Total Money Management

Total Money Management

Signals and Noise with Steve, Tom, and Jacob Most people invest like everyone else and wonder why they get everyone else's results. Every week Steve, Tom, and Jacob cut through the financial noise: stocks, property, bonds, the global economy, all the big ideas made simple, with straight talk and a bit of humour. But first, find out what kind of investor you actually are. Our free 2 minute assessment shows you your investor type, the blind spots that quietly cost you money, and the strategy that fits how you are wired. → Take the free quiz: https://www.totalmoneymanagement.com.au/Quiz

  1. 1d ago

    Episode 151: Cash Equals Options

    FREE WEBINAR LINK: https://www.totalmoneymanagement.com.au/Webinar-Anti-Fragile?cid=7c7b1153-bccd-4fad-aef2-c3812804fe4a This week Steve, Tom and Jacob open with three headlines that are more connected than they look: Iran calling for resolution under the weight of sanctions and inflation, the link between immigration and wage suppression in Australia, and house prices falling across every capital city except Darwin. The CoreLogic numbers for August tell the story. Sydney down 4.7% for the quarter, Melbourne down 3.9%, and commentators now calling for falls of 10%. The quarterly picture is negative almost everywhere, and the annual gains in Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide are shrinking fast. From there the conversation turns to one of the most misunderstood positions in investing: holding cash. Most investors feel like they are losing by sitting in cash, but it is the opposite. Cash equals options. It is exactly how Warren Buffett was able to extract a 10% preferred dividend and warrants at $8 from Bank of America during the GFC. That deal was only available to the person with the money when nobody else had any. Buffett made $500 million on the dividends alone. We also walk through why buy and hold fails when you measure returns across a full market cycle, from low point to low point. The secular bull from 1982 to 2000 delivered 666%. The bear market that followed wiped out 59% of it. Once you add fees, inflation and tax, the full cycle return was close to zero. And then the part that changes how most people think about property versus stocks: rebalancing. You cannot rebalance a house. If it falls 20%, you sit and hope. With a diversified stock portfolio you can harvest winners and add to losers, and the maths show that rebalancing turns a flat market into a positive return. We walk through the example with two assets, one up 25% and one down 20%, and show how the rebalanced portfolio gains over 5% while the buy-and-hold portfolio gains nothing. This is why we think stocks are a better long-term investment. Property will have its day, but over time the ability to rebalance between uncorrelated assets leads to higher compound returns. New episode out every Monday. If you are finding these useful, a follow on Spotify or a subscribe on YouTube genuinely helps us grow. Signals and Noise Premium: https://www.totalmoneymanagement.com.au/offers/PrbobKT9/checkoutFree investor personality test: https://www.totalmoneymanagement.com.au/Enneagram-typesFollow on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0Sr60kq3V3q1mqiQPxiQ0l?si=d60ee47ccec54b81More from TMM: https://www.totalmoneymanagement.com.au Steve, Tom and JacobTotal Money Management This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Total Money Management | AFSL 568642

  2. Aug 2

    Episode 146: The Antifragile Investor (Part 1)

    Markets can go sideways for ten or fifteen years. The CAPE ratio sits at 42. Global debt is stretched, and retail investors are piling into property, Bitcoin, and leveraged ETFs. So what happens next, and how do you position for it? In this special two-part episode, Steve Moriarty and Jacob Senior lay out an investment philosophy built to work through the entire market cycle, not just the good years. Drawing on Nassim Taleb's Incerto, the Kelly Criterion, and the risk-first thinking of investors like Ed Thorpe, Steve explains what separates fragile portfolios from robust ones, and robust ones from truly antifragile ones. You'll hear why the "time the market versus time in the market" debate is a false choice, the two scenarios Steve thinks are most likely from here (a GFC-style crash, or a Japan-style deleveraging that grinds asset prices lower over ten to twenty years), and how Taleb's three categories, coffee cups, weights, and everything in between, apply to the assets sitting in your portfolio right now. Part 2 will cover how to actually build the portfolio. If you want to think differently about your money, learn more about our approach at totalmoneymanagement.com.au, or take our free investor personality assessment at totalmoneymanagement.com.au/Enneagram-types to find out what kind of investor you are. This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Total Money Management | AFSL 568642.

  3. Jul 19

    Episide 144: Everybody's Knackered: Oil, Chips and Chokepoints

    Steve, Tom and Jacob are back (with working microphones this time) to unpack a week where the cracks got harder to ignore. The Iran ceasefire has collapsed, tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is running at a third of normal, and shipping insurance costs have jumped sevenfold. The lads explain why "oil" isn't one thing, why China's demand drop saved us last time, and why a genuine supply shock may still be creeping up on us. Then it's over to Korea, where the stock market swung wildly all week and the CAPE ratio has bolted from 17 to 44 in twelve months. Compare that with Indonesia, Brazil and Turkey sitting near 10, and the case for emerging markets and commodities starts to write itself. Plus: the AI earnings problem nobody wants to talk about, semiconductors now making up 20% of the S&P 500, what Buffett's IBM exit really tells us, and why margin debt at $1.5 trillion should have your attention. The title says it all: every country holds a chokepoint, and everybody's knackered. Watch Your Edge: markets can go sideways for 15 years or more. The era of quick capital gains is over, and the game is shifting to income and yield. Subscribe to the free Signals & Noise newsletter: https://www.totalmoneymanagement.com.au/ Want to go deeper? Join Signals & Noise Premium for weekly analysis, Stock Thoughts, and our monthly live coaching call. This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Total Money Management | AFSL 568642.

About

Signals and Noise with Steve, Tom, and Jacob Most people invest like everyone else and wonder why they get everyone else's results. Every week Steve, Tom, and Jacob cut through the financial noise: stocks, property, bonds, the global economy, all the big ideas made simple, with straight talk and a bit of humour. But first, find out what kind of investor you actually are. Our free 2 minute assessment shows you your investor type, the blind spots that quietly cost you money, and the strategy that fits how you are wired. → Take the free quiz: https://www.totalmoneymanagement.com.au/Quiz

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