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Talking Real Money - Investing Talk

Smart Money Myths

Talking Real Money - Investing Talk

Don McDonald

Education, Business, Investing, How To

4.5 • 811 Ratings

🗓️ 29 April 2026

⏱️ 30 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Private equity gets sold as exclusive, sophisticated, and “what the smart money does,” but the reality is far less compelling. Don and Tom break down the illusion: limited transparency, questionable valuations, high fees, and serious liquidity risks—all for returns that barely edge out (if at all) simple public market strategies. They argue that the supposed advantages—like the “illiquidity premium” and diversification—don’t hold up under scrutiny. The episode then pivots to smart listener qu...

Transcript

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0:00.0

Your guides to a really great financial future. Tom and Don are talking real money.

0:12.1

Talking real money continues with another really thrilling episode about a topic that hasn't been covered on talking real money in a very, very, very, very,

0:22.7

long time. We try to cover these kinds of things, these important areas of investing that you

0:29.2

should have in your portfolio, but, you know, there's so much stuff. We can't cover it all all the

0:34.7

time and new people are coming on. So we were reminded of this to speak about this because of the passing of a proponent of this type of investing, the magnificent Mark Mobius.

0:52.4

Which is the name that you're, if you have, if you only been an investor for 20 years, you will not know that name. Unlikely. If you're, no. If you're most people, if you're most people. All right. Fair enough. If you're 95% of the population of the earth, no, 99% of the population of the earth, you have no clue who that is.

1:12.6

If you're Tom Cock, of course you do.

1:14.7

Because I've been around for a long time.

1:16.7

Plus, he likes really obscure information.

1:19.7

Well, that's true, too.

1:21.2

Mark was a guy that studied, was a, you know, a PhD.

1:27.0

I mean, he didn't just stumble on to the investment business.

1:29.3

He wasn't just a guy.

1:31.0

Yeah, he was, you know, he, and, and his whole schick, if you will, was telling people why they

1:38.0

need to invest in emerging markets.

1:40.9

Now, oftentimes, when I talk to people about investing in emerging markets,

1:45.3

it's a tough sell. They think, wait, those are kind of like China, India, Brazil. It used to be Russia.

1:53.1

We don't invest there anymore. You know, places in the Far East. Is there anything left to invest in

1:58.1

Russia? Good question.

2:05.1

I just heard a joke about Russia, but I'm not going to resay.

2:08.8

Anyway, the point is Mark spent his career doing that.

2:12.1

He was, I don't, is this unkind?

...

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