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 - 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 - September 2, 2025

Making Money Minute with Ron Hiebert

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