Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Synthetic Biology

We marvel at the incredible breakthroughs in computing power and artificial intelligence that seem to be getting all the press lately. What has been ignored, are the advances being made in synthetic biology. Scientists at a company called Cortical Labs have recently grown a crude sort of biological brain in a vat. They taught it to play an arcade game that came out in the 70’s called Pong. Elon Musk’s company, NeuralLink, is developing technology that will directly interface our brains with computers. Both society and investors are facing a brave new world.

Making Money Minute - September 2, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Broadening The Tax Base

Our progressive tax rates are currently structured, so that the top 20% of Canadian income earners, pay 57% of total taxes collected in Canada. The bottom 20% of Canadian income earners, pay 2% of total taxes. The idea that high income earners manage to find loopholes, and get away with not paying their fair share just doesn’t mesh with reality. Shouldn’t we figure out how to get the bottom 20% the skills they need to get good paying jobs, so they could contribute as well. The solution is to broaden the tax base not shrink it.

Making Money Minute - September 3, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Saving Vs Earning

People spend enormous amounts of time and effort doing investment research, hoping to improve their returns. The financial world is so crowded with investors trying to do the same thing, that beating the markets, is now almost impossible to do. Because of this performance focus, people often miss the low hanging fruit - the easy ways to increase returns. Maximizing any strategy that will lower taxes is one. The other, is focusing on products that reduce management fees. Both help increase returns, because saving a buck, is far easier than earning one.

Making Money Minute - September 4, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Tariff History Repeats

Canadians are shocked at Trump’s tariff threats - but it is not like this drama hasn’t played out before. On March 17, 1866, Washington let the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854 lapse. This document allowed free trade between Canada and the US in most commodities. Its collapse came over concerns of potential annexation by the US, Britain’s perceived support for the confederate south in the Civil War, and protectionist sentiment. Most of these reasons sound familiar today. That lapse in free trade, caused the Canadian economy to experience a severe recession. Let’s hope things turn out different this time. 

Making Money Minute - September 12, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Beef Prices

If you have bought steaks recently for a summer barbecue, you probably got sticker shock at the cash register. The number of cattle in this country has fallen in recent years. Ranchers, have faced rising costs due to increased feed prices, and drought conditions. Because it hasn’t been financially lucrative to raise beef, ranchers have let their herds dwindle down to their lowest level since 1987.  But the cattle cycle, which runs 12 years trough to trough, looks like it could be bottoming. It might take a few years, but as supply increases, prices should start coming down again

Making Money Minute - September 15, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Tariffs & Inflation

The idea that the US economy is going to experience hyper inflation because of tariffs, completely disregards the numbers. America imports about 3 trillion dollars worth of goods each year - a big number yes. However the size of the US economy totally dwarfs the impact of imports. America ‘s economic output, is ball park 30 trillion a year. This means imports represent about 10 percent of economic activity. Of course, higher tariffs will lead to higher prices and higher inflation - but the impact is not nearly as great as the alarmists predict. 

Making Money Minute - September 22, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Tariffs Aren’t A New Thing

US Tariffs, have the same impact, as our federal Goods and Service Tax, and the Provincial Sales Tax. They are a tax on consumption. You pay it when you purchase items and spend money. Tariffs are not a new source of government revenue. Before 1914, tariffs, or custom duties, as they were then called, were the primary source of income for the Canadian government. They accounted for over 85% of total revenue in the early 20th century. It was only at the outbreak of World War I, that Canada added corporate and personal taxes to pay for the war.

Making Money Minute - September 23, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert -  Investing When Things Tank

Some economists think we are in a debt super cycle. This is where government borrowing exceeds not only the ability to repay the loans, but even make the interest payments on them. Eventually a crisis unfolds, causing central banks to bail out their governments by printing money. The aftermath, is inflation and currency depreciation. If this happens, tangible assets are where you want to be - things like precious metals, real estate and commodities. In a crisis, stocks decline and recover slowly. Gold shines, beating bonds by 71%. If the economy tanks, it is important for investors to have a plan B. 

Making Money Minute - September 24, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - The Permanent Portfolio

If you want to invest, but worry a bear market could chew a big hole in your nest egg, there are options that provide reasonable returns with limited volatility. One of them was developed by a financial guy named Harry Browne called the Permanent Portfolio. You divide your nest egg into 4 equal piles, and put 25% into a domestic long term bond ETF, 25% in a domestic short term bond etf, 25% in a gold etf, and 25% in a Canadian stock index ETF. After that, the only work required, is to rebalance once a year. Over 3 decades, this portfolio has averaged greater than 6% a year. Its worst annual drop during the period, was only 10%.

Making Money Minute - September 25, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Genius or Inside Trader?

If asked who you thought we’re the world’s best investors, you would probably come up with names like Warren Buffett or John Templeton. The truth is … they have been left in the dust by a most unlikely group - US politicians. A company called Quiver Quantitative, launched an ETF, which tracks and buys the stocks most heavily owned by members of Congress. Their picks were up 37%, whereas US markets, gained only 25% over the same period. These people are either the smartest investors on the planet, or trading on information the rest of us don’t have. Which do you think?

Making Money Minute - September 26, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Options

Stock options are risky. Most investors that speculate on them lose money. Unlike common shares, options have limited lifespans. You can hold common stocks indefinitely in the hope that their value may rise, but options have an expiration date. If an option is not sold or exercised prior to the end date, it becomes worthless. For this reason, an option is considered a wasting asset. As each day passes, the time window to make money decreases. To profit trading stock options, you have to be right in three different ways: price direction, the magnitude of price-change, and the time frame. This is easier said than done.

Making Money Minute - September 29, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Why Booms Go Bust

When investors get excited about a trend with blockbuster potential, they often over invest. After an idea gets flooded with too much cash, investors seldom get a return that justifies the amount put in. Imagine spending $300,000 to restore a classic car, only to discover when you are finished, that the best price you will be able to get at auction is $50,000. When reality hits that the money spent greatly exceeds the investments return potential, the herd rushes to the exit, panic selling for whatever little they can recover.

Making Money Minute - September 30, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - 2025 Political Risk

When looking at resource companies like mining or energy - where you invest is critical. Avoid companies operating in politically unstable regions, such as the Congo and Venezuela, or in countries with little respect for property rights and the rule of law such as Tanzania, Russia or Mongolia. Resources are a politically vulnerable business; you can’t move a mine or well to another country, once the infrastructure is in place, there are few options when the host country tries to extort the asset, or take most of the profits. Just like real estate, it is all about, location, location, location. 

Making Money Minute - October 1, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Mining Stock Debt

Among the most important considerations when investing in mining companies, are for them to be well financed and have strong balance sheets. Running out of cash, often results in selling shares at fire sale prices, diluting existing shareholder interests. If researching a junior mining company, it is safest if they have a major partner who has agreed to pay for drilling or other development work, in exchange for a percentage interest in the property. Because commodities go through extended periods of low prices, mining stocks need strong balance sheets and low debt to survive.

Making Money Minute - October 2, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Economic Growth & Stock Markets

Stock investors often look at countries economic growth rates as a signal of where to invest. Obviously the higher the growth rate, the more likely stock market returns will move right along with it. But this isn’t always the case. China has had the highest economic growth of any major economy for decades, but its stock markets have gone no where. The US on the other hand has had the world’s most dynamic stock markets over the last ten years. Yet during this time, growth has been slowing. Stock market performance is complex and can’t be reduced to a simple formula. 

Making Money Minute - October 3, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - AI Hype

The tech bros anticipate spending 3 to 4 trillion dollars building out artificial intelligence infrastructure over the next decade. This total is larger than the combined economic output of Canada and Brazil. The problem is no one is able to tell investors how this will translate into profits for companies outside the tech universe. A disturbing MIT study recently showed that only about 5% of companies deploying artificial intelligence were able to squeeze any profits out of its use. Right now the hype far outweighs the sobering reality. Investors need to be cautious. 

Making Money Minute - October 7, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - A Market That Won’t Die
This market reminds me of the Russian Monk - Rasputin. In 1914, he was stabbed but survived. Two years later, he was fed cakes laced with cyanide but survived, then given poisoned wine but survived, then shot and survived, and finally shot again and thrown in a frozen river. At that point, he finally drowned. Just like Rasputin, this current bull market has many lives. Tariffs, slowing job growth, consumer weakness, international turmoil and falling real estate values, just can’t kill it off. This is leaving a lot of investors scratching their heads wondering what it will finally take to bring this Rasputin bull market to a close? 

Making Money Minute - October 8, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Sports Memorabilia

If you buy right, sports memorabilia can be very profitable. A Mickey Mantle baseball card, sold three years ago for 12.5 million US. Last year, the jersey Babe Ruth wore in the third game of the 1932 World Series went for twenty four million. Recently, Kevin O’Leary, of Shark Tank fame, as part of an investment group, bought an autographed Kobe Bryant/Michael Jordan basketball card for 12.9 million US. The key, is to find something very rare, or someone, before they become really famous.

Making Money Minute - October9, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Bubble Warnings

Bubbles form when a stock sector reaches valuations far exceeding anything these companies can be expected to profitably achieve in the real world. When it finally dawns on investors that hype grossly exceeds reality, they dump their holdings and the bubble pops. Research on 10 different stock bubbles since 1900 shows their average gain was 244%. The current stocks that look frothy, are a group of tech names called the Magnificent 7. They have climbed 225% in the last 2 1/2 years. Mag 7 gains don’t necessarily mean the party is over, but yellow caution flags are definitely out. 

Making Money Minute - October 10, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - The World Is Complex

Beware of politicians with simple solutions to complex economic problems. Take for example the last bout of inflation we had during Covid, when that number went up to 9.5% annually. Political solutions were simple, and fit easily into 30 second sound bits. Perfect for news spots or commercials. But real world problems are seldom that easy to solve. Experts identified at least 15 different causes for that spurt of inflation. People, who offer simple fixes for complex problems, either don’t what they are talking about out, or worse, know they are wrong, but continue to spout nonsense in hopes of attracting votes.

Making Money Minute - October 15, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Markets Historically Expensive

Two things make stock markets go up. Rising earnings are one. Historically companies have been able to increase their profits by about 6% per year over the long term. The second is investor willingness to pay higher prices to own shares. This second one is the biggest and most volatile factor. Markets are considered reasonable when share prices on average trade at 15 times annual profits and cheap when they are around 12 times. Currently markets are trading at more than twice bargain levels, because investors are feeling bullish. When prices get too far ahead of earnings growth, it is time to be cautious.

Making Money Minute - October 16, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Long Term Market Cycles

Investors need to understand that stock markets move in extended cycles. Long term bull markets tend to last 15 - 20 years. Long term bear markets run 8 to 15 years. The bull market we are currently in, started in 2013 and is still going. The previous bear market, started in 2000 and ran for 13 years. Within these long bull and bear cycles, markets typically experience shorter term ups and downs, which investors try to trade profitably. However, most investors make money playing the long term trends and don’t do so well trying to catch the shorter term movements.

Making Money Minute - October 17, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Gold’s Future Price

Investors have been discouraged from buying gold because it is trading at all time highs. However price is only one valuation metric. Historically the value of gold has at times tracked the increase in the amount of money governments print and the inflation it creates. If this metric is used, the price of the yellow metal is still historically cheap. The more money created out of thin air, the higher gold prices can go. Using this methodology, the metals full value could be as high as $9700 US per ounce, giving it plenty of room to run.

Making Money Minute - October 23, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Economic Spin

Spin is a marketing term. Spin takes events, or data, and adjusts them to put you, or your organization, in the best possible light. Politicians, companies, even environmental groups use it often and effectively. An example is Electric Vehicles. The spin says that global adoption of EV’s means that peak oil usage is near. The facts without the spin look much different. There are 50 million electric cars operating globally. Their use saves about 1.3 million barrels of oil a day. Global oil consumption exceeds 100 million barrels a day, making their chest thumping, a laugh at best. 

Making Money Minute - October 24, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Central Banks Are Buying Gold

The US Federal Government deficit for 2025 is going to exceed 2 trillion dollars. The third highest in history. American fiscal irresponsibility and aggressive trade policies, punishing friend and foe alike, have motivated foreign countries to slowly shift assets. Central banks used to hold huge amounts of US Government bonds, because they were safe, liquid and paid dependable interest. In the last 6 years that has changed. Foreign central banks now hold more gold on their balance sheets than they do US government bonds. It is a trend that will continue - and likely accelerate.

Making Money Minute - October 29, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - The Big Money Is Betting On Trump

People who don’t like Trump or his economic policies, have been avoiding US markets because they believe his initiatives will lead to disaster. They shake their heads in disbelief as stocks continue to go up and up, and they get left further and further behind. People who think Trump is a disaster, might end up being right, but the big institutional money has a different opinion. They have been voting with their wallets in the belief that many of Trump’s initiatives will have a positive impact on the economy and the markets. So far they have been right.

Making Money Minute - October 30, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Hope Isn’t A Strategy

Investors as a rule are an optimistic bunch. Most will be able to tell you what they will do if a stock they purchased goes up. They generally have a target price, and plans for the money, once it reaches that goal. Yet very few ever think about the downside. What if the investment doesn’t work out? Why might that happen? What actions need to be taken if the investment does go south? Sell? Buy more? If so - at what price? When a stock tanks, most investors just hang on for the ride, hope things change and it goes back up. Unfortunately, hope isn’t a strategy.

Making Money Minute - October 31, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Selling With No Regrets

If you own a stock that has become a huge financial windfall, the question that needs answering, is whether you should sell all of it, some of it, or hang on for even bigger gains. An investor in this position should ask themselves two things. How would I feel if I sold nothing and it dropped to zero? …And….How would I feel if I sold everything here, and the stock went up another 10 times in value? The best answer, is to sell enough, so you have minimum regrets, no matter where the price goes in the future. It is impossible to eliminate regret, but it is possible to minimize it. 

Making Money Minute - November 7, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Perks Working For Government

If you are looking for a career path, two options are working for government or private industry. On average, government pays 4.8% more in wages or salaries than the private sector. Also, if you work for government, you are 2.3 times more likely to have a pension - guaranteeing income at retirement. Government jobs are 50% more flexible in allowing days off for personal reasons, have more job security and on average allow workers to retire 2.2 years sooner than employees in the private sector. Working for municipal, provincial or Federal governments has its perks.

Making Money Minute - November 21, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - AI’s Circular Money

People are wondering where the profits will come from to justify the trillions being spent on AI infrastructure. Of the 100’s of millions of people who use AI, only 3% are paying customers. Right now lots of money is pouring in. ChatGPT is buying billions of dollars worth of servers from Oracle, who are buying billions of dollars worth of computer chips from Nvidia. How is ChatGPT paying for all this. From a 100 billion dollar investment from Nvidia of course. There are plenty of these circular deals moving money around the industry, but virtually no discussion of how any of this will generate enough profit to pay for it. 

Making Money Minute - November 24 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert -  Seeking Excellence

One of the best ways to protect yourself in volatile markets is to focus on owning the best of the best, the standouts, the cream of the crop. These are the companies with better execution, better products, better service and superior profits. David Gardiner co-founder on Motley Fool and one of the best growth investors of our era, defines the job of an investor as finding excellence, buying excellence, and adding to excellence over time. Sticking with this strategy also means ruthlessly pruning mediocrity. The point is to water the flowers and pull the weeds.

Making Money Minute - November 25, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Up 2/3’s The Time

There are two things new investors need to understand about stock markets. The first is markets go down much faster than they go up. Stocks seem to take the elevator down and the escalator up. This can be scary until you understand the second major trait of stock markets. And that is that they go up far more than they go down. In fact they go up 2/3rds of the time and down a 1/3rd. This mean s they are rising twice as often as they are falling. Investors who focus on the first trait and get scared off are the ones who don’t make any money. Those who recognize the long term trend is up are the big winners. 

Making Money Minute - November 26 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - The Cockroach Rule

If you have ever had cockroach’s in your kitchen, you will know there is never just one. The same advice holds true with loan portfolios of financial institutions like banks and trust companies. When a particular institution starts writing off aggressive, high risk loans, it is often a signal that there are more to come. Mistakes are seldom solo. If a lender likes a sector, they will green light staff to approve more loans in the same line of business. When a bank has to write off a bad idea, investors need to beware. Just like cockroaches, there are usually more than one.

Making Money Minute - November 27 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Time in Retirement Grows

Since the year 2000, the costs of basic needs—such as home ownership, healthcare, and education—have consistently outpaced wage growth. This trend is expected to continue. As life expectancy increases, the amount of time we spend in retirement grows as well. By 2043, the average retirement may be 21 years. As a result, Canadians need to re-examine their financial goals. Success could mean saving more, working longer, seeking higher returns on investment or a combination of the above. The more time you have to make these adjustments the less likely you will be to outlive your retirement savings.

Making Money Minute - November 28, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Concentration & Returns

Diversification in a portfolio is important because it spreads your risk across many assets and lowers exposure to any one of them. The problem, is you seldom get market beating returns owning dozens or even hundreds of securities. Oversized gains require concentrated portfolios. For example, Bill Gates has a 50 billion dollar investment portfolio. 79% of it is in only 4 stocks - Microsoft, Waste Management, Berkshire Hathaway and Canadian National Railway. The stocks high quality lessens the risk, but the concentration danger that goes hand in hand with oversized returns is still there.

Making Money Minute - December 1, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Playing With Fire

History shows that in times of conflict, countries often withhold interest payments on domestic bonds held by their enemies. United States, froze payments on dollar-denominated debt to the Japanese before World War II, and did the same to Russia after the Ukraine war began. The downside in doing this, is fewer people wanting to own your debt or currency. When you are a massive borrower like the US, fear of retaliation and confiscation aren’t big selling features. America is playing with fire, biting the hand of people who support them

Making Money Minute - December 2, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Market Cycles

I have never seen anyone believe that tides levels will keep going in one direction forever because it is different this time. People have watched tides, cycle in and out twice a day for generations. That is what tides do. Markets do the same thing, just not with as much regularity. In spite of this frequency, investors are always shocked when overpriced markets go down and undervalued ones go up. The biggest mistake investors make is thinking in one direction. Markets are cyclical and move in waves - not straight lines. 

Making Money Minute - December 3, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert - Uranium

The uranium sector looks like it is finally waking up from decades of slumber. The world has come to grips with the fact that nuclear is the only untapped technology capable of generating abundant energy 24/7, without producing Co2. The streamlining of the nuclear approval process, the development of small modular reactors and an increase in electricity demand point to a uranium supply deficit. We need to produce about 20% more to meet demand. It will take at least a decade to bring on enough mine capacity to satisfy the deficit. How far prices can rise in the meantime - is anyone’s guess. 

Making Money Minute - December 4, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert -  America’s Fix Won’t Be Easy

America has been in a stupor the last twenty years. They have allowed themselves to get to a point strategically, where they have to import 90% of their uranium and almost the same percentage of rare earth minerals. They run massive trade and budget deficits which require foreigners to use their surplus dollars to buy huge amounts of government debt to make it work. Their pension system will run out of funds in less than seven years. To fix this mess will take time and require pain and financial sacrifice from everyone. A reality, that the American voter, is in complete denial.

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert

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