Financial Expert: The Most Conyroverial Investing Myths That Cost You Money! - Ben Felix (Video)

In this 16 August 2026 published video, hosts Graham Stephan & Jack Selby talk with Ben Felix, a prominent Canadian financial analyst, portfolio manager, and the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) at PWL Capital. He is globally recognized as a leading voice in evidence-based investing, dedicated to translating complex academic financial research into practical, objective advice for everyday investors

To protect your portfolio from wealth-degrading advice, you must dismantle persistent financial lore. The most expensive investing myths include the fallacy of market timing, the illusion of safe cash, and the trap of chasing past performance, all of which quietly erode real capital through inflation, fees, and missed compound growth.

Keeping your money in cash or a checking account guarantees safety because the nominal balance never drops. While nominal principal is preserved, purchasing power is systematically destroyed by inflation. Over a 10-year horizon at a standard 3 percent annual inflation rate, cash loses roughly 26 percent of its real purchasing power. Inflation tax and opportunity cost of missing historical equity risk premiums. Maintain a 3-to-6-month emergency fund in a high-yield vehicle, but deploy excess cash into productive assets (broad-market index funds or short-duration Treasury bills) to outpace inflation.

Moving to cash before a predicted market crash and buying back at the bottom maximizes long-term returns. Market timing requires being right twice—knowing when to exit and when to re-enter. Missing just the 10 best trading days in a decade can cut an investor’s annualized portfolio return in half. Capital gains tax realizations, high transactional churn, and permanent cash drag. Utilize automated, rules-based dollar-cost averaging (DCA) to remove emotional friction and capture market recoveries systematically.

A mutual fund or individual stock that outperformed its benchmark over the last 3 to 5 years is a superior choice for the future. High past returns frequently mean the underlying assets are now overvalued, or the fund manager took concentrated, uncompensated factor risks that are bound to mean-revert. Persistence of alpha is statistically near zero over long cycles. High expense ratios and management fees charged by actively managed funds that regress to the mean. Focus on low-cost, factor-tilted or cap-weighted index exposure rather than chasing star managers or recent sector winners.

High-yield dividend stocks are inherently safer, lower-risk investments than non-dividend-paying growth companies. A high dividend yield is often a “value trap” signaling a distressed business with low growth prospects. Furthermore, dividends are tax-inefficient in taxable accounts, forcing an immediate realization of ordinary income or qualified dividend tax whether you need the cash or not. Tax drag and dividend cuts that trigger massive capital depreciation. Evaluate total shareholder return (dividends plus buybacks) and free cash flow coverage rather than headline yield alone.

Concentrated bets, leverage, and high-frequency trading carry a severe risk of total capital loss. Your core capital allocation should anchor on a globally diversified, low-cost multi-asset framework (e.g., broad equities, fixed income, and real assets) aligned strictly with your specific time horizon and liquidity constraints.

https://youtu.be/UMCGWxSFzX4

Timestamps: 

00:00:00 – Intro
00:01:12 – The Best Investment He’s Ever Made
00:04:04 – His Worst Investment: Buying Bitcoin
00:06:38 – The Myth That You Should Save as Much as Possible
00:09:07 – The Belief That Will Actually Make You Poor
00:10:42 – Why People Screw Up Something as Simple as Index Funds
00:13:03 – The Product Influencers Are REALLY Selling
00:14:59 – Sponsor: NetSuite
00:16:16 – All-Time Highs, Stretched Valuations, and Doing Nothing
00:20:09 – The One-Fund Portfolio and What’s Actually in His
00:24:49 – How Much Should People Save?
00:25:58 – Setting Goals You Won’t Regret in 20 Years
00:28:47 – Sponsors: Whatnot & Gusto
00:32:04 – Should Young People Borrow to Invest?
00:37:56 – Behavior Beats Math, and Cash Is the Real Risk
00:38:43 – Earn More vs. Spend Less
00:40:45 – The Cost Of Extreme Frugality
00:45:12 – The Rise of ETF Slop
00:47:34 – Covered Calls, and Why You’re Built to Underperform
00:50:26 – Who Should Own Individual Stocks
00:53:10 – Forget 10% – Here’s the REALISTIC Long-Term Return
00:55:41 – Sponsor: Upwork
00:56:55 – Am I Being Too Conservative?
00:59:46 – Diary of a CEO, and the Worst Financial Situations He Sees
01:02:55 – Why You Should NOT Look At Your Portfolio
01:04:09 – Risks People Overlook, and Pokémon Cards as an Asset
01:07:06 – Housing: Investment or Not?
01:10:10 – The 5% Rule for Renting vs. Buying
01:12:41 – The Intangible Benefits Trap and the Paid-Off House
01:19:25 – When Optimization Stops Being Worth It
01:22:10 – Money as a Tool to Buy Time
01:24:27 – What the Research Says About Money and Happiness
01:31:49 – The Life Cycle Model and the Safe Withdrawal Rate
01:38:50 – The Single Best Piece of Advice for Most People
01:41:04 – Reverse Interview: What Should He Cover Next?
01:44:22 – Why He Almost Didn’t Come On the Podcast