Meet our users - Interview with Cherie

My name is Cheri and I'm actually an American but I live in Madrid. I guess my background: I started in the financial business in 1998. Back then, we looked up stock quotes in a newspaper. I mean, that's just how it was. I remember I had some clients who had inherited a bunch of Walmart and AT&T and things like that, and I kind of looked at it and we got monthly statements. It was a completely different world. And back then, because I was with a broker dealer, it was a lot of selling: sell this fund, sell this fund, this is a growth fund, you use this for that. It wasn't very technical. It was just like the market's always going to go up. Remember, this is 1998. And then I was just really lucky when 2000 was rolling around. I saw everyone with these E-Trade accounts and doing all this crazy stuff. I lived right next to Qualcomm and everyone's buying Qualcomm stock. I had my own little E-Trade account, but I said, you know what, my clients are older, I'm just going to get them out. I went to bonds. And that is really what catapulted my business because I had gotten them out. It was honestly totally luck. It just kind of seemed like that was all bubbly. So anyway, over the years I worked with the broker dealer for a long time, and then I moved to create an RIA. What that is is I manage mostly retired people's money, so I'm not a big risk taker in my own account. That's a little bit more fun and I use options and take some more risk in my own account. So what I do is, through various sources of research and my own take on what's happening in the world, the economy, and with a lot of different data factors, I choose the areas that I want to be in. And then once I get there, I use your system. Now I have to say that in the beginning of the year when everything was going up, it didn't matter what you owned, it was going to be great. I used your system a lot because I was very actively trading. I would go in, I would go out, I would go in, I would go out. I would have done better if I would have held on to stuff, but I've been in this business too long to know that that can be taken away in an instant. So I was kind of scalping in and out, in and out, in and out, and that worked really great. Now I'm using your system a little bit differently because the market's not like it was first quarter. I moved into some bigger positions using some ETFs, just because that's so much easier when you don't really know what's happening. We're kind of in a transition stage. So before, where I was using the real-time updates, I was using them all the time. And you laughed at me the other day because I am collecting them. It's because I haven't been using them as much because I'm doing more on a daily basis. So I have what I want. I set up my watch list in your account. I also set up watch lists for some of the people that give me recommendations, just so I can kind of see where they are and track them. So right now in this stage, I'm not trading so much, so I kind of just use it every day. That's why I'm not using the real-time as much, because I'm going a little bit slower. So what I do is, the best feature, the thing I like the best, is the new thing where it tells me the changes. You know, you have this position and it says, okay, this one's deteriorating, this one's improving. I watched that because before I would have a notebook of all my positions and the ones that I knew were neutral and I wanted to watch which way they were going to go, and I had to do that manually. And now you guys did that, so that's really useful. I really like that. So every day I just go in, I do all my morning research, I look at everything, and then I go into your system and I always sort by... Oh my gosh, I can't even remember what you call it. Hold on a second. I'm looking at the ratio. I always, yeah, the ratio, the upside down side. And I first look, of course, at the changes: are things improving or deteriorating? Now there's some positions I have on that I have a one percent position on, and I know I'm just going to keep them, so it's nice to know but I'm not going to take any action on those. I kind of have a list: these are the ones that I know are bearish but I'm keeping them. Yes, yes, if I have my own reasons, and actually I know that I'm keeping them, and sometimes they go the other direction. But on the ones that I'm really watching, because it really shows us where the fund flows are going. Which, like I said, when I started in this business, it was random. Well, not even random: you buy a good company, you buy Walmart, and it's probably going to go up. It might go down, but it's probably always going to go up. It was fitting things. It's a totally new world. I mean, you can't... GameStop, I mean really, the stuff that's happening doesn't have anything to do with logic. So I know that has to be the fund flow. So I had to take this dinosaur self of mine and upgrade myself, and that's why your system is so useful to me. So now it's not just about, okay, do I think we need to be in commodities or equities or bonds? It's where, and what are the funds, what's happening to fund flows, because it's the important thing now. So anyway, I go in and I click upside down side and I sort it that way. Anything that's over two, if it's still bullish trend in trade, I will buy it. If it's still improving, I'll buy a little bit more. And then I click the other side, and I kind of made up this number, but in watching it over time, whenever it's less than 0.4, I'll sell some. And that was kind of random. First I was like, okay, 0.3, okay, 0.5, because it doesn't really matter. But it's just that we're getting closer to, okay, funds are going there, I'm just going to sell a little bit. And then I watch it kind of closely. So for me, I think the biggest tool, because I know what I'm going to buy, the truth is I don't use your system to choose what I'm going to buy. I use your system to find when I'm going to buy it and how I'm going to dollar cost average in. So right now there's some I'm getting into some bigger positions that are just kind of more broad. And sometimes you can't always wait for what the fund flows are saying is the lower range. You just can't wait for it, so you go in a little bit. And then what I do is I block trade everything as a percentage. So I say, okay, buy one percent of this at this price. And then I put another order on and I say, okay, buy another one percent at this price at the lower range. And then every day I go in and I see where the ranges change, and then I change my orders. And then sometimes I won't go in, but I always leave that one in. And I also do it for sell orders. When the market's moving a lot faster, I always have two orders on: buy ten percent of my position, not ten percent of the thing, ten percent of my position here, buy ten percent here. It's just such a small amount, but it triggers me because I'm doing stuff during the day, I'm looking at other things, and it says, hey, this buy order triggered. Oh, okay, let's go see what's happening with that position. And at least I know that I get in, even if it's just a little bit. I get in a little bit, I get out a little bit. But that has been really useful for me. So it's basically when the market opens, I look at all those things and I put orders in because I know what I want to have. And I put buy orders and I put sell orders in. And then it just kind of helps me not stay attached to the screen the whole day too.

Absolutely, absolutely. Because you and I were joking, there was one list that I was looking at that I was actually considering buying because I thought, from what I was reading, maybe I'll do that. And everything was red. I was like, nope, I'm not doing that right now.

Yeah, yeah. I was watching that. It's like, okay, well that's all red, okay, I'm not gonna do anything. But then when it moves like that, that's when you know that a phase transition is happening, and then I'll be more willing to get in. Because I'm watching that.

Yeah, absolutely. Because if it's still making a new high, you know, if the circle and the plus is still there, then I might sell a little bit. I might sell nothing at all because I have made many mistakes in the past where I just sell too early. Sometimes you make 15, you think I would have been happy with that for the year, so I'm just gonna take it. So then I'm a little bit more cautious to not sell it. But if that is neutral, then I'll be more aggressive in selling some because then I think that it could be going the other way. Does it always happen? No, but it's a really good signal. So when it goes neutral, maybe I'd sell 20% of my position. And then this is when the beauty of that signal change thing happens, because I was tracking that: these are neutral, watch these guys, see what happens. And now you're kind of telling me that every day the system does that, so that's useful. So then I see if those are red, I just get out because it doesn't cost anything and I know it's gonna go the other way. Trends are really important because I just won't touch it if it's bearish. I learned my lesson. I had a couple that were bearish and I was like, yeah, but I really want to keep that stock because I think that company is good. That never went well. So I've noticed that if you really, really want to keep a bearish trend because an analyst told you it's the idea of the century, the thing you can do is, when it goes bearish, you cut it. Maybe you can watch to go back in when it goes to the longer term range and on the bottom. This is usually what I will do. Let's say you were mentioning there are some ETFs I think are long term, I think I can come back to this, but the problem now is the momentum is not there, the macro setup is not there. So I don't want to touch them now because they are bearish. But I can still watch the longer term range and wait for the asset to come as close as possible to the low end of the longer term range. This would be the place I could buy a bearish trend because I think it's a long term hold, maybe it gives a lot of dividends so the value doesn't matter so much. So that would be the place to do it. But yeah, definitely when you see a bearish trend, just don't try it. It's gonna go down. You don't know how much, but it's gonna go down.

Yeah, exactly. I saw this change, I think it was like March, something like this. It happened in the long-term bonds, extended duration long-term, and gold. I mean, all these things switched in March. You had some kind of correction in gold at some point, but the bonds have been working pretty nicely here since a long time. Which actually doesn't fit the reflection view. I mean, how do you explain that long-term bonds are working so nice since March if you are in a recession? I don't understand. So it means some part of the market, we're already seeing some stuff that we are not in the macro that most were thinking about, which was also logical. But so, Raphael, I think that's the best thing about the product for me. Because I've been doing this for a while, I have my ideas about what things should be doing, and your tool shows me what they're actually doing. Back in March, I wouldn't be buying bonds. That was like, why would I do that? And then when I see those start moving, all that means to me is, it's not like what's happening really in the world. It's like, okay, well what are the big guys doing? Because I'm just a little in this pond. What are the big guys doing? Well, funds are obviously moving that way or that wouldn't be shifting. So it helps me kind of keep my logic in check, because this is a new world, this is a new market.

And watch it for a little bit. Things that you think are going to happen, and see if that's what the market's actually doing. It's really humbling. It's very humbling because we always think we're so smart.

It does. Yeah, it works.

Well, yeah. This would be a really big ask, but you know on the first page now you have the most held positions in all of your clients' portfolios, right? Just because that's in your database. What I would love is, I'm creating these watch lists of commodities, equities, fixed income ETFs. What if you had like the biggest ETFs in each one of those sections? Because that's kind of easy. Maybe currencies. And then you just had like, how's the money shifting? How's it shifting? Are any of those like, okay, well now equities are really in the lead and bonds are picking up some speed, commodities are going the other direction? You know what I'm saying? Like maybe choosing top 10 ETFs in each sector. So some kind of flashlight like, okay, the money is going out of commodities and it's going to bonds, or getting out of tech and getting into utilities or something. I don't have consumer staples on my radar right now, so I don't know what it's doing. That might be interesting. That's a big ask, I know, Raphael.

No, it seems like you guys keep coming up with the things that I would have asked for.

It's just a really great tool, Raphael. I really like it. It's a great tool. It just really helps me.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, thank you, Cheri.