Projects
![]()
No projects found
Investors
New
DAO Treasuries
DATs
Lend / Borrow APRs
Chains
Categories
Spaces
Good Advice Has a Place: Lessons from Top Funds in a DYOR Era- WOLF EU
Recorded: March 5, 2026 Duration: 1:16:01Space Recording
Full Transcription
Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, good morning everyone.
How's it all going? Welcome back to the Wolf EU show. I'm your host, Eva, Eva Tronick, and my lovely co-host, Alex, Trader Alex. Welcome
back on the show.
Hello, everyone. Good morning.
Awesome. Just waiting for a few people to trickle in. A little late start here, getting
the messages out. They should all have received their invites.
We have a very exciting show today for you guys, especially for you Europeans and even non-UU.
There's been a lot of circulation and questions.
Always wondering advice from actual fund managers versus self-investing.
The biggest question on the table is, I think a lot of people just don't understand
um the advice from paid investing versus non-investing there's obviously a lot of
objections and things like that i'm just inviting a few more people i think i've lost a few people
on there um as i'm just sent you another invite there and uh yeah basically we've invited a lovely bunch of guests today a
few familiar faces um hopefully they'll pop a bit later i know there's a few guys running a bit
behind there as well um so we're going to cover a few different uh aspects as well obviously
uh it's going to be mostly eu as an investor um but also would love to hear your questions guys
i'm sure you have burning
and dying questions. Please drop down below what you've always wanted to ask, like managers who,
you know, obviously carry portfolios professionally and also as independent investors as well.
Yeah. Alex, do you want to kick things off here for us?
Sure. Let's start here. One moment, just going to get my
documents up. And for those of you who are brand new, welcome. If you do want to come back,
obviously, to re-listen to this entire show,'m sure we're gonna cover a whole bunch of information do like and retweet the actual spaces so you can come back and visit but do pop your
questions down below while we wait I'll have an awesome guest panel here and yeah are you
yes so European ETF flows accelerate to 470 billion.
So WasteOn projects record European ETF inflows into 2026, up from 390 billion in 2025.
So as of January 2026, we have already seen 55.9 billion in monthly inflows exceeding every single month of 2025 by more than 10 billion.
So equity ETFs absorbed around 43.8 billion in January alone,
nearly double that of 2025 monthly average.
So we're starting to see some pretty
pretty big trends here coming into 2026. And when I was checking the
Nordics, let's see here, I had an article up, actually sent Nordics, about half a million new ETF investors are expected to come in over the coming 12 months.
So it's a lot of interesting things happening here in Europe.
Over to you.
Awesome. awesome yeah i think we'll do a little quick intro uh because i know there's a few new faces
around here and um in the europe wolf eu side um i'd like to invite cam i know you are more in
the crypto world love to give yourself a little intro and sort of what you do in the line of
investing good morning good morning well good afternoon if you're listening from the uk side or eu
um yeah if you're in the us waking up right now well done it's quite early for you guys so uh
yeah you stayed on top of the ball there um yeah i think if you're a long-time listener for the
wall financial spaces i've been speaking on here for it well, it must be since 2021.
So, yeah, for about five years now.
Private investor, I've been managing my own personal funds as well as holding and managing some private funds as well
over the couple of years.
Lots of lessons to learn.
Lots of, like, I think this conversation that we were going to talk about today
really stemmed from someone's tweet.
I think they're going to jump and join us soon talking about our proper fund managers worth the money.
And this stems a really good conversation because they can be worth their weight in gold.
You know, a proper fund manager who's clued on can save a lot of time.
You can take a lot of risk off the table.
It can be very, very dynamic in your investing.
If you've got time to spare and you'd like to manage your own funds and not pay anybody else, you take on a lot more risk.
So I'm sure that we're going to be jumping into the details of this conversation.
And I'm very excited to do that. Very juicy I am so excited I actually can't wait to learn from each and every one of you
your mistakes this is probably the biggest one that everyone's dying to know. Nat Nat you my girl
are so special I would love for you to introduce yourself I think people would be very excited here
to hear your background and your experience with the markets as well.
Thank you so much for having me, Eva. I'm looking forward to another great space.
My background, I am former Merlin Lynch. It was a great experience.
I started just managing funds of my own. I managed my own portfolio as well, just like you can.
My portfolio started really small and began to grow very beautifully.
And then once we got my stock portfolio set, we went over into crypto and started doing things
there with BTC many, many years ago. But I'm excited to dive into this one. My background is
not so much day trading, but more like trading long-term leaps.
I believe we had a space on this
and just hedging and managing assets as we go.
Super exciting.
I can't wait to hear what the professionals
actually do as well.
So that's always been a very special insight
for a lot of people here on the stage and as well as the listeners.
So do drop your questions down below as well, guys. I would love to hear what you'd like to
ask the fund managers as well and various investors. And next up, I would love to invite
back on Mads, always a pleasure to have you. Thank you. Thank you so much. A pleasure.
Thank you. Thank you so much. A pleasure. Always nice to talk because you reflect a lot when you talk.
I run a fund in Denmark, Technology Investment Fund.
Our strategy is around diversification, mathematical optimization. called optimization, there's a lot of variance and volatility in tech investment.
And we try to change that to a tailwind instead of a headwind.
So a lot about portfolio structure, but also a lot about technology.
My team is technology experts. So yeah, that's my background.
Awesome. Always love to hear people who specialize as well in certain sectors and
also knowing what the risks are if you are over, you know, exposed in one area. I know myself too,
I'm very like Mads and I'm very tech heavy i love the risk
myself i should also know when to you know take the you know foot off the pedal a bit as well
so that's all really really awesome and then uh quant joe good morning to you good morning good
morning yeah my background is all in um software and quant finance, big math background. Everything I do is
mostly a very, very small time frame. But being around this
space so much being in the know, you kind of hear things that
different fund managers do and you kind of pick up on the
million the objectives of them rather than on some of the
nitty gritty dirty dirty details but yeah that's
that's me awesome love it yeah so more on the quant side a bit more independent investing as
well and have of course welcome back on the show jonathan from leverage shares senior analyst
hey good to see everyone again good to see some familiar faces so just on my background
um I've got a traditional finance background I've worked it's a lot of investment banks and asset
managers I then went into my own crypto hedge fund started that in 2020 we became a regulated
fund in the UK I then got out of the crypto game in the bear markets,
wrote a few books on crypto. And I've since joined IncomeShares, which is the parent company is leverages, they do leverage ETFs. But IncomeShares is a branch we're growing in Europe,
where effectively, we were the first single asset issuer on options income strategies in Europe. So what we do is we
might hold an underlying asset. Let's take Tesla stock, for example, and sell put options on that
stock and hold some Tesla itself. So try to track the underlying assets, not necessarily one for one,
but to have a decent correlation with it, and then turn
the exposure into an income generating investment. We do that with gold, silver,
and we're always on the lookout for new products and ways to launch. And our AUM is growing quite
consistently every month. So that's good. And I'm a senior analyst at Leverage Shares.
that's good. And I'm a senior analyst at Leverage Shares. Thanks. Awesome. Fantastic.
Just a quick disclaimer, guys. I know these guys obviously are, you know, expertise in their own
field. Again, just nothing we share here is super professional financial advice. It is all for you
to purely do your research for educational purposes. An investor should always consider any funds
investment objective, risk charges and expenses before investing. And we'll definitely be covering
that on the show. And the funds prospectus summary and prospectus contains all this information about
the income shares, ETPs from leverage shares or any other funds. And to obtain that funds prospectus
and key information document please always visit
their respective websites or income shares.com and a funds prospectus and key information document
should always be read carefully before investing especially in Europe. Cam I'd like to circle back
to you I would love for you to share your experiences the painful lessons the success um and of course what retail investors
should should know and be careful of and yeah i just would love to hear your your experience there
all right where do we start off from um some of the risks you may run into if you're you're
running your own finances whether that be you know long or short term day trading or weekly day trading.
Where you get your news from, this is going to be one of the biggest things.
And how do you decipher what's crap and what is actionable news that you're taking in for the information?
And what is actionable news that you're taking in from the information?
If you don't have something like a Bloomberg terminal in front of you, if you don't have a Reuters plug in, you understand any of the news.
Likely, well, at least 99 percent of the news that you're going to see in front of your screen outside of these products, these institutional grade products is going to be delayed.
It's already going to go through the big boy traders, your institutional desks.
This information is going to be not secondhand, not thirdhand, not fourthhand.
You are not going to be the first to read the news.
So likely any initial move that this news when it comes to play has had affecting the market will have likely already started um
not that it's a guarantee but it's almost going to be guaranteed it's it's close it's not going
to be new to you and it's new to everybody else and new to you at the same time so that's probably
going to be one of the biggest things it's so easy especially if you're a retail trader which
you're not putting anything down on retail traders to see news that comes across, whether it be X or, you know, another news
outlet and go, oh, that is that bullish or bearish.
Try and work it out.
By the time you've really done that, the trades are really there.
I see someone put his hand up.
Please feel free to jump in.
No, no, speak on.
I just wanted to build on that when you're finished.
Yeah, honestly, this is probably going to be the first point of bringing up.
It's such a large conversation to have.
Yeah, let's use the news that you get,
that's actual or not actual, as kind of a launch pad to this conversation.
Yeah, let's go.
Go for it, Mads.
Yeah, okay.
That was my sort of main point as well.
I think that when we talk about advice, there is an abundance of advice out there. There's an abundance of
funds. There's an abundance of opinions. And I think one of the first things you need to do is
to try to figure out the center of the information or the advice that you're getting.
What is the business model of that person?
Is it just somebody having an opinion or is it a journalist whose business model is that he needs clicks on his articles?
Because then the purpose of that information is not to help your portfolio gets better. The purpose of that is for you to see the ad that is connected to the article. Yeah, so to cut that short, I think that too
many people are not seeking advice. When your purpose is to get your portfolio to behave as good as possible or your savings to
be as much as possible in a distant future, then I think people should seek advice, which is not
where the business model is to actually help you. A lot of people in Denmark use their bank advisor as an advisor,
but his business model is to get you to buy the bank's products. So that's not something
that you want to be aligned with as well. And then a second thing that I usually say
to people, I actually say that my best investment advice is to try to
curate your news flow, figure out which news flow, which media and which experts actually has a good
effect on your portfolio, on your decision making. I think in Denmark, there is a lot of established experts and listening to it,
there is a reason they don't manage money. So, there really is different aspects. And right now,
we've been talking about it in some of the spaces I've been on. What really matters for investment today is understanding of geopolitics
and AI. And yeah, that really bodes for a shift in who is the guys who really want to
listen and follow. Yeah. So just totally agree with Cam's point there.
Absolutely important to get the foundations right there. Yeah, where is the
new source coming from? And unfortunately, on X, there is quite an AI, obviously, adding to the
mix. Today's age, we get a lot of fake, you know, graphics, videos, and even text. So you have to be
very careful where you're, what platform you're on and just double check outside of the realm of
you know those those platforms there i see jonathan hand up first and then we'll come
back to nat nat jonathan yeah thanks um yeah i totally agree with your points um cam and mads
and one thing to add to that about the not trading the news. I mean, as a retail investor trading the news, you are probably going to be late.
And often big investors use these to sell the news.
One of the things I think is what I've learned over my investing career is that I've more and more started to use technical analysis, trust the charts.
And because the charts, no matter who you are,
you can be a retail investor, you could be an institutional investor, you're always looking at
the exact same chart. So I think if you can learn technical analysis properly, and really understand
it, you get a good understanding of buy and seller pressure, who's, you know, which is winning,
seller pressure? Who's, you know, which is winning? How is the trend changing? And I think
if you're in the do your own research space, and you're trying to at least be a trader on your own,
then it's definitely worth learning technical analysis. I will say that.
And yeah, it's not the best thing to trade on the news. Another thing Mads, you brought up,
which I thought was interesting about the business model aspect,
I completely agree with that.
It's best to use kind of professional investing
where their success is tied to your success.
And by that, I mean, if you look at something like
a mutual fund, for example,
if they get good performance, that's good for their assets under management
because that grows and that's good for their business.
So I think in that sense, it is a good thing.
Looking at funds, hedge funds is another example, but those obviously aren't open to retail investors where they get performance fees.
So, yeah, I mean, I've got a few other points to
add, maybe on a separate topic, but I think we'll open it up to others now. Thanks.
Absolutely. Yeah. What is their best interest for you or for the revenue of their business? So
obviously, you should always approach the expertise who, you know, do look out for you.
Natna, I would love to hear your experience as well
because I know you've obviously worked with Meryl and that's you know a very big name in itself.
Yes so great conversation in regards to news guys I think everyone hit the nail on the head right
the markets are forward looking so by the time you see the news it's already been priced in. Perfect example. In December, we were on Wolf Bitcoin Space talking about oil and energy, which we were seeing in the charts.
And this goes into the technical analysis that was recently messaged. We were seeing in the chart that these were certain tickers under oil and energy that were primed for a breakout. Sometimes you see it
in the chart before the actual news hit. By the time the news actually hit this weekend,
in reference to the war, a lot of us that were able to position ourselves earlier,
were able to profit greatly versus chasing the news on this weekend. Because oil and energy,
versus chasing the news on this weekend. Because oil and energy, even though they opened up
green, a lot of them pulled back aggressively. So if you were someone that was chasing the news
and waited for markets to open in order to start a position, a lot of them are slightly in the red
now. So knowing when to get in and avoiding trading the news is a big one. But in reference to Merrill, one thing that I learned,
and I think it's always good advice, right?
Risk tolerance, knowing what your risk tolerance is.
And this is different for everyone,
but it's so important, so much so that at Merrill,
we have something that's called
the risk tolerance assessment, right?
We would sit down with a client and we would talk to them about risk and how they perceive risk and their
level of risk tolerance in order to curate a portfolio for them, right? And I think even as
a retail trader, that's something that needs to be done as well, right? What's your risk level?
Because there's a whole bunch of stocks, right? And based on your personal risk level, you can
then curate your own personal portfolio into stocks that works best for you or a trading style
that works best for you, whether it's short-term trading or long-term trading. That's something
that's personalized to you. And once you understand your risk tolerance and things that work for you,
you tend to come up with some kind of a flow or some kind of system that helps you over time.
And you'll be able to see how your portfolio grows. Part of that though, it is also discipline,
your growth part of that though it is also discipline right discipline plays an important
role when whether you're trading stocks or cryptocurrencies absolutely love that yeah with
anything in investing as as we always say with our disclaimers and any disclaimers you hear on
the investing space you know it is always the know, past performance doesn't always reflect what's going to be coming forward.
I see a hand up there, Joe.
Love your experience and your take on this.
Yeah, definitely.
Great conversation so far.
And to kind of draw a parallel to the quality of news that is being received from the different parties, right?
being received through from the different parties right retail versus a professional
Retail versus professional.
um it's also the quality of data and the speed of that data just opens up an entirely different
business right i know that um retail wouldn't be making a high frequency trading system right
some people are spectacular coders but in a sense of if you're a big bank and you want to see every single order on that book,
you absolutely can.
The data is there.
It's actually available to retail investors as well through different providers.
It's called market by order data.
And you just see every single order that comes across the book.
And so it's also funny too when people say that they're hunting their stops.
It's like they're hunting everybody's order. You know what I mean? They don't know whose is whose, when people say that they're hunting their stops, it's like they're hunting everybody's order.
You know what I mean?
They don't know whose is whose, but they know that they're there.
And it comes in as fast as they could receive it.
The real estate near CME's router in Chicago is being fought over all the time.
Everybody wants a connection as close to that router as they could possibly, as close as they could
possibly be. And so that's who you're going to be up against if you're trying to trade quickly.
Whether it's day trading or you're trying to make your own system, that is the kind of order
speed that you're competing against. And so they're not hunting, but they are. Even the
businesses like Citadel, where they have the partnership with even the businesses like sit that's like um like citadel
where they have the um the partnership with robin hood and so that's why you have um zero commission
trades because robin hood routes the order to citadel first and then citadel front runs it
and sells you exactly what you wanted to buy and pockets spread thousands if not millions of times
every day but so that's kind of, I wanted to articulate that's
the whole kind of thing that you're up against is that people are treating this as a business
where they're just going to come in and just make their money like that. The quality of data in the
sense of the literal analytics is so much higher on the professional side rather than if you just
open up a trading app, even on your brokers. TOS is a great charting platform but how fast is it how many orders can you see that was one thing that
I really wanted to articulate absolutely there's always the technical side of like where's your
orders being sold to free quote-unquote of the trade comes with a price and I think we saw that
during COVID times heavily with the whole GME fiasco and other things as well.
That's also interesting. We can definitely talk about that.
Cam, I saw your hand up first and then we'll come back to Alex as well.
Should we go to Alex? Because I was going to touch on something.
I was right at the beginning of that conversation.
I was going to joke around and say they changed the algos.
But Alex, go ahead.
Yeah, absolutely. I think everybody here touched on some really good points, especially regarding the news.
And just what I wanted to touch on a little bit is that, yeah, in my opinion, news can be pretty overrated.
And as retail investors, we have the choice to, or retail traders, we have the choice to not be active in the market.
We can wait for those setups that we have quantified.
And now with all these tools popping up everywhere, people can better structure their thoughts and understand what really matters. And I'm a big believer,
like I like to use Bayesian statistics a lot, which, you know, it's nothing crazy. A lot of
people do that. And I just like to understand the numbers. I like to look at the spreads
and I like to sort of build a big mind map, but that's the problem, right?
There's a lot of within the retail community, people lack these kind of tools.
So they probably won't have a Bloomberg terminal or the equivalent.
And I guess most people are probably not so comfortable with developing these tools by themselves. But I think this is the trend that we are starting to see.
More and more people are becoming more comfortable with putting their money
in a more focused or let's call it condensed ETF. And I think that's just based on these tools that are coming out.
A very simple thing to look at, which has nothing to do with high frequency trading,
is the COT report and just make a COT index and look at exhaustion, crowding and stuff like that.
the index and look at exhaustion, crowding and stuff like that.
That's a very simple way to sort of get a sense of what the positioning is doing.
And then if you look at that in relation to volatility, now you start getting some value at risk ideas.
And yeah, so it's not impossible, but I don't think the average retail investor will do that.
It's not impossible, but I don't think the average retail investor will do that.
Yeah, some very good points there on the tools and accessibility of what professionals get access to.
Obviously, the regular investor does not.
Huge disadvantages and advantages as well on both aspects.
Certainly not going to be Bloomberg Terminal, although I have seen some very interesting developments with AI and perplexity.
It's such a great platform as well for just information and research alone there.
Jonathan, do you have anything to add on that?
I know you obviously get, you know, amazing info, I'm sure, in terms of that aspect from your fund there.
from your fund.
Yeah, I mean, it's the old saying,
Benjamin Baric in the 1920s,
he shorted the US stock market successfully.
And he said, show me the charts
and I'll tell you the news.
I think the whole thing of trading the news
is not a good idea.
Unless you're an algo fund
and you're trading short-term news
and you have all of that ability to do that.
So yeah, I mean, the average retail
investor, they should keep understand the news so that they know what's going on generally in the
market. But they should trade fundamentals long term, and maybe have a longer term time horizon.
One thing I probably want to bring up is I guess we haven't really touched on it is the kind of
the question of is, is it better to have professional advice or to do your own research
and i think uh one statistic which i thought was interesting um is that spiver they just published
that their full year for 2025 the numbers showed that 79 of large cap us fund managers under formed
the s p 500 and over 20 years 93 underperperformed. So I think if we're kind of
asking the question of whether the average fund manager beats the market the answer is no
and the data for that is quite clear but obviously there's exceptions you know you've had things like
Peter Lynch, the Magellan Fund, George Soros, Bank of England, Jim Simmons, all of these different investors.
And they all kind of have these certain traits in common. But where I think the case for active
management, the case for professional advice is when you start to get to things that are a bit more,
you know, esoteric, if you're just trying to match the index or get the returns of the US
stock market, obviously, you just go for the low fees. That's the index fund approach.
But if you are trying to do something more complicated, for example, something in crypto
or an options income strategy or something like that, which takes a bit something different,
then it might be um more with uh exploring
professional approaches yeah very good points there absolutely do agree on um you know when
when it's good to take advice and when it isn't cam i see your hand up there
yeah and it's to follow along from what jonathan was saying there's also the psychological barrier
that you kind of need to understand pretty quickly otherwise you're going to get caught
offside and probably blow your account which is not something you want to do hopefully um if you
want to make money anyway and that's just understand if you have the mindset to to carry
out to carry out your own investments to do your your own trading, to manage your own money.
There is a certain piece of tranquility that goes with just talking to a fund manager and saying,
look, I've seen gold is in the news recently. It's rallied high. Can I increase my allocation
to gold? Yes. Okay. Let me do that for you. That is is a lot of ease that's a lot of comfort
you know we talked about you know there are times when that is absolutely the could be the best
thing for you to do if you are unable to to manage your position let's say you're trying to
get together a trading strategy it's just not quite working. Perhaps you're running the risk of making too many errors this year.
Maybe you get caught up trading the news. You see the risk sentiment flip flop in.
There are there's a lot of things to balance when managing your own funds.
And it's something you need to need to take very, very seriously.
So understanding whether you have the right mindset to whether that be day trade,
whether that to be invest long term, run your own money is going to be key to making sure that you don't get caught offside on trades all the time.
Yeah, very fair point there, Mads. I see your hand up there.
Have a on the on the on the should you invest in in should you be passive investing?
Look, just look at the at the just look at the costs or should you go for an active fund?
I have a few points there.
I think many retail investors are mixing it up.
I have an active fund and I often get the question,
why should I pay 1.5% management fee for your active fund?
And I say, well, because you're investing in an active fund.
So you want me to beat the market.
me to beat the market. That's why you're investing here. And that's why it costs more. So people take
That's why you're investing here and that's why it costs more.
the mindset that they are learning right now about costs should just be as low as possible.
So you take the active fund, which has the lowest costs. And that doesn't make sense. If you take a
passive fund, then you go for the lowest cost. But if you go for an active fund, you need to look at
the strategy, you need to listen to the manager and you need to pay attention to the performance first and foremost.
But it's difficult.
So the other point I wanted to make was about Jim Simons, the Medallion Fund.
I think perspectives are being very blurred about this fund issue. On the one hand,
everybody's agreeing that you can't beat the market. On the other hand, everybody's agreeing
that Warren Buffett is beating the market. And I would actually say it's undetermined because statistics would want one manager in each generation to beat the market just for random causes.
I think if you go through Warren Buffett, his performance, then there are some question marks whether he really is that good or was that good.
Yeah, I won't go into that.
But then when you look at Jim Simons, the medallion fund,
then you just have to acknowledge that you can actually beat the market.
There is something out there.
People have just never figured out what it was that Jim Simons did. I think his performance was like 50% plus or 60% for like, yeah, 15 years or something
like that.
I can't remember the numbers, but they really kicked the shit out of the market.
So it's possible, but we don't know how.
And yeah, so just interesting.
But I think a lot of the discussion is really just blurred.
I guess that's my point, that you need to be precise on what are you looking for.
If you're looking for active, then do your research.
If you're looking for passive, then get hold of all the costs.
In Denmark, there are so many sunk costs in bank products that people think they are investing in the cheapest passive investment tools.
And they're really not.
So, yeah.
Yeah, I was going to say Europe, especially for retail investors as a landscape, there's sort of three sort of areas when it comes to sort of that stuff.
Basically, fee drag is quite
severe over here I don't know if the people are aware so active equity funds charge around what
1.38 percent per year on average ESMA according to the March 2026 data versus 0.22 for like an
equity ETF and that's over a course of, let's say, 30 years on example,
typical is like 10,000 euros that, you know, difference compounds to nearly 20k in lost wealth.
So obviously, there's also tax wrappers as well, we can touch on that. Jonathan,
let's see your hand up there. Go for it. Yeah, thanks. No, just mad talking about
Medallion Fund got me all excited it's a
very very good fund i mean one thing about that is it was it was only open to their uh employees so
but even then they obviously kept their um their secrets very under wraps i think they got 66
over 30 years or something which is ridiculous which obviously proves that you can outperform
the market but they were medallion so that kind of tech is not available to everyone else.
I think if we're looking more at an investor who we could say that has outperformed the market
as a kind of example for a good fund that or even a retail investor who's looking to outperform
the market, it wouldn't be that they would use the kind of medallion approach
because they need so much technology for that.
Maybe something like Peter Lynch, who ran the Magellan Fund,
that was from 1977 to 1990.
I think he got just under 30%.
It was like 29.2% average annual return.
What he did is he was just curious.
He basically left,
he just looked at everything, left no stone unturned. And I think he said something like,
the person who turns over the most rocks wins the game. So his is a completely different approach.
And for retail investors who are long term, that might be a way to go about it, rather than
trying to trade kind of short term um and then the other
thing just alex's point earlier which i brought up which is very interesting where yeah and i think
he's right it's like saying that um you know professional fund managers are very limited
especially mutual fund managers for example because as soon as they get money in the fund
they've got to then put that money to work whereas if you are a retail investor you can sit on cash for a long time um you you have more flexibility but that can be a blessing
or a curse so something like most funds have an investment mandate that they have to follow
and they can't really go outside of that but if you're a retail investor
with your own portfolio you could uh in theory, go outside it. So you have the flexibility, which can be good, but you should also have a process, which is very important, and try not to stray outside of that.
Thanks.
Awesome.
Alex, did you want to touch on that?
Yeah, sure.
So, yeah, sitting on the hands is probably, it's been the biggest lesson, I guess, in my trading career.
It's, I think, there's also a good case for why maybe, you know, you might want to have a fund manager, because I don't think it's as clear cut.
Yeah, people can have access to the information, they can understand that stocks go up uh buy the dip etc um you know and it's probably not
a bad idea to be exposed to the the 500 strongest company in the companies in the us weighted you
know all these things make sense but people are emotional. And I think every trader, every investor
has been through the trenches.
They know what it feels like
to go through big swings, especially early on, before you have a
systematic approach to the market.
So in my opinion, fund managers are here to stay.
But yeah, we're seeing a trend slowly
towards the direction where people are more comfortable
making their own decisions.
But I just know how it is talking to family members of mine
and, you know, people don't have time to sit with us all day.
So that's for me.
Awesome.
Yeah, some great points we've highlighted
on the show here so far.
Fantastic speakers.
Please do give all of them a follow here.
Absolutely incredible information
and a great topic of discussion here today.
And if you have questions,
please drop down them below
if you have any questions you want to ask
to any of our guest panel.
Matt, I see your hand up there.
Yeah, so I wanted to talk about passive investment
because I think that there are some new products coming
which should be interesting for private investors,
which is many trading platforms,
they use AI to enable you to create your own ETFs
like you could on some training.
Yeah, okay.
I was just going to ask you about that
because in the EU, or not just here,
in fact, globally now,
a lot of these like cool kids platformers,
I call them, you know, Robin Hood or whatever.
There's a lot of what we call robo-advisors or robo-investing.
Even now on Trading 212, I see a lot of these social pies that people are creating
and doing really well, some of them actually as well.
And they're independent or I don't know behind the scenes, obviously.
Some of them could be professional, you just never know.
Yeah, we love your take on this.
And also with EU, people are generally a bit more conservative so the whole etf versus inactive fund
yeah so uh yeah so so it's it's becoming possible now that you can you can program you can say i
want european stocks i want uh ai infrastructure i want AI infrastructure, and it should only be this or that, geography
or something like that.
So you can get created your own ETFs.
And I think it's interesting because if you look at the sort of the passive investment
structure, I think that was something that emerged in the zeros, where the business model was that you provided diversification for a fee.
That was something that a private investor couldn't do.
And you could do it as a fund.
You could provide an index tracker or something like that.
So that really created a lot of value.
But now you have these new tech-enabled trading platforms
that just provides you with the tools to get diversification without the fees.
So I think that there will be just a new border in that business model.
be just a new border in that business model.
And I think when you look to active fund managing, I think these new platforms will also create
possibilities in active management because you reduce the trading fees, et cetera, by
these platforms.
So you'll see new strategies emerging.
You'll see more math.
That's what we are doing using math of optimization of the fund
because you have access to lower cost trading.
So I think a lot of innovation is going to come into this space. Yeah, and you have
platforms like eToro where you have a lot of people innovating on it, popular investors,
et cetera. And I think that will come a lot of that and there'll be a lot of competition for
the incumbents in the space. Yeah, some exciting stuff uh coming onto these brokerages who i think they
might be giving a run for their money against some of these fund managers as well i think it's
very exciting competitive obviously um and yeah i i would like to ask natna actually like
for your experience um if i guess for europeans we always own a bit more ETFs.
Has that been the case for the US side?
What's their appetite risk on the US side generally?
That is actually a great question.
So in the US, we are seeing popularity in QQQ and SPY, which are ETFs.
Those have been like the top two.
Previously, many years ago, it was the FAANG ETF, F-A-N-G.
It was heavy on tech.
I believe it was Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google.
But ETFs are still a narrative on this side as well.
Yeah, because some people worry that too many assets in index funds could, could say,
distort the markets in some ways. But as a fund manager, do you see any real risks from ETF boom
for, I guess, European stocks or the US stocks? In my opinion, I don't, I don't, but I definitely
can see why some people do think that, right? Especially when we have a whole bunch under one roof, I think that that might be a little risky. But I think overall, we're seeing a lot of investors really like that. They really gravitate towards that versus the single stock.
Absolutely. Love that. Thank you.
Joe, I see your hand up there.
Yeah, I wanted to build on what NatNet was driving towards
with the popularity of ETFs.
I remember one day, I have a mentor that used to be a commodities trader,
and we were talking about the ETF space and stuff like that.
And it's amazing because if you walk down the street and you ask somebody what
they're trading, they're not going to be like, Oh, I got a Paris trade on them short wheat and
long soybeans. You know what I mean? They're going to be like, Oh, I have, I have the S and P I have
the Dow. I have a bit of Apple, maybe like, it's very rare. You'll hear an individual name. And if
you do, it's a big tech name or, or something like Walmart, something like Costco that they use
every day, Procter and Gamble. Right. They take the idea of maybe it's the company, the car that they drive, right?
But that is good because when it's good, it's great, right?
But that kind of passive buying does provide a sort of inflation to the prices that might
not always be earned.
And what I mean by that is if you're just constantly turning on the flows, like, of course, you're going to have
some sort of appreciation in the asset. But that's why something like gold or just like other
commodities like that, like I said, like, right, or pear tree and wheat and soybeans or whatever
it might be. Those are more actively tradable because those markets don't have that passive
flow all the time. That's kind of what I wanted to articulate.
You could take a look at the difference in the price action
and you could clearly see who has control of that market.
That was one thing that I wanted to articulate
because ever since I heard him explain it to me like that,
it changed the way that I look at charts.
Like is it just zombie buying or is it that real size is accumulating position in it?
That's actually, sorry, Eva, do you mind if I just jump in?
Yeah, go for it. became, you know, ETF. I think Bloomberg put out an amazing article on the amount of money
from retailers that were flowing into ETF and index funds. So I think these are going to get
more popular as time goes by versus fading away, in my opinion.
Absolutely. I can't remember the statistics. Maybe Jonathan could help me out here or if one of you guys might know. Apparently, there are actually quite a bit of ETFs more so over here than the US and also catching up to equity names as well. That's been sort of the hot buzz recently, sort of the last three, four months there. Mads, I see your hand up there. Could enlighten me maybe? Yeah. Yeah, no, I was, it was on the passive investment, just another point. I
think that one of the things that has really created a lot of passive investment is that that being market cap weighted has been the great trade for just like 10, 15 years.
When we came out, I think it was around 2013, something like that, the Max 7 and these stocks,
they became big enough to start lifting the Nasdaq. And ever since that, the cloud migration building on the internet boom has been the
carrying technological development. And therefore, being index investing, just being market cap
weighted has been the successful trade for that many years. And I think what we're seeing now is there is some question marks to be
raised about that, whether because we have a new technology, technological wave, we have AI,
and it's not given that all of the previous winners will be winners in the next AI wave.
So we could see maybe something like the zeros, where we have a decade where being market cap weighted, just well diversified market cap weighted will not be a successful way of being exposed to the markets.
argument for active management, that you need to go for some of the smaller, new upcoming
technology companies, the next fans of the AI era.
Yeah, absolutely there.
What do you guys think about bonds?
There's always been that, you know, they feel like the old school is dying there, but I
don't think so.
I always think that the bond trader seems to control the market.
That's the trader's mindset there.
Yeah, I mean, I could jump in on bonds.
I'm quite bullish on long-term US treasury bonds at the moment.
They're just down 40% versus everything else.
So in March 2020, when we had the COVID crash in stocks and everything
um everything dropped crypto stocks um but that's when the TLT ETF uh peaked and since then it's
down uh 40 and everything else is up massively and looking at the technicals it just looks
personally good to me so I just sort of jump in on that with the bonds.
I think the 60-40 bond portfolios obviously haven't done very well.
And that's the traditional advice that everyone gives you in the finance world.
But maybe we get a turnaround in that on the bond side.
Because whatever TLT is doing right now, the NASDAQ and everything else looks to be doing the opposite.
So perhaps the diversification aspect of bonds does prove useful over the coming years, because it hasn't really in the past five years.
I do think it went up. Sorry again, Yvonne.
No, I was going to ask you you what's your take on that because i i've i'm personally
me i stay away from bonds but that's just my my own thing because i have a higher risk appetite
but yeah go for it yeah so tlt i think when it's ready we're getting there right based on the on
the technical jonathan i think once once all signs ever go I think TLC could be a good investment because it has been on a downtrend, like you said, for many, many years.
And oftentimes when you see these assets go down for so long,
usually the upward move tends to be a little aggressive.
So that play could be a good one.
Yeah, absolutely there.
Let's see if I have any more questions here.
Yeah, I'm watching the yields now in Europe like a hawk and the US 10 year.
Yeah, so it's going to be interesting.
If you look on it from like a fiscal dominance regime kind of perspective,
the 10-year might be a little bit unattractive at the moment,
but I've seen accumulation there.
So yeah, it's going to be interesting to follow.
I won't make any major decision on that yet.
I will just watch it.
Yeah, some important factors there to mix in the portfolio there. Go for it, Nat-Nap.
Yeah, so one thing I kind of did want to mention before we close the show, Eva, I think is when
some, for example, a retail trader, when they're getting into stocks or they're buying for the first time,
I think it's important to understand as well the importance of having cash available, right? I
think there's a common misconception right now in the retail world that everyone goes all in
all at the same time, right? I think the best strategy for that would be knowing how and when
to ladder in, right? Have an entry position,
have your little foot soldiers and then build on that as we go, right?
And keeping a percentage of cash aside,
especially as the market continues
and the volatility increases,
having cash on the side or cash on hand
is always the best idea.
So no yellowing, everyone.
Don't yellow at once.
Yeah, absolutely. I think laddering is uh or you know basically buying a little bit here don't buy all of it at once for those who are non-traders
and you are investors um make sure you know you always have a bit of dry powder some cash on the
side as always um yeah i think this is the the great narrative to investing is always
you know have enough cash on hand but also know your risk so don't invest in things you cannot
afford to lose of course um there is another thing for a question here i had a dm are european
regulators and platforms making it easier or harder for retail investors to use ETFs compared with the US?
Just because of our regulation.
Of course, Europe, we can't buy QQQ or SPY.
We have to go through other avenues as well.
And do drop your questions down below.
Go for it, Mads.
Yeah, I think the intentions are really good. It's a highly regulated space.
It's very regulated what you can say and what you can't say.
You can't show your performance in an ad or something like that.
You have to be very cautious about what you say. And it's kind of good for
consumers because they don't get drawn into something by a really good ad. But it's also
a downside because it's hard to get really good information where you can sort of compare the funds. And I think the result is that sometimes what matters more for a fund is distribution channels
and not so much really how good is the product.
So I think in many ways, and it's making it very hard for competition to emerge.
In my fund, we use a lot of energy on regulatory aspects to make sure we do everything right
and we don't say the wrong thing, we have the right disclaimers, etc.
And in an ideal world, we would be using that energy on creating value for our investors. So it's a
double-edged sword. I don't have any solution, but I think it favors the incumbents when there
is a lot of regulation. And I think that's just the general across all businesses that
it's difficult for new good products to get the consumer's eye
when there's heavy regulation.
Yeah, that's a very interesting take on that.
Jonathan, what are your views on this?
Well, just with the regulatory side, I mean, in the UK.
So, I mean, I started a crypto fund back in 2018. That was a lot of work with the regulator.
But just looking at income shares now, I mean, one of the things that's different in Europe,
that's different from the US. So we wanted to launch single stock ETFs. But because of usage
rules in the EU, you can't actually do that. You have to do it in an
exchange-traded product, which is essentially a different kind of instrument under the regulator.
So there's little things like that that you have to be aware of. A lot of these income products
have just taken the ETF strategy from US and then put that into a wrapper and then done it in a usage
fund with diversification rules and things like that. But yeah, I mean, that was something that,
especially for income shares, we had to be aware of when we're trying to launch a single stock
options ETPs because they're not an ETP or an ETF because they're not diversified so they
can't be an ETF so just just something that came to mind on that I love that yeah absolutely great
insights there on the regulation it's so heavy over here I have a question from the audience
not quite sure the question's constructed right but it says from Andre AI will review
the small companies and
determine if they are feasible and have growth over the long term and the smallest denom is the
closest to zero uh yield is giving your money for a fixed return based on the corp locality etc
but would you want to place your bet there. What are you guys' thoughts on that?
I think he's trying to say that the AI companies will be reviewed.
Well, AI itself will review the company's performance, I guess.
Yeah, go ahead, Mats. I know you're more the testers there.
Yeah, go ahead, Mats.
I know you're more the test there.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
So when you're trying to predict the future,
I think the system gets very chaotic very quickly.
Like if you want to estimate a tech company some years out,
their performance will depend on what the management decides in a month from now.
They're in a critical decision. Should they go this technological roadmap or this technological
roadmap? And they'll talk to advisors and they have boardroom decisions. And really, the technological
winners in five years, it'll be the companies that made the right choices in these situations. But there is no AI that can really predict that.
It's a stochastic process.
It's a random process.
So I guess if you had all the data in the world,
you could simulate the world.
Like if you have knowledge of every atom in the world,
you would know the weather on
Christmas Eve six years from now. But we will never get there. And I don't think we'll get
there with businesses as well. And I think there'll be a lot of information that you don't know that
it's important. Right now you're building this company, but there is this guy in China who's starting a
company now. So it's not data now, but in one year, two years, that will be the company that takes
your company down. So yeah, I don't think there's any way of getting good estimates on just a
reasonable timeframe. Inside tech, I think two, three years out,
then it's really, really difficult. And maybe if you analyze beer producers like Heineken,
then it's not so variant as tech companies, but I still think the same applies.
but I still think the same applies.
Yeah, Cam, go for it.
I see your hand up there.
Did you want to talk to me?
Yeah, it's one of those things that's on a lot of people's minds at the moment,
especially with the impact that AI is going to have.
So Trini's article from the other week is probably a great representation of,
you know, the masses, you know, over multiple billions of dollars
sold out of US markets.
Every news outlet said, oh, it was to his his letter that dropped on substack you know a view
of 2028 it was unbelievable um very very quick to dismiss the funds positioning now and that they're
actually very bullish on the ai space leading into the end of this year um but instead so
sold the news and sold the headline.
Yeah, so also people are, it's on a lot of people's minds, they're trying to think about this, but
ultimately, we're just going to have to wait and see and keep up with the updates. As Mads just
said, it's the things, things are going to look so much different in five years time. The fight,
the world of finance and technological developments are going to look worlds apart of what how they do today I absolutely agree I mean look at what Claude and all these AI
companies of anthropic and open AI just battling against each other right and even Google is now
eating everyone's lunch and of course when I do business myself so you cannot absolutely
determine that future because there's far too many
variables in a business in itself. As you say, Mads, that new business in China that started
two years ago could out-trump everyone else who's been in business for the last 10 years.
Look at some of these old school SaaS games. Look, software is a great example right now. They're
getting crushed, right? Oracle and all these guys did not see that one coming. And these guys have been in the game for, what, 20, 40 plus 50 years, some of them.
And they're absolutely being taken out by the new kids.
So I've actually just invited Andre up on the stage.
If you wanted to actually clarify your question and welcome to the Wolf EU.
Thank you. Yeah. So I think it was just on many a point.
So I was making mention of a few things,
just talking on the bonds portion, right? If you're going to trade as an individual,
right, bonds are always, you know, traditionally supposed to be a part of a portfolio.
But, you know, I feel like on a grander scale, if we're talking about,
you know, hundreds of millions of dollars, that is going to pay off better for a, let's say,
non-living individual person than it would an insurance company or, you know, locality, et cetera, right? On an individual level, it's almost similar to,
although not exactly, putting money into a CD, right? Those percentage yields vary,
but as an individual, would you prefer if you have a set amount of capital, whether that be 5 million, 10 million, 20 million, right?
Not hundreds of millions of dollars. I would prefer growth over that, right?
So again, I think AI will ultimately detect over time, and it's not here yet but you made mention of um ai coming into the space to
detect kind of growth companies that might be successful but i'll just end on i'm a hardcore
bitcoiner and have been since 2013 so but i do like finance i've worked in finance for the last
17 years before putting my job.
Awesome.
Thank you so much, Andre, for your perspective there.
And yeah, just getting that question over in regards to the bonds there.
Absolutely awesome.
Does anyone have anything in terms of last remarks for the show? I think this is a good showcase of why managed money is not a bad idea because there's a lot
of different opinions and for the average retail investor it's not easy to follow and understand
all of this stuff so yeah that's just my remark awesome yeah absolutely and if you want
to obviously re-listen to this space because there's a ton of information we've covered
please do retweet and give all of our lovely speakers here a follow nat nat yeah just closing
with remarks about another amazing show you guys are really really doing it with these tuesday and
thursday show for real and you you guys consistently gather up amazing panelists today.
It was a really, really great one.
I even took some notes on my end as well.
So thank you so much for having me.
Yeah, absolutely.
Wolf EU, we're trying to bring, you know,
topics that are, you know, great conversations.
I'm trying to deviate away a little bit from the US
because I know those guys have,
you guys have it all covered there.
Jonathan, love to hear your remarks. Yeah, well, thanks for hosting this. I thought it's been a
very good conversation. Just one thing to wrap up, I think a point to make, I guess, you know,
the argument of active management, running your own investment portfolio versus getting
professional advice. I think one thing to factor in also is
that if you are going to run your own portfolio and run the money yourself, that's completely fine.
But it is a full-time job. So some people can earn money through their job a lot better than
they can by managing investments. So it's about opportunity costs. So for example, if you're a
doctor or a lawyer and you make money from that and you earn a really good salary, then you're better off just taking that money and giving it to an advisor or
someone who can manage your risk, know your goals, know your risk tolerance and things like that.
But if you're someone who has a lot of money, and they have the ability to watch the market to
spend time on spaces to, you know on x trade the charts read the news um
or after the news let's say um then it's then it then it is worth um you know potentially managing
your own investments because that is where you can have an edge um so just wanted to touch base
on that because i think that's an important distinction um what is your full-time job and where's your time as a person most optimally used uh to build your wealth over time
one thousand percent um I see this as the same perspective as I don't have time to clean I'm
just going to hire a cleaner because your value in time is better off spent making more money
that's the simplest analogy I can come up with on that i just can't think of anything else to say uh someone had their hand up there is it joe
or cam yeah that was me i just wanted to uh touch on something that um we thought we spoke about the
medallion fund we spoke about citadel we spoke about um of course nanas from merrill lynch but
um if anybody wants to check out a big really really big European market making firm, they're in the Quantitavia space as well.
Check out Optiver.
I don't have any sort of affiliation with them, but they're a Dutch company, right, to keep it on theme.
And they're great.
They're great. They do a lot of really cool business.
They do a lot of really cool business.
Yeah, awesome.
Yeah, awesome. Cam?
Cam?
Yeah, we talked about a lot of pros and cons,
but I don't think tactics came up in this conversation.
You could really screw yourself if you do that wrong.
So that's probably going to be my closing note.
After everything that we talked about over the last hour and 10 minutes,
we've not even touched on the topic of taxes.
So it just goes to show
you know this is this is like jonathan said a very much a full-time job absolutely it's been
a heck of a show because we'll definitely revisit this same topic later and uh elaborate more on
this but look who just showed up nft cookie welcome hey guys apologies for the tardiness um unfortunately a real world life
uh called um as an advisor i'm dealing with a client who's just had to go through a bereavement
so i've kind of had to deal with uh the advice side of things which i think was the main reason
for this space in the first uh in the first place, I've been dealing with the very real impact of what I do on a day to day basis.
So, again, apologies for not attending before now.
Hey, it's all good.
In fact, we have a little bit of time for those who can stay.
If you want to share your experience, I know it's been a very difficult.
So it's very difficult side and subject, obviously obviously, that's if you're open to sharing.
But we've talked a lot about active fund management versus non-fund.
What is your take on this and from your experience?
I'm a big active funds guy when it comes to sort of hands off for clients, I genuinely do believe that most fund managers want to outperform where they can, whether or not they do or not, it's a different matter.
But I think putting your hands in your money into the hands of an active fund manager can work for clients that don't necessarily want to build portfolios or really sort of get close to it.
The majority of the funds that we have under management for
our clients, for example, they're in multi-asset, multi-manager funds, very much a case of just
risk rate the funds with the client, make sure it's appropriate and put them on autopilot and
then review every sort of three, six months to make sure they're ticking the boxes.
ETFs have their place, single assets have their place.
I think for more sophisticated investors
where we will build portfolios for them,
but the majority of the clients that sort of require advice
and need advice, they tend to be the ones
that you can put in sort of actively managed funds
and have them actually working for the money
rather than just tracking market performance
and being at the whim of the markets. Yeah I think as we all mentioned I know you missed the show but
yeah I just keep hearing like obviously ETFs has been a lot more appearance lately especially in
Europe and also European equity has outperformed US, guys. Did you know that?
So that's always very interesting to get other exposure.
And from your perspective, is that a choice helping or confusing a lot of everyday investors
if more and more ETFs are coming onto the market?
I think those that aren't within the advice sphere,
I think it could probably be seen as overwhelming.
There are so many different ETFs for people to be picking from,
so many different sectors for them to be picking from,
which there's no advisor worth their salt that should be sat there
and saying that they can build a proper portfolio
and build the portfolio or pick the funds
because they'll get it wrong at some
stage. Neil Woodford was a really, really example of someone that did very well for a short period
and was seen as a messiah and then his fund went bang. So we can't get it right all the time. So
diversifying for clients is typically the route that we take and it removes some of the aggravation of them sort of needing to sort of
really get their head under it and trying to figure out what it is they want to invest in.
We just go risk ranked and we build from there. What we do find though over time is more sophisticated
that a client becomes, they get used to the idea of having funds, they do start branching out into
various little ETFs and taking their own investment decisions,
which we actively promote.
We want our clients to mature.
We don't want them just to blindly trust
that we put them in the right place.
Yeah, absolutely.
It looks like we have some awesome fund managers
and people who are expertise in their fields here
looking out for you here.
Only the best on the show.
I think that's
pretty much all we have time for i'm afraid for today and we'll be back with our usual trading
show here at 9 20 eastern in about an hour we'll take a quick short break we'll definitely be
coming back to revisit this so i actually do want to get a few more other fund managers who
wasn't able to show up today like cash flowflowKing and all the other crypto guy as well.
Nat Nat, Jonathan, Joe, Alex, Andre, also thank you for showing up.
Cam, I know Mads had to jump off as well.
I want to thank you all so much for your time today.
And all of our lovely listeners, do give them all a follow.
Incredible speakers.
And you might even have a few more questions after listening to the show.
So I would love to hear more and drop your questions down below. So to do that, do retweet
the space so we can come back and revisit those questions for the next show. Yeah, I think that's
all we have. You guys are rock stars in what all you do. I've also pinned in the nest here,
Jonathan's article as well from Income Shares
that you guys can give a little bit of read
and do a bit of research
so to come back to that you have to retweet
the show otherwise you can't see it
so you can also bookmark it as well
apart from that have a fabulous
day guys the sun is shining over here
and good morning
to the US folks
thank you all have a good one thank you thanks Ibran shining over here and good morning to the US folks.
Thank you all.
Have a good one. Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Thanks everyone. Bye.
