1
00:00:02,080 --> 00:00:04,760
And welcome everyone to another 
Smart Money Circle show. 

2
00:00:04,760 --> 00:00:07,640
I'm Adam Sarhan. 
With me today is Yang Tang, 

3
00:00:07,640 --> 00:00:10,360
who's the CEO and Co founder of 
Arch Indices. 

4
00:00:10,520 --> 00:00:15,040
They just launched a new ETF. 
Ticker symbol is VWI and their 

5
00:00:15,040 --> 00:00:18,840
website is VW ietf.com. 
Yang, thank you so much for 

6
00:00:18,840 --> 00:00:21,120
taking the time, and welcome to 
the Smart Money Circle. 

7
00:00:21,800 --> 00:00:23,200
Adam, thank you so much for 
having me. 

8
00:00:23,200 --> 00:00:25,760
It's a pleasure to be here. 
So yeah, I always like to begin.

9
00:00:25,760 --> 00:00:27,800
Can you tell us your story and 
how you got to where you are 

10
00:00:27,800 --> 00:00:29,480
today, please? 
Sure. 

11
00:00:29,480 --> 00:00:33,560
So my investing journey actually
started, you know, middle school

12
00:00:33,560 --> 00:00:37,240
This was, I grew up in San Jose,
CA and during the middle of 

13
00:00:37,240 --> 00:00:40,160
the.com and I was fascinated by 
markets. 

14
00:00:40,200 --> 00:00:42,880
Both of my parents actually 
worked in the semiconductor 

15
00:00:42,880 --> 00:00:45,040
industry. 
So every day I was hearing that 

16
00:00:45,160 --> 00:00:47,080
from my parents, you know, the 
cool things going on, 

17
00:00:47,080 --> 00:00:49,360
technology. 
So I actually bought my first 

18
00:00:49,360 --> 00:00:52,640
dock in 1999. 
One was a middle school and you 

19
00:00:52,640 --> 00:00:55,160
can imagine at that time, you 
know, it was a pretty tedious 

20
00:00:55,160 --> 00:00:57,480
process. 
You actually had to call a 

21
00:00:57,480 --> 00:01:01,000
broker and they charge you 
something like 4999, a trade 

22
00:01:01,600 --> 00:01:04,400
one, you know, that taught me a 
lot because one of these stocks 

23
00:01:04,400 --> 00:01:08,520
did extremely well, the other 
stock unfortunately did very 

24
00:01:08,560 --> 00:01:12,040
poorly despite both management 
teams executing very well. 

25
00:01:12,440 --> 00:01:15,680
So that gave me a very early 
lesson on in the power of 

26
00:01:15,680 --> 00:01:18,560
expectations versus investor 
reality. 

27
00:01:19,080 --> 00:01:21,520
OK. 
After I graduated from college, 

28
00:01:21,560 --> 00:01:23,680
I started actually in sell side 
research. 

29
00:01:23,800 --> 00:01:27,240
I was an analyst for about 18 
months and I moved over into 

30
00:01:27,240 --> 00:01:30,000
commodity sales. 
And over time, yeah. 

31
00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:33,440
And over time my, my philosophy 
has changed quite a bit. 

32
00:01:33,440 --> 00:01:35,960
You know, I started off as very 
much a Warren Buffett. 

33
00:01:35,960 --> 00:01:39,160
We got, you know, fundamentally 
analyzed the company and over 

34
00:01:39,160 --> 00:01:42,480
time I became much more of a, we
have to have a framework, we 

35
00:01:42,480 --> 00:01:45,560
have to be able to 
quantitatively justify what we 

36
00:01:45,560 --> 00:01:47,360
do, right. 
There are so many stocks in this

37
00:01:47,360 --> 00:01:51,200
planet for us to justify buying 
one versus another, you have to 

38
00:01:51,200 --> 00:01:54,320
be an analytical framework and 
that really builds kind of the 

39
00:01:54,320 --> 00:01:57,040
decision making process and the 
portfolio process. 

40
00:01:57,360 --> 00:02:00,320
So I'm actually a relatively new
interest of being a professional

41
00:02:00,320 --> 00:02:02,600
money manager. 
I went to Columbia Business 

42
00:02:02,600 --> 00:02:06,520
School and after Business School
I spent about 10 years doing 

43
00:02:06,520 --> 00:02:08,960
something called macro 
solutions. 

44
00:02:09,400 --> 00:02:12,560
And I really worked with large 
banks, insurance, NASA managers 

45
00:02:12,840 --> 00:02:15,040
on structured derivative and 
structured financing 

46
00:02:15,040 --> 00:02:17,280
transactions. 
So when you think about, you 

47
00:02:17,280 --> 00:02:20,520
know, kind of how a bank or an 
insurer or an asset manager 

48
00:02:20,520 --> 00:02:23,960
manages A portfolio, you know, 
returns are actually, you know, 

49
00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:25,720
one very small part of the 
equation. 

50
00:02:26,040 --> 00:02:28,520
You know, as an example, like an
insurance company, you know, 

51
00:02:28,560 --> 00:02:30,280
that's on behalf of the policy 
holders. 

52
00:02:30,520 --> 00:02:32,800
So they have to think about how 
their liabilities and assets 

53
00:02:32,800 --> 00:02:34,120
match. 
They think about the most 

54
00:02:34,120 --> 00:02:36,440
efficient way to #1 deploy their
capital. 

55
00:02:36,800 --> 00:02:39,240
You know, to support the 
business and the policy holders,

56
00:02:39,400 --> 00:02:42,440
#2, you have to make sure that 
if something bad happens in the 

57
00:02:42,440 --> 00:02:45,280
market, it's unexpected. 
You know, the, the policy makers

58
00:02:45,280 --> 00:02:47,960
are not left holding the bag 
when the insurance company goes 

59
00:02:47,960 --> 00:02:49,280
under. 
And we took up. 

60
00:02:49,280 --> 00:02:51,800
So we started the company 
actually as a almost a 

61
00:02:51,800 --> 00:02:54,400
brainchild during COVID. 
We had actually a lot of people 

62
00:02:54,400 --> 00:02:58,360
come to us during COVID and they
were like, hey man, should I do 

63
00:02:58,360 --> 00:03:00,960
this with my money? 
And you're like, we haven't 

64
00:03:00,960 --> 00:03:03,520
talked in about 15 years. 
I don't really know what's going

65
00:03:03,520 --> 00:03:06,080
on in your life, but the short 
answer is no, please don't do 

66
00:03:06,080 --> 00:03:09,400
that with your money. 
So ours was really kind of our 

67
00:03:09,400 --> 00:03:11,560
grandchild and how we will 
manage our own money. 

68
00:03:11,920 --> 00:03:16,360
And the way we think about it 
is, you know, if we were to 

69
00:03:16,360 --> 00:03:19,800
build a portfolio, we want to 
build the optimal portfolio to 

70
00:03:19,840 --> 00:03:22,480
get us to where we want to go, 
which is the goal, right. 

71
00:03:22,480 --> 00:03:24,480
And we want to deal with the 
least amount of volatility, 

72
00:03:24,880 --> 00:03:27,960
right? 
So they so you have a great 

73
00:03:27,960 --> 00:03:30,040
story. 
So you started in the 90s, you 

74
00:03:30,040 --> 00:03:32,680
saw you got hooked instantly. 
Middle school, which I love, I 

75
00:03:32,680 --> 00:03:37,120
was training the 90s as well. 
And you realize there's lots of 

76
00:03:37,120 --> 00:03:39,520
different inefficiencies, 
there's lots of different ways 

77
00:03:39,600 --> 00:03:41,320
that the market things could 
unfold. 

78
00:03:41,600 --> 00:03:44,960
You realize it's almost price is
a function of perception or 

79
00:03:44,960 --> 00:03:48,200
expectation versus reality. 
And there's more to it than just

80
00:03:48,360 --> 00:03:50,840
having a good new fundamentals 
or good story or whatever the 

81
00:03:50,840 --> 00:03:53,160
case is. 
And then you were intrigued, so 

82
00:03:53,160 --> 00:03:55,360
you instantly fell in love. 
I love that you went to school, 

83
00:03:55,360 --> 00:03:59,600
finished school and then you 
decided to continue your journey

84
00:03:59,600 --> 00:04:02,200
in the financial world. 
You worked in sales, worked on a

85
00:04:02,200 --> 00:04:04,040
few other things, worked in 
banks, weren't some. 

86
00:04:04,120 --> 00:04:06,600
You went deep into some 
derivative stuff and some next 

87
00:04:06,600 --> 00:04:08,760
level stuff. 
And then you decided to open up 

88
00:04:08,760 --> 00:04:11,880
a money management firm and 
congratulations by the way, and 

89
00:04:11,880 --> 00:04:17,640
take your face and you created 
analytical framework to help you

90
00:04:17,640 --> 00:04:20,200
make better decisions than just 
throwing darts on the wall type 

91
00:04:20,200 --> 00:04:21,600
of a thing. 
Is that correct? 

92
00:04:21,600 --> 00:04:23,200
Yeah. 
That's 100% correct. 

93
00:04:23,800 --> 00:04:26,240
It's, you know, it's very 
interesting because when you 

94
00:04:26,240 --> 00:04:29,280
think about even an index, 
right, an index is a derivative 

95
00:04:29,280 --> 00:04:32,400
at the end of the day, you know 
how we built a derivative inside

96
00:04:32,400 --> 00:04:36,280
a bank versus how a, you know, 
large index company builds an 

97
00:04:36,280 --> 00:04:37,960
index. 
Today is actually very night and

98
00:04:37,960 --> 00:04:39,600
day. 
And you know, the index 

99
00:04:39,600 --> 00:04:42,400
companies actually started us. 
You may know this in your 

100
00:04:42,560 --> 00:04:45,320
illicers may know this, but it's
actually started as a newspaper 

101
00:04:45,320 --> 00:04:46,560
business. 
There was a number on the front 

102
00:04:46,560 --> 00:04:48,520
of the newspaper to sell more 
newspapers. 

103
00:04:48,640 --> 00:04:52,160
And you know, the the old school
way of active management was so 

104
00:04:52,160 --> 00:04:55,840
poor people would rather take an
arbitrary number on a newspaper 

105
00:04:56,120 --> 00:04:59,480
than a quote UN quote 
sophisticated money manager with

106
00:04:59,480 --> 00:05:01,920
a large team of research. 
And I think it's really 

107
00:05:01,920 --> 00:05:04,240
important to think about that 
because investors vote with 

108
00:05:04,240 --> 00:05:06,440
their dollars. 
You know, there's no being right

109
00:05:06,440 --> 00:05:08,440
or wrong. 
There's just Either investors 

110
00:05:08,480 --> 00:05:11,720
vote with you or they vote away.
Oh, I love that. 

111
00:05:11,720 --> 00:05:13,440
That's fantastic. 
So perfect. 

112
00:05:13,440 --> 00:05:15,040
It's next great segue to my next
question. 

113
00:05:15,360 --> 00:05:18,600
Please tell us about your 
investment strategy and anything

114
00:05:18,600 --> 00:05:20,800
you want to share in that world.
Yeah. 

115
00:05:20,800 --> 00:05:23,800
So we are what we consider a 
systematic strategy. 

116
00:05:23,960 --> 00:05:26,200
So we kind of think breakdown 
the world a little bit, right. 

117
00:05:26,200 --> 00:05:28,000
There's kind of really two main 
segments. 

118
00:05:28,280 --> 00:05:31,720
There's the low cost index, you 
know, product which is market 

119
00:05:31,720 --> 00:05:35,080
exposure and just fundamentally 
that's very flawed because 

120
00:05:35,080 --> 00:05:38,320
market cap or equal weight 
shouldn't be the determination 

121
00:05:38,320 --> 00:05:40,480
of how you build a portfolio, 
right? 

122
00:05:40,480 --> 00:05:44,120
You know, up to probably I guess
the last 10 years being a big 

123
00:05:44,120 --> 00:05:47,280
company was actually a bad one. 
So people got around that, they 

124
00:05:47,280 --> 00:05:49,320
go, well, I don't want just the 
biggest companies, I want all 

125
00:05:49,320 --> 00:05:51,600
the companies. 
But if you think about it, it's 

126
00:05:51,600 --> 00:05:54,520
actually a little bit crazy. 
Why should a company that you 

127
00:05:54,520 --> 00:05:57,720
know is very small, maybe 
doesn't have any profitability, 

128
00:05:58,040 --> 00:06:01,800
has really more volatility, get 
the same amount of weight in 

129
00:06:01,800 --> 00:06:03,720
your portfolio as say at 
Microsoft. 

130
00:06:04,600 --> 00:06:06,520
So that's going to be the 
problem of low cost beta. 

131
00:06:06,520 --> 00:06:08,480
If they don't understand 
probably how to weight a 

132
00:06:08,480 --> 00:06:11,240
portfolio and you go through 
phases where it works, it 

133
00:06:11,240 --> 00:06:14,000
doesn't work. 
The other end is you know, very 

134
00:06:14,000 --> 00:06:17,080
expensive active managers. 
And if then again to be fair, 

135
00:06:17,080 --> 00:06:19,160
you know active management is a 
lot of flavors. 

136
00:06:19,160 --> 00:06:21,400
There's plenty of, you know, 
active managers that are under 

137
00:06:21,400 --> 00:06:24,840
fees, but the vast majority do 
not and they don't because 

138
00:06:25,040 --> 00:06:29,640
number one, you know, they have 
no way of discerning the proper 

139
00:06:29,640 --> 00:06:31,320
research process in this day and
age. 

140
00:06:31,760 --> 00:06:33,080
There's so much public 
information. 

141
00:06:33,080 --> 00:06:36,400
It's not like in 1970 where 
somebody faxed the SEC, their 

142
00:06:36,400 --> 00:06:39,560
annual report and you waited 
outside and then you had 

143
00:06:39,560 --> 00:06:42,280
somebody like sort of the report
right away reaching the numbers 

144
00:06:42,280 --> 00:06:44,120
over the telephone. 
And next thing you know, you're 

145
00:06:44,120 --> 00:06:45,960
on the floor of the exchange and
you can buy quick, right. 

146
00:06:45,960 --> 00:06:49,600
The information in public 
securities is largely down to a 

147
00:06:49,600 --> 00:06:53,080
very negligible number. 
So a lot of the active managers 

148
00:06:53,080 --> 00:06:55,160
struggle with, you know, what 
are they like. 

149
00:06:55,240 --> 00:06:57,360
And that's actually more of a 
reflection of their personal 

150
00:06:57,400 --> 00:07:01,840
bias and their investment bias 
rather than a analytically 

151
00:07:01,840 --> 00:07:04,120
proper framework. 
So what we want to be is we want

152
00:07:04,120 --> 00:07:07,160
to be committed, we want a 
systematic rules based strategy 

153
00:07:07,640 --> 00:07:09,760
and this really helps you two 
things. 

154
00:07:09,760 --> 00:07:14,480
Number one is it's fully 
transparent and #2 is it reduces

155
00:07:14,480 --> 00:07:18,360
as much human decision making as
possible to reduce as many 

156
00:07:18,360 --> 00:07:20,200
errors from human judgment, 
right. 

157
00:07:20,200 --> 00:07:23,200
When people think about passive,
it's not low cost market cap 

158
00:07:23,200 --> 00:07:27,200
product, it's a systematic way 
allocating assets to prevent 

159
00:07:27,200 --> 00:07:30,880
errors from human judgment. 
That's what we do, a low cost 

160
00:07:30,880 --> 00:07:33,080
product at best step. 
I love that. 

161
00:07:33,080 --> 00:07:36,680
So are you using price as a 
primary factor to make those 

162
00:07:36,680 --> 00:07:39,480
decisions or is it fundamentals?
Or how do you come up with the 

163
00:07:39,480 --> 00:07:41,960
criteria for the system, so to 
speak? 

164
00:07:42,920 --> 00:07:44,440
Yeah. 
So we've developed a process 

165
00:07:44,440 --> 00:07:46,840
which we call various optimized 
index. 

166
00:07:47,640 --> 00:07:50,240
So you can think of this as a 
modern portfolio theory 

167
00:07:50,240 --> 00:07:53,160
framework, but correcting for a 
lot of the flaws, right? 

168
00:07:53,160 --> 00:07:55,480
When, you know, when people 
think about Harry Markowitz, the

169
00:07:55,480 --> 00:07:59,880
man is a genius, but the man is 
also an academic and the MPT 

170
00:07:59,960 --> 00:08:03,000
only works in the classroom. 
For example, modern portfolio 

171
00:08:03,000 --> 00:08:05,440
theory assumes that you can 
predict expected returns and 

172
00:08:05,440 --> 00:08:08,080
expected volatility, right. 
If you and I could do that, we 

173
00:08:08,240 --> 00:08:10,200
wouldn't be talking today. 
We would probably be driving 

174
00:08:10,200 --> 00:08:12,480
around in a very fancy car on a 
private island. 

175
00:08:13,800 --> 00:08:17,040
So you have to think about that.
So but the analytical framework 

176
00:08:17,040 --> 00:08:19,360
is correct, right. 
What you want is you want some 

177
00:08:19,360 --> 00:08:22,240
kind of factor of assets. 
So what is it? 

178
00:08:22,240 --> 00:08:25,000
A quantitatively about 
securities that makes them 

179
00:08:25,000 --> 00:08:27,680
attractive, right. 
There's a number of factors we 

180
00:08:27,680 --> 00:08:29,000
can go into it a little bit 
later. 

181
00:08:29,280 --> 00:08:33,320
So we want, the factor that we 
want or #2 is we want low 

182
00:08:33,320 --> 00:08:36,360
volatility, right? 
Low volatility means there's not

183
00:08:36,360 --> 00:08:38,320
much investor debate on what's 
going on. 

184
00:08:38,679 --> 00:08:42,559
So if you think about how people
go wrong with positions, they 

185
00:08:42,559 --> 00:08:46,000
should become very volatile 
first before they either implode

186
00:08:46,000 --> 00:08:48,760
or they do very well, right? 
Most times they implode, 

187
00:08:48,880 --> 00:08:52,000
sometimes they do very well. 
And the third is you want to 

188
00:08:52,000 --> 00:08:55,280
look for a portfolio that 
doesn't always move together to 

189
00:08:55,280 --> 00:08:58,280
correlation. 
So what we do is we look for our

190
00:08:58,280 --> 00:09:00,440
ETF is income. 
So what we target is current 

191
00:09:00,440 --> 00:09:02,600
income. 
We have dividend stocks and we 

192
00:09:02,600 --> 00:09:05,920
have bond ETFs. 
So we look for stocks at a high 

193
00:09:05,920 --> 00:09:09,080
yield, low volatility. 
So we call that the ratio, the 

194
00:09:09,080 --> 00:09:11,760
performance ratio. 
And then we look for a bunch of 

195
00:09:11,760 --> 00:09:14,480
assets that have high 
performance ratio individually, 

196
00:09:14,800 --> 00:09:17,240
but they're not moving together 
at any given moment. 

197
00:09:17,560 --> 00:09:20,720
So they're de correlated over 
time, you know and then that's 

198
00:09:20,720 --> 00:09:22,920
how you build a portfolio to 
reduce volatility. 

199
00:09:23,280 --> 00:09:25,880
So we have two angles who always
want to give the investor the 

200
00:09:25,880 --> 00:09:28,520
exposure, in this case income 
and then we want to give them 

201
00:09:28,520 --> 00:09:30,760
the least volatile portfolio to 
do that. 

202
00:09:31,440 --> 00:09:32,080
OK. 
I love that. 

203
00:09:32,080 --> 00:09:34,400
So that's a really good point. 
Now let's talk about risk 

204
00:09:34,400 --> 00:09:36,000
management. 
How do you handle risk and what 

205
00:09:36,000 --> 00:09:38,120
are some mistakes do you see 
people make with respect to risk

206
00:09:38,120 --> 00:09:40,800
management please? 
I think the biggest problem of 

207
00:09:40,800 --> 00:09:44,560
risk is kind of size positions. 
And you know what we do is we 

208
00:09:44,560 --> 00:09:46,320
have a, you know, a weighting 
engine. 

209
00:09:46,600 --> 00:09:51,000
It's not a traditional matrix 
optimizer that you see from the 

210
00:09:51,000 --> 00:09:53,720
competitors and that's what the 
modern portfolio theory is based

211
00:09:53,720 --> 00:09:54,640
on. 
We've actually built a 

212
00:09:54,640 --> 00:09:57,560
completely proprietary system 
based on a tree model. 

213
00:09:58,000 --> 00:10:00,800
So that's .1 is how do you think
about weighting, how do you 

214
00:10:00,800 --> 00:10:02,840
think about methodology? 
It's a pretty complex 

215
00:10:02,840 --> 00:10:06,280
mathematical process, you know, 
anyone who wants to learn more 

216
00:10:06,280 --> 00:10:08,280
can always reach out. 
We have life papers and more 

217
00:10:08,280 --> 00:10:12,240
information to provide and #2 
it, you know, how do you protect

218
00:10:12,240 --> 00:10:15,960
as many scenarios as possible. 
So when you think about what 

219
00:10:15,960 --> 00:10:18,800
goes wrong, what we do, we take 
into account correlation, how 

220
00:10:18,800 --> 00:10:21,280
assets move together over a long
period of time. 

221
00:10:21,520 --> 00:10:24,360
Assets have been shown to either
be positively correlated or 

222
00:10:24,360 --> 00:10:26,840
negatively correlated or 
uncorrelated at all, right. 

223
00:10:27,080 --> 00:10:30,560
The uncorrelated assets I think 
generally don't exist or they 

224
00:10:30,560 --> 00:10:34,320
only exist for a period of time.
So what really goes wrong for 

225
00:10:34,320 --> 00:10:38,520
investors is if correlation 
either massively goes up right? 

226
00:10:38,720 --> 00:10:40,920
But the market goes down. 
So that's a liquidity event. 

227
00:10:41,720 --> 00:10:44,320
Also a market crash. 
For example yesterday is a great

228
00:10:44,320 --> 00:10:47,600
example. 
Stocks went down, bonds went 

229
00:10:47,600 --> 00:10:49,320
down, inflation came in hot 
right? 

230
00:10:49,320 --> 00:10:54,160
The S&P dropped 2%. 
The 30 year bond dropped 1 1/2%.

231
00:10:54,520 --> 00:10:56,680
So that's a pretty bad day if 
you're expecting bonds and 

232
00:10:56,680 --> 00:10:58,200
stocks to be negatively 
correlated. 

233
00:10:58,680 --> 00:11:00,480
Luckily, there's two ways to 
think about them. 

234
00:11:00,520 --> 00:11:03,640
Number one is you can buy what 
we call a tail hedge, which is 

235
00:11:03,640 --> 00:11:06,400
an insurance policy. 
It's usually an out of the money

236
00:11:06,400 --> 00:11:09,600
caller, but that's, you know, 
they lose money on these things 

237
00:11:09,600 --> 00:11:11,920
over time, but they happen to 
pay off on that day. 

238
00:11:12,000 --> 00:11:13,800
Like a fixed calls an exam, 
right? 

239
00:11:14,560 --> 00:11:17,400
You know, buy, you know, calls 
on the US dollars, another exam 

240
00:11:18,960 --> 00:11:22,160
or #2 is, you know, you're 
trying to basically build a 

241
00:11:22,200 --> 00:11:24,520
portfolio where you know those 
days are going to happen, but 

242
00:11:24,520 --> 00:11:26,880
you have enough staying power 
over time when you make money 

243
00:11:26,880 --> 00:11:32,040
over time or those days are 
unpleasant, but you know it's OK

244
00:11:32,040 --> 00:11:34,680
because it's one out of 100 days
and you're not trading in and 

245
00:11:34,680 --> 00:11:36,640
out of this all day. 
Understood. 

246
00:11:36,640 --> 00:11:39,640
So that makes perfect sense. 
Now, as far as stops, do you use

247
00:11:39,640 --> 00:11:44,720
stops at all or do you use it 
based on your expected return 

248
00:11:44,720 --> 00:11:47,040
versus what's actually 
happening? 

249
00:11:47,040 --> 00:11:49,400
Or how do you know when you're 
wrong and your thesis is busted 

250
00:11:49,400 --> 00:11:53,040
and you want to get out? 
So at any given moment, there's 

251
00:11:53,040 --> 00:11:57,200
your optimal portfolio. 
So our ethnic RETF rebalances 

252
00:11:57,200 --> 00:11:59,360
every quarter. 
So we, we just rebalanced 

253
00:11:59,360 --> 00:12:01,920
beginning actually February 8th 
about a week ago. 

254
00:12:02,280 --> 00:12:05,400
So the portfolio changed ever so
slightly before, let's say with 

255
00:12:05,400 --> 00:12:11,680
81% dividend stocks, 19% bonds, 
now it's 21% bonds, 79% stocks. 

256
00:12:11,920 --> 00:12:15,320
So every single day you drift a 
little bit away, a little bit 

257
00:12:15,320 --> 00:12:17,960
away, a little bit away from the
optimal portfolio. 

258
00:12:18,480 --> 00:12:20,720
The majority of the time it 
doesn't make sense for investors

259
00:12:20,720 --> 00:12:23,240
to rebalance because of the 
transaction cost. 

260
00:12:24,240 --> 00:12:26,480
So there are some days where 
yeah, you're going to, you're 

261
00:12:26,480 --> 00:12:27,880
going to need to rebalance 
faster. 

262
00:12:28,120 --> 00:12:30,920
But we do a quarterly on a 
systematic basis because the 

263
00:12:30,920 --> 00:12:34,080
other problem is, you know, you 
don't want yourself to be 

264
00:12:34,280 --> 00:12:36,200
reactionary to the market, 
right. 

265
00:12:36,200 --> 00:12:38,760
If you know like you're down X 
percent today, you know it's 

266
00:12:38,760 --> 00:12:41,160
going to come back tomorrow, 
it's going to negatively de 

267
00:12:41,160 --> 00:12:43,840
correlate the market, what's the
point of rebalancing at the 

268
00:12:43,840 --> 00:12:45,520
bottom? 
So you're also trying to prevent

269
00:12:45,520 --> 00:12:48,760
the, you know, the feedback loop
of spinning your portfolio out 

270
00:12:48,760 --> 00:12:50,760
of control. 
So for that reason, we don't use

271
00:12:50,760 --> 00:12:52,440
stops. 
We just do the optimization 

272
00:12:52,440 --> 00:12:55,560
every quarter. 
Some years, you know, it's a 

273
00:12:55,560 --> 00:12:57,880
very little change. 
Some years it's a more, you 

274
00:12:57,880 --> 00:13:00,000
know, rapid change. 
It really, you know, rebalances 

275
00:13:00,000 --> 00:13:02,760
itself to the optimal market 
condition. 

276
00:13:03,400 --> 00:13:05,480
Understood. 
So your stop, I guess your risk 

277
00:13:05,480 --> 00:13:08,080
would be just sizing the 
position from the get go and 

278
00:13:08,080 --> 00:13:10,720
then also making sure that 
they're not correlated assets, 

279
00:13:11,040 --> 00:13:14,680
so you're not too heavily 
involved in one specific area 

280
00:13:14,680 --> 00:13:17,040
that could. 
Crush the portfolio, right, 

281
00:13:17,200 --> 00:13:20,400
Yeah, about constructing the 
portfolio and then you know we 

282
00:13:20,400 --> 00:13:23,720
back tested this about five 
years before we launched. 

283
00:13:24,040 --> 00:13:27,000
So we covered from 2018 to 23, 
which is a great number of 

284
00:13:27,000 --> 00:13:29,640
scenarios, right. 
We covered the first Fed height,

285
00:13:30,480 --> 00:13:34,040
we covered COVID, we covered the
Fed post COVID and then we 

286
00:13:34,040 --> 00:13:36,960
covered the biggest rate hike in
about 40 something years. 

287
00:13:37,280 --> 00:13:41,080
So I will point out is from the 
index perspective, you know the 

288
00:13:41,080 --> 00:13:45,000
index had so it's because it's 
you know somewhere between 7080%

289
00:13:45,000 --> 00:13:48,720
dividend stocks over the five 
year period we had the same 

290
00:13:48,720 --> 00:13:52,920
total return as the high 
dividend index which is 100, the

291
00:13:52,920 --> 00:13:57,080
high dividend stocks. 
But we only realized 71% of the 

292
00:13:57,080 --> 00:13:59,440
volatility. 
So it got you to the same path 

293
00:13:59,480 --> 00:14:03,160
over a period of time, but again
you got less volatility during 

294
00:14:03,160 --> 00:14:04,600
that period. 
Yeah, it makes sense. 

295
00:14:04,600 --> 00:14:06,840
OK, let's thank you for that. 
Let's shift the conversation a 

296
00:14:06,840 --> 00:14:08,440
little bit. 
Talk about some timeless lessons

297
00:14:08,440 --> 00:14:10,080
that you've learned along the 
way that you like to share with 

298
00:14:10,080 --> 00:14:11,720
the audience. 
Yeah. 

299
00:14:11,720 --> 00:14:15,160
So I think the biggest lesson is
you have to have a friend, 

300
00:14:15,400 --> 00:14:17,320
right. 
I think many times investors go 

301
00:14:17,320 --> 00:14:20,080
in and, you know, they hear 
something, you know, a great 

302
00:14:20,080 --> 00:14:23,000
idea or a great pitch. 
And, you know, even, you know, 

303
00:14:23,000 --> 00:14:24,480
the professionals have this 
problem. 

304
00:14:24,480 --> 00:14:26,600
Like, you know, one of my 
friends, you know, telling me 

305
00:14:26,600 --> 00:14:28,480
about a real estate fund he's 
looking at. 

306
00:14:28,600 --> 00:14:31,120
And I think myself like, wow, 
this is an interesting way to 

307
00:14:31,120 --> 00:14:32,400
plant the commercial real 
estate. 

308
00:14:32,800 --> 00:14:35,160
And then then I have to stop 
myself and go, this is great, 

309
00:14:35,480 --> 00:14:38,480
but #1, how does this fit into 
My Portfolio and what I want to 

310
00:14:38,480 --> 00:14:40,680
do? 
So the key is this, having the 

311
00:14:40,680 --> 00:14:44,560
framework for what you want and 
making sure that you're playing 

312
00:14:44,560 --> 00:14:47,160
your game and your game is 
important, right. 

313
00:14:47,160 --> 00:14:49,600
We don't want to be chasing. 
You know, the analogy is you're 

314
00:14:49,600 --> 00:14:52,240
never going to catch the bus if 
you go to a different bus stop 

315
00:14:52,320 --> 00:14:54,880
every two minutes, right. 
You have to stay with the bus 

316
00:14:54,880 --> 00:14:58,520
stop, you have to stay with the 
path and of course if your path 

317
00:14:58,520 --> 00:15:00,760
changes then it makes sense to 
readjust. 

318
00:15:01,080 --> 00:15:04,680
So I would say that is the first
piece and the second piece is 

319
00:15:04,960 --> 00:15:07,520
you have to think about risk 
adjusted returns. 

320
00:15:07,840 --> 00:15:11,440
You know and I think a lot of 
people they wake up and they go 

321
00:15:11,440 --> 00:15:16,480
oh I'm up 10% but so and so is 
up 15% like I should be doing 

322
00:15:16,480 --> 00:15:19,400
that instead. 
Well no, that's not the case, 

323
00:15:19,400 --> 00:15:21,400
right. 
That guy being up 15% may have 

324
00:15:21,400 --> 00:15:24,640
had two X of volatility. 
So my risk adjusted perspective 

325
00:15:24,840 --> 00:15:27,760
you may have been better off you
know and it's like going to the 

326
00:15:27,760 --> 00:15:30,280
casino, right. 
You know if you flip coins you 

327
00:15:30,280 --> 00:15:32,640
know over time and you keep 
betting tails where you keep 

328
00:15:32,640 --> 00:15:35,600
betting heads, well you're going
to break even you know. 

329
00:15:35,840 --> 00:15:38,240
So you want to make sure the 
game that you play, it's 

330
00:15:38,240 --> 00:15:39,720
thinking about the risk in the 
path. 

331
00:15:40,760 --> 00:15:43,240
Interesting. 
So what about some timeless 

332
00:15:43,240 --> 00:15:44,600
mistakes and how do you avoid 
them? 

333
00:15:45,560 --> 00:15:48,960
I think the biggest mistake of 
any investor is themselves right

334
00:15:48,960 --> 00:15:52,800
is it's controlling your your 
fear on a down day. 

335
00:15:53,040 --> 00:15:57,600
It's controlling your euphoria 
on an update and not making any 

336
00:15:57,600 --> 00:16:00,000
rash decisions, right. 
A lot of these investment 

337
00:16:00,000 --> 00:16:02,560
mistakes come from just pure 
rash decisions. 

338
00:16:02,880 --> 00:16:08,280
You know, it's for example, I 
think it was Julia Robertson, 

339
00:16:08,280 --> 00:16:11,680
right, was shorting Internet 
stocks, going into the.com boom.

340
00:16:12,000 --> 00:16:14,120
And then he was right. 
Of course, a lot of those things

341
00:16:14,120 --> 00:16:16,520
collapse, but he gave up at the 
peak, obviously. 

342
00:16:16,520 --> 00:16:18,760
I think it was different, you 
know, he was older, different 

343
00:16:18,760 --> 00:16:22,160
part of life, so forth. 
You know, it was more moving on 

344
00:16:22,160 --> 00:16:23,880
from life. 
But when you think about that, 

345
00:16:23,880 --> 00:16:27,560
right, he was right the whole 
time, you know, But from a 

346
00:16:27,600 --> 00:16:30,560
emotional perspective or from a 
life perspective, he stopped. 

347
00:16:31,000 --> 00:16:34,880
So if you just stick with the 
path, you don't let the euphor 

348
00:16:34,880 --> 00:16:37,000
young good days make you overly 
happy. 

349
00:16:37,680 --> 00:16:39,680
You know, try to have less 
drinks on that day, right? 

350
00:16:39,960 --> 00:16:43,320
But you know, don't let the, you
know the down days really get to

351
00:16:43,320 --> 00:16:45,440
you where you don't have to 
reevaluate everything, right? 

352
00:16:45,880 --> 00:16:49,160
Maybe have more drinks that day.
I hear you, you know, just 

353
00:16:49,160 --> 00:16:51,600
balance it out and then have the
plan that you want to have. 

354
00:16:52,480 --> 00:16:56,600
So what you're saying here is 
just I like we said earlier, 

355
00:16:56,600 --> 00:16:59,880
about being, not being 
reactionary and mistakes you see

356
00:16:59,880 --> 00:17:02,920
people make are getting too 
euphoric or too depressed on 

357
00:17:02,920 --> 00:17:04,720
updates or down days. 
So make sure you check your 

358
00:17:04,720 --> 00:17:07,960
emotions. 
What about some advice? 

359
00:17:07,960 --> 00:17:09,800
What's some timeless advice 
you'd like to share with the 

360
00:17:09,800 --> 00:17:12,599
audience about the markets or 
off markets? 

361
00:17:12,599 --> 00:17:14,640
Anywhere you want to go with 
that or give your, you know, 

362
00:17:14,640 --> 00:17:17,720
younger self. 
I think I would tell my younger 

363
00:17:17,720 --> 00:17:22,200
self is, you know, you have to 
be very careful doing research 

364
00:17:22,200 --> 00:17:25,839
and listening to people, right? 
Everyone has some kind of angle 

365
00:17:26,240 --> 00:17:27,760
and some kind of way they think,
right? 

366
00:17:27,960 --> 00:17:32,120
So number one, you know, even in
this 20-30 minute conversation, 

367
00:17:33,400 --> 00:17:35,640
you know, I've told you a lot 
about myself, but you don't know

368
00:17:35,640 --> 00:17:38,720
enough about my thinking and how
I think about positions to just 

369
00:17:38,720 --> 00:17:41,880
blindly follow my advice. 
So, you know, when you follow 

370
00:17:41,880 --> 00:17:44,440
someone's advice or you follow 
someone's strategy, you really 

371
00:17:44,440 --> 00:17:46,640
have to go very deep and 
understand what you're doing. 

372
00:17:46,960 --> 00:17:50,320
And the biggest thing is, you 
know, make sure you know all the

373
00:17:50,320 --> 00:17:53,600
scenarios of all the outcomes or
as many as you can, right. 

374
00:17:53,960 --> 00:17:57,240
Because you know, the problem is
people think of life as a normal

375
00:17:57,240 --> 00:17:59,080
distribution. 
It's actually not a normal 

376
00:17:59,080 --> 00:18:00,920
distribution. 
It's a very long normal 

377
00:18:00,920 --> 00:18:04,720
distribution and not a lot of 
people appreciate distribution 

378
00:18:04,720 --> 00:18:07,240
of outcomes. 
So that's I would tell myself 

379
00:18:07,240 --> 00:18:11,400
that and to everyone that is, 
you know, understand exactly the

380
00:18:11,400 --> 00:18:15,440
research process, the philosophy
and you know, you don't have to 

381
00:18:15,440 --> 00:18:17,400
agree with it. 
And if it's not for you, it's 

382
00:18:17,400 --> 00:18:19,120
not for you. 
You know, a lot of people don't 

383
00:18:19,120 --> 00:18:22,200
agree with quantitative 
investing methods, right? 

384
00:18:22,200 --> 00:18:24,240
You know, they don't feel 
comfortable with the idea of a 

385
00:18:24,240 --> 00:18:27,040
machine, like that's fine. 
There's nothing wrong with that,

386
00:18:27,320 --> 00:18:27,920
right. 
That's you. 

387
00:18:27,920 --> 00:18:31,160
If you're not comfortable with a
strategy, you know you're going 

388
00:18:31,160 --> 00:18:33,680
to, you're going to misuse the 
strategy. 

389
00:18:33,680 --> 00:18:37,000
And you know, I've seen people 
get comfortable with fundamental

390
00:18:37,000 --> 00:18:38,760
investing. 
You know, they do very well, 

391
00:18:38,760 --> 00:18:41,040
right. 
They have some kind of internal,

392
00:18:41,360 --> 00:18:44,360
you know, process They do. 
And it seems to work fine for 

393
00:18:44,360 --> 00:18:46,680
them, right. 
You know, I wish those people 

394
00:18:46,680 --> 00:18:49,400
very well and they do very well.
But again, for me, I'm a 

395
00:18:49,400 --> 00:18:51,560
quantitative person, so that 
would never work for me. 

396
00:18:51,720 --> 00:18:53,280
So I would never get comfortable
with that. 

397
00:18:53,280 --> 00:18:54,880
Right. 
So, you know, I'm just going to 

398
00:18:54,880 --> 00:18:57,400
search up myself to a lot of 
human biases, right? 

399
00:18:57,400 --> 00:18:58,960
Because, you know, that mean we 
all have bad days. 

400
00:18:58,960 --> 00:19:01,080
That person is going to have a 
bad day, right? 

401
00:19:01,080 --> 00:19:03,120
The moment that person has a bad
day, I'm going to be like I'm at

402
00:19:03,200 --> 00:19:05,200
this was a bad idea. 
And I you know. 

403
00:19:06,240 --> 00:19:08,960
You know, Yang, so much in the 
book I talk about human biases. 

404
00:19:08,960 --> 00:19:10,840
I have whole section cognitive 
biases as well. 

405
00:19:11,080 --> 00:19:13,400
And mental walls. 
You ever do something hit a 

406
00:19:13,400 --> 00:19:14,320
wall? 
We all have. 

407
00:19:14,320 --> 00:19:16,960
I call them mental walls. 
And then I say there's an 

408
00:19:16,960 --> 00:19:18,840
infinite number of ways to make 
money in the market. 

409
00:19:18,840 --> 00:19:22,040
Your job is to find one that 
works for you and echoes. 

410
00:19:22,040 --> 00:19:23,080
Exactly. 
We just met. 

411
00:19:23,080 --> 00:19:25,080
I mean, literally. 
So I love that. 

412
00:19:25,600 --> 00:19:27,120
OK, beautiful. 
Well, Yang, thank you so much 

413
00:19:27,120 --> 00:19:29,560
for taking the time to speak 
today and Congrats on the launch

414
00:19:29,560 --> 00:19:32,400
of your ETF and future ETFs. 
If you go in that direction and 

415
00:19:32,400 --> 00:19:34,760
all the success you're going to 
have, I mean fantastic job. 

416
00:19:35,560 --> 00:19:36,520
All right. 
Thank you so much, Adam, and 

417
00:19:36,520 --> 00:19:37,480
thank you for having me here 
today.

