Last week I was on a Mediterranean cruise with a group of investment fund managers.
Among the many topics discussed, a particular comment hit home:
“Money loves speed”
Whoever can move the fastest, gets the benefit.
Say it in another way:
Early bird gets the worm
In the September 10, 2004 issue, I wrote about the investment performance of an average investor -
A mere 2.9% annualized return per year.
We discussed the impact emotions have on people’s investment portfolio.
Specifically for investors who waited too long to act.
In the issue, I wrote about a case study of our Edmonton infill developments:
Best opportunities don’t wait around forever.
For example, at the end of last year, we were seeing many single family properties in Edmonton selling at a fair price.
To us, it was a steal!
Because we know the zoning bylaw will be changing to allow single family lot of a certain size to be developed into a small multi family building without the need to go through rezoning.
That was a big deal.
Rezoning takes time, and there’s always a chance to run into challenges during the rezoning process and delay the project.
Now that a huge challenge was removed.
Knowing that information, we know the price for these lots will be going up up up in the coming months.
Instead of waiting around, we jumped on it.
https://ecresearchgroup.substack.com/p/are-you-an-average-investor
Money loves speed.
First mover advantage
In business, first mover advantage is the competitive edge a company gains by being the first to introduce a new product or service to a market.
Almost 10 years ago, a buddy of mine tipped me off on a simple, yet rewarding income opportunity:
Flipping trucks
The business model was simple:
We would buy pick up trucks from Canada, paid Canadian dollars for them.
Export them into the US.
Sell them for the same amount we bought them for, but in US dollars.
In other words, we made money on the exchange rate.
Since the US dollar was much stronger than the Canadian dollar, we could make 20-30% from the currency exchange by “flipping trucks”.
Photo Credit: Eric Chang - One of the trucks we flipped
It was “easy money”.
The most amount of time it took was driving the vehicle across the border.
On average, we could make around 4-6k Canadian per truck in less than a day.
For someone who was in his early 30s, that was good money!
It didn’t take long for the word to spread.
Soon, more and more people went into doing what we were doing.
Then, the dealerships noticed and made complaints to the manufacturer HQs.
After my buddy and I flipped few trucks, the manufacturer HQs closed the option to export multiple vehicles personally without a commercial dealership license.
That effectively ending the opportunity to flip trucks across border.
The ones who jumped on the early opportunity quickly, made a great profit.
Money loves speed.
My gold investing foundation students
Several months ago, I taught a group of investors on gold investing fundamentals.
Gold has since reached all time high at over $4,000 US / oz.
If you bought gold, congrats!
I’d love to hear your story.
Of course, I didn’t have a crystal ball.
I had no way of predicting gold would move up this much, this fast.
What we do is based our research on the macro economics.
The signs have been pointing to a higher Gold price.
Just like any good opportunities in life, the “Golden Window” will also close.
The ones who knows how to capitalize will do well.
Again, money loves speed.
If you like my work, I invite you to share it with others.
Eric Chang
Tiranë, Albania
October 7, 2025
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