I strongly recommend that anyone who wants to improve their trading skills should dive deep into YouTube.
Recently, I clicked on a YouTube video and listened to someone explain on a whiteboard how “money makes money.”
At that moment, it felt like a light switch was flipped on for me.
Since then, I no longer waste time scrolling through short videos; instead, I dedicate all my fragmented time during commuting, cooking, and before bed to these financial educators.
1. Robert Kiyosaki | He helped me see the difference between “work” and “wealth” for the first time.
Many people have heard of “Rich Dad Poor Dad,” but his YouTube channel is where the essence lies. No fluff, just practical thinking. He says, “Don’t ask ‘Can I afford this?’ Ask ‘How can I afford this?’” This statement pulled me from “saving mode” into “asset thinking.” He taught me to differentiate between active income and passive income and made me start thinking: Is my house an asset or a liability?
2. Ray Dalio | He gave me a set of “economic binoculars” to see the world.
The founder of Bridgewater Associates, he’s willing to spend 40 minutes teaching you for free how “the economic machine works.” He explained the relationships between inflation, interest rates, and debt cycles in the simplest terms. For the first time, I understood why the stock market drops when the central bank raises interest rates and why the economy collapses cyclically. I now review this model every month; it has become my “standard action” for analyzing macroeconomics.
3. Patrick Boyle | He is my “investment banking tutor” that I can access from home.
A professor at UBC, he discusses corporate valuation and financial modeling as if he’s chatting. He explains the logic behind each step while typing in Excel: “Why do we use WACC here?” “How should the discount rate be estimated reasonably?” There’s no skipping steps or pretending to be profound. I self-studied the DCF model with his help and even attempted a simple valuation for a listed company— that sense of achievement from “understanding a company by doing it myself” is incredibly satisfying.
4. The Plain Bagel | He makes complex financial products “digestible.”
The name is strange, but the content is fascinating. He can explain ETFs, options, and leverage mechanisms as clearly as a recipe. For example, he uses “gym membership card + price increase right” to illustrate call options, and I understood it immediately. His videos are short, 8 - 12 minutes, perfect for watching one after a meal to slowly build up my “financial language sense.” I can now read financial news without being intimidated by the jargon.
5. Lin Dai | He helps me bridge “Chinese logic” and “global markets.”
As a Chinese analyst, he understands both A-share policies and U.S. stock rules. He explains well about CATL going overseas, Ant Group's rectification, and the Hong Kong Stock Connect mechanism, and he compares regulatory differences between China and the U.S. I finally understood why foreign capital sometimes buys in frantically and sometimes retreats collectively. He is my bridge connecting local realities and international perspectives.
My current habit is: in the morning, I listen to a segment from Ray Dalio to build a framework, during lunch, I watch a video from The Plain Bagel for details, and in the evening, I practice hands-on with Patrick Boyle. $SOL
