At the start of December, we began the research for the Telescope Investing 2022 model portfolio. Our apologies to long-term listeners of the show, but we’re afraid to say that this will not be launching. As we enter 2022, we have something important to announce.
Last year, we had the pleasure of having Simon Erickson, Founder and CEO of 7investing, join us on the podcast. We have both been paid members of 7investing since early 2021, and we quickly noticed the similarities in Simon’s approach of investing in disruptive innovation and our own approach of investing in megatrends. It’s one of our best episodes, and we recommend a listen if you haven’t already caught the conversation.
Well, the exciting news is that Luke has joined the 7investing team as a lead advisor! He will continue his investing journey with the fantastic team of investment analysts led by Simon Erickson. Along with each of the other lead advisors, Luke will present his best stock idea each month, along with deep-dive team discussions, advisor updates, and more.
7investing is a paid subscription service so you’ll have to join to hear Luke’s stock recommendations, but you’ll be able to listen to him for free on the 7investing podcast from time to time – he loves the sound of his own voice too much to stay off the airwaves! We hope you’ll all check out the 7investing service and consider following Luke there. Telescope Investing listeners can currently get the first month for free by using the coupon code ‘Telescope’ – you can subscribe here!
Albert will, of course, continue to invest. He’s going to take a step back from the stock market analysis required to produce a weekly investing podcast and will focus on his other lifelong passion of food and nutrition. Having recently earned a degree in the field, he’s looking forward to applying his knowledge in the business world!
We would both like to thank all of our listeners and subscribers – we certainly wouldn’t have made it as far as 72 episodes without you. We’re truly honored that you took the time to listen to us ramble on each week, and we hope at least some of it was useful!
The Telescope Investing website and past episodes of the podcasts will remain available online, and there may be the occasional future post. However, for now, Telescope Investing will mostly be on hold, at least until Luke retires again!
You can catch our final conversation in episode #72, and to quote one of our favorite authors, “So long, and thanks for all the fish!”
Transcript
Albert: Hi, this is Albert.
Luke: And this is Luke.
Albert: Today is Sunday the 9th of January.
Luke: Welcome to the Telescope Investing podcast.
Intro
Albert: First of all, I’d like to say sorry for the slight delay in getting today’s episode out, but there is a good reason. Long-time listeners may be expecting us to reveal the 2022 model portfolio, and we have spent most of December giving careful consideration to the mega-trends that we believe will have the greatest influence in the year to come and the companies that are poised to benefit. But I’m sorry to say that we won’t be doing that now.
Luke: Yeah, apologies listeners. There is a really good reason. A very surprising opportunity came up just a couple of weeks ago over Christmas, and it’s pretty much consumed all of our time to navigate this. If you’re a long-time listener, you’ll remember many of the great interview episodes that we’ve put out, but one conversation really stood out for Albert and I, and that was our interview with Simon Erickson, Founder and CEO of 7investing, back in October last year.
Albert: Yeah, that was one of my favorite episodes.
Luke: Yeah, me too. Simon’s philosophy of investing in disruptive innovation is so similar to our Telescope Investing strategy of investing in mega-trends. We both recognized this at the time, and it’s actually something that we’ve been keen to follow up on with Simon since that first connection.
Albert: And, if you’re a 7investing subscriber, you would likely have seen the news already but today we’re delighted to announce that Luke has joined the 7investing lead advisor team. Luke will be providing monthly stock recommendations as part of the 7investing service alongside fellow lead advisors, Anirban Mahanti, Dana Abramovich, Matt Cochrane, Steve Symington, Maxx Chatsko, and of course Simon Erickson himself. So Luke, can you tell us a bit more about 7investing?
7investing
Luke: Yeah, I guess if you’ve been living under a rock and you haven’t heard of 7investing, it is one of the most exciting brands in FinTwit. The company’s mission is to empower you to invest in your future, and I’m really delighted to have the opportunity to join the lead advisor team.
It’s going to be interesting. Once a month, each of the seven advisors publishes their best idea for investing in the stock market. And then there’s a mid-month deep dive team conversation where advisors present their ideas to each other and get some pretty tough questions on the thesis. And I think this much more robust process is going to be really, really solid for my own due diligence.
This is a really exciting opportunity, it’s not just about publishing the best stock ideas. The really exciting aspect as well is that 7investing continually provides up-to-date thinking on what’s happening in the market and updates on previous recommendations. I’m really hoping to stay active in the podcasting scene, but actually now on a channel that has, I don’t know, maybe 10 times the reach of Telescope Investing. Alb, it’s like hitting fast-forward and zooming several years into the future. It’s pretty scary, but also very exciting.
Albert: Yeah, Luke, I agree. This is a really exciting opportunity. And we should say that 7investing is a paid service and both Luke and I have been 7investing paid subscribers since early 2021, and we’ve gotten a ton of value out of the service. So it must be really exciting for you, Luke, to be joining a team that you’ve been following for the last year or so.
Luke: It really is I’ve got an absolute ton to learn from them, but you and I have been investing for nearly 20 years each, I’m optimistic that I’m bringing a ton of value too.
Albert: Now that you’re a lead advisor, Luke, will you still have to pay the subscription fee?
Luke: I don’t know. It’s very reasonably priced. I’ll be happy to.
And as you said, Alb, 7investing is a subscription service, so we can’t talk about their specific stock picks on Telescope Investing, but we did a bit of analysis and I found it really interesting to note that there is a massive overlap between your and my real-money portfolios and the current list of active 7investing stock recs. Based on the weighted size of each position, did you know that I’m 45% aligned with existing 7investing picks, but you’re a massive 62%.
Albert: I was really surprised when you told me this a few days ago because I built my portfolio over the last 18 years, while 7investing started around two years ago, but I guess this just shows how close our investing styles are.
Luke: Yeah, exactly I definitely feel in moving over that I’m sticking with our own core Telescope Investing principles of seeking out the greatest growth investment opportunities in the world. It’s going to be a ton of work, but I’m really looking forward to this. I think it’s going to be just great for my personal investment due diligence to be forced to create the quality stock reporting that 7investing’s become known for. And their process is really thorough, multiple rounds of review and challenge from the wider team.
Albert: Yeah, Luke, you can’t just make this up anymore. You’re going to have to do real work!
Luke: We do a ton of work on Telescope Investing, but you’re right. I think I’m going to be held to account in a slightly different way.
Albert: But whether you become a 7investing member or not, we definitely recommend listening to the free 7investing podcast, and I’m sure Luke will continue doing podcasts under the 7investing brand. He just loves the sound of his own voice too much not to!
Luke: Hey, I can’t disappoint our Hong Kong listener Simon’s wife, and disappear off the airwaves. You know, Alb, maybe you can guest on the occasional episode as a friend of the show. You’re super knowledgeable about many of the mega-trends that both Telescope Investing and 7investing are following.
Albert: Maybe, Luke, maybe if I get the opportunity to come on and talk about a topic that 7investing is interested in.
And Telescope Investing?
Luke: Well, Alb, we’ve talked about me, but I’m sure our listeners are dying to know what have you got planned for 2022?
Albert: Yeah, I think I’m going to take a break from the grind of producing a weekly investing podcast and spend more time in the food and nutrition field, something that I’ve been studying for the last four years, and I’m keen to spend more time on this.
Luke: I know food and nutrition has been your passion and you’ve spent the last four years studying and getting a first-class degree in nutrition. And so now you’re qualified, it’s got to be really exciting to have a chance to use that qualification in a practical way.
Albert: Yeah, it is and I need to explore what opportunities are out there in Hong Kong in this field. I’m really looking forward to that.
Luke: You know, there’s an overlap, obviously between investing and nutrition and that’s our mega-trend of cultured and plant-based meat. It hasn’t really come around yet. As we said in many episodes in the past, there just aren’t that many public investments in this space. But I can see a date, hopefully not too far from now, when you’ll be able to leverage your nutrition expertise for the benefit of your investment portfolio. Maybe you can join us on 7investing to chat about some of the upcoming brands in that space. Hey, maybe you could even expand the Telescope Investing brand into Telescope Nutrition?!
Albert: Maybe my first post will be the dangers of concentration in your diet! But as far as Telescope Investing goes, the podcast episodes and the website will remain up and I may write the occasional article, deep dive or one-pager and post it on the website. Maybe I’ll finish that one-pager on Disney that you’ve been promising us for the last month or so.
Luke: It’s not happening. We got too lazy with our one-pagers.
Albert: But for the podcast, I’m afraid this will be the last episode of the Telescope Investing podcast for the foreseeable future. The podcast has always been the Luke and Albert show, and I don’t think I would want to do this on my own or with another host, so this will be the last one, at least until Luke decides to retire again.
Luke: Retire again. Yeah, good one. I guess my retirement lasted a total of seven weeks before this offer was on the table. Hopefully, next time I retire, it’s for good. But you know, Alb, you make it sound a little like we’re getting divorced, and honestly, that could not be further from the truth. You and I have collaborated around our mutual passion for investing for the best part of the last two decades, and those conversations around our personal investment portfolios are certainly going to continue. We get a ton of value out of these conversations we have with each other.
Albert: But Luke, you won’t be able to share your 7investing’s stock picks with me until they’re public.
Luke: Buddy, I’ll probably be stealing half of them from you.
Albert: Okay. And of course, I will continue to invest and as a 7investing subscriber, I will be relying on Luke and the rest of the team there to give me awesome investment advice. And if they don’t, I have a direct line to one of their lead advisors to complain.
Luke: I’ve had a lifetime of your complaints. It will join the back of the queue.
Albert: Okay!
Luke: Oh, and we’ve been able to score a pretty sweet deal for Telescope Investing listeners. If you swing by the 7investing subscription page right now and plug in the coupon code ‘Telescope’, you can get your first month free, so sign up and check out my first recommendation on the 1st of February for the bargain price of $0, and if you enjoy it, hopefully, stick around.
And you know, on that topic of divorce, right. Honestly, listeners, it’s not the case. We both continue to be passionate about investing, it’s a core part of both of our lives. You know, when I go back and look at the About Us page on the Telescope Investing website, I think it’s really interesting how we framed what we wanted to get from this little experiment right from the start. And if I read my own bio on the About Us page, the key thing I was looking for was a chance to share our experiences and lessons learned, but also to connect with a wider community of investors who’ve got different perspectives and viewpoints.
So for me, stepping up to the 7investing team is really going to expand that objective and drive it forwards. I’m really looking forward to the opportunity to be able to converse with these guys as opposed to just listen to them on a podcast.
Albert: And investing has been a lifelong interest of mine for most of my adult life. I think I started investing in my mid-twenties, but I never planned on making investing a career. But I do really enjoy doing the research and sharing it with our friends and the listeners of this podcast.
Luke: Even though it seems as though our journeys are going in different directions, I certainly consider Albert to be my best friend in the world and that hasn’t changed at all. I’m really grateful that the little Telescope Investing experiment that we both started between us in 2020 has given me this fantastic opportunity.
Albert: I’m really happy for you, Luke, but I can’t help but feel a tinge of sadness that we won’t be recording these Telescope Investing podcasts anymore.
Luke: I won’t miss the seven-hour editing sessions, particularly having to listen to your Liverpudlian drone on repeat and repeat as I try and fix all the broken speech.
Albert: You love it really.
Thank you!
Luke: You know, though, we should close out this final episode of the pod with a massive thank you.
Albert: Yeah, Telescope Investing has built up a really solid base of listeners and subscribers over the last 72 episodes, and it’s kind of crazy when I say that that we’ve done this for 72 episodes, and we’re extremely grateful for all the support that you, our listeners, have given us. It’s more than we ever expected really when we started this thing one and a half years ago.
Luke: Yeah, when we started Telescope Investing back in August 2020, we really had no idea what to expect or how long it’d run for. We’ve had a tremendous amount of fun and I think as we said in our year-end review a couple of weeks ago, the main reason for that is you, our listeners. It’s amazing to find out we have listeners all over the world and we’ve loved hearing from you.
Albert: And we had no idea where things would end up. Well, every journey has unexpected turns.
Luke: I’ve only got one regret.
Albert: What’s that, Luke?
Luke: That we didn’t close out the show on episode number 69.
Albert: Okay. I think you’ve been following Elon Musk too much on Twitter.
And I do hope that all of you will follow Luke over at 7investing, where you can hear his musings on investing, stocks, and many other things as well.
Wrap
Luke: Yeah, as you say, I do love the sound of my own voice. Well, we normally close out with a quote and I’ve got a bit of a special one for you today. I’d actually like to quote you from February last year, and I think you said something really smart and pithy that’s really come home for me given this brand new opportunity. You said, “Be humble and realize you can’t know everything when it comes to an investment. Collaborate and share your thinking and be open to challenge.”
Albert: Alright, that pretty much describes your new job.
Luke: Yeah, I hope so. It’s a chance to collaborate much more widely and hey, you’re going to get a chance to collaborate much more closely in the nutrition field with a bunch of really unhealthy people who hopefully you’re going to help!
Albert: I guess that piece of advice could apply in many areas of life.
Luke: Absolutely, be humble and just enjoy the journey. Well, I’ve really enjoyed this journey with you. It’s been a hell of a lot of fun.
Albert: Me too, Luke. I’m really glad we started this back in August of 2020.
Well, that’s all for the podcast for now. Thanks for listening.
Luke: And you can find us on Twitter still. I’ve changed my Twitter handle to @7LukeHallard.
Albert: And I’m still @AlbertTelescope.
Luke: It’s been a hell of a journey. Thanks, Albert.
Albert: Thanks Luke, and good luck!
Luke: Same to you, buddy.
I’m sorry to see you go. I always enjoyed your podcast. Good luck to both of you!