He made $1.5 million watching YouTube videos — and wants to help you do the same
Over the past three years, Bardan Mainali has made more than $1.5 million investing in the stock market. He invested a good chunk of change in Tesla in 2019 — a stock that’s only grown in value since then — which resulted in a large portion of his current net worth.
But how did Mainali know where to put his money to make it grow?
“I didn’t have any well-rounded knowledge about stocks or investments,” says Mainali, a software engineer and digital artist. “And because I was an engineering student, I didn’t take any finance or other economics classes.”
Mainali moved from Kathmandu, Nepal, to the U.S. in 2010 to pursue an engineering degree at Louisiana Tech. “I came to the U.S. with hopes and dreams like all other immigrants,” he says. He landed a good job at a big tech company, and in the meantime he worked on mastering the stock market.
Learning to make millions doesn’t cost a dime
Mainali didn’t go from babe in the stock market woods to millionaire investor in a day; in fact, Tesla wasn’t the first company into which he put his money. Mainali is a self-educated beginner investor who learned nearly everything he knows about the stock market from free personal finance resources on tools like YouTube and Bloomberg Radio. It took time to understand, and many of his original investments resulted in much more modest gains before he hit it big with Tesla.
But the moral of the story is this: Whether your goal is to become a well-versed investor like Mainali or just to make smarter choices with your money, you can find a ton of free advice and guidance out there to help you, starting with Mainali’s own tips for learning how to make money by watching videos.
Learn the vocabulary
Understanding the language that investors speak can help you keep up with the conversation. Searching these key terms can help you stay current with trends, Mainali says.
Some terms to start your you on your way:
Stocks: A security representing fractional ownership in a company or organization, like Amazon or Paypal.
Bonds: Like a corporate IOU. By purchasing a bond, you lend a set amount of money to a company to be paid back with interest at a predetermined date.
Diversified portfolio: A strategy used in finance to minimize risk. It puts into practice the old adage, “don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.”
Mutual funds: A professionally managed investment fund in which money is pooled from various investors to invest in securities like stocks and bonds.
Index funds: A type of mutual fund that tracks a financial index. An index fund that tracks the S&P 500 — a financial index of the 500 biggest companies in the U.S. — will buy stocks in all 500 of those companies.
The hundreds of lists on YouTube and Google can serve as a great foundation and will cover the basic terms you’ll want to know. “Spend five minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, you can get a lot of insight,” Mainali explains. “As you start learning, you get more interested.” Watching videos online can become part your routine.
Identify the experts and stick with them
When it comes to investing, you shouldn’t trust just anyone. It’s important to seek out people and video content with a proven track record of success. Mainali says he started watching YouTube videos from household names, like Bill Ackman, Warren Buffet, Ray Dalio, Cathie Wood and Chamath Palihapitiya.
You don’t have to take every piece of advice from your favorite experts, either, but it can be helpful to understand their point of view. “They help us to see investing from different angles,” Mainali says, adding that he began to understand how Cathie Wood’s methods for investing differed from Bill Ackman’s.
A sample of Mainali’s favorite videos include Dalio’s Principles for Success, Bill Ackman’s Everything You Need To Know about Finance and Investing, and Steve Jobs’ Secrets of Life. Starting points like these can help you understand how professional investors think. Do a little browsing on YouTube to see which philosophies and experts most resonate with you, and check out their tutorials and YouTube channels.
Read about money
If videos aren’t your thing, Mainali has a library full of suggestions for your next study session. Some of his favorites are The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey, Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, and The Shoe Dog by Phil Knight.
These recommendations aren’t strictly about making big bucks. Yes, some share straightforward financial advice, but Mainali’s list also includes self-help books and stories that explore how profitable companies are built.
“You read a book, and there are a few lines that change your whole perspective,” he says. Maybe one day you read about a new entrepreneur or type of business that you can’t help but believe in, and that’ll be a moment like the one he had with Tesla when you’ll want to trust your gut.
Ashlee Vance’s Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future happened to be particularly “life-changing” for Mainali. While the reading material that inspired Mainali might not make you rich, what’s important is to stay curious and go deeper in the subjects that spark your interest.
Make the news cater to you
After grounding himself in the vocabulary and philosophy of finance, Mainali began tuning in to financial news. “I started following the market news on Business Insider. While driving I started listening to Bloomberg Radio,” he says. Other great places to find financial and business journalism include The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and MarketWatch. Apps for this are available as well.
“This stock went up, this went down; these are opportunities, these are not,” Mainali says of the lessons he’d get from his media diet. The news can help you know when it’s a good time to put your money into a certain opportunity.
“I think investing is believing in the future,” Mainali says. “That belief comes only after doing enough research.”
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