Discover the hidden insights of technical analysis and enhance your trading expertise in this insightful conversation with Chris Vermeulen. He sheds light on the realities, risks, and untapped investing opportunities while sharing his unique strategy for generating consistent returns. Tune in to learn more!
Key takeaways to listen for
Resources mentioned in this episode
About Chris Vermeulen
Chris is a financial expert who challenges conventional investing wisdom and believes investors should only own rising assets. With over 25 years of experience, Chris shares an alternative investment style called AssetRevesting that allows investors to achieve higher returns, lower drawdowns, and profit from bear markets.
He founded TheTechnicalTraders.com, a platform providing investors with Asset Revesting signals and education on technical analysis and position and risk management. He is also the author of “Technical Trading Mastery” and “Asset Revesting,” his newest book, which explores this innovative investment method.
Connect with Chris
Connect with Us
To learn more about growing your wealth through multifamily investment opportunities, visit Monument Real Estate Capital and schedule a call!
Follow our social media pages!
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Discover the hidden insights of technical analysis and enhance your trading expertise in this insightful conversation with Chris Vermeulen. He sheds light on the realities, risks, and untapped investing opportunities while sharing his unique strategy for generating consistent returns. Tune in to learn more!
Key takeaways to listen for
Resources mentioned in this episode
About Chris Vermeulen
Chris is a financial expert who challenges conventional investing wisdom and believes investors should only own rising assets. With over 25 years of experience, Chris shares an alternative investment style called AssetRevesting that allows investors to achieve higher returns, lower drawdowns, and profit from bear markets.
He founded TheTechnicalTraders.com, a platform providing investors with Asset Revesting signals and education on technical analysis and position and risk management. He is also the author of “Technical Trading Mastery” and “Asset Revesting,” his newest book, which explores this innovative investment method.
Connect with Chris
Connect with Us
To learn more about growing your wealth through multifamily investment opportunities, visit Monument Real Estate Capital and schedule a call!
Follow our social media pages!
Facebook: Monument Real Estate Capital
LinkedIn: Monument Real Estate Capital
[00:00:00] Chris Vermeulen
There's multiple stages to the stock market and every stage requires a bit different strategy, a different mindset. You need to mentally be prepared for the type of price action and the movement we're going to get. So that's what a lot of people don't understand.
[00:00:13] Podcast Intro
You are working professional but struggling to balance the workload of your career, family obligations, and preparing for your financial future. If so, this podcast is for you. You've spent years learning your craft, and now it's time to focus on your financial future. This podcast will teach you what you need to retire wealthy and happy. Let's dive in.
[00:00:37] Ben Waller
Investing in the stock market can be good or it can be really bad if you don't know what you're doing. Let's jump in and learn a new strategy that you can use to invest in the stock market. Welcome to the Retire Wealthy and Happy podcast. We created this podcast to provide financial tips and tricks to help you build up your passive income and also provide methods that you can use to protect your wealth. So that you can plan a better future for yourself and your family. We're grateful to have this podcast sponsored by monument real estate capital, monument real estate capital, helping you retire 10 years early through real estate investments. On today's episode, we're excited to have Chris Vermeulen with us.
[00:01:18]
He will share a different way of investing that doesn't use diversification or the buy and hold method. He believes that investing should be about capital preservation first and growth second. Chris is the founder of Technical Traders, an investment company that was started in 2008. He has over 25 years of investment experience and data, working with over 20, 000 self directed investors. Chris is a very active trader in many aspects of the stock market. He also owns a few rental properties. He's a best selling author. And when he's not working, he enjoys horseback riding, sailing, surfing, fishing, and fishing. And inventing or building things. A brief overview of what we'll cover on today's episode. We're going to talk about, should you invest in the stock market? And we're also going to talk about a different way to invest that Chris is the master of.
[00:02:05] Roger Jacobsen
Chris, thank you for being on the show with us today.
[00:02:08] Chris Vermeulen
Hey, thanks for having me guys. It's a pleasure to be here.
[00:02:10] Roger Jacobsen
Why don't you take a few minutes and give us a little background about how you got to where you are today.
[00:02:16] Chris Vermeulen
Oh, where to start? We go right back to high school. I was 14 years old and I was big into flying remote control airplanes, building and flying. That's where I got my taste of kind of building things. And I started to get my POTS license at 14. At the age of 16, I ended up getting my ultralight pilot's license and was able to fly around the countryside before I could legally even drive a car, which was pretty insane. And that was where it kind of started this whole side of the investing that I'm going to kind of share with you today, this different way to do things. It all started from becoming a pilot. And when you're a pilot, There's a checklist for everything. There's like your pre inspection walk around the plane checklist, your taxi checklist, your pre takeoff, your circuit, your landing, like there's a checklist for everything.
[00:03:04]
And I remember when it was the day for my solo, of course, they don't tell you when it's your solo, you just show up and he's like, you're going up today on your own. And your body just goes into like the shock. Right. And I knew it was coming and. Here I am following the checklist, pull it in the runway, I take off, and as soon as the wheels lift off the ground, it was a whole new experience, my heart's pounding, I was literally laughing and crying at the same time, I was so nervous, and I'm doing the circuits, I didn't know what else to do, I was so nervous, I was singing like kids elementary songs, I don't remember what they were, but little kids songs, right? Out loud, in the plane, you And I was so nervous and emotions had full control of me. And that was when I realized, Oh my gosh, I have to get down. I have to do everything properly. He's listening to me on the radio when I do my calls. And so on my leg, I've got my checklist strapped to my leg. And when emotions were flying high, I just had to ground myself and put my finger on the checklist, look down and just check, do this.
[00:04:04]
Carb heat, flaps, everything, get to the proper airspeed. And eventually I ended up coming down from that super exciting nerve wracking high. I landed on the ground perfectly, ended up passing my flight test. And that was when it hit me. I'm like, Oh my gosh, thank God for checklists for systems, strategies like that are proven, and you just have to follow them. So when your emotions are streaming on a high or a low, if you just stick to a plan, a proven system, you can do really well. So that was like the first process, the first time I experienced like the power of a process. Right. When I was 16, I ended up taking this stock market challenge in finance class in high school, and this was kind of the next eye-opener that got me tapped into the financial space. And there was a stock market challenge. Our school had to compete against other schools. We were all given a hundred thousand dollars who could make the most money, and we made like $180,000 in a semester of fake money. But that was it. I was like, Oh, my gosh, I don't have to do anything but open a newspaper back then.
[00:05:09]
You like look through the million lines and pick a stock, right? And so that was it. I'm like, I don't have to deal with people. I'm more so of an introvert. I don't need to be social and going out. I'm like, if I don't have to deal with people, if I don't have to go to work, if I don't have to talk to people, I could just sit up my computer silently and just become rich. That's what's got me hooked a couple of weeks later. My dad had got this little booklet in the mail from Larry Williams. He's like one of the most famous and the most known technical traders when it comes to trading futures and the indexes. And I read this little booklet and I was like, Oh my gosh, I could make a 50, 000 a month or a day trading futures. And of course I asked my dad and he's like, no way, we're not touching that. He was big into real estate, had his own dental practice as well. That gave me kind of that little bit of a taste. And then fast forwarding a few years later, I got into college and turned 18. And I was old enough to open a brokerage account.
[00:06:03]
So I put two grand in and I literally bought everything I had into PalmPilot. Do you remember those little phones? The PalmPilot had a pencil. They were like leading edge. I put two grand into it. I went away for holidays for two weeks to Florida and I came back not even doing anything. And I looked at like 8, 000 in there for a college kid. You're like, holy crap. That's unbelievably sell, sell, sell cash out. And I started using it to buy courses, taking seminars. I met a lot of, uh, traders, some of them who actually live in my town now, and we're, we're still really good friends. It's incredible because I was taking college in the city in Toronto, which is about two hours away. And so I got into the markets and right after that, my parents, we were really well off. My dad had 1500 units, uh, real estate units at one point across Canada. He retired really early. I'm trying to beat him to retirement, like full on retirement for his age. And he ended up exiting retiring, but then he had a bad incident that happened and they ended up losing everything and having to go into bankruptcy.
[00:07:05]
And so we went from like high on the hog, unbelievable lifestyle, you name it. It was great to going right to the bottom with nothing, but literally our clothes in our furniture, no vehicle, no house, anything. And it was like a shocker. My dad ended up having like epilepsy seizures from the stress and the lack of sleep. And I mean, it was scary. It was depressing. It was nerve wracking, embarrassing for everyone. It was a terrible experience. And that was when I learned, Oh my gosh, no matter how good your lifestyle is. How much money you have, it can all go sideways in a heartbeat. It can do that out of control without any of your input. If the bad things kind of align. And so that was my wake up call. Like, okay, I need to make sure I don't lose my money. I need to protect it. Number one, focus on protecting money and lifestyle and the rest should all take care of itself. So that was my big wake up call. It was a few years after that, that I was taking all my money that I was making in the late nineties, early two thousands in the tech bubble and stock market that the, with the tech bubble burst, I was buying companies on fund rentals, they were earning, growing like quarter after quarter and the share prices fell and cut in half.
[00:08:16]
And I was like. How can they follow? Like this company is booming. It's doing better than everyone else yet. I lost half of my account or more than that, actually. And that was when it hit me. I'm like, okay, I can't do fundamentals. That is just expectations of what they're going to do. And based on what they're doing now. I need to focus on price price is the only way any of us investors in real estate or stock market, make money price has to go in favor that we're positioned. And so that, that brought me into technical trading. I learned about technical analysis, reading the price charts and there's price charts that tell you that are bullish, meaning if you see this price chart, it's more likely to continue to go higher and it can actually forecast how much higher it should go in what timeframe, roughly. And if it has a bearish, a negative pattern, that means people are nervous. They're dumping the shares and the price should go down. So you either want to step aside or profit from the collapse or find a different asset. And so that was my kind of whole beginning circle. All this happened in a pretty much five, six year cycle.
[00:09:18]
All those things happened. And you're looking like back then it was a nightmare. It was the worst things that could have ever happened to me. And then looking back now, it's like, so all those things didn't happen that. Particular order. I wouldn't be where I am today doing what I love. Highly successful, financially free, helping others, doing what I absolutely love. I like the stock market. Investing real estate is like my passion. It's my hobby. It's my sport. It's my business. It's my lifestyle and I absolutely love it. And so now. Full circle, that's kind of where I am today and now I'm trying to help as many people as possible, avoid losing money, make as much as they can. It's all about creating systems that generate passive income. And so you can actually become wealthier in retirement is my whole focus. Most people retire. And they start pinching pennies right away. As soon as they're done their job or they quit or they retire, they're like, well, if I take that holiday right now, I just retired.
[00:10:10]
I might run out of money early. And as soon as people retire, they start pinching. And it's like going and being in jail. It's like, you're scared to spend money. You work so hard. And so the strategy that I show, it's all about passive income and protecting capital. And people who are retired with wealth end up. Making more money in interest in earnings every year than they can even spend they never even dip into their principal. That is my whole focus so that you literally have money to burn. You can help other people around the world, which I love doing. And I mean, we'll probably touch on all that stuff, but that's like the full circle of what I do. I don't believe in risking capital. I don't like fast moving stuff. You won't catch me. Trading Bitcoin, all any of that stuff. I'm all about, Hey, have you got some wealth and you respect your lifestyle and you want to keep it? And I have a strategy that we can do that very safely. That's where I am today. I'm trying to preserve my lifestyle and share it with everybody else, kind of full circle across the board.
[00:11:06] Ben Waller
This show is called Retire Wealthy and Happy, and you're going to share a lot of things about what people should be doing with the stock market, etc., but if you're willing to share any details about your father's experience, because that sounded like a terrible thing, but the question I want to ask is, there's something he could have done to prevent it.
[00:11:23] Chris Vermeulen
Is there something he could have done to prevent it?
[00:11:26] Roger Jacobsen
What all happened and what is there something that could have been done?
[00:11:30] Chris Vermeulen
Oh, for sure. I mean, there always is hindsight 2020. You look back, one of the big problems for that particular situation was he got into an investment that when they took it over, they realized. The books were cooked. Everything was done. The money had been stripped out of it. There was no money. They were in debt millions. And literally once they got ownership, the other people vanished. And so moving into a company that is ready to take off is already doing really well. You take it over, you realize it's in debt. It actually is the worst company you've ever imagined. It loses money hand over fist. That was the problem. And sure, more due diligence, I think may have done that. So the problem was stuck with shysters and it completely put him offside in a losing situation. And he fought for it for about 5 years, almost gave his life to it, gave up our financial freedom to try to save the company and still didn't make it. I mean, I respect everything he's done. He always wants the best for everybody. And that's, I think, where I kind of get it. Myself is seeing him. He helps everybody possible and he'll always put himself in danger to try to make sure other people are good. He was obviously doing exceptionally well. He was already retired.
[00:12:42]
This was like a new project to take on and it just backfired and maybe the string of. Huge success leads to maybe a little lack of maybe due diligence. I'm not sure that's just speculative. I was much younger. I was a teenager. I was about 22 or so when this happened, I think. So I was pretty young. I wasn't into the nitty gritty, but it's just like the whole Bitcoin FX deal, right? Everybody's on a winning streak. And then all these big names go and they market it and they get paid and they fund it. They invest in it. They don't. These guys should be doing crazy due diligence to have that many people move in and nobody did anything. When you're living high on the hog, you sometimes might get a little lazy. You think things will be good. I can do it. I'll make it happen. But if you get in bed with the wrong people and get screwed, you can't always see those coming, right? So that was the major problem there.
[00:13:31] Ben Waller
Thank you for sharing that. That was very helpful.
[00:13:33] Roger Jacobsen
That's awesome. We also should mention that I got a little bit into my pilot's license. So I hit about 22 hours, did the whole solo part where we were doing the circuits around the airport. And the guy was like, you're ready. I'm like, no, I'm not. He's like, no, you're going to do this. You just greased those touch and goes three times in a row. And I'm like. Nope, I'm just not ready. And he's like, pull over, let me get out. And so I get up and I start to take off up into, we were going counterclockwise. And then there was a plane that was going to go out the opposite end and I freaked out. I lost it. I was like, Hey, sky park area traffic. This is the 757. you're going the wrong way. Sky park, and eventually I did a Mayday call and I'm really embarrassed about that, but. Finally, the instructor got on when he realized how bad I was freaking out. And he's like, don't worry. That's like a Corvette of the skies. And he'll be so long gone by the time you get around.
[00:14:35] Chris Vermeulen
Right. Yeah. It is quite the experience. Yeah.
[00:14:37] Roger Jacobsen
And then Ben's working on his pilot's license right now.
[00:14:40] Chris Vermeulen
Nice. That's cool. I love everything flying. I actually invented the world's first flying electric jet surfboard. So I like anything that defies gravity or flies with wings. I love it. In fact, you can't see it, but. Whatever way this camera is angling in the corner here, I have a six degrees of freedom flight simulator, full VR. I have the wind kit. So, as you pick up speed, the wind picks up, has a vibration kit. I can fly every plane. Top Gun came out with a, uh, free download for Microsoft flight simulator. So, I fly his jets. Like, I can now grease the aircraft carrier. No problem. Took me about 50 tries. My son came in, did it on his first, it was probably like his third or fourth real attempt. I just love flying and all that stuff. So, it's a passion.
[00:15:22] Roger Jacobsen
That's really cool. So what do you teach at the technical trader.com?
[00:15:26] Chris Vermeulen
Yeah. So the technical trader, I mean, it's kind of a mix. So I try to teach people, I provide my trading strategy, my investment strategy. And in that process through daily or weekly updates, video updates, I try and teach them and get them in the right mindset of what to expect in the market. So I teach them the technicals. I would say it's a pretty detailed level. I don't give out like detailed courses. If you watch the videos, you'll learn how the markets work. We talk about how they're all interacted together and what they mean. And so the big part about it is you get the signals in order to create that kind of passive income. And during that process, a lot of people have that transformation from being either a really active trader and realizing they don't need to day trade and trade options and stocks that are high. Flying, they kind of have that transition where they go, Oh, I can actually be almost totally passive and generate bigger returns and not have to do all that active trading.
[00:16:22]
And so what I'm trying to teach them is a different mindset, a different way to view the markets and to get rid of that old bias that people have. They think they need to trade a lot. They think they need to take high risk to make high returns. Which is not the case. And then also there's the other spectrum of investors that are really passive and they have advisors. They don't know much about the markets and they don't want to go through like a bear market when the market sells off, if they have the buy and hold strategy. Their account just falls in value and they know there's a better way. And so those people are like, I don't know how to trade. I want to learn a little bit. I want it done for me, but I want to take advantage of this. So it's kind of teaching the really passive people that if you're a little active, you can play and trade these cycles in the markets. And then the active people have to learn to slow down like over 90% of active traders lose money. So the more you trade.
[00:17:15]
The higher the chance you are to lose money, the thing is, it's addicting trading. It is like a video game. It is like a casino. If you hit a couple of really big, fluky, massive wins, you think you're good, but it always comes back to bite you. The worst thing you could do is have a huge wind trying to pick a top or a bottom. And I've had those while my first trade was like eight grand or six grand. Profit on my account for doing nothing. And that had me hooked. And then I had another really good trade several years later in a penny stock, a gold mining stock, and I made about 125, 127, 000 in like overnight. And I was just like, you end up losing it all doing the same strategy down the road, right? I gave it all back. And then some, I hate penny stocks. I don't touch them anymore. They are total garbage. If you actually value your wealth and you're not going to gamble it.
[00:18:06] Roger Jacobsen
So besides doing just charts, guessing where the price will go, what else do you do for choosing a stock?
[00:18:14] Chris Vermeulen
Yeah. So I only trade ETFs, which stand for exchange traded funds. So it's like buying a big basket. They're very low cost to hold. It's like a mutual fund, except for way more efficient. A mutual fund is a high cost. You pay like one to two, sometimes even two and a half percent a year to own it. An ETF is like a 10th of a percent. It's nothing. And you can enter and exit an ETF intraday anytime you want, whereas a mutual fund, you have to wait for the close and gets executed the next day. So we use a lot of technicals. It's all based on price action, but we take all these different market analysis. And we break it down to cycles, price trends, momentum, sentiment sentiment is a very big part of what we do. We like to look at what other assets and other sectors in the financial space are doing.
[00:19:01]
So, for example, if people right now could be really excited about tech stocks, they're piling in the AI movement, but it's really just. Kind of a FOMO. Everybody feels like they're missing out on the next stock market run is starting. We can see what type of people are participating in this rally. And I don't think this is a real rally. I think this is a news driven, emotional driven rally. And then when things start to weaken, we actually see when the big money's rotating into. Defensive sectors like utilities and gold and other things like that. And when we see money flowing into those, that's a warning sign saying, you know, the big funds are getting out of the leverage stocks, the fast movers, they're getting defensive because they also see the music coming to an end. So we bring all those things into play to identify what stocks or what ETFs that we own. And I just focus on the stock indexes, like the SP 500 and the NASDAQ. I focus on. TLT, which is the treasury bond, the 20 year treasury bond. And then we focus on the U S dollar currency ETF and cash position. We just look at those kinds of three core assets, equities, bonds, currency. And if none of them are favorable cash, and those are the ones that are the most liquid. You can move as much money in and out as you want. And literally a click of a button for a couple of bucks with a broker. So we keep it really straightforward. I don't get into the nitty gritty of individual stocks ever with what I do anymore.
[00:20:27] Roger Jacobsen
So you're saying that we're in a false bull market right now. It's still a bear market. Is that what you just said?
[00:20:32] Chris Vermeulen
That's what it looks like. Yeah, for sure. I call it like a stage 3 topping phase. There's there's multiple stages to the stock market. There's 4 stages. And if every stage requires a bit different strategy, a different mindset, you need to. Mentally be prepared for the type of price action and the movement we're going to get. So that's what a lot of people don't understand is the investing and trading is a mental game, but there are stages. It goes through just like the real estate market, you got the kind of boom, bust cycles and in between kind of transition periods.
[00:21:03]
And we're in a transition period right now, where the market could end up having a very big correction, very similar to the 2008 crisis. That was a stage four decline and the tech bubble was the other one. So what's coming potentially around the corner is going to be a huge financial reset again for pretty much all assets. And I think even in real estate, we'll get hit with it as well, which I think all this is a great opportunity. There's huge money to be made in a financial reset on both sides, the downside. And also once it does bottom new long-term investments can be, you know, positioned and. Create some amazing passive income for life. If you can know when these cycles happen, you mentioned the four stages.
[00:21:45] Roger Jacobsen
What are the four stages?
[00:21:49] Chris Vermeulen
Right? So the first stage is called a stage one basing formation. So the market, it will be kind of flat lining trading sideways. And chopping around, I usually categorize this as a red zone, a danger zone. It's time where sectors and different assets are kind of popping and dropping. There's no real predictability to it. The trend is sideways. So it's a time to ignore the markets or do your research and start preparing for. When it starts a new uptrend, what are the best assets to get in for the next stage? So that brings us to stage two, which is a bull market phase. This is what everybody loves is what we all dream of. And that's when assets go up in value in rally and huge opportunity. And then of course, there's a stage three, which is a topping phase. It's very volatile. Again, sectors, commodities, indexes all chop around. They have big corrections, just like we've seen over the past couple of years. And it's a long process. These processes for the stock market take years to unfold. And here we are in the stage three, I think topping phase. And when this comes to an end, this music comes to an end potentially, you know, uh, later this year in 2023, when that stage four decline takes place, that is when there is a absolute massive disaster.
[00:23:03]
And when a lot of damage is done, and this is what's really important. In 2008 to 2009, uh, which was a stage four decline, there was 6, 500 suicides in the United States directly related to falling stock prices. And I've seen it in my family, how much a devastation that massive losses lifestyle change can do, especially when it gets you off guard, when it totally hits you out of left field. And that's what these Big bear markets, the stage four declines due to the masses. It is a dangerous, scary time. All these emotional levels as it's declining right now, I think we're in a complacency stage. People are thinking, yeah, 2022 was a bear market. Things are stabilizing. Stocks are rallying. I'm getting positioned for a new bull market, but they're complacent. They don't realize this is just a pause calm before the storm, more or less. And when the prices start to decline and go deeper and towards a stage four, that's when they get anxiety. They're like, Oh my gosh, this is another bear market starting. And then eventually declines far enough. They have denial.
[00:24:05]
They're like a doe in the headlights. They don't know what to do. They're down so much. They don't feel like they can get out anymore. Eventually it turns into like. Full on panic, their lifestyles changing, their retirement, their passive incomes, everything is just banished. And it happens very quickly in months in some cases. And then they go into capitulation, which is they can't take it anymore. They snap, they exit their positions or they're forced to, they've lost their jobs or businesses are going under because this is a recession. Things around the world are slowing. And then they end up out of the markets, huge losses and complete devastation. It does a lot of damage to relationships. I mean, these next phase of people aren't prepared for it. It is an absolute disaster and people getting overextended in positions with margin or loans. I mean, if they don't understand their positions that, and they can't withdraw or sustain a drawdown. Pay mortgages or rents or margin calls for their stock positions.
[00:25:00]
If prices keep falling, they're going to get absolutely hammered. And it's forced liquidation, which is what actually creates a lot of the collapse in the financial system is people. Brokers forcing the hand saying we liquidated a bunch of your positions today because you're on margin and you're out of money and it's just this never ending waterfall. So that's kind of the four stages. And then it, then it goes into a stage one, right? When everybody has the. Taking the hit, they're mentally beaten. They're physically, they're financially broke. That's when the market puts in a bottom and they become depressed. They're devastated. They're angry. They hate the markets. They never want to touch it again. It's just the cycle. And I've been through many of these cycles. And it's, I want trying to help people avoid this because I do feel like something is coming, whether it comes now or in a few years, eventually there will be another one. And it doesn't matter when it happens. We just have to follow the price trends and make sure our money is protected and you'll be just fine. Uh, in fact, you'll be better than fine. If, if you do things properly.
[00:26:02] Roger Jacobsen
Thanks for that. What are the main elements that are affecting the stock market and what's going to happen right now?
[00:26:09] Chris Vermeulen
Right now, AI is creating most of the big movement and a lot of the energy. All the money is flowing into growth and tech companies right now. They're skyrocketing. They're taking off. We've got interest rates potentially starting to top out where they might not go much higher. There might be another rate increase or so. Obviously, it's affecting mortgages. We got mortgage rates are from. So low to now, it seems like they're so high, although it's really not that bad out of the norm when you look back over time, but people obviously always over leverage themselves and they ever have to renew their mortgage rates. I mean, it's going to be tough in Canada. The average mortgage is about.
[00:26:45]
Three years, and then you have to renew. So once all these people who bought these million, million and a half dollar homes saying, Oh, there's no problem at a 2% mortgage rate. And then they're going to get a, like a 6%. Now they're going to be like, I got to sell. And of course that's going to create. Liquidity of housing. And this is the same with the stock market in a way. And eventually when things start to drop enough, they have to sell it. It's a bit different of a scenario, but same type of thing. It just creates bleeding in the market, forced liquidation, supply becomes easily available. What was your question there again?
[00:27:19] Roger Jacobsen
It was. Is the main elements that are affecting the stock market?
[00:27:22] Chris Vermeulen
Right? Yeah. So I really think it's just the sentiment. It's just this late stages of a market. We're just kind of working through overall market participants, their mindset and their game plan. It just takes time for these to unfold again. I don't follow any news. If there's anything big happening, my 11-year-old son or my 13-year-old daughter will literally tell me, and they're the ones who fill me in. I haven't watched the news in probably 10 or 12 years. And none of that stuff matters to me. So when I just look at the price charts, I can tell you. Momentum is stalling. This is like a false rally. It's just a few big stocks holding the entire market up. It is brittle. It is like a house of cards and people need to be prepared for. Absolutely.
[00:28:04] Roger Jacobsen
What do you think will happen in the next overall five years?
[00:28:07] Chris Vermeulen
Five years. I mean, I think there's going to be financial reset and whatever they're going to say that is the cause. I mean, it's a tech bubble. They blamed it on tech. There was the financial crisis. They blame it on the banks, the mortgages, this one, they're probably going to blame it on COVID or the government. Pushing out tons of money and low rates, who knows, but I do think we're going to have some big financial reset. Assets are still at nosebleed pricing across the board. Doesn't matter what asset it is. I do think we'll have that reset. I think it's going to be an incredible opportunity. I talk about it with my followers all the time. I'm like, when this reset happens, if you preserve your capital or grow it, as it happens, you're going to have lots of money to buy a real estate.
[00:28:49]
At a fair value that actually have a great positive cash flow, and you're going to be able to buy stocks and dividend stocks that you love that are going to have huge dividends, and you can hold them for years in 2009. I bought a Canadian ETF was a dividend ETF for utility stocks is paying 16% dividend and I held it for about a year and a half. And I made that money plus it doubled in value, the ETF on top of it. I wish I still had it. I cashed out because it's too exciting. And I actually ended up moving to a different space, more so the precious metal miner space, which is a little more volatility, but a lot of opportunity. But there's going to be a lot of opportunity in this market in terms of where these assets are going.
[00:29:31] Ben Waller
Thanks for sharing that, Chris. And just a reminder to our listeners, the main topics of our episode today is should you invest in the stock market, which Chris just shared a ton of insight on that. Chris, I feel like I'm at school in a good way. Like I'm learning from the expert here on what you should do in the stock market. And we're also going to talk about a different way to invest. So we're going to get into that in just a second. And for our listeners, I also want to mention that if you're interested in learning how you could retire 10 years early, make sure to check out the free investor training on monumentrealestatecapital.com. Now we're going to jump into a different way to invest and Chris talks about this quite a bit. It's a concept called asset revesting. And Chris, we're going to let you tell us what that means because I don't think I could explain it to our listeners. So what is asset revesting?
[00:30:16] Chris Vermeulen
Right. So asset revesting is a kind of a term that I'm coining here. It's different. So asset revesting is like giving power back to you, the investor, to take control of your assets and then reinvest those assets. And so the old style way of doing it is like. Passive income, you set it off with an advisor, or you just park it in the markets forever. You have no control. It's like, I'm not a fan of letting fate just carry itself. I'm a fan of, if you have education, you've got skills and drive, you might as well drive that car and make it perform, not just park it there and hope and pray it goes up in value. A lot of people don't have control over their financial situation. They park it, they leave it, or they actively trade it and they have no control over it. They think they do, and they think they're educated, but most people, again, lose money on both sides. And if you use asset revesting, it's stuck right in between those two styles of trading. So the average person says, Hey, if you want to be an active trader investor in the stock market, you need to be really active.
[00:31:19]
And so what I do is very different. I'm like, no, You don't have to be active at all. You can actually be very, very passive. My whole philosophy is how do we make the most money with the fewest trades like positions and have the lowest risk. And when you put all that together and you come to the strategy. So this strategy I've been doing since this particular strategy I've been refining since 2001. It's when it really hit me during the tech bubble. Uh, when I started to dive into price cycles and analysis. This strategy is about five to 12 position changes in your portfolio a year. We only hold one asset at a time. So one ETF or either long the stock market or we're long bonds or along the U S dollar index, or we're sitting in cash. We'll never have a diversified mix. We're not going to go hold stocks and bonds because they generally move at different times. And so all you're doing is when you diversify in the stock market, you're just.
[00:32:13]
Spreading your money out like peanut butter, some are going up, some are going down. You end up with a really crappy average return because you've always got ones balling in value, killing your really good ones. So asset revesting is all about only holding assets going up in value. And we focus on a timeframe that allows us to avoid the annual market declines, the corrections. And to in a lot of cases profit from those, because we'll move out of the stock market and we'll move into bonds or a currency play, or even just an interest paying account. So as the market is falling, our account is still going up. And that is the real key is we don't hold onto the losers. I have no problem taking a loss, a small loss and sitting on the sidelines versus watching a position fall. So asset revesting is. Holding assets going up in value based on technical analysis and position and risk management. Everything comes down to risk management. You need to know how much money to put in and you need to know how to manage it and identify the trends. So if something starts to stall out or turn around. We want to make sure we step out and go look for something fresh and new that has a good pattern. And I do this with the ETFs specifically because anyone can trade them around the world. And it's a very straightforward, if you can buy a stock, you can buy an ETF. And so that's kind of it from a really high level. And that's how more or less we look at it.
[00:33:36] Ben Waller
Thank you for sharing that. I probably should have asked this earlier for our listeners. Can you explain just what simply technical analysis means when it comes to the stock market?
[00:33:45] Chris Vermeulen
Yes. Good point. Okay. So, technical analysis, I kind of touched on it earlier, but technical analysis is really straightforward. We're looking at the price charts. And technical analysis means we're looking for price. We look at the markets from a technical view and we put indicators on there like a moving average. We want to make sure price is moving up or down or sideways. We want to be able to identify those trends. And so a technical trader won't look at the fundamentals, the PE ratios, we won't look at any of that stuff. We could care less about the news. Just give us a price chart. And in seconds, in a flash, we can be like, okay, this is likely going to go in that direction for this amount of time. And we can we can kind of play that. So, for example, 1 of the most simple and basic indicators and strategies you can use as a shorter term trader is the 20 day moving average. It's giving you the average price of any given asset over the past 20 days. If that moving average is sloping up and prices above it. Then you most likely have a, a rising trend and it's a, you want to make sure you're long that asset. That's from a very basic, basic level. It's not quite that easy, but once you know, the trend in the timeframe that you're focusing on trying to capture those waves in the market, then, then you just get positioned.
[00:35:00]
And I like to look at the stock market, like the ocean. I love to surf. I love to kite board. You've got the ocean, you got the tide going up and the tide going down. So you need to step back and look at the big picture of the stock market. Are we in a bull market? Is the tide going up or is the tide going down? And we're in a bear market and most stocks, the indexes are going down. If the indexes are going up. That's number one. We got to have a strategy that focuses on buying stocks and playing to the upside. If it's going down, we want to make sure we're stepping aside or finding another asset that is in something that the tide is going up in. And then of course we break it down into shorter timeframes. When you drop down to a daily chart, we get really nice cycles in the market that last 30 days up to about eight months. And we try to catch those waves. So you've got the tide going up and down, and then the stock market has these beautiful wave like patterns.
[00:35:50]
And if you're a surfer, you sit out there waiting for a set of waves. That is what we're waiting for with this strategy. We let all the noise and the news and the chop just. Passes by, we sit there, we live life. And then when we see the set of waves coming, we look for which one we want to get on, how are we going to ride that and protect it? And then we catch those waves at when they're just about to break or they just, they're starting to break. Boom. We kind of just stop the ride and we wait for the next set, look for the next wave to catch. So we try and catch those beautiful, perfect surfing waves, and we avoid all the other noise that most people get sucked up into and get chopped up as a trader. So it's not passive, it's not active. It's like just looking at a perfect beach with perfect sets rolling in every three to five minutes. Like those are the, what we're hitting. When we don't have a set of waves, we are sitting in cash. We're actually in cash about 30 to 40% of the time. Which blows people's mind.
[00:36:47]
Like, how do you make money? I'm like, well, cause we don't lose money. We're only in when a wave is going up and we're on it and then we get out. And so we can sit in cash while the market is collapsing or making a lot of noise and it's just dangerous. I don't believe in being involved in the markets. If it's dangerous, we work too hard. It's too easy to lose your money. I have learned. So I would avoid dangerous times and wait for a set, take advantage of it.
[00:37:12] Roger Jacobsen
I really love your wave analogy. Before you said that, I was thinking, so what he's doing is he's got four different escalators. He watches which one's going up and then he gets on the escalator. If none of them were going up, it doesn't get on an escalator and you're like, well, there's these beautiful waves and you're out there surfing.
[00:37:32] Chris Vermeulen
Yeah, that's a better analogy.
[00:37:34] Ben Waller
So Chris, you're providing a ton of value for our listeners here. And with our. Restriction of time, we can only get the high level picture, right? So I want you to give a shout out to your company, the technical traders. And you're also an author of at least two books that I'm aware of. And I'm assuming those three pieces could definitely help people be more involved in this type of investing if they want to be right.
[00:37:52] Chris Vermeulen
Yeah. So, I mean, if we were to break it down and kind of cover what I do, so I have two books. One of them is called technical trading mastery. So this is for somebody who wants to learn the nitty gritty of, of the stages, the waves in the markets, how to identify trends, things like that. For somebody who wants to be active, learn about the markets. The next one I did is called asset revesting. And this is all about what we talked. We're looking for. The tide is going up or down. And then we look for the best set of waves and we hop on and ride those. It's like going to the best beach, which way the wind blow. And let's go to that one. It's got the best break. So that is kind of from the high level, those two books you can get on Amazon, depending if you want to learn the nitty gritty or you just.
[00:38:32]
Want to figure out how to make the most money without having to do all the nitty gritty. Cause what I do with the technical traders. com. So it's the technical traders. com is I provide asset revesting newsletters where you can follow the signal. So I take all these trades. I share everything I do with subscribers and you just would log into your brokerage account and copy exactly what I do. I'm buying, you know, a hundred percent of my portfolio in this ETF, uh, tomorrow at the opening bell. Here's my stop price, meaning if it falls to this, you put it in with your broker, it'll automatically close the trade and get you out. So you don't have to be around the computer. If it hits a target, we give you the target prices and how much to sell at each target. So we're scaling out as the wave is maturing and starting to get closer towards the end. We take it a notch further for the really passive investors who are like, this is way over my head. I wish I could do it, but I can't. We also provide auto trading. So if you've got a self directed brokerage account.
[00:39:28]
We can tap our system in and the broker will automatically execute our asset revesting strategy in your account, kind of hands free on autopilot passive. It's more or less passive investing, passive income, and the returns are phenomenal. The drawdowns are tiny in terms of just a touch on those. A lot of people don't know what a drawdown is, which blew my mind. This was only about a couple of months ago. Even people who've been investing for 20, 30 years, they're like, I never really knew what a drawdown was. And a drawdown is the max value of your account. When the market goes against you, how much value does it go down in? Like, so for example, in 2022, the stock market had a 24% drawdown for the average buy and hold investor. That is a huge, huge hit. And Our strategy has a max drawdown of less than 6%, which is less than the stock market on a high volatility day. So we provide a very, very low risk strategy, the asset revesting, because we're constantly either writing something up or sitting in cash. That is the key kind of barometer to realize how much risk you have.
[00:40:31]
The buy and hold is about a 40%. You could lose 40%. In like six months, or you could do something that actually protects your capital. That was less than 6%. And that's the problem with the financial industry right now is everybody's stuck into the one size fits all. You just take a mix of stocks and bonds, you hold it forever. And it's not really a safe way. It's a very dangerous strategy for anybody who has close to retirement or in retirement. It's the worst thing you could possibly do. In my opinion, really risking. Life, 20 years of work, go out the window in a six month window, it's not worth it.
[00:41:07] Ben Waller
All great points there, Chris. We're running out of time. So we're going to cut out this next thing I'm asking you. Chris, investors sometimes have Stockholm Syndrome when it comes to like volatility and returns. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
[00:41:18] Chris Vermeulen
I firmly believe investors have Stockholm Syndrome for a couple different reasons. First of all, there's two things. They think that high risk. Means high rewards you need to take high risk to get big rewards that is a complete false reality and i kind of explain that kind of as we are talking you don't need to be holding the markets to that volatility but the biggest stockholm syndrome people have and this is what a lot of people don't fully grasp is they think the buy and hold they're convinced that it is. Just the best strategy long term don't try to time the market as the financial industry. They try to like, put it down. If you're a technical trader, you're trying to time the market and predict. I mean, they make it sound so evil and not good. And they've brainwashed the general public to think that the buying hold is just the best vanilla way long term just.
[00:42:04]
Leave it, forget about it. You'll be okay, but it's not the reality. And a lot of investors think they're helping their advisors saying, Oh, I found this other company. I want, I want to buy some money, buy some of this in my portfolio. And I bought this. I want this 1, get some of that. And all they're doing is feeding the fire of spreading their money into more risky assets and spreading just more peanut butter out is brutal. And that's the big problem is people. Think if they keep adding more stocks, their portfolio, that it's actually going to probably perform better. It's going to be more stable, but generally when they help that whole buy and hold philosophy, adding in stocks that they like, those are usually really volatile. They're actually doing more damage in the long run. And the buy and hold is just. It been brainwashed into people to think that it is the way to go and I am a firm believer it is one of the worst ways to go but the problem is most people don't know what I know so they don't really have a choice unless they can find something that can help them do it or do it for them and that's why. The financial industry is so lucky that they have this strategy where they just keep bringing money in and they like literally park it there. Like my 11 year old son could say, Oh, I'll put your money in the market and I'll leave it for the rest of my life. And I'll take my fee. You ride the roller coaster.
[00:43:17]
I'll make a living off of you. And if the financial industry just keeps bringing money in and parking it, it naturally keeps the stock market going up. And that way the financial industry keeps going up. The financial advisors don't have to do anything. They don't have to really adjust portfolios. I mean the industry. I'm going to be writing a mini book on this because it's just such a huge setup for the financial industry to keep doing really well while other people suffer and take all the risks. That is like the false belief that so many people have and they feel like they're cornered. It's the only option, but it's, it's really not.
[00:43:49] Ben Waller
Chris, thank you for sharing that. In respect of your time, and I also think we're at a good point because I feel like you've teased enough information that somebody's like, I got to go talk to Chris. So I don't know if I want to go any further. Is there anything else that you think we should cover on this episode about asset reinvesting or anything about the stock market that you think is important?
[00:44:08] Chris Vermeulen
I think we covered it all. I'd really just be repeating myself. I think assets are frothy across the board. I can't find. Much to do. In fact, I'm actually looking at doing some mortgages for some homes, just because it's like a six plus percent just for a year or two, because I think it's a great, easy way to generate some cash and have a physical asset. If that person were to default versus leaving it in the bank, which a bank could go bankrupt and they could lose it. That is my like last resort. What do you do with all this cash? I don't want to keep dumping it into the markets and just know that when there is a financial reset. Now, if you've got fresh gunpowder, I mean, it is going to be a life changing for so many people to up their portfolio with lots of different assets that can be held for years, five, 10, 20 years that will generate cashflow. That's the key is all about having that passive cashflow to do whatever it is you want to do. And yeah, that's kind of the whole focus.
[00:45:08] Roger Jacobsen
Thanks for sharing that, Chris. That's awesome. Appreciate that. All right, Chris, we have the four same questions that we ask everybody so we can get a range and influence and get to know what they're going to do and stuff like that. These four questions are number one. What is your favorite business book?
[00:45:27] Chris Vermeulen
Oh, business book. So if I was looking through the lens of like an entrepreneur, I would say Play Bigger is one of the most exciting books that I've read in a long time. It is about category design, creating a new category in an industry, which is what I'm doing with asset investing. I'm trying to create a category that is between the buy and hold and the active trader. So that is an eye opening book. If you're an entrepreneur, you've got your own business. If you want to stand out and completely dominate a category, that was a pretty exciting book in terms of that regard.
[00:45:59] Roger Jacobsen
That's awesome. I think I've heard of that once off of somebody else, another guest's favorite book, so now I really know how to check it out. All right. What brings you happiness?
[00:46:13] Chris Vermeulen
I would just say a happy, healthy family. I've got a wife, two kids, just. Everybody's staying happy and not having mental health issues. I swear COVID has done so much damage and the media and the social media that has tick talk has ruined the world. YouTube shorts. I mean, it's so bad what kids have access to. So all I just want is for everybody to be happy. We have fun as a family. That's kind of my whole core thing is if we're all happy, life is good. And I love to invent stuff. I love building tinkering. I love to put my brain to work. How can I do something that's totally new and see if I can build it? I've got my own little kind of machine shop. So I build and create all my own stuff. It's pretty awesome. What's the coolest thing you've built? Uh, the coolest thing would be the flying jet surfboard, which believe it or not, I saw something similar to it and it was with a big propeller. It was like. It's called an e foil is kind of the category of product, but it had a propeller on it.
[00:47:06]
And I'm not riding a surfboard with a propeller. I have a boat we live on the water here. It will catch me playing around a propeller. So I'm like, I want to invent a jet powered flying surfboard. So in Canada, you're not allowed a propeller driven surfboard. It's illegal because they're dangerous. In the States, you can do it. They have very lax rules in the States. I contacted Transport Canada, which is our kind of regulatory body here. And I said, what do I need to do? And so we went through it. And so I. I ended up creating a jet powered electric surfboard that you can't get your finger in or your toe in to chop it off. If you tried, it's a pretty cool design. I ended up going on my treadmill. I took a course on my treadmill to stay in shape all about patents. And I learned all about patents and I got a patent for it almost as quick as you can possibly do it. It was. Just over four months, like four months and three days, we submitted the patent, we got it back, and now I've licensed it off to an Australian company who's still working on bringing it to production, which is really exciting.
[00:48:03]
But I'm working on a new project, which is I just got a welder and it's a massive like anti aircraft water gun. So think of a massive tripod. It swings around. It's huge. It's got triggers. It's got a massive water cannon on it. And when you Think of something that shoots like 250 feet, massive water cannon. And I, we can put it on the dock. It's just what kid doesn't want a giant machine gun that literally the recoil on it is huge. There's still a whole doc shakes and it's just, you can ping off like paddle borders, not that you'd want to hit them, they would hurt, but, uh, we're just trying to make this awesome water cannon for cottages just because it's just so much fun. Like I'm a big kid. I want to make cool toys, have fun.
[00:48:44] Roger Jacobsen
That's awesome. We could probably go down that. You can keep talking about the surfboard for a while, but let's keep moving. Number three, describe what your future retirement looks like.
[00:48:55] Chris Vermeulen
Yeah. I would say a future retirement is more travel. I'm always, I work from home, got everything from here. So during the winter months, definitely want to go travel more. We did Scotland, UK earlier. I'd like to go just. Do a lot more traveling. I want to take my kids and go do more as well. Um, other than that, I mean, life is pretty good. I'd like to just do more bucket list trips. I want to go on like a survival trip where I go with myself or my buddy. And we literally just go in the middle of nowhere, Northern Canada and, uh, survive for a week or two, build our shelter, kill our own food. You know, squirrels, you name it, whatever we have to eat worms. If we can't find food, I want to do with just one of those survivals. I grew up in the country, hunting, shooting, building forts.
[00:49:35]
I used to play professional paintball. So I like, I have my own paintball field on my property when I was growing up. It's just more bucket list stuff. And I want to go to Australia and go gold metal detecting. I metal detect here. I love doing that kind of stuff. So I just want to do more bucket list stuff. And that's the whole point of the strategy that I've developed. And same with real estate is it's so passive. I can technically be done around nine o'clock in the morning and I can go do whatever I want. Like right after this, I'm taking the kids tubing. All the kids are over and it's like. A full day in the sun, summer fun. So that's the whole point is just living life, keeping everybody happy and, um, just more of it.
[00:50:11] Roger Jacobsen
That's awesome. That's awesome. What do you think is the best way to give back?
[00:50:15] Chris Vermeulen
I do a lot of charity work, put on technical traders and myself and my right hand lady, Ashley, we put on, we helped do charities, local charities. We had our technical traders. 19, 000 in November for a kid's mental youth. Fundraiser. We were actually the biggest fundraiser in Canada for this particular campaign. And it was a polar dip challenge. So we had to go into the icy cold waters and we have the biggest team. We raised the most money and we stayed in the water for like four minutes longer than the next longest person. I came out almost blue. It was pretty dangerous. But once you're numb, you can stay in as long as you want. So we do a lot of that and I want to do more of it. Like ideally, as I mentioned at the very beginning, once I hit a certain goal threshold target, I'm really going for, for, you know, my net worth. I want millions a year in just interest in earnings that you can just burn more or less.
[00:51:05]
And I want to do more charity work. I want to give back. I want to help other people. That's been my passion. And. I've been accumulating tools, machines, 3d printers, CNC machines. Um, and I've got a bunch of other friends who have stuff as well. And my plan is over the next couple of years is to open up a, like an entrepreneurial, um, startup, what would it be like a workshop? Uh, where kids or anybody really with an idea or what they want to learn about business and entrepreneurship. We just come in. It's like a club. You just pay like a small monthly fee. Anybody can come in. Everybody's got different skill sets. So if you need something, cat it up. It's a 3d print the part to try and make your product or a part of your product. You just come in and you can use all the machines and make your stuff. So I want to have like a, my own little maker space. I live in a town. It was voted Canada's number one entrepreneur town. We've got, it's a small town. It's Lambo. I think it's, uh, 16, 000 people, but we've got lots of entrepreneurs. It's like, it's called a magnetic town.
[00:52:02]
People naturally want to come here and I want to just help kids or anybody, but I like kids. I really want to help teens. I mentor some teens now and some people in their twenties. So they can be able to reach retirement and live the lifestyle. They want kind of like I did. I mean, I hit my goals. When I was 27 years old, I made a dream board in college, put it on my wall. And I hit my dream board, everything on that dream board, other than a massive yacht, but I'm not a big yachter that I think that was my roommates. I'm a sailor. I have a sailboat. I grew up on sailboats. I do have a couple of jet skis that I have a sailboat now, but it's amazing when you have that focus. And you reach all those goals and you love every day. Like I love getting up and doing my stock market video for members every morning, like who want to be active. I just absolutely love it. And so I'm trying to help other people do the same thing, find their passion by their, where does their brain fit into this world?
[00:52:54]
What do they do naturally? That just, they enjoy doing. It's not even work. And so that's what I want to do. I just want to have a group of cool club of people like that. Right. And we all hang out and just go there in the evenings or the mornings and usually the early mornings where you'll find me and, you know, other. Cool people because we seem to all get up at like four or five too excited to do stuff. We can't wait. So it's pretty good.
[00:53:15] Roger Jacobsen
That's awesome. Thank you so much. Or can our listeners find you online?
[00:53:19] Chris Vermeulen
Yeah, they can go to the technical traders. com. So three words, the technical traders.
[00:53:27] Roger Jacobsen
All right, any social media or not?
[00:53:29] Chris Vermeulen
Yeah, we got them all. I don't really do it. I have a social guy who kind of posts our content. It's kind of time consuming. So I don't, uh, search.
[00:53:37] Ben Waller
We've got them. No, and we'll have them in our show notes for everybody. So we'll throw them up there for you. Chris, just as a summary for our listeners on today's episode, we were talking about whether or not you should invest in the stock market. And what is happening in the stock market right now. And we also talked about Chris methods of a different way to invest, which is called asset revesting. He's got a great book and also some other information online that you can take a look at that and try to apply it to your own investing strategy. Chris, we want to thank you for being on the show today. And thanks everybody for joining us on the retire wealthy and happy podcast. We hope to see you next time. Thanks, Chris.
[00:54:08] Chris Vermeulen
Thanks, Ben. Thanks, Roger. It was a pleasure. A lot of fun. Thanks, Chris. We'll see you next time.
[00:54:12] Podcast Outro
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