Speaker 1: The legacy dinosaur companies are the ones in exchange traded
funds are sometimes huge, huge, huge mutual funds in many cases,
in general, a lot of them haven't really gone anywhere
in a decade or two or three decades, if you
can believe this, So a lot of people, I think
the standard investment advice in the United States to do
this or that thing doesn't always apply in other places.
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Speaker 3: And welcome you are listening to and watching the Financial
Survival Network.
Speaker 4: I'm your host Carrie.
Speaker 3: With us today is Ryan Floyd, who runs an investment
fund out of Boston. Interesting where he's investing these days,
rather surprising to hear, but makes complete sense. He's in
India checking things out there, and evidently there's some great
opportunities there. If you got a question for Ryan myself,
shoot me an email. Klatkerrielets dot com. Ryan, it's great
to have you on the show. So what tell us
first about you? You've been investing for a long time
running funds.
Speaker 1: Sure. Great to be on the show, Kerry, thanks for
having me. I love your podcast, lots of interesting guests,
a great breadth of information. So I've been managing this
investment advisor for almost twenty years. Actually I got into
the business without knowing too much about modeling. I was
working on the cell side and launch this business in
two thousand and eight, if you can believe it. It
was a crazy time to start a financial services firm.
But it's gone. I think it's gone pretty well. Of course,
this compliance wise is not an offer to buy or sell,
but it's been nice being able to do this for
so long. Really, we focus outside the United States, primarily
with an eyeball on all kinds of different countries, trying
to invest in things that a lot of people aren't
paying attention.
Speaker 4: To, and so what aren't they paying attention to?
Speaker 1: It's kind of you could flip it on its side
and say what are people paying attention to? You could
sort of guess, like large, big American companies that have
hundreds and hundreds of cell side, analysts covering them. They're
always in the cover of the newspaper. People are texting
to them all the time. I think what I found
over my time in the market is that a lot
of people don't look at small companies. And with the
United States really being a big portion of investable assets globally,
there's a tremendous home market bias. And you kind of
couple those things together with some difficulties investing outside the country,
and it means sometimes smaller, more unusual companies are the
ones that folks are not really looking at. And I
think I've traveled to something like one hundred countries every
continent but Antarctica, turning over all kinds of stones to
look for interesting opportunities.
Speaker 3: He Antarctica, h well, maybe not one hundred. A lot
of frozen opportunities there, huh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hopefully not. Hopefully not mining companies in our lifetime
with all the snowmounting, but I guess so. But yeah,
all the other continents, you know, it's been a great
breadth of investment experiencially.
Speaker 3: So India, you know, it's kind of it's always had
tremendous promise, largest population in the world, but systems really
seemed to be holding it back. Their judicial system makes
ours look efficient, public services, all these things.
Speaker 4: How is it changing?
Speaker 1: It's a good question. So I lived in Bombay or
Mumbai a little less than two years. This is right
out of college. I wanted an adventure and to do
something very different from what other people were doing. This
was the early two thousands, I think. At the time,
then and even now, the general perception of India was
something like this, that the bureaucracy was not the best,
and gosh, there's so many different languages and different states
and regulatory systems, how does it work. But beneath all
of this was an incredibly it was true then and
true now too, an incredibly hard working population, a real
respect for entrepreneurial spirits, many many different companies doing all
kinds of different things, a sophisticated manager, a fairly good
regulatory framework. And as you said, it went from having
large households to smaller households, which means a real explosion,
and an explosion a number of households, and that means
people buying things like furniture and household goods and all
kinds of things because they're not having many children like
many parts of the world, and it's been a lot
of fun having lived there. I speak a little bit
of Hindi, although it's kind of faded away, But as
a guy raised in suburban Baltimore knowing a little bit
of Hindi, having traveled to some thirty cities, it's a
lot of fun poking around India and visiting here and
there and staying in touch with the country and the
capital markets. I would say I can't really call make
a call visual country, but just in terms of demographics
in general economic growth prospects, it's probably one of the
better stories because it has a large rural population and
people become more productive when they move from rural to
urban areas. The funny thing, I guess is that in
the eighteenth and nineteenth century in the United States, we
had similar problems with our judicial system and believe it
or not, bureaucracy ability to do things. Yeah, we still do, right.
I think kind of each place has to be understood
in its own terms, and in many cases the results
speak for themselves. It's need going back and seeing giant,
giant bridges and a lot more material progress and also
honestly warm and fuzzy things like infant mortality dropping and
longer life spans, and it's a great fout women's rights
and such. But no place is perfect, of course, as
any human knows.
Speaker 3: And so we're yeah, of course, So what do you
think the greatest promise of India is here? Your most
optimistic put on your most optimistic pah. If I were
talking to an AI system right now, would it tell me?
Speaker 1: Well, it's an interesting point. I mean, different countries have
different challenges depending on their historical trade, their historical regulatory environment,
who generally runs the show and why. I've found that
the political system, as noisy as it is in India
is one of the most interesting in the world because
it's so vibrant. It's pluralistic. It's not perfect, it's really
not perfect, but people really get to vote and express
their preferences across many different dimensions, classes, languages, religions. It's
like a giant quilt that somehow comes together and it works. Really,
the thing I find just most inspiring and encouraging is
this demographic issue that the working population continues to grow
and productivity increases as people move from rural to urban areas.
There are other countries where you would say well, the
per capita GDP is kind of similar, but it's much
more urban. It's a lot harder to drive productivity growth
and income growth and GDP growth. Frankly, when people are
already all connected to the internet, they're all connected to
I don't know, urban transportation networks. They all have high
speed internet, not all of them, but they largely have
high speed Internet. So then it's a different game. You
have to be able to export much more sophisticated goods
in order to grow more rapidly, which is more difficult.
So I think for India to grow more rapidly economically
is just lower hanging fruit. I think countries like Vietnam
and Bangladesh a somewhat similar to Even though that might
sound funny to an American ear, I think it's sort
of real that people really do become much more productive,
just like they did in the United States. It's nothing
against farmers. I have ancestors who were farmers, in great
respect for farmers also, but when you're selling your agricultural
goods on a small plot of land to one market,
it's very risky, challenging existence. When I was living in Bombay,
you could see people who were first generation people living
in cities with tremendous energy and vibrancy. They wanted so
much more from life. Now that puts pressure on the
political environment. That's great from an economic perspective because suddenly
they're these consumers, but politically also it puts pressure on
the political system because they ask more. When you're not
connected necessarily you live in a far rural area, you
have certain political demands. But suddenly when you're much more connected,
you might ask for much more, which is great in
many cases. And then that's the real test of a
country is whether it can filter these increased demands in
some relatively productive way without I don't know, earthquakes. It's
easier said than done. But yeah, well, okay.
Speaker 3: Change comes slowly. It's come slowly to India. But once
it starts, there's really nothing that can stop it, is there.
Speaker 1: That's a good that's a good insight. I would say,
there are some things that can stop this kind of progress.
It's not unique to India, but it goes for lots
of different countries. Tremendous debt can make it very difficult
or not anywhere near there. But when no one has
a mortgage, just having a mortgage to buy some properties
suddenly unlocks all kinds of economic opportunity. When the reverse
is the case, like maybe the United States in two
thousand and seven, when everybody has two or three or
four mortgages, then that could really make for a challenging
decade or two. India and other you know, lots of
other countries are nowhere near there, but that could be
a risk, right as if everyone suddenly takes on tremendous
amount of leverage. Instead of helping to fund your cousin's business,
you're spending a decade paying down debt. Of course, governments
throughout centuries and millennia can also just I call it
like own goals or maybe like getting a safety in
football American football, And this happens more than you would think.
Of course Americans know this too, but there are hard challenges,
hard decisions to make, and believe it or not, having
traveled to so many different places around the world, sometimes
officials don't you know, they don't make the right decisions.
That can be bad. At least in my experience. It
doesn't happen as often as would happen, but as maybe
you would think. But certainly things can happen like this,
they're not so good.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I've learned in my brief time on
the planet never never ever underestimate the ability of politicians
to screw everything up right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a good, wise comment. Yeah, it's helpful in
investing in different countries around the world, where it's very
important to know the political system and what's going on
in different countries and have some sense of humility that
different countries can operate in different ways, and they can
operate in ways that maybe are different than the United
States or different than one's home country. Sometimes that might
be charring or uncomfortable, but in other cases it might
be a humbling I suppose that. Well, it kind of
works there, even though the system is slightly different, and
I have to kind of put some of my let's
call it, I don't know if bias is a word,
but I have to put some of my experience on
one side and understand this local culture and system on
the other. And of course you can't do that exactly.
They have to interact with one another. But this is
kind of the great fun of looking for investments in
different parts of the world.
Speaker 4: Fascinating, fascinating times.
Speaker 3: We're living in that it is you can actually learn
a lot, way more than you used to be able
to and actually do your due diligence all the way
on the other side of the world. So, for a
little piece of advice to individuals looking to invest in
different places, what do you tell them?
Speaker 1: It's a good question. I don't know. I don't have
the best advice. I would say, be humble and not
so aggressive. I kind of worry about the world of
day traders looking for this or that hot thing, And
of course this is just for informational purposes, and I
recommending my fund in the United States. The world of
et aps is pretty interesting because there are lots of
new companies each decade that populate them and so many
other places, I believe it or not, the legacy dinosaur
companies are the ones in exchange traded funds or sometimes huge, huge,
huge mutual funds. In many cases, in general, a lot
of them haven't really gone anywhere in a decade or
two or three decades, if you can believe this. So
a lot of people, I think the standard investment advice
in the United States to do this or that thing
doesn't always apply in other places. And this makes it
a little challenging, so I always say that my it's
like to my kids. I think saving is very good,
you know, personally, saving is a very good process, and
being diversified certain only helps. But not, let's say, not
with the kind of knee jerk dra knee jerk. I
must be in this place, or I must own this,
or I must have this type of investment. I guess,
for better or for worse, Investing out side of the
hugest markets of the world just requires a lot of discernment.
Speaker 4: Let's say, all right, I'll buy that.
Speaker 3: Hey, how do we find you and how do we
connect with you on the web?
Speaker 4: There, Ryan, thanks for asking.
Speaker 1: My firm is Barka Capital, so the website is www
dot Barkocapital dot com. Feel free to sign up for
a newsletter and I am linked in. My name is
Ryan Floyd like Pink Floyd, and the firm is Barker Capital.
Feel free to reach out. I know that reference dates
me now a lot of people. I have to say
Floyd Merriweather. Maybe for some people because a lot of
people don't know the Pink Floyd reference. But I feel
free to reach out. And I always like book recommendations
and suggestions of interesting data sets or news sources or
anything like that.
Speaker 4: All right, Hey, well, we really appreciate you coming on. Ryan.
Speaker 3: Thatn's good lightning, very interesting. If you got any questions
for Ryan myself, shoot an email to Klatcarrieluts dot com.
Link is in the show notes to this interview on
Financial Survival Network dot com. We just ask if you
go there, please sign up for your free newsletter like
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Speaker 4: Ryan. Good luck, we'll talk to you again soon.
Speaker 1: Sounds good. Thanks, Gerry, appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to Carrie Letz's Financial Survival Network, your
solution to today's trying times. For the latest, go to
Financial Survivalnetwork dot com. Financial Survival Network now more than
ever