🚨URGENT: The $2.4 Trillion AI Infrastructure Reset 📈

0:00 Welcome back everyone. I am happy for today's show because we've got Nolan from Investing Simplified joining us. He and I had posed some questions out on our communities and some of you had come back with some really strong questions which we're going to cover. But before we jump in, I would love for Nolan just to give us kind of a quick introduction about himself. >> Yeah, for sure. Thanks, Brian. I'm excited to be here. Excited to answer some of those questions. My name is Nolan. On my channel, people call me Professor G. Also, in real life, people call me Professor G. I am a university professor. I specialize in finance and entrepreneurship. In my academic world, I uh really really focus on finance specifically. My MBA was in finance, PhD um centered around finance and strategy. But in my life outside of the uh

0:48 academic world, I've owned a couple of businesses, 10 businesses so far, and sold a couple of them. Still own a couple of them. Um, but what I found was that even owning a business and even going through the academic world of learning so much finance, you really don't learn about how to manage your money. And so I dove super deep into um the world of, you know, what's going on out there, the different types of ways to invest, all of those different things. And I really found that it's way more complicated than it needs to be. And so I made my channel to help people. And I'm glad that I met Brian because Brian's doing the same thing. And so I'm excited to help make things a little bit simpler in this world of finance for everybody. >> That's fantastic. I had no idea you had that many businesses. That is

1:34 aggressive. >> Yeah, most of my businesses most of my businesses were in the world of health and fitness. That's kind of what I was all about growing up. Sports, I competed at the highest level in a couple different sports and I still do jiu-jitsu often. And so, uh, that's that's where my first love was. but uh helping people with their journey in fitness and now I just love that I get to help people with their journey in financial fitness. All right, I'm going to quickly frame this up. So, what we have is I have a set of questions. I'm going to be old school in this one. I'm going to have them on a paper copy so I can literally read through them to make sure that I have it correctly said as people had asked them. Now, we had done an o older video like a month ago where he and I, Nolan and I had been on a video pretty much a different set of questions. highly recommend you check

2:21 out that video because a lot of the stocks and the ETFs we talked about are actually doing very well today. So, there's a lot of gold nuggets to be found there. So, u highly recommend it. But what we're going to do is I'm going to walk through the questions. I'm going to have Nolan kind of give us his response. Hey, and if I have anything to share on top of it, I will. We'll see how it goes. All right. So many investors, they they want the growth exposure, but they're really split between the broad growth ETFs and of course sector ETFs and then a handful of high conviction stocks. This was a theme that really surfaced. So from a portfolio construction standpoint, how do you think about combining these so that investors participate in that long-term growth without accidentally overconentrating or even doubling up on a lot of the same risks? >> Man, what a good question. Uh, and I saw

3:07 a lot of those types of questions. So, I'm glad that we're hitting that. You know, first and foremost, whenever I'm talking with somebody about their portfolio, I have to understand their risk tolerance. So, I'd like to know how how much risk can this person handle? I also want to put in my own spin and understand, you know, where are they in their life cycle? If they tell me they can be very, very risky, but they're 70 years old and don't have an income anymore, I'm going to say I don't know if risk is your best bet. So, let's let's tone that down a little bit. But all that to say, the reason why I'm trying to understand their risk is because each one of those that you just laid out has a higher risk score or is more volatile, right? So, if we're talking about a broad growth ETF, something like the NASDAQ 100, maybe QQQM or SCHG is in growth, that's going

3:56 to be, you know, more aggressive than maybe the S&P 500 or a value ETF, but comparatively to something like an individual technology stock or even just a sector specific technology ETF, it's not as risky. And so for the most part, generally for most people, I'm going to suggest that people have more of their growth portion in that broad growth just because that gives them a little bit more downside protection in the event of some type of a drop in the market, but they still receive that upside. I mean, QQQM on good years goes up 50%, 40%. That's great great appreciation for any portfolio, right? the deeper you get into the the sectors, right? If we look at it like a funnel, like the top of the

4:42 funnel might be a broad growth and that's QQQM. Then a little bit more risky but higher upside would be a sector specific ETF like SMH for semiconductors or VGT for specifically technology. I'd say that's a bit more risky, but you could get more upside. VGT on average for the last 10 years has gotten over 20% which is nuts uh per year. So I would say put a you know a smaller portion of that in there. And then last would be the individual stocks. And for most people I'm I'm very weary to even suggest individual stocks. I want them to do their research and I know how much research it takes to do it correctly. So for those people I'm going to say have that as a smaller portion. So if I were to give actual numbers, it

5:27 would be something like maybe 60% or so in the broad growth, 30% or so in the sector specific and maybe 10% in individual stocks. But what what are your thoughts, Brian? >> So I I am a completely different investor from you. I think people know that like I am super stockheavy only because I've done the due diligence. Like I started off with ETFs. I I walked slowly before I ran and then once I felt comfortable, I I recognized with the right amount of education that I could do very well with stocks. Fundamentally, you're spot on. And and I always get these questions and I kind of cringe because people want to know what they can do now. Should I have high risk or low risk? And I don't know unless I know your age, I know what your expenses are. Like there's so much backstory that

6:13 unless you have that, you you don't have a good understanding. So, that's where people need to kind of take a step back and say, "Look, where am I at in life? Where am I at?" Because you're right, a 70-year-old who says they're all for risk is kind of a a challenging uphill approach. Um, and not probably the the wisest, but same scenario. I'm stockheavy. But fundamentally, even how I invest is very similar to how you laid it out as far as I'm asymmetric. I am heavy on me the mega caps, the ones that I know are going to be my tried andrude, you know, companies that are just going to perform year-over-year because they're fundamentally strong. And then I whittle it down a little bit further where midcaps have a very smaller portion. And then my small caps that are more of my speculative, like I'm trying

6:59 to be fast forward on a lot of the technology, those are tiny. Like that is a very small percentage of my overall portfolio. And if you're a seasoned investor, that's my recommendation. If if you're new, absolutely your ETF breakout is how they should approach it. Now, some people take asymmetric with an odd sense. I'm just going to go off track quickly cuz I spoke to someone's son who is like 22 and he's going allin on extremely speculative stocks. he feels to get ahead he has to put in heavy in these areas which is not the smartest approach in my opinion just because I take calculated risk that is an uncalculated risk that I don't think people should take even if you think you're younger and you can take a lot of risk it still needs to be smart so if

7:46 you bank everything in these high-risisk areas if it goes down to zero can you can you run that out I mean that's that's a tough call to make so your your approach the way you laid it out I agree I just do it with stocks >> yeah No, and you're the way you do it because I've seen your approach and I know how educated you are and how deeply you research it is great for you and it's worked out very well for you. Um, and and just to just one thing to say on that that last piece, just because you can take risk doesn't necessarily mean you should, right? I get that a lot too. a lot of very young I mean I'm dealing with 18 to 22 year olds in the classroom and they tell me the kind of stuff that they're investing in and I'm like well yes you could invest in that and yes you could uh go all the way to zero but why why why why do we need to do that? See,

8:32 we saw a lot of questions about balancing ETFs versus the individual stocks, which is kind of tying what we just said, but especially for investors who believe in certain companies, but they don't want their outcomes tied to just one or two specific names. So, how do you decide what belongs in ETFs versus what earns a place as a standalone stock? >> That's a very hard one, and I think it really will be individual for each individual investor. anybody who's been doing it for longer than 10 years, we could probably all sit in a group and each one of us would have a different way of doing it, which I think is exactly, you know, that's the truth. That's just the way it is. I think in general though, one thing that I try to help people to do is understand what they're actually invested in, right? And one of the ways to do that is to go into your ETFs, like go to the actual ETF um

9:20 perspectus or just the website and see what are the top holdings, right? Um, I I'm not going to tell you to go look through if it's got a thousand stocks in there. Don't look at every single one of them. I mean, you can, but especially the top 10, top 20, that's usually the heaviest in the ETF and see what you have. And I mean, if you want to take it even further, what you would do is actually break that out. So, if you have $100,000 in this one ETF and it says 7% is in Nvidia, now you can write down, okay, I have $7,000 in Nvidia, right? and do that for each one of your ETFs to figure out how much do you actually have of each of these stocks because then when you go to uh do your research and you're like, "Okay, I have three or four stocks here that I'd like to add to the portfolio." If you add more Nvidia at

10:07 that point, you just have to understand you are oversaturating the portfolio with that one holding. And that's not necessarily a bad thing if you believe in it, right? I mean, Warren Buffett, uh, Charlie Mer, they'll say when you believe in something, go heavy in that. And I I tend to agree with that. But if you are looking for more diversification or more downside protection, you're more worried about the risk, the best thing you could do is spread that out just a little bit, especially in different sectors. Most people when I look at portfolios, they're very heavy in technology, very heavy in AI right now because that's the hot ticket. The problem with that is if we see a crash in that specific sector, a lot of portfolios are going to be hurting. So, I don't know if that answered the question well enough for you or maybe I'd like to hear what you have to say,

10:53 but for me, I start with the holdings, see what's in your ETFs, and then from there, you can see what holes you may have in your portfolio. Yeah, I I think that's a great approach. I'm going to I'm going to add a layer to that. So, one thing that even when I first started to research for my stocks, um, when I first made the shift from ETFs over, that's the approach I took. I looked at what are in the the top 15 holdings of all of these top ETFs for me. So, once I saw the theme, then I stopped and said, "Okay, if if I'm going to start to invest in individual stocks, I'm not going to pick some random one that's number 50 on the list. I'm going to probably pick from these top 15 because all of these extremely smart people have already invested in them thinking that's the right approach. So, if I'm going to be dollar cost averaging, if I'm going

11:39 to be adding more money to my account, I'm going to set aside, let's say, some money that I'm going to try to invest in stocks, I'm going to pick, in my opinion, those top winners. That's how I originally started where I said, "Okay, I don't even know how to buy a stock. What's involved? Like, what what are the different features?" Cuz there's like 10 clicks. Like there's so many features you can pick and you're like, do I take the market price? Do I take this price? Which one is it? It's a good way to get your feet wet as far as pick a tried andrude known company that's that's rocking it right now and you think they're going to have long-term longevity. For me, that was Apple. I think my first stock I bought was Apple because it was in the beginning hey days it was really booming and it was an easy win for me. Nvidia was one where I stood behind their chips. So thankfully I started investing in like 2010. So those

12:25 are small steps that you can take that aren't once again it's calculated risk. This is a simple way to get your feet wet. I don't recommend just picking randomly or some robot said this is going to be the top stock of the next 10 years unless it's in the top holdings of a lot of these ETFs. Why take that risk? So that's kind of my approach. Very similar just a different layer. >> Yeah. Yeah. And that that's actually a good point. I don't want to come off as saying that just because you do have a lot of Nvidia or Microsoft or something in these ETFs that you shouldn't put that into your portfolio. I agree with that. I think uh what I like to make sure people know is just knowing how much they actually hold. I think sometimes people are like, "Oh, wow. Actually, I already have like 15% of my

13:11 portfolio is already Microsoft. Like maybe I don't need more." Or, "Okay, I know that there's 15%, but I believe in this thing like there's no tomorrow." And I think not enough people do this. I have multiple accounts. I have my 401 accounts. I have my, you know, cash accounts. I have everything in a spreadsheet. I know that's ridiculous, but I don't want any one software system to to know what my holdings are. So, I have an old school spreadsheet where I I dump everything in there. I know what account it's in, and then I do a pivot table where it shows me, hey, this is what you hold in each one. So that to your point, I don't want to be buying any more Apple because Apple's the number one on all the ETFs that I do hold. So if I'm already hitting 10%. Unless I'm putting more money in those other ETFs at the same time, I want to keep that kind of capped at a certain

13:56 percent. >> And it's good to hear that there's still other people out there just doing it on a spreadsheet because that's how I do it as well. >> My viewers like go nuts over it because I'll I'll share some of my spreadsheets and then they get mad at me if I don't have a spreadsheet in a video. [laughter] all this talk about investments and it only makes sense that I should talk about a brokerage site that I've been using for years and that would be our sponsor Weeble where you can get access to commission free trading on stocks, ETFs, and options plus the applicable platform fees. And of course, Weeble isn't just about stocks. It's a comprehensive all-in-one platform. You can trade in over 70 cryptocurrencies, access future markets with extended hours and low intraday margin requirements, and even participate in event contracts, including sports events where you're trading market expectations

14:41 on realworld outcomes. Plus, your uninvested cash automatically earns up to 3.35% APY, at least during the time of this recording. The platform offers customizable charts, advanced indicators, and global investor communities where you can share ideas and follow the market sentiment. And here's the thing, Weeble is a publicly listed company regulated by the SEC and FINRA and a member of the SIPC, so your assets are protected. Feel free to check out the link down below to sign up for Weeble today. So, younger investors in particular, they're asking how aggressive they should be, whether sh they should lean heavily into growth stocks and ETFs early or still think about balance income and diversification. How should time horizon influence how much risk someone takes

15:27 and where that risk is expressed? Man, these are some great questions. I love it. I'm obviously going to lean a little more conservative, I think, than you will, but we'll see. generally will tell people that I personally Nolan I like a balanced portfolio. Um I like it for a lot of different reasons. I understand that the psychology of investing and the emotions in investing sometimes outweigh everything else. And so I've been through a couple of crashes. You've been through more crashes than I have. But what I've seen is the temperament of most people. Most people say that they can handle a 20%, 30%, whatever drop, but when it actually happens, we see so many so many people sell out of their

16:12 holdings at that point because it's scary. It's scary to see your portfolio go from 500,000 down to 300,000 in the matter of a couple of weeks. That is very emotional. And so what I don't want for people is for them to experience that. And so by having at least something in the portfolio that will keep their portfolio somewhat stable, so has a lower beta than the rest of the market, that's always my my hope for people. I also like the cash flow that you're going to receive through qualified dividends and something like an SCHD or even a VTV. Those are both value ETFs that invest in very recessionproof style companies, things where if we had a recession, people still need toilet paper. They still need gasoline. They still need to use their

16:58 financial institutions like a bank or something, right? So those types of ETFs I like as a portion of the portfolio, but to answer the question, for somebody who's younger or somebody who has more of a time horizon, they can weather storms. And so I don't want to make it so conservative that they don't get the upside. So for somebody who's, you know, I I don't know how old this um target person is, but let's just call them, you know, 25. I would say that 20% or so of the portfolio in something like an SCHD or a VTV, something safe but gives them a little bit of cash flow, qualified dividends, that's where I would go. And then I would have the vast majority of the the portfolio in something like the S&P 500 or the total US stock market and then have, you know, 30 or 40% that's

17:44 left over there in however much risk they feel like they can take. And that's where I would do the same idea that I was talking about from before. perhaps have some broad growth and some sector growth and then some individual companies there. That's kind of generally where I'd start. But then after talking with the person, if they want even more growth or they just feel like they understand a certain sector better, then maybe we would have a higher percentage of that in the portfolio. But generally, that's the the brass bones that I like to to start with. I think fundamentally you and I aren't going to differ too much. It's just my approaches tend to be a little different. risk is I think everyone understand it's kind of a pyramid on its side in the sense that like when you're younger like you've got a ton of risk that you can absorb meaning you've got time to make changes whereas when you

18:30 get older like your your your time horizon gets so tight that you shouldn't be taking unbalanced risk. So that's something that's on their side and it's all comes down to time. Time is equal to your risk tolerance in a lot of ways. It always differs by person, but the situation is uh I'm on board with what you're saying and it's similar to what we've already talked about. Your three fund portfolio that you typically talk about I think is spoton. If I were younger, Brian, at 22, I would I would put more into like a QQQM because I I know that I could then shift that over time. So, I'd probably do more like a 50% QQQM and then another 30% into the S&P 500 like a V and then probably CHD,

19:17 something that's got some quality, you know, dividends coming to it. I would just change that percentages over time. We can look back and see what did well. The reality is in another 20 years, maybe everything flips on its side and suddenly blue chips become the most important thing. So, you're not just tied to whatever you pick. You need to adjust over time. And I recommend that whoever's picking something and you're thinking of rebalancing, you need to do it mostly in a 401k. Don't think that you're going to be able to rebalance in a cashed account, meaning you've already paid your income taxes. You don't want to rebalance or change those. Those accounts you you need to kind of set it and forget it and walk away because you don't want to be able to, you know, sell something and then take the tax hit for it in that year. something I have to keep reminding people because they they kind of forget that if if you're going

20:02 to be doing something that needs changes, do it in an IRA. >> That's a that's a huge one right there. Uh retirement accounts versus your your taxable brokerage. For sure. One thing that I just want to highlight real quick is people are asking this these questions like um well if technology and growth and AI and all of this is going to get me something like 20 25 30% in in growth and I'm looking at these value ETFs and they're getting something like 5% 8% over these last 2 or 3 years then it's obvious I should go with the one that's growing the most right and that's that's a very very slipp slope. And so I just want to challenge that. I would I would hope that you guys would just go out and really research market cycles.

20:48 Look up just what has happened in the stock market. It has not always been technology or it has not always been whatever it is. There's actually a period of time about a 10-year period where SCHD, the purely value ETF, outperformed the S&P 500 for that whole period of time. And that's what happens. The cycles change and it makes sense. So, I just want you to know basically it all comes down to when it starts to just feel like you or or everyone around you knows exactly what to invest and it's the easy money. That's usually the beginning of the end. So, just be a little careful there. But other than that, I I think that investing in growth for the long term, especially if you have a 10-year horizon, great. I still think 10 years from now, that will have been a very smart move. I just think

21:34 there's going to be a couple years in there that are a little shaky, more than than we've seen. >> Yeah. Uh, and I I think something we could almost spend an entire episode on is is psychology. Like, if you're not psychologically built to absorb some of those downturns, you're in for a world of hurt. Because until you've seen your your portfolio cut in half, especially like I I'm heavy in stock, like I think 2021 or 2022, I can't remember which year, my portfolio dropped 40%. But I was okay with it because I knew what to expect. If unless you're built that way, it's it's going to be hard for you to to live through it because you're going to have that adverse reaction. You're going to be pumped up on all the the hormones that say sell sell. So, be prepared. That's all I can say. And if you're not, then play it safe. Like, why why take the risk? It's it's your entire life

22:21 savings. >> Exactly. Well said. >> All right. The next question is once investors do have their built positions whether through ETFs or the individual stocks many are struggling with what to do during big runups or draw downs without trying to time them time the markets. What frameworks really help decide when to add hold rebalance or even trim? I mean that that question is that is what just how do how do you invest like that that's a very big question. There are so many variables there for each individual person that that's a very tough one to answer. I would say generally um you know when to add right would be dependent on what you're investing into. If we're talking about something like the S&P 500, I always tell people on my

23:07 channel and I show people I am totally fine investing at literally the highest price ever. Like if today it's at the all-time high, I am 100% okay throwing money in there because it's literally sitting there for the next 30 years. And I've seen the charts. I've seen what's happened. And 30 years from now, I'm very confident that it will be much higher than it is today. Uh we hit new all-time highs 16 or 18 times in a year. Sometimes all-time high is great for today and then it keeps going, right? Um and yes, it does drop as well, but all that to say, it depends on what you're investing in. So now if we're talking about a very speculative stock like a small cap stock and it's gone up, you know, 70% in a week, I personally am not

23:52 going to be investing in that stock at that moment. I'm going to watch it because now I can see it has some legs. I want to understand why it went up. Is that something that's sustainable or is that just hype? and I'll watch it for a little while and then if it drops because of something that is not fundamentally wrong with the actual company, it's more so fear just in general, maybe we have a new tariff situation or whatever it may be and it just affected that uh sentiment, then that's the time that I would uh jump in on it. So, a lot of the data centers and things like that, it's they're very volatile right now and they move based off of the price of Bitcoin. Sometimes it moves off of the the whatif scenarios of what's going on in the rest of the world. And so sometimes they drop 30 or

24:38 40% and I'm just happy to scoop some of those up. It's again it's a very tough situation as far as how or when to invest. I think trimming is a is another very tough one. Um because say you have a very good stock like Nvidia and you bought it in 2010 and now it's worth you know 40% or something of your portfolio. uh it's continuing to run. It's a tough one to say, well, let's trim this for something that maybe isn't as uh the possibility of this new thing going up isn't as high. I don't know if that's best, but it just depends on your risk tolerance at that point. So, what do you think, Brian? I mean, I I can't disagree with it only because I mean, that's the sound approach. We kind of addressed this in our our last video, too, to some degree. I don't rebalance very often and

25:25 and it's only if one stock has a major runup and then I need to kind of like reel it in. Like Nvidia, I did I did sell some of it because it was just too much of my to total portfolio where I I just wasn't willing to take the risk if it collapsed one day. Like I'm I'm on seventh heaven because it's doing great, but I I not willing to let it crumble. So why wouldn't I balance it out? So I've lost a lot of profits by doing that. But I'm okay with it because that's my risk tolerance and that's what I feel happier about. In the same sense, I rarely just trim to trim. If I'm in a some speculative stocks, some some ones like the nuclear, the quantum, other of those, like I said before, if they're jumping up one 200% in a month or two, I'm going to take off my initial investment just to make sure, hey, what I originally put into it, I'm going to

26:11 take it aside because I don't want to lose any more than that. Those are really the only two reasons for me to really change. Otherwise, if there's something that's just a dying horse, it's just not going anywhere, then I need to look at, hey, is that money better suited going into these other investment areas? One for me, as an example, was Plug Power. I had plugged Power for a couple years, waiting for it to try to rebound, and I'm like, you know what? I know that these other stocks, these other areas are going to do really well. I need to shift it over here because it's just dead money for me. Now, that was a hard lesson to learn. Um, but those are the things you need to get more comfortable with, but you just have to think about the big picture. What is going to be able to do better for you. Don't do it just to do it. If you get into that mentality, then I think you're starting to be more of a

26:56 gambler than an investor. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well said. I I totally agree with that. I would also just, you know, push back on somebody asking when when should I trim this position or when should I get out of this stock or get out of this ETF or whatever. I would probably ask them what do the rest of your finances look like? like are you are you safe enough? Because it sounds to me like if these were to drop that would be an issue for you. Um and if that's the case then you probably don't have a fully funded emergency fund or you don't have things outside. So you're very worried because if this drops and you need the money you will absolutely lose money for me and it sounds like for you too Brian like it we can weather the storm because if something drops 20% I'm just not touching it. uh I have an

27:42 emergency fund. I I I've built different things outside so that I don't need to touch this. And so that's another thing to just keep in mind is sometimes uh the problem is not about the actual stocks or ETFs themselves, but more so around what else have you built as far as structure around your portfolio. There's the statistic, I don't know what it is, whether it's 30 or 40 or even higher, what the percentage is that people who can't weather even a $1,000 emergency today. So if if you're in that boat and you need to rely on that money that's being invested in the short term, then then yeah, you you need to think about that because you you're not prepared for what could happen. Once again, psychology. >> That's the theme today. >> Yeah. Right. This is great. I really enjoy this this conversation and I love the fact that we don't align 100%

28:28 because we're very different in in scheme, but that's okay. I think what people want to see that too. >> I would agree. I think that it's boring if we're we're all investing the same way. The next question is there's growing interest in diversification bei beyond just traditional equities things like gold commodities international exposure and real assets. How do you think about incorporating those into a growthoriented portfolio without diluting returns or turning the portfolio overly defensive? Another good question and another very specific situation question. Um, again, if we're talking about that 70-year-old individual who has no income coming in and is living purely off of their investments, I am big on diversification at that point because we just never know, right? We can look at market averages, we can look at what's done

29:14 well for 10 years, 20 years, but even though we know the S&P 500 has done well generally over its lifetime, then we have a year like last year where international markets totally beat the US markets, right? And so by having a portion of the portfolio in some international equities that just spreads out some risk also lets you um partake in something that's happening geographically uh diverse places right and so for somebody like that I would say yeah at this point when you have built up the capital already then that's good but if we're talking about a growth portfolio we want to understand what each of those assets actually do right so something like gold last year was an anomaly last year uh it went up like crazy. Do not expect that to happen

30:01 every year. It could actually happen this year. It started off super strong this year, but in general, if you look at the life cycle of gold, it appreciates basically at the same rate as like real estate. It's not supposed to be something that gets you rich or or is pure growth. It's more so there as a store of value to help beat inflation a little bit. And it is a good store of value, but again, it's more diversification, not necessarily pure growth. The growth engine that's going to get you that 15% or 20% type um returns. So to hold gold in the portfolio is smart for diversification. It will be a little more defensive. So it may, you know, pull on the opportunity cost a little bit there. Um,

30:46 so what I like to look at is what are other asset classes that have that possibility of growing a little bit faster, right? That that would probably be more in the speculative markets. Maybe Bitcoin, maybe Ethereum, you know, even small cap stocks or companies that haven't yet matured and they can grow like crazy, right? Those are more so what I would be looking at, but just like I talked about at the beginning of this and so as Brian, a smaller portion of the portfolio would be allocated to something like that. So that that's kind of how I think about it. I just know the numbers and I know that getting a very solid 10 to 12% return on your portfolio year after year after year and continuing to throw money into it grows much more than people think. But I know why the question is there is how can I

31:33 get 30% this one year? So you're right. It's a nearly impossible question to answer. And the fact that they they're looking to be defensive, that's good, but it's a personal choice. Like what what what is your time horizon? Where where do you need to be as far as defensive? I know that once I start hitting my 60s, I'm going to become very defensive. My my portfolio is going to completely change because I know that within X number of years, I'm going to start pulling from this and I want it to be consistent. Right now, I know that I have that 15 years to work with. So, it's one of those where, hey, it's the psychology of where you're at in your life, and you need to to validate what what you want. But if you want growth, there's safety in growth, too. I wouldn't go all in into one speculative

32:18 area. Even if it is gold, yes, gold had a great last year. It's probably going to have a very strong year this year, as well, just because I think dollar erosion is happening and other countries are going to want to pull into gold. So, yes, it might have a fantastic year this year, too. But stock valuations, gold valuation, all these things happen because supply and demand. People get behind it or there's fear. Gold acts just like other assets. It goes down as well as it goes up. >> Well said. Well said. I couldn't agree more. >> Next question. All right. A lot of viewers, they keep asking this. Oh my gosh. And it's so hard to keep up with it. What's the top pick stock or the top ETF heading into 2026? Valuations are sky-high. They're higher than they've been in a long time. Um volatility feels

33:04 also quite higher with geopolitical changes and everything else happening with that backdrop like and with technology moving so fast right now. Who's the next palunteer or the next top ETF? What what are your thoughts? Oh, I hate this question. [laughter] This is the question always, right? This is one that I get every day as well. And uh you know it it it's fine. I am going to go two different ways on this one. So, for the stock, my individual stock, uh, I'm going to go a little bit more risky, a little more like small midcapish and more trendy. So, my top stock that I believe will do very well is one that I didn't think would do as well as it has done, but I called it last year in the middle of the year, maybe maybe near the end of the year, but um, it's called Redcat and it's RCAT

33:49 if you guys are looking it up. This year alone, it's up over a 100%. Um, I was talking about it when it was about $7 and today it's $17 or $18. Um, it's all about drones. Basically, it's military, drone technology, autonomous, robotic, all of those types of things. But it's also a data and infrastructure play. Trump has talked about increasing military spending in the military budget like three-fold by 2027, 2028. And a lot of that will go into this drone technology specifically. and Arcat is one of the ones that um is really really heavily favored. They have a lot of contracts already with the army and some other uh big names. So, I really like them, but it is quite speculative. Just like I was talking about before when I

34:35 said if a stock had gone up 100% in a week or two, I wouldn't invest in it yet. Today, I don't know if I would be putting money into that like I did when it was $7. But if we do see a pullback of sorts, maybe back down to 12 or $10, it's something I'm going to buy more of. So that's that's the first one. And then also IN. That's a data center play. I know you've talked about it. Uh a lot of people are very very bullish on AI in general and and so am I. I believe the technology will help a lot of companies be very efficient, but there will be a bottleneck specifically with energy. And I believe that Iran is one of the big players. I really like APLD as well, but Iran is just for me a different way of

35:21 looking at it. Now, it is very correlated to Bitcoin at this point. And so people are, you know, asking why does it drop so much? Watch the Bitcoin market for now. um it is moving away from Bitcoin being the sole, you know, it used to be Bitcoin mining only and now it's an AI play, but the amount of contracts that they have now and the amount of hype there is around this stock, I think it's in the 50s right now. A lot of big firms are calling this year for it to be in the 80s or 90s. I think that that's still a low estimate, but we'll see how that goes. So, that's my those are my stocks for 2026. Speculative. Do your own research, please. Um, but then on the on the ETF side, >> I'm going the other way, and it's something that I've been talking about all year last year, and I'm talking about it again this year. It has to do

36:07 with the Fed rates, right? The Fed rates will come down. They're probably not coming down in January, but they're coming down over the rest of the year and especially at the end of the year. We're supposed to have a new Fed chair take office in the middle of the year, and he will be highly incentivized to pull down the rates. And if the rates come down now, your high yield savings accounts and your money market accounts and these things, those rates are going to go down as well. Instead of you getting a 3.5% in a high yield savings account, you're now going to get like a 1.5%. And if that's the case, a lot of very wealthy individuals who have a lot of money sitting there are going to move their money to the next safest asset where they're getting a 3 or 4% dividend. that's going to be a recessionproof style ETF, which is a

36:53 value ETF, which would be something like SCHD or VTV. And so for me, those are my picks. And honestly, this year they've already been outperforming the S&P 500 uh most growth ETFs as well, because we're starting to see, like I said, go research market cycles. I think that we are pushing into that value cycle, especially with all the uncertainty going on. So that's my uh those are my picks. I love it. I love it a lot. I um I I have I have follow-up questions and and more details. So, I I I love the value play. I was actually starting to jump into value last year a little bit expecting I thought we'd been hot for a long time and then the value never kicked in and I'm like, "Okay, this cycle has to be happening soon." So, I I don't discount your your philosophy

37:38 because I I agree people are going to get a little burned out, I think, of technology and they're going to want to slide back into value. Whether it's a lot or not, I don't know. But once again, it's supply and demand. when people start to jump on a on a thought, then it starts to rise. So, I I think it's going to have its day again. Is it this year? We'll find out. But I have Arcat. So, I I like Arcat. Another one that I want to throw out there, which is a competitor to them in some respects, is Aervironment. So, a environment actually had a major pullback recently, which is one that has reinvigorated my interest because when people pull back with the bad news, I'm like, okay, this is a moment to duck back in because they have their pay ratios pretty decent as far as where they're expected with their growth. So, this is one where complements that I think very well,

38:24 seeing as it's had a pullback, and it it's also making drones, lots of contracts, also one to consider. Your your reference to to INE as well. I love IN. So, here's my question to you, and I get this a lot. What is your thoughts? Because Applied Digital is with them. What is the risk of some of these hyperscalers just hitting their three or fouryear contract and then pulling out? Because it's a leasing model and a lot of companies love to be able to hit the bandwidth high and heavy right away, but it's also set them to, hey, we can build our own on the side while they're doing this, and then they're going to be high and dry in a couple years. What are your thoughts on that? I mean I see that perspective but also being a business owner uh I also can see the perspective of if there is a company or uh person or

39:11 whatever that's doing something very very well and they have it and I can just pay them to do that and it makes my business you know 10x because of that I'm just going to keep going with what works. Now, I do understand that down the road there could be like, you know, the lean conversation of that could save cost by not going that route, but I I'm not so sure. I I I think that because Iran and APLD will continue to get these types of contracts, they're not all going to just be these next three or four years. It'll be, you know, kind of like you layer some or ladder some uh tea bills and things. So, it might be this year, this 5 years, this one's seven years, this one's 3 years, whatever. But all that to say, I don't think that they lose their effectiveness or value at the end of the contract. I

39:57 think that that's a um proof of concept for most of these companies and they're happy to reup especially if Iran APLD they get bigger and they increase their technology and they increase their effectiveness. So I'm not too worried about that. But it is something to keep on your radar as, you know, watch it and maybe it's not a buy and hold for literally ever, but my my thoughts are it is more long-term than people think. And I think those of them that are smart, like they're getting cheap megawws, so they're smart about their placement. And I think people don't realize like they're global. They're they're working with all these international partners too that we we don't have visibility to all the time. So I think that their their opportunity is probably much bigger than people recognize in some cases because there's a lot of big companies that don't want

40:42 to use hyperscalers and they'll want to get that bandwidth on their own and companies haven't even figured out how to use AI correctly in a lot of ways. So once companies start to actually figure out how to monetize their AI leverage, I think companies like this are just going to become even more valuable. So the leasing model doesn't bother me particularly, but that's a question I get all the time. So, I'm like, I'm going to throw it to you and see what you say. >> And people that are asking that question are very intelligent. They're they're looking is exactly what you should be doing. You should be questioning what you're invested in. And you especially these more speculative plays. Look at it from all angles. Try to try to disprove it. That's what I always try to do. No, I my couple of stocks like I'm I'm not going to give you too many. I'm just going to go with one simple one and it's

41:28 not going to be a Palanteer. Like there there isn't going to be another Palanteer, I think, for quite a while. I don't see one set up for it because what they do is so unique and so far advanced from so many other companies. So that's really tough to even comprehend. But I do like the company Modine. Modine like a lot of you may not even know who they are. Like they're they're not super huge but they support the infrastructure for data centers cooling in specific. So they just help support that growth and I think that they're going to have a lot of longevity. that kind of under the radar and not a lot of people know about them. Truly speculative on my part. Like this is one of those tiny slivers of my portfolio that I'll I'll invest in. Like I'm not going big. I'm not going all the way home. I think that they are going to have their shining day this year. So

42:15 that's one that I'm just kind of throwing out there. I think there's a lot of potential because they took a hit I think last year because they had invested so heavily in their production lines and people saw that investment kind of hurt them. Like that's that's the moment where I'm like, okay, this is a good time to come in because like the news came out, it kind of hurt them a little bit and then hopefully they can get their production with no issues and then they can meet their demand. So that's when I'm just throwing it out there. Do your own research, please. Like you might find something that's negative that I didn't find, but um like check it out. Um as far as ETFs, ARC Q is one that I honestly I think you may have mentioned this in the last video. I fully support this one only because it's they're heavy on robotics. They're heavy in a lot of the things we've already talked about. Like if you look at their

43:00 holdings, it's it's a pretty solid setup right there. So, that's one where I think um the robotics blow up is going to happen whether we want it to or not. Um is it going to be this year? Maybe, maybe not. Um I think you're going to see so many articles, so many people touting how they're going to be making these massive, you know, gains and and robotics is going to be in their world. We probably won't see it anytime soon this year, but at least the the foundation's going to be built and people's going to they're going to be talking about it like crazy. So, I think that's one that is going to also have a strong uptick. There it is. >> That's great. And I I second that. I have clients that work in the data centers or work on them and cooling is such an issue. So, I think that that's great with Modine and then ARQ. Yeah. I mean it robotics will be I mean every

43:47 every big institution every big company that that I consult with or I've talked to is really trying to figure out how can we get more autonomous how can we get more robotics because they're just so efficient and they usually don't mess up as much as people do. So, it's a smart move on the the company side. And ARCQ is one of the best ETFs that I've found that um really can diversify outside of a lot of other companies that you're probably holding in in other ETFs. So, I agree. Absolutely. It it does have a lot of companies that I don't think most typical ETFs have. Overall, Nolan, thank you so much for joining us today. I absolutely love your perspective, even though it's a little different than mine, but hey, I love it anyways. It's great having you. It's

44:33 great to talk with you. Uh hopefully everyone enjoys the value that we're providing. Any last words before we wrap it up? >> No, I I I just continue to u be amazed by your content as well. I love it. Um I love to get that different perspective. So, thank you for having me on. Thank you to everybody who's listening. I wish you well and remember to keep investing simplified. >> All right. Thanks so much.