Best Investing Podcasts: 7 Episodes, One Money Rule Each

Kevin O'Leary says the math is not the hard part, on the captions: "the hardest part of that is the discipline it takes to decide that you're going to put aside 10 or 15% every week." you do not need to pick stocks. "You just buy an index."

the tactic: automate the saving, then cap the risk. diversification, he says, "It's the only free lunch in investing." his rule for stocks and bonds: "No more than 20% in any one sector." and "no more than 5% in any one stock or bond". the free play on his Podex page is his founder number: build $5 million in cash-like T-bills before anything fancy, because "Liquidity with wealth is actually a superpower." you can start with a much smaller floor.

try this week: set up an automatic weekly transfer of 10% of your pay into a broad index fund. then list what you already own and mark anything over 5% of the total in one stock or over 20% in one sector.

the best money rule in this episode is borrowed. one host retells advice that founder Syed Balkhi got from his mentor, on the transcript: "you only spend the second derivative." if you make a hundred grand, "that's not the pool you can spend from." you invest it, and what it earns is your fun money. "you don't get to upgrade your lifestyle" beyond that.

the tactic: lifestyle upgrades come only out of investment returns. it sounds tiny at first. but each year's income adds to the pile, and after five to seven years, the host says, the gains alone can carry your lifestyle. the other host's simpler version: "my annual budget is less than 3% of my liquid net worth".

try this week: write down two numbers: what you earn in a month and what your investments earned last year. the next upgrade you want (new car, bigger flat) has to fit inside the second number. if it does not, it waits.

Mohnish Pabrai calls the rule of 72 a very important rule, on the transcript: "It tells us how long it takes money to double." divide 72 by your yearly return. "If I have a 10% return, it will take 7 years." at 7%, about 10.

the tactic: think in doublings, and only take bets with a small downside. his most important principle: "heads I win, tails I don't lose much." about how he, Bill Gates, Sam Walton and Richard Branson started: "If they won, they would win big, and if they lost, they'd lose nothing." so before a big upside, check the floor: what do you lose if you are wrong?

try this week: write your real yearly return after fees and divide 72 by it. that is how many years each doubling takes. then pick your next money move and write one line: if this goes wrong, I lose ___. if the blank scares you, shrink the bet.

Acquired walks through what Bogle later called the "cost matters hypothesis", on the transcript. Ben's math: if the market returns 7% and you pay 1% in fees, "that's actually 1/7th of your gains that you are giving up". his spreadsheet: $100,000 at 25, 40 years at 7%. with a 1% fee along the way, "Instead of $1.5 million, you end up with $1 million."

the tactic: treat every fee like a negative return that compounds. fees look small because they are quoted per year. they are not small over 40 years. Vanguard's answer was structural: its fund investors own it, so lower fees serve the owners. Bogle's line for it was "Strategy follows structure." the free play on the Podex page is about that structure.

try this week: list every fund and account you pay for, with its yearly fee (the expense ratio). mark anything near or above 1%. for each one, look up a low-cost index fund that covers the same market and write down the difference.

Sam met an investor who sold his company and now buys public stocks. per the hosts, he beat the S&P 500 in 11 of 12 years. the surprise, on the transcript: "he only made 2.9 decisions a year." Sam's confession: "We move a lot. And we oftentimes mistake movement with progress."

the tactic: do the work up front, then wait for your price. the investor's own process, as Sam reads it out: "I study a few things that I can understand." "I keep very detailed notes." he liked one company for months but found it expensive. when the chance came and "it got cheap enough, I bought it that day." the hosts add a premortem: write down what could go wrong before you commit.

try this week: pick three businesses you understand. start one note per business: what it does, why you like it, what could go wrong, and the price you would pay. then make no trades this week. just watch.

Howard Marks does not forecast. he checks the temperature, on the transcript: "where we stand in the cycle determines what probably is going to happen and how likely it is". his checklist from his first book asks plain questions. is the market rising? are investing TV shows popular? "If an investor goes to a cocktail party, is he mobbed or shunned?"

the tactic: know where you are, and avoid losers instead of chasing winners. at Oaktree, "we go for fewer losers, not more winners." his line on his favorite restaurant doubles as a goal: "Always good, sometimes great, never terrible." he also says each investor should pick a normal risk level on a scale from 0 to 100 and stay near it most of the time.

try this week: answer his checklist questions in one line each: is the market rising or falling, are investing shows popular, do people around you talk about stocks at parties. then write your normal risk number from 0 to 100, and check your mix against it.

Jeremy Grantham's warning is about incentives, not dates, on the transcript: "you will not receive the advice from investment advisors to get your tail out of the market, ever." telling clients to sell is bad business. so: "Look at the data. A bubble is not hard to see."

the tactic: diversify first, then judge prices yourself. asked what an ordinary saver should do, he starts with: "rule number one is always be diversified." for him that means some bonds, some cash and a little precious metal next to stocks. he compares today's price-to-earnings multiple with the 15 to 17 he calls normal. that is his view, not a timing signal we can promise you.

try this week: look up the current price-to-earnings ratio of your main index and write it next to his 15 to 17. then check that what you own is not 100% one asset type or one country. if it is, write down one change you would make.