Yeah, that's that time here Friday. It's nine o'clock eastern standard time. I'd love to welcome everybody to the independent investor channel it is my sworn duty to challenge everything and Would love to invite you to do the same Kind of a cynical way to approach things right challenge everything Everybody's got their answers. No doubt about it. So tweet come through the feed tonight of interest to me So who's your most influential? Influential investor read through the thread lots of different Obvious choices right Warren Buffett Charlie Munger right Peter Lynch etc. Etc. I love all those guys without missing a beat I I answered in my mind. I said it's me me I'm the most influential investor in my life. That's simple and if I can empower what investor at a time To look at themselves as just that their own their own force it Guys, there's there's really a habitual Problem going on in today's society in the we always want to try to seek out validation for our own lives and look for tutelage and everything that we do through everybody else and Nobody knows what type of investor I want to be nobody knows me better than me Nobody makes the very hard earned dollars that I talk about all the time that's going to go to my investment program Nobody is going to be able to find My risk tolerance to the market better than me and a lot of you guys might be saying good grief Ryan time out a second man You're a minute and 38 in this live stream and you've lost me. I've been doing this my whole life guys I've evolved in my thought in my application In my sheer teaching of this topic to many many peoples and it goes beyond investing Certainly does I consider myself a life coach Saw a riveting video this week I was made preppy to and that's part of the beauty is that those folks that I really do enjoy Listening to their message. This one came Compliments of Matt money who's a good friend of mine through the channel Was looking to draw a distinction between Sharing information and providing motivation for people and tutelage and maybe even a testimonial and it was the very testimonial piece that he looked at challenge In that, you know providing that end benefit I think he's his point was that a lot of people Misconstrued his message And and quite frankly I was glad to see it I you know, it was the least favorite part of my message about Matt If I saw him in person, I'd give him a big hug and say congratulations, you know, you're you're a success story But all too often especially in the retail community. It's it's too bad that we don't celebrate success more Just with a genuine sense, you know and acknowledge those successes and instead of saying I want that Say, how is it that you got to that? And I think a lot of people man, they're just not willing to Not willing to take that time I am adamant about putting this message through every week because I do wholeheartedly believe that there are people out there That are absolutely interested in a unique perspective. I I'm not going to tell you the way to do it I'm going to tell you that you're probably the best advocate to start on this line of thinking yourself and start small Take take those steps in the right direction as small as you need them to be And as long as you're willing to advance your program In a small capacity or large as long as you're the one that is finding the internal motivation To start yourself along that path then it is right. It is right Okay, it doesn't always have to be by nature of influence that you seek in life It it doesn't need to be because you paid $5,000.  I love the guy. I think it's great. I'd love to meet the guy someday. Thank you It's fabulous chances are I never will And and I've selfishly been provided YouTube videos of Tony and they've they've really inspired me that they've really inspired me and you know If I ever talked to the guy I'd tell him thanks. Mm-hmm. I really would but you know at the same time You know, a lot of people will find that Or seek out that type of life-changing opportunity and they think that they've got to pay Tons and tons of money to go and have their life turned upside down I think it needs to be looked at a lot more holistically and not so much in the acute I think people really need to just look at those Opportunities for change in and of themselves and it can happen in any person in any situation in any capacity That the society would say that there's only certain people that are eligible for success I'm here to tell you that a lot of people can't give me the first foggiest idea of what the definition of success is okay, and it's it's it's your consistent Pursuance of defining that for yourself that's going to make it right my pursuance of success is going to be different than you guys Okay, and success is made in a lot of different capacities a lot Okay, where some person might have been given a trust fund of ten million dollars Society would deem them successful from a financial perspective. I beg to differ and it's just the very message that I look to Turn on its ear with regard to the financial topic what you think you understand about money how to properly go about budgeting and You know that the real challenge in society is they've got you defined already is as to What you need to do to fall in line to be deemed successful in this society? I think all of it is garbage all of it. Okay? I'm a very I'm a very confident person the reason why I wear the same two shirts every Friday is to really scoff at a system That says that image is everything if I can not only speak the part but also wear the part and and and put an image out there of Success then somehow that is supposed to garner a level of success No matter what is below the surface I believe that it's the very below-the-surface message that I aim to strike at all the time Is it so much to ask that we drive below the surface and actually ask somebody? Are you a good person or not? You know, are you even set up in eligible to to take on a life of success? Do you even want it? Do you want to be successful in your life? Last week I gave one of my most impassioned live streamed I watch it again, and it was one of the best deliveries I've ever provided to the independent investor audience and Wouldn't it cost you a dime thousand people caught it on the replay. It was a good one it really does have the Ability to frame for a lot of people how I look at the different segments and aspects of life And I'm always talking about the financial piece, and it's very very dynamic I can go all kinds of different directions with the financial segment, but if everything around the financial segment is is lost or It's it's it's off kilter Or it provides you stress and angst if it keeps you up at night Right. I mean just one of the categories insufficient food or insufficient job Security those things can really take focus and hold over your life to where everything else gets put on hold But it just speaks to the holistic approach that I take for people in offering a message that You know to Matt's point He said it out right now. I was like wow it got my attention. I was glad he said it He doesn't have to make he doesn't have to prove anything to anybody and neither do you neither do I It's the very advocacy for people taking on a little bit of personal empowerment in their life And now I use the analogy walk around with your head a little bit higher, you know, it's it's not It's it's so important for us to find our personal best It is I believe that there's good people in the world and a lot of them I meet them all the time. There's a lot of wonderful people in the world You know the strength of this community actually speaks to me provides me the very fuel and motivation I need to come on and provide this message every week and and continue to mull over a topic and dig a little bit deeper and turn certain topics on its ear and question the status quo Okay, not not everything is the way it seems to be. Okay, and I challenge everybody Warren Buffett doesn't believe in diversification. I do I absolutely do His justification is somewhat arrogant as to why he doesn't believe in diversification He would seem to put everybody in this category to say if you have the right tools You can identify those perfect companies out there and those perfect stocks out there He's also quick to say that those perfect companies are so rare that It's it's it's almost It's it's it's obvious which ones those are now in the eyes of Warren Buffett Coca-Cola is one of those businesses that he would deem as close to perfect of a business as you could possibly get so The idea is why would you look to diversify away from your horses? Why would you look to spread your wealth out over time and Charlie Munger is a little more scathing in talking about diversification being you know kind of a fool's fallacy in You know diversifying your money in that you know It's the tools are out there for you to just pick the one or two or three winners And you should somehow put all of your eggs in that basket I've been doing stock market investing my whole life of 43 years and who am I who am I I'm just a nobody on social media What it what does that matter? But I couldn't disagree more with that sentiment because my objective is not to Turn everybody into a multi-billionaire like Warren Buffett What I'm looking to do is speak to the masses and apply principles of wealth building for people who can resonate with a message of building wealth for themselves their families and maybe even build a legacy for generations to come and and that doesn't come from Putting tools in place to invest in certain businesses One two or three He says if you've got a half a dozen, that's too much And and if you're doing it right you pick those one or two winners in your life And it can you know show you to the path for two riches I think Warren's best missing the very new application in the stock market If you've been paying attention this week the stock market has been extremely volatile and it's got me On notice it sure does You know I've been really off of investing I haven't remembered the last time I remember enjoying investing was into November of 2021 And it's been a kick in the head ever since then for me it's been really really bad And I've been supplementing the portfolio stagnation with some side projects on On the independent investor channel, which is Which is great But I couldn't help but feel a little bit deflated after this week. I mean four out of the five down days Just getting creamed good companies getting creamed. I mean you could look across the board And and really really good companies and you know, I some people are finding some success in the market I own a lot of exposure in the market And I don't know where you guys are finding all this protection in the market Uh, you know, if you're involved in the stock market in any way, I don't know how you're Not feeling the pain that I'm feeling but um, you know, I think You know, it's really doubly frustrating I think when you're looking at the you know the largest position in my portfolio and You know knowing that we're in kind of that bridge phase So looking at it in the acute really doesn't speak to the long-term vision for the portfolio But but it certainly does Speak to the volatility now And it speaks to There is no perfect business out there and when I look at a company like coca-cola as wonderful of a company as it is I had to quit coca-cola like a vice Diet coke was one of the most addicting things that I was consuming there for a short stint in my life And you know, I understand they have a portfolio of of snack foods and businesses But the the sheer reality is coca-cola is bad for you. It's just that simple And you know from a business perspective It is about as close to perfect as you can possibly get to warren's point, right To my point Is coca-cola just going to be as relevant today as it is 20 years from now? In other words, is it worth identifying coca-cola or mcdonald's? You know mcdonald's is another perfect example mcdonald's is bad for you And it's the number one fast food chain in the world 10 years ago I would have never suggested in a million years That burger king Would have been replaced as the number two fast food chain From windies And it just happened here as of late. It's actually slipping big time And I thought my goodness. What a moat they've had with the whopper. The whopper can never go away You know and you start to question these things and you start to look at challenging these businesses that you want to be a part of And it's interesting. I scope over my portfolio and Johnson and johnson in my opinion is probably that business for me that I feel like is the most quality business They've had a slew of lawsuits within the last five years You know, so when you're looking at to warren's point trying to identify Those businesses with wonderful cash flow wonderful portfolio of suite of products a very healthy moat You know companies like disney disney has just absolutely been annihilated over the last couple years It's absolutely terrible And and those are some of the businesses that really stand alone and don't really have a second tier competitor to them in my opinion businesses that absolutely have staying power but With kids growing up nowadays. Is it really just as Uh attractive to go to the disney parks now With the influences they that they have now on their young minds as it was 20 years ago Right. So even now Looking at a business like a disney looking at the staying power of a mcdonald's where people really are looking at More health healthy types of alternatives. They're looking for those, you know plant-based food types of initiatives delivery to the door types of things because Time is a premium now when was the last time you sat down with your family and had dinner if you do I give you kudos But the times are changing and so are financial markets and financial markets Will continue to change and evolve and they will keep you on your toes And if you think for a second that you're going to be able to just Outthink this market and stock pick the market There was a wonderful tweet that came through this evening that I was able to monitor And it talked went back 10 years to active management and it talked about the percentages of those active management's Failing to meet the s and p 500 of the last 10 years highest one was about 86 percent failed to meet the index Went down to about as low as 62 percent Failed to meet so most of these professionals that warren talks about to say All you have to do is become a professional and you don't need the ace up your sleeve of diversification The the the facts just do not back him up And this is just where I look to challenge not only those types of sentiments But look to defend those tried and true fundamentals so people can actually have a fighting chance at this deal It doesn't mean you're stupid warrant.  You're lazy if you want to just buy the index I think that's a very very shallow perspective and I think that's using speaking from a position of of success and Wonderful timing Charlie and and and warren have done a wonderful job building up bircher to what it is. It's a wonderful business And I think a lot of people have explained to me success Not always being just by nature of hard work But also timing and a little bit of luck And I've met a lot of people self-made millionaires who attest to that to me as well to say You know, it's not so much your your ability In other words does getting a four-year degree mean you're automatically destined to millions? No, because the people that I meet that are self-made millionaires a lot of them don't have college degrees Some of them don't have high school diplomas. So what gives Where is it that we can start to challenge and look for those commonalities? Amongst successful mindsets the ability to think and go grow rich those attributes amongst those people That are finding success and the god's honest truth of it guys is that there there there are none That there are no tried and true rules because when you take and you mix the pedigree of luck and timing and success and the ability to put some risk on the table And and and and be at the right place at the right time The right opportunity at the right time the right market conditions at the right time That right opportunity at the right time Right, those are the things that kind of define your life. I think the ability of the independent investor channel to always be hungry and always be searching for those opportunities because I just had in the last two weeks a phenomenal opportunity for me happened last week and I allowed the market conditions this week to kind of set in for me get me a little bit down And I thought my goodness over the last two two weeks. I have been blessed No doubt about it. I've been provided an opportunity that is extremely rare It's it's an admirable and honorable position I've worked 17 years for this opportunity and I've just won it over But but I tell you what if you allow yourself to slip away from those fundamentals that I talked about On last week's live stream. It's very very It's very very easy to find yourself on a little bit of a slippery slope It doesn't take very long doesn't take very long Social media helps exacerbate that slippery slope in my opinion. Everybody's got an answer Everybody seems to want to chip away at those people who want to work a job and think that because you work a job You'll never have success in your life. I tell you what that mentality is more Causes more damage to our youth than putting them on a path to believing that Seeking employment of a consistent nature and finding some of those things that I talked about In the basic needs category providing for insurances providing for some security some retirement opportunity Okay, not seeking out that and just thinking that you're going to be one of the masses That is just going to follow this fire dream and retiring at 30 35 years old I think you're going to find that life has a distinct ability to kick you in the teeth And it has an interesting ability to really humble you and provide you some reality In that You have to continue to work you do Um hard work really is the only way to get ahead and and there's schools of thought that would believe That that that is not the truth That you have to rely on the luck that I talked about that you have to provide on continually looking for that And manufacturing that timing an opportunity for yourself How many people can honestly do that? I look back over my life and honestly I can say that the very things that I would consider Successful impasses in my life were by nature of my own free will and decision making And sometimes they've come out of a pretty dark place to be honest with you Um, I I save us all the time when I entered into military service 17 years ago It was out of a dark place. I was in a place that by nature of my pursuance of this dream Pursuance of money Problem was I was pursuing that money without having those basic needs in place. I was looking to jump ahead of the game Go for that money at all cost. It's okay. I can ignore my health I can ignore insurance. I I don't need it right now. I'm 21 years old. Ryan. I'm a fighter I saw your thumbnail give me that motivation and I can skip right over that man. I'm fired up If you think you're the only one that enters into their early 20s and they're fired up It's probably arrogance talking a little bit and if you can just heed some words of wisdom from me Um, you'll look to secure that job Which a lot of those pieces will end up falling in place for you over the long run and and I would say that The biggest piece to my success so far in life has been the very The very securing of my employment It is allowed for a lot of the security that I enjoy in my life to fall into place And it is the very nature that I have those pieces in place That I can justify the advanced investing program that I deploy And in deploying right now at 43 years old Because I I'm in it right now and I'm sharing that journey with you guys There's no doubt about that But you have to understand the total Approach that I bring to the table the quicker you can get to that holistic approach guys the better off you'll be I hate to be so preachy in my application. Um, I you know, I'm nobody special No doubt. It's not my place to judge Uh, I'm looking through my dialogue to get below your skin a little bit make you think a little bit It's okay. It's not going to hurt you I look at my opportunity as a life coach here. You guys understand I don't do the stock picks of the month anymore waste of time Portfolio reviews for the most part waste of time. I I provide that to you on the live stream This is the product that I like to do You know the the compensation that I get through youtube is supplemented in other capacities Which gives me the uh opportunity to justify my time to come on and do this Basically free of charge.  Nobody works for free and trust me. I give away the goods. Okay There's no other youtube youtuber. That's uh, my favorite than me. Oh, I'm I'm There's nobody that talks like me. Nobody delivers the message and the capacity that I want it delivered Um, and and I deliver it with um sheer intent on helping people I really do This message should in fact grow over time if it doesn't no problem I'm not going to sell out. I'm not going to do daily uploads. I never will I never have and I never will I don't believe in them. I'm not going to try to feed the beast I'm not going to be owned by youtube a lot of these entrepreneurs that think because they have big youtube channels Um, they are owned by youtube. There's no doubt about it And there's no inhale. I'd look back at my life and say this is what I did in the capacity of my life And expect myself to be proud of it. There's a lot that I'm proud of in this life Um, this project to the extent that it affects people in a positive way Now that's the piece of it that I'm proud of and I can't put Uh a definition over that I can't quantify that Jamie's this life will kick you the nuts To make you give value Yeah, um, I I think really where it carries forward is your ability to share and empower others. There's no doubt I I like that idea of of sharing good information, but What's important to me and that's why last week's message was so important and if you guys missed it Please catch it Please catch it. I'm not going to send you a bill. It's pretty charged.  You want to draw a circle?  No problem Whatever works for you. Okay, you UFC fans you want to do an octagon? Go ahead The pyramid is just what worked for me to convey the point that It's it's a lot more. It's a lot bigger than Just the investing topic itself Um, if you if you have no perspective about this If you have no appreciation for the sheer opportunity that you have Then it's not worth pursuing anyway. What's it going to be worth? I meet people with lots of money and they're miserable Um, is that really what we're looking to achieve here? Are we looking to achieve a community of miserable people? That are wealthy Really? Um, tell me I'm wrong guys um I just think that there's a deeper meaning to to what we're doing here and It's one that I've really evolved to because you know, I I've looked at this YouTube up and opportunity up down left right and around and I've had the sheer luxury of Defining this project in the way that I've wanted to and the way this project has come to to where it is today Is a story in and of itself really is You know, I think my down to earth message Really probably fell in a lot of deaf ears. I think if it wasn't for A few larger channels, if not one specifically kind of taken the independent investor channel under their wing And also having that core Uh of subscribers that have been with me since the beginning I think those two mixed together have provided me enough credibility on youtube to continue to Do the message. Uh, this would break my heart if I couldn't do this I I love doing the live stream for 60 minutes on friday. I love doing it People absolutely feel the love and if you don't man, you're you're not very insightful because you can tell I am impassioned about revolving around this topic in a way that impacts people I really do believe that We can avoid regret later on in life If you just can wake up a little bit and and heed some note that i'm talking about here To to take on a few of these challenging topics that I talk about You know all the topics that that that surround the money piece, you know what I mean? They surround it Uh, but they certainly do complement it as well And I think the majority of people's time need to be consumed by thinking about those things Um, the basic needs work and employment insurance, uh a credit and debt consolidation Spending habits, uh and spending discipline. Yes Uh Providing yourself those basic needs enough to where You've improved upon all of them to the extent that you don't have to think about them as often as as as most people do and that way you can focus on those upper tiers of friends family health exercise, right Pursuing those career goals that you have Increasing that salary. Okay. I've lived like, uh the first year that I entered into military service life and people who know me that I would say that I probably live below my means now. I do No doubt about it. I mean, yeah, could could I jump back to the transportation category and fall myself into the brand new 2022 Corvette. Yeah, I could But that's that's not in my best interest right now That's not with the size of the portfolio that we're working with It's it's not it's not in my best interest right now And I will be the one to say when it's in my personal best interest and you know for you guys set those small goals Okay, set those time horizons matt hit it on the head when he talked about differentiating between his His his sharing of the results of a well laid plan and I think a lot of what sets matt apart is His aggressive buy-in to the importance of investing That's what I respect so much about matt not the million dollar portfolio. I think that's great I'd give him a hug if that's what he wanted. I'd give him a fist bump or a high five if that's what he wanted I don't really think I don't sense that he cares so much about that either I don't and especially through a social media I think it was a very heartfelt Message in that he's starting to acknowledge If not, he's known it for a long time and just hasn't had the confidence to say it that People need to see that too And they need to see the how did you get to that instead of I want that and It's amazing to me in social media. How many people want to opt for I want that I want that and I don't care how I'm going to get that I want that I don't care if it means tearing people down on social media I I don't care if it means tearing the very messenger down Right challenging how the man has been able to or the lady has been able to accumulate said wealth I just don't understand people's feudal mentality anymore to not ask You know somebody who is part of the retail community How it is that they got there And Matt has repeated it many many times as I do these are the fundamentals that are tried and true We talk about it all the time. I I add a little more twist to it a little more in depth below the surface like Is the first question I love to ask people and they come to me. Hey, Ryan, would you help me with investing? I'm sure I'll help you. Why do you want to invest and they look at me like I'm crazy Well, isn't that what you're supposed to tell me? Well, hold on a second You thought it enough to come to me and ask me for assistance or motivation or hell I don't know if you even know why you asked me what it is about investing you want to know But you haven't thought for a second about why it is you want this. Are you aspiring to something better in your future? Are you setting something up for your kids? Right, which which I have done And that's a small piece to answering multiple questions for me and in my investing career as to Look, I want my kids to have that little bit of extra oomph for college. So I've solved that problem I've given them the UGMA accounts because I want them to have a little bit of a head start in life I provided that for them. Have you thought about it? Why you invest? How long do you have to invest? I don't know. Well, okay. How old are you?  When do you want to retire? I don't know. I want to retire at 24 Ryan Look, well, okay. I'm not a magician Okay, a lot of people want that they want magic and magic is lovely But let's just say maybe you want to retire at 50 30 years Investing time horizon, right? We can take that 30 years and we can use that in the calcs to Figure the compounding growth over time for people and we can start to put some of these Questions and answers in a bucket for people and help them Define for themselves. What what it is they want out of life, right? So it's super important and matt rambles this off really really quick and he's right on the money And I'm glad he does because he's one of the few guys that I hear talk about this on a consistent basis and it's not sexy. It's not But it is the right answer. It is these are the very questions I like to deliberate around Trying to determine for each individual what type of investor they want to be And we help encourage those decisions For people in understanding the very statistics that I talked to you guys about The active management that have failed to meet the s and p 500 for the last 10 years That's a fact It's a fact So this is why we speak so often about going with those passive ETFs and index funds Maybe say, you know what? I'm young Ryan. What do you think about the nasdaq? Now you're thinking Now you're thinking you're starting to define what type of investor you want to be This is really really important because look if you come on and you try to sit really intently And you watch matt money and you're like, okay He moves like this at minute two three six and and and and he moves like this and and and ryan ryan does This every now and then i'm going to do this and this and i'm going to try to copy exactly what it is that they do And you deploy you're excited Boom, you're going to have this million dollar portfolio. You're going to have this Half a million dollar of wealth that ryan's got on the i2 man. That's real wealth But i'm going to have that too and i'm going to have it in a month because i move like matt and i move like ryan It's not going to make sense for you you'll fail if if you cannot articulate And and make this make sense for yourself as to Embracing the why And embracing the very style of investor you want to be It's just not going to make it for you And good life coaches can help to find those things for you. They really can I'm awesome at it. I'm awesome and it's amazing to me how many people do not take me up on the opportunity For it for a life coaching session with me It's it's that simple all I can do is put it out there to the community There's people in this community who've taken up and they can attest to how good I am at sitting across and seeing it with my lens because I have the rare ability to sit across from people and not give you What I think is good for you rather by Listening to what you're saying Identifying what I think may make sense for you. There's a big difference in there in that and very few people have that ability A lot of people disappoint me They don't have the ability to just drop their own damn ego and listen to what people need I've had people reach out to me in private and they're like ryan. Can you can you help me? Sure. Here's my private number. I never receive a call back and it's that's okay. That's okay There is fear that we're trying to get over there are barriers to entry There are absolutely Misconceptions about investing That of which we look to challenge every single week on this episode on this show I'm not one of those guys that looks at investing in vanguard's total index as being risky I just don't look at it that way Vanguard would put it from a zero to a five on the on the risk scale as being a five because it is indeed an equities product I just don't think it's risky. I don't Do I think investing in coca-cola is risky? No, I don't Do I think investing in a johnson and johnson is is risky? No, I don't these are the very barriers that I think financial planning institutions for many many decades Have sold to retail investors as being so risky That you need to crawl to the services of the financial planners And subject your money to underperformance when all you need to really do is introduce your money to the markets passively With low cost ETFs or index funds Choose between the two and you're good to go and a good life coach can accelerate your mind and thought process To that end In such a way that's going to save you a ton of heartache over the long term a ton of heartache You're not going to get wrapped up in the mutual fund game You're not going to get wrapped up in the financial planning game. Your order of operations is going to be Assisted in in defining What it is you define for yourself as far as your investing tolerance I've helped people with zero idea of who they are as an investor zero A lot of the people that don't even frequent the independent investor live stream that have reached out to me and We've accelerated those that that knowledge beyond the scope of what they could have ever done in their own lifetime And we've been able to fit it within their life while they're able to enjoy life Right as opposed to allowing them to go through life in the dark And and that's very very powerful very very powerful calling It's one that people need to take with the utmost of Responsibility and that's why I think matt's message kind of it struck me this week It struck a lot of people actually when he put it out and Matt's a good person It's just that simple And I like those messages that come through where that heart is on the sleeve. I like that because You have a responsibility And I think there's some panic across the social media Landscape right now in that maybe their view counts are falling a little bit Maybe maybe they're maybe they're finding out or maybe people are telling them that they're not the man anymore Maybe they're finding out that in three or four or five short years that they've gone from the top of the mountain to the bottom of the mountain in their own mind And they're getting a dose of reality In understanding that the impact that has made them a lot of money over the previous five years Was detrimental to people's financial wealth There's some sheer reality for you. There's some sheer reality for you. I want you to think about that for a bit guys The only one that I will be stuck on this uh in this life answering to Is myself. I'll make mistakes. No doubt about it highly on mistake perhaps In a year mistake every day right two years I don't know. Maybe things get a little interesting And I look back over the previous four years in 2024 And all those people who said that it was a mistake I will give you proper credence and I will acknowledge how right you were And at the end of the day it's not going to matter because at that time It's going to come full circle as to why very very few people I would ever expect to to walk the road that I walk in my own financial journey Because I don't expect my financial journey to make the least bit of sense to you guys and I sure as hell would never ask you to follow behind me on my financial journey That's a fact okay Right on Let's get into support folios real quick man. We we took uh, it was um, it was a discouraging week. There's no doubt about it But I tell you When I come on and I share my social media journey with you guys This is the reality when you talk about companies like a 3m That have really rolled off. I mean really I I don't know what the deal is.  It really has When we had a glimmer of light and hyper growth that has really been hammered this week It really really took a downturn in the portfolio. I was up 31 percent in in oaster Which is denoted here Uh, and uh, you know, we're down half of that right now We're only up 15 percent in that and you know, one of the very few lone green Names in the portfolio most of the portfolio is bleeding red And um, it's it's got me a little bit spooked and You know looking at this market still at relative highs and seemingly I've been able to Um pick a basket of stocks here that are just really really getting crushed There's no doubt about it now. You might think okay Well, the independent investor is not a good investor Yeah, I I I think if that's the way you feel then you just missed the entire first 43 minutes of my message Um, I know that to be uh, not true I'm a phenomenal investor And if I'm going to take companies like amazon and google into a downturn I am prepared to do that just like i'm prepared to take my large s and p holding Two of them into a downturn and I'll earmark those for you guys You have to understand my application where a lot of people Can apply the passive growth strategy through etf investing 99 percent of all investors should start there Should start there and that could be your standalone strategy Okay, so when you're looking at this portfolio, this is a mix of dividend growth This is a mix of some hyper growth some large cap growth and some diversified etf through the vanguard's total market etf the tqqq which is an alternate investing strategy Makes perfect sense for me in this portfolio because of the holistic approach and my multi-tier application In how I build wealth over time You also have to understand that there might be red in the portfolio That red is rolling off of a lot of house money. Okay I'm fine. I don't struggle to put food on the table guys If I was looking at my portfolio and it was the only thing that I had right now going for me And I was struggling to put food on the table But I had a big portfolio Or I didn't struggle for transportation But my car was broken down and I don't have that emergency cash to put together to help Get my car back up in the transportation category. This might keep me up at night Maybe I am laid off of my job, but I have a huge portfolio You know, you see how these things really do Intertwine and they relate with each other. Okay Sitting just over 70 in this portfolio. This is the taxable brokerage. This is Roth one This is rolled off to the tune of about four grand. I guess just this week It's been just atrocious. It's just been pretty bad for me And and I I'm sure that there's people out there that are going to be like I'm I'm killing it. I that's great.   Does it change my demeanor? I would say in all fairness as a human being it it weighs on me.  I wish everybody could just take on that mentality and be like, oh, yeah, you know I'm down 20 grand this week and it's great. I'm happy about it. No, I'm not happy about it But it is what it is we've been able to build this up over multiple years of wealth building and We're not just going to surrender our portfolio because we're incurring a little bit of volatility I think there will be brighter days for hyper growth, you know companies like Palantir, I don't think that that was I watched that for a long time. I never owned it on the way up I owned it when I picked it up at $11 a share. Can it go lower? Sure, sure it can But I think in I think in three years I think in three years I think it's going to be one of those stories to look back on and say man alive That was a interesting opportunity and I think a lot of these hyper growth That I've got here. Sofi is another one A couple of them were probably some ill ill ill timed ill faded buys. I think And one is here on the list here in intact global, you know, they're they're growing enormously. Their business is phenomenal, but Really, there's not a lot of places to hide here in the stock market if you Are in certain categories and it's the wrong category. You're going to get punished and I think that's what's going on Right now. All right. So this is Roth one 107 637 and that one 96 I gave $4,000 away just in this portfolio This week.  Every hedge fund was jumping on the Alibaba Alibaba bandwagon and it got crushed and You know, didn't see that coming And you know, if you were wiser to it to buy it here at these basing levels Great, you're getting a great entry on a on a great company, but You know, the whole lesson in this is who knew You know companies like Matterport. I ran up. I watched run up into the mid 20s and I thought man, I missed it I missed this great company. I did my due diligence on her and didn't buy it And now bought it. I bought it at 10 and here's sub 10 I I'm just getting crushed for my decision and Yeah, it's really kind of just discouraging Utilities right here utilities are up 16 percent right now That ET the sector specialty ETF is is crushing it, you know that go figure I guess that's the beauty of diversification I never would have thought that would have been the outperforming section of the portfolio These are the portfolios that hold in really really nice. These are diversified From a defensive mechanism. This is just where myself and with all due respect Warren Buffett Do disagree because with regard to compounding interest It really is at the end of the day the pursuit of that eight to nine to 10 percent rate of return per year That is going to provide that magic pixie dust in this portfolio the compounding effect over time You know, you get arrogant on three or four stocks You pick one of them that goes into, you know a two or three year swoon And that's really going to hamper your portfolio performance and to be honest with you guys I don't think a lot of people have the capital that Warren's talking about You know to put $250,000 into three names And look to build that up to four or five million dollars in a short amount of time I just don't think that's very realistic and it speaks to Warren's disconnect with Normal people out there like myself who are working raising a family and looking to achieve some financial security My goal is not to have Warren Buffett money when I retire My goal is not even to be a millionaire Will I be probably but that's not my goal. My goal is to provide myself as much Security as I possibly can over over time and are we achieving that goal? Are we along that path? Yes, we are Okay This is the portfolio here with the dividend stocks.  You're over diversified 92 stocks is not diversified and they said well five stocks is diversified Wrong That's wrong. Five stocks is not even close to diversified.  The only way you seek out diversification is through indexing and ETFs. That's just my rule There's single stock pickers out there that would disagree with me. That's fine. You can disagree all you want That's fine. It's just two different schools of thought on this Application true diversification seeking that eight nine ten percent What's the difference in in getting eight to nine percent from a portfolio of a hundred single stocks? Or an ETF with two thousand stocks. What is the difference to the bottom line? There's a math question for you None the correlation is the same eight percent is the same no matter how you shake it Okay, the arrogance and the fallacy is that those people who are seeking that that Over and above amount to beating the market are doing so by Pursuing less diversification and more exposure to growth on the low inside of the house And that's really the spectrum that you need to kind of look at and draw that line Be a passive investor. No problem. Be a dividend growth investor. No problem Have a little section of your portfolio with growth. No problem. That's great Just keep those in exclusive buckets and don't be surprised when growth rolls off like it has proven that it can do Okay Is the bond portfolio? It's getting crushed. It's great Thrift savings plan holding in there nicely. Love it The next up turn in the market whether it happens this year next year and the next five years This is going to be nice to get this portfolio up to something special. This is all Roth protected money in here. This is all Roth tsp all of it Every dime Okay, vanguard's growth Everything's down. So don't be surprised to see the down Down charts here on these blowbacks You know Just just tough here. I'm really monitoring. I'm looking I mean I'm funding to value right now To really counterbalance what I have felt like have been some good entries on some hyper growth but You're you're you're not going to out guess hyper growth right here. Everybody's getting crushed just getting crushed Here's the eye trust capital A little bit up in this not too shabby. There's the portfolio value obviously is rolled off week over week That's it. We'll we'll stay in the pocket limp to find another day.  I don't I don't have to appease you And that that's the truth, you know, why why don't you stop? Why don't you stop valuing everybody else's program and start maybe I don't know criticizing your own Um, I think you'll find through self-reflection. You've probably got some things that you can improve upon And I would bid you all the best luck in doing so. Um, I do it all the time I'm not asking you guys to do something that I don't do myself on a very very regular basis All right cruise down to the bottom. Eric weaver gives a thumbs up to the live stream tonight I can't I can't Duplicate the effort that I put in last last Friday That was a special offering and I make sure and mix those in every now and then Tonight I can come talk personal finance with no problem just leisurely No, you're shaking no craziness tonight. I'm I'm just kind of in a monotone mood I've got a well-deserved vacation. We've got a soccer championship tomorrow morning first thing So I'm locked in for my kids and I'm super excited to To put them to the test. We're ready. We're ready. I'm super fired up on that and then Vacation for spring break next week with the kids. I'm looking forward to that Very cool stuff. Just don't the next in the ibex And and rick is in the house rick appreciate you man. I really do my friend. Um, I tell you what it's uh It's it's tested every piece of conviction And I don't know if you Share in this behind the scenes, but I tell you your your conviction appears to me and sometimes social media can mask the conviction a little bit But I tell you what man, I I get a lot of crap I don't I don't tweet on twitter anymore Just because of the backlash that I get But I tell you if I could speak if I could speak my mind Which I'm in my best place when I do speak my mind Um, this this highly on situation man If we can navigate the next 19 months At 21 months is what I figured if we can navigate this which it is not going to be easy my friend It is it is not going to be I I have a feeling it's going to be painful And and I I think it's it's unfortunate. I really do I I think the market is having a very very difficult time Looking at this company with a war chest of capital 550 million on the books With anemic anemic revenue 200,000 it keeps the lights on for a month. Let's be real And then you've got some of these OTC companies, you know, these 20 30 million dollar companies that are turning out revs Of of two three four million dollars per year I mean, I I just had a 54 cent stock Turn out four million dollars of revenue just this quarter And so when you look at the spectrum and I'm trying to be above board here a little bit It's really interesting with the scrutiny now that's being put on the space And highly on has emerged or is absolutely correlated to the other two the stock charts are exactly the same As nicol and hyzon it can't get out of its own way And even if it could it is still correlated with those other companies Which is somewhat frustrating because I don't think those other companies are being asked to Atone for their own activities and their own cost structures But I just appreciate your your steadfast Motivation it means a lot to me. It really does I'm a leader and every now and then I look behind me and there's nobody And It can be awful lonely sometimes as a leader. I wouldn't have it any other way I wouldn't have it any other way my friend. I really wouldn't the the influence that we have and The education that we provide and the awareness that we provide is too valuable And I look over my stocks and there is not one singular stock in my portfolio that I am more excited to own If then that one but but I tell you what man It is been a tough. It's been a tough slew Yeah, it's been a tough slew. There's no doubt about it. I appreciate you coming in my friend Big shout out to you fantastic Um, here's another comment highly honest stock that uh best lets me sleep at night. Oh you're lying No, actually, I don't believe that he is I believe that he's telling the truth He does a pretty good job Of of keeping everybody kind of grounded a little bit Navigating appreciate it ryan appreciate you coming in and and and hanging out with us for a bit this evening a little more low key tonight, man um, obviously just um feeling kind of just uh even keel tonight And um, I hope you guys don't mind with me coming on and just sharing my insights as to how I feel on my whim tonight Agree with that one when they cut the dividend. I'll start shitting Long time ago. I don't know what stock you guys got probably 3m Yeah, I'm just shocked 3m has lost people myself money. Yeah, it's It's really kind of crazy when you talk about those perfect businesses out there, man Your guess is as good as mine and like I had disclosed to the group here The professionals are losing every year. There's no way the professionals are winning in this market and the facts prove me right So you look at it and say well, what's the damn point of even investing then? It's there's no point to it if it's a futile exercise, you know And and the point is that there are pockets of opportunity and they're a lot more Obvious than what you give a credit for there. There really is all right Did you see sam Adams 2016 and 300s? Yeah, Sam Adams has been really really good Down to the three. Wow. No kidding. I haven't I don't cover sam Adams That's a good one, man. That's a really good company I don't like their beer at all I don't think it's that good Why they get so much so much hype life coach in session. Sure Yeah, life coach in session you can get it to the independent investor group com And I offer that I don't promote it very often. I don't need to I don't want to I I want people who want to be in there But yeah, those those opportunities they are a session I've had a lot of people and a lot of companies come to me with the ability to join their platform and charge people per hour I won't do that. I can do it through Shopify. I do it. That is the sole Conduit that I provide to people There was a long long time where I did not And people told me I needed to And and they were right Because those for those few people out there that do appreciate it. They can get a slot on my calendar I talk as long as they need I advertise. I think 30 45 minutes doesn't matter I'll stay on with you as long as it takes to where you feel like you've you've really had a sesh And it works really well for people man. I enjoy it. I enjoy talking to people And it's helped a lot of people just no doubt but independentinvestorgroup.com you can link over to the website from the main independent investor page To all of them, but the the Shopify website is it's a nice product And you can click in there and check whether or not you want to do just a sesh or you want to join the viper group Which is my private private group a very low cost It's it's a cost that is aimed at Supplementing my internal cost to the website and no more. It's it's I don't I don't make money off of it And the viper group knows that they contribute a little bit here and there to help supplement that project project And that's what it is. It's a supplement it is That's it very cool. Yeah down 22 percent me and I can't believe it I would double the position here, but I tell you I'm just I'm not being aggressive on buying stock here. I'm not It's just that simple My favorite mistake very cool getting to the end of the show here guys wrap up here and Bid you guys all the best for this weekend Shout out to becky great to see you becky um One of those people that have sat across from me and one of those Great people that I sit across from and it gives me That confidence to know that good people like becky are out there really does That's the god's honest truth really does Because I you know, I I see a lot of hate and discontent contempt through social media and I'm not I'm not really that motivated anymore to play into it anymore. I People throw rocks at me every single day on the independent investor channel I don't even comment anymore And I'll even as much as six months ago. I was pretty vocal on on highly on And you know highly on it's going to do one of two things either it's going to zero or it's going to hundred In either case it's my fault for investing in the stock Does thomas healy need to go to jail? I I mean these are some of the real things that are thrown around on social media It's like, you know, the very people that are coming on and saying I stopped investing in the stock You know are now back in it three weeks later You know because it because it showed strength And now it's gone down again like it has before and they're back to their old ways of Oh my gosh, it's the stock's fault and it's thomas healy's fault and he said this and that and it's a tit for tat It's like man. You're missing the point.  Okay, make your allegiances one way or the other But uh, I tell you guys we could probably all Learn ourselves up by being a lot more neutral with our application and and I'm not exempt from that charge And um, we're going to continue to monitor it guys. I should be back next friday On the live stream here after so much needification I bid you guys all the best here going into the spring time Let's hope for better days in the market guys. I'm I'm kind of just biting my time Not doing a lot of moves not reporting a lot of moves Continuing to foot stomp the message on the live stream and I would invite you guys to continue Helping me Keep the fire lit on the message because people need this they really do And in some small capacity I need it as well And I just appreciate you guys a steadfast commitment to the message It's the very fire that helps keep us burn Guys have a great one. We'll catch you next friday on the fast to 60 minutes on youtube The independent investor channel live stream. Be well guys. Take it easy. We'll see you next friday


Good morning everyone. My name is Nadia Kenner. I'm a research associate with the UK data service and yeah, thank you for coming to this introductory talk on time series analysis and forecasting. I'm going to just give it a couple more minutes as people are still entering and then I'll get started with the introduction slides. So here is the content for today. We're going to be discussing what is time series data. And we'll look at how this is different to non-time series data. We discussed what time series analysis is also known as TSA. We look at the different types of TSA, the components that they make up this TSA. We look at fitting time series models and how we can train our data to then be able to create forecasts which are predictions. And then we briefly discussed the available software to run on this type of analysis. So what exactly is time series data? It can be said to be a collection of observations obtained through repeated measurements of time. So each instance represents a different time step and the attributes give values associated with that time. So the intervals for which time series are represented are typically quite vast in that you can have hourly data, yearly data, monthly, quarterly, etc. But the decision of what time interval to use is dependent not only on your, like, research questions, but also the data that you have at hand. Because this will identify what type of models you can or are able to run. There are three main characteristics of time series data. The first being that the data arrives is almost always recorded as a new entry. Second, the data typically arrives in time order. And lastly, time is a primary access. The time intervals can be either regular or irregular. Typically time series are assumed to be generated at regular space intervals of time and also, and these are known as your regular time series. The data typically will include like a timestamp like we saw in the previous slide. But not some data is also irregular. Typically you'll be working with regular time series, so it's not. You don't need to worry about how to change an irregular series to a regular because most data typically arrives in regular, like a regular fashion. But an example of an irregular time series would be something like withdrawals from an ATM machine, for example. But the key point to remember is that when running time series analysis, data points are recorded at regular intervals over a set period of time, rather than intermittently or, you know, like randomly. But you might be asking yourself, so like how is time series data different to non-time series data in that if we have a time series data that has a time field, does that just automatically make it time series data? What about cross-sectional data? Can that be considered time series? What about pull data, you know? And these are the type of questions that, you know, will help you to distinguish the difference between the two. But these questions can be answered by, you know, it all depends on how your data has been collected as this affects how we can then analyze changes and stay over time. I use the word changes as this is a really key concept in understanding time series data. The major difference between the two is that the time series data, the time factor is the dependent component, and for non-time series data, this isn't typically a central theme. So time series data can get confused with other types of data types. When I first started on time series data, I had issues understanding like, you know, the different data structures. So I've created some questions where you can have a go at matching the data types to the correct definition just to broaden your understanding. So we'll start off with time series data. Can you select the right definition for time series data? So if you want to head back to Mentimeter and pop in your votes and then we can go ahead and discuss answers. Do you think that time series data consists of several variables recorded at the same time? Is it data that collected sequentially from the same respondents over time? Or is this data that's recorded over regular slash irregular intervals of time? Very obvious clue in this answer, but I'm glad to see that everyone is on the right track. You would be right in saying that time series data is data that is recorded over regular intervals of time. I think there are still votes going through, but yes, this is the summary for time series data. We'll just let people finish off their votes.  So now we know what time series data is. Do you think that you could explain what a cross-sectional data is? You know, how does this differ to time series data? Can you again match the correct definition? Got a mix of answers, that's good. I'm glad no one selected option three, which means we're paying attention. We've got a majority of votes saying that cross-sectional data consists of several variables recorded at the same time. And yes, you would be right. Sorry to the two votes to answer the middle definition, but yeah, cross-sectional data. This is a result of a data collection carried out at a single point in time on a statistical unit. So with cross-sectional data, you're not really interested in the change of data over time, but in the current valid opinion of the respondents about the question in a survey. With cross-sectional data, you know, the ordering of the data does not matter in that you can have the data, you know, ascending, descending. You could even have it randomised and this will not affect our modelling results. But with time series data, the order of your data is key. And lastly, what about pulled data? Can you go ahead and match that definition to pulled data? Should have possibly included an option for not sure, but if you're not sure, then take a guess. So we've got the majority of answers saying that pulled data is a combination of both time series and cross-sectional data. If you'd selected this answer, well done. So in short, yes, pulled data occurs when we have a time series of cross-sections, but the observations in each cross-section do not necessarily refer to the same unit. So I can, yeah, let me give you an example so that's a bit easier to understand. Let's say we take household income data on households X, Y and Z in 1995, and then you take the same income data on households A, B and C in 1998. So although you're interested in the same data, we're taking different samples, that's the different households from different time periods, and that makes it pulled data. And just for anyone interested, where we have five votes in that is data that is collected sequentially from the same respondents over time. This is actually longitudinal data, also known as panel data. Yeah, so panel data is a data set that consists of observations of multiple individuals obtained at multiple time intervals. Time series data focuses on single individuals while panel data slash longitudinal data focuses on multiple individuals. So yeah, that's the main differences between time series data and other common data formats. But I've come up with a scenario that allows you to think about this in a little bit more detail. So imagine you have been asked to maintain a web application. You've been asked to analyze when a new user logs in. So you're interested in analyzing like login activity. Now, after some careful consideration, you've realized that there are two ways to do this. Option A is that when the new user logs in, you may just update that last login time step for that user in a single row. Or option B, you treat each login as the separate event. So if this was up to you and you have been asked to analyze login activity, which option do you think you would collect your data? How would you collect your data? Would this be A or B? So go ahead and pop in your answer for amenity meters again. I thought we were going to have a split vote there, but it's absolutely okay to not be sure. So yeah, props to you if you are saying not sure. We will discuss the differences once the rest of the polls come through, but it looks like the majority of people so far are suggesting to treat each login as a separate event. I'll let you just keep thinking about this for 10 seconds and then I'll move on to talk about the answer. I quite like this visualization, but yeah, 68% of people have decided to treat each login as a separate event. Let's have a look at what option A might look like before. If you had chosen option A, which I think was about 14% of you. This is typical of a cross-sectional data set. So we have the user and we have the last login time step. Although this information is useful in examining which user works for what company, that time variable isn't of much use here. It simply provides some context, some attribute information. There's nothing really about changes here between users. If we went for option B, we might have something that looks like this instead. In this instance, we have a new row for each time a user has logged in where the changes are preserved keyword. Each change is recorded as a new event. Doing this allows us to then examine the frequency of login activity over time. So yeah, I just wanted to draw attention to data collection because this kind of helps to understand what a time series data looks like. And to summarize, almost all data is recorded as a new entry. The data typically arrives in time order and the time intervals can be regular or irregular. Just for some context, if a data set has irregular intervals, then this means that the events then become unpredictable and cannot be modeled or forecasted. And this is because forecasting assumes that whatever happened in the past is a good indicator of what will happen in the future. All right, so we're going to move on to looking at time series analysis now. There are many types of analysis to consider, but the three kind of main examples include visualization, decomposition and autocorrelation. The graph on the right is a basic time series graph, which allows you to plot the observed values on the y-axis against an increment of time on the x-axis. Now most time series graphics will look something like this. And this is because the statistical characteristics of a time series data tend to violate the assumptions of conventional statistical methods. And because of this, analyzing time series data then requires a very unique set of tools and methods which are known as time series analysis. So let's explore some of the reasons why you might want to use a time series analysis. You could be interested in accessing the impact of a single event. So this could be very much a descriptive analysis. An example of this would be possibly identifying the number of crimes in Manchester specifically looking for an upward or downward trend. This could very much be a descriptive analysis. Maybe you're interested in studying causal patterns, so to look at the effects of variables rather than the events themselves. This is kind of a way to understand the data and the relationship within it, as well as possibly establishing a cause and effect. So we're interested in how to forecast future values of a time series. So this would very much be a prediction analysis. An example of a prediction would be using previous crime data to predict future crime trends, right? Now, obviously it goes without saying that these aims can quite easily overlap when working on a research project. If you're asking your questions, you know, using various aims and models, but these three aims kind of provide the aims that are expected in any kind of time series analysis. But these aims are not limited. There are other models that exist, such as classification, curve fitting, intervention analysis and segmentation. So these are complex models and kind of are dependent again on your data frame. It's dependent on whether you have a univariate or a multivariate data frame if you have a regular or irregular time series and a lot of things come into play. But one thing to note is that because time series analysis includes many categories or variations of data, typically the models do become quite complex. But this doesn't mean that we can account for all variances. And we can't really generalize a specific model to every sample. So that models that are too complex or that, you know, try to do too many things can lead to a lack of fit and a lack of fit or overfitting a model, at least to those models not being able to distinguish between a random error and the true relationships, which can lead analysis quite skewed and maybe lead to incorrect forecasting. But I'm going to talk about an example from a paper that was able to demonstrate the benefits of forecasting and prediction in crime data. This was done by Ashby in 2020. He looked at the initial evidence on the relationship between the coronavirus pandemic and crime in the United States. So his aim was to understand crime patterns. And he used police recorded open crime data to understand how the frequency of certain crime types changed from the start of the pandemic. He used what is known as a Serima model on the frequency of crime types in his 16 cities from 2016 to 2020. Forecasts were then created from these models to compare the actual crime calls to those that were expected, as in those that were forecasted. Now I would go through all the results in discussion, but obviously there's a lot unpack here because he looked they looked at five different crime types across 16 different cities. But the main difference was that the difference between the actual crimes recorded and those forecasted were different in each city. I remember the example of theft being far lower than the forecasted crime trends. So this paper helped to identify our relationship between the pandemic and crime. So I've taken on a bit of an adaptation from this and we're going to be exploring a case study that uses police recorded crime data. But we want to explore just burglary rates from Detroit from 2015 to 2020. Our aim is to use time series graphics, that's the visualizations time series analysis and forecasting to answer both these aims. So aim A is to explore the long term trend and seasonality in burglary across the city of Detroit. So this would very much be your descriptive aim, highlighting the basic trends. And then we want to look at how the frequency of burglary change in Detroit in 2020 from the start of the pandemic. And this falls between that explanatory and predictive aim. There are roughly like four steps in time series analysis, very, very simplified steps, but these are the steps needed. Your first step would be to explore your data. Your second steps involves identifying and graphing these patterns. So that involves your visualizations. And your next steps would be to model the data. So applying, you know, the correct model. In our case, we're going to be following a Serima model, which I discussed a little later on. And then you can run your predictions. So the first step involves exploring your data. But what does this actually mean in terms of time series data? Well, I've taken this screenshot from data set that we'll be using on Thursday session in the code demonstration. And we have our date variable here. As you can see, we have our crime recorded by a daily rate. But lucky, we don't, this doesn't mean that we have to use the daily date. We can aggregate our data frame so that we have the crime counts per week or the crime counts per month or the crime counts per year, the crime counts per six months, you know, the list goes on. But if you want to visualize something, you know, that looks like this, what do you think is the most accurate interval for exploring crime data? So if you want to head over to Mentimeter, think about which interval you would use when exploring and visualizing police recorded crime data. I think I've given the option to choose up to four answers. So go ahead and vote those four times if you're not too sure. And yeah, we'll discuss some of the benefits and limitations of some of these. I'll give that about 30 seconds. Very interesting. We've got about 18 votes in with a pretty close split between monthly and weekly. But we're going to keep, we're going to let this roll through because I'm interested to see where the average or the polls have kind of slowed down. So I'll start to talk through some of the limitations and benefits but feel free to continue putting in your answers. So we've got seven votes for yearly and quarterly. Yeah, so year to year comparisons for crime data are very common. It's what you kind of see in government statistics is what you see across the across literature. But in recent years, comparing year to year data means that we tend to miss quite a bit of information as it hides variation that happens in the given months. Because if we were to compare, you know, 2015 to 2016 to 2017. How much does that really tell us, you know, what can we then do with that information in terms of crime prevention and policy? It'd be hard to detect specific trends in certain crime types if we're just looking from year to year because we're missing so much information. And this kind of stands for quarterly and six monthly data as well. What about monthly data? Yeah, so we've got 15 votes for monthly data at the moment. And I would say that monthly data is again quite a common comparison in crime data. But at the same time, it can be quite inaccurate because months do not hold the same amount of dates. You know, we know that crime tends to be higher over the weekend and some months have longer number of weekdays than others. So how would this affect the frequency of crime rate? You know, would it be the, yeah, so like how would this affect the frequency of crime rate? And this kind of leads us on to a smaller interval, which is the weekly crime data. This was mentioned in Ashby's paper who mentioned that week to week comparisons probably provide one of the best time intervals for crime data because it helps to reduce some of that uncontrolled variation. Comparing week to week data means that we can also incorporate things like bank holidays and specific holidays into those weeks that might be affected, that might be affecting those frequency of certain crime rates. Daily data, again, this could be effective, but it might just kind of, it might mean that your data obtains too much noise. It also means that studying things like seasonality would be much harder. So yeah, when working with crime data, I tend to use weekly because this helps to reduce some of the uncontrolled variation. So I went ahead and use weekly data then plot a time series graph that looks something like this. So this addresses our AMA, which was to explore the long term trend in seasonality in burglary across the city of Detroit. So as you can see, we've got our weekly incidents and we've got our time interval on the bottom. Now, although this is written as, you know, we've got 2015, 2016, 2017, each dot on the graph represents a new week. And this allows us to then explore, you know, variation within that year much clearly. We can see that is a general decreasing trend from 2015 to 20. And there are some spikes and peaks in the data set as well. So at the start of the year, it seems that burglary decreases and then starts to increase towards the end of the year. But why exactly, you know, is this this is the next question you want to ask. But if you want to explore these trends further, then this is why you need to look at the components of a time series analysis, because a variation of these components causes the changes in the patterns of a time series. There are four components that make up a time series analysis. We have a trend which was already mentioned, but this is the linearity is the data increasing or decreasing. We then have a cyclic variation or cyclic variation, and this is the variation in a time series which operate themselves over a span of more than two years. We then have seasonality or seasonal variation. And yeah, these are the rhythmic forces which operate in a regular or periodic manner over over a span of less than a year. So that's the main difference between cyclic and seasonality. And then we have our random or irregular movements such as noise. So this is the variation that cannot be explained. It's important to note that your noise or your irregular movements or your random errors, these are synonymous terms by the way, is likely to be higher when analyzing shorter time periods. That is if you have a smaller data frame, because it means that your models aren't going to be able to establish a correlation between the lags and different time steps. So yes, the combination of these components with time, of course, causes the formation of a time series. We can look specifically at these components by decomposing our trends, also known as a decomposition. And the decomposition is simply a way to split a time series graph into these four components. And this is what a decomposition plot would look like made in R. We have four graphs. The top graph highlights our raw data, that's the raw counts. We then have our trend present. And so yes, we were right to say that we have an overall decreasing trend. And then we have our seasonal variation. So you might be able to see that we have the same seasonal pattern from each year, or very similar seasonal pattern from each year, which would indicate that there is a seasonal variation in our data set. One of the main objectives for a decomposition is to estimate the seasonal effects that can be used to create and present seasonally adjusted values. So a seasonally adjusted value simply removes that seasonal effect so that the trends can be seen more clearly. I'll give an example of this. So violent crimes, for example, tend to increase in the summer due to many factors, you know, there's this increase of football games and increases in routine activities. So anywhere there is a real trend, we should adjust for the fact that violent crime is always going to be higher in the summer than in winter. And this is what this decomposition plots allows us to do. There are also two structures to a decomposition plot, which I won't spend too much time on, but it's important to know. And these are known as an additive and a multiplicative plot. So an additive plot in the name simply adds these components and a multiplicative plot simply multiplies these components. Now, it's important to know that most packages will determine what type of decomposition structure you have, whether that be additive or multiplicative. You won't necessarily have to establish this yourself as most packages will tell you. But let's explain what I will let's give you an example of what this what the two plots look like side by side. So on the left, we have the additive plot. We can see the time series is increasing. Yeah, so it's increasing throughout, but the amplitudes and the frequency kind of stay the same as we increase. This could also decrease, by the way, but yeah. And then we have a multiplicative plot. So this is if the time series has an exception as a growth or a decline with time, then the time series can be considered to be multiplicative. So this is that we have changes in our amplitude or frequency over time. And this is what the structures look like. So with our example, do you think that we tend to follow more of an additive or more of a multi multiplicative plot. Very difficult word to say apologize. So yeah, just take a quick look at this and do you think this kind of follows an additive or multiplicative in that our components being added at this point or they being multiplied. You can pop your answer into Mentimeter if you wish, but a mix of answers here with the majority suggesting additive but there's also very close call between maybe both multiplicative. But yeah, we'll move on. So, as I mentioned, when working in our studio, typically you'll be told what type of structure you have. And in this instance, this was actually a multiplicative plot. I didn't supply this title here this was given in the package that I used. So as you can see are the reason this is multiplicative is because we had a, you know, we had a decreasing trend, but the amplitudes between our weekly points were different. There was no consistency in those in those weekly trends, right. The last thing to know with your time series analysis is that you need to ensure that your data is stationary. And this means that the properties such as mean variants and covariance tend to remain constant over time. Typically a stationary data is very like flat looking. It doesn't have a trend and it doesn't have a trend. There's no constant variance. There's no constant autocorrelation structure. And doing this means that the model can do predictions based on the fact that the mean and the variance will then remain the same in the future periods. So yes, you have to make sure your data is stationary. There's two ways to do this, which is visually via the decomposition plots. Obviously they can be a bit difficult to read. So I tend to run statistical tests such as the KPPSS test. And there are loads of others available. But before modeling your data, you have to make sure that this is stationary and you can apply what is known as a differencing technique to make your data stationary. But again, this kind of goes beyond the scope of this talk. So we're going to move on to looking at different models of time series and talk a little bit about our Serima models. So there are three main time series models. We have what are known as moving averages, smoothing models and Serima models. So these are just three very common time series models. But a moving average model is simply a series created from the average of the past values. A smoothing models are values calculated from the weighted average of past values. And there are extensions to smoothing. So there's a single, double or triple. And these all depend on whether your data includes a trend, whether your data includes seasonality and yes. And then we have what are known as Arima slash Serima models. So these are suitable for multivariate non stationary data. So yeah, we'll be using a variation of this model to address our second aim, which asks how burglary trends compared to the predicted trends over the pandemic. So a Serima model is based on the concepts of both moving averages, auto correlation and auto regression. So it provides a much more accurate model, which then will allow you to make much more accurate forecasts. A Serima model stands for a seasonal, auto aggressive integrated moving average, which is a very long term. But it's a form of regression analysis that evaluates the strength of the dependent variable relative to other changing variables. So why would you want to use the Serima model? In short, it's used to understand past data or to predict future data in a series. And yes, as I said, they form a generalization from moving averages and make the model more like effective more accurate. Any kind of stats heads in the room. This is a quite complicated and extensive slide. Excuse me, I'm just getting a drink. But yeah, a Serima model is simply an extension of an Arima model. This means that when your data has a seasonal component, you're most likely going to use a Serima model. If your data doesn't have a seasonal component, then you'll use an Arima model. Now there are three elements that make up an Arima model. And these are known as your PDQ. I won't go into too much detail about this because again, it falls a bit beyond the scope of this talk, but the P stands for the autoregressive model. The D then stands for the differencing, which is how to make your data stationary. So an Arima model will do this for you, which means you don't need to do any data preprocessing before. And then you have your MA, which is that moving average model. And when we move on to our Serima model, you can see that we have the same letters but just capitalized. And this just references the seasonal aspects of these three elements. We also have our M value and this indicates the number of time steps for a single period. So if you were working with yearly data, if your data was yearly, then this number would be referenced by a 52. If you're working with weekly data, sorry, I got that mixed up. If you're working with weekly data, the reference will be 52. If you're working with monthly data, this will be referenced by a 12. If you're working with quarterly data, this will be referenced by a four and so on and so on. And then there are packages in R that will establish these values for you. So you won't have to calculate them yourself, which is very useful. But if you're interested in how you would choose these values for PDQ and your seasonal PDQs, you would have to use what is known as the ACF and the PACF. The ACF in short just tells us how correlated a time series is to its previous values. It's the correlation between observations of a time series separated by K time units. And then you have your partial autocorrelation, which simply measures the strength of that relationship with other terms being accounted for. So yeah, that is a full kind of structure breakdown of a Serumo model. And let's have a look at how we then can apply this Serumo model to question, to answer our second aim. Again, I've created a kind of like step-by-step guide on how we could go about answering this aim. But the first steps would be to count that weekly crime. This was, you know, back in the beginning of the slide where we decided on the time interval. Once this time interval has been decided, you need to aggregate your data to that weekly crime rate. Your next steps would be to model the weekly calls. You can use the function Arama from the Fable package, which we'll be doing on Thursday. And then we can generate the forecast from these models. And finally, your last steps involves plotting the forecast, making those visualizations. So I've created some images that kind of help to explain these four steps a little bit better to understand it can be quite confusing. So if we were to follow these steps with some graphics, your first steps would be, as I discussed, counting the crime. So this involves our time series plot that we made at the beginning. This was our basic time series plot where we have the frequency of crime rate plotted from 2015 to 2020. Following the step number two, this is where you model the crime. So your Serena model takes place on your existing data and it almost establishes that average trends, the average seasonality, the average noise, average cyclic behavior to make its own, to make its own. What's the word? I've lost the word, but yeah, it makes its own trend. Let's call it a trend. And from there, you can then forecast from this model. So this is what we would expect to happen. This is the prediction. This is where we think the trend will be going based on the data from the Serena models. And from there, you then compare your forecasted crime counts to the expected crime counts. This was very similar to Ashby's paper. And yeah, this was the kind of structure that he showed and it's really informative, especially when understanding crime trends and cause and effects and correlation and whatnot. So I went ahead and created this plot in R and I was able to compare our rate of burglary in 2020 compared to the expected crime count. So let's have a look at what that looked like. Before addressing the graph itself, you may notice the Serena structure at the top. And again, this was automatically created by R. This told me what I needed to do. It tells me how many steps in differencing I needed. It tells me my M value and yeah, that's the breakdown. So if you ever see someone like that, you know that you're dealing with, you know what those values now represent. The PDQs, auto correlation, auto regression and the moving average. Let's go back to the graph. So I'm only showing the last part of the graph. So from 2020 to 2021. And as you can see, we have two kind of lines in this graph. We have this dotted line in between this gray bracket. And this is the predicted crime rate made from our original models. And below this we have our, these were the recorded crime. So these are the actual crimes that happened compared to our predicted. So this is where we expected the trend to go in 2020. But this is where the trend actually went. So as you can see, burglary rates for a little bit lower than are expected. And this is where you start to question why, you know. Can we say that this is because like, can we pin this all on COVID? Are there other factors at hand? But yeah, in this instance, the in Detroit, the COVID-19 pandemic led to substantial changes in daily activities of millions of Americans, you know, just like in the UK, but businesses and schools were closed, public events were cancelled. States started introducing stay at home orders, distancing was then a thing. And you know, this led to a reduction in people's routine activities, which arguably could lead to a reduction in opportunities to then commit these crimes. Because if more people are staying at home, there's less opportunity for these crimes to take place. So yeah, this was our predicted model. I was able to show you the benefits of running a remodels and why this is useful, especially in the world of crime. So that yeah, that draws conclusion, but just briefly want to look at the time we've got five minutes. That's no problem. But yeah, there's loads of software and applications available for time series. Obviously, I've been working in our and the code demo will be also conducted on Thursday. But there are packages like Python and FB profit, which was actually developed by by Facebook, but it's a forecasting tool available in both Python and R. It's typically used to like additive models with a non linear trend. So that's yearly, weekly, daily and seasonal trends. But the benefit is that everything's completely automated. You don't have to kind of do any coding. You just need to plug in your data. So, you know, if you want to start there rather than coding, then that would that would be the place for you. And just out of interest out of curiosity. Can I ask what software programs you tend to use. This be it time be it for for just time series analysis, or for kind of anything that you do and be really interested to know. I've left this as a word cloud. So we're going to see what happens here. This is very interesting or in Python sitting on a very similar, similar sizes. I'm not sure what you've used is I've actually never heard of you use. But yeah, are in Python and Excel starter or definitely very common applications for running time series. Thank you for taking part in that which is kind of me being curious. Material for the code demonstration on Thursday can be found in our GitHub link. Emma or Julia or Louise, whoever's available, we could pop that into the group chat again, much appreciated. I would suggest viewing the intro and prerequisites information slide on there. It shows you how to set up or clone a repository, as well as how to use interactive binder materials but I will also be discussing how to do all of that at the start of the session so don't feel too stressed. Resources will be shared once the slide decks are shared. I believe I'll be adding the slide decks on Thursday to the GitHub repo. But thank you all for attending. If you do have any further questions that I haven't had a chance to address here, please send me an email and I'll do my best to reply to you. Thank you all for attending.