“Just start doing what you said you were going to do… Everything starts from there. Without integrity, nothing else works.” -Anmol Singh
The trade industry is certainly one of the most critical, uncertain and risky places to invest your money. But it also gives the highest ROIs if you learned how successful traders do it. In this conversation, Art interviews one of the most influential and successful traders of today, Anmol Singh. Anmol reveals how to calculate your expectations and investments based on credible statistics. Numbers don’t lie. Thus, establishing a perfect strategy and following it can take you places. He also educates us on trade styles and potential markets to invest in. You can be successful in trading even if you hate numbers. The key is to know when to use your gut and keep your integrity in whatever endeavor you follow. Don’t miss out on today’s episode!
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Listen to the podcast here:
Highlights:
01:19 An Unexpected Career
07:54 Be A Person of Integrity
10:49 The Formula For Expectancy
13:08 When To and Not To Trust Your Gut
17:06 Know Your Numbers and Expectations
21:14 Follow Your Strategy
27:55 Trade Styles and Markets in a Closer Look
33:20 How to Make the Best Investing Decisions
Resources :
Books
- Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck
- Prepping For Success: 10 Keys for Making It In Life by Anmol Singh
Quotes:
06:33 “There’s always something some way that can work, but you’re looking for the creative solution.” -Anmol Singh
07:33 “Theory is great, but practical application has a far greater value than anything else when you start working with people.” -Art Costello
08:03 “Be a person of integrity…Do what you said you were going to do. And then do it when you said you were going to do it.” -Anmol Singh
09:09 “Return on investment is more important than return on your ego.” -Anmol Singh
13:17 “Anybody can lie. But one thing that never lies his numbers.” -Anmol Singh
23:02 “It’s actually good that mistakes never went in my favor because now I know not to make them.” -Anmol Singh
44:16 “Just start doing what you said you were going to do… Everything starts from there. Without integrity, nothing else works.” -Anmol Singh
Meet Anmol:
Anmol Singh has made his name as a high paid consultant in the trading investment industry. He launched Live Traders in 2015, which is now voted the number one trading education firm for three years in a row. He has coached and trained over 1000 traders and investors, some of whom have gone on to run their own Hedge funds. He’s considered the leading expert in the trading psychology space, having helped thousands of traders all over the world dealing with psychological and behavioral issues that arise when high stakes are on the line. He brings a unique view on success and shows how the same concepts that he has used to help million-dollar traders are applicable to all types of industry or career. Anmol has been featured in various media outlets including Yahoo Finance, Reuters, and Benzinga.
Transcription:
Art Costello: Welcome to the Shower Epiphanies Podcast, today, I’m all seeing is my guest. Anmol Singh made his name as a high paid consultant in the trading investing industry. He launched Live Traders in 2015, which is now voted the #1 Trading Education Firm for three years in a row. He has coached and Trained over 1000+ Traders and Investors. Some of whom have now gone on to run their Own Hedge funds. Is considered the leading expert in the trading psychology space, having helped thousands of traders all over the world dealing with psychological and behavioral issues that arise when high stakes are on the line. He brings a unique view on success and shows how the same concepts that he has used to help millions dollar traders and applicable to your day to day lives irrespective of the industry or career that you are in.
Welcome to the show Anmol. It is a pleasure having you here.
Anmol Singh: Thanks for having me. Looking forward to chatting with you.
Art Costello: Yeah. Can you tell us your history, how you got started, and how this all came about?
Anmol Singh: Sure. So I never grew up wanting to be a trader or wanting to be in the stock market. As a kid I was always really bad in mathematics and with numbers. So this was not a career that I was planning to go into, I hated numbers. I barely passed in school when I was going through the mathematics class, but I graduated, I did the bare minimum needed to graduate, and then I went into university in London, went to Brunel University to get my business degree. And then there, it was a four year degree, and in the third year of the second year you had to apply for internships and to do one year of work, and then you come back the next year to complete your graduation. So that’s kinda how I did. In the second year of my university, I started applying to different jobs, different banks, Goldman Sachs bank, and I didn’t get in anywhere, didn’t get accepted for internship anywhere. And then that made me kind of look into, Hey, what do I do? Look at alternative paths since I wasn’t able to get an internship, not even in the top one but not even in a startup. So I had to do something in my second year, and that’s where I started reading books about financial markets, reading about trading, watching TV shows. And as a kid, you grow up, you watch these movies about Wall Street that there’s obviously money to be made in those markets. So that was kind of my fascination, and that led me to a road where I started taking courses, programs, really try to do it on my own. And in the second year of my university is when I really dive deep into the financial markets. It’s about learning. And then it led me to a career, which I never imagined what happened.
Art Costello: That’s really amazing. And what I find fascinating about it is that you didn’t buckle under. You’ve got that driving you, that entrepreneurial drive that makes you want to be successful.
Anmol Singh: Right.
Art Costello: What do you attribute that to?
Anmol Singh: I think I attribute to seeing my father worked really hard. I grew up in India, and in India my father didn’t have much business. When the British left, India and Pakistan were separated, and then the whole thing was going over. But my parents actually left their hometown where they were, just with few belongings and less towards India, when the participation happened, the divide, that part went into Pakistan. So they literally left everything and went to the part of India, and they didn’t have a job. My dad didn’t graduate from school, high school, he didn’t do any of that. But then they work really, really hard, really focused work, and they build something from nothing. So as a child, seeing him travel, work hard, maybe I saw him 30 days out of a year, rest of the days he was traveling, working hard. So I think that work ethic, that commitment to providing for your family, I think that is what I attribute my drive towards.
Art Costello: You’re the third guest that I’ve had on that is from India, and every one of them, every guest that I’ve had has had the same story. The girl that I just interviewed a few weeks ago came with $200 in her pocket, she was gay, and came to America, and now has 6 multimillion-dollar companies that she owns. And the thing about each and every one of you is that you work so hard, and you’re so dedicated to what your craft is. And I think that that’s what separates successful people from not successful people. It doesn’t matter what country you come from, what ethnicity you are, if you’re willing to work hard and apply yourself and not give up, ever, never give up, you just keep driving forward, you’re going to find that success. This is really gonna probably be a funny question. Do you think that you learned more by going to college? Or by just working hard doing and learning?
Anmol Singh: I think both. I definitely learned while working hard and learning as you go. So like Carol Dweck teaches in her book the Growth Mindset, try one thing doesn’t work, you try another way. And I think that’s one of the things, at least for me and my family, we grew up with, Hey, if that solution doesn’t work, find a creative solution, go left, go right, go around it, go jump over it, find a solution, there’s always something, some way that can work. But we’re looking for a creative solution while on the go on the job, definitely helped me. I would say I didn’t really learn a lot in university. I mean, learning from the books or the curriculum from the course, I didn’t learn much there, but I did learn from the relationships I’ve built in the university, and also the extra activities I did outside the university. So maybe in universities joining like a business club, starting an entrepreneurship club. For me, I started the trading and investing society, there was none. It was a business society but there was no society related to trading and investing. So I was like, Hey, let’s start something. I’ve got a few people together. We started the investing and trading society, or the active part of the entrepreneurship society. So I think that’s where I learned the most interactive with people rather than the actual classroom curriculum, but learning going on the job on the fly has been the best way to learn running from my mistakes and also the mistakes of others.
“There's always something some way that can work, but you're looking for the creative solution.” -Anmol Singh Click To TweetArt Costello: Yeah, I agree that I think that it has, I know that from my standpoint and being in the psychology world, theory is great, but practical application has far greater value than anything else when you start working with people. I know that you’ve done work with the psychology of training in the behavioral aspects of trading. Can we talk about that a little bit? How do you help people with those areas?
“Theory is great, but practical application has a far greater value than anything else when you start working with people.” -Art Costello Click To TweetAnmol Singh: Sure. So I think it all starts with, one of the things that I, on the first chapters in the book that I wrote was integrity. One of the biggest things I teach people is being a person of integrity. Meaning, do what you said you were going to do and then do it when you said you were going to do it. If you do everything that came out of your mouth, and if you really believe every single thing that came out of your mouth, you really believed it, you would go ahead and do it. So I try and teach people to not say something that they’re not serious about, or they’re not gonna follow through on. Because if you say something and you don’t do it, that results in low self esteem, and that results in low confidence. But if you start executing on everything that you say and doing it, and completing what you said you are going to do it, that slowly builds a series of self confidence, self discipline, and self esteem. So that’s one of the things that I teach people is focus on the goal, focus on the ROI, focus on the money, focus on trading successfully, and making that income rather than focusing on being right. Know that the ego, the focus on being right is what causes most people to not succeed, be it in business, be it in investing, in trading is that don’t try and be right, you could be wrong, it’s fine. Learn from it, move on. So don’t focus on being right, focus on the ROI. So as I say, Return on Investment is more important than return on your ego. So that’s one of the things that people definitely need to realize. And integrity, being a person of integrity is the biggest difference maker. I mean, can you imagine how great life would be if you did everything that we said we were going to do. Hey, I’m going to start working out on Monday, and you actually did it. I’m going to start eating healthy on Monday, and you did it. Your whole life would improve if you just did the things that you said you were going to do.
“Return on investment is more important than return on your ego.” -Anmol Singh Click To TweetArt Costello: Well, and that’s one of the things that I always preach, because I write about expectations a lot, my research is in expectations. And when we have, and I’m not talking about expectations of others, I’m talking about your core expectations, which I happen to agree with you. Integrity is probably the most important one. And then when you live in a life of integrity, and you do what you say you’re going to do, and you are honest, the expectation is always for greatness. You’re always thinking higher, and you don’t fall into that trap of negative expectations where the thought pattern is, Oh, yeah, and let’s take the investment industry. Oh, yeah, I’m going to invest this money, but I don’t know if it’s going to work. Instead, I’m going to go invest this money and make it work for me.
Anmol Singh: Right.
Art Costello: Are we on the same page when it comes to that?
Anmol Singh: Yeah, definitely. I mean, I’m trading one of the things, another one thing we talk about similar to you is having a positive expectancy. Mathematically as well as in your mindset, like having positive expectancy. Because if you’re not positively expecting a certain thing to happen, then why even do it in the first place? So that’s one of the things people need to keep in mind. I totally agree with you on that.
Art Costello: Actually, physics is where I got the formula for Expectation Therapy, because in physics there’s what’s called the formula for expectancy, how scientists can predict the outcome of experiments. And I took that formula and turned it into a behavioral formula for Expectation Therapy. And it’s basically three things, it’s identify, clarify, and solidify with a written plan. So it’s very simple, but it’s so effective.
Anmol Singh: Right.
Art Costello: And there’s a mathematical background to it. So how do you apply that to your trading?
Anmol Singh: Sure. So I think what we talked about focusing on not being right, and then the integrity piece of it would be, let’s say you get into an investment and you predefined, so the way we teach people is like your predefined your exit points. If I get into a stock, let’s say $100, okay, my target is 120, so when it gets to 120, get out, there’s no greed. Hey, let me see if I can get 130, no, get out, 120, that’s a predefined exit point. And maybe on the downside your exit would, okay, if the stock goes to a 100 to 90, get out, I’ll take my loss, move on to the next trade, next investment rather than just holding and hoping. Well, that’s when a lot of most new people do when they don’t really know how the markets work because they buy and hope rather than buy and hold. What they do is buy and hope, they have no strategy so they’re focused on being right. No, I think it’s going to come back up. Stocks are going to come back up. Let me buy some more, maybe, let me average down, let me get my average price lower and it’s going to come back up. And they keep holding, they keep holding the losses that were supposed to be a small loss keeps getting bigger and bigger because all they want it to be right, and they didn’t have integrity which is getting out as for the predefined plan. So every single way we teach people is you make the plan before you get into the trade. And then you follow, and your only goal as a trader is to follow the plan, not to think on the goal. You just simply follow the plan because that plan would have already had a positive expectancy that’s why we’re doing this certain strategy because it works over time, and the goal is to execute on that strategy rather than letting your thinking or your emotions influence your trading decisions.
Art Costello: So then it would be fair for me to say, on the way that you teach, it’s better not to trust your gut feelings and go with your predetermined feelings.
Anmol Singh: Right, exactly. Because our gut feeling is not statistically tested versus certain trading strategies is justically tested. So I can lie, anybody can lie, but one thing that never lies is numbers. So any strategy that we’re executing has already been like, okay, here’s the last three years of statistics. We’re at 65% of the time, and here’s the numbers, and now you’re just executing on that model over and over rather than making stuff on the go. Because our gut feel is usually influenced by emotions like fear and greed, especially as it comes to trading the markets. The gut is influenced by fear and greed. And that’s some of the things we want to minimize as a trader. In life, I always say trust the gut feel. But if statistics suggest otherwise, then you might not want to do it.
“Anybody can lie. But one thing that never lies his numbers.” -Anmol Singh Click To TweetArt Costello: That’s when I was thinking about it, I find that most people don’t trust their gut. They’ll get emotional, they’ll let emotional things get in the way, they’ll let all kinds of things get in the way. And then on other issues, people do trust their gut. I mean, I can think of a lot of issues when I was in Vietnam as a Marine, I actually trusted my gut a lot because I had a very intuitive feeling about when we would enter an area, there could have been landmines, there could’ve been a lot of different things. So I have learned over time to trust my intuitive gut, but I also understand that when it comes to money, in investing, you can’t do that, you’ve got to look at it logically, systematically, and just act, and have a plan.
Anmol Singh: Right. And I think also because the gut feel is built up and becomes stronger with experience. So let’s say if you were in Vietnam who went to war, and you’ve been through the scenarios before or maybe in drills, maybe practice a drill, maybe you’ve been in a scenario, now your gut feel is coming from experience which actually has a very good power to it. So if you’re going into the battle and you trust your Colonel, if he says something, he has a gut feel, you’re more likely going to trust them. But if there’s like a new recruit who’s coming into battle and he says, I have a gut feel, you’re more likely going to ignore that one. I think same thing with trading, if you see some investors, see some trader, and you build your gut feel over time because you’ve seen those patterns play out before, and that you experienced influences and gut-feel, but if you’re brand new trader, never trade the market before, your gut feel doesn’t really mean anything. So I think that’s one of the things, as you said, in war, you had those gut-feel in the battle, Oh, yeah, you’ve already had the experience that created, giving you more credence to use that.
Art Costello: When you’re a hedge fund manager and managing millions of dollars and it’s other people’s money, it’s got to be psychologically stressful for people because, I mean, you’re taking in all kinds of information and have to process it, and evaluate it to really see if that’s going to be fit into the financial plan for growth that you want. Do you do anything to train people to handle the stress and the chaos that sometimes you see on Wall Street and all that?
Anmol Singh: Right. I think the way I do that is, again, coming all the way back to numbers, like back tested numbers. Testing the strategy so you know exactly what to expect. So if I take a strategy that someone might be trading, which has let’s say a win rate of 50%, so 50% of the time it’s going to win, 50% of the time it’s going to lose. But when it wins, maybe you make $2,000 on it, but when you lose, you lose maybe a thousand dollars on it, right? So now by that mathematical model, if you lose a hundred or lose a thousand and make 2000, and you’re right half the time, you win 50% of the time, you know it’s a profitable strategy. So then the emotions don’t come into play. So when you lose a trade, it’s not like, Oh, what’s happening with me? Why am I losing? You already know, out of the model, out of ten, five are supposed to lose. Okay, that’s just one of the losing trades, and then you can take the next one, maybe that one wins. You’re like, okay, the models keep playing out. And sometimes you realize that if a model has a 50% win rate, then it’s going to lose 50% of the time. And it’s also possible that five of those losses come one after the other. So again, when they happen, you have to just put your mindset. Is the numbers still holding up as per my strategy? 50% win rate? Okay, great. Nothing to worry about, you keep doing it. I think the emotions come into play when people don’t know the numbers. They don’t know what to expect. As you said, they don’t know what to expect. Once you know the numbers, you know exactly what to expect and you’re prepared for those losses. I always try and get them to think logically, I get the emotions out. Okay, you think this, you think that, let’s just come down to the model. How’s the numbers looking? So I get the emotions out and get them to come on a spreadsheet or a piece of paper because that turns off the emotional brains turns on the logical brain, and now they’re thinking in terms of numbers, and that keeps them disciplined. And again, other things I teach are just take a deep breath, step, get up from your trading desk, take a little walk and come back again. And you’ll notice those emotions that you had of doing something at the moment dissipate as you take a walk.
Art Costello: Yeah. That fits right in with my idea that I teach a lot on how to expect the unexpected. Because when you learn how to expect the unexpected, you actually are forming this idea of how to handle every situation. And it’s something that actually I learned in Vietnam because you never knew what to expect. So how do you survive everyday when you don’t know what to expect? Well, you’re right, it comes in your training, but it’s not only training physically, it’s training the mind. It’s training the mind to be aware of the different possibilities, and the possibilities, and the scenarios that can happen at any given moment, and running them through your head and how you’re gonna react. Is it similar in the financial trading industry when certain things happen and you’re prepared for them, you’ve actually learned to expect the unexpected.
Anmol Singh: Right, exactly. Because I mean, it’ll all come down to the training and what you’ve already pre-planned for. And sometimes the unexpected will happen. Sometimes instead of, let’s say having five loss scenarios, maybe you have seven, right? Then you realize, Oh, that’s the environment that I’m currently in, and that could happen. But you can be prepared for it by looking at again, data from the previous years where you see, okay, previous year’s data suggest, yeah, there’s going to be a couple months like that every year. Then get the strategy to not be out of the norm. So again, you come back, take a look at the numbers, take a look at how last year did, or 2016 it did and maybe you notice 10 months out of 12 months it worked great, two months the strategy didn’t work that good. So again, now you see, okay this month, past month I’m going through is all in the statistics, it happened last year too. It happened the year before. There’s always a couple months like that. So you always try to get yourself back to the logical side of things and not paying too much attention to the emotional side of things.
Art Costello: Yeah. And you’re talking about a lot of people when, I don’t know because I’m not a trader, but I know a lot of people think like one, or two, or three trades a day. You’re talking about doing maybe 25, 30 trades a day, aren’t you? Isn’t that what you’re dealing with? Or could it be as low as one or two?
Anmol Singh: Right. So I think that would depend upon the market environment. There’s some days where I take no trades like this Friday I take zero trades because nothing met my strategy. And that’s when I said about the discipline, well, my strategy is looking for this to happen. That criteria wasn’t met. So in that case, I have to be disciplined enough to not trade and get out of the itch of doing something because you want to work.You’re sitting in your desk for two, three hours looking at charts and graphs and you’re like, I didn’t trade anything? It feels weird. But at that time you have to realize and bring yourself to the criteria that, okay, there’s my specific criteria. None of that was missed. So that’s not my strategy. I’m not going to trade. And some days everything is hitting your strategy. Everything’s hitting your criteria. You might take five, six trades in a day, but typically, I’m usually around one to three trades a day. The way we do as this kind of like a sniper strategy, you’re hiding in the bushes, you’re not really doing the whole lock, you’re waiting for that criteria to be met, or you know your odds are going to work, you’re going to have a positive expectancy during the strategy over and over. So you just wait, you wait for that criteria to be met and then you come out of the bushes, take a sniper and get one shot rather than going with a machine gun and just shooting like hundreds of stocks, we kind of trade like a sniper.
Art Costello: Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, it really does because if you had to do this over multiple times, you would have a hard time keeping track of it, I guess. Has the computer era really helped your trading industry?
Anmol Singh: Computer error? For me it’s actually computer errors and they never gone in my favor. Funny how the markets work. Anytime I’ve made a mistake or there’s an error in the software or the technology, for me, it’s always gone against me. I don’t think I have ever had any errors going in my favor, which is good in a way because sometimes you make an error, it goes in your favor, that creates bad habits. Because you’re like, Oh, maybe it happens again. So it’s actually good that mistakes never went in my favor because now I know not to make them.
“It's actually good that mistakes never went in my favor because now I know not to make them.” -Anmol Singh Click To TweetArt Costello: Yeah. Well, you want to avoid all the mistakes you can. I mean, it just makes sense. When I was trying to allude to was the computer ERA not ERRORS that we make, but since computers have come on the scene in the late 80’s and 90’s, has that really helped the trading industry be able to trade better? Because you used to have to do it off the floor, didn’t you in wall street? And now people can trade off of their computer.
Anmol Singh: Right. I think now it’s made it easier for anybody to get started, because again, back in the day you needed a broker, you need to call the broker, broker will call you back in a little bit, let you know it was done. So the speed was very slow, you have to speed for you to get into a trade, and get out was always a long period of time because you had to call the broker and he had to execute the order. And then also it was expensive back in the day, commissions used to be a $100, $200, $50 a trade, now they went as low as $4. But recently, actually, some of the brokers came out with free commissions. So that’s where the industry is going. So if you’re not paying any commission, you can open up your laptop, open up a browser window, and just take a trade, even phone applications. Now you’re gonna open up your phone, there’s an app to take a trade instantly, it’ll get executed. I think now it’s made it easier than ever for people to get started. And not really focus on giving your money to an investment advisor or a mutual fund because they’re going to charge ridiculous fees. You’d rather save those fees because that will compound your returns over time. So I think anybody can learn how to do it. It’s just that you’ll have to be willing to learn just like anything else.
Art Costello: I’m going to give you a scenario. I’m a college student, and I go to a major college here in the States, and I’ve got an extra $30 a week that I can play with, can I get into the trading industry?
Anmol Singh: You absolutely can, but not instantly. Most brokers will have an account minimum of a 100 or $200, so that’s something that you’re going to have to need. So what I usually suggest, people who are in college, or brand new, or don’t have money, or maybe have a job but there’s not enough left, or you open a trading account with, I would suggest saving. So if you can save $30 a week, a month, then great. In the wild, you’re saving money, right? So every week, the discipline is to deposit $30 in your account, on a separate account that you can spend or touch, and keep growing that savings account. And while you’re saving, learn, purchase books on trading or investing, read books, go on YouTube, watch videos or just courses, read eBooks, and take trials to places and just come in. So your goal should be to first learn, and then when you’ve saved up enough money, then you can remove the hell from learning and can finally focus on earning. So that’s what you need to do, you’ve got to save up the money, and once you have 500, $300, I think that usually is a good amount to start becoming currency trading. This currency brokers will open an account for $100, and that’s the easiest way to get started. Whereas if you’re going to trade stocks, you’re going to need a lot more money. I would suggest at least 2 to $5,000 saved up if you want to jump into the stock market. But if you want to jump into currency markets, you can jump in with as low as $100.
Art Costello: If I was to give you $100,000 to invest, what could you do with that?
Anmol Singh: $100,000, if you were looking to invest in the market? Or you were looking to give it to somebody?
Art Costello: No, I’m just looking at it giving it to somebody to invest for me.
Anmol Singh: Okay.
Art Costello: I guess what my question is for you, how would you invest my money if I gave you $100,000?
Anmol Singh: Right? So $100,000, what I would personally suggest, because I can’t really solicit funds from outside so I’m not going to be trading. But if I was to trade anybody’s money, which I do for my friends and family, I would do the same thing that I’m doing right now. I would put it in an account, I would do the exact same trades that I’m doing. Usually I’m in a trade, there’s two types of training that I do, one is day trading, which is I’m in and out the same day. I have three to five trades a day in and out the same day. The other is called swing trading, where I might be in a stock and hold it for three days, or five days, or maybe two weeks, and I’m in and out every week or so. So that’s the kind of style I would focus on, because in that style, you could generate a lot better returns than if you would give a fund manager. There’s a lot of these fund managers, their goal is to give you 8%, that’s what the market is starkly will give you. If you put it in the market, you’ll get about 8% average. But it’s possible that those funds were generating 30, 40, 50% from your money, but only giving you 8%, that’s a lot of the practices that happen in the market. So for me, I have the strategy that I can use to generate 30, 40, 50%, and I would do that strategy with anybody’s money. I think learning how to do it is the best thing because you don’t have to pay fees. I want you to learn how to do it. You can open up your own brokerage account, take the trays without having to pay those fees, and you would get all of that return that you’re generating rather than giving it to fund managers and fees.
Art Costello: Does your strategy work whether it’s a bull market or a bear market?
Anmol Singh: Yes, because I do both longs and shorts. So long would mean betting on the prices to go higher. Short of me, you’re betting on the prices to go lower. So at any given time, I’m usually in a mix of both longs and shorts. So the market goes up, the longs will make me like two times, while my losing trades are going to cost me because the market’s going down. Then the short trades are going to make me two times, while our winning trades are going to lose for me. So in any market environment, I will be pretty much profitable.
Art Costello: Is there any markets that you think that we should keep our eye on right now?
Anmol Singh: Right now, I am personally in a position of, if you’re in a long term investments, know if you’re on any big accounts, or maybe if you’re nearing retirement. I’m actually the boat off, not having too much money in the market right now, uncertain about next year. So personally for me, maybe I’m wrong, but I have a lot of my long term investments. I’ve started going in cash because I think next year is going to be a tough year for the markets.We’re seeing some signs of that. I think we’re going to make one more new hive to start pulling back. I think people should be getting into the position that, maybe trimming some positions, especially if you’re close to retirement. Because if you’re young in your 20’s and 30’s, it doesn’t matter. You can hold on. Market might go down for the next ten years, but eventually it’ll come right back up. But if you’re somebody who’s in your 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, you might need that money in the next five years. Then might be a good time to maybe start moving into cash a little bit.
Art Costello: Yeah.
Anmol Singh: So I think that’s kind of where I’m at.
Art Costello: Is there any industries that we should watch more than another? I mean, is it pharmaceuticals? Or is it technology?
Anmol Singh: I think right now, we need to focus on marijuana stocks. Because right now, obviously Canada, it’s legal. Some States of the United States it’s legal, but a lot of the States, most of us in the United States, it’s still not legal. But there are some cannabis stocks that I’ve done, producing good amounts of income in Canada, they’re also listed on the US Stock Exchange. And some of the cannabis stocks you need to focus on because it hasn’t even become legal in all United States, yet once it becomes legal, I think those cannabis stocks are going to be, like the cigarette companies, Philip Morris, it’s a huge company that sells cigarettes. Imagine if marijuana is recreationally legal all across the United States, or those companies could be at par with companies like Philip Morris, Marlboro, and all these big brands. So I think just starting right now.
Art Costello: Are you talking about cannabis or hemp?
Anmol Singh: I’m talking about cannabis.
Art Costello: Cannabis.
Anmol Singh: Yup.
Art Costello: You don’t think the hemp market going to be–
Anmol Singh: I think hemp market is going to be good, but it’s definitely not going to be as big as cannabis. Just because recreational cannabis, like with alcohol, right?
Art Costello: Right.
Anmol Singh: We’ve got how big the alcohol market is, right? You go to clubs, you go to bars, you go to restaurants, you go to 7/11, you go to Costco, I mean, alcohol is everywhere. Imagine if marijuana was to get to the same level where you could buy it at a 7/11, as a cigarette would, right? It’s going to take time to play out. First they’re going to make it recreational, illegal. Then it’s going to be to dispensers like we have it right now, where you can buy it from dispensaries. But as it gets more and more legalized everywhere, you’re going to start seeing cigarette companies package it, pack in cigarettes with marijuana in it, and you’d be able to purchase it on 7/11. I think that’s still 10 years out. But as a long term play, I think cannabis is going to be higher than what alcohol and tobacco markets make.
Art Costello: Wow. I mean, because they were huge in the day.
Anmol Singh: Exactly. And I think that cannabis has the potential to be bigger because it’s not just recreational, it’s got medicinal benefits unlike alcohol or cigarettes that don’t really have many medical benefits it actually harms you and does no good. And cannabis has been used to treat leukemia, and autoimmune diseases, and seizures, and all of those things. So I think the benefits of that, and now it’s shown to cut cancer cells., just those benefits, and also being recreational I think is a much larger market.
Art Costello: Right, right. Do you ever think that we’ll see anything like we saw in 29 when we had, I know there’s fluctuations in the market, it’s always up and down and it bounces around, but we had Black Tuesday, and then the crash or twin — do you think that is ever a possibility again?
Anmol Singh: Yes. I mean, not maybe to this extent that we saw back in the day, but on the current levels, I mean, I do think it could drop 20% or more. So I think we do have the potential, there’s always a potential, the market’s been in a 10 year straight uptrend, straight bull run. Historically every 5 to 10 years you get a crash, this time we haven’t really got one for 10 plus years. So we’re definitely overdue for one historically. But it might not be to the extent that we saw back in the day, it might just be in certain sectors. So for example, we’ve already seen that retail stocks are going bankrupt. So going to see those mini crashes, not overall in the big market, but in certain sectors like retail is going to get crushed, which already we’re seeing JC Penney’s actually now a Penny stock. So Macy’s GameStop is next, Nordstrom, they’re all eventually going to fade away. So I think you’re going to see crashes in those sectors like retail, but then certain sectors like tech, pharmaceuticals, I think they’re going to continue to do well.
Art Costello: Yeah. I guess the thing is to be diverse, and somewhat, you know?
Anmol Singh: Yeah. I mean, I think the questions I always tell people to just look at it and see, is the company or stock that I’m investing in going to be more significant or less significant in five years? It says Amazon is going to do more business for less than five years. Well, the answer’s more. Okay, that might be something you want to be in. Is GameStop going to do more business in the next five years? Probably not. So that’s something you don’t want to be in. So I think that’s a simple rule people who not even investors can use. Is a company going to do more or less, going to be more significant or less significant in the next five years? And that’s kind of the model that you can use to make your investing decisions.
Art Costello: Yeah. One of the things that just dawned on me is I guess you really have to be well-read because you have to know political, you have to know social, you have to know the economical trends that are coming. All these trends play a major role in how your thought process goes and become part of your psychology. So you have to be multidimensional in your approach to the trends that are going on so you can pick up on the new trends and learn what it is. I guess that’s really important. You can’t just be sitting at your computer trading all day and not pay attention to the world around you.
Anmol Singh: Right? Exactly. And you can just look at your own life. Say, Hey, am I ordering more stuff online now? Or I’m actually going to retail stores? Am I Amazoning a lot of this stuff? Or am I actually driving and getting stuff physically? If you’re not doing it, chances are a lot of people are also buying it online. So it was something that people should have seen coming. Like Amazon should have been a no brainer investment for people five years ago, you’d be more than doubled your money in that time. And it was a simple investing decision, are more people gonna use Amazon the next five years or less? Are more people going to order food online in the next five years or less? So that’s kind of what you can use to invest in things like GrubHub, which also tripled in the last three years. So these simple investing decisions like that, what you can use if you’re not a trader? If you are a trader, then obviously we have specific patterns and strategies, and they just use those rather than using your mind, just execute on those strategies like a robot. But the other thing obviously is this is it, just look at it, for example right now, one thing you can ask yourself is cannabis is going to be more relevant or less than the next five years? Once it becomes legal, the answer is yes, it’s going to be more. Or is retail like Nordstrom and all that, are they going to make more money in the next five years or less? The answer is less. So that’s something that you might want to be either short and if not long.
Art Costello: One of the things that I was thinking about is that, in 1983 or 4, this is kind of the story that I’ll tell you about me, my attorney came to me, and I live in Austin, Texas. My attorney came to me and she said: “Hey Art, I know a company that is just starting out and they need some seed money.” And I actually owned a construction company then and we were doing very well. Even in a down economy, we were really booming. I had $10,000 that I could invest that she said: “Go invest.” So instead of taking a word for it, I asked her: “I said, what’s it about?” And she said: “Well, there’s a young UT student who wants to start a computer company who wants to start this computer company and he’s looking for some seed money. I put 10,000 in it and I’m suggesting that you do it.” And I said: “Well, I don’t know anything about computers, so I think I’m gonna walk away from it.” Three years later, Michael Dell had Dell computer, and she happened to be his early on attorney. And I just went, Oh, golly. But it never really affected me because I was doing well, and I was happy and everything. And I just didn’t know anything about computers and so I didn’t invest in it, and maybe I should, maybe I shouldn’t, maybe it would have changed my whole life and direction of everything, but I can’t look back and say, Hey, you either do or don’t at the time, and you can’t cry over spilled milk.
Anmol Singh: Exactly. And then you’re going to have a lot of those things, like every trader, every investor has those things that, Oh, I wish I should’ve done it, but it’s gone, it’s not really gonna change anything. You made the best decision as far as you were concerned at that moment in time with the information you had because it could very well have been you put in $10,000, and just like thousands of the computer companies that came and went, it could have been another one of those where you could have lost the money. And so I think, I always tell people to invest in what you know, and the Warren Buffett talks about this, invest in what you know, invest in what you can add value to, or ask some information about, and you want to also trust your gut in that regard to make the right decision. Because I can tell you this, you didn’t invest, okay, there’s a little regret, but maybe you did invest without knowing anything, you’d actually feel worse about yourself. Because you’re like, why did I put $10,000? I didn’t know anything about it. And then you end up losing that money. So that to me is the worst feeling. As I tell people, I’d rather be out of a trade wishing I was in than being in wishing I was out.
Art Costello: Yeah, that makes sense. You’ve written a book, right?
Anmol Singh: Yes.
Art Costello: Can you tell us something about your book?
Anmol Singh: Sure. So the book’s called Prepping For Success: 10 Keys for Making it in Life. It’s a book I wish somebody gave me 10 years ago. What made life a lot easier because I spent a lot of time learning personal development, self-development, going to workshops, and seminars, working with hundreds of thousands of traders, and also working on myself when I was a beginner trader going through these issues. And what I learned is a lot of the stuff that we traders go through are also the same stuff that other businesses go through as well. And then I spent countless hours, hundreds of thousands of dollars, like workshops, masterminds, and things of that nature. But then I realized not everybody has that amount of money and time to spend into this kind of personal development. So I took everything on my journey that I learned from hundreds of books that I read, to workshops, and just compiled everything into 10 keys that I think if people execute on are going to cause the biggest impact in their life. And there’s not much stories in the book, not much fluff, it’s straight to the point. Here are the 10 things we need to do to achieve success. Then every chapter ends with actionable things, here’s the actionable steps, you need to do before you move on to the next chapter. Because I don’t want it to be one of those books that people buy just lying in there, catching dust like hundreds of other books. I want them to actually finish it, and I don’t want them to move to the next chapter before they execute on what they learned on the first chapter because that’s another one of the things that I did and people do is they go from one book to another, one workshop to another, one course to another, but they’ve rarely executed on what they just learned or read. So that’s the whole idea about the book that I wrote, Prepping For Success.
Art Costello: Yeah. I just read a statistic on the percentage of people that finish a book and finish an online course, the number of that finish a book is like 10%, the number of people that finish an online course is only 13%, and it doesn’t matter if the course is a $10,000 course, or whether it’s $100 course, or a $50 book, or a $10 book. Across the board, it was astonishing to me that people would invest in themselves and then not complete a course or not complete a book reading. But my book is written the same way as yours is, at the end of every chapter, actionable steps that people can take to get them where they need to be. So you know, we’re very much in alignment with it. Where can people get ahold of you? What are your websites social media, and all that because we’re going to wrap it up here pretty quick.
Anmol Singh: Sure. They want to learn more about the trading and investing side of things. Then the best website to go to would be livetraders.com, L-I-V-E-T-R-A-D-E-R-S.C-O-M, That’s where they can learn more about trading and investing by reading a lot of the blog posts and the free eBooks that we have on the website, and watching our YouTube videos as the best way they can learn more about it, if they’re interested in the book website is preppingforsuccess.com or /book, so they go to preppingforsuccess.com/book then they can get more information about the book, get some free chapters, and then there’ll be links to Amazon or Barnes & Noble’s. If they want to get themselves a copy, they can absolutely do that. And as far as staying in touch with me, Instagram is the best way, instagram.com/deltaninety, that’s my user name on it D-E-L-T-A-N-I-N-E-T-Y. There’s a whole story behind why I have the name, that will be another time, but Instagram, deltaninety, and the same username on Twitter as well, and that’s when they can get in touch with me.
Art Costello: Is there any parting inspiration that you can give us?
Anmol Singh: One of the things I would just say, which is the first key in the 10 keys of my book is integrity. I’ll be a person of integrity. I really pay attention to what comes out of your mouth, and what comes out of your mouth, make sure you actually do it. And you do it when you said you were going to do it. Even small things, maybe your parents aren’t calling you or your mom’s calling you, and you say, Hey, I’m going to just in the middle of something, let me give you a call back, and you never did. That’s a lack of integrity, right? Maybe a friend was calling, Hey, it’s been a long time we haven’t met up. We should totally meet up. You’re like, yeah, next Saturday, let’s plan something, let’s meet up, and you never actually followed up. You never actually met. So just a little small things, those little things also cause a lack of integrity. Just notice in your life. Take a deep breath tonight. Sit with yourself and see what I have been saying that I am going to do, which I haven’t been doing. Could be as simple as calling a friend, Hey, I’m just driving. Let me give you a call back. And you never did call that friend back. So those little things, just start doing what you said you were going to do, and notice how your self confidence and your self worth increases, and everything starts from there. Without integrity, nothing else works.
“Be a person of integrity...Do what you said you were going to do. And then do it when you said you were going to do it.” -Anmol Singh Click To Tweet “Just start doing what you said you were going to do… Everything starts from there. Without integrity, nothing else works.” -Anmol Singh Click To Tweet
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