Are Millennials The Unluckiest Generation In Modern History?

0:00Hi guys, it's Mark, so recently I've been seeing these types of articles everywhere. Millennials are one of the poorest generations ever. The unluckiest generation in US history. Millennials don't stand a chance. When I was reading this, I was getting very concerned after all, Millennials have had a rough enough time as it is, facing one economic challenge after another, and now the media is just simply writing them off. I guess for once it's great to be a boomer, but in all seriousness, I've thought it was about time we had to chat about the different types of investment that you didn't get involved in, and how they've performed during times of inflation and using this knowledge how best you can grow your well. As you can probably see, I'm determined to prove those articles wrong. According to the fourth turning which I'm listening to on audible, we have seven more years until the next financial boom. So by making the right move now, you'll be able to position yourself to take full advantage of the next financial rocket ship to the moon, or maybe by then you'd have earned enough to book yourself a trip on a virgin galactic rocket ship. But before we jump into everything, if you wouldn't mind pleasing the

1:03L tube ugarism gods by smashing that light button, it will help this video reach more people that need to see it, and it'd be greatly appreciated. Inflation is essentially when things get more expensive. The fact that I used to go and buy a movie ticket for one dollar when I was younger, and now it costs $10, it's crazy. Just to drill this home even more, I'm holding one million Venezuelan dollars in my hand. And you know what, it's only worth one US dollar. This is because Venezuela saw crazy hyperinflation. The consumer price index in the USA has increased a whopping 5.4% from 2020. What's even more worrying is that last time we saw this kind of increase was before the worst of the 2008 financial crisis. Now that's enough of all this talk of crisis because it's getting me a little bit depressed. So let's look at the different investments you can make, and how you can actually profit from times like these. So first let's discuss the stock market. This is one of the easiest ways to keep up, or even beat inflation. This is because investing in stocks

2:06gives you the chance to multiply your wealth. So for instance, if you invest your $1000 today, its value 10 years from now may be doubled, tripled, or who knows. So what's happening right now in the markets? Well many are claiming we're currently in a stock market bubble. Since the pandemic, the economy has been absolutely flooded with money due to lots of cheap loans and stimulus. With all of this money being pumped into the economy, people are investing and spending like crazy. 2020 was a record year for the everyday investor. Just to drive this point home, 38% of all retail investors in 2020 were brand new with no experience. They were turning to family and friends YouTube and even TikTok for advice. Even I got a booming followers, I wasn't dancing on TikTok for nothing. This may sound great at first. More investors piling in, stock prices rising, everything green for the second half of 2020. But this has created somewhat of a stock market bubble. The S&P 500 is at an all time high and is continuing to climb, which has many experienced

3:08investors really worried. Most investors know to buy and hold, but I'm wondering if this new wave of inexperience investors feels the same or if they will sell at the first sign of trouble. During inflationary times, the stock market is proven to be much more volatile. If we think about it, this actually makes sense. As our money starts to lose value, we can purchase fewer goods, companies then take less money and in turn, their profits decline. This in theory should cause the economy to slow until things start to return to normal. If only it were as simple as that, though. Different types of stocks seem to perform better than others. Growth stocks tend to perform worse than value stocks. What's a growth stock? A growth stock is a company like Netflix. They're highly focused on expanding their business and are currently waging a war on multiple fronts against Disney+, Amazon Prime, Hulu and many more for market dominance. This means they're burning for a lot of their money and their cash flow gets squeezed because they're spending so much on funding new projects as their fear in becoming irrelevant. Since interest rates are usually

4:11increased to combat high inflation, companies that have heavily borrowed and focused on growth like Netflix will be more negatively affected in times of financial crisis. Okay, but what's a value stock then? A value stock is a company like Johnson & Johnson. It is dominated the healthcare industry and it owns brands like Tylenol, Nutrogena, Listerin and they even recently came out with a vaccine for the virus. This type of business has extremely strong cash flow. It's highly recession proof and therefore they have historically produced steady revenue. So here's the bottom line when it comes to stocks. In theory, stocks should provide some good protection against inflation because we would expect a company's revenue and profits to grow at the same rate as inflation. However, we have to remember to stop market is not the same as the economy and is highly influenced by people and people can be irrational, especially this new wave of investors that have never ever experienced a crash. Only one thing is for sure, if you're in the USA you should pick up your free stock from public. We're off all the way up to $100 when you invest $1 and if you're in the UK then

5:17you can grab a free stock from free trade worth up to £200. Now for crypto, you know I couldn't miss this one out even though it seems like I'm talking about it nonstop on the channel recently. But in my defence Bitcoin did close out 2020 as the best performing asset of the last decade. That always seems to be something going on with Bitcoin creating huge market volatility. It drops, rebounds, drops and rebounds again even if I tried to give you a rundown of current events. By the time I post this video it'll probably be out of date. The key difference between Bitcoin and stocks is that its purpose is unclear. It's currently not a great way to pay for things. As by the time you wait in line at the counter, it's probably changing in value five times and then you'd have to wait a further 10 minutes for the payment to go through. I've always thought of Bitcoin as a store of value, a lot like gold. This is because there is a limited amount. 21 million to be exact and that's it. No more will ever be mined. So because the supply is limited it means

6:17inflation shouldn't impact it. Unlike the US dollar the government can't just print more and devalue the currency. The bottom line here is that although Bitcoin is meant to be a way to protect against inflation we can't know for sure how it's going to react because at the end of the day the market is controlled by supply and demand and full of inexperienced investors who decide to sell at the drop of a hat. Saying this Bitcoin can be a great asset to have a small amount invested in. As the jury is still out on how it will behave long term. I also are in up to 4% interest on my Bitcoin with BlockFi and they're actually giving away up to $250 a free Bitcoin at the moment. I'll drop the link in the description if you want to pick that up. So it's about time we talked about real estate. I really should cover this more on my channel as in my opinion it's the fastest proven way to grow your wealth over time. So the real estate market is pretty crazy right now. Houses are hitting the market for two to three days and receiving multiple offers far in excess of the list price. The housing market is so hot at the moment some buyers are even paying one

7:20million over the asking price. The average sell price for a home hit a record of $341,600 in April. The highest since the National Association of Realtors began tracking the numbers in 1999. So prices are exploding homes are receiving immediate offers and selling within a couple of days. What does this mean for millennial investors and home buyers? Well I'd have to say it's not good news as 70% of millennials are living paycheck to paycheck. How on earth are they supposed to afford a home in the current climate? It seems like nowadays without a lucrative side hustle you simply cannot achieve home ownership. But let's say you do manage hustles from extra money from doing lots of extra jobs or even starting your own business. Would it be a good idea to invest in real estate? Well real estate investors rarely feel the same pain as other types of investors when it comes to inflation. As generally we have seen property values increase. Just think about it. If you're a builder it's inflation hits. Your money doesn't buy as many bricks or lumbar. So therefore you have to spend more. This increases the price of new build houses and due to the

8:24reduced amount of new builds it will also increase the value of existing properties. So investing in a house before inflation gets bad allows you to protect yourself against inflation. Sure you might not see the crazy returns when prices saw on the latest meme stock or crypto coin but it should grow your net worth steadily over time if you buy in the correct area. But the benefits don't stop there. Rental rates should also rock it. This is due to property prices increasing and it becoming harder to find a good mortgage rate in order to buy a property. This causes a spike in demand as more people look to rent their house. As they're being priced out of the market and being forced to choose this option. Therefore if you own a rental property during time like these then you have one of the most profitable assets during inflation. The days of exclusively investing into the stock market real estate and crypto are well and truly over. People are investing in all sorts of alternative investments these days whether it be watches, Pokemon cards, classic cars or precious metals that this goes on. The first on any list of alternative investments will always be gold. The grand

9:28daddy of investments. The key is to own physical gold. It's really ideal for the everyday investor as they can buy gold in the form of small coins like the 10th of an ounce Canadian maple. The small size makes it much easier to sell when you need to. And for all you ladies out there that watch my videos or maybe just the one your jury doesn't count as you're paying for the craftsmanship and not just the value of the gold itself. People also turn to watches, cars and even Pokemon cards. At the end of the day these are only worth what people are willing to pay. During inflation this can be fantastic if people want what you've got but it's hard to predict what people want and what will hold its value. I always do my research and I know what I'm buying before I dive in. It seems to me that millennials and Gen Zs certainly have an uphill battle to face. In my opinion things are going to get worse before they get better but I don't believe that millennials are the lost generation that the articles are making them out to be. It may be harder but the younger generation has more access to financial education than ever before. By becoming financially literate

10:31and making smart choices with their money I believe that millennials will eventually become the wealth creation generation. If I was back in my prime, oh my kid I'm just getting started but let's say I was back in my 20s again my strategy would be to live below my means, start a profitable side hustle, invest that income in a diversified portfolio and hold long term. I'd be even trying to convince my friends to buy a rental property and partnership with me if I didn't have enough cash to do it myself. I say it again and again time in the market is consistently beaten trying to time the market. So I'm going to leave the next video right up there but don't click on it just yet. Make sure to subscribe if you want to grow your wealth and don't forget to pick up your free stocks with the links below. Okay I'll see you over there.