Ben Felix

Breaking Down My Investment Portfolio

505K views · 26d ago · 18:57

How I invest my own money, and where my views on money come from. I walk through my whole balance sheet: one global equity fund, a private equity stake in the company that acquired PWL, the house we live in, and more cash than I probably need. Not every choice is “rational,” and that’s fine.

Topics: My Upbringing & Views on Wealth · College & Early Career · My Actual Portfolio (pt. 1: DFA607) · My Actual Portfolio (pt. 2: Private Equity??) · My Actual Portfolio (pt. 3: My Home) · My Actual Portfolio (pt. 4: Cash)

📖 Mentioned book: Book on Amazon

The Truth About Leveraged ETFs

442K views · 1mo ago · 21:04

Sorry about the editing hiccups in this one! $10,000 in a 3x leveraged S&P 500 ETF (UPRO) at launch in 2009 would be worth about $1.3 million today, more than 10x a regular S&P 500 ETF. So are leveraged ETFs a smart long-term tool or a disaster waiting to happen?

Topics: the chart title should have shown EET (2X emerging markets). · When Leverage Makes Sense · The Risk · Leveraged ETFs · Math Time. · Hidden Costs

Who You Marry Is a Financial Decision

378K views · 2mo ago · 15:33

Who you marry and how the two of you handle money together will shape your financial life as much as almost any investment decision you make. But finances are often an afterthought in a marriage. In this video, I walk through what the research says about five decisions every couple faces: who to marry, whether to get a prenup, how much to spend on the ring and the wedding, whether to combine finances, and how much each spouse should shape financial decisions.

Topics: Who Should You Marry? · Should You Get a Prenup? · Should You Splurge on a Wedding? · Should You Combine Finances? · How Should You Make Financial Decisions?

When Compounding Works Against You

217K views · 2mo ago · 14:58

Most people save without knowing their real "why." Free exercise for Canadians to find it. Timestamps References Avoid Online Scams I will never reach out to you on social media platforms or WhatsApp to give financial advice. These are scammers trying to commit fraud.

Topics: My Cancer Diagnosis · Lifespan, Regret, and Decision-making · Exercise · Nutrition · Sleep · Mental Health

The Biggest Myths in Personal Finance

728K views · 3mo ago · 20:49

Some of the most repeated advice in personal finance is wrong. Saving as much as you can when you're young to benefit from compounding sounds obvious, but it ignores what economists call the life-cycle model. Following it can mean sacrificing the years when your money buys the most. In this video, I work through this myth and nine others to help you make better financial decisions and avoid costly mistakes.

Topics: Myth #1: Saving As Much As You Can Early · Myth #2: The Economy = The Stock Market · Myth #3: Dividends Explain 40% of Stock Market Growth · Myth #4: Index Funds Only Give You Average Returns · Myth #5: The Shiller CAPE Ratio is an Omen · Myth #6: If Warren Buffett Can Beat The Market, So Can You!

Renting vs. Buying a Home: The Case for Owning

233K views · 4mo ago · 25:51

Risk Profiling Tool Rent vs. Buy Calculator Goal-Setting Tool Timestamps References Avoid Online Scams I will never reach out to you on social media platforms or WhatsApp to give financial advice. These are scammers trying to commit fraud.

Topics: Housing: What People Get Wrong · Hedging · Should You Buy a Home? · Rent vs. Buy Case Study · The Qualitative Case for Owning a Home

The Truth About Investing at All-Time Highs

208K views · 4mo ago · 8:57

Most people save without knowing their real "why." Free exercise for Canadians to find it. References Avoid Online Scams I will never reach out to you on social media platforms or WhatsApp to give financial advice. These are scammers trying to commit fraud.

SpaceX IPO Situation is Crazy

293K views · 5mo ago · 20:11

There are two things people keep asking me about the SpaceX IPO: will it get added to their index funds, and—if given the opportunity—should they invest directly in the SpaceX IPO? Many of the major indices have made changes to their rules recently, and it has a lot of people confused about what’s actually going to happen when SpaceX goes public.

Topics: The SpaceX IPO, At a Glance · Index Rules & SpaceX Inclusion · The Nasdaq 100 · CRSP & MSCI Indices · FTSE Russell · S&P 500 & Total Market Index

The Biggest Problem in Investing Right Now

251K views · 5mo ago · 21:51

Avoid Online Scams I will never reach out to you on social media platforms or WhatsApp to give financial advice. These are scammers trying to commit fraud. YouTube channel @rationalreminder Rational Reminder community (forum)

Topics: Private Assets · Margin · Options Trading · Thematic ETFs · Covered Call ETFs · Avoiding Financial Bullsh

Using Your Money To Be Happier

1.1M views · 6mo ago · 21:22

This is probably the most important video I’ll ever make. I hope it will change your life the same way that researching it changed mine. I used to think that working, saving, and investing were all about getting as much money as possible. Don’t get me wrong, money is a powerful tool, we need at least enough money to live, and money can solve some problems, but more money is not in and of itself the main goal of personal finance.

Topics: Types of Happiness · Income Satiation · Happiness & The Future · Financial Decision Making · Regret · Setting Goals

Canada's New Evidence-Based ETFs

237K views · 6mo ago · 20:53

Canada just got a new suite of ETFs that could change how a lot of Canadian investors build their portfolios. They have all the good aspects of index funds — low fees, low turnover, and broad diversification — while making some evidence-based tweaks to improve expected returns. If you've been watching this channel, you've heard me talk about ETF slop. These ETFs are not slop, and I’m going to tell you why.

Topics: Active Management & Index Funds · Attempts to Improve on Index Funds · CACE · CALV · CAUS · CAUV

SpaceX and OpenAI: The Mega IPO Grift

364K views · 7mo ago · 18:44

Some massive companies are set to go public very soon. Private companies like SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic would rank among the largest public companies if they went public, and index funds would be forced to buy their stock. That means if you are an index fund investor, you may soon be investing in these companies whether you like it or not. The problem is that most IPOs are terrible investments, and these ones in particular raise some questions.

Topics: Index Fund Mechanics & IPO Inclusion · Fast-Track and Low-Float · SpaceX & OpenAI: A Closer Look · IPOs are TERRIBLE investments (historically) · Implications for Index Fund Investors · Should investors seek private market access?

This Paper Could Change How You Invest

354K views · 7mo ago · 19:17

A 1993 paper in the Journal of Financial Economics with nearly 15,000 citations today changed financial economics and portfolio management forever. Eugene Fama and Kenneth French found that a group of three factors explained the vast majority of differences in returns across diversified portfolios. These findings had, and continue to have, sweeping implications for both the study and practice of investment management.

Topics: What We'll Cover · Risk, Return, and Asset Pricing · CAPM · Methodology (pt. 1) · Methodology (pt. 2) · Results

The Problem with Private Markets

241K views · 8mo ago · 25:52

Guest: Private Markets

After many years of hiding behind mystique and illiquidity, private markets are being forced into the light. Private equity, private credit, and private real estate have been sold, hard, to investors on the premise that they offer higher returns with less risk.

Renting vs. Buying a Home: The Reckoning

234K views · 8mo ago · 14:40

Canada is in the midst of what is (so far) the second-worst price decline for inflation-adjusted home prices going back to 1975. The worst was in the 1980’s with a peak to trough decline of 31%. Today’s decline is sitting at 28% as of December 2025.

The Biggest Mistakes in Personal Finance

473K views · 9mo ago · 15:37

In personal finance, it’s common for people to focus on things that they can’t control, like trying to pick a winning investment, while ignoring the things that they can control, like setting the right goals and making a solid long-term plan, often leading to mistakes.

Topics: Not earning enough money · Under-saving · Not setting financial goals · Over-spending (on the wrong things) · Not taking enough risk · Taking the wrong kind of risk

The Problem with Equal Weight Index Funds

162K views · 9mo ago · 15:31

Guest: Equal Weight Index Funds

Market capitalization weighting, which is what typical index funds do, assign index weights based on each company’s size. An equal weighted index fund, as the name implies, equally weights all of the stocks in a market or market segment.

The Rise of ETF Slop

585K views · 10mo ago · 18:51

ETFs are no longer synonymous with sensible investing. The fund management industry is launching hundreds of new actively managed ETFs every year, and, for the first time in U.S. market history, there are more ETFs than there are individual stocks, and more actively managed ETFs than index tracking ETFs.

▶️ Mentioned videos: Video on youtube.com · Video on youtube.com · Video on youtube.com · Video on youtube.com

11 Investing Lessons From a Crazy Year (2025)

101K views · 10mo ago · 18:42

The 11 biggest financial lessons from 2025, a year that surprised almost everyone. Early on, it looked like investors were in for a rough ride. Instead, stocks, gold, bitcoin and real estate all delivered returns nobody predicted.

The "AI Bubble"

351K views · 11mo ago · 17:57

The "AI bubble" has some investors worried. The U.S. market is more concentrated than it's ever been in modern times, and U.S. market valuations are reaching levels near the dot-com peak, which was followed by a crash. The good news is that there are simple ways to protect yourself.

The best introduction to personal finance I have ever read

220K views · 11mo ago · 22:09

In this video I review the main lessons from The Wealthy Barber (2025), and explain why it's the best introduction to personal finance I have ever read. The Wealthy Barber (2025) Avoid Online Scams I will never reach out to you on social media platforms or WhatsApp to give financial advice. These are scammers trying to commit fraud.

▶️ Mentioned videos: Dave Chilton on Rational Reminder · Ben Felix on The Wealthy Barber Podcast

Stocks, Bonds, and “Risk”

55K views · 12mo ago · 1:16

A portfolio with more stocks is going to move around a lot more. A portfolio with more bonds will feel steadier. Neither choice is good or bad on its own. What really matters is finding a mix you can live with and one that actually supports your long term goals.

Investing 101

440K views · 1y ago · 20:12

Most people save without knowing their real "why." Free exercise for Canadians to find it. In this video I cover "Investing 101": why investing matters, what stocks and bonds are, what a sensible approach to investing looks like, and what tools you should consider using to implement these ideas.

▶️ Mentioned videos: Investing 101 with the Canadian Couch Potato

Covered Calls: What People (Still) Get Wrong

139K views · 1y ago · 16:23

Guest: Covered Calls

I wasn’t planning on making another video on covered calls but my last two videos started a lot of discussion that I think is worth pursuing. There are a ton of these products being launched in Canada, and I believe people are making serious errors in their assessments of them. I feel a personal responsibility to give some final comments.

▶️ Mentioned videos: Video on youtube.com · Video on youtube.com · Video on youtube.com