Professional footballers could make a lot of money with minimal risk in the stock market as long as they have the right strategy, mentoring and risk management, according to a former City trader.
Player Impact spoke to ex-Goldman Sachs and Barclays employee Debodun Osekita, 32, who has a decade of experience in investment banking and hedge funds.
He describes himself as a personal trainer but for stocks and says just like footballers have personal trainers, having a good mentor for investing is essential.
Osekita, who grew up on North Peckham, London, now runs Stock Pickers Academy, a community of experienced and inexperienced investors who have come together as one to leverage each other to create wealth.
What are the benefits of stock trading?
Stocks investing, if you know what you are doing is one of the biggest creators of wealth in the world. Many people lend money to their friends to start a business but get nervous at the idea of owning part of an existing business – that is effectively what you are doing when you buy stocks.
How can professional footballers use their resources to their benefit when trading?
The way I teach is to always leave a large amount of cash reserves. You don’t need to have all of your portfolio invested to make healthy returns from the stock market. If you can make 20% return in a year each year for 25 years then £5k turns into £476k… imagine you start with £1m – even 10% a year is very healthy.
The key thing is to leverage experts, yourself, capital and a good risk management system. Diversifying your large pool of capital means it doesn’t all need to go into stocks there is real estate, crypto, bonds, art, trainers and so much more – you could even purchase existing businesses, pay someone to scale it up and then resell.
Many people don’t know that you can even buy property through the stock market via a product called REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts). The most important thing is knowing what you don’t know! Most people don’t seek knowledge in the things they don’t know and eventually when they do end up investing it is done on vibes and hearsay from their mates.
Get in touch with our team to discuss stocks investing by contacting us here.
Should a footballer hire a professional to help them invest, or can they do it themselves?
A footballer can actually do both. I think just like driving, cooking and cleaning there are some very basic skills you can learn when it comes to stocks investing. I think due to the huge amounts footballers earn and their limited time the bulk can be handled professionally but with a little input.
A good example is a stock I doubled my money on called Science in Sport – one of my clients is a footballer who said he uses the product. I learnt more about the product from speaking to him and we both ended up investing – my job was the technical aspects of trying to wait for a cheap price. One example of how a newbie and experienced investor can work together.
I also think there should be an element of education at clubs to give footballers guidance on what investing is and what is available to them.
Please explain NFTs and should footballers be getting involved?
NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens – basically meaning a “unique” product which can’t be replicated) can really be anything digital (such as drawings, music, your brain downloaded and turned into an AI), but a lot of the current excitement is around using the tech to sell digital art. Perhaps one way a footballer could get involved is digitalising their memorabilia. Another more obvious way is purchasing existing art.
What is the future of stock trading? What should footballers look out for?
What we have seen this year is the average joe or jane investor take back a little power and control in investing. Technology and social media has created a very educational landscape that has allowed access.
Also if you look at the recent Cellular Goods (CBX) IPO – David Beckham’s cannabis company, this is another way footballers can get involved a different way by partnering up and getting paid before a stock makes its debut on the stock market.
This is where I can leverage my connections from working in the city to help facilitate these types of deals. Also, research who is giving you information – check them on LinkedIn ensure they are credible and look for a track record of results from their clients.
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Is there anything they can do now to prepare for what’s to come?
The best thing to do now is just to get some basic knowledge of what is out there and then get the right education. Footballers often have the wrong people around them looking to make money from them so there is an issue of trusting the right people.
Some of my clients in sport and music came through real-life testimonials of clients who had relatives or friends testify to learning but more importantly make healthy and sustainable returns.
My dream is to maybe start a fund amongst high net worth footballers, music artists which invests into stocks, cryptos, small businesses and property developments. A lot of footballers go bankrupt after playing due to not investing. I want to change the culture.
What made you start Stock Pickers Academy, and what does it do?
Stock Pickers Academy is a non-advisory community of beginners and experienced investors coming together as one to leverage each other to create wealth.
I started SPA because I did not hear or see many people who looked like me who were knowledgeable or actively investing in the stock market – mainly a side effect of not many black people working in trading and investing roles in the city.
The pandemic created a lot of interest due to it triggering the stock market crash combined with people being at home.
At SPA, beginners have information about their respective fields and life experiences, whilst experienced investors have the technical expertise to turn those trends into investing ideas. I manage other people’s ideas by applying safe entry and reasonable exit price points in a non-advisory manner. I am also transparent with every single transaction that he makes.
The community gets to see the ups and downs of his investments and track record. My community mainly resides on telegram with over 6000 members but SPA is also on Instagram.
Read more: How one of US football’s brightest talents moved to Hungary’s biggest team during the pandemic
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