Robert (1:53)

Yeah, what a great episode with ETF Central and Bilal inviting us to the New York Stock Exchange to film and it was great because we're announcing our new partnership with ETF Central. You got guys definitely go check it out@etf central.com they have so many incredible tools and guidance as it relates to ETFs, what's out there, what's hot, and what really works. And we're so thankful for this partnership and look forward to many more episodes with them in the future.

Austin (2:19)

That's right. Go check out ETF Central.com. they do a wonderful job of providing analytics, inflows, outflows, holdings, volatility, everything as it relates to ETFs that might already be inside of your own portfolio right now. And you can discover new ETFs over on their platform as well. We're super excited about this partnership. It's really cool to see our podcast on their website right next to the New York Stock Exchange's logo. So that's. That's really exciting. All right, Robert, let's wrap it up and push them over to that episode. So be sure to stick around here. We're going to jump right in.

ETF Central Host (2:50)

Welcome to ETF Central, recorded here at the New York Stock Exchange, the home of ETFs. We're diving deep with the people shaping the space, the technologies driving innovation, and the stories behind the tickers. Whether you're an investor or issuer or industry insider, welcome home.

Bilal (3:17)

Welcome to another edition of ETF Central, the podcast where we break down the trends that are reshaping the entire future of the financial landscape. Today's episode, I'm really excited because we're bridging two powerful worlds, ETFs and personal finance.

Robert (3:31)

Look.

Bilal (3:31)

Today I'm joined by Austin and Robert, the two voices behind Rich Habits podcast, a show that's dedicated to helping people build wealth through discipline, mindset, and smart strategies. This episode is going to be really powerful because we're going to talk about the tools that are reshaping the ETF landscape, and more importantly, how you can leverage some of these tools to actually help your personal financial journey. How you guys doing? Welcome to the show.

Austin (3:56)

Thanks so much for having us.

Robert (3:56)

Balal, excited to be here?

Bilal (3:57)

Yeah, definitely. Come on, tell the truth.

Robert (3:59)

For sure. Can't wait. You're one of our favorite guests and our people in Wall street, so we love it.

Austin (4:03)

Every time we have Bilal in the Rich Habits podcast, it's always special guest Bilal.

Bilal (4:08)

Hey, I like that. You know, look, I'm a man of the people, so I keep it simple and straightforward. Right? So I want to jump right in. Guys like, you guys are important to me. I'm so excited to have you. But this question is specifically about how you guys have built a very significant following. Right. So everyone wants eyeballs today, everyone wants audiences. You guys have built 3 million plus following the action and insight of the Rich Habits podcast. How'd you do it and what was the significant aha moment that you said you needed to lean into this opportunity?

Austin (4:40)

So the Rich Habits podcast, for those of you who have no idea what we're talking about here, it's a three times a week podcast on financial literacy, primarily on Spotify. Right. Monday, Thursday, Friday episodes. We started the podcast back in February of 2023. It was just Monday episodes. And as all podcasts go, no one listens to the first 30 episodes, right. So we were talking to. Talking to ourselves. But the real growth, I would say for the show specifically started to come when Robert and I got a little bit more growth hacky as it relates to trying to get the word out. So instead of, you know, you see clips all the time and everyone's trying to find a clip and have it go viral on an Instagram or a TikTok instead. You know, Robert has over a million followers on TikTok. I've got about 7 or 800,000. And so every, I think it was Thursday night, we were doing them live streams for like two hours. And what's cool about TikTok live stream is you get discoverability so you don't have to be following anybody on TikTok tock and you just kind of scroll your for you page and people that are live will pop up on your feed. Right. And so I would say a lot of our success in the beginning of Discoverability was like leaning into the. We kind of got a little bit of an authority. We're both got the little blue check marks right on this platform. Let's lean into that a little bit. Let's make sure people know that we're talking about everything in this live stream. But we have a podcast, right? So it's like if you enjoyed this conversation for the last two hours, you're going to love our podcast, easy sell. Remind them every 5, 10, 15 minutes. But I'd say 2023 specifically. So kind of how the timeline of the show, yeah. Came about was in 23 started the show rocking and rolling. Monday episodes had a blast. Then we started getting feedback like, hey guys, I got a question about this strategy or here's my specific situation. What do you think about it? And so we introduced our Thursday episodes which were these Q and A. And so every Q and A episode lasts, let's call it between 30 and 45 minutes. We take questions from our audience via Instagram, DMs or email as well. And it's just an episode dedicated to them. So balancing the let's all learn together with these Monday episodes with hey, we're learning together. This has been fun. But we know you guys got questions. We know you guys are kind of walking through your own, you know, personal finances. Personal. Which something I like to say a lot. And so we got to not only get the discoverability aspect with those Monday episodes, but also like kind of cater to and nurture that audience and that community with those Thursday episodes. And now we just rolled out August at the beginning of August of this year here, the Friday episodes, our Rich Habits radar, which you were on as well, which is really exciting. And these Rich Habits Radar episodes are we like to say the biggest headlines and happenings impacting you and your money. So we're having a blast with the show. But I'd say the real growth came after that first like 30 episodes. So staying consistent with it's really important because you get, you become inside of people's daily and weekly habits. Right. Every time you go to the gym, oh, I'm turning to the rich habits. Coming back from my commute from work on, you know, Thursdays. Rich habits. Right. Whatever that I'm cooking on a Tuesday night. Rich habits. And so being able to get in that consistency, getting that flow, have them come back, but then also lean into our existing audiences and use that for growth, I think is what really allowed the show to have a meteoric rise from brand new show in 2023, February 23, to number one on Spotify's business chart. Right. You can think about all the podcasts are over there.

Bilal (7:51)

Absolutely.

Austin (7:52)

By October of 2023.

Bilal (7:54)

What I think what you did for people is you built trust fairly quickly. And that's the biggest issue for most people who are trying to build audiences. This authenticity is what people connect to you guys on. I know that's what I connected with. So with that being the premise of you guys providing financial education and real insight, maybe unpack what the views are because you're formulating an opinion about markets and people are looking to you for thought leadership. And I think this is so important right now, given where we are, where at the end of the year, the stocks have done obviously very well, but at the same time, people are still concerned. You look at what's going on from a political perspective. How do you set your strategic vision to say, hey, here's what's going on in the markets where that trust continues to expand.

Robert (8:39)

I would say probably the number one Thing we do within our ecosystem, and he says it all the time and I love it, is he says if you're surprised by anything in the markets, we're not doing a good enough job. And I think the big takeaway for us is consistency, but it is also taking the really hard, scary topics and breaking them down. So the everyday person that maybe is just getting started investing, maybe just got their first million dollars or somewhere along the way is learning because even people with $50 million net, they have blind spots as well. So I think for us it's consistency and breaking it all down to prepare people better for what's happening. Because, you know, we have decades of experience in reading between the lines, the tea leaves and not, not reacting to all these headlines because we are faced in a financial world right now where everything has become clickbait, manipulation. So our job is to break that down for everyone and just tell them to USA a little bit, relax and we'll walk them through what is really going on in the market so they don't fall victim to those headlines.

Bilal (9:44)

Do you guys typically funnel it down to maybe five core topics? Like how do you guys sort of frame out what should be the topic of the day?

Austin (9:52)

Yeah, it's a really good question. I think to answer your first question, you don't have to be an expert in the markets to be an investor. I think we kind of know that there are experts that are incredible investors, but 95% of people aren't experts. They just are, you know, buy VOO and chill or whatever it might be for, for your strategy. I think when it comes to like tactically speaking, helping people understand how to build wealth over a long period of time, it's like a couple core principles. Right. So like when in doubt, zoom out. Have that long term mentality. Yeah, own what you know. So don't go buy some penny stock because your barber told you it was a cool idea or some cryptocurrency because you're, you know, the person at the grocery store. Right. So like Amazon and Google and things. Are you a customer of the company? Awesome. Maybe you should consider owning the stock and then also having this mentality that if I can live on less than I make and I invest the margin, building wealth is inevitable, right?

Bilal (10:49)

Absolutely.

Austin (10:49)

And if you one are doing that, so we talk about it, you know, call it the honest budget. So having a clear understanding of what you are spending and what, what's coming in, what's going out, it's kind of like your own, you know, business. If you think about as a human. So how much revenue am I making? What are my expenses? What's that bottom line profit there? And then what do I do with that bottom line profit? Am I, well, when do we even have it? And if no, then we talk about side hustles and, you know, entrepreneurship and stuff, which I think is also really important. But once you do have it, it's not just investing it, but it' it correctly. Because we see all the time people have four 1Ks and don't get, I love a good 401K if you're investing rock and roll. But nine times out of 10, when we talk to people about their 401Ks, they don't know what it's invested into. They're like, yeah, I'm just doing the match and it's my company's doing it, I'm rocking and rolling, I'm having a good time. And then they forget, wow, why am I so heavy in bonds right now? I'm not performing when the markets are going or wait a second, why am I invested in emerging markets? Shouldn't I be invested in the. It's not that, but it's again coming back to this idea of like finding the margin and then investing it correctly, which just again comes back to the idea of knowing what you're invested into and having that long term mentality behind it.

Bilal (11:56)

That's a fundamental conversation, right? So it's funny because you explain literally fundamental investing kind of just does to your client.

Robert (12:05)

But to piggyback that, I think the sauce for us is getting the fear out of the way because we don't have anything to sell anyone. You know, if we work for XYZ firm, we're gonna sell what we're to sell completely. We tell people, here's what we would do if we were in your situation with your financial situation and your risk tolerance. And it just, I think it lowers the barrier to fear, to allow people to feel empowered by saying, you know what? I believe that I can do this and get them off the sidelines. We see it every single day where people have 20,000, 50,000, 2 million, $5 million. They're not even in a high yield savings account because they don't know what to do. Or they got burned by a broker 20 years ago and haven't invested since. So I think that is gets me out of bed every day and energizes me is helping people get across that finish line and start really getting it put together so they can build wealth for themselves.

Bilal (12:58)

Robert that is so important. So I used to spend a lot of time teaching financial education and I worked on, you know, I worked for an investment firm, so I didn't have anything to sell anyone. Right. So I had to make sure that there was a clear line of division and I just wanted to provide education because I want to see people do better. And our industry, sometimes it can feel gated to somebody who's not in the business. Right. As you know. So what's one or two things either of you that you've learned from your audience over these last two years?

Austin (13:30)

Before I answer that, I want to double click on what you said because our first conversation sort of started with like the authenticity about the show, which really helped with that. And it's funny, Robert and I have a 30 year age gap. You're probably watching at home and you're like, wait a second, you guys have a podcast. It's like, that doesn't make any sense.

Robert (13:47)

Sense.

Austin (13:48)

So what's so fun about it is back to what Robert was talking about with like, nothing to sell people. Right? Robert's had a very successful career as an entrepreneur. I had a successful career as an entrepreneur for several years before I started the show. So, you know, if we work with companies with the show, it's because we think it's going to benefit the audience more than it's going to benefit us because again, like we don't. Like we have. I've got my own business with Christian Blackwell, co founder of Wits Ventures. Robert, he's again, a very successful entrepreneur. And so at the end of the day, we only work with the best of breed. Companies are going to really kind of move us in the right direction there.

Bilal (14:20)

That's a great point. And so what did you learn about your audience over the last two years, either one of you, by the way?

Austin (14:27)

Yeah, I would, I would say something we've learned about our audience in the last couple years is I underestimated how hungry they were for the more advanced strategies. I think there's more sophisticated investors now in 2020 and in 2025 and now as we head into 2026 than there ever was in history. And when I say sophisticated, I truly do mean like, yeah, the retail investor, but the retail investor that listens to the earnings call, the retail investor that wants to have not just the S and P, but the diversification and the precious metals and maybe they want a little bit of, you know, a small cap ETF or emerging markets. Right. I think that really took me by surprise because when I was growing up and when I was in college and all this stuff. Like when I started getting an investing, it was the Dave Ramsey's of the world. Yeah, yeah, go get you some, you know, Roth IRA stuff, get you some S and P, some mutual funds. You're going to be just. And let's talk about the daily habits, because I agree, right. 80% of it is the rich habits that allow you to find the margin in your budget and invest. But once I was really surprised and I've learned that from our audience now of these more sophisticated investors, this is where we're headed. And I think it's really important to not just stop at that Elementary 101, but to go a little bit further and help them. Which is again, this Friday episode that we introduced. Let's talk about OpenAI this, Microsoft that, that, this earnings call or, you know, something else. The nature, they are hungry for that. And I love that because it just goes to show that over time, you know, you get introduced to a topic, then you realize how much of a, an impact that topic can have on you as a human investing. I want to learn everything I possibly can about this. And we're just grateful that our show is a part of People's, you know, resource tab on their phone.

Bilal (16:05)

Awesome.

Robert (16:06)

I love that. That is very powerful and I want to click back on that. So. And you both have said these words already. Authenticity and gatekeeping. The number one thing that I think is problematic, especially in our field of finance, is that so many people, as soon as they get a decent level of following, they no longer provide value. They say, da, da, da, do this. Oh, if you want, you know, the rest of this information, click below. And to me, that is something that drives me crazy because there's a way to monetize your ecosystem like we do, without gatekeeping the information. So I think the big success for us and what I've learned a lot from our audience is how much they desire to find someone that they can trust to follow along. I tell people, don't follow 10 people. Find two or three that you really trust that have a proven track record. You can Google me all day long and see my track record. It's proven him as well. And so I think it's important for people to find people they can adhere to and then really learn from along the way. And I think that those are the two big things for us as well. Us is authenticity and not gatekeeping the information.

Bilal (17:13)

The fact if I can kind of funnel down what you both said, this is important. I feel like you guys captured the sale of the win or tailwind behind the back of a lot of people selling trading courses. So the market infrastructure improved with Robinhood meaning access, democratization, people being able to participate but what you quickly got into and this is 2020, 2021 think about the time a said hey I got these option courses and everyone was just selling these sort of get rich quick ideas. To your point Robert and this is so important and the fact that you guys came in and said you know what, we don't need anything from you. Let us level set, let us keep it 100% with you and let you make the most informed decision possible. So it's kudos to actually both of you to be able to take that venture. So I just wanted to kind of share that with you as we transition because this is an important point, give me a sense and just level set where you guys are on markets and how you're communicating to people right now.

Austin (18:13)

Yeah, good question. Obviously not financial advice. Neither of Us are registered 100% but well you know gotta always say that where do I think we are in the markets right now? It's pretty obvious that Since October of 22 right when I think it was OpenAI I think it was Thanksgiving when they came out or something of that nature with ChatGPT right. This whole AI boom has taken place like to think of it as like this productivity boom Personally I feel between the deregulation happening behind the scenes with policy, between the looser monetary policy with the Fed cutting interest rates we're seeing a lot of companies specifically Mag7 committing to hundreds of billions of dollars cumulatively in capital expenditure spend. Right. Just make sure we're on the same page here. Capex capital expenditures are you know this is money leaving their bank accounts to go build things which turns into revenue in other companies bank accounts. Right. So that's, that's good So I between you know all of the things I had just mentioned and how earnings per share is expected to rise with the 493 call it high mid to high single digits next year and then again call it low double digits for the Mag 7 I'm, I remain optimistic about the markets. Yes downtown Josh Brown shout out him and we talked about this on our show had a wonderful observation which was that 50% of consumer spending comes from the top 10% of earners. We're seeing that right now and I absolutely agree with that that but I don't think that we are yet at a place where the economy slow like it's pretty obvious that the politicians behind the Scenes right now really want to keep things rocking and rolling between these big deals we're doing and all this stuff around. Just not just the country here, but in the world. So I think there's still juice left in this bull trend run that we're in at the moment. And I think it's still very early stages for artificial intelligence. Now let me also mention there are absolute bubbles happening in sectors of the market. If it's unprofit, profitable or even pre revenue space exploration or nuclear energy or, you know, think like these crazy high beta names that we've seen go up, down, left, right and in circles. Like yeah, of course, like, you know, do that at your own risk. But I think if you're an everyday investor who's trying to build wealth over the next 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 years, the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ 100 continue to be the backbone of a well diversified portfolio. It's my own portfolio as well. And I continue to be bullish on American capitalism.

Bilal (20:37)

I love it. You want to add anything?

Robert (20:38)

Yeah, I broaden it out, out a lot. And I agree with him 100%. I try to get people to understand a couple things is that when we're looking at these secular growth trends like nuclear is hot right now, AI still has a long way to go. Energy is really important right now because we're so far behind China in our energy infrastructure. I try to get people to look at a longer window. Don't look at what's happening in the next three to six months, look at it for two to five years, because that's where we're really going to see more maturity in these sectors. But also I try to get people to understand, don't try to chase the trend. We see it all the time where someone, you know, a company goes out and pays 20 influencers to talk about a crypto or a stock and then all of a sudden they're telling everybody to buy it. Everyone's like, did you see this? Did you see this? We're like, slow down, slow down. Let's back up a little bit, look at it more long term. So I think we have a long way to go in. AI like Austin alluded to, nuclear is a really good category. I think right now for me, some of these energy companies like Constellation and Vistra Energy, I think have a long room to grow, a lot of room to grow. So. So for me, I think there's a lot of bubbly things happening in the market, but I don't think the Totality of the market is a bubble.

Bilal (21:47)

I like it, I respect it so. Well one, I agree with you but I also think that this is a perfect opportunity to shift the portfolio into thematics that might be a little more attractive not only from a valuation perspective but from a diversification opportunity. What areas do you guys like right now? Just thematics. I know you mentioned energy. I didn't hear either of you say anything in the digital asset space, which for me and the reason I like that space and I'll tell you just this is just my initial thought is it's about speed, efficiency, cost and accounting. So that is going to be a very transformative technology. So that's that on my end. But also like obviously you mentioned AI. What other thematics that do you like? Anything in the precious metals, what else?

Austin (22:32)

Yeah, I would say at the moment what's interesting to me is healthcare. I think healthcare as a sector is pretty beaten down. Obviously we had some craziness with UnitedHealth Group but I think that kind of had ripple effects that caused a lot of still quality healthcare companies to, you know, trade at record low pes. Cybersecurity is something I've always talked about. I think you know, you know, the Palo Alto networks of the world, the cloud flares of the world. We saw crowdstrike have their outage, I think it was you know, last year. But they've since rebounded. So I think cybersecurity as AI continues to have its, its heyday and will continue to take over the world. Never more important to have cybersecurity against that or alongside of that. So I'd say cybersecurity and healthcare are pretty interesting to me as we think away that from that real estate, you know, we're seeing a lot of interest rates starting to become to tick from the what the 30 years now. I'd say in the mid sixes something of that nature. It was high as 8 just 18 months ago. Right now. Is that going to cause new builds? We'll see. And if that's the case, we'll call out of waste management. The correlation there between new builds and then obviously trash and garbage management. So it's interesting. I think healthcare and cybersecurity and real estate are interesting to me. Precious metals on the flip side, we've sort of seen a crazy run up when it comes to those. I unfortunately was late to the game. Robert was very early. He's been in this stuff, specifically precious metals for decades at this point. So to Robert's point, I'm not chasing that one I'm looking for. What is opportunistic to me right now. Love it.

Robert (24:08)

So I would say for me, yes, precious metals. I mean, right now, silver is in dire need. There's going to be shortages. I think there's a world where we continue to see silver rise even more than gold. But then we also have to see what happens in the bitcoin crypto space to see if people start migrating more away from Bitcoin and back into gold as a safe haven. So we'll see. But I think nuclear is still a really strong sector of growth. I really like URA Nu KZ. Some of those ETFs I think are really important for people to have in their portfolios. So I would say those two. But also I wouldn't shy away from AI. I still think there's a lot of room to grow. If you look at AIQ VUG, some of these ETFs that are very AI and tech specific, they're doing really, really well with outsized gains this year. So I think there's a lot of ways to go right now in the market. But those are some of the important ones. For my opinion.

Bilal (25:04)

Yeah, no, you know, you bring up a good point about like the sort of adjacent opportunity to AI is the AI infrastructure component, Right. So you don't just have to chase the chips and the names on that side, you can also get the infrastructure. So great point. So when your audience reaches out to you for guidance on, hey, you know, how do I get exposure to said, you know, thematic or area? Like, what are some of the tools and resources you guys point to? Because I'm sure a lot of people are coming to you and you are giving this authentic response. What tools are you using, using?

Austin (25:33)

So some of the favorite tools that I like to use right now are Investopedia. Shout out Caleb Silver. He's also a friend of the show. They're crushing it over there at Investopedia. I think it's been 20 years now of stuff they've been doing. I really enjoy Seeking Alpha. I really enjoy using koiin. We're also just hanging out at the Google Finance Lab over here in New York before this. So yesterday we're over with Google and they've got some really cool stuff. Google Finance, it's a completely revamped product. I can't wait to really begin to dig into it. Yeah, it's very cool. Fast graphs, dot com, Shout out to. I wish this was sponsored. I've been using them for years. Geez Louise. It's a really cool platform. Fast graphs, I use them all the time. It's funny, I learned this way before I started entrepreneurship or any of this stuff. It's just like, be resourceful. So not just saying like, hey, I want to invest in this. It's like, okay, well think about the value chain. Right? So it's like AI, how do I invest in that? Well, let's think about all the different components of that, right? Is it the infrastructure, is it the chips, is it the. There's a lot of different things around something. And so I just. If I could give any advice to someone listening right now that wants to learn more about investing as a whole, don't just think about the end product. Think about the value chain as how they got to that end product. Right. Think about all the components that go into your iPhone, all the things that, that go into all these other different things that we're building. Right, right.

Robert (26:55)

It.

Austin (26:55)

It sparks a lot of curiosity. Right. That's what's so important about this is like we're not going to all know the answers on day one, but being able to stay excited about learning about this stuff at the end of the day is, is really important. So in summary, Investopedia seeking, Alpha, shout out, Yahoo Finance, I use them a lot. Fast graphs, Koifin, Google Finance, it's all important, but lean into the chat GPTs of the world. Lean into these large language models. It boggles my mind how often we get asked a question that I'm just like, you can probably should have just googled that.

Robert (27:26)

Sure.

Austin (27:26)

You just check that one out yourself.

Bilal (27:28)

You can Google or search it.

Robert (27:30)

But for people in any walk of life or any level of where they're at in their financial journey, it's always be learning.

Bilal (27:37)

Yeah.

Robert (27:37)

You know, because I think there's a lot of cool things you can do as you advance. And you're always learning because, like right now I'm super excited about predictive markets. Poly Market and Cal, I think can tell you a lot about where the markets are going just by reading the tea leaves from all of the betting going on there. I think that that's a great tool for us to continually learn from. But then also all the tools he mentioned, but it's just really understanding. I think Wayne Gretzky said it. I don't skate to the puck, I skate where the puck is going. And that's the number one message I try to get to people because I believe you're always going to have the early adopters and the creators. Then you're Going to have the people that come right after that that are really the deep into the know the rabbit holes that we do every single day. Then you have Wall street, then you have retail. I look at it that as long as I'm ahead of Wall street and retail, we're going to win big.

Bilal (28:27)

Absolutely.

Robert (28:27)

And I just try to always be ahead of the information and learning and that can come from X, it can come from Reddit, Google, Yahoo, anywhere you go. You just want to be ahead of the information and continually be open to learning. And I think you'll win.

Bilal (28:41)

One thing that we're trying to do to build for the ecosystem is portfolio construction. Analytic tools to where people can actually build an entire portfolio and then stress test it through their various market scenarios. Meaning if interest rates move 1%, how does the portfolio behave? If we have a 30% drawdown, what would happen to different parts of the portfolio? What that is, it's insight where people can make more informed decisions. Stay tuned for that because I think those are resources that the public hasn't had access to in the past. Historically, you'd need to go to a financial advisor to build these things and then, hey, well, is it diversified enough? Have you don't really know. Right. And it's all about confidence and conviction when you do make decisions. So I love, I love all, all the ones that you guys have mentioned. Actually I've used them all through some sort of component of my life.

Austin (29:27)

Well, we're super grateful for the partnership, especially now with these Friday episodes. I mean, you guys have that consistent presence and we're really grateful.

Robert (29:34)

Yeah.

Bilal (29:34)

You know, I'll just say this last piece and this is important, like the good thing about ETFs and I know you guys lean into this is the dollars flow and they tell market sentiment. They tell a story by themselves.

Austin (29:49)

Absolutely.

Bilal (29:50)

Right. Fund flows actually tell a sentiment. But the ETF gives you real time data that you may not always see in mutual funds or legacy positions. So do you guys follow that at all or how do you communicate that in your.

Austin (30:04)

I follow it a little bit.

Bilal (30:05)

Yeah, that's fair.

Austin (30:06)

Yeah, a little bit. I think where do you follow it most? Where it makes the most sense is like the, the crypto ETFs.

Robert (30:14)

Right.

Austin (30:14)

Because fund flows obviously mean that they have to do open order buys on the underlying security. So the price theoretically should go up. And if you just, you know, it's a cool little thing there. But so I think from that perspective I like to follow it. I will say though, something that is fun to do to your point is discover a new etf. It's on ETF Central, and you start looking like, wait a second, why does this only have a couple hundred million of assets inside of it? Why does it, you know, like, I think humanoid robots, I think that's an interesting secular growth trend. And you look at some of these ETFs, you're like, wait a second, are we that early? You know, back to what Robert was saying here is like, ahead of retail, ahead of Wall street, or I think about all the retail and Wall street that's invested into gld, for example. Right. It's the, it's the easiest way to invest in gold. I bet you can put that on a chart and just see the meteoric rise in assets there and correlate that to the price. But then you think about these other things and it really helps you pinpoint. Wait a second, how early or late am I to an idea are you guys thinking?

Bilal (31:13)

I'm glad you said that because I don't necessarily know if anybody actually has the silver bullet to where the opportunity is. But to your point, I'm always curious, and if you're always reading and you're like, okay, I identified this new product, doesn't have any assets in it. What are the companies inside of this ETF that gives you a nice rabbit hole to create an opportunity. I'm glad you said that.

Robert (31:33)

That.

Bilal (31:33)

What tools and resources are you guys thinking about creating for your audience?

Robert (31:39)

Yeah, I think it's just more about creating value. And I'm big about no friction. And I think the more learning tools we can create, like we learned a lot at Google Finance yesterday, and it was really informative, is how can we provide more value to our audience, weave them in tighter into our ecosystem and help them grow no matter what, what stage they are in their financial journey. And to go back to the ETF part of it, you know, we preach etf, ETF every single day because too many people, in my opinion, I believe they try to move too fast to get too fancy in their investing journeys. And it's kind of opposite when you think of the billionaires out there and the people out there where, yes, they have diversification, yes, they have a lot of cool stuff, but they also have a lot of their money in ETFs. And I think that really comes back to keep it simple, stupid, and then diversify later once you have the base built and you're financially free. Because too many people try to go out and chase the big wins early.

Bilal (32:39)

Yeah.

Robert (32:40)

And. And you Know, a lot of that comes from, you know, what we see on the Internet. But I think that's an important part of this is we try to get the message out. Build your base, keep it simple, have a basket of low cost ETFs, and then go from there into the precious metals, the cryptos, the real estate and everything else.

Bilal (32:56)

Love it. Anything on your own?

Austin (32:57)

Yeah. When it comes to tools and resources that we are excited to build specifically for our audience, it's pretty obvious that the only way anyone's ever going to be able to retire is by having a nest egg that's growing for them over time. Right. And so being able to lean on our partners, like public.com for example, and say, hey, go open a brokerage account, do your thing, that's fun. But something that I would argue has been sort of locked up away from retail for a long time are these sort of pre IPO or private investments. Right. We that with SpaceX now is a $400 billion company OpenAI being rumored to, I think it was just last week, an IPO in 26 or 27 for $1 trillion valuation. So it's, you know, these companies are staying private for longer and people like Robert, myself and Christian as well through Wits Ventures, you know, we get invited to invest in some really cool companies and our portfolio is over 30 names at this point and we're really excited about that. But how do we now unlock that access to everyone else? How are we able to say, hey, come invest alongside if this is interesting to you and of course if you're accredited. And so, you know, we launched recently a multi asset SPV that we were able to build. Essentially what it is, is it's a way to Invest in XAI, SpaceX in perplexity, as well as the Cashmere Fund, which is a sort of multi asset or. Yeah, multi asset sort of portfolio fund there. Go check out the cashmerefund.com but they have 38 different companies in their fund, including Mr. B, Beasts, Beast Industries. So they got Feastables and things like that. Katy Perry is destroyed, Graza, the olive oil company, Acorns, things like that. So we were able to, yes, it took probably 80 hours and a bunch of legal work to figure this out. But you know, we were able to launch that, have it open for about three weeks or so and now we're closing it before and should be closed by the time this episode goes live. So we can lock in these valuations on the secondary markets. But just like doing stuff like that, unlocking access to as many people as possible to this. What's always been. And oh, if you didn't know the person, you didn't, you know, you're not on Wall Street. Like, I don't know anybody. I grew up in the hills of Tennessee, right? So it's like, if I'm in the room, how do I invite other people in the room with me? And how do I get as many people as possible to say I'm not selling, to go bet the farm or anything? But like diversification, right? If you want to put low single digits of your net worth into some pre IPO or private investments, have at it. Have the opportunity to go do that. It's offering them that opportunity versus like them never having that in the first place. I love, love it.

Robert (35:24)

You know, me being the older statesman here, when I came up, that's just season. There was no, there was no raising capital. Go do an spv. How do I get these brand. How do I do all this? You know? And then after silly bands and everyone heard about how much money I had, it was amazing, the tables I got invited to sit at. And so now that has grown over time. And it's the coolest thing I've ever gotten to be part of. We get to change people's lives absolutely every single day. It's the coolest thing on earth to wake up and know, like when we have these, this access to these deals that they would have never, ever been invited to the table. And through the rich habits ecosystem we are now, it is so fun. It's just incredible.

Bilal (36:06)

I mean, I can ask you to add more service than that, but I have to ask you because I'm sure everyone's like, hey, could you just do it for us? Do you see it on the horizon that you guys build an advisory platform where you try to service people differently?

Austin (36:20)

If you're alluding to a rich habits etf, perhaps that could be into the future. We got a plug here at the New York Stock Exchange.

Robert (36:28)

That's right.

Bilal (36:29)

I mean, it would make sense.

Austin (36:30)

It would, it would make a lot of sense. And I think that's something we're definitely considering. But at the moment, this First Multi Asset SPV had 41 companies inside of it. First time it's ever been done at scale like that. So what's so cool about it? It's like the barbell approach, right? You have these pre IPO companies like SpaceX. Then you also have like, you know, olive oil company like Grazo. So it's like all across the spectrum from Pre seed up to pre IPO is kind of the tagline there. But yeah, it's definitely in the cards for the future is like, what else are we able to do to take this case study, Learn from it, make mistakes along the way, but learn from it and then say, cool, it's now go 10 exit. Right? Let's go. Make sure that it's not just our podcast listeners that tune in, but maybe we do some more stuff with you guys. There's a plethora of ideas that we're cooking on, but yeah, the goal is to invite as many people as possible inside the room with us.

Bilal (37:21)

I love it. I mean, what you're doing is you're creating space for the underdog.

Robert (37:24)

That's it.

Bilal (37:24)

And that's the American dream. That's the American story. It's like we're all here just trying to get it. And if you do get the access, it's information and access which provides the opportunity. It's up to you to walk through the door. You still got to execute, you still got to do some certain things. But you guys are literally providing real access to real businesses that are completely reshaping the landscape. So that's phenomenal, man. You guys should feel really proud about that. I do have to ask you, though, this is important. So there's been something on my mind about providing access even from my seat, and we talked about it briefly last time on your show is I would like to do an event where we actually cater to your audience and figured out what something we can do jointly to bring them down to the New York Stock Exchange and to provide sort of a contest or something. Have you guys given any thought to that? I'm putting you completely on the spot and this is going to be fantastic when you respond.

Austin (38:17)

I know we did think about that. Okay, we, we talked about that obviously last time you on our show.

Robert (38:22)

Yeah.

Austin (38:23)

So a couple of things come to mind. Right. The first thing is I want it to not be all about access, giving access to the everyday person. So whatever we end up choosing luck based. Right? Nothing about like, oh, I live in New York and I was able to get the golden ticket because I went to some sort make sure it's luck based. But as it relates to how we're going to pick those people, I'm not sure, but I would absolutely love that. Right. I remember the absolute glow on my face I had when I walked into these doors for the very first time. I was like, this is Craz Museum of the New York Stock Exchange. Always, you know, I got my degree in finance and economics from college. I was like, this is so cool. I can't wait to partner with you to figure out how to do that to several more people in the future. I love it.

Bilal (39:02)

Well, I'm excited about it. Go ahead.

Robert (39:04)

And I got teased outside because I get so bubbly and crazy about this stuff, but I remember the first time I came with Austin and Christian to the New York Stock Exchange and I do a lot of B roll footage. Yeah, people love, love to see the behind the scenes 100. They just love it because anyone can, you know, sit in a studio and have a perfectly crafted script. But I think they love seeing the B roll and the mistakes and the coughs and the ums and ahs and all that. And I just really like that. And I think an event like that would be really cool because it's a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Bilal (39:36)

Yeah.

Robert (39:37)

But we just have to figure out how that works and how many people could come.

Bilal (39:40)

Yeah, yeah.

Austin (39:41)

Maybe it has something to do with maybe we got some sort of of, you know, funnel down to the ETF Central website, new subscribers to the newsletter. Perhaps it's a specific contest related to that. I think that's probably a good first step.

Bilal (39:53)

Yeah, I think I want to lead with education. I think that's the foundational piece. And, and, and I think you guys will be a good partner on that. So we'll talk about that. I got to leave with this and this is important. What's one area in the market that you guys are most excited about as we wrap up the year going into 2027? Just one.

Austin (40:12)

Humanoid robots.

Bilal (40:13)

Humanoid robots.

Austin (40:14)

Humanoid robots. Shout out. Chris Camillo, he invited us to invest into Apptronic about two and a half years ago, which is a humanoid robotics company. About a year after we invested, Google and a bunch of other cool people invest in the company. They're DeepMind. Google invested well over $100 million to my understanding. But long story short, humanoid robots, I think that despite the weird Neo thing that just got released recently, that's not these tele operated things. That's not that. I've seen videos of humanoids doing some things that would blow your mind. I agree. And I 100% believe in 10 years from now humanoid robots are going to be in every factory. We got what, 13 million factory workers here in the United States. I don't know how many millions of them will be displaced in the next 10 years. But that's where this is going. That's where everything is going. So humanoid robots figure out how to get on the value chain of those. Is it the actuators? Is it the chips? Are they all, Is it Nvidia? Is it amd? How are you thinking about, about that? And then is it Tesla's Optimus? Right. So there's a lot of different things, but humanoid robots, I'm telling you, 10 years from now, we're going to look back and be like, that was the most obvious trade of my life.

Robert (41:23)

I would say real world assets and the tokenization, because what that's going to do, it's going to level the playing field even more for the everyday person that wants to invest in an apartment building or something else or a piece of art or whatever. And, you know, you see the Ondo finances of the world, the Pendle finances in the crypto space. I think those are some of the coins. I'm really excited about moving forward because as real world assets and this tokenization of everything gets on chain, it's going to open up another completely different world of investing for the average person. So that really excites me.

Bilal (41:59)

Robert Austin, thank you so much for joining ETF Central.

Austin (42:03)

Thanks, Bilal.

Robert (42:04)

Our pleasure.

Austin (42:05)

Love it.

ETF Central Host (42:09)

That's a wrap for today's conversation, but the ETF discussion doesn't stop here. For more insights, deep dives and voices shaping the market, stay connected on ETF central.com from the New York Stock Exchange. We'll see you next time. Information contained in this podcast was obtained in part from publicly available sources and not independently verified. Neither ICE nor its affiliates make any representations or warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy or completeness of the information, and do not sponsor, approve or endorse any of the content herein, all of which is presented solely for informational and educational purposes. Nothing herein constitutes an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy any security, or a recommendation of any security or trading practice. Some portions of the preceding conversation may have been edited for the purpose of length or clarity.