Blog Archive
Topic: the principle ways of making money working in the finance industry (as opposed to going it alone as a trader)
Conclusion: the career choices of broker/trader, analyst, portfolio manager, managing director, and partner/owner all have their merits and drawbacks. As do going from one to the other. I've done them all, albeit with no real plan, and was handsomely rewarded for it.
This article investigates how to best pursue material riches in high finance.
Early 2010, I attended a gala in London to accept Futuris' award The European Hedge Fund Of The Decade. I was the managing director, one of three senior partners, and portfolio manager for Futuris, a billion dollar hedge fund. We had won prestigious awards before but this really was the biggest one.
In short, I was very well off. Not only that, I came from nothing, with no network, no pedigree, no friends, parents, acquaintances etc. in the business. In addition I had no previous experience of finance. All I had was grit.
I first worked myself up the ranks on the sell-side as an analyst, and then switched to the buy-side to manage other people's money, first as an analyst and subequently as a portfolio manager.
I started my career as a lowly broker's assistant in the spring of 1994 after four years of studies at SSE (Stockholm School of Economics). Two years later I eventually found the time to hand in my econometric thesis ("Does the stock market overreact in its valuation of Swedish pulp and paper stocks?") and thus got my masters degree (majoring in finance).
By 1996, after a couple of years since my humble beginnings in the industry, I was responsible for researching and recommending IT stocks at Sweden's largest bank. Only four years later I was poached by the newly incepted IT focused hedge fund Futuris, to become their in-house Software and IT services analyst.
During the beginning of my career, I sometimes thought about the optimal way through the finance industry. One idea I had was to jump back and forth between the buy-side and sell-side every 2-3 years. A few years on the sell-side would make me known among all the important clients and make them want to hire me. And after a while on the buy-side I could leverage my knowledge about the inner workings of clients, as well as my personal contancts, to get more business as a research analyst or key client responsible on the buy side.
For every switch I would negotiate better pay packages, either for staying an extra year on whatever side I was already on, or for bringing my superior knowledge and contacts over to the other side.
In addition, I thought about doing something similar within the sell-side, switching between being an anayst and a broker/research sales.
As sales, I would have time to read research from all different industries and sectors, and be able to both learn more, as well as cherry pick the absolute best ideas for my clients. Then I could come back even stronger as a highly specialized single industry analyst, armed with a more diverse set of convincing assessment and valuation methods. The switches would be made opportunistically, when my employer or some other firm was looking for unorthodox solutions, rather than actively pursuing switching sides.
I had no real plan but for executing whatever orders I got as well as I could. In many ways I performed similarly to how I imagine a first generation artificial general intelligent agent would. I just powered myopically ahead with no regard to my personal health or professional suboptimization issues. I received my goal specifications and I tried to reach them with whatever legal means I had at my disposal, or could get my hands on.
If I had been asked to optimize the number of paper clips I would have melted the world.
However, whatever ideas I originally had about optimizing my knowledge, skills, professional network, compensation packages etc. were lost within my first few months as an underpaid, underslept, overworked premature ruin of a boy man, 22 years of age.
Here's the strategic do-over of an optimal finance career, for your benefit:
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Broker, sales, trader
Your main responsibility as a broker is to get clients to spend money (commission) on your firm.
You can achieve that goal by supplying them with good investment ideas, backed by fundamental and technical research, as well as gossip and assessments of which analyst is currently enjoying a good streak.
Another proven strategy is to essentially be a travel guide for clients visiting companies, conferences, restaurants, bars, clubs and strip joints.
A happy client understands that all firms are basically equally good, and could thus just as well allocate his spending to the firm that supplies good enough investment advice but excellent conscierge services. All this is very entertainingly documented in the book City Boy by Geraint Anderson, with whom I share my birth year, analyst background, as well as author aspirations, not to mention entering the finance industry without any knowledge of it. He's also the one I turned to for advice, for deciding when to retire.
There are different tiers within the brokers, sales and traders guild. Some simply take orders and execute them by a click of the mouse, via a (Bloomberg) chat, or a phone call. Others are proprietary traders who get to play around with company money, with the objective of either making a profit or boosting the firm's apparent market share (at a specified maximum loss). Yes, they get paid to lose money.
Yet others are the bridge between analysts and clients, they are the wheels of the broker firm, where the rubber meets the road.
Analysts identify and present ten good reasons for buying a stock on early morning meetings. Sales representatives (called "brokers", "research sales", "key account managers" etc.) try to remember three of the most important arguments, and hope that the clients they call latch on to one or two of these, and promptly place an order, which in turn lands the broker firm a commission. The best brokers receive year end bonuses based on how much such business they catalyze.
To land a position as research sales, to start accumulating large annual bonuses, you need to understand both people and numbers, not to mention work at a large and important firm to which clients automatically allocate most of their business. Jumping back and forth between roles as respectively a broker and an analyst is one effective route that I recommend.
There's a snag though. The last few years new directives have been put in place which significantly limit the amount of commission clients can pay for brokerage and research services.
Not only that, there are good reasons to believe the brokerage industry is close to a peak and ready for a pullback. Combining these two developments make for a long and winding road for any broker or analyst, except a very select few.
Beginnning in 2019, 2020, I would strongly advice against a career as any kind of broker, if making money is your objective rather than having fun. That includes proprietary traders, whose positions are likely to be all but cut altogether going forward, due to the balance sheet cost of risk.
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Analysts
Analysts on the sell-side work side by side with brokers. They read reports, visit companies, talk to industry experts, create enormous DCF excel models, and write research reports with recommendations to buy or sell a stock. If they are highly ranked* and well-known they get booked by clients (asset managers) and get to present their ideas.
* A high ranking can be attained in many different ways, but being right more than most is not a reliable way on its own. Being sociable is much more important.
Some clients take this process seriously: they listen, ask questions, make notes, compare the work with their own research and financial models, make a few adjustments and sometimes invest accordingly.
Others just go through the motions to get a free lunch, dinner, drinks or show.
A good analyst is in demand from as diverse places as corporate merger & acquisition departments, sell-side research firms (brokerage houses), and not least asset managers, i.e., the clients, the "buy-side" as an in-house resource and speaking partner.
A good analyst finds and creates new information, is innovative with numbers and charts, and gets ranked in annual surveys of public companies, their own broker departments, and most importantly asset managers (the clients). Being noticed by important clients is doubly useful - first in bonus discussions, second to get hired by them.
A good analyst can easily jump between roles on the buy-side, sell-side, corporate side, and possibly even as his own one-man research and investment firm. Not too rarely, good analysts start their own hedge funds, or simply manage their own money. It doesn't always end well though - it's a whole different game making buy and sell calls for others, compared to having your own money on the line.
A good analyst should most often stay a good analyst, in the care of as prestigious as possible a sell-side or buy-side firm, rather than go it alone. However, a good sell-side analyst can quite easily make the transition to becoming a good buy-side analyst or an excellent sell-side research sales, and back again, given a quantum of people skills.
Continuing down the list of being employed in the finance industry, both brokers and analysts can make for good managers (unfortunately, often bad ones too).
As a manager you get a higher than average compensation, but still much lower than than the top brokers and analysts. Your reward is less client interaction, less work, shorter days, but being screamed at by the spoiled boy-men brats you're trying to manage. Bonus times are the worst. That's when they all will try to intimidate you into submission, also known as getting paid more than they're worth.
Some of your opponents (coworkers) are straight out of Compton hooligans, while other wave their pedigree around. Some cry about their families or new yacht, others scream and pound the table.
You'll go home feeling like shit, like you messed up, like you're being unfair, regretting and second-guessing your decisions and promises, fearing the best will leave and the worst will sue. Any stint as a manager will soon make you want to go back to working 16-hour shifts in the corp department, revising and improving power point slides for shifty IPOs, rather than suffering another round of bonus war (negotiations).
Sadly, just two years as a manager is enough to make you lose your edge as an analyst just as much as your will to live.
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Portfolio manager
Congratulations, you've made it. Somehow you've proved your worth in the industry well enough to be trusted to manage other people's money. Given it's enough of it (at least 100m$ per manager), and the fee structure has a variable component, you're set to make some serious money.
You shouldn't even have to work too hard for it.
Actually, you shouldn't work hard, period. As a portfolio manager you should strive for making few strategic decisions, while staying as rested and prepared as possible in between.
Make sure others do as much of your work as possible. Your task is to be calm and composed, taking stop-losses where needed, boosting positions where the risk reward calls for it, and communicate to clients what you're doing, why, and how it's going. you should not work long hours, micro manage positions or personnel
This is where you want to be, if you're content being employed.
The way to becoming a PM is via being a good and respected analyst, or an excellent and well connected research sales.
They're sheep!
The really great news is that as a PM, there's a very good chance you could become a partner/owner of a fund or a hedge fund. But the ins and outs of that, including the reward anatomy, is a story for another day.
Next up: How a hedge fund works; revenues, costs, profits, total after tax compensation, and more.
We all live in a yellow perma bull, yellow perma bull! Bull market in the sky with diamonds! …markets that grow so incredibly high…
All you need is bull
All you need is bull, bull
Bull is all you need
To cut the cheese, there never were any perma bears to begin with.
Yes, you read that right. No matter what you might have heard, there has never been such a thing as a perma bear. You’d better check your sources.
There are of course quite a few people using that term, as if it meant something. Those people typically fall into one of the following categories:
Perma bulls: “just buy and hold the best companies forever” (at any price); these guys disappear with the next downturn never to be seen again. Some of them bought Broadcom, Worldcom and March1 on margin in the year 2000. Others had five mortgages in 2007. Yet others were all in the XIV ETF (inverse volatility)
Newbies: they are simply parroting a meme their broker, or similarly clueless friend, told them. They have no idea what they are alking about, what a perma bear or perma bull might be even in theory.
Failed short sellers, that failed because they didn’t do any real research or succumbeed due to sloppy risk management
The average retail investors have never even contemplated going short anything, although a few have dabbled in buying a few puts or selling calls to add some “Las Vegas” to their “portfolio” (of one single stock; either a 100m$ pre-revenue biotech company, or whichever stock is the most written about [Tesla, Theranos, Enron] or having appreciated the most (FANG stocks).
Normal portfolio managers in mutual funds aren’t even allowed to go short.
That leaves more or less only sophisticated and experienced investors on the short side. Most of them are hedge fund managers that already have successful investing careers behind them. Some, admittedly, might be rich brats that think “shorting the hell out of bad companies” is a better pick up line, than letting their zero maintenance dividend kings take care of themselves while going all in on hookers and E on a yacht.
Anyway, these sophisticated investors typically made their money mostly being long good investments, thus per definition can’t be perma bears. Or they are extremely good at sniffing out good clean shorts.
In any case, if they are that good at researching and investing, there is zero probability they will limit themselves to being short only, when there are so many more things to go long with less risk and less scrupulous opponents than when selling things short.
In other words, only smart people become short sellers. The idea doesn’t even occur to average people. And if it did, Joe would soon lose everything and give up, or re-emerge as first a cautious, later a raging bull (only to lose it all again of course).
The smart(ish) short sellers are smart enough to know there are two sides of every story, of every market. Hell, they are more or less the only ones who realize there are two sides.
I have yet to meet or even hear about a real perma bear, an investor who is forever and always only a seller of all things. That’t because they simply don’t exist. “Perma bear” is something n00bs and mostly perma bulls call people they don’t understand and are afraid of: investors with more money and experience than themselves that dare go against the crowd and look a little silly for a while, because they have good reasons to trust their mind more than the crowd’s blind stampeding.
It’s been a a hard bull’s night,
and I’ve been working like a bear
So, whenever you hear “they’re a perma bear,” check your and their premises. You just might pick up something important and useful.
Just remember that there are no perma bears; and experienced and knowledgeable investors who dare stick their neck out against the crowd, against CEOs, against the Fed and other authorities to reveal relevant information, put both their money and reputation on the line for no other reason that their superior vantage point allows them to identify a higher probability of making money going short than buying blindly.
Tell me that you want the kind of things,
That bulls just can’t buy,
I don’t care too much for bulls.
Bulls can’t buy me love.
Det är antagligen inte vad du instinktivt tror, men det går att lära sig att förstå bättre vad som faktiskt skapar rörelserna. Till att börja med gäller det att inte tro på allt du tänker, särskilt inte det första som slår dig.
Dina konkurrenter är inte dumma
Om du t.ex. tror att andra investerare är “ointelligenta” som handlar upp eller ned en kurs efter en viss nyhet, så är det mer produktivt att anta att det inte är just därför — utan något helt annat som ligger bakom. Det gäller särskilt om det “dumma” mönstret upprepas. Tänk på att de som avgör kursutvecklingen är enormt resursstarka institutioner med incitament till hög avkastning. Mer om det senare.
Marknaden är komplex, motsatsen till enkel
När jag började jobba på finansmarknaden hade jag två mantran med mig från Handelshögskolan i Stockholm: “teknisk analys är som att spå i kaffesump“, och “det enda korrekta sättet att värdera företag är med en DCF-analys“.
Det tog mig ganska många år att förstå att marknaden fungerar på ett helt annat och mycket mer komplext sätt, eftersom det ytterst handlar om grupper av människor som reagerar på andras reaktioner i en evig återkoppling, eller “rekursivitet”.
Finanslegendaren Soros kallar fenomenet att finansmarknadens aktörer reagerar på och anpassar sig efter varandras reaktioner för “reflexivitet”. Så vad är det då som avgör kursutvecklingen för enskilda bolag och hela aktiemarknader?
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Värdering är viktigast, och riskaptiten ännu viktigare
Marknaden är som sagt komplex. Å ena sidan anser jag att det viktigaste av allt är att veta ungefär var i en eller flera makrocykler man befinner sig — t.ex. räntesupercykeln och tillväxtcykeln för BNP. Å andra sidan är det det enskilda företagets tillväxt och värdeskapande som är det enda viktiga.
Å ena sidan är det vinster och BNP som över tid helt och hållet bestämmer hur aktieindex går. Å andra sidan är korrelationen mellan dessa variabler noll eller negativ på något eller några års sikt, och kursutvecklingen styrs helt av trender och graden av riskvilja. Orsakerna är att graden av optimism och tillgången till kapital varierar starkt vilket påverkar värderingsmultiplarna.
Man måste därför typiskt sett ta hänsyn till både fundamentala variabler, plats i cykeln och trender om man ska klara sig på sikt som investerare. Alltså, börja med att kartlägga var du är i cyklerna så du är beredd på den generella riktningen, samt kan analysera avvikelser från den förväntade rörelsen.
Identifiera din plats i cykeln
Bland de viktigaste ekonomiska makrovariablerna för att identifiera ungefär var i cykeln man är finns BNP, inflation, ränta och sysselsättning, och bland de finansiella är den övergripande börsvärderingen central.
Det finns hundratals faktorer man skulle kunna ta hänsyn till och om du tycker att det är roligt kan du försöka bygga superkomplexa modeller över cykeln, men jag föredrar att hålla det lättförståeligt, intuitivt och relativt enkelt:
Ju sämre desto bättre
Är arbetslösheten ovanligt låg och fallit länge? Är sysselsättningsgraden ovanligt hög och stigit länge? Ja, då kör ekonomin redan för full kapacitet och det behövs inte mycket för att tillväxten ska falla. Är arbetslösheten tvärtom hög finns stor potential framöver.
Är skuldsättningsgraden i samhället (företag + stat + medborgare) ovanligt hög och har stigit länge, samt kanske redan slutat stiga, ja då blir det alltmer orimligt att förvänta sig fortsatt lånefinansierad vare sig ekonomisk tillväxt eller finansiell värderingstillväxt, och vice versa.
Du kanske även vill ta hänsyn till att den här perioden i den amerikanska presidentcykeln, oktober till april efter mellanårsvalet är då aktier brukar gå särskilt bra — och om de inte gör det kan det vara ett extra tecken på svaghet, och kanske en tjuvstart på decenniets sista år som brukar vara extra svagt. Framför allt ska man veta om att andra kanske tittar på detta, men själv tänka en nivå bortom, och se styrka och svaghet i förhållande till det förväntade mönstret och därmed dra slutsatser om den underliggande tendensen till riskaptit.
Börja alltså med att identifiera om du är närmare en topp eller botten eller snarare någonstans mitt i. Om du tar fram lite längre grafer på t.ex. Price/Sales eller Price/Book för börsen, samt grafer över arbetsmarknad, konsumtion, BNP, skulder och räntor så är det ganska enkelt att se detta. Det betyder inte för den skull att det är lätt att tajma marknaden för saker ändras hela tiden, t.ex. Är den här cykeln en av de längsta någonsin, trots högsta belåning och högsta värderingen någonsin, tack vare stimulansåtgärder på en skala vi aldrig sett förut.
Men, att det fortsatt längre än väntat gör inte att sannolikheten för ett bakslag ökar. Tvärtom. Två av de mest pålitliga cykliska finansiella dataserierna är, dels att vinstmarginaler går upp och ned i ett cykliskt mönster, dels att höga värderingar nu ger låg avkastning kommande decenniet. Båda dessa serier är nu på all time high i USA.
Anpassa dig efter mest sannolika tendens; det är sällan svart eller vitt
Det betyder att om inget strukturellt har ändrats för mycket lång tid framöver så kommer börsens genomsnittsavkastning bli mycket låg det kommande dussinet år, eventuellt via en mellanliggande krasch, eller bara en volatil sidorörelse.
Tillbaka till nyhetsanalysen och förklaringar till börsrörelser. Jag brukade ofta tänka “hur kan investerarna vara så dumma att de handlar upp/ner kursen på den nyheten?”. Det är fel fråga. Vad jag lärde mig att fråga mig är istället “Varför är det det smartaste?”. För tänk efter; om du inte tänker och handlar “så dumt”, och inte heller dina övriga marknadskontakter, vem är det då som styr priserna och hur kan de tänkas tänka när de förvaltar tusentals miljarder?
Om du fattar beslut på nyheter är du typiskt sist på bollen
Svaret är att det är stora institutioner som har veckovisa och månadsvisa strategi- och placeringsmöten. Och det är modellstyrda fonder och passiva ETF:er. Algofonder mäter smärtpunkter i marknaden (kursrörelser, orderflyttningar, utestående optionsvolymer mm) och testar åt vilket håll det finns flest svaga händer, dvs investerare utan värderingsförankring och uthållighet i sina positioner. Det finns därmed sällan en rationell förklaringsväg mellan en nyhet och efterföljande kursrörelser.
Innehållet i nyheten är inte lika viktigt som att något händer
Det är bara att det finns nyheter som anses anmärkningsvärda som ger utrymme att hitta minsta motståndet i marknaden. Det är också därför du ofta kan se några snabba svängningar åt båda håll efter större nyheter innan trenden etableras. Det är ingen som gör en analys där och då, utan algofonder känner efter åt vilket håll det går att handla.
Sedan algohandel blev stort har riktningen generellt varit uppåt för aktiemarknaderna, vilket skapat en cementerad dippköparmentalitet som riskerar bli riktigt dyr att lära sig av med om algosarna, med stöd i mean reversion för vinster och värderingar, systematiskt börjar notera att det är lättare att sälja än köpa.
Två potentiellt bidragande faktorer till en sådan utveckling kan vara att institutioner väljer att vikta om sina innehav för en svagare cykel, samt att när det väl börjat falla, och det finns väldigt få uthålliga värdebaserade investerare som vill köpa, så får momentumsäljare, tvångssäljare och andra svaga longs överhanden på säljsidan. De få värderingsförankrade investerare som finns kvar kan alltså , om jag har rätt i min bedömning av var i cyklerna vi är, oftare fatta säljorienterade beslut på sina strategimöten.
När det gäller enskilda aktier och t.ex. nyheter eller rapportperioder är det samma sak där — de allra flesta av de riktiga investerarna har redan bestämt sig innan, eller så väntar de till långt efter, veckor eller månader med att ändra sig. Detta gäller utom i väldigt extrema fall av total överraskning, men det senare brukar vara reserverat för oss vanliga privatsparare.
Det här låter ganska negativt för aktier och det finns flera legendariska investerare som håller med:Jim Rogers, John Hussman, Jeremy Grantham (som t.ex. nyligen konstaterade att avkastningspotentialen mellan Emerging Markets och US large caps aldrig varit större), Howard Marks och Ray Dalio tillhör de som varnar för att vi är nära toppen, kanske förbi den.
Pengarna måste vara någonstans så något ska alltid upp
Som tur är finns det alltid något att köpa. Till exempel andra marknader än just USA och Sverige. För att återkoppla till hur man kan använda sin första tes till att hitta en antites och därefter en syntes av dessa, så föreställ dig den sämsta marknaden att investera på, eller en bransch eller aktie som “ingen” gillar.
TINA = THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE
Jag skulle verkligen inte vilja äga de största aktierna i USA eller Sverige nu, just för att länderna och marknaderna är på topp. Men smaka på länderna Turkiet och Grekland, eller kanske Mongoliet eller Argentina. Det viktigaste är priset; det finns inga tillgångar som är så dåliga att det inte finns ett pris som ger fantastisk avkastning. Det var så Howard Marks började med “junk” bonds. Det är för övrigt Intrum Justitias affärsidé i deras Purchased Debt-verksamhet
TWEET: Om du äger en aktie i Ericsson och den dubblas från 45kr till 90kr, men den framtida strömmen av bolagets kassaflöden inte har ändrats, du förstår att du inte har blivit rikare eller Ericsson mer värt då va? Om du inte säljer aktien förstås, men det är en helt annan sak.
TWEET: Du har väl förstått att du blir fattigare för varje procent som aktiekurser stiger, givet att den underliggande verkligheten inte har ändrats i form av faktiska kassaflöden? Du kan ju köpa färre aktier för att ta del av de skapade kassaflödena, vilka utgör det faktiska värdet.
Guld och agri
Och sedan finns helt andra tillgångsklasser som guld eller jordbruksråvaror. Jag får utveckla tankarna om dessa i framtida finanstankar. I korthet gör dock klimatförändringar och befolkningstillväxt samt förväntningar om framtida köttkonsumtion att balansen ändras så många decenniers fallande jordbrukspriser vänds till en lång upptrend istället. Köp dipparna där istället för i aktiemarknaden.
Jag har lite “agri” men desto mer guld, där jag verkligen ser en stor uppsida jämfört med kontanter eller aktier. Guldpriset har under sin 7-åriga bear market fallit till nära produktionskostnaden men nu ser ut att ha bildat en flerårig botten. Guldet har dessutom senaste tremånadersperioden gått upp trots stigande dollar (DXY index), vilket kan signalera att priset är redo att bryta upp till slut. Som riktig kicker finns potentialen till en gradvis omstöpning av det globala finanssystemet och en långsam framväxt av en ny global guldbackad valuta som alternativ till fiatvarianterna som ´bara lett till obalanserade skuldberg och oansvarig penningpolitik som till slut får långivarna att tröttna.
Jag tror att de kommande 5 årens supertrade är lång guld (och kort aktier i västvärlden). Se det som en generell riktning och fundera över hur du kan anpassa just din strategi till denna övergripande syn. OBS att jag inte ger några rekommendationer, bara delar med mig av mina förhoppningsvis inspirerande tankar.
Summary: Just say NO to unnecessary maintenance, conspicuous consumption and other secondhander behavior, and...double up on your primary drivers.
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Why is your why your why?
Simon Sinek advocates finding your "why," your purpose. Other philosophers confidently assert that if you have a strong enough reason for achieving a goal, figuring out how to do it is easy.
Cal Newport can tell you how to be the most productive through deep work, while James Clear can teach you all about the power of habits.
I've myself repeated endlessly that aiming low, to make sure you get started at all, is key to getting things done.
The question remains, however, exactly what it is you should get done.
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I like to think about primarily three categories of activities:
- Pure maintenance
- Primary enablers
- Primary drivers
Pure maintenance refers to securing life and limb, basically putting a roof over your head and food in your belly. It includes cleaning, washing, doing the dishes, buying clothes and groceries, visiting the bank or the post office and so on. Some people spend a lot of time here. Quite a few do it in order to show off a shiny facade to their friends and neighbors.
"Good enough, practical and comfortable," is my way. There's no reason to buy a bigger house, renovate a kitchen you never use, or buy a new car every five years, unless you spend more time cursing over stuff that doesnt work than you would over the cost of buying new items.
Primary enablers are activities that pull your life forward, creating more opportunities for sustained happiness and meaning (by the way, check out this wonderful talk about happiness vs. meaning). Writing a book might not be your idea of great fun, but it could put you in a position in the future where you get to hold lectures - and that might be one of your primary drivers. Sometimes it is you who need to feel you've made an effort, overcome a challenge etc. to be able to relax and enjoy your primary drivers fully.
Some enablers entail climbing the socioeconomic ladder. They are tools for ensuring sustainable happiness. A certain education or career, or a house in the right place, might give you access to networks that otherwise would be closed off. Interesting, creative and intelligent people use a variety of cues to identify each other.
Everything, however, is about the primary drivers themselves. This is what you live for, this is the source of your true happiness (or meaning, if you prefer that word). What do you like or love doing, feeling, experiencing that you don't need to show off to others in order to enjoy it?
An influencer takes photos of their food as a tool to get more followers and make more money. That ordinary people seek approval for their choice of food, at the cost of letting it go cold or stale, is bordeline tragic. If you like qualiy restaurant food, buy it and eat it.
If you're only doing it for the likes, and claim likes are one of your primary drivers, you have some soul searching to do. Impressing others can ever only be a tool, an enabler, a symptom of emptiness and being hacked by society and clever programmers.
There's nothing wrong with sharing a good book because you want others to feel what you felt when reading it, and to be able to discuss the contents. Sharing is caring, and egotistical in the most profound sense of the word.
Summary
Identify what you do and why. Identify tiers of activities, e.g., the three I've detailed above, and think hard about how you in practice prioritize between them.
My guess is you're spending way too much time on maintenance, or empty hedonistic activities (doing what you feel like in the short term, with no regard to what you actually want to do, and want to be able to do).
Scrolling through your newsflow on social media might feel good and make time fly, but actually creating something will feel so much better afterward, and put you in a better position for even more qualitative activities going forward.
Most important of all is finding your primary sources of happiness, the things that make you enjoy yourself, without feeling you encumber your potential for further happiness.
Don't be that person who claims to dream about painting, creating, building, fishing, relaxing, reading, exercising, climbing mountains, writing, just hanging with friends, travelling etc.; but in practice mostly waste your time at the office, then dutifully go drinking after work beer while checking twitter and texting other friends or arguing with strangers on the Internet.
Stop wasting your time without even knowing you do it. Divide and conquer; categorize and prioritize your activities. Just say NO to unnecessary maintenance, conspicuous consumption and other secondhander behavior, and...
...double up on your primary drivers.
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