Daniel Ameduri | Investment & Entrepreneurial Opportunities in the New Economy

This Mining Stock Education episode features an interview with Daniel Ameduri, who is the president of Future Money Trends.  Daniel became a self-made millionaire by seeking out and profiting from new trends and opportunities, both as an entrepreneur and as an investor.  He shares his research and current opportunities in his popular Future Money Trends email newsletter.  The Future Money Trends e-letter frequently focuses on the junior resource sector and often highlights specific junior mining companies.  Daniel is also one of the earliest pioneers who developed financing and investing content on YouTube and one the most prolific Rick Rule interviewers on the web.  His website is FutureMoneyTrends.com.

0:05 Introduction of topic and guest

1:44 Rising and dying trends in today’s economy and entrepreneurial opportunities available

3:51 Opportunities for developing second streams of income

8:40 Daniel shares his perspective on the current real estate market in the USA

11:24 Training our children in entrepreneurship, economics, and investing

18:33 Key macro-trends investors can profit from today

21:09 How Daniel proportions his investment capital between stocks, real estate, cash, and gold

23:20 Should a person who has substantial debt and a moderate income invest in speculative mining stocks?

26:01 Daniel shares regarding the mining sector and common pitfalls in this sector

29:21 Information on FutureMoneyTrends.com

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

Bill: Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, and thanks for tuning in to another Mining Stock Education episode. I’m Bill Powers, your host. Today, I’ll be speaking with the President of Future Money Trends, Daniel Ameduri. Daniel became a self-made millionaire by seeking out and profiting from new trends and opportunities, both as an entrepreneur and as an investor, and he shares his research and current opportunities in his popular Future Money Trends email newsletter.

Daniel is also one of the earliest pioneers of financing and investing content creation on YouTube. And I want to note that he’s one of the most prolific Rick Rule interviewers on the web as well. And over the years, I’ve benefited from many of Daniel’s interviews that have related to the junior mining sector as well as specifically the Rick Rule interviews. And Daniel, I want to welcome you on to the program, and thank you for joining me today.

Daniel: Hey, thanks for having me on. And of course, it’s so easy to interview Rick Rule. You just have to say, “Hello,” and let him do his thing because he’s a brilliant man.

Bill: That’s right. Even if you don’t ask a good question, he’s so sharp that he just knows what to share. And I know you’ve experienced this as well. But with Rick, I think he spent as much time with me off-mike as he did on-mike. Even though he’s a billionaire, he’s very personable just to the average investor.

Daniel: Yeah, you know, I was actually quite shocked. This probably goes back to 2011, 2012, but I remember going to his office for an interview, which is rare, that has probably only happened one or two times. But I remember doing the interview and thinking I was gonna get, like, you know, escorted out in like, you know, and he sat there for an hour in his office and we just chatted. And it was amazing speaking to a man, you know, who’s seen so much and experienced so much. He’s traveled to, gosh, who knows, probably 100 countries, and of course, he’s made hundreds of millions of dollars for self and many, many millions for many other people.

Bill: Well, like Rick Rule, I appreciate your entrepreneurial zeal, and I think that the success that you’ve experienced and shared with others is an inspiration to many. And I want to start the conversation off today by asking you to speak to today’s economy, it’s rising and dying trends and what entrepreneurship opportunities are there for the common person to currently take advantage of.

Daniel: Well, I think if you ignore much of the hype that’s on the news and the day-to-day panics that’s going on in the financial media, I think it’s a better time than ever to be an entrepreneur. I think the very fact that we’re having this discussion, you and I, I was able to find out about your business from the comfort of my own home. You’re able to find out about my business from the comfort of your own home listening to a podcast or watching a YouTube video, perhaps receiving an email from somebody. So, I can’t even imagine trying to run a newsletter say 20, 30 years ago when I would had to have some sort of staff and mailing system to get all these things out in physical letterforms. So, I think today’s entrepreneurs have it better than ever. The opportunities are there. You can start a website right now, you listen to this, you know, you spend the next hour dedicated to building a website. I guarantee you can have a website up and ready to go, you can have a blog ready to go. If you need delivery or logistics, you’ve got companies like Amazon. If you need a payment system, you’ve got cryptocurrency, you’ve got PayPal. Honestly, the opportunities for everybody, it’s better than ever.

I remember just like investing in real estate 10 years ago, 15 years ago, when I first started, you know, I used to have to use a newspaper, and I would be circling the classified ads and then, of course, we got Craigslist. But now, it’s just getting easier and easier and better for people who are looking for opportunities. Of course, I would suggest everybody follow their passions and monetize the things that they enjoy doing, you know, whether it’s a hobby or something they’re very interested in, because that’s ultimately the way you’re going to not only live a fulfilled life but have the opportunity to make a lot of money for yourself.

Bill: And I think it’s crucial that especially for the breadwinners, the family breadwinners that are listening to this, that you’re always looking ahead towards the future trends to make sure that you’re positioning yourself if you lose your current job or you can no longer be prosperous in your current business that you’re moving towards something that you will be able to be profitable at. 
 
I can think of numerous contractors in Metro Detroit, here where I reside, that lost their homes when the real estate market and consequently the contracting market crashed in 2008, in 2009. One contractor that I know of was making over $400,000 a year, and then a year later, he was in a 2-bedroom apartment on food stamps. And so, there can be those dramatic shifts, and those that may not catch those ahead of time and prepare themselves, they won’t be able to secure what their family needs and also prosper with the new trends. So with that being said, Daniel, you mentioned the internet, the accessibility to podcast, to blog, what are some more trends or opportunities that are there for the average person to be prosperous and to secure possibly a second stream of income for their family?

Daniel: Well, I would say with multiple streams of income because of the FinTech Revolution, we now have access to things that were only available to Goldman Sachs and some of the top hedge funds. YieldStreet, for example, recently had an offering for any individual, don’t have to be accredited, to be part of a pool of investors who purchased an oil tanker. This is something that, you know, would only be available to hedge funds. Or PeerStreet, for example, allows you to, again, put your money into first trust deeds, first lien mortgages on properties that could be up to, you know, hard money lending with a 30%, 40% equity. And again, it’s as easy as a click of a mouse. You know, you could invest as little as $1,000.

So, the opportunity for multiple streams of income because of the FinTech Revolution, I think really puts us on a situation where we can actually participate in many of the things that the banks have been making money in for thousands of years. Like lending, you could always do it before but you either had to have some sort of specialized knowledge or you actually had to do it yourself. You know, for example, I’ve done mortgages for people, but, you know, it requires a significant amount of capital and obviously there’s a significant amount of risk for me in case that one home defaults. But, you know, now you can do it directly without going to the public markets.

You know, the public markets makes it even more difficult because those prices are always gonna be more inflated than private businesses or at least typically, especially in the markets that we’ve had the last 34 years and yells have to deal with volatility. And I think sometimes, taking the volatility out of the game, though it doesn’t make the investment any less risky whether it’s a private reader publicly, I think the taking out the volatility does help with the investor who in some cases, in many cases, just needs to sit tight and cash those checks and keep collecting the rent, whether it’s a, you know, pulled investment into a single family owner or you own one.

You know, I use this example a lot, you know, my own experience. You know, in 2008, I had a duplex that I own. It got cut in half in price value, but the rents actually went up because there was a lot of people in foreclosure that created a lot more demand for the rents. Now, had it been a stock, could you imagine seeing $120,000 go to $60,000? You’d wanna puke your brains out. Now, here we are 8 or 9, gosh, almost 10 years later, the property is back to where I purchased it, or probably over a little bit even, but all this time, I’ve been collecting this money. Now, that was because it was an inconvenience to sell it and, you know, but with a stock, it’s more convenient to just click the mouse when you’re ready to puke and sell the stock.

And sometimes, actually more times than not, that can hurt the investor because, as you know, anybody who’s listened to somebody like Rick Rule is, you know, when you see a great asset that you own or want to buy go down 50%, that’s an opportunity to buy something on sale. But because of the way the stock market works and the emotionality of it for many people, especially if they’re not educated in this, you know, they’re gonna puke their brains up and sell it. So I like a lot of these investments outside of Wall Street just because I like to take the volatility out of it. Even though, again, it doesn’t change the risk, it does change the mindset though.

Bill: Daniel, you touched on real estate, what’s your general thoughts on the real estate markets now, and what are some hot and cold markets that you’re aware of?

Daniel: You know, I think the real estate market nationally, unfortunately, is getting very toppy here. It’s been subsidized by low-interest rates, it’s been subsidized by all these government funding and loans. And, you know, California had one a few years ago, might even still be around, where they would fund the second mortgage, and if you lived in it for five years, they just would forgive the debt. So there’s a lot of things that have been pushing it up. And now, we have a rising interest rate environment. So I think that’s definitely gonna put a ceiling on it in some of these states where it’s been really hot like Texas. You know, these people are paying 3% real-estate tax in some areas, some areas they are even higher. So you can imagine what that’s doing to the native population where, you know, you’ve got a home that all of a sudden they’re paying $9,000 a year for in tax, $12,000 a year for, these are middle-class families paying a $1,000 month in real-estate tax, not really affecting the blue state migration into Texas where you’ve got California and New Yorkers just flooding the place, especially Central Texas, but it’s crushing the natives because these home prices are going up.

So I tend to think real estate is toppy here. I definitely wouldn’t invest for appreciation at all. I would only buy real estate if you know what you’re doing. I’ll be honest with you. As soon as I hang up with you on this interview, I actually have a property that was presented to me this morning. It goes to foreclosure. On Tuesday it goes auction. And today, I think we’re doing this interview on Wednesday or Thursday and I’ve got an opportunity to go pull out a foreclosure. But I’m only going is because it’s worth 300 and I’ve got an opportunity to pick it up for 200. So, you know, that scenario I’m not really thinking about the real estate market. I’m just focusing on the individual deal, and that should be the situation if you’re investing in real estate, really, what is the individual deal you’re looking at? Because, you know, I can’t make money, you know, if over the next month we have a Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers environment, you know, if I’m simply betting on appreciation, or buying what everybody else buys, putting…paying carbon blinds [SP] with 20% off. Look, if you give me a massive 33% discount, that gives me a lot of padding. And with the demographics and the trends for Central Texas, I’m not overly concerned about what’s going on nationally. Now, you know, I’ve built myself a margin of safety. It’s not fully safe, but I feel pretty good about that deal.

Bill: Daniel, I wanna learn more about how you allot your investment portfolios proportion wise. But if I could jump into, I should say, into regarding teaching our kids about economics and investing. In my own lineage, my grandfather was Irish from the south side of Chicago, and he always had a dream of owning grocery stores. He wanted 10 grocery stores. But in his 20s he was able to secure a loan, opened up 1 grocery store, and then, over the course of time, he was able to open up 2 grocery stores and be prosperous. So growing up and particularly in junior high, high school, and college, I spent a lot of time with my grandfather. And unsolicited, he would share with me all the stories of his business and successes, failures, interacting with other businessmen. And that was probably my earliest discipleship in terms of how the world interacts economically and entrepreneurship and building a business. You run several businesses, what do you do to teach your kids about the current economy, investing, saving, and all things monetary?

Daniel: Well, thank you for asking that. It’s without a doubt my favorite topic. I have read several books for myself to deal with family wealth in the transition because one thing I never wanted to rob my kids off is failure, or the ability to have their own success. I think that’s extremely important that they have to be able to achieve that first generation experience of wealth. But it is not as easy as it sounds, you know, because they are obviously living a higher quality of life, and at the same point in time as a father, I want to help my children. So it’s a balance that I think everybody has to navigate on their own.

But, you know, one of the things we’ve really, really pushed with the children, and I have three, one is four, six, and eight, and I pushed the kids to really save money and to really embrace entrepreneurship to the point where my wife and I actually homeschool the kids. Honestly, we just don’t see that much value in the public school system. We think it’s outdated, it’s uncompetitive. You know, you’ve got a stranger that’s not really being paid that much to be in charge of 30 kids that are all at different learning levels and all learn differently. So, we opted out. We went to a homeschool curriculum. And in the homeschool curriculum, you know, you can make it up as you go along when it comes to the money part because that’s just everyday living, whether it’s, you know, having my son get out of the car and go through the process of filling up the car where you’re swiping the credit card or debit card, you’re talking about how much it costs for a gallon of gasoline, and we’re lucky enough to live just down the street from ExxonMobil.

So one of the first stocks my son purchase when we opened up his Scottrade account, which was recently taken over by TD Ameritrade. So now he opens his TD Ameritrade account, and he’s got his ExxonMobil stocks. So that’s a real good contact point. And that’s something we did very early on was that we wanted them to teach them to buy companies that they interacted with. So, they own Costco, they own Disney, they own ExxonMobil. These are companies that they interact with positively. They actually do own some mining shares, but it’s because my son and I, we were invited to a gold mine tour last year. So after he left that gold tour, he bought some gold shares and, you know, it’s just really, you know, teaching them that passion and that discipline of saving and then investing. Because, you know, if kids save, and they just keep the cash in their box, in their drawer, it’s teaching them that they’re not supposed to expect a return on their capital. But I like using the stock market as a vehicle for them to compound their wealth, to teach them how to grow their wealth.

And then every chance we get, we go, you know, if you google…if you’re a parent, google entrepreneur camps, google money camps, especially right now, this is gonna come out right at the start of the summer. I guarantee you, in your area, you’re going to be able to find some money camps for your children. A lot of times, they’re over the age of eight for age requirements, but that’s a big one. We’ve found several of these money camps are all around in our area. There’s some really, like, really good ones in the New York area.

And then, there’s also entrepreneur camps. You’ll often find those where everybody will meet in the city and kids can set up lemonade stands or bake some cookies or make something that they can provide to sell, and those are good. So, you know, you really got to be proactive as a parent too to really help them with these opportunities because they can’t drive. Most of them, you know, at least my kids are, you know, they’re not on the internet searching for these things. So I think a lot of it is just like anything, it’s the parents who have to make these opportunities available.

Bill: I think it was about 6 months ago, I walked downstairs and I saw my 10-year old sitting in the chair reading and I said, “What are you reading?” And I looked and I saw the purple cover, and he was reading Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad, Poor Dad.” And then over the next three days, he was going through that. And it wasn’t long after that, that three of my children, for hours at a time, were playing Monopoly. I actually have a very short attention span when it comes to a board game with Monopoly that can go on for hours on end, but they literally had like a week of Monopoly marathon, which I talked to them about liabilities and assets and how this is actually a good example of how one can build wealth in the real world. I use that as a preface to say, have you bought for your child or played with your child Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad, Poor Dad Cashflow Game for Kids” or something of that genre?

Daniel: Yeah, so we play Cashflow for Kids. We also play the Cashflow for Adults one. But the majority of time, we actually play Monopoly. So they actually really enjoy Monopoly. I’ve made it as real as possible. So like, let’s say, some of the rent checks that I receive actually come to me in the mail. And what I’ll do is I’ll usually have my son without my phone. He’ll deposit it because he’s the oldest right now so, or he’s always gonna be the oldest, but he’s the one that would understand it the most. And he will deposit the rent checks. I’m like, “This is a rent check. This is just like Monopoly.” And then, we’ve only done this a few times.

But I actually went to the bank and got out the exact denomination for the Monopoly game minus the $500, which we just use gold coins. But we actually use real currency, not Monopoly money. We use dollars. That way, it makes it even more real. I’m trying to really help them understand that this is a game, but this is just a game that, when you’re older, you just keep playing. So they understand that. And I’m lucky enough to have a few rental properties in my area that occasionally we might just drive by, or be in the area and I can talk about it and reference the Monopoly game. So I think that’s extremely healthy and good for the kids playing Monopoly or those Robert Kiyosaki games. I love the Robert Kiyosaki games because they bring so much reality to it, and it’s a good way to, again, playing games is a great way to learn.

Bill: If I could jump out to the macroeconomic picture, and you kind of touched on this a little already, but could you comment further on what are some of the key macro trends to be aware of both to avoid and to profit from?

Daniel: You know, I look at the three trends right now that we’re really focused on at Future Money Trends, and that’s the cannabis space. I think this thing’s opening up. It’s very messy right now. Been telling everybody the only people making money are the attorneys. Out of a few hundred publicly-traded companies in the U.S. and Canada, I’m only aware of three that are actually making money. So you’ve got an industry that is ripe for investment, but you just have to be very disciplined and very select. This is not going to be a dot-com mania.

And then the other two sectors that we’re very interested in is the clean metals, the clean metals like silver, and cobalt, and lithium. Those are our interesting plays because it’s one of those few trends, like housing, that has both free market demand, where everybody actually wants these electric vehicles and people are interested in having a cleaner environment. But you’ve also got world government spending, literally committing trillions of dollars over the next 10, 20, 30 years. So you’ve got massive free market demand and massive government subsidies and stimulus. So I really like the clean metals, clean energy.

And then the last trend is blockchain. Blockchain, and I would even put AI in that because I think, you know, we’ve all seen the stuff about bitcoin, which we’ve been covering since 2012. But what everybody says when they describe bitcoin, they’re like, “It’s gonna change the world. It’s gonna do all these and you know, it’ll be revolutionary on the blockchain.” Okay, great. Well, we’ve had a lot of fun with bitcoin, but I think, for me and my subscribers, I’ve been telling everybody it’s time to move on from the actual tokens, which were very speculative, the cryptocurrencies that was fun, you know, not talking about sound money, but just looking at speculating to make money. And I really am excited about investing and do a few key blockchain type plays, where, “Okay, now we’ve heard that blockchain is going to change everything, now show me the businesses and the people who are going to implement that.” Because those are the people and those are the companies that are gonna ultimately make a lot of money and have a lot of profits to disperse to their investors because they are implementing this blockchain to other businesses and individuals.

Bill: When you allocate your investments, what percentage of your investment capital is held in junior mining stocks, real estate, bullion, cash? Can you give us a breakdown?

Daniel: You know, that’s really hard for me just off the top my head because I don’t have any kind of rule. I do tell people, like, “Hey, I think you should do 5% in speculation,” which would be the junior mining stocks, “10% in gold and silver for savings.” But I think I suggest that because I want other people to be safe. My risk tolerance is a lot higher. So, you know, good 30% of my investable net worth is involved in the micro-cap space, which includes a lot of these junior mining space, the cannabis space I was just talking about, and blockchain investments. And then I would say a sizable, 30%, is invested in real estate. That is how I invested and created up passive income portfolio.

And then, what I have remaining, you know, I’m not excluding my businesses that I own, you know, for my investable net worth, you know, and another 30% to 40% is in cash or cash equivalents right now. So, I’m a little more conservative than most people in the sense that…you know, I’ve got a large chunk in speculation, I’ve got a safe large chunk in real estate, and then I’ve got an even bigger pot that’s just sitting there waiting for opportunity because I’m very concerned about, you know, some sort of market crash because I do see systemic risk to the system with all the debt, public debt, student loan debt, national debt for the United States. So I’m a bit concerned that we’ve stretched ourself on borrowed prosperity and so I wanna be ready. And that cash and cash equivalent…and the reason I even have to say equivalent is because I consider gold and silver an equivalent to cash. So when I say 30% to 40% is in cash or cash equivalent, I’m meaning U.S. dollars, gold and silver.
 
Bill: This is “The Mining Stock Education Podcast.” So, moving a little more narrowly to the mining stocks. Let’s say someone gets a hold, someone is living the middle-class life. They have common man’s income, let’s say $60,000 a year, maybe they have $20,000 in savings, and maybe they have $10,000 to $15,000 more of disposable income, but yet they’re carrying house debt, maybe car debt, possibly educational debt, should they go the Dave Ramsey approach to begin with and just snowball the debt before they maybe would wanna jump into some of the more speculative stocks or would you recommend maybe a little Dave Ramsey along with the speculation with the hopes of multiplying what they invest to quicker pay down their debt? What’s your approach to that?

Daniel: I think people would be shocked by…I probably would just go full Dave Ramsey on it. If I was making $60,000 year and I had debt, I’d be focused on paying off the debt. Because, I’ll tell you, having a debt-free lifestyle is gonna be greatly rewarding. You know, best thing in the junior mining stocks, specifically in speculating, yeah, that can be very profitable, but it has probably an even better chance of not being profitable. So why not have the debt paid off? Why not be able to sleep at night? Why not have a, you know, every evening when you’re, you know, having a drink or a glass of wine or something, you know, to have that no debt? I can’t tell you how great it feels. And I’ll never forget, I’ve been mortgage free since 2011.

And, you know, a lot of people set on paper. What are you doing? You could take the 3.5% mortgage and you could buy an MLP or rental, I don’t care that. There’s a feeling of wealth that it can only be described, and part of that feeling is having no debt. So, I would say not having the monthly obligation.

It’s also very prudent because if there is hard time, it’s like you described in the beginning of the show, you talked about a friend that made 400 grand and then the next year he’s living in a 2-bedroom 1-bath. I’ll tell you, that guy mustn’t have been debt-free. He certainly had a horrible savings rate. A guy like that should have been saving half of his income.

But, you know, I would say being debt-free is the way to go. And when you’re debt-free and you’re ready to start investing, I would invest 90% to 95% of your income into safe-income-producing assets so you can start to develop multiple streams of income. And then with that 5% that you got left, go have some fun and speculate in the junior mining sector, or any micro-cap space tech, whatever, but for this show, for the mining companies. But, you know, I would even go further and say I would be very patient and try to find the right people that you’re gonna wanna invest with rather than the right companies.

Bill: Daniel, I appreciate this conversation. I do think that was sage advice. As you said, go full Dave Ramsey. Even though I’m in the mining investment sector and those that are listening to us talk, many of them are in it, as you know, for the 10-bagger plus. But at the same time, I think the foundation, as you said, is that debt-free where you don’t overly risk your family’s future and find yourself in a ton of trouble because as you said to me I think prior to the recording, you can make a lot of money in mining stocks or it could be a graveyard, so we definitely don’t want people going to the graveyard.

Daniel: No, and honestly, you know, most people, you have to be very disciplined, you have to be a stock picker. This isn’t the type of sector that I think you go buy the ETF. Like, mining itself is really not that great of a business, and even Doug Casey and stuff will talk about this. The irony of, you know, commodities are, you know, been in a 5000-year bear market and the mining.

You know, a lot of the companies is hard to understand but people like, “Hey, you know, if this company starts producing gold, you know, it’s gonna be all upside after that.” But often, you’ll find that once commercial production happens, nothing happens, or it can go down 30%. It’s very cyclical. You’re completely dependent on this metal. Imagine the craziness of that, right? Like you’re holding this beautiful mining stock that has a great management name, great assets, and everybody is stuck until the metal moves.

Now, you know, unless you have a discovery, a significant discovery, which is extremely rare…you know, even when you talk to the legends, it’s very rare, you know, to see a very significant sizable discovery where it becomes a game changer. So, I mean, for my own personal preference, I’ve singled out a few individuals that are relentless.

I totally use the cheat sheet, of course. I started with asking Rick Rule who has taught people word that he liked, that were investable in. And, you know, I think you stick with a few key people and you ride it out with them because…and I say write it out because this business is cyclical. You’re gonna go through the worst of times and then you’re gonna go through the best of times. But you don’t want to be, you know, just have your money with some mysterious company that, you know, you think is going to be great. I think you really have to single out a few individuals, pick up that phone, call them, go to Vancouver or go to a mining show in the United States, meet them, because that’s the type of businesses we’re in. We’re not in a business, like, we’re investing in PepsiCo. You need to go meet these people because that’s how they’re treating these deals. These are deals that…they’re on the ground making these deals happen. And so, I would highly encourage people continue getting educated on sites like yours, and then follow up with an actual in-person visit to some of these companies you’re investing in.

Bill: Yeah, and in the junior resource space, you’ll really be amazed if you call these companies. I’ve had half-hour conversations with people just by calling the company directly and talking to whether it’s the president, vice president, or at least the investor-relations person. Many of them are very accessible or will respond within a few days.

Daniel: Absolutely, yeah.

Bill: Daniel, before you go, could you share about Future Money Trends and what listeners can find there?

Daniel: Yeah. So futuremoneytrends.com is a personal finance letter for the new economy. You’re gonna find a lot of stuff we just talked about, about how to better yourself and prepare your life for the future because I think the 1980s portfolio model is broken. So I think, you know, you’re going to want to look for new ideas outside of Wall Street, some in Wall Street. Then, of course, we love having fun with a few speculative micro-caps at Future Money Trends. And you can subscribe for it at futuremoneytrends.com.

Bill: Daniel, thank you for joining me today. I really appreciate it.

Daniel: Appreciate you having me on.