they wouldn't be able to get it away that valuation. But the person on the street is probably thinking, oh, ELON MUSK, yeah, SpaceX, I'm definitely going to buy. And um, they don't realize that they're paying 100 times sales. So I know you know what that means. But for anyone who doesn't, if you wanted to get a return on SpaceX at the IPO price for a straight century, every single year for 100 years, SpaceX would need to pay out 100% of its revenues to you. And that assumes no R and D spend, it assumes no costs, no taxes. So if I think about that in terms of risk to reward, am um, I getting a good risk to reward by buying that IPO at a hundred times sales? Probably not. Now the other side to that is because that is already such a crazy valuation then it's entirely possible it could go up to 200 times sales because, because that's just as crazy. So who really knows? Like I, I don't know. And um, and again just my specialty is UK small caps where I'm playing against smaller people, not in crazy experience.

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Speaker A: How do you tie that into an economic downturn?

Speaker C: You think that that could trigger it? Yeah, if we have space X a lot of capital that is inevitably going to affect, ah, everything else. Everything else, yeah. So, so if you're really what you think, not, not straight away, but a lot of people look at their wealth as in, you know, ETFs like S P500 Footsie All World. If SpaceX takes a whack then people are going to get nervous about AI. People are going to start selling AI stocks and I'm not saying this is going to happen, but it could potentially happen and you get knock on effects from people selling and then suddenly people aren't as bullish so they don't write checks for IPOs. Um, I mean if you, if you think about the uh, city, uh, was it feast and famine? Not, not famine and feast, but yeah, you had all of these IPOs in 2021 and barely any absolute years. Yeah, because you know it's, it's just ups and downs like anything.

Speaker A: So, so do you, do you know, as someone that charts all this and looks at this stuff, um, do you think the next couple of years are going to be tough?

Speaker C: That's above my pay grade. Um, you know, I'm essentially looking at risk to reward over the next sort of year. I don't think anyone knows. I mean a lot of people will say they know, um, but I don't. No, but I, I think for the, for the Ordinary person, I think. Have a good personal balance sheet, you know, make sure you've got an emergency fund. Because. Because who knows.

Speaker A: Why Shifting Shares? Why put your mug shot all over the Internet?

Speaker C: Yeah, so I started this. So I used to be active on Twitter quite a lot and I just came up with that name because it seems sensible. So it was Michael Taylor, Shifting Shares.

Speaker A: No, no, I get that. But why put your face all over the Internet?

Speaker C: So I ideally would like to build a business around content, um, so I could have bought a load of houses and gone into property, but that doesn't really excite me. And also, I don't know anything about property. So I would either have to pay someone and trust that they know or learn, uh, and do it myself. And, you know, generally, I think if you were going to make money in something, it's probably not easy. So I would have to do quite a lot of work to understand what I'm actually doing, which I don't really want to do and don't have the time for. Um, and with, with content, if I just keep plugging away. I mean, I had some dodgy broker offer me 20 grand to do a post. I'm never going to do it because it's dodgy and I would prefer to only work with, with companies that I actually like and would recommend to friends and family. Oh, yeah, if I just keep going, then I think I can probably pay all of my bills with this business, generate some cash flow and actually that would make me an even better trader because suddenly I'm not reliant on stock market profits to, to cover my lifestyle and bills. And I can be more concentrated in my high conviction bets. So I could actually trade less, increase the position size on my bigger bets, but have a larger cash buffer to, uh, offset the volatility of that.

Speaker A: Do you class yourself as an entrepreneur?

Speaker C: I think so, yeah. I mean, I would say it's probably quite entrepreneurial.

Speaker A: Someone's asked what you do, would you say? I'm a business owner.

Speaker C: Trader, makes videos now.

Speaker A: So do you place all your trades yourself or do you have brokers as well? Sorry, do you place all the trades yourself or do you have a price?

Speaker C: Yeah, so I'll place it through a broker or I will have a broker go sniffing around to see if there's any stock. Uh, do you like, potentially cross it?

Speaker A: Do you check what's going on every hour? Are you obsessive?

Speaker C: Not every hour, no.

Speaker A: But every day?

Speaker C: Um, yeah, every day, definitely. And the first few hours will be quite active, but essentially If I've got a position on for six to nine months, as long as there's no news that day about the stock. And I've got my alerts set, so I've got prices where I want to deal at and I will put my alerts like above my stop loss and ahead of my take profit price or I might put the order directly in the market. Then I don't need to be sat staring at the screens. Um, but obviously I do need to do the research, otherwise I won't be able to do what I do.

Speaker A: If you had 100k to invest, what would you do to get the best return? Small cap.

Speaker C: So, so for, for the, for the average person, I would say don't trade, just, just buy ETFs. But if, if you're asking, just go

Speaker A: about ETFs are uh, like buying a whole of market S&P 500 or FTSE.

Speaker C: So, so I, I would suggest, obviously not advice, but I would suggest FTSE all world because you were getting the whole investable stock and you can do

Speaker A: that through Vanguard or any bank, through,

Speaker C: through any generic broker. Make sure it's like low fees and you're not paying like 12 quid a trade or something because that say, eats into your returns.

Speaker A: What would you do though?

Speaker C: What would I do? Um, so am I relying on this to pay for trading profits or is it just the goal?

Speaker A: I'm giving you 100 grand. And what's the optimum line? Is to get the best return.

Speaker C: Yeah, so I would.

Speaker A: Probably not the safest. The best.

Speaker C: Yeah. So I would stick that into a stocks and shares Isaac, where it's earning interest from day one. And I would then go do what I do already and just go try and find asymmetric risk.

Speaker A: And you link the stocks and shares ISA to your broker.

Speaker C: So the stocks and shares ISA is in a broker.

Speaker A: Fine.

Speaker C: So if you open at IG trading

Speaker A: 212XTB and then if that gains, what happens? You pay tax on the gains.

Speaker C: So at the moment you, uh, sorry, any, any gains on stock? Yeah, no tax on it.

Speaker A: Right. So you can only do so much per year.

Speaker C: You only do £20,000 a year. Yeah.

Speaker A: That used to be 25, didn't it?

Speaker C: Uh, I think it used to be lower. All right, so from, from when I've been doing it, it's been 20. Yeah, but I, I would essentially wait for a risk, optimum risk reward opportunity and probably pick five stocks max. And uh, depending on what the risk, the thing is, like you wouldn't split it 20k in 20k and 20k. Because if that stock is very liquid, you can have a tighter stop loss. And because the stop loss is tighter, that means the position size can actually be bigger. So you've got to look at, you know, if you were to put 60% uh, of that account, so 60 grand into a single stock, that full 60 is at risk if that stock went bust tomorrow. But if you had a 33% stop loss, you're essentially risking 20,000 on the trade, even though your position is 60,000. If that makes sense.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's good. Um, I'm quickly Trading v Business v Commercial property. What, what you're gonna say trading have a business.

Speaker C: I suppose I don't know anything about commercial property. So all, uh, right.

Speaker A: Trading v Business. If you had to start your own business, do you think you can make more money through trading or starting your own business?

Speaker C: I think it's probably easier to, to start a business. And I say that because, you know, I started posting videos in 2024 and you know, I can see a way within the next two years that I can have my bills covered and that business will grow and it's quite high margin. Um, so if you would consider not nothing you can.

Speaker A: The issue with the content business is you cannot sell it.

Speaker C: That's true. It's just an increase job. Myself. Yeah, I created a leveraged income essentially

Speaker A: and nice to have, but.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, but you enjoy doing proper business. So I did look at uh, franchising and I just thought you can obviously do quite well in that, but you either do it yourself, which means getting within the business itself, or you hire people, which is just quite a big risk. Um, so it's so weird. I mean this is your area of expertise.

Speaker A: But do you think hiring people is quite a big risk, but putting money into companies that you don't have direct control over, you see less risky.

Speaker C: Yes, but I'm controlling the odds, if that makes sense. And I uh, can get in and out whenever I want. But there is. If I was to set up a franchise business and it all goes wrong, I can't just sell it tomorrow and get out of it and cut my losses. Whereas if, if a stock puts out a profit warning like Tortilla did, then I'm just a few clicks away from getting out completely.

Speaker A: Um, if you was a business owner and you got a semi successful business, would you put money into stocks and shares?

Speaker C: So I mean, it depends on lots of different things. Right.

Speaker A: Uh, this is the most important question. Because a lot of people watching that are in that camp and they've been listening now for an hour probably to us thinking, should I be doing this.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Or should I be putting my money back into my business, you know, or should I de. Risk a bit and do that? Yeah, that's what I'm. So what would you.

Speaker C: So it depends where you are. So I say to a lot of people, like, if you shouldn't. If you think you're going to invest in a global ETF, right, you're going to get 8 to 10% a year. Can you invest in yourself to increase your earnings and get a higher. I mean, the way I see it, right, if you pay £2,000 or something to go on a course and you can boost your income through another job by £3,000 a year, that's a way higher return already, then you are going to get investing in passive etf. Um, and it all depends where you are in your stage of business. So if you can take £10,000 and get a 20% return post tax and you think that return can probably be higher, why would you put it into a global ETF and do 8, 8 to 10%? You wouldn't. If you're at a point where you actually want to diversify, then yes. Um, but I think I would never recommend anyone to get into trading because it's very hard. Um, and as I say, I was lucky and Covid was quite stressful at, uh, a point and I was doing 16 hours a day, uh, for weeks while everyone was on furlough, drinking in the garden. I mean, I enjoyed it, but it was quite stressful because you just didn't know what was going to happen.

Speaker A: If you want to make.

Speaker C: That's the same for every business, right, you know?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah. If you wanted to make 100k a year off of trading, how much would you need in capital to sort of make that? If you as average.

Speaker C: Yeah. Depends on what your historic returns are. Uh, because a lot of people think, okay, well, I've generated 15, 20% a year over the last 10 years, but they've had a job while doing it. And once you no longer have that income, it's very stressful because you are now reliant and under pressure to generate those returns. And when I, when I first started out, I thought, oh, I'm a trader, I need to be trading. And sometimes the best trade is doing nothing. But when you're under pressure, you don't think optimally, then, yeah, it can be quite difficult. But what I would say is, you know, if you live with your parents and you only need to take out 20,000 a year, you essentially need to generate a uh, 20% return on that hundred just to stand still. So to make is that realistic? I mean it's possible, but for someone just starting out, it's probably not realistic

Speaker A: to have 100k income off of it. You probably need bought like a million.

Speaker C: 100k income?

Speaker A: Yeah, like a million. Ish.

Speaker C: Yeah. I think a lot of people like why retail trading is so hard is because unless you've got a big pot of money, then you are going to be under capitalized and under a lot of pressure to pay bills. It's better to do it in a job, learn it on the side. You know, if you're a salaried employee, learn it on the side and there's absolutely zero pressure and you can take your time.

Speaker A: Do you ever get nervous or worry about selling if something's doing well?

Speaker C: No. I mean I've seen things that have gone up multiples without me in it. But that's just the job. I'm not, I don't need to catch the bottom, I don't need to catch the top. What I'm. And, and also it's very easy to, to have the glasses of hindsight. Like if I knew at the time that the stock would triple before I sell, then I, I wouldn't have sold, but I didn't.

Speaker A: M. So you're making good money on content now?

Speaker C: I'm trying.

Speaker A: I wouldn't say no, not as much as you're trading income.

Speaker C: No. But I think I can get it to pay my bills. Yeah. M.

Speaker A: If you could invest in only one business, what would you invest in and why?

Speaker C: I don't think I would invest in one business because I'm not really an investor. Um, you know, I look at all of these things about businesses but I only care about them because they're attached to a stock. So it's essentially like a life support machine for a stock. And as soon as that business is not listed anymore, it doesn't really have any use for me.

Speaker A: Um, but is there businesses that you particularly admire that you think are going to do very well?

Speaker C: So uh, what I would look for is owner, operator. I think that matters because they generally care more about the business. So it would probably be a business like that, someone who actually cares about the business that they're building rather than someone who's paid a lot of money to do.

Speaker A: Can you think of a brand in the UK where you're seeing that happening that you're studying now?

Speaker C: Off the top of my head, no. Um, well, I mean, I mentioned the talk to you. I think that is a potential rollout story. Whether I will ever own the shares again, I don't know. But I will find out.

Speaker A: What's your favorite food?

Speaker C: I do quite like fajitas. I like chicken wings, truffle fries, and all the stuff that's not too good for me.

Speaker A: Favorite country?

Speaker C: Probably Germany.

Speaker A: So why do you live here over Germany?

Speaker C: So the tax is a lot better here. So obviously I don't pay any tax on stocks and shares, ISIS and spread bets. I will pay tax, uh, corporation tax when I deal in CFDs through a limited company. Uh, but from a tax perspective, it's, it's pretty good in the UK for, for what I do. Which is why we moved back to the UK as we did live in Germany.

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Speaker C: The Colonels cooked up a new ten dollar bucket of the day just for you. Monday, 24 nuggets for ten dollars. Tuesday, eight piece fried chicken for ten dollars. Wednesday, ten wings for ten dollars. Thursday, eight tenders for ten dollars. Friday, 24 nuggets for. Oh, you guessed it, didn't you? Ten dollars finger licking machine. The ten dollars bucket of the day deal. Every weekday only at KFC. It's finger licking.

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Speaker A: Which favorite hot drink?

Speaker C: Cappuccino.

Speaker A: I would say that, yeah.

Speaker C: Extra hot though. Otherwise, uh, I'm not a fan.

Speaker A: Favorite car.

Speaker C: I'm, uh, not really into cars. Um, I mean, if you saw my car, you definitely wouldn't think I was doing well, that's for sure. Um, but I did have a Range Rover Sport, which I really liked. It was, it was always my wife and I's dream car. Uh, that was a nice car, but yeah, just cost too much and I didn't really like the petrol either and I sold it, put it into Audioboom and doubled my money and got my losses back, so was quite happy about that.

Speaker A: Uh, are you quite frugal in your personal life?

Speaker C: On some things, yes. So, um, my current car is, uh, I bought it off my dad for £4,000 because I just don't really care about cars that much. But, um, I'm quite happy to spend on holidays and things like that. Um, so, so what why I was think is that you should spend money on the things that you actually enjoy. If you don't really care about something, be very frugal on it because, you know, money's not unlimited and you can always put that into an investment or grow it or just keep it for a rainy day.

Speaker A: Um, what about own a house or rent a house?

Speaker C: So, um, I rent my main residence here and then I've got a property in Hartlepool that I use as well.

Speaker A: Why do you rent the house here?

Speaker C: Because it's very expensive and I would need to put a lot of capital down and also that's quite a big risk. Um, you place in one big concentrated bet on a London property, which I don't feel confident about, and it would tie up a lot of capital. So it's actually better for me to, to rent. I'm not sure I'll ever buy a property in London.

Speaker A: Michael, it's been amazing having you on the podcast and it's been a starter for 10 in this sort of sector. Where can people find out about you? I know you're doing quite well on YouTube quite quickly.

Speaker C: Um, I'm trying. Yeah. Um, so shifting shares is my handle on Instagram and YouTube. Um, if someone that looks like me follows you or message you first, it is not me. Um, it's. It's really quite frustrating because I' at one point I had over a thousand accounts on TikTok, uh, pretending to be me. Unfortunately, people have been scammed. There's nothing I can do about it. I registered the trademark, sent it to TikTok. They just didn't care. Yeah. Um, and I'm not really sure what else I can do. So. Yeah, please just, just be very careful. If someone is saying invest in this or do this, it's. It's not me.

Speaker A: They would do that to us. Or. I mean, not, not that amount because we don't really talk about stocks and shares, but it's been fascinating. Thank you very much for being on.

Speaker C: Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure.

Speaker A: Cheers. So what do I think about the end of that conversation? Well, if I had £100,000 and I was a professional, maybe I was a CFO, maybe I've inherited some money and I'm not entrepreneurially driven. I think he's on the money and I think you should do some, um. What did he call it ETFs? Some of this good safe buying whole of market in the FTSE 100 or the S&P 500. But for me, I still think as an entrepreneur sitting here today, commercial property and investing in my own business is still the way that I'm going to go. It's not forever. But I'm not walking out of here excited to do this. But for most people, I do think that you can probably make more money doing this than saying buy to let property investment. There you go. That's my summary of him. He's a nice guy. I think he's actually made very decent money from it. He was very cagey about that. But you know. Yeah, good guy, right? See you in the next one. Make sure you like and There are two types of business owners those who are busy and those who want to be busy. Toast is designed for both with tools to keep you humming and help turn grind into growth. That's how you turn busy into business.

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