I had a chat with Alexis Assadi, a Canadian businessman who is works out of Vancouver. We began our conversation by talking about stock trading and financial advising. It later transitioned into Alexis Assadi’s photo blog. Read more to learn more!

 

If you could give anyone reading this right now solid financial advice, what would it be?

 

You know, I get a few messages each week through the contact section of my personal blog. Most of the time people ask for my opinions on various investment opportunities. I don’t – and can’t – give investment advice for a few reasons. 

 

First, I don’t trade in traditional assets like stocks and ETFs. I used to, but not anymore. I’m in the business of mortgage lending. So I’m not really the right person to ask. I don’t follow the stock market closely.

 

Second, I’m not an investment advisor or a financial planner. I don’t have any professional designations. In most places I believe you need to be licensed to make investment recommendations. So even if I wanted to give advice, I probably couldn’t.

Third, and I realize that this may appear selfish, I can really only lose by making an investment recommendation. If I make a good buying suggestion, I don’t get anything out of it. I don’t get paid. I don’t benefit it any way. But if my suggestion is a bad one, then I will probably be blamed for the investor losing money. It just seems like a bad idea.

 

Why don’t you buy stocks anymore?

 

I’m a better mortgage lender than I am a stock investor. I didn’t do poorly in the stock market, but I didn’t earn the returns that I do in the lending space.

 

However, I did learn a lot by investing in stocks. By researching publicly-traded real estate companies, for example, I learned about interest rates, loan-to-value ratios and other important terms that I now encounter in my daily life. I view my experience in the stock market as a stepping-stone to where I am today.

 

Is mortgage lending inherently better than stock trading?

 

No, I don’t think so. It’s a different asset class with a different risk and reward profile. There are many stock market investors who earn far greater returns than I do in the mortgage industry. I just happened to find the most success in the real estate debt arena.

 

Can you ever see yourself getting back into the stock market?

 

Sure, but probably as a passive investor. The thing with mortgage lending is that it occupies a lot of my time. It’s a full-on business. In the future, perhaps when I want to work less, I might get into some reliable dividend funds or basic income-paying stocks. I assume I would make a bit less money, but I would also spend less time on it. The trade-off would be worth it at that point.

 

Would you trade for your own account or hire a professional?

 

That’s a good question. I can’t rule anything out at this stage and there are certainly plenty of qualified money managers out there. But I assume I would want to avoid a layer of management fees, so I would probably do it myself. I don’t know how comfortable I would be entrusting my financial future to somebody else.

 

Is that because you distrust financial advisors and other professionals in the industry?

 

Not at all! It’s just my preference. Most people would probably benefit from hiring a licensed professional.

 

Earlier this year you wrote an op-ed about why you stopped writing about personal finance and related topics. Is there anything you want to add here?

 

I pretty much said what I wanted to in that piece. It was called, “Alexis Assadi Explains Why He Stopped Blogging About Money.” I started my blog in my early/mid-20s and have changed quite a bit since then. I have different interests now. Actually, I spend more time on my photo blog, called Alexis Assadi’s Pictures, than I do on my main website. To say I’m an amateur photographer would be an overstatement. I just enjoy snapping pictures on my iPhone and posting them online.

 

Why don’t you post them on a site like Flickr or Instagram?

 

I think there’s some value in not giving everything you own to social media companies. Sure, my pictures would gain more exposure on one of those websites because they a have massive user base. But my photo blog is a hobby. It is for my own enjoyment. I don’t care about getting
“likes” or “follows.” I’d rather post my material on a domain that I own. It’s mine, after all.