Hybrid Portfolio Investor is dedicated to providing the best resources and tools to empower fellow investors and provide them with the knowledge they need to make informed investment decisions.
Hi! My name is Greg and I’m a Canadian business owner, investor and father of three. Most people don’t have a ton of time, so here’s a quick TL;DR version, followed by a longer bio below, if you want to know a bit more about me and my investing journey.
I’ve been investing for over 20 years. Everything I know about investing has been self taught, because I didn’t have much help from my parents when I was young. They rarely talked to us about money, and other than my dad telling me I should set up an investing account when I was around 20 years old, they didn’t provide much guidance on how to invest or get ahead financially.
As many do, I fumbled my way through the early years of investing, and did everything from trading penny stocks, to investing in “dividend stocks only” to playing with options and shorting. My wins were more luck and good timing than anything else (like shorting Lehman Brothers a week before they declared bankruptcy!), but through it all, I kept contributing to my investing accounts regularly, with whatever extra money I could save.
Over the years, my investing accounts have continued to grow, and through trial, error, and success, I have found a strategy that works for me – some call it a hybrid investing approach.
I use a hybrid investing approach for my own accounts, owning a combination of dividend and growth stocks, bonds, ETFs and bitcoin. I also manage accounts for various family members (e.g. my wife and kids) where I prefer index ETFs for their simplicity.
I’ve consumed every investing book, podcast and blog I could find, in search of the perfect investing formula, only to find out that the answer is “it depends”.
That’s the reason I dedicated hundreds (thousands, maybe?) of hours to put together all the resources and guides on this site – so that I can help others who are at various stages of their own investing journey.
I hope you find value in the free resources and blogs I share here – that’s ultimately my goal. If you do, I encourage you to also check out the fairly-priced intermediate and advanced guides in my shop.
My first introduction to investing was in the 1990s. One day, while I was driving around with my friend in his 1976 Austin Mini, he randomly went philosophical on me and said “Mutual funds, man! That’s where it’s at.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but for some reason that comment stuck in my head.
Then, when I was in my early 20s, my father came to me and told me “you need to set up an RRSP account now that you’re working”. He recommended a brokerage (I think it was Canaccord Genuity, or something like that) and that was the extent of the conversation.
Not long after, I had my first RRSP account set up and funded with a few hundred dollars. The brokerage set up an automatic withdrawal from my bank account, so every two weeks I would put another 20 bucks into – you guessed it – mutual funds.
That continued for a few years, and I never really gave it much thought other than to think about what else I could spend that $20 on. I also never really looked into what I was buying, or what the fees were.
As it turns out, I was investing in a classic 60/40 balanced mutual fund that held 40% bonds and 60% stocks (primarily Canada and US). And I was paying a 3% fee. But I never really paid attention to the investments themselves… just the dollar value of what was in my accounts.
That was my first mistake, and one that I now know almost every beginner investor makes.
Around the time of the dot com crash, my dad recommended that I switch to QTrade’s self-directed investing platform to take advantage of lower fees and be able to trade stocks myself. So, not knowing any better, I switched my accounts over, much to the displeasure of the account managers at Canaccord.
At QTrade, I was paying $9.95 per trade, which was great, but I lacked the knowledge to know what I should buy. My dad didn’t really know either – there were very few resources available to average people in those days, so both of us just kind of winged it and ended up trading in an out of random stocks way too often. The end result was that my portfolio balance didn’t increase very much, despite continuing to contribute every couple weeks.
Part of that was the market trading sideways (and down!) for a couple years, but a lot of it was related to individual transaction fees being relatively high for a portfolio that was only a couple thousand dollars at the time.
"You'll never become wealthy from your salary alone. To become financially independent, you need to invest."
A couple years later, I got a job at WestJet, and started buying WestJet stock via the company’s Employee Share Purchase Plan (ESPP). Under the ESPP, employees could contribute up to 20% of their gross income, and the company would match dollar-for-dollar. Shares were purchased every month, and they would vest for a year.
So for every $500 I contributed, I would get $1000 worth of WestJet shares at the end of the month. I could contribute to an RRSP account and/ or into a taxable account within the ESPP. Though I could only afford to contribute 10% at first, my account balance grew significantly over the years, thanks to the 100% match from WestJet.
"The big money is not in the buying and selling, but in the waiting."
WestJet’s ESPP is one of the best ones I’ve ever seen, and all of us that took advantage of it benefitted greatly. Of course, the contribution limit and company match had a lot to do with it, but the hidden gem within the ESPP was the fact I couldn’t touch the shares for a year after buying them. Because they had a vesting period, I got used to buying and holding them for a long time, and not worrying about the daily ups and downs of the stock price.
I watched my locked-up shares go through dramatic run-ups, like a 50% spike the day after Jetsgo declared bankruptcy in 2005, as well as significant drawbacks, like what happened to all stocks during the Great Financial Crisis in 2008.
For over 15 years, I benefited significantly from the WestJet ESPP and my investing account balance increased steadily. Over time, I got a few raises and was eventually able to contribute 20% of my gross salary. I continued to buy shares in my RRSP and taxable accounts, and swapped the taxable account for a TFSA account when they were introduced in 2009.
I sold WestJet stock when I felt like the price was high, and bought other companies or ETFs to rebalance my portfolio. But even if things were going in the right direction, I still had a lot to learn.
"Although it's easy to forget sometimes, a share is not a lottery ticket... it's part-ownership of a business."
Investing in ETFs can be very simple, assuming you choose one with a low fee, but investing in individual companies is a constant learning process. It took me a long time to realize that there are a lot of companies that simply aren’t worth owning. At the same time, it took me far too long to realize that good companies are worth holding onto if they’re continually performing as expected.
Looking back at some of my worst trades makes me cringe and ask why I ever thought it was a good idea to own those companies (I’m looking at you Roots, and at you random junior mining company that went bankrupt when that so-called gold reserve never panned out). Thankfully, I have only had one true zero in all my years of investing, but I did dabble in inverse and leveraged ETFs, so I definitely have some losses to learn from, along the way.
I gave up some significant returns by selling some winners too early as well. I own Visa again now, and will probably never sell it, but I really wish that I had just held it after buying it for around $70 back around 2015. I also traded in and out of Facebook (now Meta), and Amazon over the years, and I would have done much better to just hold them and leave them alone.
"[Beginner investors should] consistently buy an S&P 500 low-cost index fund. Keep buying it through thick and thin and especially through thin."
After managing my own portfolio for over 20 years, I’ve learned a lot about patience, due diligence and understanding my tolerance for risk and big market swings. I’ve experienced several market crashes, and have participated in the longest bull run in history.
Unlike when my father instructed me to open an investing account, without providing any sort of guidance or investing strategy, I’m now equipped (and eager) to share my investing knowledge with others to help them on their own investing journey.
So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I said “yes, absolutely” when a couple family members and close friends recently asked me to help them set up their first investing accounts, or to transfer their existing investments from high-fee mutual funds into a low-fee, self-directed investing account.
"Everyone has the brainpower to follow the stock market. If you made it through fifth-grade math, you can do it."
That’s where the inspiration for Hybrid Portfolio Investor comes from. With each family member or friend, I had similar conversations and I heard the same questions:
After helping several family members and friends navigate the onramp to the world of investing, I realize that many smart people simply don’t know how to get started, or don’t have the knowledge they need to take control of their ever-growing investment portfolio.
There’s no shortage of investment information out there now though. But who can you trust, really? A TikToker that’s probably lying about how much money they make? Or an “investment website” that contributes to the 24/7 media cycle by constantly pushing out clickbait headlines? Most people don’t have the time to filter through the noise to discover what’s most important.
I’ve spent the better part of the last decade interacting with very smart investors, reading every investing book I could get my hands on, and researching the best ways for people at all stages of life to benefit from investing. So I definitely know that it can be hard to find a source you trust.
What does all this have to do with this site? Well, I see an opportunity to share the knowledge I already possess, and to hopefully help others take ownership of their investments and their financial future.
When you’re ready, I hope you’ll join me on this journey.
Check out my investing resources today.
